Category Archives: Plugins

How to know if your Child is being bullied online?

Cyber bullying is a major issue faced by teenagers these days. There is a lot of awareness among people regarding online connectivity and cyber bullying is the biggest factor in creating unsafe environment for children. Spying on your children is not bad because it enables you to know about them. It is feasible to get all the information about them and get evidences on their activities.

mSpy

Some factors to consider for comprehending if your child is being bullied online:

  • If the child is spending less time with friends and becoming away from social life
  • Scratches, cuts or bruises on the body without any explanation
  • Afraid to go to school or getting away from studies
  • Damaged clothes or books
  • Shabby appearance after returning from school
  • Complaining about physical ailments like headache, stomach ache etc
  • Loss of appetite
  • Low self esteem and anxious behavior
  • Suicidal thoughts
  • Troubled sleep or nightmares
  • Child is appearing sad, teary, depressed, aggressive or moody

These are the common factors to keep in mind for parents and they need to become aware of these things to make their children safe and protected.

mSpy is the most used mobile spy software for Iphone and Android tracking which parents can use for their children to detect every activity with full details. Time, date and other details are well revealed in these call, message and web logs. You can get all you need to know about your children and save them from the troubles they face in their lives.

mspy-telefono

mSpy is user friendly and you can install within a few minutes on your child’s mobile. The software doesn’t show up its presence and hence, it is feasible to install it without telling your children. It can be highly useful in developing a strong bond between parents and children. Checking your child’s mobile often doesn’t really help. It won’t help you in knowing the real activities of your child. Instead, they can cheat you with a wrong impression of their personality.

Spying on your children doesn’t mean that you are not having confidence on them. It actually depicts that you really care about them and don’t want them to go on the wrong track in their life. mSpy is the best software for this purpose and it is available at appropriate cost. You can get all you need to know about your children within a single click.

Get mSpy and save your kids from cyber bullying.

Quick Tips for Increasing Blog Traffic

A blog is a personal thing for many people, kind of like an online diary. It is a cathartic place to off-load and share difficult experiences with anonymous strangers. For other people, particularly businesses, creating and maintaining a blog is done purely for SEO purposes. But whatever your reasons for building a blog, without a bit of effort on your part, nobody is going to see it. So if you want to build a loyal readership, here are a few tips to help you increase your blog traffic.

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Write Great Content

Content is king and it is important to adhere to this philosophy if you want to build a loyal readership. Blog content needs to be well-written, interesting, and above all, relevant. Search engines love unique content, so make a real effort to write from the heart and about subjects you know. Readers prefer authentic content that answers questions, highlights an issue, and provokes thought. If you tick these boxes, they will come back for more – and tell their friends.

Tag Your Posts

Tags help search engines and other bloggers find your posts, so use them. WordPress makes it easy to tag posts. However, you do need to choose the right tags: they should be relevant to the post.

Post Regularly

You can’t get away with posting once in a blue moon if you want people to read your blog. Successful blogs are updated regularly; ideally at least two or three times a week. If this punishing schedule is too much for you to handle, you could always accept guest blogs to ensure content stays fresh, but make sure you screen posts before they go “live” to ensure they meet quality controls.

Encourage Social Sharing

It’s good to share! Readers like to share good content with their friends, so ensure they can do this quickly and easier. WordPress has lots of social sharing plug-ins. Look for a plug-in that has buttons for social networks as well as share via email.

Top tip: don’t provide too many share buttons. Stick to the main ones, i.e. Facebook and Twitter. Too much choice is confusing and likely to inhibit social sharing.

Promote on Social Media

Social media is a great place to promote blog content. Once you have written a fantastic new post, go on Facebook and Twitter and start telling people all about it. And don’t forget to provide a link back to your blog post.

The only caveat here is if your blog content is very personal and you prefer that your friends, family and work colleagues don’t know what you are writing. In this instance, telling everyone on your Facebook friends list about your dating “confessions” blog might not be such a good idea.

Link to Other Blogs

Linking to other blogs can help generate new readers by providing a quick route between related content and increasing the numbers of links back to your site.

Building a blog readership isn’t difficult if you are willing to put in time and commitment, but if you need results fast, look at hiring a Sioux Falls advertising specialist.

How to Track Analytics and AdWords in WordPress

If you have a WordPress site, you’re probably quite familiar with Google AdWords and Analytics. However, what you may not be aware of is that you can link the two together in order to track your AdWords campaign by using Google Analytics. However, for many site owners this can prove quite difficult, as there isn’t that much information out there on how to set the two up in order for them to work together. Remember, it is also possible to pay a company to manage your AdWords campaign and this may be beneficial during the early stages.  However, if you do want to try and do it on your own, keep reading for some advice.

