SendPress – review

Hello friends,

In this post I will make a review of one really useful and easy to use WordPress plugin. It is called SendPress and its purpose is to allow you to create wonderful newsletters and to send them to your subscribers. This plugin also aids you in gaining new subscribers as well.

Let’s begin by installing and activating SendPress!

Then head to the WordPress Dashboard and seek the SendPress menu. It has several items in:

• Overview
• Emails
• Reports
• Subscribers
• Queue
• Settings
• Help
• Pro

If you just click on the main SendPress menu you will be redirected to the Overview page. There you will be asked to adjust your settings before you start using SendPress. So either go to the Settings tab or click on the “information” link in the warning notice.

In the Settings tab you have different sections. The first one is the Sending section.

There you need to write the name of the sender (again this might be your own name or your brand) and the email address of the sender. Fill these out and save them. Then scroll down a little to configure the email server/service that you will be using in order to send your newsletters via SendPress.

Here you can choose between:

• Gmail – you can either use your own account or create a dedicated one. Remember – you are limited to 500 emails per day if you choose this option;
• WP Email Delivery (API Sending) – I really recommend you to use this option for various reasons but the most important ones are that this is the creation of the same crew that stands behind SendPress so it is quite obvious that everything will simply work flawless. Also this service is fast and secure and all you need to do to use it with SendPress is to enter your License Key. However if you have read the WP Email Delivery review in TheCMSPlace then you already know how to configure this service in order to be the default for your WordPress website (i.e. to override the wp_mail () function). If you have done this then you can skip re-entering your License Key in the SendPress settings and leave the default option that is:
• Your Website – here you can use the default email server/service which in case you have set up WP Email Delivery will be the latter or you can use any other service/server that is set to be default including wp_mail ();

Once you have this set up you can send a test email by entering the address in the beginning of the Sending section of the Settings tab.

Here is the result:

Like any modern newsletter service SendPress allows you to provide Single And Double Opt-In confirmation options. All of these can be configured in the Confirmation tab.

There you can choose on which page to redirect the subscribers and what to happen in order to get their confirmation correctly.

Then go to the Permissions section.

There you can manage which user role on your WordPress website can:

• create/edit/delete or send emails;
• receive access to reports;
• receive access to the subscribers’ data;
• adjust settings;
• see and manage the email queue;
• install add-ons;

Needless to say that you should limit these permissions to the most reliable team members or simply for yourselves.

Then there is the Notifications section.

This SendPress Settings’ section allows you to send email notifications to a specified address or you can do this to all WordPress administrators on your website. The notifications can be instant, daily, weekly or monthly and they are two types – when a user subscribes or when a user decides that they do not want to read your newsletter and unsubscribes. You can also enable HipChat notification by entering a HipChat API key.

Now to the Forms section.

Here you can manage your subscription forms. SendPress allows you to create two types of forms – Signup and Manage subscriptions form.

Next is the Advanced section where you tweak the functionality of SendPress.

Here you can adjust:

• Database repair options;
• Javascript & CSS options;
• Tracking options;
• Usage of Shortcodes in widgets;
• System limits;
• Optional settings;

You can also receive Table Information regarding your database and then choose to install the missing tables (if any), repair the event tables or check the templates.

In the Styles section you can design the style of your newsletters.

There are plenty of options: background, body text color, body link color, header styles, etc. So basically you have everything needed to design the most suitable newsletters for your subscribers.

Next is the Emails tab.

Here you create your emails, manage your templates, adjust social icons and other options in the different sections. Some of them are available for the Pro version of SendPress only.

Then there is the Reports tab where you get data about your newsletters.

Next is the Subscribers tab which allows you to manage your subscribers.

In the Queue tab you see the email queue and you can manage the emails per day – you can pause the sending or to send everything now.

You are presented with the active queue, the stuck emails, the send history and the send errors.

In the Help tab you receive Debug information for your WordPress website and you also get to use the SendPress support system.The Pro tab presents SendPress Pro and you can buy this version and enter your key.

The Pro features of the plugin are also described on the official website sendpress.com.

Let’s review them as well:

• API Sending for different email services like Mandrill, Sendgrid, Mailgun and Elastic Email;
• Automated handling of Bounces;
• Receive advanced insights in the Reports tab – for example you get to see subscriber details and on which links they have clicked on;
• Custom HTML Templates –  this feature unleashes your true creativity and provides you with the ability to create astonishing newsletters;
• Campaign Tracking: Google Analytics, KissMetrics, etc… – after all you want to know what is happening when the newsletter is sent;
• Check your spam score ( Spamassasin )
• And probably the most important feature – you get 1 year of updates and Premium Support;

So that’s all friends. The SendPress free plugin is powerful enough for any WordPress beginner, blogger or small business. However for bigger websites/projects you might consider the SendPress Pro version in order to achieve your goals.

