Google Analytics by Yoast

Hello friends,

Do you want to keep track of all visits on your website? Then you should use a system like Google Analytics. And do you use WordPress and wonder how to integrate the analytics tracking code to your website?

In this post I will show you one extremely easy to use, yet quite powerful solution. This is the Google Analytics plugin by Yoast.

What does Google Analytics by Yoast do?

Its first and most important functionality is to add the tracking coder for Google Analytics into your website in order to start getting insights about visits, page views, audience information, bounce rate, acquisition, etc right into your Google Analytics account.

So before you begin, please make sure that you have created one and added the information about your website correctly. Then you can start using the plugin.

How to use Google Analytics by Yoast?

First of all you need to search for the plugin into your WordPress “Add new” plugins section. That is one way to get it. The other is to download it from the official wordpress.org page (click here to do this) and then upload it manually and install it.

No matter which option you’d choose you have to activate the plugin when installed in order to start using it. So far so good (and easy, right?) – now you need to make some minor settings and you are basically done.

How to adjust the plugin?

After its successful installation and activation Google Analytics by Yoast creates a stand-alone menu in your WordPress dashboard called “Analytics”. Go to its “Settings” sub menu and then under the General tab you need to either authenticate with Google Analytics (i.e. to allow the plugin to get the needed info automatically) or to enter your UA code manually.

My personal favorite is the second option but both of them work flawlessly. However you should be aware that if you enter the code manually you won’t be able to use the dashboards of the plugin.

So here you need to make up your mind and decide whether you only need to have the tracking code integrated into your WordPress website or you want to see useful information in its dashboard as well.

If you only need option 1 then you need to paste your UA code and that’s it for now. Next you need to choose whether to track outbound clicks and downloads (you’d want this option as it improves the time tracking of Google Analytics by adding events).

Then you need to decide if you want to help Yoast improve their plugin by providing them with anonymous data collection or not.

After that you can choose to anonymize IP’s and you can even set the WordPress user roles that won’t get tracked when logged in to WordPress. This is absolutely awesome because you don’t want to mix your statistics data with visits that are generated by yourself. In the past the only possible way to do this was by adding a filter to Google Analytics telling it not to track visits from your home or office IP. But when you had to visit your website from another IP your visits were tracked once again. And it was frustrating but now this bad experience is gone for good. All you have to do is to add the user roles that you don’t want to get tracked and you are done. Just keep logged in whenever you use your website and that is it!

Last on the General tab is the option to disable completely the analytics dashboard.

The next tab is the Universal tab and there you can enable Google Analytics universal tracking and different reports.

Pay special attention to the Advanced tab.

There you need to define how the downloads on your WordPress website will be tracked. You can choose between events or pageview but I’d use Events if I were you. Again – the idea is to improve the time tracking results for Google Analytics.

Define the extensions of the files that you want to track as downloads. By default the values are set for:

• Doc
• Exe
• Js
• Pdf
• Ppt
• Tgz
• Zip
• Xls

Add as many as you need. Then decide how to track the outbound clicks. You can choose to track only the domain or the full URL link.

Then decide how to track subdomains and you can also set path for internal links that you want to track as outbound links. Next is a field that allows you to set a label for those links. You can also tag links in RSS feed with campaign variables, allow anchor, add custom code and add _setAllowLinker.

Now this tab might be confusing for beginners so you can skip it if not sure what to do. The default values are good enough.

If you want to track custom dimensions you have to upgrade to the premium version of the plugin. Under the Debug mode tab you can enable/disable debugging.

And that’s it friends! Your tracking code is integrated and you can start tracking your website visits using Google Analytics.

So let’s summarize what this plugin does:

• Simply adds Google Analytics tracking code to your website;
• Tracks 404 error pages and user searches instantly;
• Provides you with easy dashboards directly into your WordPress dashboard;
• Allows you to set up specific reports for all sorts of actions;

And now it’s up to you friends. Would you use this plugin? Share in the comments below.

See you soon!

*The images are embedded from the WordPress.org page of the plugin

Huge-IT Portfolio Gallery plugin – review

Hello friends,

In this post I will make a review of one of the greatest portfolio solutions for WordPress that exist – Huge-IT Portfolio Gallery.

This plugin is awesome! It allows you to create your own personal portfolio and to adjust it just like you want in order to fit in perfectly on your website. It is also 100% responsive which means that you won’t have any mobile friendliness issues while using it.

Main features of Huge-IT Portfolio Gallery plugin:

You can use this plugin to present your projects in style. In order to achieve this you can create different portfolios.

