tl; dr: the optimal length varies between 250 and 4500+ words:

• Publications about short news and updates are usually between 150 and 600 words.
• How-to articles are typically complete with about 1200-1800 words.
• Pillars and in-depth articles are, in most cases, comprised of about 2000 words.
• In-depth research and analysis of comprehensive topics can result in articles of up to 4,500 words and even more than 10,000-word blog posts.

However, remember that these are guidelines and not rules. The most important thing is to deliver quality content that your readers can use. Stick to the point, answer the question thoroughly, deliver what is promised in the heading, and you are good to go.

Why Does the Length of Blog Posts Matter

Length of blog posts is important, but only to a certain degree – factors like SEO, search intent, and depth of analysis are far more important than length alone and should be taken into consideration when working on your publications.

As it comes to length by itself, it is important, as it might affect SEO, and also can help you attract and retain just the right audience for your business. Here are some of the reasons why length matters:

Long Blog Posts Can Rank Better (But Not Always)

In most cases, longer articles contribute to an overall better SEO score and better SERP rankings, because they cover a given topic more comprehensively, answering numerous related questions in a single publication. This makes a good impression on search engines and prompts them to rank your publication higher in search results. Furthermore, long blog posts include a larger number of keywords and semantically related terms, which prompts search engines to determine this particular publication (and luckily the entire website) as a more trustworthy and authoritative source on this particular topic. Additionally, longer texts allow you to insert more internal links to more of your other publications and pages, and help crawlers search deeper in your website and find more relevant topics to rank in different search results.

What this means is that long-form content can lead to better SEO results. However, length itself is not the sole factor that determines the popularity of your publications. Always focus on delivering fresh, up-to-date, and to-the-point content that solves your readers’ issues and answers their questions right away. For example, if you can answer a given query within the span of 130 words, always stick to this amount and don’t inflate your article with artificial length only for the sake of making it longer. The opposite is also true – deep and comprehensive topics require long and comprehensive publications that delve deeper into analysis. In most cases, such topics can’t be covered with merely 500 words, and sometimes even 5000 words are not enough.

N.B! A long post doesn’t necessarily mean a comprehensive post! Avoid making the mistake of writing tons of words only for the sake of making your publication longer – you need only the number of words to cover the topic and not many more! If you can explain a concept with 1300 words, don’t use 6000, and if 10,000 suffice, don’t stretch to 30,000!

Short-Form Content is Still Relevant

On the contrary, short publications can be just the thing your target audience and algorithms need. Short articles, in the span of 100 to 600 words, can be really effective for your website and business on many occasions, such as:

• You share quick updates, news, and announcements. In most cases, these quick updates require no more than 400 words to cover the entire event.
• Deliver “fast answers” for your audience. There are many cases in which Internet users need a quick answer to a question and are not in the mood to read a thorough 8900-word article on the topic, but would rather get a 2-sentence answer and be done with it. Should you deliver such answers, you have a great chance to win new returning visitors who can even become customers.
• Short publications are useful if you aim at engagement – punchy posts can help you get more user comments, shares, and reactions from your audience, which, in most cases, is a good thing to have in the digital world.

How Long Should MY Posts Be?

As mentioned, the answer is ambivalent, and the ideal length depends on the aim of your publications. To get a good estimate, let’s turn to data and statistics, shall we?

According to WG Content, if you need to convert and establish topical authority, focus on publishing pieces with over 2000 words. However, if you need to share news and convey data to already subscribed visitors, a 500-word article can be just enough. If you are focusing on an educational post and focus on explaining a single specific topic, a 1500-2000-word piece is just fine.

An Elementor article also claims that there is no one-size-fits-all solution, but claims that there’s a sweet spot between length, information delivered, and readability that lies around the 1890-word mark for your in-depth articles and approximately 500-word pieces for simple articles.

In short, there is no hard rule to follow when you are contemplating the length of your articles. However, to get a better idea of how many words are enough for a specific piece, there are a few steps you can undertake:

1. Check competing posts from industry competitors. Do research for your target keyword and check the top 10 publications in search results. Have a look at the average length, specific sub-topics that are covered, and the overall tone and aim of the publications.
2. Match the depth of analysis to the topic complexity. Depending on how serious your covered topic is, the length would vary. For example, some how-to and what-is articles might perfectly explain the concept in about 100-150 words, whereas other topics, for example, what is SEO, might need way more words to cover everything important in the field.
3. Decide on your business goal. Are you focusing on delivering organic traffic? The blog post should be bulkier, ideally above 2000 words. You want shares and comments? About a 1400-word piece would do the trick. Want to create content pillars? Then, focus on delivering an in-depth text that is 4000+ words.