What do you think? Will you use SendPress for your WordPress? Share your thoughts, questions and feedback in the comments bellow.

Also you can watch this presentation video in order to get familiar with SendPress:

See you soon, friends!

WP Smush – review

Hello friends,

In this post I will make a review of one the finest solutions for reducing the file size of all images on your WordPress website.

This solution is called WP Smush.

Why should I use such a solution?

Mainly for On-Page SEO and User Experience purposes. If all your images on your WordPress website are hosted on the same server as the site itself then each time a page is loaded they are loading as well. So let’s imagine the following situation for a moment, shall we – you have a blog post with several images, each more than 1 mb in file size. When a user opens this page all its content, including these images are being downloaded and displayed. If the user’s internet connection is poor or is lacking speed the images will either be displayed incorrectly of will be loaded extremely slowly. This might cause the user to leave the page without even reading what’s on it. Now imagine that there is something extremely valuable for all users on this page. You have just lost one potential follower and you failed to help one user.

And if the user is on a mobile internet plan, you will be wasting their own traffic. This might cause the user to pay a larger bill and never to return on your website ever again! You don’t want this, right?

Also the next reason why you want smaller images in terms of file size is because you don’t want to spend all your traffic bandwidth for nothing. The hosts are monitoring this and they are providing limited traffic for most of their hosting plans. So unless you want to spend more money on a plan that you simply do not need, just reduce the bandwidth by reducing the file size of all your content, especially the images.

And last but not least – storage space on the host. Again if you can manage to store your website on a smaller storage space, you simply do not need to spend more money for bigger one. All you have to do (once again) is to reduce the file size. Simple, right?

OK, but why WP Smush?

Because it is fast, easy and it is integrated in your WordPress website. Also this plugin works flawlessly and helps you for the reasons stated above. By using WP Smush your images will be kept at minimum file size, the loading speed will be drastically increased as will the overall performance and you will be improving the score on your On-Page SEO.

Also WP Smush is free and it is powered by the also free WPMU DEV WordPress Smush API.

How can I use it?

Install the plugin by either uploading it to WordPress or by searching for it within the “Add new” plugin installer. Then activate WP Smush and finally head to Media -> WP Smush in order to make some adjustments.

You can Auto-Smush images on their upload or Super-Smush them if you purchase WP Smush Pro (continue reading for more information about this version). You will also be able to optimize all your WordPress images by using advanced lossless compression. WP Smush works with different file formats. You can optimize without any problem: JPEG, GIF and let’s not forget about the PNG image files.

You can also manually reduce the file size for each image in the WordPress Media Library which is quite useful for older images that were uploaded before you have started using WP Smush. In case their number is great you can bulk optimize them by running WP Smush on 50 images at once. All images that are under 1 mb and smaller will be optimized by this wonderful plugin.

OK and why I might want to purchase WP Smush Pro?

Because you will increase the optimization power of the plugin and thus receive more benefits: better performance, better loading speed, even greater file size reduction and more.

WP Smush Pro is equipped with a powerful arsenal such as Super Smush which will reduce the file size of your images by applying an intelligent multi-pass lossy compression. Thus the images will be compressed twice as better than the average lossless compression and all this without any quality loss. This is achieved by improving the lossless compression itself.

Also if you have images larger than 1 mb (it sometimes happens, unfortunately) WP Smush Pro will be able to handle them without any hassle because this version of the plugin can work with file sizes up to 32 mb! And if you don’t want to wait for the processing of 50 images at a time you can do this with the professional version of WP Smush. You will bulk optimize your entire WordPress media library at once with just one click! Simple as that!

Also backup! You know that this is important, right? Well WP Smush Pro keeps a backup for each processed image in case something goes wrong or you might need the unoptimized version for some reasons. You can restore all images to their original state at any time.

And last but not least – support! You can rely on WPMU DEV at any time for any reason.

See this video for more information:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GCzH7z05s5U

So would you use WP Smush, friends? And what about giving WP Smush Pro a try? Share your thoughts in the comments below. Do you know any other ways of optimizing images on WordPress? Feel free to discuss them with us as well.