You can choose from:

• Video Portfolio Gallery, demonstrated with 7 different views
• Image Portfolio gallery, demonstrated with 7 views
• Image + Video Portfolio Gallery, demonstrated with 7 views
• Separate view, one of 7 views – FAQ Portfolio Gallery, for questions/answers and not only

And do you know what is the best thing about this? You can add different portfolios on different pages on your WordPress website. And all of this is possible using only one plugin which is very essential for both speed and security.

Now let’s focus on the 7 different views for each portfolio type.

These are:

• Blocks Toggle Up/Down
• Full-Height Blocks
• Gallery/Content-Popup
• Full-Width Blocks
• FAQ Toggle Up/Down
• Content Slider
• Lightbox-Gallery

How to use the Portfolio Gallery plugin by Huge-IT?

First of all (like always) you need to install and activate the plugin. You can download it from WordPress.org or from the official website of Huge-IT. The plugin is available in both free and pro versions. The free version is sufficient enough for any personal use, however if you want to modify the design by applying different option you will need to purchase some of the paid versions of the plugin.

The pro versions also provide your portfolios with sorting buttons and different lightbox options as well as the possibility to use them on more than one website. However each of the pro versions has its limitations on this matter and only the developer one is available for unlimited number of WordPress websites and it is also the only one that provides you with lifetime support which is quite essential.

So after you have installed and activated the plugin you need to head to the Huge-IT Portfolio sub-menu in your WordPress dashboard – something quite common for all plugins from this developer.

Click on Portfolios and there you will see and edit all your portfolios. You can also add a new one by using the “Add New Portfolio” button.

The editor for new and existing portfolios is the same and in it you can add projects and images as well as descriptions and links. Depending on the view you need (there is a drop-down menu to the right for this purpose) you will get different configurations. Choose the best view that fits for your theme and also the one that will display your work better. You do want to impress the audience, right? So choose wisely.

Next add a name for your portfolio and you can also add categories as well.

Add video slides and Image slides. Finally create a new page and paste the shortcode for your portfolio in it in order to display it publicly. Another option is to integrate PHP code directly into your theme.

The General Options menu is not available in the Free version but for the PRO versions it is the place to adjust the different options (in terms of design) for the different views. The same applies for the Lightbox options where you can adjust:

• Internationalization
• Dimensions
• Slideshow
• Positioning

How will my portfolios look like?

Here are some examples:

Don’t forget to check out this video in order to become even more familiar with the Portfolio Gallery plugin:

Personally I am using this plugin and I find it extremely useful. I have installed and activated it on my blog Optibg.com and I have achieve a wonderful result with just a couple of clicks, drag&drop actions and some creativity, of course. And to be honest I haven’t been able to find a better solution so far, at least in my point of view.

The plugin is receiving regular updates so you don’t have to worry about bugs or incorrect functionality.

So this is it friends! What do you think about this plugin? Would yo use it to display your projects and to attract more customers or job opportunities? If so, please share your thoughts in the comment section below and don’t forget to share this post in social media.

And if you don’t want to use the Portfolio Gallery plugin and you think you know better solutions, you can share this information as well with our community and with us. It would be really useful for all parties so go ahead.

Thank you in advance and see you soon!

*The images are embedded from the WordPress.org page of the plugin and are mainly for the free version.

Huge-IT Forms plugin for WordPress – review

Hello friends,

In this post I will make a review of another great plugin developed and supported by Huge-IT which is called Forms.

What does it do?

It is an elegant, yet powerful solution, that allows you to add custom forms to your WordPress website with minimum effort. But that’s not what’s most important here! You can add a variety of different forms. Let’s assume that you have a restaurant and you want to allow your clients to make reservations using your website. Well, just add Huge-IT forms to it, activate it and make some quick adjustments and then start serving these reservations. Simple as that!

You are selling something online and need the shipping address of your customer? Huge-IT Forms is here for you once again. Or maybe you want to gain anonymous insights on your website visitors? Decide which fields you need, add them to your form, and then start gaining information.

How to use the Forms plugin?

I have already said that you need to install and activate it first and then make some simple configurations. You need to know that this plugin is also available in different versions. The free version however might be more than sufficient for most websites. You can always upgrade to some of the paid plans in order to add more power to your forms and what is most important – receive high quality support.

You can get the plugin from the usual places – WordPress.org or you can add it from the plugin panel in your dashboard. Forms is also available from the official website of Huge-IT. In fact you can purchase one of the paid version from it.

Once you have activated the free version of Forms you will get a standalone menu in your WordPress dashboard called “Huge IT Forms”. Hover your mouse on it and you will be able to see different sub-menus.

