Category: Wordpress

The truth is, not only renowned membership-based WordPress communities can provide this option, but on-budget developers with a single project as well. And it doesn’t necessarily involve manual tinkering with multisite network in order to create a demo. It’s doable with ready-made WordPress tools that help build front-end demo and back-end trials to lure more customers.

But the question is different: do developers want to supply the prospects with demos and free trials? No matter if the goal is to sell or just increase downloads. This was the question I asked myself after reviewing one of the demo plugin solutions and tracking its progress on the market.

While demos and trials are not new for WordPress plugins and theme providers, many developers are either unaware of their existence or just unsure that this is a great tool to move their sales forward.

First, let’s try to make an attempt to dispel these doubts.

It requires diving into marketing and psychology theory a bit

Why a product demonstration and giving a chance to try it are so important?

It’s the best and fastest solution for the prospects to find answers to their specific product-related concerns. Even the most focused and interested prospects (especially if they are visuals) will firstly go to see the product in action or at least have a look at some screenshots to understand its value. That’s why so many providers strive to create the best image along with every feature of the proposed product or service.

Especially modern users who even manage their business on the fly prefer to find less time-consuming ways to understand the true benefits of the product.

Create a feeling of ownership. Isn’t it easier to make a decision about purchasing a book on Amazon after clicking on “look inside” option? Why car salespeople are so much focused on giving the prospects a test-drive? It’s clear that conveying ownership not only shows the reality of your product to the potential customers, but in many cases makes them feel the owners of the product.

This is also a nature of free trials supported by many WordPress providers – they want to let prospects experience this temporary product ownership, while a test-drive users feel safer as they don’t pay for getting this experience.

It’s also highly trustful as users understand you are not afraid to demonstrate the real value of the product. Relationships based on such principles and experiences are much more important and stronger for building your business reputation. Even if the prospects don’t like anything on the testing stage, they sometimes even try to help you in solving problems rather than writing a negative feedback.

The side benefit of this strategy is that it’s able to make developers more responsible for their creations and more fast-actioning. They will be able to faster analyze how their product solves customers’ needs, collect feedbacks and make improvements.

For example, the providers of some of the best selling WordPress themes on the most renowned ThemeForest marketplace also start to allow free trials. It’s far from the industry standard yet, but it’s a good tendency of being more open for the prospects and therefore generating more revenue. For example, Impreza premium WordPress theme with almost eighteen thousand purchases (one of the best sellers in 2016) provides free trials with a unique option to check the theme compatibility with the third-party products:

“No one else provides it” is not actually true as there are a couple of themes that come with the same opportunity.

What’s the situation with ready-made WordPress solutions for creating demos

Time to put theory into practice and get closer to the topic of the article. So far, those WordPress developers and business owners who decide to create demos and/or trials usually fail to find the appropriate tools for these purposes. So they are tinkering with custom in-house solutions. It’s also a way out, but quite a time-consuming one.

There are not a lot of ready-made tools on the WordPress market that would fully fulfill these needs, and with the most it’s unclear whether they are dead or alive. But here is what we have (in the chronological order):

It looks like the pioneer plugin was a free WP Demo Builder which is not supported at the moment, unfortunately.

Another solution is the Plugin Demo – it’s relatively cheap and easy to use, but it’s limited to demos and trials of only plugins, so you won’t be able to properly present other WordPress products. Among the main features are highly customizable demo pages and automatically cleaned data of trial accounts. Unfortunately, as info on CodeCanyon shows, the plugin is not updated for a couple of years already. Dead or alive?

One promising plugin which has worked for both WordPress plugins and themes is Ninja Demo by creators of popular Ninja forms. It was released a couple of years ago and received great publicity. The plugin was advertised as “the first complete demo solution for WordPress”. But at the moment the official website says “Ninja Demo has temporarily been shut down until we have time to put some much-needed development into the project”. By the way, about a couple of months ago their site was up and running. The biggest disadvantage of the plugin was its price – about two hundred dollars. A couple of comments under the article on WPTavern after the plugin release looked favorable:

A new WordPress plugin that has just joined the game is the Demo Builder for any WordPress product by MotoPress. This is the only plugin from the list I have worked with in terms of reviewing its features. As it’s a fresh and up-to-date polished solution, looks like it solves all problems other alternatives halfway or fully did. It provides tools for constructing a front-end demo and generating backend trial accounts for users. The plugin is applied for both plugins and themes. The trials are fully tunable: you may set a trial lifetime, define user roles and restrictions, let users work in their personal isolated backend accounts, etc. It also comes with MailChimp integration and various admin notifications. And the cost is relatively affordable – $21. Sounds good, don’t you agree?

Another interesting solution I just recently discovered is WPDemo service which is run on the cloud platform and is still in beta. It lets each demo user have their own isolated template for testing the demo. One the biggest benefits are analytics service which lets developers understand the behavior of their users inside trial accounts. As the service is still in beta mode, its creators notice some current speed and optimization drawbacks that should be resolved over time.

But won’t the last 2 tools (that are “the most alive” for the moment) follow the path of the alternatives described earlier?

Food for thought

Most of the available demo and trial plugins became real as their developers wanted to build demo and trials for their own plugins and themes. It really solved the needs, that is. There is a demand, that is. For example, take a look at the question posted on CodeCanyon a month ago under the Demo Builder for any WordPress product plugin:

Then the interesting questions arise: why most of the demo solutions become more or less abandoned by their creators? Why lots of developers are still unsure about giving the prospect control over their products and services before the purchase? How soon free trials and refunds will be taken for granted by both sides – WordPress providers and end users?

It’s already been proven that from the marketing and business standpoint, demo and especially trials are a huge driver for more sales and building a better industry reputation (if you are providing a quality product, of course). For the WordPress space, it’s a revolutionary idea as it’s able to provide more automation for developing and promoting your WordPress products. It especially can come in handy for on-budget projects that don’t have money/wish to promote the products using more traditional marketing ploys.

While some of the questions are unanswered, big hopes remain that a rapid growth of the WordPress market will lead to more open and transparent provider-prospect relationships.

Users are in need of demos and free trials. Developers and business owners should meet the needs, shouldn’t they? Probably they have any common sense reasons that should be still clarified.

By the way, if any cool solution is missed, just let me and everybody know about it in comments. I just did not manage to find anything else.

This is a guest post by Emily Williams

About DivPusher

DivPusher is a new actor in the WordPress premium theme business. The focus on unique, bloat-free designs that fit a wide range of usages.

The designs proposed by DivPusher are simple, minimalist and fully responsive. The code is clean and bloat free, which results in fast loading themes. I have checked their 3 most recent themes demos on Google PageSpeed Insight and results are as follow:

• Lavish 85 (desktop) / 74 (Mobile)
• Profession (89/73)
• Accord (88/73)

Since website speed is now an extremely important factor in the general quality of a site, the good average speed of DivPusher themes is definitely welcome.

DivPusher is a theme club, which means that themes aren’t to be purchased individually, but instead each subscription grants the user an unlimited download and usage of all themes, as well as their updates.

HTML5 versions and Photoshop files are also available within the developer and extended plans. DivPusher yearly subscription starts at $59 a year. You’ll find more details on this page.

How to enter the giveaway

So if you enjoy DivPusher themes, today might be your lucky day. Thanks to them, 3 CatsWhoCode readers will get to receive one year of extended membership, including unlimited downloads and usage of all themes, updates, support, HTML5 versions of themes and Photoshop files.

Joining the giveaway is really easy. Here’s what to do:

• Like Divpusher on Facebook
• Follow them on Twitter and retweet this article
• Write a comment below with your retweet url, so I’ll know you’re in

In one week (on January 11, 2017), 3 people will be randomly chosen and will receive an extended Divpusher membership, allowing you to download all the themes from the club for a year.

Good luck!

Displaying code in WordPress: Tools, plugins and best practices

If you’re blogging about programming languages, chances are that you often need to display chunks of code in your blog posts. It might seem easy, but unfortunately, sometimes it can become very tricky. In this article, I have compiled my own tips and tricks to easily display code snippets on your WordPress blog.
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Vim cheat sheet for 2016

Since the 1970’s, Vi and Vim are popular amongst developers and are present on most UNIX-based servers. Those free and open source modal text editors can be a bit hard to use at first, but they are extremely powerful. Here is a list of over 130 commands to supercharge your coding with Vi/Vim.
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Good practices for efficient and maintainable CSS

As time goes by and the CSS specification grows bigger, writing efficient and maintainable stylesheet has became a bit trickier than before. Here’s a round-up of best practices, tools and tips to produce super clean, optimized and maintainable CSS files.
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WordPress: Super useful WP-config tips

The wp-config.php file is the heart of your WordPress website, where you can define a wide variety of options to control how your WordPress install works. This article contains a list of super easy tips to take more control of your site using the wp-config.php file.
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Advanced CSS tricks and techniques

The CSS specification is becoming more and more powerful year after year. This round-up showcase advanced and sometimes experimental CSS techniques: Curve text around a floated image, styling broken images, comma-separated lists and more.

