Astra https://wpastra.com Fast, Lightweight & Customizable WordPress Theme for Any Website Wed, 17 May 2023 06:53:22 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.2.2 https://wpastra.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/favicon-astra2x.png Astra https://wpastra.com 32 32 From unknown to authority – How to build a powerful online personal brand https://wpastra.com/blogging/build-a-powerful-online-personal-brand/ https://wpastra.com/blogging/build-a-powerful-online-personal-brand/#respond Wed, 17 May 2023 06:54:27 +0000 https://wpastra.com/?p=151841 From unknown to authority – How to build a powerful online personal brand Read More »

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Have you ever Googled yourself?

Sure you have.

You’re not alone. We’ve all done it at one time or another, even if it’s just out of curiosity.

Other people are also searching for your name online.

Depending on what they find, they’ll forge an opinion about you that will benefit or harm you depending on how well you have crafted your online personal brand.

People search for you before hiring you, before buying your digital product or just to learn more about you before they start following and trusting you.

Building a powerful online personal brand is more important than ever.

In this guide we’ll give you the best tips to create an amazing one.

From obscurity to notoriety – How to dazzle your target audience with an awesome online personal brand

Why online personal branding is important

People no longer ask their friends for their opinion about a person. They ask Google.

They can find a wide range of opinions there which will give them a more honest and less biased view of reality.

That’s why having a website and an online personal brand is so important.

Strong personal branding is the lever that will push your personal and professional career forward.

Let’s look at Adam Preiser who has been building and working on his personal brand for over a decade.

Adam Preiser Expertise

Thanks to having a hard-earned personal brand, he didn’t have to start from scratch when he launched his new suite of SureCrafted products.

If you go to the SureMembers website and see that he is the founder, you automatically start to trust the product, because if you trust the person, you trust the product, right?.

SureMembers with Adam

Adam has a lot of experience with WordPress and that expertise expands and spreads all around him.

Not only to his own products but also to those of third parties that he recommends.

Adam recommends Astra theme

Once he has a successful personal brand, Adam can sell much more easily, which translates into a better income.

If you don’t want to freelance but to work in a good company, a carefully crafted online presence will also help with that.

If you would have to hire a person:

Would you pay more attention to the one who just gives you a CV, or to the one who backs up his experience with an online presence?

No matter how you look at it.

Building your online personal brand only has advantages.

So let’s get started.

How to build a powerful online personal brand in 3 steps

So, how do you create an online presence that helps you stand out, establish credibility and attract new opportunities?

In this guide we’ve simplified the process into 3 simple steps:

  1. Define your personal brand.
  2. Establish your online presence.
  3. Grow your personal brand.

Step 1. Define your personal brand

Before building anything, you must know what you want to build.

In this context it means defining your personal brand.

Values

Values are the beliefs that guide your actions. They help you represent who you are.

But most importantly, they help you connect with your followers at an emotional level. That’s why you should share them.

If humor is of great value for you, show it when creating and growing your personal brand.

What do you want people to picture when they think of you?

If you’re having trouble coming up with some ideas, here’s a list of 100+ values and beliefs that you can analyze to find out which ones you feel more identified with.

In Adam’s case, simplicity is a very important value. It’s something he conveys in his tutorials and especially in his products.

To build a strong personal brand, I always go back to the famous Zig Zigler quote, “You Can Have Everything In Life You Want, If You Will Just Help Enough Other People Get What They Want.”
It boils down to being generous, I try to personally help as many people as possible.
– Adam Preiser

Target audience and goal

Defining a target audience and a goal will also help improve engagement with your audience.

In this case on a more rational level.

Adam goal and target audience
  • Target audience: Non-techie.
    Are you a non-techie person? → Adam is your guy.
  • Goal: The website you always wanted.
    Do you want a great website? → He can help you with it.

If you need information to create or improve your website in a simple way without using code, you’ll associate that thought with Adam.