Adwords

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Installing Analytics

If you don’t already have Google Analytics installed, you will need to do so first. This can be done easily by downloading and enabling the Google Analytics plugin on your WordPress site. In order to make authenticating the plugin easier, you will need to log in to your Google Analytics account in a new browser tab. Once you have done this, return to WordPress and select Settings – Google Analytics. Since you’re already logged in, you should be able to easily select the correct profile and account.

Check ad Enable Auto-Tagging

You will now need to check whether or not your site supports AdWords auto-tagging. You can do this by entering your site address into your browser and adding the text ‘?gclid=testing’ to the end before telling your browser to go to that address. If you still see the added text in your browser bar after the page has loaded, you know that your site supports auto-tagging. Next, you will need to log in to AdWords to ensure that auto-tagging is enabled.

Linking the Two Accounts

Now that both your AdWords and Analytics accounts are set up, it’s time to link them both together in order to share data between them. Go to your AdWords account, and select Tools & Analysis – Google Analytics. Once the resulting page is loaded, click the option for Admin, where you’ll be able to select the Google Analytics account that you would like to link. Click on the Data Sources tab, and then click ‘Link Accounts’. You should now have successfully linked the two.

Final Checks

In order to make sure that your Analytics account is tracking your Google AdWords properly, you’ll need to go over your settings and make some final checks. You should still be looking at the Data Sources tab from the Tools & Analytics menu. Click on Properties, and select the first Analytics profile that you would like to set up AdWords tracking for. On the resulting page, click on Tracking Code. Scroll down and you should be presented with the question ‘What are you tracking?’ and a series of checkboxes. Ensure that the Google AdWords checkbox is selected before you save your settings.

It really is that simple – link your Analytics and AdWords accounts today to start tracking your data and better managing your campaign.

Is Your Web Store Ready To Sell EU Wide?

If you have a business that sells products online, and you currently focus only on selling in your own country, it can be a good idea to consider broadening your marketing and sales approaches to bring in more potential business from the EU as a whole. After all, one of the main reasons the EU exists is to make it easier for people in different member countries to trade with each other. If a product range or service is doing well in your country, there are likely to be similar markets elsewhere in the EU that you could be harnessing.

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Of course, it takes a little research and preparation to get ready to start openly welcoming customers from other member states. Here are some things to do:

Ensure You Can Sell in Compliance With EU Regulations and Can Handle Things Like Tax Using The Latest PrestaShop Update

Before you can begin selling to people in other countries, you’ll need to make sure your site is equipped to do things like currency conversions for pricing, handle different taxes, add on different shipping and handling costs for people in different locations (obviously this is not applicable for digitally delivered products like downloadable software and media or eBooks), and is compliant with EU trade regulations. This may seem a bit of an overwhelming thing to have to add to your site’s back end, but actually it can be done very simply.  If you install ecommerce platform PrestaShop, you’ll find that the latest version has a whole module geared towards making EU compliance and EU wide sales easy to manage, and ensuring you’re doing everything right.

Research Different EU Markets

The EU is pretty diverse, and the markets vary quite a lot. As has been in the news a lot recently, some countries are in a better economic state than others, and also, different things tend to be in fashion or important to people in different member states. This means that before you start marketing in other EU countries, you should do some research to establish where your products are going to sit well with the consumer public, and if you can find a gap in the country’s own market to sell in. The web is full of resources and stats that can help you learn more about different markets, so spend some time looking at those that interest you and prioritise countries for marketing.

Translations

A final thing to consider is how you will handle copy, such as advertising and product descriptions. You will of course need translations, but as well as this, consider if you need to actually change things like your trading name or logo to appeal more in other countries. Translation only takes into account language, but if you really appear to care about a country’s culture and understand the market, you will do far better.

By readying your business and website in these ways, you can soon begin tapping into huge markets all over Europe!

Take Your WordPress Design to the Next Level

Choosing design firms to work with when it comes to designing and maintaining your website can be difficult. There are countless companies offering a huge range of services and even wider range of pricing – how can you be sure you’re choosing the right design firms and how can you be sure they’ll be able to assist you with your unique needs as a customer? Let’s discuss some of these ways!

Via https://pixabay.com
Via https://pixabay.com

Use an Agency That Takes Advantage of Usability Studies

Your first stop on your quest to find design firms is to look at their portfolio of past work. Have a quick look through some of the sites they’ve made and designed and see if you like their work aesthetically. Then dig deeper and check if they align with the fundamentals of website usability. You can do this by asking yourself any number of the following questions:

Do they have content patterns in an F shape?

Studies show the most successful sites design content, especially text heavy content, in an F shape on websites. The bulk of the text at the top, a short gap, some more bulk and a punchy conclusion. Google calls this their ‘golden triangle.