CSS fanatics might also enjoy reading this post about the CSS :target pseudo class selector.
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7 free alternatives to popular WordPress premium plugins

While premium plugins are often a very good choice because of the features they offer, many of them actually have lesser known but amazing free alternatives. Here’s a list of 7 popular premium WordPress plugins, including Monarch, OptinMonster and much more, as well as their 100% free alternatives.
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Super useful PHP Snippets

When developing websites, apps or blogs, code snippets can be a real time saver. This article compiles the most useful PHP snippets that I’ve collected over the first half of 2016.
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How to make WordPress faster in 5 easy steps

Nowadays, a successful site means a fast site. Loading speed is extremely important to accommodate mobile visitors and also to get higher rankings on Google search results. This recent and up to date article will teach you how to optimize your WordPress site for speed in just 5 easy steps.
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10 free and stunning CSS tools for working with images

Images are a very important part of any website. Using pure CSS and a few handy tools, you can easily manipulate images and create amazing effects. This article lists 10 free CSS libraries, generators, and techniques for all your website image needs.

And if you’re interested about image optimization, you should also have a look to the The definitive guide to optimizing images for the web.
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Using SQL to manage WordPress: The definitive guide

Ok, this one if from late 2015, but since it’s still super useful and relevant today I decided to include it in this list.

WordPress stores a lot of things in the database. Using SQL queries, you can easily perform tasks that would take a lot of time and hassle otherwise. This article contains over 15 ready to use SQL queries for managing comments and users, batch editing your posts, cleaning up your database, and a lot more.
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1. Test your site speed

The first thing to do is indeed to get an idea of your current site speed. There are a few free tools that will give you that kind of insight. My favorite is PageSpeed Insight, developed by Google. Since Google is such a huge potential source of traffic for your site, you should pay extra attention to it.

Input your site url on the text field and press the button. PageSpeed Insight will then let you know how fast your website is, on both desktop and mobile devices. Suggested fixes will be displayed.

2. Check your server

The first thing to look at when your site isn’t as fast as you’d wish is your web server. Too many website owners host their sites on poor quality hosts, resulting in loss of traffic and credibility.

If your website is small and gets little traffic, you can maintain correct performance on cheap, shared hosting like GoDaddy or 1&1. But if you’re looking for extra performance to handle growing traffic, you need some robust hosting. Managed WordPress hosting or VPS are usually solutions that provide great results on a middle sized WordPress site.

To check your server speed, there’s a great tool called Pingdom. Simply enter your site url and Pingdom will let you know everything about your server performances: general grade, load time, faster than X % of other sites, page size and the number of requests. If your grades are low, you should think about moving your site to a better server.

I’ve listed below my current top 4 web hosting companies for WordPress.

Name	Pros	Price (Starting at)
WP Engine	Managed WordPress Hosting. 100% made for WordPress!	$29/month
Vidahost	Great quality, very fast. Hosting CatsWhoCode. Super fast support.	£2.99/month
HostGator	WordPress specific hosting. Cheap but still good	$4.99/month
InMotion Hosting	Cheap but still good	$4.89/month

If you’re considering switching for one of those hosting companies, good news for you, I have some discounts to share.

• WP Engine: 20% off your first payment with coupon code SPEEDUP.
• Vidahost: 10% discount with coupon CATSWHOCODE.
• InMotion Hosting: get 38% off + a free domain name. (No coupon needed, clicking the link will activate discount)

And if you need even more choice in hosting, here is a list of great managed WordPress hosting plans.

3. Use a speed-optimized WordPress Theme

Nowadays, most premium WordPress themes are built with only one thing in mind: a great design. While we all like a site designed with skill, a good design is nothing compared to speed. A mobile visitor doesn’t care about your design. Neither does Google when ranking sites on search result pages.

Pictured above is Divi from ElegantThemes, which gets a 84 note on PageSpeed Insights. Here you can find a list of the fastest WordPress themes.

4. Optimize your images using WP Smush

Images play a big role on every website, and consequently, they represent over 60% of the average byte per content type downloaded when a web page is loaded. Thus, images need extra care if you want your site to be fast and comfortable to browse.

Lucky you, the folks at WPMU Dev have created an amazing plugin called WP Smush, which optimizes your images by reducing their size, with no compromise on the quality. The plugin is available on both free and premium versions. The premium version allows you to process images larger than 2Mb, and bulk optimize your media library.

Once you have installed WP Smush, the first thing to do is to head over your WordPress dashboard and navigate to Media > WP Smush. You can now bulk optimize all the images from your media library. Owners of the premium version can process all images at once, while free users need to process images by bulks of 50. But in any case, you’ll get the job done and your site will be faster with optimized images.

By default, WP Smush will now compress any image uploaded in WordPress media library, so you won’t have to run the “bulk smush” process again in the future.

If you’d like to learn more about image optimization, I invite you to check The definitive guide to optimizing images for the web.

5. Install and configure the W3 Total Cache plugin

W3 Total cache is a free WordPress plugin that offer tons of caching options to make your site a lot faster. In your quest for a fast website, this plugin is a must-have.

Once you have installed W3 Total Cache, you’ll notice a new dashboard menu named Performance. Here you can access all the caching options. By default, the caching isn’t active so you have to activate it yourself. No worries, nothing complicated even if you’re not familiar with caching in general.

On your WordPress dashboard, go to Performance > General Settings. On this page you can select the type of caching to enable. I suggest that you turn on the following:

• Page Cache
• Minify
• Database Cache
• Object Cache
• Browser Cache

If you have a CDN, make sure to enable the CDN option and select the correct CDN type. CDNs are also an option to consider when you’re looking for performance and speed.

Once done, click on the Save all settings button. Caching is now active on your site, which should by now be way faster than before.

Additional tips

• Avoid using external plugins such as Facebook’s likebox. Those are generally making a lot of additional requests which slows down your site.

• Don’t use images for something you can do with CSS3 (Backgrounds, buttons, etc)

• If you’re using third party scripts, make sure that they load asynchronously. More info here.

• Use the Lazy Load plugin to only load images that are currently visible on the visitor’s screen.

• The Speed Booster Pack plugin can make your JavaScript and CSS load after your HTML, resulting in faster content delivery.

• Some useful PHP snippets to improve your site speed can be found here.

For startup industry, there lies a great opportunity. The need for a cloud-based hosting service was necessary, and Cloudways Managed Cloud Platform executed it in a great way. Cloudways aims to deliver different cloud hosting services to a more general audience, including, but not limited to, SaaS Vendors, design and development agencies, startups, and small and medium businesses.

When I tried DigitalOcean to set up a proper WordPress installation, I needed to go through a bunch of tutorials. The tutorials introduced me to different facets of cloud and also taught me on how to install WordPress on the cloud.

Coming from a non-technical background, I found the whole information to be overwhelming. The uncertainty that anything can go wrong is terrifying. All this time, I was wondering when a random error will pop up, requiring me to fix it. Fixing the issue is not at all pleasant. It can take up many hours before I search for a service that helps me do everything.

However, then I found Cloudways. Cloudways is how general consumers can work with ease on the cloud platform. It can be used by anyone including Agencies, Designers, and Developers. It is user-friendly, comes with 150+ features, top cloud infrastructures, 24x7x365 support, and the first of its kind, CloudwaysBot. What is more fascinating about Cloudways? Many things. Let’s have a look in detail.

Getting Started
For the sake of this review, I will try to create a WordPress instance on DigitalOcean.

Cloudways lets you create a single instance on their Free Trial account. You need to buy their services if you want to create more instances. Upgrading your account is smooth and beneficial; I did that in a few minutes of testing the service.

So, why the wait? Let’s get started. Sign in to Cloudways and click on Launch.

1. Selecting Your Application

After going inside Platform, the first step is to select your desired application. Currently, Cloudways offers 12+ web applications that can be deployed in 1-click. They are as follows:

• WordPress
• WooCommerce
• PHP stack
• Laravel
• Magento
• PrestaShop
• OpenCart
• Joomla
• Drupal
• Moodle
• SugarCRM
• MediaWiki
• Koken

After selecting your desired application, you need to give a name to your application, server, and your project.

