KB Category: Software

  • Adobe Creative Cloud

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    Adobe Creative Cloud Suite is a wise investment for your business. The Creative Cloud subscription gives you access to various Adobe products that can improve your content style. With Adobe CC you are able to access programs like Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Premiere Pro, and more.

    Starting with a blank slate, you can create customized, branded resources for your business – whether that may be a media kit, infographics, or a new logo design. The suite allows you to create all the content that you may need in any file format that you can dream of (i.e. PDF, JPG, PNG, GIF, and beyond).

    Compared to other design tools on the market, Adobe CC allows you to create business materials without any legal ramifications that free programs like Canva may impose.

    Web321 makes use of Adobe Creative Cloud for graphic design and photo optimations, creating infographics, information sheets, video editing and more. We recommend it as a powerful tool for any of our clients who are interested in creating their own creative web content.

    Disclosure: We only recommend products we use ourselves and all opinions expressed here are our own. This post contains affiliate links where, at no additional cost to you, we may earn a small commission.

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  • Advanced Custom Fields

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    The Advanced Custom Fields plugin is the perfect solution for WordPress users who are looking for an easier way to use custom fields. WordPress does come with a custom field builder, but the default interface isn’t user friendly. ACF uses these built-in custom fields features, but makes them easier to use with its intuitive interface.

    By default, WordPress allows you to add certain types of “metadata” to your posts and pages, such as author, title, date published, etc. Custom fields allow WordPress users to add additional, custom metadata to their posts and pages. You can use them to input and store any kind of data you want to display on your website, such as product reviews, author bios, affiliate disclaimers, a “now listening to” field to capture the song you were grooving on as you wrote each post… The sky’s the limit.

    Web321 includes Advanced Custom Fields Pro in all our website builds, for free. It helps us easily customize the information you want to display on your site, where you want to display it, and it makes it easy to tie in the look with your overall website theme.

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  • Divi

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    Divi Builder, from Elegant Themes, is a WordPress plugin that allows for intuitive drag-and-drop building of WordPress websites. Divi Builder can either be used as a stand-alone plugin with any WordPress theme, or as part of Divi All-in-One Theme for a seamless visual editing experience.

    Our strategy combines Divi, Divi Theme Builder and Advanced Custom Fields to make easy-to-manage content that is put into sophisticated designs. The effect is a consistent look that is still striking.

    Of the web design agencies and freelancers that only or mainly use Divi, we pride ourselves on making high performance websites with Divi.

    Divi sites are visually appealing, clean and interactive, innately responsive and easy to template and update. Web321 loves this design framework and uses it as the base for all our websites. Divi is a precision tool. If you need Divi support services, feel free to contact us.

    Disclosure: We only recommend products we use ourselves and all opinions expressed here are our own. This post contains affiliate links where, at no additional cost to you, we may earn a small commission.

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    Divi vs. Elementor

    Divi and Elementor are both popular WordPress page builders that allow users to create custom websites using a drag-and-drop interface. Both have their own strengths and features, and the best choice for a particular project will depend on the specific needs and preferences of the user. We like Divi and roll out Divi sites to our satisfied customers. But with the popularity of Elementor, we felt the need to field this topic.

    Here are some key differences between Divi and Elementor:

    • Divi is developed and maintained by Elegant Themes, while Elementor is developed and maintained by Elementor Ltd.

    • Divi is a theme and page builder in one, meaning that it includes a pre-designed theme that can be customized using the page builder. Elementor, on the other hand, is a standalone page builder that can be used with any WordPress theme.

    • Divi includes a wide range of pre-designed templates and modules that can be easily customized using the page builder. Elementor also includes a range of templates and modules, but offers more flexibility and control over the design process.

    • Divi has a larger user base and a more established community of users, while Elementor has a more modern and user-friendly interface.

    Ultimately, the choice between Divi and Elementor will depend on the specific needs and preferences of the user. Both are powerful and popular page builders with a wide range of features and can be used to create professional-quality websites.