Can you find important information quickly?

How long did it take you to find the ‘Contact Us’ section? If it’s an online store, was information on shipping and returns quick and easy to find?

How much text is on the site?

Studies show users only read 28% of the text on any website, and the more text there is, the lower that percentage is. Are the key messages in the text bold or highlighted? Are users more likely to read the most important 28% of text?

There are many more usability rules, and knowing some of them can help you ensure your website has the best possible chance of being as effective as possible in a crowded world wide web.

Use an Agency That Knows Modern Design and Functionality

Modern design uses clean, uncluttered, easy to use designs. Minimalist design is in and complex designs are out and design firms should know that and be applying it to the work that they do. Your website needs to pop out at visitors as soon as they land by being clean and easy to navigate and spot important information. If your website follows the latest trends in web design and layout, you can be guaranteed users of the site will feel comfortable and at home on your website. That comfort will translate into longer visits and more of your message being relayed to those customers. The longer they visit the more of what you offer they’ll see!

Customers for Life

Creating a value added company website for your customers means they’ll be back again and again and consistently rely on your company to be their port of call. But remember, only by selecting top design firms and ensuring you make the right design decisions around your company website will ensure this.

20 simple, light but cool JavaScript plugins

People are terribly wrong thinking that a website is a static entity. Many consider that once a website is made online, it doesn’t need maintenance. The reality proves that the situation is very different; in fact keeping a website updated requires many constant endeavors. Much more, the small tweaks seem to be part of the multitude of factors that massively contribute to the success of a website.
The design world is very dynamic and the designers hardly manage to resist in this climate. However, the final outcome is a bigger number of better websites and this is very beneficial for Internet users. In this context, we may conclude that anyone willing to have a heavily visited website must take care of each aspect and correct any downside. It’s not simple at all, but there are some modalities to constantly improve a website. One of the simplest, but effective ways to do so consists in adding various JavaScript plugins. Some of these are very common, while others are less used, but the results may be very appreciated by users.
On the other hand, it’s not simple to search for various plugins…or maybe it’s not that complicated, one thing we know for sure, this is definitely a time consuming activity. As usual, because we care about your time we have established a list of 20 simple, light and cool JavaScript plugins for your website that will surely delight the visitors.

Background Colorful Generator

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Any website owner wants to bring something new to his/her online presence on a daily basis, but it’s pretty impossible and maybe the changes will put the users in difficulty. This plugin offers the perfect balance: it allows adding, on a daily basis, something new without negatively affecting the user experience. Background Colorful Generator as the name already says it, is responsible for creating background colors. With just few tweaks, a new background may be added daily.

Progress of Page Reading

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More and more websites have included a blog. Something that will be great for the users is to have an indicator showing how much they read from a blog post. Content Progress is a light JavaScript plugin that brilliantly does this job and it may be tailored to perfectly fit the website design.

Super Dialog

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A dialog modal window is a subtle and neglected website component. Altogether, if other webmasters neglect it, you shouldn’t make the same mistake. This JavaScript plugin allows creating a wonderful flow dialog window that will captivate the mind of the viewers. The small details make the big difference.

Swirl Slider

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A modern website must be very dynamic and the best solution to improve the dynamism of a website is the use of images sliders. Swirl Slider not only substantially improves the dynamism, but due to the interesting sliding effects it offers a very original touch. Check the effects in the preview page and please let me know if you agree with me!

Expander

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Of course, a slider has its contribution to the dynamism of a website, but it’s not enough. This plugin is very useful, but it also impresses with the nice dynamic effects. Its aim is to better visualize the images: the user clicks on a thumbnail and immediately a larger image is revealed. It’s responsive and the transition effects are really cool, therefore it’s the best plugin for a portfolio or an image gallery.

Morphing Slogan

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Another modality of making a website more dynamic and original is the use of Slogan Morphing JavaScript plugin. It creates dynamic images from the words of a certain text. However, since words can’t fully explain the beauty of the effects, I advise you to check the previews and you will definitely understand what I mean!

Arkansas

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We are daily assaulted with tons of information and the brain has a limited capacity of processing. As a result, a plugin that better structures the information is always welcomed. Arkansas is doing it very well and it deserves a place into this list.

alBox

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alBox is a JavaScript plugin that is very light, but its effects over the user experience are very powerful. The best thing about alBox is the fact that it contains tons of different variants of images that are based on CSS3 transitions.

Magic Tweets

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Social media has been here for many years and it was integrated not only in the online environment, but in our lives, too. This plugin has a limited area where it may be used, but in some situations it’s pure gold. It creates a Twitter timeline; so for the ones that are very involved in social media it’s very useful. Taking into account that it is touch enabled, this plugin becomes more and more attractive for every webmaster.