For example the Huge IT Forms sub-menu will provide a list of all your forms with the possibilities to:

• Search for forms;
• Edit forms;
• Delete Forms;
• Add new forms;

If you decide to add a new form then you can choose a pre-made configuration for your form. For example if you need a Subscribe form you can click on that tab and you will get the needed fields. You can also change them by applying drag & drop, adding new pre-made fields of adding simple fields that you can configure manually for your goal.

When you are done you need to select the theme of the form (the free version is limited to 5 default themes and you cannot add additional ones). Then save the form and get the shortcode that you have to place on a post/page that will be used to display your form. And that’s it!

What about other options?

You are right! There are indeed some more options that are quite important and you need to configure them. Don’t worry – it’s simple. Get to the General options. There you need to:

• Add your form settings:
  • name of the email sender;
  • email of the sender;
  • captcha public key;
  • captcha private key;
  • choose whether to save the submissions to the database or not;
• Email to administrator settings:
  • choose whether to send email for each submission or not;
  • enter the administrator email;
  • enter the message subject of the email;
  • define the content of that message;
• Define the form messages for various events – for example what should be displayed if the message is successful;
• Email to user settings:
  • activate or deactivate the functionality;
  • enter the message subject;
  • enter the message content;

In the “All submissions” tab you can monitor and manage each submission to each form that you have integrated into your website.

And that’s it friends! Now let’s talk about the pro versions.

They allow you to add more themes to your forms which is actually very important as you want them to fit flawlessly into your theme’s design and you also want them to be noticeable. This is really important as it will increase the user friendliness of your WordPress website and it will predisposes the visitors to actually fill in the forms.

The Pro version offers you huge amount of design options under the Theme Options sub-menu. You can basically define the most suitable theme of the form by:

• Setting Form Block Styles options;
• Setting Labels Styles options;
• Defining the Textarea Styles;
• Choosing the Input-Text Styles;
• Adding suitable Checkbox Styles;
• Applying great Selectbox Styles;
• Choosing Input-Radio Styles;
• Adding File Uploader Styles;
• Button Styles – this actually very important as a great button will serve as a call-to-action. You can add icons, colors, etc;
• File Uploader Styles – also very important with many great sub-options;

You can even modify some of the 5 default themes that are included in the free version. This will save you time if the desired changes in the design are not too big. Just click on one of them and the same design options will appear in front of you!

This is great, especially if you don’t know CSS & HTML.

Finally the Pro versions allow you to manage newsletters. There is a tab called “Newsletter Manager” and in it you can configure:

• Which forms should receive the newsletter;
• Number of emails in one flow;
• Interval between mailings;
• The subject of the newsletter;
• The content of the newsletter;
• The email addresses that should receive the newsletter;

So now I turn to you, friends. What do you think of the “Forms” plugin? Would you install it on your WordPress website and what forms would you integrate? Share all these and anything else you want in the comments section below. Also such great solution needs to be shown to your friends, so that they may benefit from it as well, right? In this case, please spread the word of this post in social media.

Thank you and see you soon, friends!

Huge-IT Share Buttons – Review

Hello again friends,

We are back on the topic regarding the most suitable share buttons for your WordPress website. And in this post I will present to you another great alternative that might just be the thing that you need. It is called Share Buttons and it is created by Huge-IT.

Ok, a quick reminder why you need a solution like Share Buttons:

Your content might be great, but if no one knows that it exists it will stay in the dark. And your effort to create it doesn’t deserve such fate. But the great news is that it doesn’t have to be this way. There are lots of methods to make your content extremely popular and one of them is to share it in social media and to allow your visitors to share it as well. In order to increase the share rate and to improve the usability of your website you need a solution like Share Buttons that can be installed and configured in a flash.

What is so special about Share Buttons?

Speed and efficiency! Let’s start with the first one – speed. This WordPress plugin can be practically installed, activated and configured in less than a minute (if you have a proper Internet connection, of course). All you need to do after you have activated Share Buttons is to go to your WordPress Dashboard and then find the Share Buttons menu. It has 3 sub-menus: Share Buttons, Licensing and Featured Plugins. This is because Huge-IT (the creators of this wonderful plugin) have other great solutions that you might want to check out. Also Share Buttons has a PRO version which requires you to purchase a valid license in order to use it.

I will stick with the Free version for now – the one that you can find in wordpress.org.

So basically when you get to the sub-menu that is also called Share Buttons, you need to choose which share buttons you want.