The version number can change according to the latest one available. The most stable versions are updated as and when they arrive.

2. Selecting an Infrastructure

The next step is to select the cloud service you want to use. Currently, Cloudways support five cloud provider. They are:

• DigitalOcean
• Vultr
• Amazon Web Services
• Google Cloud Platform Live
• Auto-scalable Kyup

For this review, I am choosing DigitalOcean, because I am a bit accustomed to it and fulfills my purpose.

3. Selecting the Server Size

Just move the slider to your desired server size, and you will be done. Also, don’t worry about the wrong selection. You can always change the server size and processing capabilities later. Scalability has always been the biggest strength of clouds.

If your website receives 0-30k pageviews/month, it is recommended that you go with at least a 1GB server. Please take note that the 512MB server size is only recommended for testing purposes.

4. Selecting Location

The last step is to select the location. Currently, eight locations are supported for DigitalOcean. I chose London for testing purposes. Make sure to select a location for your website that is nearest to your target audience.

At the bottom of the page, you will be shown a “Pay as You Go!” meter. For a 1GB server, it only costs you $0.02 per hour or $17.00 monthly. Highly affordable for a number of features you are getting!

Click on “Launch.”

Now you need to wait for ~10 mins to let Cloudways setup everything for you. It goes through two stages — Server configuration and optimization.

The final Result

The server is now up and running. You can go to manage server to alter with settings or add a new app.

Managing Server — The Dashboard

Cloudways review will not be complete if we do not discuss how the server management works. It does not matter which application you are using; the server management screen stays the same.

Let’s go through different sections of Cloudways server management and try to understand what they have to offer.

Server Management
This section has few actions available for users. You can stop, restart, delete, add App, Share, or clone the server instance.

Master Credentials: In this section, you can get hold of the master credentials to successfully take control of your server instance. Both the username and password can be edited according to your needs. It is advisable that you change the username and password once, before using them to alter the server.

You can also launch the SSH terminal for better control. The SSH terminal starts in the browser for easy usage.

Monitoring: Monitoring enables you to see server performance. You can check tons of performance metrics by using the drop down menu. For example, you can check CPU usage for the past 1 hour. If the CPU is throttling at 100% for most of the time, you can easily assert that a server upgrade should be done. Other vital metrics include reads per second, writes per second, free memory, incoming/outgoing network traffic, etc. I love how Cloudways makes it simple for anyone to monitor their server. The health of the server is important as it enables the administrator to take proper actions in critical situations.

Managed Services: A server is a collection of services running together. Within Manage Services section, you can play with the services, stop, restart and do other hosts of actions. For example, you can purge the cache built by Varnish. Some services require adding credentials or API keys to work properly.

Vertical Scaling: Don’t think that the initial server size fits your requirement? With vertical scaling, you can increase the server size and hence its capacity. You need to pay more for the server selected and also downscaling (on Vultr & DigitalOcean) is not that easy as upscaling. For downscaling, you need to clone the instance and then make the change.

Server Settings & Packages: In this section, you can change basic and advanced settings of the server. It also lets you modify the packages that are installed on the server. The parameters are critical for operational purposes. Many tools, software or packages require some settings to be changed, and this section can help you perform that operation. For example, I was installing a theme on my server, and I failed to install it because of low execution time. I was on shared hosting at that time, so it was of no use to contact the customer support as there is no way they could have changed the execution time. If I would have used a cloud setup at that time, I could have easily changed the settings. That is another major difference between using a shared server and a cloud-based server.

Furthermore, you can use this tab to enable HTTP/2 inside the ADVANCED panel. You can also enable the Cloudflare option as well from the panel.

Security: Security is crucial for any website. It does not matter what type of technology or hosting you need. A section on the safety is always welcome, but it does not present anything special. In this section, you can check a particular IP address for blocking status. You can also utilize the section for whitelisting the different IPs.

Backups: Cloudways enable the user to backup their whole server for a particular frequency. The backup frequency starts from just one hour to seven days. I opt for a backup every seven days, but if your website is frequently updated with new content or blog post, it is a good idea to backup daily.

You can also create local backups. Local backups are for users who want to download a backup to their local machine or save it to other cloud storage services. You can also take server backup manually by clicking on the “Take Server backup now” button.

Server Add-ons: This section handles server add-ons. Server add-ons improve the functionality of the server.

Application Management

Application management is offered for handling your application. In this case, we will manage WordPress application. The application management section is divided into many sections. Check out the image to understand how it works.

Let’s go through each section briefly.

Access Details: Access Details offers all the information related to your application. It includes access details for the application, admin area, and MySQL area.

Domain Management: You can add the primary domain to your server instance. It also lets you add additional domains for future usage.

Cron Job Management: Cron Job Management allows you to schedule tasks for your server to execute. You can create new Cron jobs easily inside the Cloudways Platform.

SSL Certificate: Add SSL certificate to your website/application. You can also use the free Let’s Encrypt SSL certificate by adding the email address and domain name.

Restore: Restore section offers backup of your files and databases for restore purposes.

Git: For developers, Git is like a playground, and Cloudways supports Git development from within the Platform. All you need to do is generate SSH keys and push the stable version to the cloud.

Application Add-ons: You can add new add-ons to the list by adding them.

Migrator Tools: Migrator tool helps you to migrate your existing application website to the cloud easily. On Cloudways, you can easily migrate your WordPress website in just a few clicks.

This ends a brief tour on how to get started with Cloudways. These are only some of the features it has to offer. Let’s now have a look at some major offerings from Cloudways.

Price

Cloudways pricing is very simple and straightforward. Currently, there is no separate pricing for all the plans. The pricing depends on which cloud service you choose. The most economical cloud service is Vultr (3 Day Free Trial), followed by DigitalOcean (14 Day FREE Trial). Kyup, Amazon Web Services, and Google Cloud Platform fall on the higher side of the budgets and come with three days of FREE trial.

Plan at Cloudways start from $7 and go up to approx. $3,300 per month. It all depends on what you want to host. The plans are based on Pay as You Go. If you are satisfied with what Cloudways has to offer, you can upgrade your account immediately and avail their Free migration service. Free migration is only available for one website.

You can check the detailed pricing by clicking here.

Reliability

How reliable is Cloudways service? That is a million dollar question, and different viewers will have different answers to Cloudways. When you go through their social media presence, on Facebook, they have an average rating of 4.7/5. For a B2B Cloud Platform provider, this is a big number. Cloudways basically, acts as a mediator between you and the different cloud service providers. The Platform makes it easier to host on top of the cloud infrastructures, and, you also get 24x7x365 support and managed services. All these are a great sign of reliability. Moreover, it all depends on the cloud service you choose.

Cloud services are not only reliable in nature, but they are also superior to other traditional hosting services, owing to its ability to scale and persevere traffic influx. For Cloudways, on a scale of 5, I would rate it 4.75.

Features

In the above section on how to get started with Cloudways, I only introduced some of the features offered by the Platform. Let’s find out more about what they have to offer.

1. One-Click Hosting: Launch, start, stop, delete, share, scale, clone, backup, restore, and a lot of other functions, can be performed in 1-click on Cloudways.
2. 99.99% Uptime: With a Special formula, dubbed Thunderstack, Cloudways makes sure that the speed of your website is never fast and your users do not abandon their visit.
3. CloudwaysBot: First of its kind, CloudwaysBot is an integrated agent within the Platform that provides insights about the server performance. Users choose their preferred channels to receive instant notifications.
4. Cloudways API: Cloudways is all about you and your application. With the Cloudways API, you will have full control over the server settings, files, integrations, and, automation.
5. Powerful Console: The console for Cloudways is the best place to control your server. You can manage every aspect of your server from the console. It is easy to use and is based on responsive designs.
6. 15+ Key Metrics Monitoring: Get hold of your server performance and behavior with 15+ metrics. Always know when there is a problem with your server.
7. Migration With Ease: Migrating is a nightmare for a big website. With migration tools and free migration service, you can relax and enjoy your website get migrated by Cloudways. Yes, migration is also managed.

Ease of Use

I have a personal experience of setting up a managed WordPress instance on DigitalOcean manually. It took me more than 5 hours to setup the cloud server correctly. In contrast, I was able to setup the same instance using Cloudways under 10 minutes. All I did was Sign up, select, and click on launch.

The above experience speaks volume about the ease of use. Any novice user can setup the server under 10 minutes using the Platform. Handling of the server is also user-friendly.

If you are an advanced user, you can easily use the SSH access to make the changes yourself. It is that easy and simple.

