Are you on the lookout for the best deals on all things WordPress? Look no further!

In this post, we’ve curated a treasure trove of unbeatable WordPress deals from across the web.

From themes to plugins and hosting, get ready to score amazing savings on your favorite tools. Don’t miss out on these exclusive offers – it’s time to level up your WordPress game without breaking the bank.

Let’s dive in and grab those deals while they last.

Best WordPress Deals (Summary)

	Microthemer Customize the styling of anything on your WordPress site. Product Rating: 4.8 $59 (Lifetime Access) GET THIS DEAL
	Bit Integrations Connect WordPress Plugins and external applications seamlessly to save time and simplify automations. Product Rating: 4.5 $49 (Lifetime Access) GRAB THIS DEAL
	Hostinger Elevate your online presence with Hostinger's affordable hosting plans, perfect for startups and SMEs seeking reliability without breaking the bank. Product Rating: 4.8 $1.79/mo (for the 4-year plan) GET THIS DEAL
	WP 301 Redirects Improve SEO and customer experience by finding broken links, site redirects, and 404 errors. Product Rating: 4.8 $49 (Lifetime Access) GET THIS DEAL
	WP Reset Reset, recover, and repair your WordPress site in no time. Product Rating: 4.8 $49 (Lifetime Access) GET THIS DEAL
	Citadela Use this universal WordPress theme to create a personal website, business presentation, travel blog or listing portal. Product Rating: 4.2 $99 (Lifetime Access) GET THIS DEAL
	AMZ Image The fastest way to insert and make money from Amazon Images in WordPress. Product Rating: 4.5 $109 (Lifetime Access) GET THIS DEAL
	EWWW Image Optimizer Accelerate your site speed and boost SEO rankings by optimizing your images with a click of a button. Product Rating: 4.6 $99 (Lifetime Access) GET THIS DEAL
	Coming Soon & Maintenance Mode Create and manage custom Coming Soon and maintenance pages in no time. Product Rating: 4.9 $69 (Lifetime Access) GET THIS DEAL
	KingSumo Grow your audience with viral giveaways that cut marketing costs. Product Rating: 4.2 $49 (Lifetime Access) GET THIS DEAL
	WP Scheduled Posts Automate your WordPress workflow and collaborate on content. Product Rating: 4.2 $39 (Lifetime Access) GET THIS DEAL
	Texta Easily generate long-form content for your blog, eCommerce, social media, and more. Product Rating: 4.2 $69 (Lifetime Access) GRAB THIS DEAL

Microthemer

Customize the styling of anything on your WordPress site.

Product Rating:

4.8

$59 (Lifetime Access)

GET THIS DEAL

Bit Integrations

Connect WordPress Plugins and external applications seamlessly to save time and simplify automations.

Product Rating:

4.5

$49 (Lifetime Access)

GRAB THIS DEAL

Hostinger

Elevate your online presence with Hostinger's affordable hosting plans, perfect for startups and SMEs seeking reliability without breaking the bank.

Product Rating:

4.8

$1.79/mo (for the 4-year plan)

GET THIS DEAL

WP 301 Redirects

Improve SEO and customer experience by finding broken links, site redirects, and 404 errors.

Product Rating:

4.8

$49 (Lifetime Access)

GET THIS DEAL

WP Reset

Reset, recover, and repair your WordPress site in no time.

Product Rating:

4.8

$49 (Lifetime Access)

GET THIS DEAL

Citadela

Use this universal WordPress theme to create a personal website, business presentation, travel blog or listing portal.

Product Rating:

4.2

$99 (Lifetime Access)

GET THIS DEAL

AMZ Image

The fastest way to insert and make money from Amazon Images in WordPress.

Product Rating:

4.5

$109 (Lifetime Access)

GET THIS DEAL

EWWW Image Optimizer

Accelerate your site speed and boost SEO rankings by optimizing your images with a click of a button.

Product Rating:

4.6

$99 (Lifetime Access)

GET THIS DEAL

Coming Soon & Maintenance Mode

Create and manage custom Coming Soon and maintenance pages in no time.

Product Rating:

4.9

$69 (Lifetime Access)

GET THIS DEAL

KingSumo

Grow your audience with viral giveaways that cut marketing costs.

Product Rating:

4.2

$49 (Lifetime Access)

GET THIS DEAL

WP Scheduled Posts

Automate your WordPress workflow and collaborate on content.

Product Rating:

4.2

$39 (Lifetime Access)

GET THIS DEAL

Texta

Easily generate long-form content for your blog, eCommerce, social media, and more.

Product Rating:

4.2

$69 (Lifetime Access)

GRAB THIS DEAL

15 Best WordPress Deals

1. Microthemer

Microthemer is a WordPress CSS editor plugin that helps site builders at any level design like a pro with point-and-click editing.

With Microthemer’s styling options, you can match your site to your vision and never sacrifice any control over design.

Get lifetime access to Microthemer for just $59

Typically, you’d have to pay $125 for Microthemer’s lifetime deal. But with AppSumo, you can get lifetime access to Microthemer for just $59.

Get lifetime access to Microthemer now

Deal Value: $125

AppSumo Price: $59 (Lifetime Access)

2. Texta.ai

Texta is a popular AI content creation tool that helps you create comprehensive blog posts, academic essays, and more with a single click. It also integrates with WordPress so you can create SEO-optimized blog posts in a matter of seconds.

Get lifetime access to Texta for just $69

Normally, you’d have to pay $120/year for Texta. But with AppSumo, you can get lifetime access to Texta for just $69.

Get lifetime access to Texta now

Deal Value: $5980

AppSumo Price: $59 (Lifetime Access)

3. Hostinger

Hostinger’s ultimate sale is one of the best WordPress hosting deals you can find on the market.

Hostinger offers affordable web hosting solutions to WordPress users. From super fast load time to exceptional customer support, Hostinger stacks up really well against some of the best web hosting solutions on the market.

If you’re using WordPress for your website, there’s no question that Hostinger is the way to go.

Get up to 82% discount on Hostinger’s web hosting plans

For a limited time, you can get access to Hostinger’s single shared web hosting plan for just $1.79/mo (for the 4-year plan) — that’s 82% off. But that’s not all — you can grab insane discounts on all Hostinger plans.

Check out Hostinger’s Ultimate Sale

Important: Be sure to activate the coupon code ANSWER at checkout to avail the full discount.

4. BerqWP

BerqWP is a speed optimization plugin that ensures your website passes the core web vitals assessment.

It effortlessly ensures your website aces the core web vitals test. This means you can enjoy optimal website performance with minimal effort, keeping your focus on content, not technicalities.

Get lifetime access to BerqWP for just $29

Normally, BerqWP’s basic plan costs $126 each year. But with AppSumo, you can gain lifetime access for just $29.

Get lifetime access to BerqWP now

Deal Value: $126

AppSumo Price: $29 (Lifetime Access)

5. WP 301 Redirects

WP 301 Redirects lets you scan your site for broken and toxic links and set up automatic redirects, manage affiliate links, and control all your sites from a centralized dashboard.

With the WP 301 Redirects Link Scanner tool, you’ll be able to catch broken URLs and disreputable outlinks before you lose visitors to competitor pages.

Get lifetime access to WP 301 Redirects for just $49

Typically, WP 301 Redirects costs $79/year. But with AppSumo, you can get lifetime access to WP 301 Redirects for just $49.

Get lifetime access to WP 301 Redirects now

Deal Value: $158

AppSumo Price: $49 (Lifetime Access)

6. Bit Integrations

Bit Integrations is a simple integration plugin for WordPress.

In simple terms, WordPress website owners and developers can send all their leads and information to other WordPress plugins and external software.

Get lifetime access to Bit Integrations for just $49

Typically, Bit Integrations costs $99/year. But with AppSumo, you can get lifetime access to Bit Integrations for just $49.

Get lifetime access to Bit Integrations now

Deal Value: $99

AppSumo Price: $49 (Lifetime Access)

7. WP Reset

WP Reset is a WordPress plugin that collectively installs themes and plugins, resets defaults, and takes snapshots of your website.

Using WP Reset, you can restore everything to default settings without reinstalling WordPress or doing it all manually.

Get lifetime access to WP Reset for just $49

Typically, WP Reset’s Team plan costs $158/year. But with AppSumo, you can get lifetime access to the same plan from WP Reset for just $49.

Get lifetime access to WP Reset now

Deal Value: $158

AppSumo Price: $49 (Lifetime Access)

8. Citadela

Citadela is a popular universal WordPress theme that’s 100% built on the new WordPress Editor and Customizer.

The main advantage of the Citadela theme is that it’s modular and universal. You can use Citadela to create a personal website, business presentation, travel blog or listing portal. You can use one theme for dozens of projects.

Get lifetime access to Citadela for just $99

Typically, you’d have to pay $499 for Citadela. But with AppSumo, you can get lifetime access to Citadela for just $99.

Get lifetime access to Citadela now

Deal Value: $499

AppSumo Price: $99 (Lifetime Access)

9. AMZ Image

AMZ Image is the fastest way to insert and make money from Amazon Images in WordPress.

No more bouncing back and forth to download and upload images for your product reviews and comparison articles – now all the product images you need are just a click and a search away. It’s really that simple.

Get lifetime access to AMZ Image for just $99

Normally, you’d have to pay $200/year for AMZ Image. But with AppSumo, you can get lifetime access to AMZ Image for just $99.

Get lifetime access to AMZ Image now

Deal Value: $600

AppSumo Price: $99 (Lifetime Access)

10. EWWW Image Optimizer

EWWW Image Optimizer improves site speed, bounce rate, SEO ranking, and user experience through site image optimization.

You can level up your site by automating image compression, adjusting CSS/JS, and utilizing speed hacks for high-quality digital images that load quickly.

Get lifetime access to EWWW Image Optimizer for just $99

Typically, EWWW IO’s Standard plan costs $15/month. But thanks to AppSumo, you can get lifetime access to the same plan from EWWW IO for just $99.

Get lifetime access to EWWW Image Optimizer now

Deal Value: $240

AppSumo Price: $99 (Lifetime Access)

11. Coming Soon & Maintenance Mode

Coming Soon & Maintenance Mode is a white-label ready WordPress plugin for creating and managing professional placeholder sites.

This plugin includes over 170 themes for your Coming Soon page. You can add or remove progress bars, subscription forms, Google Maps, and several other elements to make the page your own.

Get lifetime access to Coming Soon & Maintenance Mode for $69

Typically, lifetime access to this plugin costs $99, but with AppSumo, you can get lifetime access to Coming Soon & Maintenance Mode for just $69.

Get lifetime access to Coming Soon & Maintenance Mode now

Deal Value: $99

AppSumo Price: $69 (Lifetime Access)

12. KingSumo

KingSumo is a platform that helps you create viral giveaways so you can grow your audience and get more leads quickly and effectively.

KingSumo’s easy-to-use editor will have your first giveaway set up in no time. All you need to do is write a little bit about your giveaway and pick the number of winners you want.

Get lifetime access to KingSumo for just $49

As an entrepreneur or blogger, you know marketing and advertising can be ridiculously expensive. You need a budget for online ads. You need to hire a team for sales outreach. You need to learn a whole new marketing channel.

But with KingSumo, you can generate more leads, prospects, and customers at a fraction of the time and cost.

Get lifetime access to KingSumo now

Deal Value: $228

AppSumo Price: $49 (Lifetime Access)

13. WP Scheduled Posts

WP Scheduled Posts plugin is an editorial calendar tool that helps to streamline your content strategy and optimize productivity for your WordPress website.

With WP Scheduled Posts, you can easily manage your scheduled and draft posts right from the stunning calendar and get a full view of your content in the editorial calendar.

You can also schedule your WordPress posts in advance and manage all authors in one place.

Click here to get lifetime access to WP Scheduled Posts for just $39

AppSumo is currently offering a deal on the Developer plan of WP Scheduled Posts which typically costs $149/year. But thanks to the folks at AppSumo, you can get lifetime access to WP Scheduled Posts for just $39.

Get lifetime access to WP Scheduled Posts for $39

Deal Value: $149/year

AppSumo Price: $39 (Lifetime Access)

14. Reading Indicator

Reading Indicator is a visual indicator of how far along you are in your reading of an article. It is designed to be unobtrusive at the top or bottom of the page, while still being intuitive enough for readers to understand its meaning.

This WordPress plugin creates a progress bar on your page showing how much you’ve scrolled through the site.

Get lifetime access to Reading Indicator for just $12

Typically, you’d have to pay $22/year for Reading Indicator. But with AppSumo, you can get lifetime access to Reading Indicator for just $12.

Get lifetime access to Reading Indicator now

Deal Value: $22

AppSumo Price: $12 (Lifetime Access)

GRAB THIS DEAL

15. DarkMySite

DarkMySite is a WordPress plugin that offers a one-click dark mode option, preventing eye strain and discomfort for users who prefer a darker color scheme.

DarkMySite offers user-friendly customization options and advanced settings to fully control your dark mode experience.

Get lifetime access to DarkMySite for just $9

Typically, the Professional plan that DarkMySite is offering on AppSumo costs $41/year. But for a limited time, you can get lifetime access to the same plan for just $9.