PRO TIP:

If you find it difficult to define your personal brand, think about what you would like the headline of a newspaper to say about you.

e.g. “This online entrepreneur helps parents (audience) to raise children in an environmentally friendly way (goal).”

Unique selling proposition

This step is kind of optional, but can be important for your online personal brand.

You can be unique in your hometown, but online you’ll find a lot of people that share your values, your target audience and your goals.

Coming up with a unique selling proposition will set you apart from them.

This USP is defined easier when we talk about a product or service rather than a personal brand.

But here is a tip.

What’s more unique than your personal experience?

Do you want to learn about WordPress from a random blogger or from someone who has the experience of having founded several very successful plugins and tools?

Adam Preiser Brands

Look and feel

We live in a visual world where we’re able to recognize and remember everything around us.

Coca Cola is red and fun and Astra is purple and casual.

The design of your personal brand is important. And we’re not talking only about colors and fonts.

If your value is simplicity your online presence should reflect that in your written content or in your photos.

You should choose a style in line with the values and goals you have defined. But what’s more important is to use that style consistently.

Try to find a photo in this article where Adam is not wearing a black t-shirt!

And here’s another little trick.

What’s more personal than yourself?

Unless you have a twin brother or sister, your face is unique, use it!

Adam's face

Step 2. Establish your online presence

It’s time to start building everything you just designed in the previous step.

Analyze your current situation

When we talk about online presence we usually refer to Google search results, since most people will search for us using this tool.

We only usually pay attention to the top ten search results

Having about 5 results under your control is more than enough since people don’t usually scroll much further than that.

The idea of controlling these positions is that you can tweak them as much as possible so people see what you want them to see about you.

Adam Preiser Search result

Adam is in control of the top Google rankings when people search for his name.

He can modify his content and appearance on demand to adapt it to the image he wants to portray.

Create your website

The top 1 position in Google gets the highest percentage of clicks. That’s why you should create a website and rank it there.

This is usually simple if you are trying to position your personal name, which we recommend you use for the domain itself (e.g. firstnamesurname.com)

Within your own website you’ll have full freedom to tailor your online presence to your liking and prevent your content and persona from becoming mixed up with other elements like with Twitter or other social network.

Astra and Starter Templates can help you get a quality website in a matter of minutes.

Personal brand site example

Sign up for social media and other platforms

Your website is one of the most important assets when it comes to personal branding.

But you also have to fill the rest of Google’s top positions!

Social media platforms are the perfect way to do it.

You should pay special attention to LinkedIn as many companies also use its internal search engine to find not only workers but also occasional collaborators to do interviews or hire as speakers.

Adam Preiser LinkedIN

Remember that Google results are displayed with priority.

So after your website and probably LinkedIn, maybe you should not focus on ranking a generic social network like Twitter or Facebook.

There are other platforms that can boost your personal brand more effectively:

  • Behance if you’re a designer.
  • Github if you’re a developer.
  • Fiverr if you’re a freelancer.
  • And so on.
Fiverr

Create consistent usernames and profile images across all of them and keep the same overall style that you have defined on your website.

The most important thing to remember is that you must set a priority for the websites you want to appear in Google and work on them in that order.

Step 3. Grow your personal brand

Defining and creating a digital space for your personal brand is not enough if you don’t make it grow.

Growing your brand will help you strengthen it, establish your credibility, and position yourself as an expert in your field.

Create content

Creating content is a very effective way to grow because you’ll be able to reach more people organically.

The most common method is to write articles on your blog, create posts on social networks or share videos on YouTube.

All of these help with reach.

PRO TIP:

Although podcasts may not have as much growth potential as other options, they greatly improve engagement and your brand image, as the voice is a very personal and relatable element.

Don’t forget to create premium content such as books or online courses. Their reach is smaller but they help a lot to position yourself as an expert.

Curate content

Content curation is a relatively easier way to become a reference in a particular field.

Instead of creating content from scratch, you can search, organize and present relevant information to your audience in an easy and digestible way.