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  • Gravity Forms

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    Gravity Forms is a WordPress plugin that is used to create and manage contact and other information-gathering forms on websites. With this plugin, you can create custom forms that will allow you to collect the information you need to generate leads and grow your business. 

    Gravity Forms allows you to combine the ease of pre-built forms with the quality and customizability of a custom created form.

    Depending on the type of Gravity Forms license you have, you can: 

    • Have people select preferred method of contact
    • Specify what information new subscribers want to receive emails regarding (new products, discounts, etc.)
    • Specify how often new subscribers would like to receive emails (daily, weekly, etc.) 
    • Add coupons or special offers to contact forms 
    • Generate polls, quizzes and feedback surveys 
    • Accept secure payments
    • Allow visitors to submit content, reviews, etc. 

    WordPress is a popular platform, and the killer app for WordPress deployments is Gravity Forms.

    The heartbeat of a website can be measured by its engagement. Engagement is an active and interactive process between parties. When someone reads a web page and moves on, the engagement is close to non-existent. On a business website, it’s the equivalent of window-shopping.

    The dynamic changes when a salesperson steps forward and greets the customer. The customer and the staff have an interaction that can lead from passive viewing to active engagement. It leads to conversion of a visit into a relationship. Once there is a relationship in play, it’s a matter to meeting the customer’s needs with product and service offerings.

    That interactivity is well achieved through forms, and in our opinion, there’s is no better form solution than Gravity Forms from RocketGenius Inc.

    The Basics: What is Gravity Forms?

    Gravity Forms is a premium plugin for WordPress. It allows you to quickly build and design your WordPress forms using an intuitive visual form editor. Developers and content creators alike select fields, configure options, and easily embed forms on a WordPress-powered site using the built in tools that come standard.

    Out of the box, Gravity Forms allows for:

    • Input fields
    • Dropdowns
    • Name fields
    • Address fields
    • URL fields
    • Email fields
    • File uploads
    • Calculations
    • Conditional Logic
    • Control styling
    • Save-and-Continue
    • Email notifications
    • Optional paths for form submission confirmation

    The Integrations: What Does Gravity Forms Work With?

    Newsletter Sign Up and Online Marketing Service Support – Integrate any Gravity Form with your choice of a large list of email marketing services: ActiveCampaign, AWeber, Campaign Monitor, CleverReach, Emma, GetResponse, iContact, Mad Mimi and MailChimp.

    CRM Integration – Integrate any Gravity Form with Sales and Marketing CRMs. Create or update contacts, and create tasks between your forms and the likes of Agile, Batchbook, Capsule CRM and the Zoho CRM.

    Project Management Tool Integration – Use Gravity Forms to interface with Breeze or Trello.

    Communication Systems – Gravity Forms integrates your website with these chat, support and contact systems: Campfire, HipChat, Slack, Help Scout, Highrise and Twilio.

    E-Commerce Integration – Stitch payment processing right into your website with one of these services: Paypal, Authorize.net and Stripe.

    Customer Billing – Use Gravity Forms to connect users with Freshbooks.

    File Sharing and Content Creation – Connect Gravity Forms to Dropbox and the Pipe video recording service.

    Connect to Zapier – Gravity forms can hook into the grand-daddy of integration systems: Zapier. That opens the door to GMail, Basecamp, SalesForce and 1000’s of other third party apps and tools.

    The Advanced Stuff: Getting Interactivity from Gravity Forms

    Beyond the out-of-the-box integrations, Gravity Forms offers a wealth of possibilities through the biggest tool in the WordPress engine: the “filters” system. Most of the functionality in WordPress and in Gravity Forms is available to build out and enhance. In Gravity Forms, we’re done the following things and more:

    • Changed the submission process to add attachments to the email sent to the end user
    • Tied into the e-commerce plugin WooCommerce to expose functionality, data and the shopping cart to the WordPress system.
    • Built a calculator to let users price out their solutions and find the ideal products to match their needs.
    • Tied an online forum into Gravity Forms to allow a submission to spawn the creation of a new forum group.
    • Built a dropdown list in the form made up of members of a directory system.
    • Built a list of options that come with the available products.
    • Integrated the forms with modal pop-ups and engineered the site design to trigger the forms.