What To Look Out For When Deciding Blog Post Length

If you are not careful, you can publish a piece that is not well-received by both your audience and search engines. To avoid such a scenario, don’t lean towards extremes – if an article is complete and well-structured with about 1300 words, don’t inflate it with additional text, so it becomes a 6000-word piece. Nobody needs that. Also, if an article looks complete, thorough, and not text-inflated within the scope of 1800 words, don’t oversimplify it so it becomes a 300-word short text. Nobody needs this as well.

Conclusion – How Long Should a Blog Post Be?

How Long Should a Blog Post Be?  It depends. There are numerous factors you should consider to make your publications just the perfect size. Here are some tips to follow when you work on your blog posts:

• Short-form content is ideal for sharing quick news, changes, and updates.
• Long-form blog posts shine when you need to establish authority and need that sweet organic traffic boost towards your pages.
• Very long blog posts are suitable for creating pillar content and focus thoroughly on a given topic, so you tell everything there is to know about it.

It is important to understand that you do not need to obsess over blog post length, but instead you should focus on delivering high-quality and up-to-date content that satisfies the needs of your target audience and makes them believe you are the one to get back to when they need quick answers, explanatory articles, and in-depth analysis of your area of specialization.

The post How Long Should a Blog Post Be? appeared first on AwardSpace.com.

However, in order to get the most out of the feature, you should find a popup plugin that fits your needs and requirements the best. Because of how time-consuming such research might be, we compiled a list of the best WordPress plugins, so you don’t have to. In the following paragraphs, you will read about the 5 best plugins to use on your website. Check also;

• 8 Best WordPress CRM Plugins
• 10 Best WordPress Search Plugins 
• 9 Best WordPress Forum Plugins 
• 10 Best WordPress Email Plugins 

WordPress Popup Plugin: 10 Best Choices for Your Site

Each of the suggested plugins in this list is hand-picked and can become a very powerful tool when it comes to site visitors’ engagement and conversions. The plugins are not listed in a particular order.

OptinMonster

is a very popular popup plugin for WordPress and there is a reason why. This tool comes with a wide range of options and settings that can be of use even for the most demanding site owner.

What makes this plugin great is that it comes with an extended list of targeting and personalization options that allow you to craft various popups, welcome mats, scroll boxes, gamified wheels, and much more. The plugin also features an intuitive drag-and-drop builder that helps you quickly craft a popup design that fits your requirements. Plugin features include:

• Intuitive drag-and-drop builder.
• Various pre-built popup templates.
• Analytics tool.
• A/B testing.

Thrive Leads

Thrive Leads is another popular popup plugin

for WordPress that is packed with features and advanced customization options. A great advantage that this plugin provides is the extended list of popup types that you can use on your WordPress website. Furthermore, this plugin comes with a simple-to-use popup builder and an informative analytics tool. Plugin features include:

• Wide choice of popup variations.
• A rich library of pre-designed popup templates.
• A/B testing.
• Analytics tool.

Bloom

Bloom is a very handy tool, as it provides you with a very comprehensive targeting system, along with various display types. Along with the personalization features, Bloom also brings contemporary design for all popup windows and provides users with more than 100 pre-built templates that can be used right away.

Furthermore, a great feature is the bottom-of-the-post triggers that are very effective for attracting the attention of visitors who have managed to reach the bottom of a specific web page and blog post within your website. Plugin features include:

• Numerous pre-built templates
• Contemporary design
• Very detailed trigger options
• Comprehensive admin panel
• 6 display types

Popup Maker

Popup Maker is a very handy popup solution that

comes with a very comprehensive pop-up builder that allows you to craft various types of popup screens such as opt-in popups, slide-ins, modal forms, and EU cookie notices. The tool also provides you with various trigger settings that can come in handy in numerous situations. Plugin features include:

• Numerous types of popups
• Form Builder
• Targeting settings
• Analytics tool

 

Hustle

Hustle, another popular popup solution for WordPress, is a perfect tool for email marketing, popups, and lead generation. Maybe the most notable feature this plugin provides is the popup builder. It offers numerous customization options and will help you build a design that perfectly fits your website design and personal requirements. Also, Hustle offers a rich library of pre-made designs that can be further customized. Plugin features include:

• Comprehensive builder
• Numerous targeting options
• Integrates with numerous form builders
• Various handy triggers

 

Conclusion

Each of the suggested popup plugins can become a great addition to your engagement and marketing approaches, as all of them offer tons of features and customization options that can satisfy even the most demanding site owners.

The post WordPress Popup Plugin: 5 Best Choices for Your Site appeared first on AwardSpace.com.

• 8 Best WordPress CRM Plugins
• 10 Best WordPress Search Plugins 
• 5 Best WordPress Popup Plugins 
• 10 Best WordPress Email Plugins 

9 Best WordPress Forum Plugins

The following suggestions are not only limited to providing you with a discussion platform, but also to ensure that you can use various features such as question/answer boards, social media features, and numerous more user-friendly tools and functionalities. Our suggestions are not sorted in any particular way.