Metro Sidebar

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A sidebar is a good thing that one could use to impress his / her potential viewers. Metro Sidebar is a great plugin that it’s aimed to create stunning sidebars. The modality of displaying the information into the sidebar is very customizable and it won’t take more than some minutes.

Google Maps with Infowindow

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Each and one of us used Google Maps and we all know that it sometimes doesn’t assure the best user experience. This helpful plugin was created, in order to help people search for a place, let’s say a restaurant. It creates info windows on the maps, so it will be way easier for the user to identify the local they want to visit.

Rating Plugin

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A modality of having a stronger relationship with the website visitors and keep them loyal is to interact with them and heed their requirements. This plugin is very useful for blogs or for written content centered websites because it allows the users to rate their impressions. It’s simple and effective, isn’t it?

Auto Menu

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The navigational menu is a capital part of any website. Auto Menu is a plugin that is able to create a wonderful menu. Definitely, many other plugins can do the same thing, but this one creates stunning menus in just few minutes. Beside these, the ones using this plugin have tons of options and it’s not required for them to know HTML or CSS.

Select Text

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Social media buttons are a constant presence for almost all the websites. Altogether, this plugin offers a more interesting possibility of interacting via Twitter. The idea is simple: the user selects a text, a phrase or just few words and all he / she will have to do is to click on the Twitter icon that appears once the selection is made. In this way, the Twitterverse is richer with a new interesting tweet!

HTML5 Scratch Card

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If you want to create some buzz around your blog, then this plugin may be a good solution. HTML5 Scratch Card allows creating cards that should be scratched by the users to see if they gained a prize. It’s enjoyable and funny, so it will relax the users.

Clarity

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A music player becomes something usual for the newest online presence. I hate the automatic music players, but there are many cases when a good one is needed. Clarity is a very interesting music player that without any doubt, will delight the users.

Page Loader

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Some potential visitors doesn’t have a strong Internet connection or some webpages are heavier and need much to time to load. The Internet users doesn’t have patience and they will search for other websites unless they aren’t captivated with something cool. An interesting pre-loader is a good solution and this plugin will do this job wonderfully.

Flat Modern Notifications

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Another modality of making a website more attractive and personal with the user is the use of notifications. Taking into account that flat design is everywhere, the notifications must be in accordance with this approach. It’s the case of this wonderful plugin that gives to the user a high degree of customization.

Image Gallery

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The Internet is full of plugins to create stunning image galleries but still not many allow creating impressive 3D galleries. The ones interested in having a great 3D visualization of the image should use this plugin. Beside these, it’s very light and the user doesn’t need to know any coding in order to install it.

Check Plagiarism

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We know that Google hates plagiarism and it’s a disaster to be penalized by them. This plugin helps a lot in fighting against duplicated content. In some situations, it may prove being a one of the best purchasing, so check it and eventually buy it.
I hope that all the above plugins to help the readers to make more attractive their websites. It will be great to know which one was more helpful and the most useful reward for our team is to share the post with your friends.

20 themes, templates and plugins for a creative agency website

Internet is no longer a place for information exchange, even though this was the initial purpose of the Internet creators. Nowadays, the online environment is turning, more and more, into a realm of entrepreneurs. Altogether, the Internet is an unlimited informational resource and all of us are free to use it. The huge Internet growing positively affects our daily life and we should be thankful to the ones that realized this fact: the web designers.
The websites wouldn’t look so beautiful unless the web designers worked hard to satisfy the client’s requirements. People constantly need more and better websites, which means that the designers work under huge pressure, almost on a daily basis. The competition amongst web designers is pretty harsh and it determines that only the best to survive in this field.
A capital reference for any designer or creative agency is the portfolio. It’s a website or a social media account where only the best works created are showcased. In fact, a portfolio is the identity card of the designer/creative agency. No doubt, a single modest item added into the portfolio has the potential to “convince” people to search for other solutions.
If you want to create a portfolio or the actual one doesn’t look good then we have good news for you. We created a list of 20 themes, templates and plugins that may be used for a portfolio. Each item from this list was carefully analyzed; therefore here is the crème de la crème!

Vesa

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One single page websites are very appreciated by the average Internet users, so having a portfolio based on this idea sounds as a good solution. Vesa is a great WordPress theme, Bootstrap based, retina ready that is very customizable. It’s suitable for modern creative agencies and personally, I think that is one of the most attractive theme released this year. What do you think? Am I right?

Strap

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Strap is a WordPress theme designed for creative agencies, too. This theme is very nice and funny, therefore it’s recommended using it only if the core values of the agencies don’t require a more formal approach. Even though the theme is funny, it doesn’t mean that the team that developed it isn’t serious. They fully deserve our prides because the theme is very complex and good looking.