You can make your selection from:

• Facebook;
• Google Plus;
• Twitter;
• Pinterest;
• Linkedin;
• Tumblr;
• Digg;
• StumbleUpon;
• MySpace

My advice to you is to make a research in advance (if you haven’t already done so) in order to find out which are the most commonly used social media networks by your target group of visitors. In most cases Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus and Linkedin are enough but you need to be sure about this. You can also leave all of them, of course, but that is not always the best solution.

In the settings menu you can also choose the size of the buttons. They can be small, medium or big.

You can also choose their position. For example this might be under the post, above it, etc.

Each change that you make in the settings menu of Share Buttons is displayed in an example content section so that you can be certain that everything will look great when you actually save them.

How to display Share Buttons in my content?

First of all you can either use shortcodes or you may add Share Buttons by using the newly added button in your Posts/Pages Visual Editor. Then all you need to do is to actually publish or update the content and it will be equipped with the chosen Share Buttons at the desired position and with the desired size.

Also for each post/page in the sidebar section of the visual editor you are presented with the option to remove the share buttons or to change their size and location for the current post/page only. This is awesome and allows even further customization of your content!

You can also integrate Share Buttons into your theme by adding PHP code to your template files.

What is in the PRO version of Share Buttons?

First of all – support and updates. This is vital for each PRO / Premium WordPress plugin. Then you can further customize the look&feel of your Share Buttons by:

• Choosing a cool style for them – you can choose from lots of great looking options;
• Modify the Share Buttons block by:
  • Setting a background;
  • Setting a background color;
  • Setting the block border size;
  • Setting the block border color;
  • Setting its radius;
  • Setting the margin from the content;
• Modify the Share Buttons title by:
  • Change the “Share This:” default text with your own;
  • Modify the title position;
  • Choose a suitable font size;
  • Do the same with the title color;
  • And of course – select a suitable font for the title as well;
• Set custom styles for the buttons:
  • Margin between the Share Buttons;
  • Background;
  • Background Padding;
  • Background Color;
  • Buttons Border Size;
  • Buttons Border Style, Color and Radius;

And that’s it friends! You can see the Share Buttons in action by watching this video:

Would you give this plugin a try? Share your thoughts in the comments below – they are very important for us. Also if you find this post useful, please spread the word about it in social media.

See you soon friends!

Fruitful Shortcodes – review

Hello friends,

Do you want to integrate cool buttons into your WordPress posts or pages? Or maybe you need tabs or something else? And you don’t know how to code them using HTML & CSS? Don’t worry! You can always use one of the secret weapons of WordPress – shortcodes.

And speaking of shortcodes you need to use something that is known to work and that might not be in conflict with your theme’s design or your other plugins functionality. You need a great solution! And in this post I am going to present to you one of them. This is Fruitful Shortcodes!

Why shortcodes?

Because they save time, effort and provide great functionality.

What are they?

The general understanding of the word “shortcodes” is a placeholder for dynamic content. Each shortcode should support attributes and also content. The idea is to gain more control over the dynamic content that you aim to display on your WordPress website. The shortcodes are integrated into the core WordPress functionality and there is a way to add more of them by using plugins.

Why Fruitful Shortcodes?

This wonderful plugin provides you the ability to add different types of content into your WordPress posts and pages. For example – buttons. You can add different types of them and style them to your liking. Each button that you decide to integrate can be customized by:

• Size – you can choose between mini button or a large one;
• Color – different options starting from the default view;
• Type – the button can be used for hyperlinks (both internal and external) or maybe you desire an input functionality or submit functionality? There’s plenty to choose from. In fact you can just determine it as a button;
• State – active or disabled;
• Text color;
• Icon – choose a suitable icon using Font-Awesom icons;
• Icon position – choose where you want the icon to be displayed;
• Link – place the URL that this button should lead to or just use “#” to go to the beginning of the current page;

And this my friends is just what’s available for the buttons. But Fruitful Shortcodes provides much more than this.

There are shortcodes for:

• Horizontal tabs
• Vertical tabs
• Accordion
• Columns 1/2
• Columns 1/3
• Columns 2/3
• Columns 1/4
• Columns 3/4
• Columns 1/5
• Separator
• Promo text
• Progress bar
• Alert
• Recent posts
• Recent posts slider

And you can customize each of them by applying the respective attributes. You can find detailed documentation about the usage options for each shortcode here: Fruitful Shortcodes Usage and Demo.

But let’s actually see how you can insert a shortcode.