1. wpForo Forum

wpForo Forum is a very popular choice, as the plugin can help you craft an interactive and very user-friendly forum platform with ease. wpForo doesn’t require any coding skills and comes with numerous design and functionality options. Along with other features, wpForo is very SEO-friendly and comes with a built-in XML sitemap, antispam protection, and caching. Plugin features:

• Versatile customization options.
• SEO-friendly.
• Drag-and-drop forum management.
• Various subscription options.
• Various optional add-ons.

2. bbPress

bbPress is another popular forum plugin for WordPress that comes with ample management and customization options. This plugin is maintained by the same developers who support the WordPress core, which means bbPress is a great fit for your WordPress website – it integrates perfectly with your dashboard and can work without flaws with the rest of your plugins and the active WordPress theme. With bbPress you can easily manage various roles, moderate your forum, and use various built-in tools to create the layout that fits your needs and include the functionality that best serves your community. Plugin features:

• Seamless integration with WordPress core, plugins, and themes.
• Lightweight and very fast.
• Multiple discussion threads.
• Ample customization options.
• Rich library of add-ons to further customize your forum.

3. BuddyPress

BuddyPress is yet another popular forum solution that comes with a ton of features. With the aid of this plugin, you can craft any type of forum with the right functionalities for your online community. The plugin is very feature-rich and can help a broad range of site owners – from bloggers who want to build a community around their content and products to entrepreneurs who would use the plugin as a management tool for their organization and team. Furthermore, BuddyPress allows your site visitors to create and customize an online profile, make friends, create sub-groups, and share various types of files. Plugin features:

• Contains everything you would need to create an online forum or social network
• Great integration possibilities.
• Customizable user profiles.
• Customizable profile fields.
• Private and public message systems.
• Customizable emails.

4. Asgaros Forum

Asgaros Forum is a handy plugin that allows you to craft a simple online forum that won’t slow down your website. The plugin’s main advantage is that it prioritizes ease of use for both you and your website visitors. Asgaros Forum comes with file uploads and sharing capability, along with reactions, posting permission control, stats, polls, and many more features that allow you to craft an online forum with everything your community would need. Plugin features:

• Simple forum management.
• Customizable user profiles and member lists.
• File upload function.
• Forum search.
• Voting and polls.
• SEO-friendly.

5. Simple:Press

Simple:Press, as the name suggests,  is a simple forum solution that provides everything you would need to craft an online forum. The plugin is very lightweight and is the ideal solution for crafting a support forum of communities with a great number of participants. Simple:Press comes with a membership subscription feature, along with private conversations, and sub-forums, and the plugin’s functionalities can be enriched by numerous instantly available add-ons. Plugin features include:

• Unlimited forums and posts.
• Moderator access.
• Upvote/Downvote functionality.
• SEO-friendly.
• Simple to use.

6. Forum Engine

Forum Engine is a WordPress plugin that allows you to craft a full-featured online forum. This tool allows you to fully customize the layout of your forum, and with the drag-and-drop function, you gain full control over all back-end administrative activities. Plugin features include:

• Versatile design customization
• User badges system
• Drag-and-drop functionality
• Translator

7. Discussion Board

Discussion Board is a beginner-friendly forum plugin that can make any WordPress website into a well-functioning discussion platform. The plugin provides you with a minimalistic design and an ample set of functionalities, ranging from various topic forms, login forms, topic lists, and shortcodes. Furthermore, there’s a built-in spam protection and a limit function that allows you to set the final number of reposts, approves, and new topics for a certain period of time. Plugin features include:

• Minimalistic design
• Posts/Topics/Email limits setup
• Regular updates
• Color scheme customizer

8. CM Answers

CM Answer is a WordPress plugin that can help you craft a multi-purpose forum on your website. This plugin allows your site visitors to post questions, and answers, vote, upload and share files, browse and subscribe to categories, and much more. A key advantage of CM Answers is that it integrates very well with most WordPress themes, and is also very lightweight and fast, so it won’t slow down the performance of your website. Focusing mainly on Q&A forum formats, CM Answers is a great addition to your website if you are searching for a simple yet very effective online forum platform. Plugin features include:

• Integrates seamlessly with WordPress core and themes.
• Built-in voting system.
• Forum Categories.
• Various notifications.

9. Sabai Discuss

Sabai Discuss is a forum plugin that gets the best of discussion-based platforms and Q&A websites and uses it to provide you with a solution with enhanced functionality and tons of features. What makes Sabai Discuss a perfect fit for any discussion website is its unmatched versatility. Regardless of whether you want to create a simple Q&A platform or a comprehensive online forum, Sabai Discuss got you covered. Furthermore, Sabai Discuss allows search engines to index answers to common questions and display them on the search results page. This makes the plugin a perfect fit for a support page, as it will greatly boost your website’s SEO score. Plugin features include:

• Category grouping.
• Voting functionality.
• Website search.
• SEO-friendly.