See you soon, friends!

WP Email Delivery – a reliable mailing service

Hello friends,

We are back on the topic for choosing the best external mail server or service for WordPress.

This time I will be reviewing one of the new players on the market – WP Email Delivery.

Please do not make any mistake – this service might have shown up recently but it is going to impress you!

Why? Because it is extremely easy to install, setup and use to send your newsletters, email messages for your users and any other transactional correspondence that you might be sending. Your WordPress will never ever fail to deliver any email whatsoever!

What are WP Email Delivery’s features?

First of all this service is intended to replace WP_MAIL () and thus make sure that everything will be sent correctly without any SPAM worries. The service is integrated via free WordPress plugin which can be found and install through WordPress.org or via the WordPress “Add new” plugin installer.

After installed and set-up correctly (we’ll get to that later on in this article) your WordPress and any plugins that rely on WP_MAIL () will be using WP Email Delivery in order to work thus any possible email that you intend to send will be automatically handled with care and precision.

You need to stop worrying about getting a SPAM record if you were sending mass emails via your own mail server. WP Email Delivery will be checking for hard bounces and will be making constant SPAM checks so that you will maintain a positive sending score. After all each email counts especially if you are a digital marketeer!

WP Email Delivery provides you with a cloud service that is powered by Amazon AWS. And this is actually the guardian of your mail sending reputation since it tracks it down, handles any possible bounces and meets any workload. So you can simply forget having problems with your host regarding overloading the mail server for your website. Nobody loves these conversations so just forget about them! Simple as that!

OK, what about compatibility with my favorite plugins?

If they are using WP_MAIL () they will be working just fine with WP Email Delivery. This service is compatible with some of the most popular newsletter plugins (such as SendPress), e-commerce plugins and let’s not forget the mail forms (such as Contact Form 7 and Gravity Forms).

What’s more important is that WP Email Delivery is known to have no conflicts with the quality hosting providers which is very vital.

How to use WP Email Delivery for my WordPress website?

Install, activate and adjust the plugin.

Like I have mentioned above in this post – it is free. However WP Email Delivery as a service requires you to create an account and subscribe for one of its three monthly billing plans which are suitable for bloggers, business websites and agencies.

In return for your investment you will receive one of the high quality mail services, combined with outstanding support, API sending (very important) and monitoring of your reputation plus bounces (the latter is a coming soon feature).

In case you are happy with what you get per month you can also purchase one of the three yearly plans with 15 day money back guarantee.

And if you are wondering whether to try WP Email Delivery you should know that there is even a free plan that will allow you to test the service and if you are happy then (and only then) you should consider paying. In this free plan you get 50 emails, basic support, monitoring of your reputation and extremely easy settings to get you started.

OK I have my free account – what now?

Go to your WordPress Dashboard and find the WP Email Delivery menu under “Settings”. In the first tab you need to enter your key and click on the “Save Settings” button.

Then head to the second tab which is called “Advanced”. Here you need to enter the name that you wish to add to your emails (this might be your brand name for example) and the email address that is meant to be shown for the “from” section.

For the purpose of this review I have added a sample email address from a non-existing website.

Then you have a couple of check boxes that will allow you to:

• track your emails in order to find out how many of them were actually opened;
• the same but this time regarding clicks;
• disable the SSL sending in case your host cannot connect over https to the service’s API;

The clicks and open monitoring stats are yet to come so you need to be patient.

When you are satisfied with the “Advanced” tab you need to save settings once again and proceed to the “Testing” tab. Simply type an email address and you will receive momentarily a test email.

I have used a disposable email address to test the functionality of the service:

And here is the result:

In case you need to adjust some DNS related settings you can go to the last tab and do this. If the tests you made were successful (and they should be) you have to go to the first tab and check the box that will allow WP Email Delivery to override the default WP_MAIL () function in order to actually allow your website to start using the services. Save these settings and try to create a new user and allow WordPress to send the password reset link via email.

Here are the results:

So in conclusion I’d like to say that WP Email Delivery has potential to compete with the biggest players on the custom mail server/services market. You can really rely on this plugin to send high quality emails.

So what are your thoughts, friends? Share them in the comments below.

See you soon!

Methods for displaying inline related posts in WordPress

Hello friends,

Having related posts on display is very important. This reduces the bounce rate of your website and also increases the visitor engagement with your content. But this has already been discussed here in The CMS Place.