Like news.

For instance, Adam sharing news about AI will improve his credibility as an expert when he officially launches SureWriter.

Collaborate with other people

Don’t limit yourself to your website and your platforms when it comes to growing your personal brand.

Surrounding yourself with people who share your values, target audience and goals will skyrocket your growth.

Co-creating products, giving interviews, participating in third-party podcasts or attending events as a speaker are some of the easiest ways to collaborate.

Engage with your audience

Engaging with your audience is crucial because it builds trust and loyalty, the essential pieces of a strong persona.

You’ve made a great effort to define your personal brand, establish it online and make it grow.

Take care of it.

Adam engaging with his community

Adam engages continuously with his audience on Facebook

Ask for feedback, respond to comments on your blog and messages on social media or host live Q&A sessions.

That will help your audience feel valued and heard

Participate in online communities

What if you don’t have your own audience to interact with?

Then you can add value in different online communities or sites that are already created around the topic or values you’re interested in.

Hang where your target audience is: subreddits, Quora spaces, forums… Even other people’s Facebook groups!

Help others, share your opinion and knowledge and maybe some of your own content. But don’t be spammy!

Wrapping up

Creating a polished online personal brand that helps you get closer to that goal is relatively simple.

Defining what you want to be and how you want to show yourself to the world is probably the most complex part.

By breaking this down into smaller steps such as defining your values, your target audience or the goals you want to help them achieve, you’ll find it easier to outline your identity.

A personal online brand is not a binary system where you have it or you don’t have it. You always have one.

Even not appearing in Google already says something about you!

That’s why you should not stop investing time and effort in improving it.

Creating public or premium content, collaborating with other professionals and people around you and engaging with your audience.

The sooner you start planting, the sooner you’ll start reaping the rewards.

So get started on it today!

Do you know of any other great WordPress personal brand besides WPCrafter that has caught your attention?

Let us know in the comments below!

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Save big on Astra’s 6th anniversary! Join the celebration with our birthday sale https://wpastra.com/updates/astra-6th-birthday-sale/ https://wpastra.com/updates/astra-6th-birthday-sale/#comments Wed, 03 May 2023 09:13:18 +0000 https://wpastra.com/?p=151543 Save big on Astra’s 6th anniversary! Join the celebration with our birthday sale Read More »

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If there’s anything faster than Astra’s loading speed, it’s how fast time goes by.

We can’t believe we’re already celebrating our 6th birthday!

We’re very fortunate to have a great team that has made this possible. We couldn’t ask for a better, more talented bunch of people.

Even though it’s our birthday, we don’t want any presents.

We’re the ones giving away something!

After all, we wouldn’t have made it through another year without your support!

So let’s celebrate together by remembering the beginnings of Astra with some amazing discounts.

Happy birthday, Astra! \(ᵔᵕᵔ)/

@AstraWP turns 6! Want to know what the website looked like in 2017? Find it out and get huge savings on quality #WordPressplugins

Astra rewind

You know that feeling when you see old photos and you’re a bit ashamed of your clothes or hairstyle?

Well, something similar happened to us.

Astra’s 2017 website certainly wouldn’t win any design awards!

Astra on 2017

But there are many things we are proud of.

Astra is currently used on more than 2.3 million websites!

Astra rewind

Save Big!

If you want to join 2.3 million happy users, get Astra Pro with a 30% discount today.

Hurry, the discount won’t be around for long. It might even last less than our celebration cake! 🍰

But what we are most proud of are undoubtedly the nearly 5,000 five-star reviews you have been leaving us over the years.

A true motivational driver.

We love to hear what you like and how Astra helps you with your online presence. So don’t forget to leave a review!

Astra review

Astra has grown a lot over the last year.

Here are just some of our latest updates!

July 21, 2022

Astra 3.9

Revamping integration with WooCommerce to create the ultimate shopping experience for you and your clients.