Conclusion

All 9 plugins can become a strong foundation for your online community website as all of them come with handy features and functionalities that can be very useful for both you and your online visitors.

The post 9 Best WordPress Forum Plugins appeared first on AwardSpace.com.

• 8 Best WordPress CRM Plugins
• 10 Best WordPress Search Plugins 
• 5 Best WordPress Popup Plugins 
• 9 Best WordPress Forum Plugins 

Mailchimp for WordPress

Mailchimp for WordPress is a very popular emailing service and throughout the years has amassed a solid user base. This plugin is one of the best options should you wish to build a list of subscribers and send personalized emails with numerous automation. Features include:

• Drag-and-drop email designer.
• Numerous pre-made templates.
• Distribute and segment lists based on various user data and behavior.
• Handy A/B tests.
• Email engagement analytics.

Otter Blocks Subscription Form

Otter Blocks Subscription is a Gutenberg-compatible plugin that comes with a wide range of features that can not only enhance your email marketing endeavors but also make the work with block editor much more convenient.

Since this plugin is optimized for Gutenberg, it is the perfect solution for high-functional websites and grants visitors a great browsing experience and fast loading speeds.

When it comes to the email features of the Otter Blocks Subscription form, this plugin is very versatile and offers a wide range of features that can be of great value for email marketers in any niche market. Benefits of using the Otter Blocks Subscription Form include:

• Ample customization options for forms.
• Spam and bot protection.
• Enhanced control over what fields to include in the form.

WPForms

WPForms is one of the most popular form plugins for WordPress. This tool allows you to set up various types of contact forms, quickly build custom email lists, and use various notifications. A great advantage of WPForms over other similar plugins is how simple it is to use it and how quickly you can craft a contact form, an emailing list, or set up your notification settings. Features include:

• Drag-and-drop form builder.
• Notifications system.
• Easy tracking of entries.
• Hundreds of templates.
• Easily craft various mailing lists.

Optinmoster

Optinmonster is another popular plugin with ample options to receive emails via fully customizable pop-ups, notification bars, and customizable forms.

Optinmonster also comes with handy notification bars, slide-in notifications, and full-screen welcome mats. All these features can help each marketing expert benefit from numerous customizable features and craft a flawless customer journey.

However, one of the greatest features that this plugin comes with is the versatile integration capability that allows you to pair this tool with other email plugins and flawlessly blend the exclusive features of each, so you can craft even more detailed strategies and approaches toward site visitors. Features include:

• Pre-built email templates.
• Personalized offers with behavior automation.
• A/B tests.
• Powerful analytics tool.
• Real-time adjustments.

Newsletter

Newsletter is a WordPress plugin built with straightforwardness in mind. As seen by the name, this handy tool is designed to help you create and send newsletters via email to your website subscribers. With this plugin, you can expand your list of subscriptions, create various forms, and use a simple drag-and-drop functionality to design your email layout. Features:

• Advanced customization for both design and email scheduling.
• Fully customizable autoresponder.
• Integration with online platforms.
• Form builder integration.
• WordPress users integration.
• Advanced reporting.

Icegram Express

Icegram Express is a one-in-all emailing solution for WordPress. This plugin is a great addition for marketers who seek an effective way of collecting leads, setting up email layouts, automation, and spam protection. Features of Icegram Express include:

• Drag-and-drop functionality for crafting email campaigns.
• Advanced targeting options.
• Pre-made templates.
• Tracking and reporting features.
• Abandoned cart recovery.

HubSpot

HubSpot is another all-in-one emailing solution that comes with numerous features such as pre-made email layout templates, various pop-up forms, CRM, and automation features. Along with these core functionalities, HubSpot also offers an extended list of additional features that make it a really versatile and reliable suite for any digital marketing expert. Features include:

• Pre-made email templates.
• Powerful analytics tool.
• Integration with various tools such as CRM and marketing automation.
• A/B testing.

MailPoet

MailPoet is a newsletter-focused WordPress plugin that comes with simple navigation and tons of handy mailing features. By using this plugin, you can craft original email designs by adding images and other types of media directly via the WordPress Media Library, or you can use any of the professionally looking premade templates. With MailPoet you can also easily schedule messages, set up blog notifications, or automate any emailing process, so it saves you time and effort. Features include:

• Newsletter subscription feature.
• Create and send newsletters within WordPress.
• Automated sending features.
• User behavior segmentation options.
• Pre-built email and subscription emails that can further be customized.

Subscribe2

Subscribe2 is a handy tool that can automatically send an email to your subscribers once a new blog post has been published on your WordPress website. You can either send email to all your subscribers or segment your audience with various tools and send an email to a specific group. You can either choose whether the emails are sent right after the blog post has been published, or for example, periodically and to a certain segment of your email lists. Features include:

• Instant email notification for each new blog post on your website.
• Audience segmentation options.
• Scheduling options.
• Simple navigation and setup.