Customer Support

Customer Support is top-notch with round the clock support. Support comes in the form of online chat, email support and ticket support. Phone support is still not available, but it is being worked upon.

They also have a well-documented knowledge base that is constantly updated. All these only add up to the ease of use.

Conclusion

Cloudways is an excellent choice for hosting your next WordPress website. If you are an independent developer, agency, or a designer, and is looking for a platform that will automate your cloud creation process, Cloudways is the right choice for you. In its truest sense, it fills the demand in the market by providing great service to the end users.

So, what do you think about Cloudways? Have you experienced Cloudways as well? Let me know in the comments sections below.

This is a guest post by Umair Qureshi

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Save 20% on WordPress Themes by Elegant Themes

Elegant Themes offers 87 WordPress themes that cover a wide range of topics (business, ecommerce, blogging, news, portfolio, photography, and so on). Also they have 6 WordPress plugins in their collection. The most popular plugin is the Divi Builder. It is a feature rich drag & drop page builder plugin that you can use to customize any WordPress theme without coding. You can choose from 3 membership options: Personal ($69 per year), Developer($89 per year), Lifetime Access ($249 one time fee). If you go with a personal plan you’ll get access to all the themes, theme updates, and technical support. Other plans provide even more options like access to all plugins, layered Photoshop files, etc. And don’t forget that whatever plan you choose you can save 20%.
Link: https://www.designbombs.com/deals/elegant-themes-coupon/

CSS Hero Coupon Code – Save 40%

CSS Hero is a feature rich WordPress plugin that allows you to easily customize the look of your WordPress themes and plugins. But the best part is that you can do the changes without touching any code, via an intuitive point and click interface. This plugin can be helpful to any WordPress user, but it will be of particular interest to those of you who work with multiple WordPress themes on a daily basis. If you like the functionality of this plugin, it’s time to know its price: Starter Payment Plan ($29 per year), Personal Payment Plan ($59 per year), Pro Payment Plan ($199 per year). However, we believe you won’t mind to reduce the price with a quick 40% discount.
Link: https://www.designbombs.com/deals/csshero-coupon/

Voog Coupon Code – Save 30%

Voog is a powerful, yet simple website builder that enables you to build stunning websites and multilingual websites in particular. Simply choose the template you like and edit it via a handy drag-and-drop style editor. By the way, the website(s) you build with Voog will not only be available in multiple languages, but will also look great on almost any device be it a smartphone, tablet or desktop. As for the price, there are 3 plans available: the Standard plan (6 euro per month) is the best option for a simple website, the Plus plan (10 euro per month) offers more storage space, more customization options and a custom domain for free, the Premium plan (39 euro per month) is great for powerful websites because it brings unlimited customizations and priority support. But as you read this article, we hope you will enjoy the 30% discount on any plan you like. More web design deals are available here.
Link: http://ecommercebooth.com/deals/voog-coupon/

Save 25% on DesignModo Products

As you might know, DesignModo is not only a trusted web design blog, but it also offers some great web design products. Among them are Startup (a feature rich website builder. Reg. price is $249), Slides (a powerful HTML and CSS framework. Reg. price is $249), Flat UI (Bootstrap framework. Reg. price is $39) and Qards (a WordPress Plugin. Reg. price is $99). Actually, Designmodo provides web design tools which will help you design your websites quickly and easily. Moreover your websites will have lots of trendy features such a sticky navigation, video backgrounds, animation, etc. You’ll definitely like plugins, UI Kits and other products by DesignModo if you like to work with modular content blocks and you enjoy front-end design and editing.
Link: https://www.designbombs.com/deals/designmodo-coupon/

Save 20% on Flywheel Hosting Plans

Flywheel is a web hosting company that offers managed WordPress hosting for designers and agencies. With Flywheel you get some useful collaboration tools that will streamline web development process. For example, the company makes it easy for multiple developers to work on the same project, also it allows designers to easily transfer site ownership to a client and still have a full access to the site for future editing. You can choose from more than 5 plans. But what you will definitely like about Flywheel is that you can test drive their services for free. And if you want to host your or your clients websites with Flywheel then take your chance to save 20% on your order.
Link: https://www.designbombs.com/deals/flywheel-coupon

Do you know more interesting web design deals? Share your thoughts in the comments.

This is a guest post by Devesh Sharma

CSSGram

Do you, like many, enjoy those popular Instagram filters? If the answer is yes, you’ll definitely enjoy CSSGram, a library that replicates Instagram’s filters in pure CSS.
Download & Info

HUE.css

There was a time when most websites were using a huge image as a background, which caused sites to be slow and poorly optimized. Thanks to CSS3, this whole technique is now mostly obsolete.

HUE.css is a huge pack of 49 photorealistic gradients that you can use as content backdrops in any part of your website.
Download & Info

iHover

iHover is an impressive hover effects library (20+ different effects) powered by pure CSS3. Great news, its work well with Bootstrap 3!
Download & Info

CSS Image Hover Effects

An extensive article featuring the most common CSS image hover effects, that you can simply try, copy, and paste on your own website.
Download & Info

CSSCO

Like CSSGram, CSSCO is a library featuring many beautiful filters for your images. It’s free, easy to use and the filters are particularly beautiful, so you should give it a try if you haven’t yet!
Download & Info

Center and crop thumbnails with CSS

A handy CSS centering technique to center and crop irregularly sized thumbnails within a square container. Super useful technique to learn and use in various projects.
Download & Info

Clippy

Clippy is a free online tool that lets you clip images visually, and get the CSS code to use on your projects. Over 25 shapes are available.
Download & Info

Colofilter.css

Colofilter is a small CSS library that allows you to create beautiful duotone images. A great way to unleash your creativity when designing a new site.
Download & Info

CSS Filter

A super handy tool which allows you to display a picture of your choice, play around with CSS filters and export the related code.
Download & Info

Sassy Filters

I’ve recently listed using SASS as a good practice for writing maintenable CSS. If you adopted this efficient preprocessor, Sassy Filters is for you: a set of cross-browser configurable CSS-SVG filters designed to be used with Sass.
Download & Info

What’s The Difference?

WordPress is an open source content management system available as a free download through WordPress.org. WordPress.org also features informational articles about using the software, a support forum, and themes and plugins you can download and add to your site.

WordPress.com, on the other hand, is a hosting platform that provides a limited version of the WordPress software to users. A web host stores your site files on their servers so visitors can access your site. With the software available through WordPress.org, you can self-host, meaning you choose your own hosting provider, upload the software to your site, and use it from there. (Note: Most hosts feature one-click WordPress installs, making it easy to get started building your WordPress site.)

WordPress.com offers several hosting packages, starting with a free-for-life option. Unfortunately, users sacrifice the full range of features available through self-hosted WordPress options. We dig more into these features below.

WordPress.com Pros and Cons

The obvious benefit to WordPress.com is that hosting is free.

You can, however, upgrade to get additional features, such as a custom domain name, more storage space, and the ability to monetize your site. WordPress.com is also a popular choice for beginners because their team deals with the hosting, security, and backup your site needs without you having to get your hands dirty. They also offer personal support and web forums to help you learn the system.

Still, you’ll miss out on the customization options and high functionality of WordPress.org. You won’t be able to upload custom themes, install your own plugins, or work with PHP or CSS. With limited functionality, WordPress.com is not the place for setting up an eCommerce store or a small business website that you can scale.

Another problem with the free version of WordPress is that you don’t actually own your site. You’re running off an extension of WordPress.com, which means their name will be in your site’s title and they can place ads on your site. Unless you upgrade, you won’t be able to monetize your site to make money from it, and the WordPress branding is there unless you opt for the most expensive plan.

If you do upgrade, however, prices are comparable to other web hosts, yet you still don’t get full functionality, like the ability to upload custom themes and plugins. With more upgrades like a custom domain name, no advertising, and unlimited storage, WordPress.com gets expensive.

If you’re going to spend $3-$25 per month on your website, why not invest it in a self-hosted site where you can get more out of the WordPress software? There are plenty of cheap web hosts offering shared hosting plans for as little as $3 per month for the first year that will give you more bang for your buck.

WordPress.org Pros and Cons

Looking at the WordPress.org version, you’re going to have a lot more flexibility in your design and site’s functions. For example, you can purchase premium web themes complete with drag-and-drop builders that will allow you to customize each page and post with ease.

With the range of plugins available, you can add custom share buttons to your site, create beautiful opt-in forms that integrate with the top email marketing software, set your site up as an online store, create membership areas, and much, much more.