I am going to review the button shortodes. First of all you need to install and activate the plugin. Then head to the visual editor for both your posts/pages and click on this button:

Then you need to enter the content between the opening and closing shortcode for the button. For example:

[fruitful_btn color=”info”]Click me[/fruitful_btn]

This will create a simple blue button with changing blue color effect on hover with the text “Click me”.

You need to apply additional attributes in the opening shortcode: [fruitful_btn color=”info”] after the “fruitful_btn” text and in the same way as the color attribute is written. Make sure that the brackets “[ ]” are still there or the shortcode will be considered plain text.

And that’s actually all that I can say about Fruitful Shortcodes. It is a wonderful solution that will make your WordPress posts and pages even more better.

A piece of free advice – use shortcodes but don’t get too comfortable with them!

Why? Because having a shortcode on each post or page will forever tie you with the specific theme or plugin that provides them. If you remove the theme or the plugin your content will be ruined and all you will see will be just an ugly pile of shortcodes in plain text. Now imagine how your visitors will react to this. So enjoy them responsibly and only when it is most suitable. This warning applies to all shortcode solutions that exist.

More on the topic can be found in the following resources:

• WordPress Shortcodes
• 7 Essential Tips for Using Shortcodes in WordPress

Now it’s your turn, friends! Will you use shortcodes at all? And if yes – would you give Fruitful Shortcodes a try? Please share your opinion in the comments below and don’t forget to spread the word about this post in social media.

Thank you and see you soon!

Zedity – review

Hello friends,

Do you want to create a webpage that looks exactly as you imagine? You do? But do you know HTML and CSS? No? Then don’t worry!

There is a solution that makes each page look like you desire with just a couple of simple drag&drop actions. It is called Zedity and it is available for WordPress and also as a standalone HTML5 online editor so that it can be used on every website.

What is Zedity?

For the purpose of this review I will present it as a WordPress plugin. So for starters it is just that – an easy to use editor for your webpages in WordPress.

How to use Zedity?

In order to use it you have to pass through the usual steps. First search for Zedity in the “Add New” plugins menu in WordPress or upload the zip file after you download it from the official wordpress.org page. Then install and activate it.

Then head to Settings -> Zedity Editor. Here you have to adjust some options.

The first option allows you to choose the content save mode. There are two possibilities:

• Isolated mode: the HTML content is saved into a file in your Media Library and loaded inside an iframe into your page. This is useful to prevent the theme or other plugins from causing undesired modifications to your designs.
• Standard mode: the HTML content is saved inline, just like if it was created with the WordPress editor (and, as such, other plugins or the theme may modify it). This is the preferred mode for SEO and social sharing.

By default the Standard mode is enabled and my personal option (as a SEO guy) is to leave it as it is.

The second option is related to the content size. Here you need to set the content width and height in pixels. This will be the default size but you can change it later while editing.

Then you need to enable or disable the content preview. It is great and allows you to see in advance the fruits of your design, however it only works in isolated mode.

Then set the content space options. This means that if you enable them Zedity will leave a blank line above and below the contents created with the plugin while saving. If you don’t want this line then simply disable it here.

Some themes/plugins provide responsiveness for iframes. In such cases, you may need to enable the “No conflict mode” option next. However this only applies for isolated save mode once again and it is set to off by default.

If you want to support Zedity you can enable the “Powered by Zedity” watermark. You can apply it to:

• Top left;
• Top right;
• Bottom left;
• Bottom right;
• Or you can simply disable it;

The free version of Zedity allows you to embed video from YouTube and Vimeo and audio from Soundcloud and Reverbnation. The paid version extends this to more than 20 audio and video services.

Then you can set additional web fonts that Zedity can use in addition to the standard ones. The free version comes packed up with only 4 fonts that come from the Google Fonts service. It is recommended to keep the number of enabled fonts to a minimum as more of them will result in a slower page load speed and you don’t want this to happen as it is negative for SEO.

The paid version of Zedity however allows you to integrate more than 100 web fonts.

So enough with the settings! Click on the “Save Changes” button and proceed to the post/page visual editor.

There you will see the “Z” icon and by clicking on it the editor will appear and you can start creating your page exactly as you wish. It is fun and extremely easy to use, however it is limited in the free version.

For more information I’d recommend you to visit the official installation and usage documentation of Zedity (click here) and also to watch this presentational video in order to fully comprehend the benefits of this editor:

So this is it friends. Will you give Zedity a try? Or maybe you already have done this. In this case it is really important for us to see whether you are happy with this plugin or not. Share all this in the comments section below. By the way its license is GPL3 which means that this is an Open-Source product.