Mailster

Mailster is yet another full-featured all-in-one mailing solution and is known for providing a very wide range of features. With this plugin, you can use various pre-made templates for your email marketing campaigns, send automatic notifications for various website events, such as a recently published blog post or a product, and guide your site visitors in their customer journey. Features include:

• The same user interface as WordPress.
• Various automatic site event notifications.
• Welcome emails.
• A wide range of free and premium templates for your email marketing campaigns.

Bonus: WP Mail SMTP

WP Mail SMTP is different from all other plugins in this list, as it doesn’t focus on creating emails, forms, or campaigns, but instead on improving the deliverability of emails.

Via its technical characteristics, this plugin adds SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) authentication to each sent email, which greatly increases the chances that the email is being sent and considered as a not-spam and not-malware piece of software.

Because of how efficiently WP Mail SMTP works, it is advisable to use it on your website, regardless of your niche and the characteristics of your email marketing campaigns. Features include:

• Replace WP mail with SMTP service.
• Test email function.
• Use Gmail accounts to send mail via WordPress.
• Dedicated API integrations.

Conclusion

This article is comprised of a list of handy email plugins for your WordPress site. Regardless of whether you are searching for a tool for enhancing your email marketing campaigns or a trustworthy newsletter solution, this article provides you with an ample choice for your personal needs and requirements.

The post 10 Best WordPress Email Plugins appeared first on AwardSpace.com.

• 8 Best WordPress CRM Plugins
• 5 Best WordPress Popup Plugins 
• 9 Best WordPress Forum Plugins 
• 10 Best WordPress Email Plugins 

10 Best WordPress Search Plugins

1. SearchWP

• Several search engines are available.
• Search by type option.
• Versatile integration options.
• Related content results.
• Redirects.
• Search analytics tool.

2. WP Extended Search

• Search customization
• Include or exclude search results
• Widgets
• Customizable search forms

3. FiboSearch

• Search by product title, description, and SKU.
• Google Analytics integration
• Displays an ample amount of information in search results.
• Optimized for phone and tablet use.

4. Ajax Search

• Live search results.
• Search through all post types.
• Drag-and-drop builder.
• Versatile integration capabilities.
• Comes with various widgets.

5. Better Search

• Customization of the search results
• Search within custom post types
• Analyzes the most popular search inquiries
• Comes with a widget
• Modifications via CSS

6. Relevanssi

• Stores results in relevance
• Brings back accurate results even after ambiguous inquiries
• Detects spelling errors and typos
• Numerous personalization settings

7. Ivory Search

• Unlimited number of search forms on your WordPress website
• Customizable forms
• AJAX and live search
• Optional widget
• WooCommerce integration

8. WP Google Search

• Adds Google search algorithm
• Search box layout customization
• Provides search suggestions
• Analytics tool
• Simple setup

Bonus: Search Exclude

• Exclude pages, posts and other type of information from search results
• Exclude custom post types from search results
• Exclude password-protected pages from search results
• Easy to use

Conclusion

The post 10 Best WordPress Search Plugins appeared first on AwardSpace.com.

• 10 Best WordPress Search Plugins 
• 5 Best WordPress Popup Plugins 
• 9 Best WordPress Forum Plugins 
• 10 Best WordPress Email Plugins 

8 Best WordPress CRM Plugins

Some of the suggestions offer an all-in-one solution, while others are designed to excel in certain features. The list is not comprised in any particular order.

1. Jetpack CRM

Jetpack CRM is a very popular WordPress plugin, as it helps organizations with sorting contacts, quotes, invoices, and transactions, and also comes with a handy task manager. The premium version of this platform includes various automation features, lead nurturing, and various plugin extensions. Notable features include:

• Invoice Manager
• Client Manager
• Billing System
• Automation features
• 30+ Plugin Extensions

2. FluentCRM

FluentCRM is an advanced solution for your business and WordPress website, as it comes with numerous automation features, self-hosted email marketing client, data analysis and comprehensive leads notes with ample options for categorization. This platform is very versatile and can be used for eCommerce customer tracking, storing in-depth information about subscribers of membership websites, and much more. Notable features include:

• CRM and Email Marketing platform in a single WordPress plugin.
• A/B testing for Email Marketing campaigns.
• Advanced customer funnel builders.
• Advanced analytics tools.
• Versatile integration options.