Your only limitations will be in your hosting package. The good news is that most web hosts offer multiple packages to give you room to grow as your needs evolve. Users can also ask questions in the WordPress.org support forums as well as find countless articles and video tutorials across the web to help them identify and fix any issues that arise.

The downsides to WordPress.org include that you have to go through the installation process and perform backups and maintenance yourself. Luckily if you chose the right web host, they’ll provide support to help you with these areas.

The other downside to WordPress.org is the price. Where WordPress.com is free, you’ll have to pay for web hosting with WordPress.org. Shared hosting—which means your site is hosted with others on the same server—is cheap, usually under $5 per month. Dedicated hosting plans, where your site is the only on the server, which means you get access to more resources for a faster, more secure site, can run several hundred dollars a month. While the free option appeals to many new site owners, the cost of web hosting to get the full functionality of WordPress is well worth it. It’s especially worth it if you need the room to grow.

Why WordPress.org is the Smart Choice

When comparing WordPress.com versus WordPress.org for cost, there are four things to consider:

• The cost of hosting.
• The cost of a domain name.
• The amount of storage space you get.
• The cost to remove ads.

WordPress.com comes out ahead in price if you’re looking for the cheapest option available. However, if you’re going to upgrade your plan anyway for more features, the cost rivals the hosting packages available through third-party hosts.

WordPress.com charges $18 per year for a domain name, but depending on the name you choose and where you register it, buying a domain name to use with a self-hosted WordPress site typically costs around $10 per year.

WordPress.com’s storage options are limited and expensive. You can get up to 3 GB free, but 10 GB will run you $20 per year, and 100 GB costs $160 per year. Depending on the hosting package you choose with your self-hosted site, you can get unlimited storage space for much less.

Finally, you have to consider the costs of getting rid of WordPress.com’s ads on your site. To eliminate that off your WordPress.com site, it will cost you $30 per year. You don’t even have to worry about that with a WordPress.org site.

Aside from cost, you’ll also want to compare functionality. WordPress.org outperforms WordPress.com in that aspect by allowing you full freedom and control over your site. If this is important to you, then WordPress.org is the obvious choice.

Considering these comparisons, it’s easy to see why WordPress.org is the winner. While you need to pay for hosting, you get much more functionality, and you’ll likely pay less than if you used WordPress.com with the upgrades.

WordPress.com works well in certain cases, such as when a student starts a blog for a class or a hobby blogger is just dipping their toes in and not sure if they’ll stick with it. For serious bloggers and business owners, investing a small amount of money into your self-hosted WordPress blog is well worth it.

This is a guest post by Robert Mening

Keeping your database and site size small

On large websites, keeping your database small in size can be a challenge. WordPress tends to store a lot of data in your db, like transients or post revisions.

You can easily limit post revisions to a number of your choice (3 in this example) by adding the following in your wp-config.php file:

define('WP_POST_REVISIONS', 3);

If you don’t feel like using the post revision feature at all, you can simply disable it:

define( 'WP_POST_REVISIONS', false );

Also, WordPress stores in the database posts, pages, attachments and comments which have been moved to trash. You can control the number of days it will stay in the trash before being completely deleted. The default is set to 30, but I’ve set it to 1 in this example.

define( 'EMPTY_TRASH_DAYS', 1 );

By default, WordPress creates a new set of images every time you edit an image and when you restore the original, it leaves all the edits on the server. Defining IMAGE_EDIT_OVERWRITE as true changes this behavior.

define( 'IMAGE_EDIT_OVERWRITE', true );

Security

If your web hosting plan supports SSL, you should definitely use that feature to add an extra layer of security to your site. Via wp-config.php, WordPress makes it easy to force SSL logins:

define('FORCE_SSL_LOGIN', true);

And same goes with the admin area of your site:

define('FORCE_SSL_ADMIN', true);

Secret keys are making your site harder to hack by adding random elements to the password. There are currently 4 secret keys and 4 salts that can be defined. To generate unique and secure secret keys, just use this handy generator. Don’t use those below!

define( 'AUTH_KEY',         't`DK%X:oxy|e-Z(BXb/f(Ur`8#~UzUQG-^_Cs_GHs5U-&Wb?pgn^p8(2@}IcnCa|' );
define( 'SECURE_AUTH_KEY',  'D&ovlU#|CvJ##uNq}bel+^MFtT&.b9{UvR]g%ixsXhGlRJ7q!h}XWdEC[BOKXssj' );
define( 'LOGGED_IN_KEY',    'MGKi8Br(zBf883td6D;Vcy8,S)-&G' );
define( 'SECURE_AUTH_SALT', 'I6`V|mDZq21-J|ihb u^q0F }F_NUcy`l,=obGtq*p#Ybe4a31R,r=|n#=]@]c #' );
define( 'LOGGED_IN_SALT',   'wu$4c$Hmd%/*]`Oom_(hdXW|0M=X={we6;Mpvtg+V.ol$|#_}qG(GaVDEsn,~*4i' );
define( 'NONCE_SALT',       'a|#h{c5|P &xWs4IZ20c2&%4!c(/uG}W:mAvyjI44`jAbup]t=]V7`}.py(wTP%%' );

For client sites

When using WordPress to build a site for a client, a developer is almost all the time concerned that the client won’t do something stupid to the site, requiring a lot of maintenance.

One common thing is a client trying to edit one of the site php files and ending up deleting something important, causing the website to be unavailable. You can actually prevent this to happen by disabling the built-in files editor in wp-config.php:

define('DISALLOW_FILE_EDIT', true);

Another “classic” client mistake is to never update the WordPress core, which leads to potential security breaches. You can force WordPress to update itself automatically by using the WP_AUTO_UPDATE_CORE constant in your wp-config.php file.

define('WP_AUTO_UPDATE_CORE', true);

FTP

If your WordPress install prompts you to fill in your FTP credentials each time you need to update a plugin, you can actually save a lot of time by using wp-config.php to memorize it. The three constants below will tell WordPress what are your FTP host, username and password. That way, you won’t have to submit the info each time.

define('FTP_HOST', 'ftp.yoursite.com');
define('FTP_USER', 'Your_FTP_Username');
define('FTP_PASS', 'Your_FTP_password');

Most quality hosting companies provide SSL to their clients. If your host does, make sure you turn SSL FTP connections on for some extra security.

define('FTP_SSL', true);

Debugging

When your website is unavailable or behaves strangely, you can make your maintenance work way easier by using wp-config.php and the debugging constants.

Enabling WP_DEBUG will cause all PHP errors, notices and warnings to be displayed.

define('WP_DEBUG', true);

As errors will be displayed on the site and accessible to visitors, a way more elegant way to debug is to use a log. Doing so in WordPress is easy: Once you have set WP_DEBUG to true, you can use WP_DEBUG_LOG, a constant that will make WordPress send all PHP errors and warning into a log located in your wp-content directory.

define( 'WP_DEBUG_LOG', true );

If your database is broken, you can actually repair it easily by accessing the script located at /wp-admin/maint/repair.php after setting WP_ALLOW_REPAIR to true:

define( 'WP_ALLOW_REPAIR', true );

Please note that those constants are intended to be used only when debugging a site. Once you found and fixed the problem, remember to set the values to false!

Performance

The wp-config.php file allows some tweaking to ensure a better performance by WordPress. One thing to start with is to increase the maximum memory allocated. Please note that this won’t work if your hosting provider limits the memory, which is often the case on shared hosting.
If you’re looking for a quality web host, I recommand Vidahost, WP Engine or InMotion Hosting.

define('WP_MEMORY_LIMIT', '96M');

You can also allow even more memory to administrative tasks (which requires more memory than just browsing the blog):

define( 'WP_MAX_MEMORY_LIMIT', '256M' );

WordPress has a built-in caching system, located in wp-content/advanced-cache.php. It can be activated using the WP_CACHE constant:

define( 'WP_CACHE', true );

A Small Orange Hosting: 85% off

A Small Orange is an award winning hosting provider based in the USA, that hosts numerous quality blogs and websites. Although their usual prices are already quite cheap regarding the quality of the service, they decided to offer a pretty insane deal for Black Friday: 85% off every purchase! So if you’re looking to make your website faster, don’t wait and grab this one-time opportunity.

How to get the discount: Follow this link, choose your hosting and use code EPIC when checking out. Bam! 85% off!

ElegantThemes: 25% off

A veteran in the premium WordPress Themes market, Elegant Themes has made tons of blogs beautiful since their creation in 2008. For this year’s Black Friday, ElegantTheme is offering 25% off anything on their website.