In this post I will continue this topic with some of the popular methods for displaying related posts but this time inside your content. This will allow you to drastically increase your pageviews and thus improve your SEO even more.

Method 1: The good-old manual link creation

In order to do this you need to make a list of all posts that might be related to the current one and then create internal dofollow links to them.

Make sure that you pick the most important posts and also choose a suitable text style. For example you might bold the “Read more” text and make the title of the related post italic. That’s it!

Method 2: Use shortcodes that colorize a text block and then apply Method 1

For example for the Graphene WordPress theme there is a stand-alone plugin that generates shortcodes that achieve this effect. So you can try this method and create something that stands for call-to-action. The following can also be achieved by using custom CSS but this is not recommended for beginners.

Method 3: Use a pagebuilder plugin and add Call-to-actions for the related posts

For example SiteOrigin’s beautiful and extremely easy to use Pagebuilder can help you do this. Simply add several rows or use only one row and the Layout Builder widget.

The idea is quite simple –  divide your text into several Visual Editor (or similar) widgets. Then in the rows between add Call-to-action widgets and set them to link to the related content. You can adjust background color, button with icon, button effect, button color and text. It is easy enough and efficient so if you need to act manually you can try this out.

Another option is to use the Contextual Related Posts widget inside the Pagbuilder’s rows. You can also use the shortcode for this plugin to achieve the effect even without using any pagebuilder.

You can also add images that will serve as links for the related posts. A good idea is to use their featured images and probably some text. The SiteOrigin Pagebuilder has different widgets that can help you do this with ease. In the worst case scenario you can insert another Visual Editor widget for each widget and a text wiget above it that will serve as a Call-to-Action text. Well it’s not that bad actually, don’t you think so?

Method 4: Use the Inline Related Posts plugin.

This is probobaly the easiest way to display related posts inside your content. Simply install and activate the plugin and then adjust its settings. Go to Settings -> Inline Related Posts inside your WordPress dashboard.

Then on the Settings tab you can:

• Set the plugin as Active or Inactive;
• Set the Call-to-action text;
• Choose a theme from the dropdown menu (some of the themes are only available for the premium version of the plugin);
• Set the initial Opacity;
• Set the CSS margin-top;
• Set the CSS margin-bottom;
• Choose the color of the Call-to-action text;
• Set the post title color;
• Do the same for the box background color;
• Choose the hover effect for all of this (on mouse-over);
• Choose where to insert the inline related posts;
• Set the number of boxes per post;
• Set the words interval between each box – for example display one related post after 250 words;
• You can choose to insert a box at the end of the article if needed – probably you will disable this if you use another plugin for this purpose (for example Contextual Related Posts);
• Set the Engine settings – i.e. how the plugin should select the related posts. Here you can set this to happen based on the tags, categories or both categories and tags;
• Set the robots settings for the internal links – dofollow or nofollow links;
• Select to open links in a new tab – i.e. the target attribute for the links;
• Set the metabox integration for enabling/disabling the plugin for pages or for posts only;

The premium version of the plugin provides additional options:

• Configure UNLIMITED boxes;
• Premium themes that can display the featured image as well;
• More hover effects and colors;
• Extremely useful 24/7 support;
• Problem Solving within 48 hours;
• 100 seconds Install & Forget procedure;

Here is the settings panel of the plugin:

As you will notice it provides you with a live preview so that you can see what will happen to the inline related posts boxes when you change the settings.

Here is a video that presents the plugin’s functionality:

So this is it friends! Which of these methods is your favourite? Share your thoughts in the comment section below and do not forget to spread the word in social media.

See you soon!

WP Editor – review

Hello friends,

In this tutorial I am going to present to you one WordPress plugin that will improve your Text editor by giving you a better experience while creating your content. Note that this editor will be useful for HTML and PHP editing and might be suitable for more advanced WordPress users and for Developers. However any beginner might also use it. But enough about this – let’s see what you are about to get:

This plugin is called WP Editor.

After you install and activate it you can adjust some settings. They are placed in a separated menu inside your WordPress dashboard, called WP Editor. Click on it and let’s get started.