July 21, 2022
January 12, 2023

Astra 4.0.0

A completely new design to improve the reader experience. Included quick settings, pro modules management and extra mega menu features.

January 12, 2023
March 28, 2023

Version 4.1.0

New redirect actions on add to cart click, extra accessibility options and tons of improvements!

March 28, 2023
April 6, 2023

Version 4.1.3

Better compatibility with WordPress 6.2, stronger security and many under-the-hood changes to make Astra faster, more reliable and better than ever!

April 6, 2023

The design team keeps adding designs to Starter Templates so you can create stunning websites with just a couple of clicks.

You’ll find link-in-bio templates and more designs are on the way. Don’t forget to leave your ideas or suggestions in the comments below.

We’ll read them all and implement the best ideas in future updates!

New starter templates released

Starter Templates is also on sale!

And so are other great products from Brainstorm Force!

Ultimate Addons for Elementor, Schema Pro, Convert Pro. All the tools you need to build and run your online business with ease.

Astra birthday sale

The best part?

You can get all of those products and more in the Growth Bundle!

Astra pricing

This plan will include the Pro version of the Spectra page builder, which will be ready sooner than you think.

Spectra Pro is coming

The Brainstorm Force team works hard every day to bring you the best products.

Astra remote team

Yup! We work from everywhere. Wanna join us?

We cannot include all the thoughts of the Brainstorm Force family during this last year here. We are many!

But here are some words that our CTO would love to share with you!

> Hey Pratik, take the keyboard. I’m going to check if there is still some cake left 🎂.

I’m thrilled to celebrate the 6th birthday of the Astra WordPress theme. It’s been an amazing journey for us, and I’m proud of the engineering efforts that went into building this product. From its inception, Astra has been about simplicity, speed, and customization.

Our team has been working tirelessly to ensure Astra continues to deliver the best experience for WordPress users. With its lightweight design, fast loading times, and endless customization options, Astra has truly revolutionized the WordPress theme industry.

Thank you for choosing Astra as your go-to WordPress theme. We look forward to continuing to improve and enhance this product for years to come.
Pratik CTO of Brainstorm ForcePratik Chaskar, CTO of Brainstorm Force

Yummy!🍰

I mean, don’t worry. We work hard but also have time to enjoy ourselves!

Astra people having fun
Night at BSF
work and play at BSF

Thank you for your support!

We can’t thank you enough for being with us all these years.

Without you, Astra would not be what it is today.

Thank you Astra team

We can’t wait to continue growing with you!

Our next big goal is to launch Spectra Pro. It will make it easier for you to design and create your WordPress pages using our new page builder.

Take advantage of the birthday deal, get the Growth plan and start enjoying all the other tools and benefits while we polish Spectra Pro.

We hope to see you here again next year!

Cheers! ~(^-^)~

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How to deactivate plugins when you cannot log into your WordPress dashboard https://wpastra.com/guides-and-tutorials/disable-wordpress-plugins-without-wp-admin-access/ https://wpastra.com/guides-and-tutorials/disable-wordpress-plugins-without-wp-admin-access/#respond Fri, 28 Apr 2023 12:22:03 +0000 https://wpastra.com/?p=149412 How to deactivate plugins when you cannot log into your WordPress dashboard Read More »

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Picture this, you’re ready to go about your day managing your (or your client’s) websites. You click to open the site and instead of seeing the login page, you see a message or a blank white screen.

The message or the screen may differ but the end result is the same.

You cannot log into the WordPress dashboard to manage the website.

If you’re new to WordPress, this is the last thing you want to see. It doesn’t necessarily mean the website itself is down but it does mean you won’t be able to do whatever you need to do.

The good news is, there are a few ways to work around the issue to get everything working again.

We’re going to share some effective ways to fix the error so you can go about your day as you originally planned.

Why can you not access WP-admin?

The crux of the problem is that something is interfering with WordPress loading processes.