    All of these options demonstrate how Gravity Forms can be tied into a website and how Gravity Forms can draw in data from other sources.

    The Next Level: Building New Roads

    These integrations can be taken to the next level. Gravity Forms comes with a lot of capabilities, but we do build in more to get Gravity Forms to do exactly what we need.  Some examples of new Gravity Forms plugins we have created and tied into WordPress:

    • The image input type. Make a clickable map that feeds inputs into Gravity Forms.
    • Slider input type. Lets users play with HTML5 sliders to set their values.
    • Custom post type tie-in. Populate the forms with data from posts in the website.

    Here’s a recent presentation I did on Gravity Forms:

    This Still Sounds Hard? Not A Problem

    Does all of this functionality sound both great but hard to execute? Let’s talk about what you want to build into your website to increase engagement. Do you need some help? This is a partial list of my services. Here are some of the ways I can help with Gravity Forms

    Website Set-up

    If you need to get started, we help install WordPress, install Gravity Forms and get it all set up for you.

    Form Design and Development

    To the uninitiated, forms can be confusing. Conditional fields?! Multi-page form?? Confirmations? Add-ons? Notifications! Don’t worry: I can help. As an experienced Gravity Forms developer, I can build simple as well as complex forms with the Gravity Forms plugin.

    Custom Styling for Gravity Forms

    Forms can be off-putting. When confronted with a wall of input fields, you may want to run for hills. Your site visitors feel the same way. Let’s work together to make some awesome and engaging Gravity Forms.

    Gravity Forms Payment Gateway Integration

    The prize of user engagement is money. Gravity Form integrates with payment gateways like Paypal, Authorize.net and Stripe – to name a few. Let’s tie in a payment gateway with customer interactions for your business or venture.

    Web321 includes Gravity Forms in all our website builds, at no additional cost, and will include up to five custom forms per site to capture leads & contact information, generate sales quotes, solicit feedback, or gather any other kind of information you need from your website visitors.

    Disclosure: We only recommend products we use ourselves and all opinions expressed here are our own. This post contains affiliate links where, at no additional cost to you, we may earn a small commission.

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  • WooCommerce

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    WooCommerce is an open source ecommerce plug in for sister company WordPress. WooCommerce was initially released in 2011 but was acquired by Automattic in 2015. Automattic also owns WordPress.

    WooCommerce quickly became popular for its simpleness in installation and customization. It is also a free product. Its most recent update, version 4.5.2, is a stable edition that was made public on September 2020.

    With the rapid acceleration of ecommerce growth worldwide, WooCommerce has kept in step with it by facilitating 39 million downloads as a plugin and is currently powering more than three million online merchandising sites. As of 2018, WooCommerce was the most popular ecommerce platform.

    For 2019, the market share of WooCommerce kept growing as it is being used by 22% of the top 1 million ecommerce websites.

    WooCommerce is free, but you should expect other expenses, which include hosting, a domain name, and security software. But one thing going for WooCommerce (aside from having no monthly subscription fee) is easy  installation.

    Could WooCommerce be used without WordPress? Since it is a WordPress plugin, WooCommerce cannot operate without it. Your objective always for your selling site is to make the buying process simple for your customers. Remove all the unnecessary menu items that don’t help in making a sale from the sidebar and the online portal. That way, all the customer sees is a streamlined site with only the WooCommerce options visible.

    Can Shopify be integrated with WooCommerce?

    Yes it can! The Shopify Connect for WooCommerce plugin enables you to merge your Shopify products with your WooCommerce merchandise, together on your WooCommerce store shelves. But the products that will be sold will be sent through their original Shopify source, but with WooCommerce as your catalog. Plus, the other free features of WooCommerce like reviews, linked products and others will still be there on the site available for your customers’ use.