Here are your settings options:

• By default you should land to the “Overview” tab which presents to you the idea behind WP Editor, i.e. a plugin that will replace all of the default editors in WordPress. This means that WP Editor will allow you to edit not only your posts, pages and custom post types, but also your plugins and themes.
• Then you should click on the “Post Editor” tab. From there you can choose whether to allow WP Editor for your posts or not. You can also choose a theme and: font size (an absolutely great and indeed a must-have option that will reduce the pressure on your eyes while editing), line numbers, line wrapping, active line highlighting, indent size, tab characters and size, editor height and when you are done you need to click on the “Save Settings” button. Lots of options, as you can see, but they will allow you to edit your posts with ease and style, especially if you love using the Text editor for adding HTML.
• Now go to the “Plugin Editor” tab. You will see some of the settings from the “Post Editor” tab, but here are some new ones: choose extensions that you will be able to edit using WP Editor, enable file upload and enable the creation of new plugins using WP Editor. The last option is a superb way to develop your own plugins if you are a PHP Developer. Again you need to save the settings you have made.
• OK – the next tab is the “Theme Editor” which provides exactly the same options the “Plugin Editor” tab but here you are allowed to created new themes instead of plugins, of course. Don’t forget the “Save Settings” button when you are done.
• Last but absolutely not least is the “Main Settings” tab. You should pay special attention here as the options here will define the overall experience when using WP Editor. Basically here you choose whether to or not to replace all editors with WP Editor. But there are two interesting options:
  • Enable Logging – useful if you are troubleshooting. A file will be created with your logs while using WP Editor and you can see diagnostic data there. However this file will grow rapidly so you should enable this option only when needed. Otherwise you may have a problem with your hosting;
  • WP Editor Menu Location (Hide WP Editor Icon) – hide the stand alone menu in the WordPress admin panel and place it under the Settings menu;

Great! Now you since you have set your WP Editor you should actually start using it. Create a new post and click on the Text editor. You will see your new HTML editing weapon there so – enjoy it! Remember the font size settings for each editor? If the current size is too small don’t risk the health of your eyes. It is better to have a bigger and easier to read font instead of a small one that will cause you to stare. Work safely! WP Editor allows you to do that.

Now let’s summarize what you get by using this wonderful editing plugin:

• Replacement of your text editors regarding posts, pages, custom post types, plugins and themes;
• CodeMirror integration;
• FancyBox integration for better image viewing;
• Feature rich environment;
• Improved speed and reliability by utilizing Asynchronous Javascript and XML (AJAX) in order to get files and folders;
• Wonderful web-based editing atmosphere that will allow you to edit files and content as you have probably already done this with many professional offline editors;
• Many features such as line numbering, wrapping and highlighting that are common to the most powerful HTML editors that exist;
• Ability to create your own theme and plugin files;
• Many themes that will suit your eye-candy desires;
• Ability to edit your content in full screen mode without any distractions by using keyboard shortcuts;
• Ability to search within the text by using keyboard shortcuts;
• Individual settings for each editor type;
• File browsing using AJAX;
• Extremely easy settings that will allow you to configure WP Editor exactly to your liking;

OK – now its up to you friends. Would you give WP Editor a try? As stated in the beginning of this post, the plugin is meant to be used by more advanced users but any beginner that wants to learn using HTML will enjoy it as well. Share your thoughts in the comments below and don’t forget to spread the word about this wonderful plugin in social media.

Bear in mind that if you choose to replace all editors the draft editor in the WordPress dashboard for quick drafts will be most likely replaced as well.

See you soon, dear friends and happy editing using WP Editor!

WP Video Lightbox – review

Hello friends,

Do you have a YouTube channel? Or maybe you upload videos to Vimeo or you are using Flash? Or maybe you  just love blogging and embedding high quality videos, created by others into your posts?

Well in this case why not present all videos to your audience in style with a fancy lightbox overlay which can also be used to show images? Here’s how to do this:

First of all you need to install and activate the WP Video Lightbox plugin.

Then you need to adjust some settings under Settings -> Video Lightbox in your WordPress admin panel. Pay special attention to the prettyPhoto tab. From there you can adjust:

• To enable or disable the prettyPhoto library
• The animation speed
• The slideshow interval in ms (the default is 5000)
• To enable or disable the option to play the slideshow automatically
• The opacity – here you have to specify a value between 0 and 1 and the default is 0.8
• To enable or disable the title in each video
• To enable or disable resizing
• To enable or disable expanding
• The default width (this can be later overridden by shortcodes, but I will get to this later in this post)
• The default height (the same applies here)
• The counter separator label (in case there is a gallery on display by using this plugin)
• The lightbox theme
• The horizontal padding
• To enable or disable the option to hide flash content on the page on which you are using the plugin
• The flash wmode attribute
• To enable or disable autoplay
• To enable or disable modal (if this is enabled only the close button on the lightbox will allow you to actually close it, otherwise you can simply click anywhere outside the lightbox and it will be closed)
• To enable or disable deeplinking
• To enable or disable the overlay gallery on mouse over
• To set the overlay gallery maximum number of pictures
• To enable or disable keyboard shortcuts
• To enable or disable IE6 fallback compatibility

Once you are done you need to click on the “Save Changes button”.