Get lifetime access to DarkMySite now

Deal Value: $69

AppSumo Price: $9 (Lifetime Access)

GRAB THIS DEAL

Final Thoughts

So these are the top 15 WordPress deals on offer. Be sure to grab them before they are all sold out.

Don’t forget to keep this page bookmarked as we’ll update more WordPress deals you can grab in the coming weeks.

Looking for more SaaS deals? Be sure to check out these posts:

• 25 Best AppSumo Deals of the Month
• 35+ Best SaaS Deals for Entrepreneurs
• 10 Best AppSumo Courses for Entrepreneurs and Content Creators

The post 15 Best WordPress Deals for Bloggers and Entrepreneurs appeared first on 99signals.

Landing pages are essential tools for marketers to generate leads and increase email signups.

With the help of landing pages, you can promote offerings such as eBooks, whitepapers, checklists, special discounts, or simply encourage a visitor to subscribe to email updates from your site. You can also fuel your PPC strategy with an optimized landing page that captures relevant leads for your business.

For landing pages to be effective, you need a landing page builder that is easy to use and includes basic features such as predesigned templates, integration with email marketing services, A/B testing, and at the same time, be affordable for small business owners and professional bloggers.

Here’s a list of the 8 best landing page builders that can help you create professionally designed, conversion-friendly landing pages.

8 Best Landing Page Builders

1. Unbounce

Unbounce is one of the most highly-reputed landing page builders on the market. Using Unbounce’s drag and drop builder, you can build, launch, and optimize custom landing pages for any campaign.

With pricing plans starting from $80/month, it’s one of the most competitively priced landing page builders on the list. The basic plan (Launch) includes access to 75 landing page templates and consists of features such as A/B testing, WordPress & HubSpot integration, and SSL encryption.

In order to access more landing page templates and advanced features such as client sub-accounts, you’ll need to upgrade your plan to Accelerate ($200/mo) or Scale ($300/mo) plan.

Unbounce Pricing

Annual vs Monthly Billing – With monthly billing, these will be the prices for the 4 plans — $80/mo (Launch), $120/mo (Optimize), $200/mo (Accelerate), and $300/mo (Scale).

And with annual billing, this is what you’ll have to pay — $72/mo (Launch), $108/mo (Premium), $180/mo (Accelerate), and $270/mo (Scale). With annual billing, you’ll save 10% on your total billing amount.

To test out all the features, you can sign up for a 14-day free trial by clicking on the link below. And not just that, if you decide to continue your Unbounce subscription after 30 days, you’ll get 20% off your first 3 paid months with Unbounce.

Try Unbounce free for 14 days

Exclusive offer: Get 20% off your first three months (or 35% off a full year) with Unbounce. Click here to learn more.

2. Leadpages

Leadpages is a popular landing page building software that offers powerful templates and tools to optimize leads and sales for your business. You get 160+ free landing page templates that can be sorted based on conversion rates and filtered by industry (blog, eCommerce, fitness, etc).

Leadpages’ easy interface and drag-and-drop builder helps you customize your landing pages without any tech skills.

Aside from advanced features such as A/B testing and built-in payments, you also have the option to create lead capture pop-ups that can help you collect leads from anywhere on your site.

The Standard plan is priced at $25/month when paid annually. It includes key features such as the free landing page templates, unlimited pages and traffic, and a $100 Google AdWords credit. However, if you’d like to access advanced features such as A/B testing, and Leaddigits Text-to-Opt-in codes, you’ll need to upgrade to Professional ($48/mo) or Advanced plan ($199/mo).

Leadpages Pricing

Annual vs Monthly Billing – The monthly subscription price for Standard and Professional plans are $37 and $79 respectively. The advanced plan with premium features is $321/month.

You can save 39% with annual billing and the pricing changes to $25/mo (Standard), $48/mo (Professional), and $199/mo (Advanced).

Leadpages provides a 14-day free trial and you can sign up for the same by clicking on the link below.

Sign up for a 14-day free trial of Leadpages

3. Instapage

Instapage is currently one of the most popular landing page builders on the market. It consists of all the top features that a landing page builder needs to turn traffic into conversions.

The basic plan, which starts from $199/mo (paid annually), gives you access to hundreds of mobile-friendly pre-designed templates that are conversion-optimized to help you generate leads for your business.

You also get access to Instapage’s amazing image library which consists of royalty-free stock images, vectors, and videos. With Instapage’s easy-to-use drag and drop page builder, you can design stunning landing pages and publish them within minutes.

Furthermore, landing pages designed using Instapage integrate smoothly with almost all the leading email marketing service providers (ESPs), making it super easy for you to start growing your email list at a rapid pace.

Instapage Pricing

Annual vs Monthly Billing – With all the landing page builders in this list, you get to save a ton of money by opting for annual billing. Instapage follows two pricing plans — Building and Converting. While the Building plan follows a fixed pricing structure, the Converting plan can be customized for your unique needs.

If you opt for monthly billing, you’ll need to pay $299/month for the Building plan. If you opt for annual billing, you can save 33% off the monthly plan rate and pay only $199/month.

For more details on Instapage’s pricing plans, visit their pricing page.

If you’d like to try some of the features before making your purchase decision, then you can opt for the 14-day free trial by clicking on the link below.

Sign up for a 14-day free trial of Instapage

4. Swipe Pages

While it’s relatively new compared to the other landing page builders on this list, Swipe Pages is a powerful landing page building software that helps you create insanely fast, mobile-optimized AMP landing pages.

With its 70+ modern landing page templates, you can pick and choose the template that best suits your needs and customize it to your liking. In addition to direct integrations with Mailchimp, HubSpot, Zoho, and other automation tools, Swipe Pages is also integrated with popular payment platforms like PayPal and Stripe, making it an ideal landing page builder for eCommerce companies.

Swipe Pages is also one of the most affordable landing page builders on the market. Its basic plan is priced at $29/month (paid annually) and it gives you access to unlimited landing pages and conversions.

Swipe Pages Pricing

Annual vs Monthly Billing – If you opt for monthly billing, these will be the prices for the 3 plans that are available — $39/mo (Startup), $89/mo (Marketer), and $199/mo (Agency).

You can save up to 40% if you opt for annual billing. When you switch to annual billing, the pricing changes to $29/mo (Startup), $59/mo (Marketer), and $119/mo (Agency).

Swipe Pages provides a 14-day free trial. The trial will give you full access to all the top features and you don’t need to enter your credit card details. Click on the link below to sign up for the trial.

Try Swipe Pages for free

[Swipe Pages & 99signals Exclusive Offer] Use coupon code 99SIGNALS to get 20% off for the 1st year on all annual plans. If you’re opting for monthly payments, use coupon code 99SIGNALS_MONTHLY to get 20% off on all plans for the first 3 months.

Visit Swipe Pages now to apply these coupons

To learn more about Swipe Pages and its key features, check out my in-depth Swipe Pages video review and tutorial below:

5. Landingi

Landingi allows you to create and optimize your own custom landing pages without any programming skills.

Landingi offers a great selection of predesigned templates and provides you with all the tools necessary to design and customize your own landing pages, so you can convert visitors into leads.

The basic plan (Core) starts from $29/month, making it one of the most affordable landing page builders on the market.

The basic plan lets you create unlimited landing pages for unlimited visitors, providing you with 100+ high-converting templates and all the necessary email integrations. However, for advanced features such as A/B testing, webhooks, and email automation, you’ll have to upgrade to Create ($89/mo) or Automate plan ($127/mo).

Landingi Pricing

Annual vs Monthly Billing – If you’d like to pay month-on-month, these are your pricing options — $47/mo (Core), $89/mo (Create), and $127/mo (Automate).

If you choose annual billing, then you’d have to pay as follows — $29/mo (Core), $55/mo (Create), and $79/mo (Automate). By choosing annual billing, you can save 38% on the total bill amount.

You can sign up for a 14-day free trial to evaluate all the key features.

Register for a 14-day free trial of Landingi

6. HubSpot Landing Pages

Although it’s slightly on the expensive side, HubSpot’s landing page builder is packed with features that let you design the most stunning landing pages to convert your visitors into leads.

It’s intuitive, incredibly easy to use, and is suitable for entrepreneurs and business owners from different industries. When you combine it with HubSpot’s free CRM, it becomes even more useful.

With HubSpot Landing Pages, you can personalize your landing page content for individual visitors. You can dynamically show different content based on a visitor’s location, source, device, buying stage, etc.

Furthermore, the landing page builder also features HubSpot’s advanced analytics tools and testing software so you can optimize your page to capture as many leads as possible.

HubSpot Pricing

HubSpot’s landing page builder is a part of HubSpot Marketing Hub (Professional Plan) which includes access to HubSpot’s marketing automation tools, blog & content creation tools, among many others.

As such, you’ll need to invest $800/month in order to access HubSpot Landing Pages, but unlike other tools in this list, you’ll get access to a full suite of marketing tools to optimize your website and grow your business.

Click here to learn more about HubSpot Marketing Hub

7. Lander

Lander is yet another landing page builder that helps you design high-converting landing pages in minutes. Trusted by over 1.5 million customers and 3000 brands, Lander is one of the most affordable landing page builders.

The basic plan, which starts from $16/mo for 5000 visitors, has all the features necessary to create beautiful landing pages, including an easy-to-use editor, A/B testing tool, and autofill forms. You also get access to hundreds of ready-made landing page templates.

Lander Pricing

Annual vs Monthly Billing – Like all the other tools above, you get to save a few bucks by opting for annual billing.

For monthly payments, the pricing for each of the plans is as follows — Basic ($49/mo) and Professional ($99/mo). And for annual billing, the pricing plans are — Basic ($16/mo) and Professional ($83/mo).

Sign up for a 14-day free trial of Lander

8. TARS

TARS is one of the leading chatbot platform tools on the market.

Now you may be thinking: Why does a chatbot builder feature in this list?

It’s because TARS has been gaining popularity with its fresh approach to landing pages – using chatbots instead of forms aka Conversational Landing Pages.

Instead of static pages and forms, TARS lets you engage your visitors in personalized conversations and collect 2x as many leads.

With access to over 450 free lead generation and qualification templates for any business, including healthcare, legal, real estate, insurance, and travel, you can make the chatbot landing pages live in minutes.

The TARS chatbot builder offers an easy to use drag and drop feature where you can customize the templates or build a new one ground up without any need for coding. Just ask the visitors relevant questions in a personalized, easy and engaging manner and start collecting more leads.

You can get a chatbot landing page for $99 a month with the Professional plan which gives you access to five chatbots or upgrade to the Business plan for $499 for more features and usage. In both plans, TARS also offers to build custom chatbots for you with their experts.

TARS Pricing

Annual vs Monthly Billing

If you opt for annual billing, you get two months free. You’ll need to pay $4,999/year for the Business plan and $8,999 for the Premium plan.

The Business plan – $499 per month, gives the users five chatbots, access to the templates, and currently comes bundled with 2 chatbots designed by TARS Experts worth $400 for free.

The Business plan – $899 per month. If you need more chatbot landing pages or premium features like a custom design, CRM integration, and having the chatbot on your own domain, you can opt for the Business plan for $499 per month. The business plan users also get 5 chatbots designed by TARS experts worth $597 for free.

For power users who need 20+ chatbots, TARS also offers custom plans that include a dedicated Success Manager and Chatbot Experts.

Start building a conversational landing page with a 14-day free trial

[Exclusive Discount Code] Use code 99SIGNALS_TARS to get 20% discount on all monthly subscriptions and 30% off on the annual subscription.

So these are the 8 landing page builders I’d recommend. In addition to these landing page builders, you can also opt for an integrated platform like Hyax, which has its own landing page builder. Hyax is especially useful if you want to promote courses, membership sites, and other digital products.

Final Thoughts on Landing Page Builders

Creating high-converting landing pages is extremely important for lead generation and higher conversions. According to HubSpot, businesses with over 40 landing pages generated a staggering 12 times more leads than those with just 1 to 5 landing pages.

If you want your online endeavor to succeed, you need a reliable landing page builder by your side.

The landing page creators listed above will provide you with all the necessary features and tools to create and customize landing pages that convert.

If you liked this article, please share it on Twitter using the link below:

Editor’s Note: This article was first published on 17 November 2017 and has been updated regularly since then for relevance and comprehensiveness.

Related Articles

• 25+ Places You Should Be Sharing Your Content
• 5 Best Blogger Outreach Tools to Connect with Top Influencers
• Mailchimp Alternatives: 8 Best Mailchimp Alternatives in 2023
• 15 Best Marketing YouTube Channels (That Are Worth Subscribing To)
• 38 Best Marketing Podcasts You Should Listen To

The post 8 Best Landing Page Builders to Increase Conversions (2024) appeared first on 99signals.

WordPress is the world’s most popular content management system (CMS). It powers over 42% of all sites on the internet, eclipsing all other players in the CMS market. To put this in perspective, WordPress’ closest competitor has a minuscule market share of 2.6%.

That said, this popularity has a flip side as well.

The WordPress plugin directory is similar to the Apple’s App Store. Like the iPhone users are spoilt for choice when it comes to apps, WordPress users have a plethora of plugins to choose from.

The directory currently has over 58,000 different plugins to choose from and it’s easy to get overwhelmed, and even frustrated, if you’ve just installed WordPress on your site.