3. HubSpot CRM

HubSpot CRM is yet another popular CRM plugin for your WordPress website. The platform is focused on providing customers with a set of handy tools that help marketing teams track customer journeys better and score higher conversion rates. HubSpot can be used to conduct comprehensive marketing campaigns, manage ads, and craft landing pages. Furthermore, the plugin comes with handy contact management features, a deal pipeline, and meeting schedule functions. Notable features include:

• Versatile integration
• Advanced contact form builder
• Landing Page Builder
• Ads Management tools

4. Propovoice

Propovoice is an all-in-one CRM solution specially created for small businesses and freelancers. The platform grants you access to various tools such as lead management, and deal pipeline that help you follow up, check, and close deals with prospective clients and partners. Furthermore, you benefit from a client portal and invoices and payment management. Propovoice is a CRM platform that focuses on managing your clients through their customer journey and helps you deal with various invoices and payment processes. Coming with a neat design and a vast amount of features, this plugin is also simple to use and easy to set up. Notable features include:

• Advanced Deal pipeline management
• Smart Lead management with comprehensive categorization functions
• Invoicing management
• Estimates
• Client Portal

5. WP ERP

WP ERP is an all-in-one CRM solution for your business that blends CRM functionalities, along with accounting and HR management tools, an Email Marketing platform, and a Project Management module. With this platform, you can track queries, leads, and subscribers via a comprehensive contact management system, and organize your team by using handy scheduling and calendar features. Notable features include:

• Mailing System
• Project Management module
• Comprehensive CRM dashboard
• Informative CRM reports

6. FunnelKit Automation CRM

FunnelKit Automations CRM is a powerful WordPress plugin that focuses on automating your team’s marketing endeavors and is specially created to help you with your WooCommerce project. With this platform, you can track various metrics such as customer website journey, items purchased, number of orders, order values, and others. Furthermore, with the plugin’s powerful analytics tool, you can get more insights into how to retain your customers and prompt them to move to the next step in the sales funnel. Notable features include:

• Optimized for WordPress WooCommerce websites.
• Funnel builder.
• Informative Analytics tool.
• Email Client with drag-and-drop email designer.
• Workflow builder.
• Contact automation capabilities.

7. Zoho CRM

Zoho CRM is a very versatile CRM solution with an ample set of features. The platform is designed to integrate seamlessly with WordPress core and various other plugins, so you can take the best of the tools that the platform offers. With this CRM solution, you can track your visitors’ on-site behavior, and benefit from AI-assisted live chat, automated workflows, and comprehensive analytics tools. Notable features include:

• Ample set of tools for each industry
• Lead scoring for more detailed site visitors’ analysis
• Versatile integration
• Marketing automation
• Email marketing module

8. Groundhogg

Groundhogg is a reliable CRM plugin focused on improving your organization’s email marketing endeavors, as well as bringing some automation to your lead generation strategies. This plugin provides a reliable funnel builder with drag-and-drop functionality, along with tons of remade templates that you can instantly use. Furthermore, Groundhog provides you with contact management tools and automatic location discovery, CRM notes, and search functionalities. Notable features include:

• Marketing automation
• Email campaign builder
• Comprehensive analytics
• File manager

Bonus: WP Fusion

WP Fusion is not a CRM platform. However, this handy tool allows you to integrate all your active WordPress plugins with your CMR of choice. WP Fusion helps you integrate various site builders, form builders, and e-commerce solutions with your preferred CRM platform and make them deliver lead data to your CRM system. Notable features include:

• Very versatile integration
• Various optional add-ons
• Event tracking

Conclusion

There are various CRM platforms that you can quickly incorporate into your WordPress website, so you optimize your business activities and get the most out of potential business prospects, visitors, and paying customers. In this article, we shared a list of 9 useful CRM plugins that you can instantly integrate into WordPress and enhance all business processes right away.

The post 8 Best WordPress CRM Plugins appeared first on AwardSpace.com.

Some of you may have decided to work out more, start your own business, to improve yourself, or else. Whatever it is, we hope you succeed in your plans.

For those of you that believe you will succeed by creating a website, we are here to motivate you even more. Whether it’s your first one or just another, there are mandatory steps in every beginning. Here is how to start working on your new year’s goals.

What is Your Idea?

A website can have many origins and ideas behind it. You might be interested in becoming a blogger on one of the many topics about it – fashion, food, sports, lifestyle, or others. Or maybe you want to build an eCommerce, business website, a portfolio of your work, a business card, or why not a forum – a hub for everyone with interests the same as yours.

Clear what your idea of a website is first to know what direction you are going to, and second, to clarify what CMS will be best for your website. Whether it is Forum Hosting, WooCommerce Hosting, WordPress Hosting, or else, choose your CMS, and then you will be one step closer.

Do You Have Domain Thoughts?

Every day people create websites and clearly, this leads to many taken domain names. You think you have a unique idea for a site and when you have completely played it in your head, you meet the disappointment of not having the domain you want.

To avoid that, make sure you check the domain availability as soon as you get the idea. Think of some interesting ways to change it if it is already taken.

Also, don’t forget to look at the hosting plans with free domains for life or other preferences. This way you will be prepared with the best options for your brand-new website journey.

Get Your Website Hosting

With the need for the domain comes the need for web hosting, too. As much as it is obvious that you can’t start creating your site without the platform to do it on, we feel that you need to know how important it is to sign up for the right provider and trust you will be helped whenever needed.

Do your research and read some for all the providers you are thinking about. Compare prices and services, and you’ll have your answer.