Lion

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Lion is a WordPress theme that comes in seven different skins and I’m sure that its features will convince anyone that it is a very reliable solution for a good portfolio: drag & drop builder, normal or one page format, vertical or horizontal header, full width or boxed design, many cool sliders etc.

Brackets

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A good portfolio should let the user focus on the items showcased rather than impress with its various effects and animations. The ones that embrace these ideas must look closer to Brackets – a WordPress theme that is discrete and simple.

Studio9

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Studio9 is the prototype of a good looking complete portfolio. The cool flat design reveals the modern approach of the team while the “About us” page creates a more personal relationship with the potential customers.

Metroid

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Metroid is a very simple Metro style based WordPress theme. It’s more suitable for freelance web designers because it’s extremely simple and it looks very similar to a v-card. In spite of its simplicity, any potential customer may have a clear idea about the skills of the designers in just few seconds.

One

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One is a very modern and elegant website template. In addition to a good looking layout, there are other features as HTML5 video sliders and full screen players, Google Maps API support, Font-awesome icons that made it stand apart from other templates.

Xstream

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Xstream is another modern website template. Its customization options are endless, the creators presenting five different versions of this template. The landing page is Metro inspired and it definitely gets a good mark at the originality chapter.

Superme

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Superme is a website template created for the ones that don’t have web design skills or/and don’t have too much time to create and maintain their portfolio. The landing page is a huge grid of images featuring the previous works. Simple, but effective, isn’t it?

Jolly Folio

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This website template impressed me due to the smart use of negative space and the big, bold and readable typography. The template may be used for multiple purposes, but it’s the most suitable for creative agencies.

Jana

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Jana is an example of good design. This template is made of the “classic” components of a portfolio, so you may think that it has nothing special. Altogether, if you choose to see the life preview, you will be amazed by the design aesthetics. In conclusion, I added it here!

Eshra

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Eshra is an Adobe Muse template that is more suitable for freelancers that are passionate about photography. The black and white color combination creates a special atmosphere that will impress the customers. It comes in three versions: Static, Fullscreen Video and Fullscreen Slider Background and all of them look pretty good.

Portfolio Muse

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Portfolio Muse is a very standard, but pleasant portfolio that seems more suitable for individual freelancers. The flat design and the parallax effect create a modern and dynamic approach while the simplicity of the template will create the idea of a pragmatic and efficient freelancer. Under these circumstances, it’s almost sure that the clients will contact the respective freelancer.

CCSlider

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A good modality of impressing the potential customers is the use of an attractive slider. CCSlider is a really stunning plugin that provides the user with a huge array of sliding options. You may check the demo to see the effects and I am sure that you will be fascinated by it!

Cube Slider

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Cube Slider is a plugin that creates a 3D sliding effect. By installing this plugin you will add a plus of dynamism and originality to the website. Let’s hope that the customers will resist to the sliding temptations and will focus on the items exposed.

Contact Form

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Let’s suppose that the works showcased in the portfolio convinced the potential customers to ask for your services. Don’t you think it would be a pity if they changed their mind due to a poor contact form? It won’t ever happen if you install this plugin; it creates a beautiful contact form that is connected with Google Maps.

Premium SEO Pack

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No matter how visually appealing a portfolio is or how well done are the projects exhibited, without being on the first positions in the search of the clients everything is in vain. SEO Pack is a complete plugin that will help in making your portfolio way “friendlier” with the spiders of the search engines.

SEO Studio

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SEO Study is another plugin that helps the users to obtain a better search engine positioning. It contains 32 tools for better optimization as Estimate PageRank, Analyze Links, Website Speed Test, and Check Headers so it’s obvious that it’s a powerful plugin that shouldn’t be missed.

MyMail

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In order to let people know the latest offers & news, it’s a good idea, from time to time, to send them an email. A newsletter plugin may resolve this fact and MyMail is one of the best solutions. It has tons of options, including a complete analyze of the newsletters sent.

Social Media Tabs

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Finally, the last item from this list is a plugin that will help the portfolio owners to have a solid social media presence. It’s one of the most complete plugins that is very customizable and no doubt, it manages to satisfy everyone’s tastes.
If you want to create a stunning portfolio, I hope that these themes, templates and plugins will be useful for you. It will be great to know if any of the above items helped you in creating a new one or if they have improved your existing portfolio.