When it comes to choosing the right WordPress SEO plugins, it’s important to separate the wheat from the chaff.

For that reason, I’ve compiled a list of top-notch WordPress SEO plugins that you can install on your site to improve your search rankings.

Without further ado, here are the 19 best SEO plugins for WordPress.

19 Best WordPress SEO Plugins

1. Yoast SEO

Let’s start with the most well-known, and quite arguably, the best WordPress SEO plugin — Yoast SEO.

With over 13 million active installations to date, Yoast SEO is the de facto SEO plugin for a majority of WordPress sites. It’s the plugin I’ve been using at 99signals ever since the inception of this blog.

Here’s a list of things you can do with Yoast SEO:

• Optimize meta tags like SEO titles and meta descriptions of all pages and posts on your site
• Set custom open graph tags
• Apply advanced meta robots settings, canonical URL, and breadcrumbs
• Create and submit an XML sitemap
• Verify your site in Webmaster Tools (Google, Bing, Baidu, Yandex)
• Enable breadcrumbs

In addition to all of the above, you can also optimize the pages/posts on your site for your target keywords.

Furthermore, readability analysis in Yoast SEO features several checks, including Flesch reading ease score, to help you create content that truly resonates with your audience.

Is Yoast SEO free?

The free version of Yoast SEO offers all the features explained above. The premium version, which is $99/mo/website, includes advanced features such as redirect manager, advanced context detection, and stale cornerstone content filter. If you’re planning to upgrade to Yoast SEO Premium, check out this post to learn more about its unique functionalities.

Sign up for Yoast SEO

2. Broken Link Checker

Broken links can quickly derail the rankings of your website. As such, it’s important to identify and fix broken links on your site as and when they appear.

So what’s the best practice to fix your broken links if you’re a WordPress user? It’s simple — install Broken Link Checker.

Broken Link Checker is a free WordPress SEO plugin that constantly monitors the pages, posts, and comments on your website for broken links. If it finds a broken link on your site, it alerts you via email.

Best of all, the plugin helps you fix all the broken links on your site in a matter of seconds.

Here’s an example of a broken link that the plugin found on my website:

If I click “unlink,” the broken link is automatically removed from my post. I don’t need to visit the post to manually remove the link.

It even suggests replacement links for your broken links.

Pro Tip: Once you’ve fixed all the broken links using Broken Link Checker, deactivate the plugin to prevent any potential negative impact on your page speed.

Since site speed significantly influences search rankings, it’s crucial to avoid potential traffic loss due to the plugin. As a result, I’d advise you to activate this plugin once a month, fix all the broken links, and then deactivate the plugin once you’re done.

Is Broken Link Checker free?

Yes, it’s 100% free.

Try Broken Link Checker for free

Side note: Check out our short tutorial video on how to use Broken Link Checker to find and fix broken links on your site or read the accompanying article here.

3. WP Rocket

Caching your webpages can result in super fast load time and in turn improve your SEO and conversions.

WordPress has a lot of caching plugins — a few of them are free while the others are paid.

I experimented with nearly all the free caching plugins available in the WordPress plugin directory, but none proved as effective in optimizing my site’s performance as WP Rocket did.

Functionality-wise, WPRocket is by far the best caching plugin for WordPress on the market. It helps you dramatically improve the performance of your site and increase site speed.

Here’s a list of things you can do with WP Rocket to optimize your site performance:

• Minify HTML and CSS files
• Minify Javascript files
• Enable lazy loading for images
• Enable caching for mobile devices
• Optimize CSS delivery
• Enable preloading

In addition to these, you can integrate your CDN with WP Rocket to further improve your site speed and performance.

Is WP Rocket free?

No, WP Rocket offers no free version or a free trial for that matter. A single license of WP Rocket costs $59/year. The best free alternative to WP Rocket is WP Super Cache.

Sign up for WP Rocket

4. SEO Writing Assistant by Semrush

SEO Writing Assistant is a free WordPress SEO plugin by Semrush that lets you check the SEO potential or originality of a piece of content in real-time.

In addition, you can use SEO Writing Assistant to enhance your content’s readability, leverage semantic keywords, satisfy search intent, and optimize your existing content with the power of AI technology.

Is SEO Writing Assistant free?

You don’t need a premium Semrush subscription to use SEO Writing Assistant. That said, if you’re serious about optimizing your keywords and outranking competitors in SERPs, then you’ll need to use an all-purpose SEO tool like Semrush.

Try SEO Writing Assistant for free

EXCLUSIVE OFFER

Semrush

Experience the full power of Semrush Pro with a 14-day free trial.

Sign Up for Semrush

Recommended reading: How to Improve Your Content Using AI with SEO Writing Assistant

5. Rank Math

If you’re seeking a strong alternative to Yoast SEO, Rank Math is your best bet. You can even import your existing settings from Yoast to Rank Math.

The team behind RankMath also developed MyThemeShop, a premium WordPress theme directory. As such, the plugin has been tested and perfected by a team with a deep knowledge of WordPress.

Rank Math is also one of the most user-friendly WordPress SEO plugins on the market.

As soon as you install and activate Rank Math on your website, there’s a setup wizard that guides you through the configuration process and recommends the ideal settings for best site performance.

Some of the key features of Rank Math include:

• 404 error monitor
• Automated image SEO
• Rich snippet support
• SEO analysis tool based on 40 factors

Check out the complete list of RankMath features here.

Is Rank Math free?

Yes, it’s completely free.

Sign up for Rank Math

6. Google XML Sitemaps

Having an XML sitemap is crucial in helping search engines better index all the pages on your website.

Google XML Sitemaps is a free SEO plugin for WordPress that generates a complete XML sitemap for your site which you can then submit to Google and other search engines.

As soon as you activate this plugin, it automatically generates a sitemap for you.

You can also tweak the plugin settings to prioritize certain pages over others and exclude pages from the sitemap.

For example, you can exclude archives and tag pages from the sitemap by unchecking the boxes as shown below:

Is Google XML Sitemaps free?

Yes, it’s absolutely free.

Try Google XML Sitemaps for free

Recommended reading: How to Create an XML Sitemap for Your Website (and Submit it to Google)

7. All in One SEO (AIOSEO)

All in One SEO (AIOSEO) is perhaps the most popular alternative to Yoast SEO.

Much like Yoast, this plugin allows you to improve the SEO of your WordPress site, helping you rank higher in search engine results pages (SERPs).

AIOSEO is also the only free WordPress plugin to provide SEO for eCommerce sites, including WooCommerce.

With over 3 million active installations, it’s the second most popular WordPress SEO plugin in the WordPress plugin directory.

Some of its main functionalities include:

• Smart XML Sitemaps
• Rich Snippets Schema
• SEO Audit Checklist
• Robots.txt Editor
• Google News Sitemaps
• Redirection Manager
• WooCommerce SEO

Is All in One SEO Pack free?

All the basic features discussed above are free, but to access advanced features such as video SEO module, Google Tag Manager support, and more, you’ll need a Pro subscription. The packages start from $49.60/year.

Sign up for AIOSEO

8. Really Simple SSL

Installing an SSL certificate is not just useful for your site’s security, but it’s also beneficial from an SEO point of view. If you’d like your migration from HTTP to HTTPS be as smooth as possible, you’ll need a plugin like Really Simple SSL.

Really Simple SSL automatically detects your settings and configures your website to run over HTTPS.

Is Really Simple SSL free?

The free version of Really Simple SSL handles most issues WordPress has with SSL certificates. But you’ll need a Pro subscription to perform advanced SSL scans such as mixed content scan, certificate expiration check, and more.

Single license of Really Simple SSL Pro costs $49 and you’ll receive support and updates for a year.

If you’d like to completely SSL-proof your site, I’d recommend you upgrade to Really Simple SSL Pro.

Sign up for Really Simple SSL Pro

9. ShortPixel

Image optimization plays a vital role in speeding up your website. As a result, it’s important that you compress and optimize the images on your site to improve your page speed and increase the organic traffic.

ShortPixel is an easy-to-use WordPress SEO plugin that compresses and optimizes the images on your site. Once it’s installed on your site, the plugin automatically compresses the existing images as well as any images you upload in the future.

You’ll need to choose from 3 compression types — Lossy, Glossy, and Lossless. Select an option based on your current needs and you’re all set.

Is Short Pixel free?

ShortPixel offers a free plan wherein you can compress up to 100 images a month. If you’d like to compress more images, then you’d have to sign up to one of their paid plans which start from $3.99 per month (7,000 images/mo).

Sign up for Short Pixel

If you’re seeking a Short Pixel alternative, try EWWW Image Optimizer.

Related: 7 Actionable Image SEO Tips to Supercharge Your Organic Traffic

10. Redirection

Redirects play an important role in maintaining link equity and SEO value of changed URLs. That said, a bad implementation of 301 redirects can negatively impact SEO.

As a result, you need a dependable WordPress SEO plugin that can help you perform these tasks without worrying too much about the SEO implications.

Redirection is the most popular redirect manager for WordPress. With this plugin, you can implement 301 redirects and keep track of 404 errors on your site.

To set up redirects, you simply need to enter the source URL and target URL as shown below:

Is Redirection free?

Yes, it’s 100% free.

Try Redirection for free

11. SEOPress

SEOPress is yet another competitor to Yoast SEO. It’s relatively new and slightly less popular than other Yoast alternatives such as AIOSEO and Rank Math.

It’s easily one of the most user-friendly plugins on the market. You even get an installation wizard to quickly have SEOPress up and running on your site in no time.

Is SEOPress free?

The free version of SEOPress allows you to do all the basic optimizations to your blog posts.

The Pro version, which costs $49/year, is meant for advanced users and includes premium features such as video XML sitemap, automatic schemas, Google Analytics stats in dashboard, and much more.

Unless you have a massive reservoir of content on your WordPress site, I’d suggest you stick with the free version of SEOPress.

Sign up for SEOPress

12. All In One Schema Rich Snippets

Rich snippets are snippets that contain detailed information that helps users make the right click decisions.

Rich snippets can dramatically increase your click-through rate (CTR) and help you rank higher in search results.

But more importantly, the interactive nature of rich snippets (photos, ratings, price, author, etc.) help you stand out from competition in SERPs.

For that reason, it’s worth creating rich snippets for your posts.

With over 100,000 active installations, All in One Schema Rich Snippets is the most popular schema markup plugin in the WordPress plugin directory. It supports the following types of schemas:

• Review
• Event
• People
• Product
• Recipe
• Software Application
• Video
• Articles

Once the plugin is installed and activated on your site, go to the specific post for which you’d like to create a schema, scroll all the way down till you find “Configure Rich Snippet,” select the appropriate schema type, and enter all the details.

Is All in One Schema Rich Snippets free?

Yes, it’s completely free. There’s no premium version.

Try All in One Schema Rich Snippets for free

13. a3 Lazy Load

Lazy loading is a technique that loads images and videos on a page only when the visitors need them. It can improve your page speed which is a critical ranking factor.

If you’re using WP Rocket (see #3), you can enable lazy loading in the plugin settings and defer the loading of images and videos on your site.

But if you’re not a WP Rocket user, you can use the free a3 Lazy Load plugin to enable lazy loading on your site.

By default, the plugin activates lazy loading on all images and videos on your site upon installation. But if you’d like to exclude certain images from lazy loading, you can do that in the plugin settings.

Is a3 Lazy Load free?

Yes, it’s completely free.

Try a3 Lazy Load for free

14. Table of Contents Plus

If you publish long-form content on a consistent basis, it makes sense to break each of your long-form posts down into small sections with on-page anchors.

In fact, this is what Google recommends.

According to Google:

There are a few things you can do to increase the chances that they might appear on your pages. First, ensure that long, multi-topic pages on your site are well-structured and broken into distinct logical sections. Second, ensure that each section has an associated anchor with a descriptive name and that your page includes a “table of contents” which links to the individual anchors.

To insert a table of contents to your posts, you can use a free plugin like Table of Contents Plus (TOC+) which automatically creates a context specific index or table of contents for long pages.

By adding a table of contents to your posts, you’ll make it easier for visitors to navigate to specific sections within the posts and improve essential SEO metrics such as time on site and dwell time.

Furthermore, the plugin will also help you automatically grab jump links in the SERP, which can further increase your CTR.

Is Table of Contents Plus free?

Yes, it’s a free WordPress plugin.

Try TOC+ for free

15. Autoptimize

As the name suggests, Autoptimize is a WordPress SEO plugin that optimizes your site by compressing, minifying, and caching scripts and styles (Javascript, CSS, HTML, etc.), thereby improving page speed.

You can also use this plugin to optimize Google fonts and enable lazy-loading on your images and videos.

Is Autoptimize free?

For a majority of WordPress sites, the free version of Autoptimize should suffice. If you have a large site, then you can check out Autoptimize Pro to ensure a hassle-free configuration of Autoptimize on your site.

Try Autoptimize for free

16. Smush

If your website is heavy on visual content, then you need to optimize your images in order to provide a seamless experience to your visitors. Smush is a plugin which can help you compress, resize, and lazy load the images on your site to help them load faster.

It’s also one of the most popular WordPress plugins in the directory with over 1 million active installations.

Is Smush free?