In order to end this post, I’d like to summarize the benefits of using Zedity:

• Extremely easy to use – works only with drag&drop and no coding is necessary;
• Saves time – create wonderful designs in just a couple of minutes;
• Superb results that look professionally – Zedity is quite powerful and everything that you will create with it will look professionally as if it was created by a true web designer;
• Support – Zedity’s team will help you in case of a problem;

Happy editing, friends! See you soon!

E-MAILiT Share Buttons – review

Hello friends,

In this post I will present to you E-MAILiT Share Buttons. They are easy to use and will allow you to utilize influential features straightforwardly into your site. This is achieved by the usage of a completely customizable environment.

Why E-MAILiT Share Buttons?

This WordPress plugin is a creative solution that will increase the chance of getting your content shared in social media, messaging networks and email. It is extremely comfortable for both mobile and desktop usage. E-MAILiT Share Buttons combines different share buttons that you can choose from and set for your WordPress website. But that’s not all! This plugin also provides different media solutions and the most important functionality for each publisher and marketeer – analytics. Yes, you will be able to see sharing data and it will allow you to improve your digital marketing strategy.

By using E-MAILiT Share Buttons you get:

• the possibility to build even more site hits;
• increased client engagement;
• extremely easy sharing solution;
• better content promotion and more

How to use E-MAILiT Share Buttons?

By going through the usual initial steps. You either search for the plugin in the WordPress.org plugins section and then download and upload it to your website or you directly search and install using the Add new menu in WordPress.

Then you have to activate it and finally you need to adjust its settings by going to Settings -> E-MAILiT Share in your WordPress dashboard.

The options to choose from are grouped in two tabs:

• Share buttons
• Advanced options

Let’s start with the Share buttons tab:

First of all you can customize your buttons by:

• choosing their style which can be large, small or native which stands for the official buttons that each social media provides for integration into your website;
• background colour – you can leave it blank if you want to stick to the default style of E-MAILiT Share Buttons. However this may not suit your website design so you can bravely go ahead and choose the most suitable colour;
• turning counters on/off – I simply cannot imagine why you’d like to switch the counters off but if you do then here is the place to do it. But if you really want to see how viral your post has gone then you need to keep them on. This also targets more shares by your visitors;
• turning the flat circle icon shape on/off – simply check whether the flat circle icon fits your design and if it does – keep it;

Then you need to adjust the global button for more sharing options:

• choose its position – last in the toolbar, first or you can simply deactivate it;
• choose how to trigger the global sharing menu on – this can be done by clicking on the global button or simply hovering over it;
• set the auto show share overlay after the desired amount of seconds (0 is default);

Then you can adjust the floating capabilities of E-MAILiT Share Buttons by choosing the share sidebar position – left, right or deactivated. And you can also turn the mobile share bar on and off.

The next step is to choose the standalone services that you want to use for sharing your content.

You can stick up with the default selection or add more services and arrange them. Then you need to set your Twitter user name – useful for getting more followers fast. Finally you can decide if you want your images to be pin-able (i.e to be shared to Pinterest) or not.

The final settings here are for the placement of the share buttons.

You can add them above the content, below it or on both places. You can also include/exclude the types of content where they should appear (for example pages, posts, etc).

Now let’s see the Advanced Options tab:

You can enable or disable the “After share promo” if you want.

Then you can actually define its heading saying “Thanks for sharing!” (by default) or anything else you want to say to your visitors. After all the goal is to socialize with your audience as much as possible in order to provide them better services.

The “After share promo” also allows you to ask them to follow you on social media. So basically you need to define your channels so that the visitor can follow you.

Finally you can insert ads in the “After share promo” by adding your Ad unit or Promo URL.

You can disable this functionality as well if you are a non-profit website or simply you don’t want to scare your visitors away with useless ads.

So this is it! After you have made your choice and saved your settings (don’t forget to do this) then you are done and you can enjoy using E-MAILiT Share Buttons.

This is it friends! Will you give E-MAILiT Share Buttons a try? Or maybe you already have. Then it would be great if you share your opinion on this plugin’s functionality with the rest of TheCMSPlace readers.

See you soon!

*The images of the settings are embedded from the WordPress.org page of the plugin

ZenCache – review

Hello friends,

Do you want a blazing fast WordPress website? Yes? Then what will you say to the possibility to achieve this with only a couple of clicks? Want to know how it’s done? Well keep on reading!

This post is about utilizing the important caching functionality which each modern website should provide. This reduces the load on your server and improves your loading speed and both of these are extremely important SEO ranking factors.