20 extremely useful plugins for an online store

Creating and maintaining an online store is a common but challenging activity. The Internet is a place for businesses and the online stores are the most obvious evidences. The statistics reveal that more and more entrepreneurs will invest in various online affairs. It means that the web designers must treat more seriously how to design websites particularized for e-commerce activities. Even though the ecommerce is a pretty new area, the www is full of online stores. The competition is very harsh and it’s extremely difficult to resist in such a “digital jungle”. Altogether, there are many entrepreneurs that have made substantial profits.
The success of an online store is dependent on two major facts: the prices & quality of the products sold and the design of the selling platform. While the prices and the quality of the products sold are the decision of the store owner, the design of the platform is debatable. A good design is subliminally associated with a reliable store and it significantly affects the profitability of it.
Of course, the design of any website must always be tweaked and we propose you 20 useful plugins for an online store that will enhance the experience of the potential buyers. No doubt, by installing these the profits will grew, therefore look closer to them!

Zetta

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First of all, a profitable online store must assure a pleasant environment for purchasers; they must have at hand every product. A good navigational menu is one of the most important factors that contributes to the easiness of finding the desired product. Zetta Menu is a great plugin that allows creating a mega menu that will be very useful for the clients.

FH Mega Menu

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FH Mega Menu is another option for creating a complex navigational menu. The specificity of it is the concept behind- it’s created for handheld devices. It’s useless to mention that nowadays more and more people use handheld devices to access Internet, including online stores.

Percentage preloaders

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All the buyers have a common feature: the lack of patience. In many cases, a single second makes a huge difference. Altogether, in order to convince people about the quality of the products are required high quality images which implies a longer uploading time. A good compromise solution is the use of creative preloaders as this plugin does.

Paypal Shopping Cart

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An attractive shopping cart will make people use it, therefore the chances of having profits are increased. I appreciated very much this shopping cart, it’s simple, discrete and good looking!

Latest News

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Latest News is a plugin that will help very much the store owners to display the latest discounts and offers. Definitely, it won’t annoy the viewers, because the animation options are truly eye-catching. In this way, even the more distracted users will notice the news and discounts.

JNewsbar

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Another modality of letting people finding out latest offers and discounts is the use of a news bar. JNewsbar is the perfect plugin for this thing and it may be fully tailored to the store owner requirements.

Glass Case

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Glass Case is a very useful plugin for any type of online store. It offers tons of solutions for zooming the images. I recommend checking the preview offered by the creators to make your own opinion. It’s useless to mention how important is for a customer to have good zooming options- it’s an option that demonstrate the quality of the products.

Dramatic Zoom

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This plugin is dedicated to create a better zooming experience too. Altogether, it stands apart comparing with other plugins; the zooming effects are really cool adding a plus of dynamism to the website.

Speedo Slider

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Speedo Slider is a plugin that will captivate the attention of the purchasers. Once installed this plugin, the admin have the possibility of showcasing a collection of images (new products, discounted items, various news). The sliding effects are very interesting, so you should try it!

Pieces

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An original design for an online store is almost mandatory. If you want to have an original slider, then Pieces is a good solution. It contains tons of effects and all of them very original. I consider that this plugin is very suitable for stores selling tech products, auto items or gadgets.

Pinch Zoomer

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The mobile users shouldn’t be ignored and this plugin is specially created for them. It’s touch enabled, but it also works when scrolling, so it may be used by the desktop users.

Countdowns

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Making people curious is a trick that works in the area of ecommerce. This plugin creates a nice countdown and it may be used to inform people about your new promotional campaign. It’s good looking and surely some visitors will come back to see what’s new.

Led Time Panel

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Led Time Panel is another countdown that will delight the viewers. It reminds of the huge neon banners from the cities. It’s a subtle effect that may subliminally influence the purchasers. Anyway, the overall design of the countdown is attractive!

Sky Forms Pro

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Personally, I think that the users are afraid of completing forms. These items are “innocent” but make people run away. The main problem is that the user must take action to complete a form. It might be the laziness, the lack of trust or the designers must create better forms. A single thing is sure: by using this plugin, all your forms would look impressive.

Smart Forms

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An online store owner must constantly impress the customers. Flat design is the hottest trend and it’s recommended adapting the online affair to this trend. Consequently, this plugin create wonderful flat forms. It has tons of options and surely some of the forms may be suitable for your store!

Sign In / Registration Form

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This plugin creates very discrete and pleasant flat sign in/registration forms. These comes in two versions: normal and pop up. In fact, the forms has nothing special, but the good aesthetic and the discretion convinced me to add into this list.

Album Grid

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Some entrepreneurs are more extravagant and prefer expressing their ideas into the design of the online stores. This plugin may be used to create an album grid with the images of the products. Check the preview offered by the plugin developer to see it in action!

Accordion slider

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Accordion Slider is a plugin that without any doubt will impress the customers. The accordion sliders are modern and people like them, therefore this plugin is perfect for a modern store.