Do not let the amount of settings to scare you – most of them can be actually overridden by using shortcodes and speaking of this, the shortcodes are one of the ways to use the plugin in your content.

So here are the options (you can adjust the codes as you desire in order to embed the specific video – i.e. set width, height, video id and anchor):

Embedding Vimeo video by default:

[video_lightbox_vimeo5 video_id="13562192" width="640" height="480" anchor="click here to open vimeo video"]

Embedding YouTube video by default:

[video_lightbox_youtube video_id="G7z74BvLWUg" width="640" height="480" anchor="click here to open YouTube video"]

Embedding Vimeo video with a custom image that serves as an anchor:

[video_lightbox_vimeo5 video_id="13562192" width="640" height="480" anchor="http://www.example.com/images/vimeo-thumb.jpg"]

Embedding YouTube video with a custom image that serves as an anchor:

[video_lightbox_youtube video_id="G7z74BvLWUg" width="640" height="480" anchor="http://www.example.com/images/youtube-thumb.jpg"]

The plugin provides you also with these additional features:

• Automatic retrieval of the video thumbnailby adding auto_thumb=”1″ at the end of the shortcodes for YouTube and Vimeo.
• Load YouTube videos using https which is extremely useful in case you have SSL installed on your site
• Prevent YouTube from displaying suggested videos at the end of the embedded video by adding &rel=0 at the end of the video ID.
• Flexiblity of using both shortcode/html code to pop up media in lightbox
• Show description of a popup in overlay

As I have mentioned above the shortcodes are one way of displaying videos in lightbox. However you may choose HTML as well. On this link you will find the detailed usage documentation of the WP Video Lightbox plugin. From there you will learn also how to:

• embed flash
• embed content by using iFrame

When using custom images as your anchor, I’d suggest to choose a suitable size and to optimize the image in terms of a file size. JPEG might be a good option as it provides great compression. This is important for On-Page SEO.

One last thing – the embedded videos are responsive which is also great for mobile devices. However you should know that in my experience with the plugin I had problems with using way too many embedded videos with the lightbox overlay in terms of mobile friendliness. So I’d suggest to keep this number to a minimum just in case and always to check if the page is mobile friendly.

So what are your thoughts on WP Video Lightbox, friends? Would you use it and why? Or maybe you have already given it a try and want to share your experience? The comments section below awaits you!

Also please share this post in the social media of your choice.

See you soon, friends!

SiteOrigin Page Builder – Review

Hello friends,

Nowadays there is an extremely easy way to build your WordPress pages. It is efficient and suitable even for beginners. Actually it might be better to say that the idea behind these solutions is that they are meant to be used mainly by the users who are not professional HTML and CSS specialists.

These solutions are called page builders and in this post I will make a review on one of them – SiteOrigin Page Builder.

But first things, first! What is a page builder?

It is a plugin that allows you to create a custom design for each page/post/custom post on your WordPress website with drag&drop actions.

Are all page builders free?

No. Some of them are paid but this means that they provide you with even more options for building even more awesome pages.

Should I use a free page builder in this case?

Yes! And SiteOrigin Page Builder is one of these free solutions that will allow you to create the most beautiful pages without paying a cent!

What is so special about SiteOrigin Page Builder?