How to get the discount: Simply follow this link. No coupon code is required.

ThemeIsle: 35% off

ThemeIsle is a premium WordPress Theme vendor that offers quality work for an affordable price. For their annual sale, they are offering a 35% discount on all purchases.

How to get the discount: Follow this link and use code TIBF2016 at checkout.

OptinMonster: 35% off

Optinmonster is a nifty web app that displays a beautiful popup when a visitor attempts to leave your website, prompting them to subscribe to your mailing list. This clever way to suggest visitors to join your list has proven to work for many bloggers. For this weekend only, you can grab a great 35% discount off OptinMonster. A great occasion to try it out if you haven’t already!

How to get the discount: Follow this link and use code BF2016 at checkout.

WPEngine: 5 months free

Looking for a hosting plan that is 100% focused on WordPress? WPEngine is one of the leaders in WordPress managed hosting, providing best-in-class customer service on top of innovation-driven technology. Over 50,000 customers in 120 countries have chosen WPEngine for their critical WordPress hosting needs.

You can currently get 5 months free off a 12 month subscription to the service. A great way to take your WordPress site to the next level without harming your bank account balance!

How to get the discount: Follow this link and use code cyberwknd when checking out.

MyThemeShop.com: Grab any theme for $19

MyThemeShop.com themes are usually priced $69 each. But today, they are giving away themes for only $19! If you’re looking to rebrand your WordPress blog or website, pay them a visit and see if there’s something you’d like. Can’t decide? MyThemeShop is also offering their annual membership for $99. This plan will allow you to grab all their themes and plugins.

How to get the discount: Follow this link and use coupon 19USDForAll at checkout.

InkyDeals: Up to 60% off

InkyDeals is a website where you can get discounted design assets. Although prices are discounted all year long, this weekend only you can get deals with 30%, 40% or even 60% off the already discounted price.

How to get the discount: Follow this link and enter code bfmadness at checkout!

UPDATES:

• 35% off all themes on WPZoom! Follow this link and enter coupon BLACKZOOM at checkout.
• There’s also 20% off all deals on MightyDeals. No coupon code needed.
• 70% off on IconFinder.
• Vidahost just announced discount starting this Friday.

Build a professional website and choose a WordPress platform for implementing your goals. Why namely WordPress many of you may ask? The answer is quite simple, with WordPress you can build a cutting-edge website at an affordable price, which is easy-to-mange. WordPress boasts easy and intuitive design, a set of smart features and flexible editing options to build up a responsive and captivating website for your personal or business needs. WordPress is a way to get started when creating a cost-effective and user-friendly business presence online. Indeed, there are thousands of nice WordPress themes available, and you will spend too much time finding the perfect website’s design.

Here we are! Take a look at the hand-picked collection of Top 15 Real Estate WordPress Template below and stop wasting your time on worthless templates. On the whole, these WordPress themes are responsive, SEO-optimized, include smart features and plugins, cross-browser compatible option, etc. Designed to match business solutions related to real estate projects, any of these themes will help you to organize a great visual appearance and impressive layout of your page.

The real estate market is increasing day-to-day, that’s why your website needs to be unique, modern and a tech-savvy to stand out from competitors. In order to attract more visitors to your page, think like a customer, give them what they want to find, make the navigation process easy and simple, display your exceptional products and services efficiently to make them stay with you longer. Arrange all your items in rows and columns, it really makes them look more attractive. It will definitely catch your targeting audience’s eyes. Keep in mind, that an eye-tracking design will lead to an increased flow of your traffic online.

All in all, involve WordPress high-quality template right from the beginning and it will not only help you to build a successful business presence online but also provide a persuasive presentation to the overall look of your website. By the way, TemplateMonster offers you to make the customization process easier and try out their excellent Service Center support to have no headache at all.

Bellaina – Responsive WordPress Theme for Real Estate

This WordPress theme boasts a great and intuitively understandable design, a simple search box and a fully responsive layout. Your real estate website will look trustworthy and solid. Bellaina comes with a free Cherry real estate plugin, Retina ready option, HTML plus JS animation, Google web fonts, and social options as well.

Details | Demo

Legacy – Financial Consultant WordPress Template

Are you looking for an easy solution to build a financial business presence online? Try out this awesome WordPress theme and level up your business. Powered by Cherry Framework 5, the theme is SEO-optimized, well documented and responsive. Video integration, Google web fonts, a commenting system are included in it, too.

Details | Demo

HomePro Real Estate WordPress Theme

Grab this attractive and a dynamic solution for your next real estate project. Build up a responsive and captivating website thanks to this fully-fledged theme. Drag-and-droop builder, custom widgets, pre-designed page layouts, professional 24/7 custom support, advanced search and other smart options are included in it.

Details | Demo

Appartments Agency Responsive WordPress Theme

This fully-functional WordPress theme is a perfect choice if you need to build up a top-notch and attractive business presence online. A cross-browser compatible option, responsive layout and retina ready option will make your website visible and accessible across all popular handheld devices. Cherry Framework 4, MotoPress Editor, MotoPress Slider, a full-width page, audio and video integration are pre-packed in the theme, too.

Details | Demo

Real Estate Agency WordPress Theme

Designed to fit almost all real estate websites this WordPress theme boasts the rich selection of advanced options. Large images will help you to dislay your products in the best possible manner. Great Cherry Framework development, easy-to-edit and manage, SEO-friendly, WPML ready, Parallax effect, drag-and-drop content, etc.

Details | Demo

Renting Real Estate WordPress Theme

Represent your real estate website using this WordPress theme. Enhanced with a Parallax effect and a fullscreen slider, the theme provides a great visual appearance for your visitors. Design in a clean and minimalist manner, powered by Cherry Framework and Bootstrap functionalities, Google web fonts, well documented, too.

Details | Demo

Apartment Perfect Rent WordPress Theme

Nice and mobile-friendly WordPress theme will help you to create a mocern and awesome look for your rel estate website easily. The theme is easy to edit and manage, built-in live search makes it easier to find the necessary information, your content is organized in a grid-based structure. Parallax effect, cross-browser compatibility, Google web fonts, on-line chat, SEO-friendly option, video integrtion and many more options.

Details | Demo

Realtor Agency WordPress Theme

Designed in a black and gray colors, the theme provides impressive visual appearance, which is highlighted by yellow footer. Elegant design of it is pre-packed with a nuber of smart features, such as WPML-readiness, SEO-optimization, on-line chat, video integration and a full-width page layout.

Details | Demo

Realtor Company Services WordPress Theme

This WordPress theme gives you robust of options to design it to your business needs. Display your products in the best possible manner using different image galleries, rank your website higher in search engines thanks to SEO-friendliness option, various buttons, prices, dates and other user interface elements allow you to create a stunning business presence online.

Details | Demo

Responsive WordPress Theme for Real Estate Affair

The theme boasts its unique and caprivating design, a set of editing tools and Lazy load effect. It can be easily edited and managed thanks to its flexible layout and customizing options. Sliced PSD, Google web fonts, dropdown menu, HTML plus JS animation, Cherry Framework, full-width page and MotoPress builder are pre-packed in the package.

Details | Demo

Comfort4U WordPress Theme

Find out why this WordPress is a perfect choice for your real estate website. It looks atylish, modern and attractive to gain attention of your clients and level up your business. Nice hover effect, catchy price tags, custom page templates, social options, Parallax and Lazy load effect and other smart features will help you to design caprivating business presence online.

Details | Demo

Clean Responsive WordPress Theme for Real Estate

This clean and minimalist solution will fit to any real estate or exterior design website. It looks great, modern and top-notch and will make to promote your business website efficiently. Parallax scrolling, great website slider, scalable graphic elements, SEO support and Bootstrap functionalities are included in the theme.

Details | Demo

Real Estate Agency Responsive WordPress Theme

Fully responsive layout of this WordPress theme provides your visitors with ability to browse your website on all popular handheld devices. 80+ shortcodes, multiple color options, custom widgets, SEO support, WPML-readiness, Parallax and Lazy load effects will help to make the finished web page look professional.

Details | Demo

Appartment Agency WordPress Theme

Nice and modern design will fit to a real estate, interior or exterior design website. Represent your products via visually appealling images, designing elements and smart editing tools. Gain attention of your targeting audience and promote your successful real estate business.

Details | Demo

Clean Real Estate WordPress Theme

Poewred by Cherry Framework this WordPress theme will help to make your website to stand out of competitors. It is easy-to-install, looks great and provides your visitors with the best user experience ever. Edit and manage the theme easily to meet your business requirements.

Details | Demo

This is a guest post by Andrew Litvin.