Where it would normally run its login scripts and present the login page, there’s something getting in the way.

That can be:

  1. A plugin that’s loading and stopping WordPress
  2. A disconnect between your database and WordPress
  3. A PHP error that’s interrupting the load sequence
  4. A parse error that’s interrupting the load sequence
  5. A hack or attack on the website blocking login

Fortunately, most login issues are caused by an outdated or broken plugin that interrupts WordPress while it loads.

That’s the issue we’re going to walk you through today.

It’s better to go with more extended plans at discounted rates to keep the hosting cost predictable for a longer time.

Load the URL in incognito mode to make sure the site is up and running. This check should give you the reassurance to continue without having to rush.

How plugins can prevent WordPress login

Plugins are a core component of WordPress. The core CMS provides the foundations of a website but it’s WordPress themes and plugins that give it life.

Plugins are addons that contain their own code and use WordPress resources to run. If that code becomes outdated, corrupted, overwritten or just plain broken, it can cause WordPress to freeze or loop.

This can be why you cannot access WP-admin when you’re trying to log in.

So how can you fix it?

How to disable plugins that block access to WP-admin

There are 4 main ways to access plugins without having to log into WordPress.

There is no ‘best’ option here as they all achieve the same goal. Some methods are easier than others though, so we’ll put those first.

1. Via FTP – Easiest

FTP, File Transfer Protocol, is the easiest way to disable plugins as long as you have FTP set up on the site and have an FTP program such as Filezilla.

Other FTP tools are available.

You’ll need your FTP server, username and login for this to work.

Via FTP – Easiest

If you don’t have FTP set up, you may want to skip to cPanel as that doesn’t require any setup.

Otherwise:

  1. Open your FTP program and navigate to the /wp-content folder
  2. Right click the folder and select Create new file. Call it plugins.old
  3. Open the plugins folder within /wp-content, select all files and select cut
  4. Paste all files into plugins.old and make sure there’s nothing left in plugins

Force refresh your browser and try to log into WP-admin again. The normal login window should appear and you should be able to log in as normal.

Now copy one plugin at a time from it plugins.old to plugins and retry logging in.

If you recently added a new plugin or made any changes, leave that one until last. Otherwise work your way through until you can no longer log into WP-admin.

The last plugin you moved is the one causing the problems. Delete or update it as required.

2. Via cPanel File Manager – Easiest

If you don’t have FTP set up or have your details to hand, you can use cPanel to do exactly the same thing as above.

You’ll need the FTP login details for your web host, but that’s it. You should have received those with your welcome email.

  1. Log into your web hosting plan and load cPanel (Or other host manager as used by your host)
  2. Load File Manager and open public_html
  3. Select /wp-contents and the plugins folder.
Via cPanel File Manager – Easiest

Perform the same actions as above. Create a new folder called plugins.old, cut all plugins from the original folder and paste them into plugins.old.

Make sure you can log into WP-admin and move the plugins back one by one while testing login each time.

3. Via SSH – Slightly more difficult

If you’re comfortable using SSH, you can use that to connect to the hosting server and use cd and mv commands to move the plugin folder.

You can use the command line for SSH or a program like WinSCP (Windows) or Cyberduck (Mac and Windows).

Via SSH – Slightly more difficult

You’ll also need the FTP login for your website for this to work.

Let’s try that now.

  1. Connect to your web server using SSH
  2. Navigate to public_html and /wp-content using cd wp-content
  3. Rename the /plugin folder using mv plugins plugins.old

You navigated to the wp-content folder where plugins live. You then renamed the folder to plugins.old so WordPress won’t recognize it.

Try logging into WP-admin and see if it works.

If it does, use SSH or cPanel File Manager to move them back one by one until you find out which is causing the issue.

Read this guide if you come across any connection issues with SSH.

4. Use phpMyAdmin – Hardest

Finally, you can use phpMyAdmin from cPanel to deactivate all plugins so you can log into WP-admin once more.