Hotspot Map

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Hotspot Map is a plugin that may improve the relationship seller-client. By installing it, the user adds various notifications that are displayed when the client is hovering a specific zone of an image. It’s simple and effective!

Super Social Share

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Super Social Share is a plugin that let the customer to share a specific page or a product. Social media and ecommerce are interconnected entities and any successful online store has a strong social media presence.

I hope that all these plugins will help you becoming more profitable; give them a try and you won’t waste your money. Do you have other plugins useful for online stores to share with us? Please let us know which your favorites are!

Wait, You Have to Update Your WordPress Plugins?

hackerWe’re about to blow your mind, so make sure you’re buckled in. Are you ready? Are you ready to have your world rocked and turned upside down? If you have plugins installed on your WordPress site, make sure to update them. I know, it’s mind numbing, right? Apparently, not everyone updates their various programs, plugins, and themes as often as they can and, as a result, their sites can be at risk.

PC Mag was one of the mainstream news outlets to tackle the case of the out-of-date WordPress plugin, identifying five plugins that you absolutely must update right now. And when we say now, we mean stop reading this article, update the plugin, and then come back to our site. Wash, rinse, repeat.

The first was MailPoet, which is suffering from a “remote file upload” flaw. As one security expert told PC Mag, “This bug should be taken seriously; it gives a potential intruder the power to do anything he wants on his victim’s website. It allows for any PHP file to be uploaded. This can allow an attacker to use your website for phishing lures, sending spam, hosting malware, infecting other customers (on a shared server), and so on!” That does not sound like a plugin that should remain vulnerable.

As we saw recently, TimThumb suffered from a vulnerability that, according to our original article on the topic, “leaves many websites vulnerable to exploits that allow unauthorized attackers to execute malicious code.” The critical issue, the WebShot function, is turned off by default, so the problem might not be extremely critical. However, if you use TimThumb, now is the time to update it.

About six weeks ago, an issue cropped up with All In One SEO Pack that allowed hackers to change the SEO functions of a website, which could leave you in hot water going forward. There were also issues associated with All In One SEO Pack surrounding Java code and passwords. According to PC Mag, the most recent version of All In One SEO Pack is 2.1.6, so make sure to upgrade to that.

wordpress logoPC Mag also highlighted a recent issue with the Login Rebuilder plugin. The news site explained that the flaw “would allow attackers to hijack the authentication of arbitrary users. Essentially, if a user viewed a malicious page while logged into the WordPress site, attackers would be able to hijack the session. The attack, which didn’t require authentication, could result in unauthorized disclosure of information, modification, and disruption of the site.” Version 1.2.3 appears to be the most recent rollout available.

Finally, PC Mag pointed out an issue with the JW Player plugin. The video-oriented plugin could be your downfall if it’s not updated as, according to the site, “Attackers would be able to remotely hijack the authentication of administrators tricked into visiting a malicious site and remove the video players from the site.” PC Mag recommended upgrading to Version 2.1.4.

How should you protect yourself from these malicious streams of vulnerabilities? It’s simple: update your plugins and update your themes. Also, PC Mag and other sites we perused stressed the importance of checking through various directories and looking for files that are out of place. Rather than just assume everything on your computer and on your site is running as normal, take some time to poke around and make sure every file and every plugin seems to be in order. You’ll be happy you did.

Rest assured that if we find any more security issues related to WordPress, we’ll keep you posted here on ThemeSquirrel.

20 stunning sliders to impress your visitors

The huge endeavors of the web design community sometimes act as a boomerang for its members. The websites are looking good and are satisfying the highest demands, therefore any new website should be crafted, at least, at the same standards. Under these circumstances the role of a web designer is pretty ingrate, he must always work better and better. Taking into account that the competition is really fierce, I guess that no one should envy a designer.
Altogether, maintaining the high standards might not be enough! It sounds crazy, but it’s true! The Internet is full of quality websites and people consider these being the norm and not the exception! As a result, a website must be original. The next logical question is to ask yourself how to create an original website.
Unfortunately, no designer or blogger may provide a solution to create an original website; there are only generalities and nothing more. The single resource of originality is the mind of the designer. In conclusion, only you are responsible for the originality of the website freshly launched.
Because I believe I might have disappointed you, I have created something that will make you a little happier. I made a list of 20 stunning sliders that aren’t totally unseen, but yet these are rarely used in spite of their top quality. It’s enough to install these and the chances of having a more standing apart website are considerable higher!

Gold Slider

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Gold Slider is a responsive slider that is suitable for blogs. It handles four articles in a sliding area but it might be customized to slide more posts. Personally, I think that the variant with four post is the best solution. It adds a high level of dynamism and I think that the viewers will be impressed by the dynamic effects of the slider.