• First of all it is free!
• Then comes its responsiveness which is a must for each Page Builder. This means that when you use the plugin with a responsive theme your pages will be suitable for each mobile devices on the planet thus you will rank better for mobile search.
• The third positive feature is that SiteOrigin Page Builder is 100% drag&drop which makes it extremely easy to use.
• Fourth – it works with every theme, however you may want a choose a responsive one.
• Fifth – it allows you to add all of your favourite widgets inside the page that you are building.
• Sixth – the plugin provides a widget type that is an entirely stand-alone layout builder. This means that you can add additional content in each row and thus customize it to fit your specific needs.
• Seventh – SiteOrigin Page Builder allows you to install an additional plugin called Widgets Bundle Plugin. Together these two solutions allow you to create even more spectacular pages and posts. Of course the additional plugin is also free!
• Eighth – SPEED! This plugin is much more lighter than the other similar systems. When using it you are actually optimizing your WordPress code. This is absolutely important for SEO.
• Nineth – DESIGN! What is a page builder’s main purpose? To allow you to create beautiful pages and posts. So if there are no design options then the page builder is a failure, right? But SiteOrigin Page Builder is not such thing! Each widget and row can be stylized with an ease and you don’t have to worry about CSS! And if you are an experienced WordPress user you can improve the design even further by adding custom CSS classes and additional settings. The results are great!
• Tenth – Import/Export and many Pre-Built layouts are awaiting you with SiteOrigin Page Builder. This means that you can apply a beautiful design with just one click from a special online library or you can export your layouts in order to use them on another website or even your own if the page is not published. For published pages and posts you can directly clone the layout. All of these saves you time and effort!
• Eleventh – Great support and a vast majority of themes created specially for improving the SiteOrigin Page Builder experience.
• Live and backend editor, support for different sliders (a slider is even included in the Widgets Bundle Plugin for free). And more and more and more reasons to use this wonderful plugin!

Convinced yet? Great! Now let’s see how to use it!

Install, activate the SiteOrigin Page Builder plugin and the Widgets Bundle plugin. You might need a couple of more plugins for the different widgets but the system will prompt you to do this. Ater you are done you might want to allow the usage of the additional widgets in the Bundle plugin and make additional settings. There is a settings menu for this in your WordPress Dashboard.

Now create a new page (for example). A new tab appears after the Text editor for the Page Builder. Click on it and you can add:

• A row
• A widget
• Use prebuilt layout
• Use the history editor
• Use the Live editor

After this all you have to do is drag&drop and customize and then publish the page. That’s it!

See the plugin in action in this official video:

In addition I’d like to say that the SiteOrigin Page Builder is also quite suitable for complex content (for example many images on a row, multiple embedded elements, etc). By using it you are not only improving the design and the speed of your pages and posts but you are also improving their functionality.

So would you use SiteOrigin Page Builder for your WordPress website? Share your thoughts in the comment section below.

In the mean time check the plugin’s official website.

See you soon friends!

Creating nofollow links in WordPress

Hello friends, in this article in TheCMSPlace I will tell you:

How to create nofollow links and why you might want to do this in the first place.

Let’s start with the latter – why you might want nofollow links in your content?

Each link in WordPress is a standard HTML code with all the needed parameters and attributes. The search engine bots are reading this code and they understand what will happen when a user clicks on the link and where he will go to or be redirected to. By default each link is marked as “dofollow” which means that the bots will continue their crawling process by passing through the link. Well, at least if you haven’t set a general bot instruction for the entire page marking all links not followable. You may skip the “dofollow” attribute or add it to expressly state that you want the bots to follow your links or you may add the “nofollow” attribute which will inform them not to pass through the links.

When you are creating outbound links (a.k.a. links to external websites) you might want to add the “nofollow” attribute to them because this will prevent the transfer of link juice from your website to the external one. This is important for SEO since a “dofollow” link means that you trust the external website and want to be associated with it which also associates your reputation with its reputation. So imagine that your website is a perfect resource for your visitors and in the mean time you are providing link juice to a low reputation website with duplicate content, spammy links and other non-seo-friendly issues. You are simply ruining your own reputation!

So to be on the safe side you should mark all external links with the “nofollow” attribute and only allow “dofollow” outbound links when you are 100% sure that you want to be associated with the sites that you are linking to.

How to add the “nofollow” attribute in WordPress?

Option 1: Manually by using the Text editor

Simply click on the “Text” tab in the WordPress editor and find the link in your content. I will look something like this:

<a href="http://sample_external_website.com" target="_blank" title="Sample Title">Sample External Link</a>

Add the “nofollow” attribute after the href part by using the following code and after an interval space after the last quotation mark: rel=”nofollow”
Here is how it looks in our current example:

<a href="http://sample_external_website.com" target="_blank" title="Sample Title" rel="nofollow">Sample External Link</a>

In this example the “nofollow” attribute is set after the title attribute but you can actually place it anywhere in the <a> tag. My advise is to add it last before the closing > sign.

Option 2: Manually by using a plugin

Install and activate the Title and Nofollow For Links plugin. It will work out-of-the-box and will provide you with the option to add the “nofollow” attribute to each link by simply clicking on a checkbox in the default WordPress link box in the visual editor. Also in the newer versions of WordPress you are not allowed to set the title attribute anymore but with this link you can do this as well.