Not everyone is comfortable rooting around their database which is why we left this method until last.

If you’re okay with that, here’s how to do it.

  1. Log into cPanel and open phpMyAdmin in the Databases section
  2. Select the wp-options table within your WordPress database
  3. Find active_plugins and double click the line
  4. Change the option_value to a:0:{} and hit Enter to change it

You have now disabled all plugins on your website.

You may have a lot of code within the option_value like in the image above. Delete everything aside from a:0:{} and hit Enter to commit the change.

As before, test WP-admin to make sure it works and work your way through activating plugins again using the Plugins menu in your WordPress dashboard.

Activate one at a time and retest login to make sure it works.

Once it stops working, disable the last plugin you used as that’s probably the culprit.

What if it isn’t a plugin stopping you accessing WP-admin?

We said at the top that plugins were the most common cause of not being able to access WP-admin.

But they aren’t the only cause.

If you follow all the steps above and still cannot access WP-admin, what can you do?

First, check for any error messages. Losing access to WP-admin is one of the few WordPress errors that won’t tell you something is wrong.

Usually, you’ll see a message like ‘‘Briefly unavailable for scheduled maintenance. Check back in a minute.’ Or ‘Too many login attempts or ‘Parse error: Syntax error, unexpected ‘;’.

If you see a message like this, search for that specific solution and work the problem.

If you’re not seeing error messages, you still have options.

First, check your site for viruses and malware just in case.

What if it isn’t a plugin stopping you accessing WP-admin?

If you have access to cPanel and your host provides antivirus, log into cPanel and scan your files.

If you don’t have a scanner, you could request your host to perform a scan on your behalf. Much will depend on your hosting plan and your host.

Then you could switch a stored site kept as a staging site to live if you have one set up.

You’ll switch between staging and live from cPanel but requires you having a copy of your website to make it work.

Your final option is to request that your web host restores your website from a backup.

Even if you use a backup plugin on your site, you can’t get to it if you can’t log in so you may need expert help.

That’s where you’ll really feel the benefits of working with a quality host!

Accessing WP-admin when you’re locked out

While there may be an element of panic when you first come across this issue, not being able to access WP-admin isn’t the showstopper you originally thought.

With a few simple techniques, you can disable the offending plugin, (because it is usually a plugin), and access your website once again.

We recommend using FTP or cPanel File Manager as they are the simplest way to move files.

If you’re more comfortable with MySQL, phpMyAdmin or SSH, those work too.

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38 Best WordPress Themes for Business Websites in 2023 https://wpastra.com/themes/wordpress-business-themes/ https://wpastra.com/themes/wordpress-business-themes/#comments Tue, 25 Apr 2023 08:51:00 +0000 https://wpastra.com/?p=66025 38 Best WordPress Themes for Business Websites in 2023 Read More »

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If you’re setting up a new business or want to grow your existing one, your online presence is key. It’s your doorway to the world and the primary way the majority of new customers will find and engage with you.

WordPress offers a variety of business themes that are perfect for startups, small and medium-sized businesses. That’s why we put this list of WordPress themes for business together.

These professional corporate themes come with elegant designs and features that make it easy for businesses to showcase their products and services.

Along with the design, features such as performance optimized, and customization options allow businesses to personalize their website to meet their unique needs and preferences. Additionally, professional support ensures that businesses can get the help they need to keep their website running smoothly.

Having an attractive website that is easy to use can make a huge difference to the perception of a business. A website that looks old, has missing links or navigation that doesn’t work properly creates a negative impression.

Commonly, the next thought is, ‘if they can’t look after their website, how will they look after me?’

That’s why every business of every size needs a fantastic website and why we have created this list of best WordPress business themes. You don’t have to have an original website, but you do have to look professional. These themes provide that.

List of Best WordPress Themes for Business Website

If you don’t have the time to read our entire review of 38 themes, the table below showcases the 5 best WordPress themes for business websites in our opinion.