Just a quick note – AwardSpace’s website hosting opportunities include free hosting, free domain names, and great premium services. Our secret weapon is dedicated customer support.

Start Building from Scratch

You are now ready to conquer. We have previously shared with you how to start building a website from scratch and we still believe this is a full guide of the steps you need to go through.

To sum them up you need to be clear about your hosting and domain, the CMS, and then the specifics such as web theme and plugins, design details, logo, CTA-s, concrete and important pages, and content, and according to them – specific add-ons needed.

Before you start actually creating anything, make a quick plan of what you are going to need because you will find it a lot easier to follow once you have it clearly stated.

One Last Thing

Before we finish, there is one more thing we strongly recommend you remember. A new year is a great opportunity to start new things or be more responsible and consistent. But it’s not the only time you can do it. Every new day is a new chance to do that. You can start today or tomorrow – it doesn’t matter. As long as you stay on your path and don’t give up, it’s a sure path to take.

We wish you all good luck!

The post New Year – New Website. Where to Start? appeared first on AwardSpace.com.

It’s a decision worth first learning more about. Each CMS presented in this article is worth it, they all have great features and advantages but each would be best depending on the site you are going to build. But let’s first start with the basics.

What is CMS?

As you would already know, CMS stands for Content Management System, and as the name suggests it allows you to manage the content of your website. This includes text, images, media, and more.

Using a CMS helps you create your site fast and much easier. It doesn’t require any technical skills but if you want a complex website, you’d want to consider learning a thing or two about the full capacity each system offers.

For better convenience, we’ve collected our CMS hosting offers and you can see the full list of systems you can install with AwardSpace. Without further ado here are the top three website hosting solutions.

WordPress

It’s not a surprise that WordPress is the most used CMS worldwide. To get an idea of how broad it is, there are 1.1 million domains registered every 6 months! There are many reasons why it’s the best choice for building a website starting with the vast number of pre-created themes with great design choices, plugins, and a lot more features.

These add-ons are perfect for building a well-designed website as they expand the opportunities with helpful tools. By getting WordPress hosting everyone can create a personal blog, WooCommerce website, a business card website, portfolio, or another small or big project.

And we’re also going to leave that here – AwardSpace also offers Free WordPress hosting!

However, if you are interested in creating a big online store maybe there are better solutions than WordPress.

Drupal

Drupal is an open-source focused on building large and complex websites. It’s often not that recognized as WordPress but it actually has a large community of supporters.  People that want to build big websites with amazing performance – speed, uptime, and mostly security, can find their web solution with Drupal.

By getting Drupal Hosting it’s safe to say that the installation process is quick and effortless, but as the platform is created for complex websites, it is also important to know that the back and front end are not for everyone. You’ll need coding skills and basic tech knowledge to build the best possible online space for your idea.

Joomla

This is also one of the most used open-source content management systems and its focus has always been usability and extensibility. It’s important to think of it as similar to WordPress – it has a wide range of unique and useful extensions and templates that help anyone build a great website – fast and easily.

With that said, one of the best perks of getting Joomla Hosting is the effortless way of working and the user-friendly interface that helps anyone learn fast and build in no time. Of course, as a free open-source you can also try the Free Joomla Hosting to make sure it suits you. It is utilized heavily for education, media, corporate, e-commerce, and even personal websites and blogs.

What CMS Should You Choose?

After a quick overview of the basic CM systems you have to ask yourself one significant question – what am I going to build a website for. Are you starting a blog? Making a portfolio of your work? Creating a business card for your line of work? Or you are starting an online business? A school project, work-related matter, or a hobby – whatever it is, there is a solution to any preferences.

If you are a beginner make sure to also read the full guide to making a website from scratch to help you in your process of building what could soon be an empire.

The post What CMS is Best for Your Website? appeared first on AwardSpace.com.

There a few things to know before you start blogging. First, you need to have a plan. You might think it’s something personal, or it’s something that is in your complete comfort zone, and you’ll find it easy to keep up, but you will be surprised. The truth is no matter how into the topic you are, it’s mandatory to first have a plan.

With ideas for future posts in advance, with time frames for how often you will post, and with written ahead posts. Because, the second important thing to remember is, you will not always be willing to write. You won’t be always motivated and sometimes it will be hard to figure out what to write about or how to.

But let’s focus now on how often you can and should write in order to keep your consistency good. In order to do that we need to separate the different occasions of a blog by the size of it.

Small Personal Blog

First, let’s take a look at those that are having or are about to have a small blog for their personal interest. In this case, it’s accepted to post not too often. For example, once or twice a month up to once a week. This is because usually, people that keep a personal blog are not looking for positions on the search result page or for organic traffic at all.

Their aim is their own followers on the social media channels that are interested in the new content. However, a website should always be kept in order no matter the purpose. That’s why even if you are not fighting for Google’s attention, you need to make sure you have meta descriptions, alt text, rasterized images, well-structured pages, easy navigation, and easy-to-read posts.