The free version of Smush has all the necessary features and limits to help you enjoy the benefits of image compression and optimization. If you have a large website, however, you can try Smush Pro. Pricing starts from $7.50/mo.

Try Smush for free

17. Rel NoFollow

Nofollow links may not carry any link juice, but the general consensus among SEOs is that they are nevertheless important.

By default, all links on WordPress are “dofollow” links unless specified.

If you’re familiar with HTML, you can add “nofollow” links in WordPress using the text editor.

But if you’d like to save yourself the hassle and have the option to add “nofollow” links to your posts from the visual editor itself, you can do so by using Rel Nofollow. This plugin adds a “nofollow” checkbox to the WordPress UI.

Is Rel Nofollow free?

Yes, it’s free.

Try Rel Nofollow for free

18. Squirrly SEO

Squirrly SEO is a great alternative to Yoast and AISEO, as well as for lesser-known WordPress SEO plugins like Rank Math and SEOPress that we’ve previously discussed.

Even with just 100,000 active installations on WordPress, Squirrly SEO has earned praise from influential figures in the industry such as Brian Dean and Neil Patel. So they must be doing something right.

Is Squirrly SEO free?

The free version includes basic optimization features, but to unlock advanced features, you’ll need to upgrade to Squirrly Pro.

Try Squirrly SEO for free

19. BunnyCDN

Activating a content delivery network (CDN) service for your site can further improve your search rankings because CDNs can dramatically bolster your site speed and performance.

Not just that, but CDNs also add an extra layer of security to your site.

There are several CDN providers out there, but a popular choice among WordPress users is BunnyCDN.

It’s also quite affordable as they follow a “pay-as-you-go” pricing model and your monthly bill may be as low as $1 depending on your website’s traffic and content delivery needs.

BunnyCDN’s WordPress plugin allows you to easily configure BunnyCDN on your site. Once you’ve activated this plugin, all you need to do is enter the name of your Pull Zone and you’re all set.

Is BunnyCDN free?

It’s not free, but it’s easily one of the most affordable CDN providers on the market. As mentioned earlier, you can expect your monthly bills with BunnyCDN to start as low as $1.

Click here to try BunnyCDN

Summary

WordPress is undoubtedly one of the best content management systems for SEO. The list of plugins outlined above will definitely help you in your quest for higher rankings on Google. 

Having said that, ranking high on Google (or Bing) involves more than just installing a few WordPress SEO plugins. You also need to focus on other important aspects of SEO such as keyword research, link building, and technical SEO.

If you’re new to SEO, here are some articles from our blog to help you get up to speed:

• Link Building Strategies: 25 Proven Techniques to Get High Quality Backlinks
• Technical SEO Checklist: 10 Technical SEO Tips to Instantly Boost Your Traffic
• 20 On-Page SEO Techniques to Increase Organic Traffic
• 26 Best Google Chrome Extensions for SEO
• 11 Best SEO Podcasts to Master the Art of SEO

If you found this article useful, please share it on Twitter using the link below:

Editor’s Note: This article was first published on 14 February 2020 and has been updated regularly since then for relevance, freshness, and comprehensiveness. 

The post 19 Best WordPress SEO Plugins for Boosting Website Traffic appeared first on 99signals.

It determines your ability to provide a great shopping experience. Plus, your ability to expand to international markets and reach your business goals depends on the features and functionalities that your chosen platform offers.

Two of the most recommended options are Shopify and WordPress. Both platforms offer a variety of features and tools to help you build and manage your online store.

But how do you choose which one is better for your business? That depends on your business needs, level of expertise, and budget.

A few factors to consider are:

• Does this ecommerce website builder have the catalogue and inventory management features you need?
• Can it be customized to your preferences?
• How flexible and scalable is it?
• Is it secure?
• Do you have the technical knowledge to set it up yourself or will you hire someone to build it for you?
• Can you afford the cost of design, development and maintenance?
• Does it have suitable payment integration options?
• Does it provide strong ecommerce marketing capabilities?

To help you decide which ecommerce website builder is the best fit, let’s take a look at the uniqueness and key features of both Shopify and WordPress.

What is Unique About Shopify?

Shopify is a comprehensive ecommerce platform that provides a complete solution for selling online.

A vast array of features set Shopify apart from other ecommerce platforms. Whether you’re looking for basic features like inventory management and payment processing or more advanced features like abandoned cart recovery and customer segmentation, Shopify has you covered.

Here are some of the most unique Shopify features:

• Shopify is one of the only ecommerce platforms that offers a fully customizable checkout experience. This means that you can create a unique checkout experience that is tailored to your brand and your customers.
• Shopify offers a standalone “Buy Button” that can be used to list your inventory on any online platform.
• Shopify also allows businesses to sell directly on social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram. This is a great way to reach out to new customers and make the selling process more convenient for existing customers.
• With payments, Shopify provides its gateway (Shopify Payments) and also supports up to 100 other payment options.

What is Unique About WordPress?

WordPress stands out for its flexibility and scalability. It runs an open-source platform (WordPress.org) which means you can modify all aspects of your code and have total control over your ecommerce environment. However, the alternative, WordPress.com provides plans specifically for ecommerce businesses and is fully hosted.

It also offers a content management system (CMS) with a host of excellent ecommerce plugins like WooCommerce or BigCommerce. These make it easy to add ecommerce functionality to your website.

A few unique features of WordPress ecommerce plugins are:

• The ability to display 3D Views of products
• Selling intangible products such as trials, downloads or subscriptions
• Partner management, contract pricing and product entitlement for B2B transactions
• Enable the same user experience in all browsers or browser versions.
• Allow developers to customize the platform using multiple programming languages

The Key Difference Between Shopify and WordPress

The key difference between WordPress vs. Shopify is that Shopify is a specialized ecommerce platform made for business owners. This means it has ecommerce features built-in.

On the other hand, WordPress is a content management system that can be transformed into an ecommerce site using a supported plugin like WooCommerce or Wix.

So, which platform is right for you? Let’s run a side-by-side comparison.

Shopify vs WordPress: Pricing and Fees

When it comes to pricing for ecommerce platforms, there’s more to it than monthly or yearly subscriptions. You must also consider extra costs like transaction fees or payment for added features, templates, and plugins.

The main pricing difference between Shopify vs. WordPress is that Shopify offers multiple plans for businesses at different stages of growth. Meanwhile, WordPress’ ecommerce-specific plans are limited to just two.

Also, Shopify might look more expensive upfront, but that’s because each Shopify plan includes a wide range of features such as an SSL certificate and marketing automation at no extra cost. WordPress, on the other hand, gets up to $69.78/year for an SSL certificate.

Shopify Pricing and Fees

Shopify offers three main pricing plans so you can find one that meets your business needs and fits your budget. There are also two alternative plans to accommodate smaller-scale businesses and much larger enterprises.

Each plan attracts a credit card fee which allows you to accept major credit cards as well as transaction fees for payments processed through third-party payment providers such as PayPal or Stripe.

Pricing Plans

The Basic Shopify, Shopify, and Advanced Shopify plans range between $29/mo and $299/mo with a 50% discount for yearly plans or a 25% discount for up to three-year plans.

The $5/mo Shopify Starter plan provides you with a Buy Button that lets you embed unlimited products on an existing website, social media, messaging apps, and other sales channels like Amazon or Etsy. This is great for businesses that want to add ecommerce functionality to an already existing site.

The $2000/mo Shopify Plus plan, on the other hand, is used by 7-figure brands such as Heinz and Allbirds that require localized shopping experiences, AR product pages, and process automation.

Credit Card Rates and Transaction Fees

For the three main pricing plans, the additional fees for online transactions are:

• Basic Shopify: 2.9% + 30¢
• Shopify: 2.6% + 30¢
• Advanced Shopfiy: 2.4% + 30¢

Within Shopify Plus, you’ll only be charged 0.15% per transaction. Transaction fees are waived for businesses using Shopify Payments.

WordPress Pricing and Fees

To set up a hosted online store with WordPress.com, there are two pricing plans you can choose from.

The business plan costs $25/mo and includes custom plugins to enable you to add ecommerce functionalities to your business website. The ecommerce plan costs $45/mo and offers an all-in-one online store experience with premium integrations.

Alternatively, if you want to start with a simple store and accept payments via PayPal, you can explore WordPress.org self-hosted option with a hosting provider. This allows you to access a free shopping cart plugin, install an ecommerce enabled theme and activate online payments.

The only initial cost for this option will be the price of web hosting and domain name. When you’re ready for a more advanced store, you can upgrade to a managed hosting service, but it could cost you a huge sum.

Verdict

Shopify is far more transparent with pricing than WordPress, so you’ll be less likely to run into unexpected costs down the line when you need more plugins and customizations.

With Shopify, store owners can save costs by paying annually and using Shopify payments to process transactions. You also have the option of a free trial, so you can go for a test drive before you fully commit.

Shopify vs WordPress: Features and Ease of Use

Some of the top must-have features of an ecommerce platform are:

• Inventory management
• A shopping cart
• Multiple payment gateways
• Sales channels
• Shipping integrations
• SEO tools to drive organic search traffic
• Currency conversion
• Security
• Revenue reporting

Without access to these, you’ll likely struggle to scale and satisfy customers.

The main difference between Shopify vs. WordPress when considering features is that Shopify offers the above listed features across all its pricing plans Instead, your WordPress website features depend heavily on your selected ecommerce plugin.

This means that if you choose to use WordPress, you’ll also have to evaluate multiple ecommerce plugins to determine which one provides all the essential features you need to run your online business.

Shopify Features and Ease of Use

Shopify features are extensive and include customer segmentation, fraud analysis, seamless POS app, international market management, and custom automations. You also have access to an app marketplace where you can find solutions to upgrade your store’s functionality.

If you’re looking for a highly intuitive user-friendly platform to launch your online store, Shopify is the top choice. You can build your site in record time with ease using drag-and-drop elements directly from your dashboard.

A Shopify store is both simple and powerful with versatile customizations for beginners, growing small businesses and enterprises.

Online store features

• Add unlimited products to your store (both physical and digital)
• Add staff to manage products and orders
• Sell your products on social media and online marketplaces like Amazon or Etsy
• Track inventory and fulfill orders from multiple locations
• Run your ecommerce store from the Shopify mobile app
• Automatically send abandoned cart emails
• Offer gift cards and discount codes to customers
• Set local payment methods

Data-focused features

• Track important sales metrics with in-depth revenue reports
• Create customer segments and groups
• Build automations to engage customers at different buying stages

Business support features

• Discounted shipping rates (up to 77%) from the likes of DHL and UPS
• Automate manual tasks with a built-in automation platform
• Access language translation for customers in different markets

WordPress Features and Ease of Use

As mentioned earlier, the ecommerce features you get with a WordPress site heavily depend on the plugin you use to access ecommerce functionalities.

The WooCommerce plugin is the top ecommerce solution for many people who use WordPress hosting. It is open-source and fully customizable down to the code. It also offers similar capabilities to Shopify, like automated emails for abandoned carts, analytics tools for tracking profits, and coupon creation to entice customers.

Regarding ease of use, WordPress can prove to be a steeper learning curve that often requires basic coding knowledge at least.

Online store features

• Sell physical products, consultations or member-only digital products
• Offer single-item, bundles or subscription-based purchase options
• Add photos, videos and 3D views to your product catalog
• Set up promotions and time-based discounts
• Enable product reviews
• Access 140 payment gateways
• Localized tax calculations
• Expand store functionality with extensions from WooCommerce Marketplace

Data-focused features

• Robust SEO plugins such as Yoast

Business support features

• Enterprise solutions for when your business scales

Verdict

While Shopify is an easy-to-use all-in-one platform with impressive features, WordPress offers a collection of plugins that broaden the range of what you can access for your ecommerce business. However, this means that you’ll have to update and manage multiple plugins, which can quickly become a tiring chore and come at an extra cost.

Shopify, in comparison, delivers built-in essential solutions you need to grow and scale as an ecommerce business. It doesn’t require you to pay extra.

Shopify vs WordPress: Themes and Templates

Both Shopify and WordPress offer a wide range of themes and templates to upgrade the visual appearance and functionality of your store if you don’t want to build from scratch.

Shopify Themes

Shopify offers over 100 customizable themes that allow you to modify color schemes, widgets and other settings. All themes are packed with features such as language translations and stock counters to help you optimize all your online sales efforts and stand out from the crowd.

The theme library includes free and premium themes grouped into categories such as electronics, food and drink, or clothing so you can choose one that is specific to your business. Each theme offers additional features and an unlimited free trial until you’re ready to publish.

Currently, there are nine free themes and ninety-three paid themes on Shopify. The paid themes cost between $200 and $350.

WordPress Themes

One great thing about WordPress is that you can never run out of themes to choose from. There are multiple marketplaces selling themes for WordPress as well as countless articles featuring lists of best WordPress themes.

The only drawback is that it can be challenging to find the right theme when you have thousands of options. Regardless, you can always search for ecommerce-specific themes based on your type of business or industry.

Most WordPress ecommerce themes are mobile-friendly, and include commerce plugins and customer account management features. You’ll also get access to the theme documentation and support from the theme developer. WordPress themes are also generally more affordable than Shopify themes as you can find options for as low as $19 and up to $79, which is still significantly less than Shopify’s $200 price tag.