I used Google PageSpeed Insights to measure the speed of the themes, using the demo url, included in this list.

Schema

Schema is one of the fastest loading, ultra-SEO friendly WordPress themes. Featuring all the best MyThemeShop features, including custom options panel, tons of shortcodes and widgets, and a pixel perfect design, Schema also includes rich snippets in order to help search engines your site and rank you higher.

Google Pagespeed Insight score: 89
Demo/Download

Avada

Avada is the top selling theme of all times on ThemeForest. Besides its impressive speed, the theme also features a builder that lets you to personalize your site with no coding knowledge required.

Google Pagespeed Insight score: 89
Demo/Download

Nexus

Nexus is a Fully Responsive, Modern and Multipurpose Template based on Bootstrap 3 framework. It is fully responsive and looks stunning on all screen types: desktop, notebook, tablet and smartphones.

Google Pagespeed Insight score: 89
Demo/Download

Bootstrap Basic

Bootstrap Basic is a free theme that can be used as a starting point for building your own theme. Great speed score and solid code makes it a great foundation for anyone looking to create a custom WP theme.

Google Pagespeed Insight score: 87
Demo/Download

BeTheme

BeTheme is a very popular theme that has been discussed in this post a few weeks ago. For those already interested in it, you’ll be happy to hear that BeTheme is scoring 87 on Google Pagespeed Insight, which guarantees a fast loading of your site and most chances to get a good ranking on Google.

Google Pagespeed Insight score: 87
Demo/Download

Impreza

Packed with tons of features and add-ons, Impreza is all you need to kickstart your new blog or website.

Google Pagespeed Insight score: 87
Demo/Download

Divi

Brought to you by Elegant Themes, Divi is the ultimate Multi-Purpose theme fit for just about any occasion and powered by the Divi Builder, which allows you to create and customize websites quickly and efficiently.

Google Pagespeed Insight score: 84
Demo/Download

Enfold

Enfold is a clean, super flexible and fully responsive WordPress Theme (try resizing your browser), suited for business websites, shop websites, and users who want to showcase their work with a neat portfolio site. The Theme is built on top of the fabulous Avia Framework and offers support for the WPML Multi-language plugin.

Google Pagespeed Insight score: 81
Demo/Download

:target

The :target pseudo-class is triggered when the unique element with an id matches the fragment identifier of the URI of the document.
Among other uses, :target can be used to create modal popups, as demonstrated with the code below:

#modal-container {
    position: fixed;
    top: 0;
    left: 0;
    width: 100%;
    height: 100%;
    background: rgba(0,0,0,0.8);
    display: flex;
    justify-content: center;
    align-items: center;
}

.modal {
    width: 70%;
    background: #fff;
    padding: 20px;
    text-align: center;
}

#modal-container:not(:target) {
    opacity: 0;
    visibility: hidden;
    transition: opacity 1s, visibility 1s;
}

#modal-container:target {
    opacity: 1;
    visibility: visible;
    transition: opacity 1s, visibility 1s;
}

Check out the demo for more info.

:empty

:empty is triggered when an element is empty. This pseudo-class is super useful to control how elements will look when they are empty. The example below shows how :empty can help to hide an element if there’s no text in it:

<figure>
	<img src="hello.jpg" alt="" />
	<figcaption></figcaption>
</figure>

The CSS:

figcaption {
  padding: 1em;
  background: lightgrey;
}

figcaption:empty {
  display: none;
}

This example and many others are available in detail on this article.

:hover

:hover is by far the most widely used pseudo-class. It defines the state of an element being hovered by the cursor. The following CSS code shows how to create a tooltip that will show when a link is hovered. Let’s first have a look at the HTML:

<a href="#" title="This is some information for our tooltip." class="tooltip"><span title="More">CSS3 Tooltip</span></a>

And the related CSS:

.tooltip{
	display: inline;
	position: relative;
}
		
.tooltip:hover:after{
	background: #333;
	background: rgba(0,0,0,.8);
	border-radius: 5px;
	bottom: 26px;
	color: #fff;
	content: attr(title);
	left: 20%;
	padding: 5px 15px;
	position: absolute;
	z-index: 98;
	width: 220px;
}
		
.tooltip:hover:before{
	border: solid;
	border-color: #333 transparent;
	border-width: 6px 6px 0 6px;
	bottom: 20px;
	content: "";
	left: 50%;
	position: absolute;
	z-index: 99;
}

You can see a working demo of that code here, as well as the complete tutorial.

:lang

The :lang pseudo-class is very useful when displaying different languages on a page, as it allows you to style a paragraph differently in a given language.

Here is an example of a paragraph with a French sentence in it:

<p lang="fr">Je suis Parisien!</p>

The related CSS shows how to apply a specific background color to a paragraph with a specified language:

p:lang(fr) { 
    background: yellow;
}

If you’d like to see this in action, you can check this demo.

:valid and :invalid

The :valid and :invalid pseudo-classes are extremely useful when creating forms, as they allow you to explicitly show visitors if their input text is or isn’t valid.

Here’s a short example of a web form taken from Mozilla website:

<form>
  <label>Enter a URL:</label>
  <input type="url" />
  <br />
  <br />
  <label>Enter an email address:</label>
  <input type="email" required/>
</form>

The following CSS will automatically change the background colors of the text field whether the input is valid or invalid:

input:invalid {
  background-color: #ffdddd;
}

form:invalid {
  border: 5px solid #ffdddd;
}

input:valid {
  background-color: #ddffdd;
}

form:valid {
  border: 5px solid #ddffdd;
}

More about pseudo-classes

As you saw in the examples above, CSS pseudo-classes are very useful as they allow you to give a specific style to an element based on the current state of that element.

There’s many pseudo-classes available for you to use, some of them still being in an experimental state (those will be covered in a future article). An index of all pseudo-classes available can be found here.

Delete post revisions

Since version 2.6, WordPress is automatically saving changes made to your posts, pages and drafts. This is indeed a very useful feature, however, it’s a good thing to delete unwanted revisions from time to time. You can do so using a dedicated plugin, or directly by editing your database throught PhpMyAdmin or via command line. (Click here for an explanation of how to do so if you don’t already know.)

The following SQL query will get rid of all post revisions, as well as of the associated metadata.

DELETE a,b,c FROM wp_posts a LEFT JOIN wp_term_relationships b ON (a.ID = b.object_id) LEFT JOIN wp_postmeta c ON (a.ID = c.post_id) WHERE a.post_type = 'revision';

Additional tip: You can actually limit the amount of revisions per post that WordPress will save. To do so, edit your wp-config.php file and paste the following line in it:

define( 'WP_POST_REVISIONS', 3 );

Once saved, your WordPress install will only store the last 3 revisions. For more info about this constant, please refer to the Codex.

Get rid of unused plugins and themes

While it might seem obvious, the fact is that most WordPress bloggers tend to forget to delete plugins or themes they installed and don’t use anymore.

Deleting those will not only liberate free space on your server, it will most importantly prevent security loopholes due to an outdated plugin or theme. Unused plugins can be deleted directly through your WordPress dashboard (go to Plugins -> Installed Plugins and delete those you don’t need) while themes need to be deleted using your favorite FTP client (navigate to wp-content/themes and get rid of the unused ones.)

Clean up old meta information

Over time, as posts are updated, created, or deleted, the wp_postmeta table can become large and filled with unused data. Removing old meta data can be done with the Post Meta Manager plugin or with the following SQL query:

DELETE pm FROM wp_postmeta pm LEFT JOIN wp_posts wp ON wp.ID = pm.post_id WHERE wp.ID IS NULL;

If you’d like more information about cleaning old metadata, you can check this post by InMotion Hosting.

Find and remove unused images

As blogs are using many images, if you’re looking on downsizing your WordPress install, image files are definitely something to look at when cleaning up your install.

The best way to find which images can be safely deleted is to use the Image Cleanup plugin which does a great job by finding unreferenced images (images which clutter your wp-upload folder while not referenced in posts or pages) and letting you delete them.

And while we’re talking about images, don’t forget to check out my image optimization guide in order to make your blog faster to load.

Trash those spam comments

If you’re not using an external comment system such as Disqus or De:comments, your blog probably attracts lots of spammers.

Thanks to Akismet, most spam comments are automatically caught and placed in a special “spam” queue. Don’t forget to empty that queue every now and then in order to keep things clean. To do so, simply log into your WordPress dashboard and navigate to Comments.