Big Influencer Hopes

The influencing industry evolves each day with so many people with different or similar ideas, sharing so much from their life and becoming real figures that others follow. This also means they need a particular platform to grow except social media. They usually chose YouTube or create a blog with WordPress.

Their ambitions require a more consistent presence online. This means they should post at least every week. But sometimes they tend to miss even a whole month. Once you get to the right audience, it will be willing to wait as long as you promise to provide good content. (Here are some ideas to freshen up a blog.)

And to give you a hint, if you want to post once a week but find it difficult to find topics, then you can create different categories in your blog and write for a different each time. One can be numerous – (10 things I cook when I don’t have time), one can be with ideas for a concrete topic, and another can be inspiring with posts from other blogs. If you ever feel stuck here are some more ideas.

Well Developed Business Blog

If you are working for a company keeping a blog, or you are running an online business, then there are different rules that apply here. “Rules” is not really the right way to say it though, because actually it again depends on how developed your website is.

But let’s take it you are a big brand. First, keeping a regular blog is mandatory. It’s needed for keeping good results in SERP as SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is crucial to your organic traffic and website success.

Posting should be not only every week but a few times a week. Some big companies provide information each day or a couple of times a day, but you can start with two or three times per day.

Again, the categories would help, but you can also include different types of content – blog posts, tutorials, news, or else. The important thing is to provide consistent updates.

Speaking of consistency, it’s also important to post at the same time of the week each time. Since Google works with bots that crawl your website, you need to please them and this means posting at the same time.

The post How Often to Create New Blog Posts if You Want to Be Consistent appeared first on AwardSpace.com.

Having a huge database is one of the main reasons for having a slow WordPress site. It’s mandatory to keep optimizing that database from time to time as it will help your website perform much better. Of course, having a great WordPress website hosting provider is mandatory, but now we’ll share when WP-Optimize comes in most handy.

How Does the Plugin Help?

WordPress creates a revision of a post or a page every time you create one. When you edit, for example, 6 times, a post, you will have 5 copies of that post or page as revision. If those pages or posts are longer than the usual, it’s a huge number of byes that overhead your MySQL.

Database Optimization

What WP-Optimize does is allow you to optimize and shrink your posts table as it removes post revisions from the database that are no longer needed.

Another thing that can happen is, that there might be lots of spam and un-approved comments. That’s when the plugin helps again. It cleans and removes those spam and un-approved comments easily.

WP-Optimize checks all of the tables in your database and those that are overloaded it takes care of, allowing you to get rid of what’s unnecessary.

Image-Compression

Another amazing feature of the plugin is the image-compression that helps convert large images into compressed files. It enables you to compress PNG, JPG, GIF, BMP, and TIF pictures up to 5MG in size, and it’s packed with other useful features, including:

• Compress multiple existing images at the same time.
• Compression algorithm, that gives you twice the compression with much less loss of resolution.
• Retrieve or revert back to your original images at any point.
• Auto-compress function, which automatically compresses images as they’re added to the site.
• ‘Compress Big Files function’ allows you to compress images up to 64MB- much higher than any other plugin.

Page Caching

The feature that will be probably most important for your website performance is page caching. You will see the difference quickly. Caching includes keeping dynamic data in a temporary storage area so that it can be retrieved in an instant. Caching is a sure-fire way to ensure that web pages load at a lightning-fast speed.

WordPress processes the dynamic PHP files to generate a certain page, and WP-Optimize saves it into a static HTML file in the cache folder, so that when the next user visits, the page is cached and doesn’t need processing. This is great for your speed performance, thus, for your website visitors and their good impression.

“Overall WP-Optimize brings the best cache and optimization technology together in a single seamless plugin to make your WordPress site fast, lean and efficient.”

How to Use WP-Optimize

Since we are talking about your WordPress database, you need to make sure that you create a complete WordPress backup before moving forward. It’s a step that needs to be taken regularly. Next, install and activate WP-Optimize.

Once you have activated the plugin, on your WordPress dashboard’s left bar, click on the WP-Optimize settings button. You will now be on the WP-Optimize page where you can do all of the above-mentioned tasks. From the “Actions” section you can select the optimization processes.

Why You Need WP-Optimize in Conclusion

Keeping a website well and fast performing, you need to take care of it. WordPress doesn’t always allow you to do that manually, and to be honest, you don’t need to do it this way. There are easy ways to make your work more pleasant, fast, and easily achievable. Many plugins help you keep your website in the best condition but there are a few plugins that are mandatory to have.

To take care of your posts, pages, and your website in general, this plugin will help you clean the unnecessary, optimize your database, compress the images, cache your pages, and present to your users a great up and fast running site that everyone wants to come back to.

The post WP-Optimize – Why You Need It and How to Use it appeared first on AwardSpace.com.