There are many caching plugins for our good old WordPress, however some of them are just too good! While the two top players on the market are the all-time favorites (W3 Total Cache & WP Super Cache) you will find a third one to compete with them. So without further ado here is the mysterious player – ladies & gentlemen:

I am proud to present to you ZenCache!

Remember – this wonderful plugin will speed your WordPress with just a few clicks! You don’t believe me? Let’s count!

First of all you need to go to Plugins -> Add New and then type in ZenCache. Then click on Install (that’s one), then on Activate (two) and then on the ZenCache menu in the WordPress Dashboard (three). The fourth click is on the top of the ZenCache settings on the “Yes, enable ZenCache” radio button and the fifth is on the bottom of that page on the “Save All Changes” button. And you are done!

That was way too fast? What about some configuration? Don’t worry – you can still adjust ZenCache to your liking!

You should know that the plugin is already optimized and provides the needed caching functionality by default. However some options are really important and may need your intervention.

*The image above is embedded from the wordpress.org page of the plugin.

Let’s see what we can configure in ZenCache:

You can enable notes in the source code of each page on your WordPress website in order to know that ZenCache is working.

If you allow this there will be a line at the bottom of the source code stating that ZenCache is fully functional and that the cache has been served for that page.

The next step is the possibility to safeguard the plugin against deletion.

Basically this option allows you to uninstall and reinstall ZenCache without loosing settings or the created by the plugin directories. But if you really want to purge the plugin effectively then you should disable this option.

Then you can adjust the options regarding the cache clearing.

By default ZenCache will clear the cache files for all posts, pages (even the custom types), archives, XML sitemaps, feeds, etc when the content on them is updated. My personal recommendation is to allow this functionality as it will save you time, effort, potential problems and most importantly it will ensure that your visitors will always see the actual content and not some old cached version. However if you need some of these to remain uncleared then you can disable this functionality for them.

In the next section you can choose the base cache directory for ZenCache (ie. change it in case you need to do this) and then set the automatic expiration time.

By default it is 7 days which means that each cache version will be showed to the visitors for 7 days without expiring. Well at least until you update your content – then it will be updated as well for a shorter time period. For websites that are not going to be regularly updated you can set a longer time period.

ZenCache also provides the Client-side Cache functionality.

If you enable this then the visitors’ browsers will cache the cached content thus improving the loading speed even more. However by default this is disabled since there might be problems with membership sites (ie. sites that allow the visitors to log in or out). If your website is not such then by any means you should take advantage of the Client-side Cache functionality.

If you are not using SEO-friendly permalinks then you should enable the GET requests caching functionality.

But do not do this if you do! You will have many problems and since nowadays most websites prefer the SEO-friendly way then this functionality is disabled by default.

The same default state applies for the 404 requests!

However if you have a high-traffic website you can always enable this and ZenCache may improve your loading speed even more.

The next disabled by default option is regarding the caching of the RSS, RDF and the Atom feeds.

You should allow this to remain like this unless you are using a web feed management provider like Google’s Feedburner.

The next few settings are regarding the patterns that should be excluded from caching.

ZenCache allows you to set URL, HTTP Referrer and User-Agent Exclusion patterns.

And if you want GZIP compression (and I am 100% sure that you do) then ZenCache provides the necessary lines that you can copy/paste into your .htaccess file!

And last but not least – if you are a theme or plugin developer you can disable the ZenCache caching temporarily in order to work without any problems.

And all of these are just in the free version of ZenCache! If you want more then the PRO one is for you. More information about it can be found on the wordpress.org page of the plugin.

So what are your thoughts friends? Will you use ZenCache? Share this in the comments below.

See you soon!

WPtouch Mobile Plugin – review

Hello friends,

Ever wondered how to pass Google’s criteria for mobile-friendly WordPress websites? Well basically you have two options:

1. A responsive theme;
2. A mobile theme;

Both will serve for you right, however having a responsive theme is the best option since it requires less additional configuration. But sometimes your non-responsive theme is just too good to replace. That’s why there are several mobile themes that come in the form of a WordPress plugins. They will allow you to pass the mobile-friendly rules and keep your current theme. The disadvantage of such choice is that you may need to configure the mobile-theme additionally and also it may differ in terms of design and branding from your non-responsive theme.

But if your target group of visitors are not using mobile devices to browse the web, i.e. you don’t consider mobile traffic as your main acquisition traffic source then a mobile theme with a suitable design will suit you completely. It will allow you to continue to target your main traffic sources and also to be present on mobile as well.

In this post I will make a review of one of the most popular, free and easy to use WordPress mobile themes – WPtouch Mobile Plugin.

What does WPtouch do?