Layer Slider

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It was aforementioned that the sliders from this list aren’t very popular, but Layer Slider is really famous. Still I added it here because it has so many impressive sliding effects, that are hardly used. Practically, this slider offers hundreds of impressive effects to a website owner. I tried various solutions for some minutes and I didn’t finish all the possibilities. (Warning, it’s addictive!)

Seria

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Seria is a jQuery vertical slideshow plugin that is very discrete, simple and pleasant. It may be used for displaying products, photos, news or blog posts. It’s responsive and retina ready, therefore your mobile visitors won’t encounter any issue.

Background Pro

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Making frequent design changes isn’t a very good idea, but from time to time is better to bring something fresh. This plugin is the perfect solution: it creates a slideshow of images that may work as a background. Once these images are wisely chosen, the activation of this plugin will really enhance a website.

Skew Slider

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Skewslider is a plugin that will surely make your website stand apart. The images showcased are skewed and it also adds a plus of dynamism. The plugin may be easily customized according to the website owner’s needs; so you have all the reasons to try it.

Infinity Slider

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A part of the sliders aren’t fully responsive and this fact affects negatively the mobile users. Infinity Slider is specially created for the mobile users and in addition to that it works perfectly for desktop users, too. Besides that, it has tons of effects to select from and the custom possibilities are endless.

Fullscreen Background Slider

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Fullscreen Background Slider is a very powerful plugin that helps the webmasters to make the websites backgrounds more attractive. There are some solid reasons to add it in this list: 36 animation effects, 20 build-in patterns, customizable animation time, responsive and mobile friendly…Pretty convincing, isn’t it?

Storyline 3D

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Storyline 3D Slider is relatively new to the market, but I am sure that it will be a big hit. It’s one of the best plugins that create 3D effects and beside that, the customization options are endless. 19 color schemes, 8 scroll and 6 slide effects are enough to offer tons of standing apart sliding effects.

Mighty slider

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Mighty Slider is very complex, before finding out about it I was not aware of the fact that there are so many sliding possibilities. It works even with videos, YouTube and Vimeo, it is device friendly & cross browser and it’s fully responsive. Check all its sliding options and surely it will be your next acquisition.

Banner Rotator

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This plugin is perfect for the situations when the webmaster wants to display quotes or testimonials, at the same time it’s also suitable for images. It’s simple, discrete, responsive, and it has the potential to enhance a website.

jQuerry Banner Rotator

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jQuerry Banner Rotator is a plugin that impresses due to the nice transitional effects and due to the powerful customization system. The user has the possibility of setting a timer, a different transition per slide and many other features that will make the website stand apart.

Filter Slider

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This plugin was added into this list because of the cool effects – it displays when hovering the image. The idea is simple and pleasant: when the user hover an image, it’s rendered a sepia, grayscale, light saturate etc. version of it.

Rollbar

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Rollbar is a very discrete but effective plugin. Once installed, it replaces the standard browser scrollbar. It sounds strange, but it’s very efficient. Instead of scrolling an entire webpage, the user just scrolls a couple of images or slides. The plugin is responsive and for small displays it may represent a very efficient solution.

iCarousel

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The plugin is very suitable for modern and tech inspired websites. iCarousel is a lightweight jQuery plugin that creates wonderful carousel showcasing images. It has touch, mouse and keyboard support, it’s responsive, it works perfectly both on iOS and Android and it’s extremely easy to customize. I think that by checking the live preview you will be captivated by the effects.

Melon HTML5

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This plugin works as an emulator; if you need to display images as an iMac, Mac Cinema, iPad or iPhone then it’s the best tool. It may be tailored to the user’s needs, including the effects of the images displayed.

3D slider

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The entire web design community considers that the dynamism is a feature that will be dramatically improved in the next years. An important role in making more dynamic websites is reserved for sliders. Featured 3D Slider is a slider that will surely improve the dynamism of the website…please check it yourself!

Feature Slider Plugin

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Feature Slider Plugin is another slider that obtains a good mark at the originality and dynamism chapter. I think that is suitable for tech related websites or for the situations when the main public target is constituted from young people.

Blades 3D

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Blades 3D is another very original plugin. The images are flipped using 3D effects, but it may be available in the “classic format”, too. The flipping effects are very attractive and surely the viewers will be captivated by these.

Super 7

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I purposely let at the end of the post the most impressive slider. Super 7 is a much appreciated plugin and it has the “power” to considerably improve the layout of a website. The huge advantage of this plugin is that the customization options are unlimited.

I hope that those needing a sliding plugin will find this post very useful. The sliders may significantly improve a website and it’s a big mistake to neglect them.