Verdict

When compared to Shopify, WordPress has a gigantic collection of themes both on its dedicated themes page and from an array of third-party platforms and independent designers. There are also countless unique design options to choose from. Shopify theme options, while not as robust, are adequate for brands that want to set up quickly, have a substantial budget and need a smaller selection of modern themes.

Shopify vs WordPress: Apps and Plugins

Besides the built-in features that come with Shopify and WordPress, some apps and plugins provide extra services you need for the success of your ecommerce website.

Shopify Apps and Plugins

Shopify offers over 1200 apps and plugins that integrate seamlessly, are mobile-friendly and easy to use. In Shopify’s app store, you’ll find apps like Klaviyo for email marketing, PageFly for building landing pages and Judge.me for product reviews. All these apps are free to use and have up to 11,000 5-star reviews.

WordPress Apps and Plugins

With over 60,000 WordPress plugins for SEO, conversion rate optimization and cart recovery, you have more than enough options to upgrade your site. These essential plugins come highly recommended by experts. Although they may not be free compared to Shopify options, they still are top-rated and provide key components for data-driven growth.

Verdict

Both Shopify and WordPress have outstanding app and plugin selections. So, at the end of the day, it will come down to choosing where you can find the best option for your needs and goals. Either way, both platforms offer options that will help you achieve success.

Shopify vs WordPress: Security and Support

Security in ecommerce means that your website is not exposed to potential hackers, your payment channels are protected against fraud and you have a backup of your customer’s data.

Between Shopify vs WordPress, you’ll find that level of security on both platforms.

Shopify Security and Support

Shopify provides a certified level 1 Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) so customers can enjoy a secure shopping experience. It also provides infrastructural security for databases, servers and recovery backups. In addition, it offers a free SSL certificate and fraud analysis for online transactions.

Regarding Shopify support, you can get 24/7 customer support or research solutions at Shopify’s help centre.

WordPress Security and Support

With WordPress, you can install a security plugin, backup solution and application firewall. Unfortunately, even with the plethora of security plugins, WordPress is still a primary target for cybercriminals, so you have to engage in a lot of DIY security tasks.

WordPress Support is extensive considering its forums where faqs are answered and get helpful replies from the community as well as its live chat support.

Verdict

WordPress is known for being prone to vulnerabilities. This is because you typically set up a lot of the security options manually, from password protection to scanning for malware.

Also, due to the variety of independent plugins you might install, you’ll likely need to contact the support themes of each one. With Shopify, you get more comprehensive support on all issues you might have while using the platform.

Shopify vs WordPress: The Better Choice for Ecommerce

Shopify is all-encompassing when you need store management, shopping carts, payment integrations, revenue reporting and marketing automations in a single package. It is the most legitimate contender when it comes to ecommerce.

WordPress performs best when building a content-focused ecommerce website because it works excellently as a CMS and blogging platform with superb search engine optimization functionality.

If you want to go with WordPress, you also need to allocate a sizeable budget to hire a professional developer with expert coding knowledge to get the best result.

Shopify, on the other hand, is a relatively low-cost option that you can set up beautifully on your own or with a small team.

In the end, you decide.

Related Articles 

• Semrush vs Moz: Which is the Best SEO Tool?
• 47 Best Content Marketing Tools to Level Up Your Content Game
• SEO Tools Showdown: Semrush vs Ahrefs vs Moz vs SpyFu

The post Shopify vs WordPress: Which One is Better for Ecommerce? appeared first on 99signals.

And from my first-hand experience, I can assure you — the most important decision you’ll have to make before you even think of your very first published piece is about the web hosting that will power up your blog.

So before you worry about the competition, content quality, ideation, outreach, and many more things to work on, you have to pick the most reliable and intuitive web hosting service. And this is where it gets challenging.

Knowing this and having a lot of incoming requests from my readers, I’ve decided to share my tested and proven top web hosting plans that should meet your entire blogging needs.

Now without any further ado, let’s uncover the most blogging-fit web hosting service providers. I’ll be listing them in the order of personal preference, but do make sure to read all the way through the end.

Top 10 Web Hosting Plans for Bloggers

Before I get into a more detailed review of each web hosting platform, I’ll share an easy-to-use table where you can see all the most important features of each provider.

This ‘in a nutshell’ view should help you cross-reference each web hosting service and decide on the most suitable solution for your particular needs.

[table id=33 /]

1. DreamHost: Review & Assessment

With 42% of all blogs being run on WordPress, chances are yours is as well. So you might want to consider a service that earned WordPress’ vote of confidence.

DreamHost is a WordPress-recommended web hosting service that’s been one of the longest-running hosting providers on the web.

DreamHost can be defined in three words: Fast. Reliable. Affordable. Essentially, it checks all the marks when it comes to defining the top web hosting services.

DreamHost: Performance and Uptime

DreamHost’s uptime is at 100% (they do compensate if you face an unlikely downtime) and it delivers a higher than average load time, making it one of the most reliable web hosting service providers out there.

The platform also comes with a free WordPress plugin that can boost your site’s load time, so its average speed time can always be enhanced whenever you feel like your user experience starts lagging behind.

DreamHost: Top Features

The most important thing is that DreamHost is very easy to set up. It’s designed to offer some of the most intuitive user experiences among other web hosting service providers so you won’t have to waste time and resources setting up your blog.

Moreover, you can customize the control panel the way you like — a feature often missing within most web hosting providers.

Here are some of the top DreamHost features you’ll surely benefit from:

Large storage and unlimited bandwidth

When just starting out, you might not want to think about storage and traffic.

But if and when your blog starts growing, you will find these features to be as important as speed and uptime. DreamHost is very generous with both, giving its users 50 GB storage and unlimited bandwidth — so you won’t have to spend extra cash adding up bandwidth to your expanding blog.

Money-back guarantee

DreamHost is pretty generous allowing you to ask for a return 97-day into web hosting usage. This shows confidence and a proven service quality check.

Pricing transparency

What I personally love the most about DreamHost is that it’s very honest in its pricing policy. While many other web hosting providers overload users with a plethora of plans and hidden costs (think of bandwidth limits, storage limits, etc.), DreamHost never charges for any extras.

Once you hit your basic plan’s limit, you can move on to a higher-priced package that comes with pretty much everything unlimited.

Top perks

Even the most basic DreamHost plan comes with a lot of goodness added up on top of the basic features. Just for $2.59/mo, you will have access to a WP website builder, free domain, free SSL certificate, and free automated WordPress migrations.

DreamHost: Customer Support

Considering its very intuitive and easy-to-use interface and pricing structure, you should not encounter any issues during the setup and usage. 

But in case you do, DreamHost offers fast response time with a live chat feature available during business hours, and an option to send them an email that gets addressed within 24 hours. You can even leave a request to call you back in case you’re more of a phone person.

Top the tech support with a discussion forum and a very extensive knowledge base, you won’t have to wait for more than a day to get an answer to even the most challenging DreamHost questions.

DreamHost: Pricing Plans

Being a web hosting provider that’s officially endorsed by WordPress, even the cheapest DreamHost plan comes with some notable features. It includes a WP website builder and free automated WP migrations, making it the best-suited service for WordPress users.

Here’s the current pricing structure of DreamHost’s shared hosting plans:

Their most basic shared hosting plan, Shared Starter, includes features like:

• 1 website
• Free domain included
• Unlimited traffic
• WP website builder
• Free Automated WordPress Migrations
• Fast SSD storage
• Free SSL certificate
• 3 year, 1 year, and monthly plans

As your blog grows and you gain more readers and subscribers, you may want to upgrade to one of DreamHost’s VPN hosting plans:

DreamHost’s most basic VPS hosting plan, Basic VPS ($10/mo), includes:

• 1 GB RAM
• 30 GB SSD storage
• Unlimited websites
• Unlimited traffic
• Free SSL certificate(s)
• Unlimited email @ your domain

If you’re just starting out, I’d highly recommend you start with DreamHost’s Shared Starter plan ($2.59/mo).

The only feature currently lacking from DreamHost is that its starter plan doesn’t allow you to create an email account by default. But this option is available for a separate price ($1.67/mo). If you go for the unlimited plan ($3.59/mo), you will have an unlimited email account.

Visit DreamHost to learn more

2. BlueHost: Review & Assessment

Also WordPress-recommended, BlueHost is another strong contender on the blogger-specific web hosting market. Launched way back in 1996, BlueHost has cemented its place as one of the most reliable and affordable web hosting services on the market. 

BlueHost: Performance and Uptime

BlueHost’s uptime is at 99.99%, which is close to DreamHost’s 100%. But the former doesn’t compensate you in case you face any issues with the downtime. 

Also, BlueHost shows a somewhat less reliable loading speed — in some cases, it goes beyond all expectations loading the page under 0.05 seconds, in other cases the load time goes up to 3.4 seconds, which can be a big issue.

BlueHost: Top Features

BlueHost and DreamHost offer very close deals when it comes to both basic and more advanced plans. Just like its counterpart, BlueHost features:

• 50 GB storage and unlimited bandwidth.
• Money-back guarantee (only it’s valid for 30 days vs. DreamHost’s 97 days).
• Free domain and SSL certificate are also included within BlueHost’s basic plan, but you’ll have to pay extra for WP migrations.

BlueHost: Customer Support 

Customer support is probably BlueHost’s strongest trait. BlueHost’s support teams don’t just offer BlueHost-specific help, they can also help you out in case you’re facing any issues with your WordPress setup.

With 24/7 support available through live chat, email, and phone, you can expect your issues to be resolved in no time.

BlueHost: Pricing Plans

Now when it comes to pricing, it may seem like DreamHost and BlueHost are very similar in this regard as well. But BlueHost is not as straightforward.

If you don’t want to make a three-year commitment to either service (this is where their pricing is pretty much identical), you will start to see the difference:

• Unlike DreamHost, BlueHost doesn’t offer a monthly plan. 
• For an annual shared hosting plan, you’ll have to pay $4.95/mo (Basic plan), while at DreamHost, the cost will only go up to $2.95/mo.

Moreover, if you are ready to consider a pricier plan that also goes all-unlimited, at DreamHost you will only pay $3.95/mo, while BlueHost charges $13.95/mo.

Their best plan for beginners, the Basic plan ($4.95/mo), includes the following:

• 1 website
• 50 GB SSD storage
• Custom themes
• 24/7 customer support
• Free domain – 1 year
• Free SSL certificate
• Free CDN included
• WordPress integration
• Drag and drop functionality

BlueHost’s highest-tier shared hosing plan, the Pro plan (16.95/mo when billed annually), upgrades you to:

• Unlimited websites
• Unlimited SSD storage
• Optimized CPU resources
• Free domain privacy
• Free automated backup
• Free dedicated IP

If you’re just starting out, BlueHost’s budget-friendly basic plan should be right up your alley.

Visit BlueHost to learn more

3. GoDaddy: Review & Assessment

GoDaddy is very well-known outside of the blogging hemisphere. It’s probably one of the most popular web hosting providers worldwide with very strong brand localization. But let’s see if it’s all that suitable for up-and-coming bloggers.

GoDaddy: Performance and Uptime

With average load time ranging from 0.03 to 0.51 seconds and 99.97% uptime, GoDaddy is probably the strongest market layer when it comes to performance.

Built to operate sites of any size and complexity, GoDaddy’s teams have really mastered the art of web hosting reliability.

GoDaddy: Top Features

Being a web hosting for sites of all kinds, security is at the core of GoDaddy’s solution. So while many of the perks are indeed missing from this web hosting provider, it does offer some high-end security perks:

• Automatic malware scans on a daily basis
• Everyday backups with the option to restore in one click.

GoDaddy also comes with a free domain (and email if you’re subscribing to its annual plan), and amazingly has built-in sign-up forms you can leverage to build up your email base, collect leads, and run proper marketing campaigns.

Customer support-wise, GoDaddy doesn’t differentiate between plans – so even if you’re using the cheapest option in town, you can expect the same level of support – 24/7 via phone, email, and chat.

GoDaddy: Limitations

As GoDaddy was never intended as a blogger-specific platform, its lower pricing tier doesn’t offer as much freedom as the rest of the solutions we already mentioned.

If you want to stay under the cheapest plan, you will only have 25 GB of storage and be limited to 25,000 monthly visitors.

While this may be okay for the start, you will have to move up a package when your blog starts to gain some traction, and this is where GoDaddy will start to get more pricey and less competitive with other more blogger-friendly platforms. 

Also, in regard to perks offered by other solutions, don’t expect a free SSL certificate or access to cPanel.

GoDaddy: Pricing Plans

Now at a first glance, GoDaddy’s pricing doesn’t seem so overwhelming. The introductory package starts at $5.99/mo, which is already twice the price of the previous solutions. But even if you’re okay with the higher price and a more limited feature set, one year into the usage, the price will go up to $8.99/mo.

GoDaddy’s lowest-tier shared hosing plan, the Economy plan ($5.99/mo), features:

• 1 website
• 25 GB storage
• 10 databases
• Unmetered bandwidth
• Free 1-click WordPress install
• Free domain

GoDaddy’s highest-tier shared hosting plan, the Maximum plan ($19.99/mo), upgrades you to:

• 50 websites
• 100 GB storage
• 100 databases
• Free SSL certificates for all your websites
• Free Microsoft 365 email (1 year)
• Increased processing power and speed

While GoDaddy is a very superior solution in regard to reliability and web security, I don’t think beginner bloggers should worry about these things to the point where they should pay triple the price for a solution that offers fewer perks than the rest.

