I’ve spent the past ten years advising clients with on their websites and digital marketing strategy. One of the most common CMS tools that I have worked with is WordPress. Here are a few tips that will help save you time and while making it easier to manage your content.
TIP #1 FIND A GREAT DRAG AND DROP BUILDER THAT FITS YOUR BUDGET.
I have used two tools that work really well.
- Beaverbuilder
- Enfold theme
BEAVERBUILDER
Beaverbuilder gives you an awesome WISYWIG editor. Some of the themes that I used at first made it difficult to use because I couldn’t get the header or footer to look the way I wanted. I have found that the “Astra Theme” works really well and when it is bundled with the rest of the wpastra.com plugins you are left with a robust version of Beaver Builder that can adapt to nearly any design. I’ve found the following Wpastra tools to be particularly helpful.
ENFOLD
There are a ton of WordPress themes out there and I have found that it is best to find one that is as robust as possible. I generally like themes that have built-in modules so that you don’t need to install as many plugins. I also tend to stick with themes that are very popular. They generally will continue to have support which is helpful as security issues arise. Enfold is one of the top selling themes on Themeforest and I have personally had a great experience working with their development team. They respond to issues very quickly and the theme has been very stable in my opinion.
Key features:
- Great Support Team
- Awesome drag and drop modules are included
- They use Layer Slider (which is one of the best that I have used)
- Easy to use
TIP #2 USE PREMIUM HOSTING
I have found that there are a lot of companies that offer hosting for WordPress. The ones that have worked the best for me are WordPress Specific hosting providers.
These hosting providers offer staging environments, nightly backups, SSL certificates, and tons of security features. They are a little more expensive but that is worth it in my opinion.
TIP #3 GDPR
This one is difficult for many marketers. Without offering any legal advice or recommendations, I can tell you that I have personally used WP GDPR Compliance and have found it to be pretty impressive. Due to the legal nature of this plugin, I won’t list all of the features. It is very important to do your own research on this one.
TIP #4 FORMS
GRAVITY FORMS
I have found Gravity Forms and Contact Form 7 to be very helpful form builders. When using Gravity Forms I have the ability to add integrations with many different platforms such as HubSpot.
Key Features:
- Conditional rules that allow you to show or hide fields based on prior field selections.
- Auto responder emails & notifications
- Ability to set fields as reuired and to have field types such as numbers, drop downs, text fields, multiple choice, etc.
CONTACT FORM 7
I have also found Contact Form 7 to be very helpful. I usually use this tool in combination with Flamingo. This builds a very basic database for you to see submission data all in one place.
Disclaimer: Please note, I am an affiliate for a few of these tools and you can support this site by clicking on the links below if you decide to make a purchase. I provide honest feedback and I have only recommended what I personally use on my site and my client’s sites. The content on this should not be misconstrued as recommendations. These are opinions only. Please do your own research prior to using any of the tools recommended in this blog.