    Technology is so very needed this year to make Bopus work well for merchants.

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  • WordPress

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    WordPress is a content management system (CMS). This system makes it possible for practically anyone to build and manage a website without the need to possess technical knowledge. WordPress is the world’s leading system to create websites and blogs. At its height, WordPress ran approximately 43% of all the content on the web. It is used by individual bloggers, small businesses, and large corporations. The core package of WordPress is available for free. Content creators in need of more advanced tools and security measures can purchase add-ons to improve their website. WordPress is open-source software, meaning the original source code is freely available and can be modified and redistributed by anyone.

    WordPress was considered a good choice for a business website. It is a versatile and user-friendly content management system (CMS) that can be used to create a wide range of websites, including business websites. WordPress is easy to use and offers a wide range of customization options, making it a popular choice for small businesses, entrepreneurs, and freelancers.

    WordPress has a large and active community of developers, which means that there are a wide range of themes, plugins, and other tools available to help you create a professional-looking business website. Additionally, WordPress is SEO-friendly and can be easily integrated with other marketing and business tools, such as email marketing platforms and e-commerce platforms.

    Is WordPress A CMS?

    Yes: WorldPress is a Content Management System (CMS).

    Who created WordPress?

    Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little forked the b2 blogging CMS  in 2003. It uses PHP, MySQL and JavaScript. Because of the open-source character, you could say that WordPress in its current state is created by the huge community of developers and the commercial plugin developers who extend WordPress’ functionality to make it usable by website owners who need a flexible and extensible application for web publishing.

    Why is WordPress widely used?

    The original source code is freely available and open-source, this contributed immensely to the popularity growth of WordPress, but there are many other features that contributed to the success of this CMS as well. When WordPress was open source, it was considered one of the biggest success stories of FOSS (Free Open Source Software).

    Though work of volunteer contributors, WordPress grew into a system and many felt was optimized for easy publishing and content management (CMS). Add new images, galleries, videos or files with ease! Create a new page easily with just a few clicks. It performs well in search engines and delivers content fast to an audience. While the project took a turn for the worst when it put its “Gutenberg” theming system at its core, many theme developers like Breakdance, Divi and Elementor have solutions that make WordPress usable.

    • Customizable themes to change the visuals of a website.
    • Tens of thousands of plug-ins to change the functionality of a website, think of e-commerce, online stores, search engine optimization (SEO), performance boosters, advanced analysis, and many more.
    • The beginner-friendly interface and installment process can be done in minutes by complete newbies.
    • Complete ownership of your website or blog, when using a self-hosted WordPress from WordPress.org.

    Is WordPress good for SEO?

    By installing plugins like Yoast SEO aor Rank Math, WordPress can be an extremely SEO-friendly platform. Not only does it have powerful SEO plugins and themes, but it also has a proper HTML markup system to build well formed HTML, and it generates search-engine-friendly URLs.

    Is WordPress Secure?

    Like all software, WordPress has improved over time. It has security holes, but it is much better than it used to be and it continues to strive to improve. As the most popular web CMS choice, WordPress is a tempting target. Each new version is updated and improved, keeping security issues to a minimum. We review design and implementation decisions through a security lens find the safest way possible to satisfy our WordPress projects.

    To Summarize

    As of 2024, WordPress is considered the most popular CMS to create websites and blogs on the web. It has a large user base because it is free, easy to use, and highly customizable. WordPress is a good choice for businesses looking to create a website that is easy to manage, customize, and update, and that can be integrated with other business tools and systems.

    Do you want to learn more about WordPress? Check out the links below.

    https://www.thewebshop.net.au/what-is-wordpress/

    Our Articles on WordPress

    Need more? Design Rush has compiled a list of the Top WordPress Developers Of 2020 according to Design Rush.

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