Visit GoDaddy to learn more

4. Namecheap: Review & Assessment

Namecheap is widely known as the place you go to in the quest for domain name registration. But it also provides web hosting services.

Now let’s see if their web hosting solution is as top-level as their domain registration.

Namecheap: Performance and Uptime

Just like DreamHost, Namecheap promises 100% uptime and compensation in the form of account credits in case you encounter any issues there. But speed-wise, it is slightly inferior compared to the rest — the average load speed is at 0.83 seconds, which is slightly more than readers expect from a fast-running blog.

Namecheap: Top Features

Even the most basic Namecheap web hosting solution is power-packed with some amazing features (some of them not present across other providers):

• 20 GB of storage and unlimited bandwidth
• 30 email accounts
• Basic control panel features
• Free website builder (not limited to WordPress)
• Free domain name, SSL certificate, and privacy protection (first year only)
• Free site migration
• Free CDN that includes a basic anti-DDoS system, and a traffic limit of up to 50 GB a month.

Namecheap also comes with superb customer support available with a 24/7 live chat and ticketing service via a help desk. 

Namecheap: Pricing Plans

Namecheap does live up to its name and offers some of the cheapest rates for its web hosting service. For the first two years, you will only have to pay $1.44/mo, and the price will then go up to $2.88, making it comparable to DreamHost and BlueHost.

Namecheap’s most basic plan, the Stellar plan ($1.44/mo), includes features like:

• Free domain
• 3 websites
• 20 GB SSD
• Free CDN
• Free SSL certificate (1 year)
• Free website builder
• Unmetered bandwidth
• 30-day money-back guarantee

Namecheap’s highest-tier shared web hosting plan, the Stellar Business plan ($4.44/mo), upgrades you to:

• Unlimited websites
• 50 GB SSD
• AutoBackup and cloud storage

While in terms of pricing and features, Namecheap seems like a solid solution for blogging, its reliability is somewhat under question as speed can really be the make-or-break factor of your blogging success.

Visit Namecheap to learn more

Alternative Web Hosting Plans for Bloggers

So far, I’ve covered some of the most prominent web hosting solutions — and those I’ve tried and tested myself and can recommend to any blogger out there. 

But of course, there are plenty of other providers that also feature attractive web hosting offers for bloggers.

As I haven’t had a personal experience with these platforms, I will only highlight the ones with the top reputation within the blogosphere and list some of their most prominent features.

5. Hostinger: Quick Review & Assessment

Hostinger’s incredibly affordable price does imply that its cheapest $0.99/mo package doesn’t come with many of the perks we saw above — no free domain, unlimited bandwidth, and traffic limitations. 

So Hostinger could be a good solution for bloggers that are just starting out — as you will have to throw in extra costs as soon as your blogging business starts growing. And even before you start (think of domain name and bandwidth costs).

Hostinger: Performance and Uptime

Hostinger is very reliable and comes with an impressive loading speed. You also shouldn’t expect much downtime, although its 99.91% uptime is slightly lower than the averages we see with other web hosting providers I’ve reviewed.

Hostinger: Top Features

• 30 GB of storage
• 10,000 monthly visits limit
• One free email account
• Free SSL certificate
• Weekly backups

Hostinger: Pricing Plans

Of course, Hostinger’s most attractive feature is the pricing. But this $1.39/mo offer comes with a four-year commitment and the price goes up to $2.99/mo once you renew your deal.

And as mentioned, you will have to face some substantial extra costs as Hostinger doesn’t offer many of the free perks others provide.

Hostinger’s basic plan ($1.39/mo) includes the following features:

• 1 website
• 30 GB SSD storage
• 1 email account
• Free SSL certificate
• 100 GB bandwidth
• 30-day money-back guarantee
• 24/7/365 support
• 99.9% uptime guarantee

Visit Hostinger to learn more

6. SiteGround: Quick Review & Assessment

This web hosting service provides a lot of free features for a slightly higher than average pricing. But you should think twice before paying a bit extra, asking yourself whether you really need all these perks.

SiteGround: Performance and Uptime

While SiteGround’s uptime is at 99.91% — not the top reliability you’d expect, speed-wise SiteGround looks very attractive with its 0.37-second-average.

SiteGround: Top Features

SiteGround has most of the features we mentioned across other solutions, but it comes with plenty of free perks:

• WP install and migrator
• CDN
• SSL certificate
• HTTPS certificate
• One email account
• Unmetered traffic
• Daily backups

Siteground: Pricing Plans

If you’re only at the start of your blogging journey, this might not be the top solution to pick at that stage as you might not need all the amazing free features that come even with its cheapest plan that comes at $3.99/mo.

Once your one-year contract expires, you will have to start paying $12/99/mo.

Here’s what SiteGround’s lowest-tier plan, the StartUp plan, includes:

• 1 website
• 10 GB web space
• Unmetered traffic
• Free SSL certificate
• Daily backup
• Free CDN
• Free email
• Unlimited databases
• 30-day money-back guarantee

Visit SiteGround to learn more

7. InMotion: Quick Review & Assessment

InMotion is a really great solution for more established bloggers — features included within its cheapest plan are more suitable to blogging pros that are already managing multiple accounts and need a single point of entry to all of them.

InMotion: Performance and Uptime

With 99.97% uptime and a surprisingly low 0.8-second speed, InMotion doesn’t provide the reliability you’d expect from its pricing range.

InMotion: Top Features

• 2 websites 
• Free domain and SSL certificate
• Unlimited disk space and bandwidth
• 10 email accounts
• $150 ad credits
• DDoS and hack protection

InMotion: Pricing Plans

The cheapest two-year plan comes at $5.99/mo, with the longest money-back guarantee (90 days) across the board. If you consider all the free perks that come with the Launch package, InMotion appears to offer a good value per dollar.

InMotion’s lowest-tier plan, the Launch plan ($5.99/mo), includes features like:

• 2 websites
• 50 GB SSD storage
• Free domain and SSL
• Unlimited bandwidth
• 10 email accounts
• 24/7/365 support

Visit InMotion to learn more

8. HostGator: Quick Review & Assessment

With its impressive uptime, low-average pricing, and especially unlimited storage and bandwidth, HostGator can be a great web hosting solution. But make sure to read through the bullets below as HostGator might have some underlying problems if you come from a certain location and breach their ambiguous terms & conditions.

HostGator: Performance and Uptime

On average, HostGator comes with an impressive 99.99% uptime and 0.7 to 8-second loading speed. But it’s known to have some downtime and speed issues depending on your location, so make sure to check this before you make your choice.

HostGator: Top Features

• Free domain
• Free SSL certificate
• Free cPanel/WP website transfer

HostGator: Pricing Plans

While HostGator offers some attractive pricing ($2.75/mo), especially considering its lack of any storage and bandwidth limits, its T&C mentions that you will be asked to reduce your usage when you reach 25% of their system resources.

Here’s what their basic plan, Hatchling Plan, includes:

• 1 website
• Unmetered bandwidth
• Free SSL certificate
• Free domain included
• One-click WordPress installs
• 24/7/365 support

Visit HostGator to learn more

9. A2 Hosting: Quick Review & Assessment

If lightning-fast site speed is the most important thing to you as a blogger, A2 Hosting is the web hosting service to pick. While it has fewer free features (e.g. no free domain) than the rest, it does look pretty solid in all other areas, especially when it comes to reliability.

A2 Hosting: Performance and Uptime

A2 Hosting’s 99.95% uptime and mind-blowing 0.036-second average speed turn it into one of the strongest web hosting contenders in terms of reliability.

A2 Hosting: Top Features

• 100 GB of storage
• Free SSL & HTTPS certificate
• Free site migration
• Hack and virus scanning + DDoS protection

A2 Hosting: Pricing Plans

With a three-year commitment, A2 Hosting’s cheapest plan comes at $2.99/mo. After that, they will charge you $10.99/mo if you decide to stay on the cheapest plan.

A2 Hosting’s Startup plan ($2.99/mo) includes features like:

• 1 website
• 100 GB SSD storage
• Free and easy site migration
• Unlimited email accounts
• 24/7/365 support
• Free SSL certificate
• Free website builder

Visit A2 Hosting to learn more

10. Cloudways: Quick Review & Assessment

To wrap up this list of reviews, I’ve picked a service that has a slightly different pricing model. Cloudways is a pay-as-you-go web hosting service provider that comes without any hidden charges.

Cloudways: Performance and Uptime

It’s nothing but top-notch – the uptime is at 99.99% and the average load time is 0.4 seconds.

Cloudways: Top Features

• 25 GB of storage
• 1TB of bandwidth
• Free SSL certificate
• A choice between various cloud service providers (Digital Ocean, Google Cloud, AWS, and others)
• Easy-to-understand pricing structure

Cloudways: Pricing Plans

Simply $10/mo and no hidden costs or reasons to worry about the price going up once you’re past a certain annual/biannual commitment.

Cloudways’ lowest-tier plan ($10/mo) gets you:

• 1 website
• 25 GB storage
• 1 TB bandwidth
• Free SSL certificate
• 24/7/365 support
• Automated backups
• CDN add-on
• Dedicated firewalls

Visit Cloudways to learn more

Choosing the Best Web Hosting Solution: Top Criteria to Factor In

With hundreds of solutions that claim to be the “top choice” for bloggers, you have to choose the one that best meets the key criteria:

Affordability vs Features

With web hosting, a high price does not necessarily imply top service, as you may simply pay for features you don’t really need. So you have to make sure your web hosting plan does cover your needs but doesn’t entice you to pay extra for features you will never implement on your blog.

Reliability 

Speed and uptime are two of the most important features of any web hosting. Low speed will negatively affect your SEO and lousy uptime can cost you your readership. As much as you can invest in building a loyal audience, no one will put up with a blog that goes down every now and then, or takes too long to load.

Customer Support

While the perfect web hosting service should be as intuitive as it gets, there will be times when you might need some expert help. And you want to pick a platform that has a prompt and on-point response team that will deal with your issue in no time.

Final Thoughts on Web Hosting Plans

Picked right, good hosting will add up reputation and authority to your blog, helping your Google ranks, bringing in more visitors, and, hence, allowing you to generate more income.

Now that you are armed with all the info about the top web hosting service providers, you can decide which factor prevails over the rest for your particular needs — and make a smart choice that will underlie the success of your blog.

If you found this article useful, please share it on Twitter using the link below:

Related Articles

• The Ultimate Blogging Toolkit: 75+ Marketing Tools to Help You Blog Better
• 19 Best SEO Plugins for WordPress
• 7 Best Landing Page Builders to Increase Conversions
• How to Get High Quality Backlinks (25 Proven Techniques)
• 75+ Best Books for Entrepreneurs and Business Owners

The post 10 Best Web Hosting Plans for Bloggers (Tried and Tested) appeared first on 99signals.

If you’re a WordPress user who’s looking for a reliable VPN, you’ve come to the right place. In this article, we’ll reveal the 5 best VPN services for WordPress users.

But before we share the best VPN services, we’ll first explain the basics of a VPN service, why it’s important, and why WordPress users need to use a VPN service.

If you already know the benefits of VPNs, skip this section by clicking here.

Here’s what this guide will cover:

What is a VPN and Why is It Important?

VPN is short for Virtual Private Network which is an encrypted connection over the internet from a device to a network. The encrypted connection adds an extra layer of security and privacy to a less secure public network, like the internet. In other words, a VPN ensures your web browsing experience is more secure and private.

VPNs are especially useful when you’re using the internet from a public WiFi hotspot. The main problem with the WiFi hotspots provided in cafes, airports, and hotels is that they often have poor router configurations and passwords. This makes it easier for cybercriminals and hackers to steal data from WiFi users.

VPN is the best protection you can get to protect your data and privacy on public WiFi networks. A reliable VPN service can also help you bypass censorship laws and content restrictions from different countries.

Why WordPress Users Need a VPN Service

WordPress powers over 30% of all sites on the internet. As a result, the platform is vulnerable to malware and attacks from hackers. According to research by the website security platform Sucuri, WordPress is the world’s leading infected website CMS, with WordPress infections rising from 74% in 2016 Q3 to 83% in 2017.

So how do you secure your WordPress site and ensure your privacy is intact? Aside from installing an SSL certificate to your site from your web hosting provider, here are two proactive steps you can take:

• Install a WordPress Security Plugin: The best way to secure your WordPress website is by installing a reliable WordPress security plugin. Here are 5 of the best WordPress security plugins you can opt for, but I’d personally recommend Sucuri.
• Use a VPN Service: Once your SSL is installed and you’ve activated a security plugin, you can add an extra layer of security and privacy to your website by choosing any of the 5 VPN services featured in this article. This way, you can be certain your data is protected and your activities are hidden behind multiple layers of encryption.

Now that you have a basic understanding of how a VPN works and its importance, let’s look at some of the top VPN services you can go for.

Top 5 VPN Services

1. NordVPN

NordVPN is a popular virtual private network that shields your internet activity from hackers and malware, protects you on public WiFi networks, and even blocks annoying ads. It’s a trusted online security solution that is used by over 1 million internet users worldwide and is recognized by some of the most influential tech sites and IT security specialists.