Option 3: Automatically mark each outbound link as “nofollow” with a plugin

For this option you need the WordPress plugin External Links. After you install and activate it you will receive a new subsection in the Settings menu in your WordPress dashboard. It will be called External Links and there you can adjust how the plugin will work.

Basically the default settings are fine for you but you may also specify an icon for all outbound links or whether all of them should be opened in a new tab/window. You can also apply these settings globally or apply the settings to text widgets as well. A very important feature of this plugin is to allow each link that you paste directly in your editor to be transferred from just text to a real link automatically.

Of course you can add an exclusion list of domains and subdomains and each outbound link to them will be marked as “dofollow”.

So this is it, friends! Now you know how to create “dofollow” and “nofollow” links in each post or page in your WordPress website.

One last reminder about the “nofollow” usage – yes, the vast majority of outgoing links have to be marked as “nofollow” but there are some situations in which the inbound links within your WordPress website have to use the same attribute. This should happen when there is a single post or page and you have linked another page or post more than once. In this case only the first link should be “dofollow” and the others may be marked as “nofollow”. This is not such a big deal, but in some cases it can be quite useful for SEO purposes. So you should have this in mind when creating multiple inbound links.

Well, I wish you happy linking!

Integrate custom mail server/service for WordPress

Are you planning on sending e-mail newsletters? If this is the case then you have made the right decision since this is an extremely efficient marketing channel and it would be a shame not to use it.

However using the default mail server for your website might be a bit of a problem.

Why? Because you might overload it or get a negative spam score and thus you won’t be able to send any more e-mails whatsoever. Let’s not forget the delay problems while sending the e-mails. In other words – using the default mail server for regular e-mails (such as registration e-mails) is rather OK but when it comes to mass e-mail sending (such as newsletters) then you better find a better solution.

And such solution is the usage of a custom mail server or service. And in this post I will show you how to achieve this in WordPress.

But before I do this, let’s have a look at the beautiful external newsletter services such as Mailchimp and consider their usage for a moment. You won’t need to change your WordPress mail configuration, nor worry about the risk of being marked as a spammer. All you have to do is to create a MailChimp account, drag&drop the components in order to create a beautiful newsletter design and then send it to your subscribers. Extremely fast, easy and safe.

There’s even a WordPress plugin that allows you to add subscribers to your MailChimp lists from your WordPress site, with ease. It is called MailChimp for WordPress. It integrates subscription forms on your website in order to gain the needed subscribers. When a user subscribes the system redirects them to a custom “Thank you for your subscription” page. You can even use Contact Form 7 and other WordPress plugins to improve the integration.

Easy, right?

But I assume that this might not be the thing that you are looking for. Then perhaps you might want to try out MailPoet in order to create perfect newsletters straight from your dashboard. Yes, this is possible and it is also extremely easy. Have a look at the article in TheCMSPlace that I have written about MailPoet and how to use it for efficient e-mail marketing campaigns.

In the linked article you will notice the option to choose between an external/custom mail server or the default mail server. When you enter the settings for an external service (such as Mandrill) all of your newsletters will be sent via this server and your own will be safe.

But this applies to the functionality of MailPoet only. If you want to use a custom server for all your e-mails then you might want to consider installing WP Mail SMTP.

This WordPress plugin will allow you to configure a SMTP based service or mailserver that is different than the mailserver for your hosting. This happens by reconfiguring the wp_mail() function to use SMTP instead of mail(). WP Mail SMTP also creates an options page to manage the settings. It is located under the main “Settings” menu in your WordPress dashboard and is called “Email”.

In it you can set the following options:

• The outgoing e-mail name and address;
• Set WordPress to use SMTP for mail sending purposes instead of the default PHP mail() function;
• Set the SMTP host and port;
• Choose between SSL / TLS encryption;
• Select whether to use SMTP authentication or not;
• Set a username/password for SMTP;

So the only thing left to do is to choose a custom mail server or service, right? The great news is that there are some really good services for the task at hand. Below you will see some of the most commonly used ones:

• SendGrid
• Mandrill
• Mailjet

Most of these services provide free and limited e-mail sending. This is simply great since you can try them without spending any money and if you are satisfied then you can purchase a paid plan. Also speaking of payment – there are different models for example: pay as you go, payment plans, etc. Just find the most suitable one for you and use it with WP Mail SMTP.

Share your thoughts in the comments below and don’t forget to mention you favorite custom server/service for e-mail sending in WordPress.

See you soon friends!