Theme namePriceOur rating
AstraFree / From $47 €44 per year.⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Hestia ProFrom €69 per year.⭐⭐⭐⭐
KoehnFrom $49 per year.⭐⭐⭐⭐
Ultra ThemeFrom $59 per year.⭐⭐⭐⭐
Moesia ProFrom $59 per year.⭐⭐⭐⭐

Now, let’s start with our handpicked list of best business WordPress themes.

1. Astra

Astra Event Management Agency demo

Astra has an impressive collection of business website templates. That collection includes multipurpose templates that could be customized for any type of enterprise and a range of industry-specific templates covering individual business types.

Every Astra theme looks professional, works well and is exceptionally easy to use. Astra uses drag and drop page builders to help create your website. It works with Elementor, Beaver Builder and Brizy Builder and makes short work of customizing a demo website or creating your own website from scratch.

Astra themes are designed to load quickly, offer a range of popular features and deliver the experience your customers expect. All without you needing to know anything about code or how websites work.

There are many reasons why over a million users have tried Astra. Those are just a few!

Recommended Templates for the Business Websites

You can customize any Astra template to fit any type of business with minimal effort, but we have some specifically designed for popular niches.

Coworking Space

Co-Working space Astra business template

The Co working Space template is ideal for property managers, real estate companies and other entities that deal with offices or property.

It’s a vibrant business website template that uses a colorful full screen image to make an instant impact. It opens out into a modern flat design with lots of content blocks to customize as you need.

Coffee Shop

Coffee Shop Astra business template

The Coffee Shop template is another business design that makes an instant impact. This time for the coffee niche.

The template uses sympathetic colors and fonts for the industry and includes some attractive price boxes, order buttons and background images to help showcase your products. Everything you see can be completely customized to your unique needs.

Marketing Firm

Marketing Firm Astra business template

The Marketing Firm template uses a contemporary dark design with bright contrast colors to make its impact.

This dark template stands out from the crowd while delivering the content and story points your website needs. All backed up by bright contrast colors, high quality images, service pages and calls to action.

Features

  • Since it comes with Starter Templates, it already has demo landing pages that will help you create a website in no time. 
  • Templates also ship with readymade portfolio pages. You’ll just need to tweak them using a page builder.
  • Astra is lightning fast and loads in under half a second. 
  • It’s compatible with WooCommerce so you can create any type of online store. 
  • Most Starter Templates also showcase testimonials to help create credibility.

Cons

  • Too many advanced features might feel a little overwhelming for beginners. 

Astra Pricing

Astra has a free version while premium plans start from $47 €44 per year.

2. Mai Success

Mai Success Business studiopress theme

Mai Success from Studiopress is a clean, flexible WordPress theme for business. It has a corporate design that sets the scene nicely but can be customized for other industries too. It’s a fast-loading WordPress theme with a range of features that could work well for your venture.

The main image header works well with the bright contrasting font and pink colour. The rest of the page is modern, easy to use, attractive and includes all the content elements a typical visitor might want to see. It’s a viable option if you don’t mind paying the price.

Features

  • It’s simple and bloat free to make a basic business website. 
  • Lets you customize your blog layout. 
  • The home page has a portfolio section to showcase products and services.
  • Flexible and customizable Gutenberg block-based theme built on the Genesis Framework.
  • It includes a one-click demo import.

Cons

  • The too simplistic design and limited features.

Mai Success Pricing

Mai Success costs $99

3. Divi

Digital Marketing Landing divi theme demo

Divi is a little like Astra in that it has a range of attractive predesigned demo websites for a range of businesses and some multipurpose themes for everything else. The Divi designs are all similar to each other rather than being more unique but can be customized with ease.

Divi websites are designed using drag and drop page builders to make building simple. They come with a range of plugins built-in and are relatively straightforward to install and set up.