With NordVPN, you can be assured your data is always private. NordVPN uses double encryption aka Double VPN, a technology solution that hides your online activity behind several servers via a VPN tunnel. Double VPN can be extremely useful when a high level of online security and privacy is required, especially for WordPress users who are living in countries with a high level of internet censorship.

NordVPN also comes with the CyberSec feature which automatically blocks suspicious websites, so no malware or other cyber threats can infect your device.

Best yet, with one NordVPN account, you can secure up to 6 devices at the same time. NordVPN provides user-friendly applications on all major platforms, including Windows, MacOS, Android, iOS (both iPhone & iPad), Linux, Android TV, and more.

Here are some of the key benefits you’ll gain by using NordVPN:

• Data Security: You’ll stay 100% secure online under all circumstances with NordVPN’s military-grade encryption, CyberSec, and Double VPN.
• Hide Your IP: You can keep your data private and protect it from malicious users or ISPs by hiding your IP address.
• No Restrictions: You’ll be able to browse the web without restrictions, even when you’re traveling to a country with strict censorship or bandwidth limits.
• Secure Up to 6 Devices: You can secure up to 6 devices with a single NordVPN account, and feel safe on any device whether at home, in the office, or on the go.

NordVPN Pricing

NordVPN lets you choose from four pricing options. The 3-year plan is the most popular and by far the most economical where you’re billed $107.55 every 3 years which means you’ll just have to pay $2.99/month.

Here are NordVPN’s four pricing options:

• 1-month plan – $11.95/mo (billed $11.95 every month)
• 1-year plan – $6.99/mo (billed $83.88 every year)
• 2-year plan – $5.99/mo (billed $95.75 billed every 2 years)
• 3-year plan – $2.99/mo (billed $107.55 every 3 years) — Most popular (Save 75%)

Get NordVPN

2. IPVanish

IPVanish is a popular VPN service that provides a secure environment to users for everyday web use. With IPVanish, you can stop ISPs from spying on you and slowing down your speed based on your usage. IPVanish also protects you from hackers while you’re accessing the internet over public Wi-Fi locations.

IPVanish’s VPN network spans over 40,000 IPs on 1100+ servers in 60+ countries, giving you the ability to browse the web anonymously and access websites and media without any restrictions.

Here are some of the key benefits of using IPVanish:

• Stop Geo-targeting: Once you’re connected to IPVanish, your IP address is replaced with an IPVanish IP address. This means you’ll be able to prevent online marketers, search engines, and websites from analyzing and using your IP address or location.
• Bypass Censorship: You can avoid regional censorships and restrictions by accessing media and interactive websites from anywhere on the planet, on any device, period.
• Security on the go: Using IPVanish mobile apps, you can prevent your personal data (mobile banking, emails, social media, etc.) from being stolen by hackers.
• Use Public WiFi: With IPVanish, you can stay safe and protected while using public Wi-Fi. IPVanish ensures that all your traffic remains private and secure no matter what kind of network you’re using.

IPVanish Pricing

IPVanish offers 3 pricing options and all of them come with a 7-day money-back guarantee:

• 1-month plan – $10/mo (billed $10 every month)
• 3-month plan – $8.99/mo (billed $26.99 every 3 months)
• 1-year plan – $6.49/mo (billed $77.99 every year) — Most popular (Save 46%)

Get IPVanish

3. ExpressVPN

ExpressVPN is a high-speed, ultra-secure, and easy-to-use VPN service which has servers across 94 countries. With Express VPN, you can instantly unblock the sites and apps you love, and avoid being hacked or tracked, using powerful encryption.

Using ExpressVPN, you can stay anonymous online, keep everyone else out of your personal affairs, and prevent cybercrime and snooping.

Here are a few key benefits of using ExpressVPN:

• Fast VPN Speeds: ExpressVPN’s huge network of 2,000+ global VPN servers are optimized for fast connections, so you can browse the web without worrying about bandwidth throttling from your ISP.
• Easy Setup: ExpressVPN setup is fast and super easy. You can download, install, and connect to ExpressVPN with the push of a button.
• No restrictions: You can stream or download anything, from any of ExpressVPN’s servers, anywhere on Earth, with your IP address hidden from prying eyes.
• Serious Security: ExpressVPN will protect you from hacking and surveillance with 256-bit AES encryption, DNS/IPv6 leak protection, kill switch, and split tunneling.

ExpressVPN Pricing

All ExpressVPN plans are covered by a 100% money-back guarantee for your first 30 days of service. Here are the 3 pricing options:

• 1-month plan – $12.95/mo (billed $12.95 every month)
• 6-month plan – $9.99/mo (billed $59.95 every 6 months)
• 1-year plan – $8.32/mo (billed $99.95 every year) — Most popular (Save 35%)

Get ExpressVPN

4. StrongVPN

StrongVPN is yet another popular VPN service that lets you bypass restrictions and censorship from hundreds of locations around the globe, all while staying private and secure.

StrongVPN has 650+ servers in 20+ countries and apps for all the major platforms. You can also connect up to 5 devices simultaneously.

StrongVPN Pricing

StrongVPN offers two pricing plans. Both these plans come with a 30-day money-back guarantee. Select a plan based on your budget and current needs:

• 1-month plan: $10/mo (billed every month)
• 1-year plan: $5.83/mo (billed $69.99 every 12 months) — Most popular (Save 42%)

Get StrongVPN

5. CyberGhost VPN

CyberGhost VPN is a Romanian-based VPN service that secures and anonymizes the online presence of over 20 million users across the globe.

CyberGhost VPN will automatically protect you every time you are connecting to a new WiFi or internet connection. With CyberGhost VPN’s 256-AES bit technology encryption, you’ll never be vulnerable in a hotel, airport, or any other public space. You can connect up to 7 devices simultaneously.

CyberGhost VPN is available on all major platforms, including Windows, MacOS, iOS, Android, Linux, and more.

Here are the key benefits of using CyberGhost VPN:

• Hide Your IP: Your original IP address will be replaced by an IP address from the CyberGhost network, making it impossible for websites to track your online activity.
• WiFi Protection: Using top-class 256-bit encryption technology, CyberGhost VPN protects your privacy and secures you online, even on public WiFis.
• Global Servers: CyberGhost has over 3000 VPN servers in over 60 countries and these numbers keep growing. This means you will be able to swap identity with one of those traffic servers and access otherwise geo-restricted content.
• Access Restricted Content: By connecting to the secure CyberGhost servers, you can access content from all over the world, without any geo-restrictions or censorship.

CyberGhost VPN Pricing

CyberGhost VPN offers 3 pricing plans. All plans come with a 45-day money-back guarantee:

• 1-month plan: $12.99/mo (billed $12.99 every month)
• 1-year plan: $6.49/mo (billed $77.88 every year)
• 2-year plan: $3.5/mo (billed $84 every 2 years) — Most popular (Save 73%)

Get CyberGhost VPN

Final Thoughts

So these are the 5 best VPN services we’d recommend for WordPress users. If we have missed out on your favorite VPN service, please feel free to mention the service in the comments section.

If you found this article useful, please share it with your followers on Twitter using the link below or share it on other social channels using the social bar on the left.

Editor’s Note: This article was first published on 1 November 2018 and has been updated regularly since then for relevance and comprehensiveness.

Related Articles

• 19 Best SEO Plugins for WordPress
• 5 Best WordPress Security Plugins to Secure Your WordPress Site
• 7 Best Landing Page Builders to Increase Conversions
• 10 Actionable Affiliate Marketing Tips to Boost Earnings
• 15 Best WordPress Plugins for Bloggers

The post 5 Best VPN Services for WordPress Users (Reviewed for 2022) appeared first on 99signals.

I know the feeling and it happens way too many times. A study by Rowe Digital looked at 90,000 publishers and found over 65,000 broken links. This indicates that not a lot of publishers and bloggers are fixing their broken links, which is bad not just from an SEO standpoint, but also from a user experience perspective.

What are Broken Links?

Broken links are links that no longer work. When you click a broken link, it leads to one of those dreaded 404 error pages.

Broken links are caused by one of these reasons:

• The website is no longer available.
• The webpage was moved without setting up a proper redirect.
• Change in URL structure of the website.

Broken links are extremely bad for your website’s SEO. They harm your link equity and hurt the reputation of your website. But above all, broken links can create bad user experience for visitors on your site and negatively affect conversions.

As such, it’s important that you fix broken links as and when they appear on your site.

So how do you do that? If you’re a WordPress user, the solution is quite simple.

In this article, I’ll show you how to fix broken links with Broken Link Checker, a free WordPress plugin.

How to Fix Broken Links with Broken Link Checker [Video Tutorial]

You can watch this video tutorial below to find and fix your broken links with Broken Link Checker plugin. If you prefer the text version, please scroll down to continue reading.

The first thing you need to do is install and activate the free Broken Link Checker plugin on your site. To do this, login to your WordPress dashboard and go to Plugins > Add New. Here you need to search for the words “Broken Link Checker.”

There are lots of link checker plugins on WordPress, so make sure you have the right one (see above.) Install and activate the same. As soon as the plugin is activated, it will automatically start looking for broken links on your site in the background.

Next, go to Settings > Link Checker to tweak the settings to suit your site’s requirements.

Broken Link Checker will take a few minutes to scan your site for broken links. If you have a lot of pages and posts, it may take a while.

Once the scan is complete, you’ll see the total number of broken links found on your site.

By default, the plugin will scan your website every 72 hours for broken links. If you post frequent updates on your site, then you may want to change this to 48 or 24 hours. Next, make sure the email notifications are on and your email address is correct.

Now go to the “Look For Links In” tab and select the places where you’d like the plugin to look for broken links.

If you’re following the default WordPress comment system, then I’d urge you to select “Comments” as well. Since users are allowed to enter their website while commenting on your posts, it’s inevitable that you’ll find broken links here.

If you’d like Broken Link Checker to look for broken links in your draft or scheduled posts, select these options under “Post statuses”. On the remaining three tabs, you can keep the default settings. Before you leave, make sure you’ve saved all the changes.

Now comes the important part — fixing broken links. You can either click on the “Found broken links” link in Settings or go to Tools > Broken Links to see all the broken links found on your site.

For each of the broken links, you can choose from the following options:

• Edit URL – allows you to replace the broken link with a different URL that works. If the broken link is present in multiple places, all occurrences of that URL will be changed.
• Unlink – removes the broken link but leaves the text intact.
• Not broken – lets you manually mark a broken link as working. Useful when a link is incorrectly detected as broken due to a network glitch or a bug.
• Dismiss – Allows you to hide a broken link from “Broken”, “Warnings”, and “Redirects” views. Useful if you want to acknowledge a link as broken/redirected and just leave as it is. If you have affiliate links on your site, this option will come in handy.
• Recheck – Before unlinking a broken link, it’s always wise to do a final check to see if the link is really broken. Useful if you have multiple broken links and don’t have the time to check manually if the links are indeed broken. In such cases, select all the broken links from the “Broken” view and perform a bulk action to recheck the status of all the links.

If the plugin detects numerous broken links on your site, you can perform a bulk action like unlinking all broken links or dismissing them all at once.

Conclusion

As your website grows older, you’ll find that a lot of your older posts and pages have links that don’t work anymore. An SEO best practice is to scan your website for broken links once a month.

By fixing broken links on your site on a regular basis, you’ll be improving your site’s SEO and providing a better user experience to visitors. Inadvertently, this will also reduce your bounce rate and increase your page views.

[ctt template=”4″ link=”46pi9″ via=”yes” nofollow=”yes”]How to Find and Fix Broken Links with Broken Link Checker[/ctt]

Related Articles

• Nofollow Links: Everything You Need to Know
• Image SEO: 7 Actionable Tips to Supercharge Your Organic Traffic
• 35+ Best Free SEO Tools to Instantly Boost Your Rankings

The post How to Find and Fix Broken Links with Broken Link Checker appeared first on 99signals.

Although WordPress is a fairly secure platform, it always helps to bolster your website security to totally protect it from brute force login threats and malicious attacks.

To that end, here are the 5 best WordPress security plugins that will help you enhance your WordPress site’s security and protect it from hackers.

1. iThemes Security

iThemes Security (formerly Better WP Security) is the gold standard of WordPress security plugins. This plugin will ensure your site is 100% secure and protected from all types of malicious attacks.

The company behind iThemes Security has real expertise designing tools specifically for the WordPress platform and has created a host of other WordPress tools, the most popular being BackupBuddy which is the original all-in-one WordPress backup plugin that handles WordPress backups, site restores, migrations, and WordPress staging.

The free version of iThemes Security comes with basic security features to fix common WordPress security issues, but the real value of this plugin is in the Pro plan which is priced at $80/year.

Here are some of the coolest features of the Pro version of iThemes Security:

• Two-Factor Authentication – You can add an extra layer of protection to your website by enabling two-factor authentication. Use a mobile app like Google Authenticator or Authy to generate a code or have a generated code emailed to you.
• Strong Password Enforcement – Strong password enforcement is one of the best ways to lock down WordPress. You can set which level of users on your site (admins, editors, users, etc.) need to have strong passwords.
• Malware Scan Scheduling – You can have your site scanned for malware automatically each day.
• Away Mode – If you don’t make frequent changes to your site, you can harden the security of your WordPress site by making the WordPress dashboard inaccessible during specific hours so no one else can sneak in and attempt to make changes.