And if you haven’t emptied your spam queue for a year or so and find out that your blog database is actually storing 30,000 useless spam comments, no worries: here an SQL query that will get rid of all that junk in a blink of an eye:

DELETE FROM wp_comments WHERE wp_comments.comment_approved = 'spam';

Remove broken links

If your blog is older than 2 years, I would bet that it contains broken links. Broken links aren’t taking a lot of space on your database, obviously, but this isn’t a reason why you should carefully remove them.

Broken links are annoying for your visitors and bad for your SEO. So what to do? Just install the nifty Broken Link Checker plugin and let it find broken links.

Downsize your database by removing transients

Transients are a simple and standardized way of temporarily storing cached data in the database by giving it a custom name and a timeframe after which it will expire and be deleted. But sometimes, transients set by WP and countless plugins can take a lot of space in your database. Good news, transients can be safely removed with this simple query.

DELETE FROM `wp_options` WHERE `option_name` LIKE ('%\_transient\_%');

Get rid of unused tags

Many blogs (including mine) stopped using tags years ago. But stopping to use tags doesn’t mean that there aren’t your old tags still present in your database.

So once again, the easiest way to delete them is by using a SQL query. Here is it:

DELETE FROM wp_terms wt
INNER JOIN wp_term_taxonomy wtt ON wt.term_id = wtt.term_id WHERE wtt.taxonomy = 'post_tag' AND wtt.count = 0;

Who needs trackbacks? Just delete them!

Trackbacks were more or less useful when I started blogging almost ten years ago. Nowadays, as ElegantThemes stated on their blog, spammers are pretty much the only persons to use them in 2016.

So, just get rid of them. Here’s a super simple SQL query to say goodbye to trackbacks.

DELETE FROM wp_comments WHERE comment_type="trackback";

When choosing a great website template, keep in mind that your visitors really don’t care how beautiful it is. They visit it for a notable content and great functionality. The simpler, user-friendly, easy to navigate and readable your website is, the longer your audience will stay with you. Provide them with the needed information they are looking for and this factor can assist your brand and online success.

It’s not a secret that website templates have changed web design industry. The website template is a perfect solution developed by professionals, which contains well-organized form and function. It helps you to save time and money leaving you more attention to focus on exceptional content. The Internet is full of such great solutions and sometimes it takes too much time to make a right choice. Though today we suggest you pay attention to all-in-one solutions in the web design industry. They are called multipurpose themes and are aimed to suit any type of business project. Due to a big number of useful features included there, they are enormously popular.

So, let’s make a comparative performance of two multipurpose WordPress themes to help you figure out their benefits and make the right decision when choosing the most suitable one. Here they are Monstroid from TemplateMonster and BeTheme from ThemeForest.
Okay, we will start from the main important features, which can assure you the creation of a great website in minutes.

Child themes

Both templates boast a compilation of fully functional and stylish child themes, which allow you to increase the speed of the developing time. Monstroid offers 45 ready-made child themes to download right from the Dashboard, while BeTheme offers a great batch of 210 child themes ready to go right out-of-the-box.
Winner: BeTheme

Dashboard

Monstroid Dashboard contains the whole information you need to know about the theme, useful links to the important documentations, a quick start guide for beginners and video tutorials for users. BeTheme, unfortunately, doesn’t provide users with such an option.
Winner: Monstroid

Installation

To install Monstroid package download the Monstroid Wizard plugin first, and then activate it via Dashboard. However, the theme is possible to be installed manually, if Wizard option doesn’t fit you. BeTheme focuses on the improved version of Muffin Builder 3. One click demo installation, 220 pre-made layouts, and time-saving options meanwhile are included, as well.

Functionality

Based on the last Cherry Framework 4.0 version, the theme presents you a powerful foundation with a set of advanced tools to build up your successful website effortlessly. Monstroid features a fully responsive layout compatible with all modern digital devices and screen resolutions. Among other great advantages may be highlighted following smart add-ons, such as Google Analytics, HTML5 and CSS3, BBPress and BuddyPress extensions, 404 content, maintenance mode, Cherry’s backup function, and other 15 premium extensions, as well.

Theme Options

• Grid. This category includes the major layout configurations from responsive grid to container width.
• Blog. Modify your blog pages in a creative manner, display needed images, set required dimensions, specify the length of your content part, add some buttons, etc.
• Styling. Implement this part to make changes in colors, images, positions and attachment.
• Color Schemes. Adjust almost all theme elements here, such as format, additional colors, typography, etc.
• Navigation Settings. Find this section quite useful to specify some particular adjustments.

• MegaMenu. Install the Cherry MegaMenu plugin first, and then detail menu location, animation effects, activate event menu, etc.
• Options to Manage. This part contains different options to adjust the main design elements of the theme. Make changes in header and footer options, set typography type, etc.
• Cookie Banner. Another important part of the customization process. Display your audience a cookie banner message.
• Simple Slider. As soon as Simple Slider plugin is activated, you can make adjustments for displaying slider on site.
• Olark. Enable/ disable Olark plugin as per your wish.
• Style Switcher. Install the Style Switcher plugin first, then you can make configurations in the appearance of your website.

Functionality

BeTheme multipurpose theme boasts a lot of features, which are beneficial if you need to build up a unique and successful business project online. It’s totally worth its value due to a clean code, amazing and modern design, and multiple layouts. It caters you a stunning visual appearance, mobile-friendly design, and user-centric interface.

Theme Options

• Base Grid. This section presents 5 possible grid styles.
• BeTheme can be used to build up one-page websites with visually appealing scrolling effect to gain popularity online.
• 20 Customizable Header Styles. Change the appearance of your page, upload logos, set colors, fonts, and more.
• Unlimited Color. Switch the color of almost all design elements of the theme in demo.
• Widgets and Sidebars. Modify the structure of the website with the help of widgets, and control position and width of the sidebars simply.
• Built-in MegaMenu. Organize the large menu solution for your website. Change settings for columns and rows, use icons, etc.

• Custom Backgrounds. Implement this part to switch custom backgrounds via different options for images, their position, etc.
• 6 Column Support. Configure your website structure in a user-friendly manner while using one of 6 different column combinations
• Layout Configurator. Implement this feature to build custom layouts for different looking web pages.
• Powerful Admin Panel. It provides you a lot of great editing options to help you modify your theme with ease.
• RTL support. If your business is aimed to be multilingual, BeTheme includes such an option, as well as RTL full support feature.

Winner: draw

Shortcode generator

Both multipurpose themes include the shortcode generator, which allows you to build up your web pages effortlessly. Create different types of shortcode templates using your imagination. You will be delighted to make any switches in default shortcode templates in case your business requires.
Winner: draw

PSD files

Another common feature for both templates. BeTheme includes 18 PSD files with a UI kit, as well. Monstroid offers 129+ fully customizable PSD files, which can be used both by experienced users and beginners. Use, edit and modify them for free to change the look and feel of your website.
Winner: Monstroid

Multiple layouts

BeTheme comes with a compilation of 220+ pre-built websites, which are easy to install. Try this amazing designs suitable for any type of business goals, be it a news portal, entertainment web page or political website. Simply modify it and impress your potential customers. Monstroid presents some useful pre-designed pages to make a more user-centric interface. Select Blog, FAQ, Testimonials, Contact Us, etc.
Winner: BeTheme

Theme Backup Feature

Monstroid can boast a very useful theme backup feature with the availability to save any changes while editing it and roll them back if it is required. Thus, you obtain some freedom during the customization process. By the way, BeTheme doesn’t offer such an option.
Winner: Monstroid

Builder

Monstroid presents a MotoPress Page Builder for creation a website with less coding experience. This premium feature is integrated into Cherry Framework and is used for free. Without touching any line of code you can make some configurations for adjustment of size, position and other specific design elements of your website.
BeTheme package comes with a Visual Composer plugin. Beginners will appreciate it and will be able to create various types of pages easily.
Winner: draw

Sample data

BeTheme as well as Monstroid theme contain sample data, which shorten the customization process and save your time.
Winner: draw

Images

In case you need to build up a visually appealing website, add some great and high-quality images to impress your audience and make them stay on your website longer. Monstroid suggests you use 50+ licensed images. BeTheme is lacking such a possibility.
Winner: Monstroid

As we see, both multipurpose themes bluster great and time-saving editing tools to help you create a visually engaging business project online. When making a choice think of proper custom support and regular updates suggested by the themes’ developers. Another common and important factor included in these themes is the responsiveness and cross-browser compatibility to set up a readable and accessible website from all modern digital devices. If you think you don’t have enough information you need to make the right choice, please find more details for each of two multipurpose WordPress themes below.

This is a guest post by Andrew Litvin.