Well, the short answer is – everything mentioned already above. WPtouch Mobile Plugin will allow you to keep your non-responsive theme while adding an elegant mobile one that will be displayed only on mobile devices. It is extremely simple, yet stylish and also 100% easy to use. WPtouch Mobile Plugin is fast and reliable and will allow your mobile visitors to browse your website without any concern.

The plugin makes sure that your WordPress website will pass the mobile-friendly test. According to the wordpress.org page of WPtouch, it is actually recommended by Google. This plugin will provide a fully functional mobile suite for every WordPress website! You will keep your SEO rankings (and probably increase them if you keep creating awesome and unique content) and you will also gain a great amount of mobile traffic as well.

OK, I’m convinced! How to use WPtouch Mobile Plugin?

Once again everything begins by installing, activating and configuring the plugin. The configuration options are available as a stand-alone menu item in your WordPress admin panel menu (the Dashboard). Clicking on it will allow you to adjust WPtouch Mobile Plugin to your specific needs.

The options are grouped in five tabs:

• General – where you will find the general options;
• Devices – here you configure the plugin for the different devices and user agents;
• Menu Settings – options on the mobile display of your WordPress menus;
• Theme Settings – images, colors, etc;
• WPtouch Pro – this tab presents the professional version of the plugin and it allows you to activate it by entering your license information;

Let’s start with the General tab.

Here you can enter the mobile site title – ideally you will keep the title you have entered while installing and configuring WordPress. Then you will be able to choose whether or not to enable or disable the theme for mobile visitors. This is handy since you will be able to configure WPtouch Mobile Plugin without worries that your visitors will see a broken mobile theme that is in a process of configuration. Once you are done you need to enable the plugin so that it can be used properly.

In the General tab you can configure the landing pages. There is a drop-down menu that will allow you to choose where your mobile visitors will be redirected when visiting your domain. The options are:

• WordPress Reading Settings – keep everything according to your current theme settings;
• A specific page – you will be presented with all WordPress pages and you can choose one of them that you have especially configured for a landing page for your mobile website view;

As you know each contemporary mobile device can zoom in or out while browsing. In a fully optimized for mobile usage website this option is not needed as the text will adapt to the screen size of the devise and thus it will be 100% readable. However if you feel that your visitors might need to zoom while browsing your mobile theme, WPtouch Mobile Plugin provides you with an option in the General tab that will allow you to turn on this functionality.

There are two more options – one is to choose whether to support WPtouch Mobile Plugin by adding a link in the mobile theme’s footer. The other is the language of the theme and it admin panel. You can allow the plugin to auto-detect this option or to choose a specific language.

In the Devices tab you can choose whether to enable WPtouch Mobile Plugin for:

• iOS;
• Android and Chrome;
• BlackBerry Browser;
• Firefox OS & Mobile Browser;
• Windows Phone (IE);
• Opera Mini Browser;

You can also type in additional user agents and add them to this list.

In the Menu Settings tab you will be asked to configure your WordPress menus first and then choose to configure whether the parent items should be displayed as links (or not) and also whether to use menu icons.

If the latter is enabled you will be presented with a list of different icon sets and you can choose which one to install and use for your mobile view.

You can also upload and use custom icons if you want.

In the Theme Settings tab you can upload a header image. You can also add search in the header and then you can adjust the mobile theme’s colors – background, header and menu, links, post/page headers.

You can also adjust the typography options by enabling a Google font pairing designed for this wonderful theme.

In the Theme Settings tab you can also configure the featured slider and what posts to display in it. This is awesome since most modern websites include sliders and here you are actually presented with an fully operational solution for your mobile view.

You can also configure your WordPres blog options and enable social sharing links. The latter can be configured in terms of location and color scheme.

Then you are presented with an option to enter your social media profiles and display them in the mobile theme. Finally you can configure the theme’s footer and add custom CSS if needed.

In the WPtouch Pro tab you will find out what are the benefits of purchasing a Pro license:

• Customizable Themes;
• Extra Features;
• Extensions;
• Support;

You can also activate your WPTouch Pro version by entering you account e-mail address and the product license key and then click on the “Activate” button.

In the beginning of the WPtouch Mobile Plugin’s options there is a button called “Preview Theme”. By clicking it you will find out how your website will look like on mobile.

In the end of the options panel there is another button called “Reset Settings” that will restore everything to its default state.

So there you have it, friends! WPtouch Mobile Plugin provides a fully functional mobile suite for your non-responsive WordPress website. Would you use it? Share your thoughts, questions or any feedback in the comments below.

See you soon friends!