If website security is your top priority right now and you don’t mind spending $80 a year, then iThemes Security Pro is the security plugin you should opt for.

Get iThemes Security Pro

2. Wordfence

Wordfence is a WordPress security plugin that provides enterprise-class WordPress security, protecting your website from hacks and malware. It’s also the most downloaded security plugin for WordPress websites.

Wordfence automatically scans your website for hack attempts and alerts you when there are threats to your website with instructions to fix them.

It’s powered by the constantly updated Threat Defense Feed which arms it with the latest firewall rules, malware signatures, and malicious IP addresses.

Wordfence offers both free and premium versions. The premium version sells at $99/year and includes features such as real-time threat defence, two-factor authentication, and country blocking.

Key features for the free plan include protection from brute force attacks, Web Application Firewall which identifies and blocks malicious traffic, real-time IP blacklist, malware scanner, and more.

Download Wordfence for WordPress

3. All In One WP Security

The All In One WordPress Security plugin is an easy to use plugin that reduces security risk by checking for vulnerabilities, and by implementing and enforcing the latest recommended WordPress security practices and techniques.

Based on your security needs, you can select basic, intermediate, or advanced security settings and firewall rules to protect your site without breaking its functionality.

All In One WP Security comes with tons of features, including protection against brute force login attacks, password strength tool, user login security, blacklist functionality, and more.

All In One WP Security plugin is 100% free, but it’s not the most effective WordPress security plugin. There have been numerous complaints of users getting locked out and lack of customer support.

Download All In One WP Security Plugin for WordPress

4. Sucuri

Sucuri is one of the leading website security platforms in the world, with specialization in WordPress security.

Sucuri offers both free and paid versions – the free version comes with some great features like security activity auditing, remote malware scanning, blacklist monitoring, post-hack security actions, website firewall, and more.

Sucuri’s paid plans start from $199/year and include advanced features such as advanced DDoS mitigation, continuous malware and hack scanning, and SSL and PCI compliant Firewall.

Download Sucuri Plugin for WordPress

5. BulletProof Security

BulletProof Security is a popular WordPress security plugin that has both free and paid versions. It doesn’t have the cleanest user interface, but it has some powerful features and comes with a setup wizard to ensure a smooth installation and activation process.

The free version includes key features like one-click setup wizard, malware scanner, login security and monitoring, security logging, maintenance mode, and more.

The paid version of BulletProof Security sells for a one-time payment of $69.95 and includes premium features such as JTC anti-spam and anti-hacker options, quarantine options, and file locking.

Download BulletProof Security Plugin for WordPress

Final Thoughts

So these are the 5 best WordPress security plugins we’d recommend you install to protect your website from security breach and malicious attacks.

Do you have preferred WordPress plugin that’s not listed here? Let us know in the comments section below.

If you liked this article, please share it on Twitter using the link below and on other social platforms using the social share bar on the left.

Click here to share this article on Twitter

Related Articles

• 7 Best Landing Page Builders to Increase Conversions & Drive Sales
• OptinMonster Review: 6 Ups and 3 Downs (List Building Plugin for WordPress)
• 19 Best SEO Plugins for WordPress
• 15 Best WordPress Plugins for Bloggers
• SEMrush vs MOZ: Which is the Best SEO Tool?

The post 5 Best WordPress Security Plugins to Secure Your WordPress Site appeared first on 99signals.

The latest report by State of Inbound says 63% of the marketers worldwide feel that generating traffic and footfalls is the main challenge. We know it well that no single strategy works for all businesses.

Digital marketing has a huge spectrum of activities and that’s where a marketer has his task cut out. To have a blog is just one of the things that drive it out but as important as other marketing activities.

Today, serious businesses and emerging startups don’t have a choice. Nearly 81% of the companies today consider their blog to be ‘useful’, ‘critical’ or ‘important’.  And if they do, then rest assured, it is updated at all days of the week.

Just like any other strategy, starting a blog will not increase your sales manifolds over the night. It takes a little time but you can measure the number of leads you have generated at the end of the year.

It’s even important to assess whether the numbers reflect the true picture of your blog. The rule of the thumb is to continually add quality content and keep the blog articles abreast with what’s hot in the industry.

This infographic below would help you learn more on blog creation and help you decide if you need one in the first place.

The post Do You Need a Blog for Your Business? [Infographic] appeared first on 99signals.

Building an email list is not an easy task. It takes time, effort, and a whole lot of patience.

There are two ways you could go about building your email list: wait patiently for visitors to subscribe to your blog via a static sidebar sign up form or get smarter and more creative by creating optin forms that appear on clicks, timers, and when the users intends to leave your site.

The latter choice is always the most preferable, especially if you’re relatively new to the blogging scene. Because let’s face it: even if you’ve created the most valuable lead magnet for your target audience, chances of them noticing your sidebar sign up form are slim to none.

And for those reasons, you need a good, reliable lead generation plugin on your side to help you grow your email list at a swift pace.

And when it comes to lead generation plugins, OptinMonster is considered gold standard, rated highly by marketers and professional bloggers worldwide.

In this OptinMonster review, we’ll examine the key features of the tool and highlight 6 ups and 3 downs of one of the most popular list building plugins in the market.

[ctt template=”3″ link=”P3I8b” via=”yes” nofollow=”yes”]OptinMonster Review: 6 Ups and 3 Downs (List Building Plugin for WordPress) http://www.99signals.com/optinmonster-review/[/ctt]

What is OptinMonster?

Launched in 2013 by Syed Balkhi (who also founded the highly acclaimed WordPress resource site WPBeginner), OptinMonster is a highly popular lead generation and customer acquisition tool for businesses and bloggers worldwide. If you’ve subscribed to blogs such as Social Media Examiner, Backlinko, or any of Neil Patel’s websites in the last couple of years, chances are you signed up via OptinMonster’s optin forms.

Key Features

Here are some of the key features that make OptinMonster such a popular list building tool among bloggers:

• Exit-intent Technology
• Visually stunning optin forms
• Page-level targeting
• Well-timed beautifully designed popups
• Built-in analytics
• Mobile-responsive optin forms
• Advanced scroll detection

Optin Form Types

• Lightbox Popup
• Floating Bar
• Sidebar
• After Post / Inline Forms
• Full Screen Takeovers
• Smart Canvas
• Slide-in Scroll Trigger Boxes

A few of these forms are only available for users under the Pro plan. All of them are easy to design with no coding knowledge required whatsoever.

OptinMonster Pricing Plans

OptinMonster has three different pricing plans:

• Basic Plan – $19/month
• Plus Plan – $29/month
• Pro Plan – $39/month

You get a 25% discount on any of the plans above if you go for annual pricing.

The Basic plan which is $19/mo (or $9/mo if you’re going with annual) allows you to setup OptinMonster on one website. It gives you access to Lightbox popups, unlimited optin forms, A/B testing, MonsterLinks, Page-level targeting, and built-in analytics.

The Plus plan which is $29/month (or $19/mo with annual) allows you to setup OptinMonster on 3 websites. It gives you access to everything under the Basic plan, plus additional optin form types such as Floating Bar, Sidebar, and After Post Optin Forms.

And finally there is the Pro plan which is $39/mo (or $29/mo with annual), and it allows you to setup OptinMonster on unlimited sites. It gives you access to eveything under the Plus plan, plus additional optin form types which include Slide-ins, Full Screen Takeover, Social Media Popups, Mobile Specific Popups, and Smart Canvas Popups. In addition to these, you also get access to Exit-intent technology, Optin Forms with Yes/No templates, and priority support.

[table id=6 /]

OptinMonster Review: 6 Ups

Here are the 6 features that make OptinMonster so unique and popular:

1) Exit-Intent Technology 

Do you remember the last time when you were about to exit a site when you were suddenly presented with a pop-up containing a lead magnet which you simply could not refuse? I know I have signed up to umpteen number of blogs because the offer was so irresistible. With OptinMonster’s exit-intent technology, you can trigger a pop-up just when the user is about to exit the site.

A feature which is highly praised by many, OptinMonster’s exit-intent technology detects user behavior and prompts them with a targeted campaign at the precise moment they are about to leave.

OptinMonster claims this technology helps you ‘convert an additional 2 – 4% of your users into email subscribers and soon thereafter into paying customers.’ Though this feature is now provided by other tools such as Sumo and GetSiteConrol, OptinMonster detects user behaviour better than any of its competitors.

2) Monster-Links

OptinMonster’s MonsterLinks feature allows you to turn any link or image into a 2-step opt-in process. So when a user clicks on the link or an image, a popup opens up asking them to subscribe. A nifty feature which is not provided by other lead generation plugins in the market. 

MonsterLinks uses the psychology principle known as Zeigarnik Effect which states those who initiate are more likely to finish the process.

Since the user has already begun an action (by clicking the link or a button), they are much more likely to complete the action (subscribe) which makes MonsterLinks far more effective than any other sign up form or landing page on your website.

3) Flawless Design

OptinMonster’s pop-ups, full page takeovers, and sidebar widgets are all beautifully designed and as they claim ‘optimized for highest conversion rates.’ For each of these optin form types, you have a variety of options to choose from. Furthermore, OptinMonster gives you the ability to customize each form as per your design requirements.

One of the prerequisites of a lead generation tool should be the attention-grabbing capability and the optin forms designed by OptinMonster do exactly that.

4) Integrations

The perks of being perhaps the most popular list building tool in the market is the integration of the tool with almost all major platforms.

Whether it is CMS such as WordPress, HubSpot or email marketing tools such as Mailchimp, AWeber and ConvertKit, OptinMonster is integrated with all the well known services in the market. OptinMonster has integrations with more email marketing services than any its major competitors.

5) Conversion Analytics

Constantly monitoring how each of your optin forms is performing is imperative in making the right choices with your lead magnets.

OptinMonster’s conversion analytics is easy to understand, giving you a clear picture of what’s happening with each of your optin forms so that you can tweak and adjust your lead generation strategy.

You can also integrate OptinMonster with Google Analytics to get a quick glance of clicks, views, and overall conversion rate for each optin form and their variations.

6) Easy to Use

Last but not the least, OptinMonster is incredibly easy to use. With so many features and options at your disposal, you’d think there would be a steep learning curve. That’s not the case with OptinMonster.

Beginners and advanced users alike will enjoy the ease at which they can create beautifully-designed pop-ups in no time.

OptinMonster Review: 3 Downs

No product is perfect. Here are 3 downsides of OptinMonster you need to consider before signing up:

1) It’s too Expensive

All these features sadly come at a rather steep price. OptinMonster is one of the most expensive lead generation software of its kind. If you were to use premium features such as exit-intent technology, full page takeovers, etc., you’d have to sign up for the Pro plan which quite frankly is pretty expensive.

2) There is No Free Version

Unlike other lead generation plugins such as Sumo (previously SumoMe) and GetSiteControl, OptinMonster has no free version available.

So in order to test out the product and its features, you’d have to sign up for their basic plan which starts at $19/month. And as discussed in the point above, the basic plan has a few restrictions. It lacks some of the best features OptinMonster is known for, such as exit-intent technology, MonsterEffects (see below), optin form types with Yes/No templates, etc.

3) Lack of Mobile-specific Optin Forms

Mobile internet usage has now surpassed desktop usage in most places around the world and chances are that at least 50% of your audience are accessing your site via mobile devices. Mobile-specific popups on OptinMonster are available only for Pro users, while other users have to be content with the regular optin forms which are designed specifically for desktop users.

Popups are still considered annoying, causing hindrance to user experience on the site. And when popups are served on mobile devices, it can be infuriating to the users and may even prompt them to quit your site. So the lack of mobile-specific optin forms for Basic and Plus plans is a major disappointment. Furthermore, the mobile-specific optin forms which are available under the Pro plan are quite limited and lack the variety that other optin form types provide.

The team at OptinMonster constantly updates their software, so I hope they address this issue in the coming months.

Final Verdict

OptinMonster may perhaps be the best lead generation plugin in the market. It’s on the expensive side, but building a robust email list often comes at a premium price. If you’re a stickler for design, responsiveness, and customization, then you’ll love the advanced features that OptinMonster offers.

If price is your concern, I’d suggest you try the basic plan which starts at $19/month. It’ll allow you to evaluate the software’s functionalities and compare it with the lead generation plugin you’re currently using. Based on the performance, you can then decide whether you’d want to upgrade to any of their premium plans.

Liked this review? Please share it on Twitter using the link below:

[ctt template=”3″ link=”lgz4e” via=”yes” nofollow=”yes”]OptinMonster Review: 6 Ups and 3 Downs http://www.99signals.com/optinmonster-review/[/ctt]

If you liked this article, you may also like:

• Sumo Review: Marketing Tools to Grow Your Email List & Site Traffic
• AWeber vs Mailchimp: The Great Email Marketing Debate
• Briefcase Review: The Ultimate Business Growth Package by AppSumo

The post OptinMonster Review: 6 Ups and 3 Downs (List Building Plugin for WordPress) appeared first on 99signals.