Features

  • It ships with readymade business website templates.
  • Divi comes with a dedicated page builder to make building faster. 
  • Allows you to add some important business website sections like testimonials, portfolio galleries and slideshows. 
  • Lets you control and customize all the elements of your website including backgrounds, images, videos, shapes and animations. 
  • Fast and responsive making it ideal for a business website.

Cons

  • Just like Astra, Divi has many features that can be overwhelming at first.

Divi Pricing

Divi costs $89 per year.

4. Hestia Pro

Hestia PRO WordPress Theme Demo

Hestia Pro from ThemeIsle is similar to Business Pro in that it’s a multipurpose WordPress template for business that could be customized to suit a range of industries.

It’s a flat, crisp design with large image header and start fonts that draw attention. Along with a pink contrast colour, lots of white space and minimal design flourishes down the page, it delivers a professional appearance that leaves nothing out. It’s a competent design that could work for many organizations.

Features

  • Slick material design can give your business website a professional look and feel. 
  • You can easily customize your website using the customizer. 
  • WooCommerce and page builder compatibility.
  • Access to all starter sites will help you create a business website in no time. 
  • It’s really fast and responsive. 

Cons

  • The user interface is a little complex.

Hestia Pro Pricing

Hestia Pro is the premium version of Hestia and costs from €69 per year.

5. Rara Business Pro

Rara Business theme

Rara Business Pro is a mobile-friendly and speed-optimized WordPress theme to create a professional website for your business. It is suitable for freelancers, agencies and businesses of all kinds. The theme includes several sections, such as Services, About, Team and Portfolio, to introduce your business to your audience.

The options for unlimited colors and 1000+ Google fonts offer the flexibility to fully customize your site. It also offers a one-click demo import to import and kickstart your website quickly. With Rara Business Pro, you can create a beautiful yet highly functional site that will grab your visitor’s attention.

Features

  • It’s free and can help you lower your initial startup costs. 
  • Responsive and SEO friendly. 
  • Has a one click demo import feature to help you create your business website quickly. 
  • You’ll get all the important sections for your business website such as a testimonial section, team section, portfolio section, service section, video banner section and a blog. 
  • Includes a built-in live customizer.

Cons

  • It might feel a little bit simplistic for advanced users.

Rara Business Pro Pricing

Rara Business Pro costs $59

6. Punte Pro

punte pro accesspress theme

Punte Pro is an impactful multipurpose WordPress theme for business. It uses clean design, modern typography, borderless page elements and lots of white space to create a great first impression. Add those pops of colour from the images and you have a very effective design.

Punte Pro has several demo websites covering a range of requirements that could suit most organizations. Each uses the same balance of colour, page elements and white space along with different layouts to deliver a series of professional-looking websites with minimal fussiness.

Features

  • Comes with 23 different starter sites, including corporate, agency, business, WooCommerce, magazine and hotel. 
  • You can build unlimited headers and footers using Elementor. 
  • Includes 8 pre-designed header layouts
  • Has unlimited sidebar options. 
  • Provides advanced typography options.

Cons

  • Missing some advanced features.

Punte Pro Pricing

Punte Pro costs from $55 for a lifetime license.

7. Neve

neve Investment Consulting Template Demo

If you’re looking for basic, no-nonsense WordPress themes for business, Neve is an option. There are a range of demo websites covering a range of industries and each can be customized to suit your individual brand or style.

Neve uses Elementor, Brizy, Beaver Builder, Visual Composer, SiteOrigin or Divi Builder page builders to help create the design. Each works well to help you build pages, add elements, remove features and generally create the website you want with minimal fuss.

Neve demos all look similar but offer an accessible website for new businesses.

Features

  • It has a free version that can help you lower your initial investment cost. 
  • You can create your business website using the Starter Sites in no time. 
  • It’s bloat free and loads really fast. 
  • You can easily set it up and control the website layout.
  • Supports most popular page builders like Elementor, Brizy, Beaver Builder, Visual Composer, SiteOrigin and Divi Builder.

Cons

  • Not the most intuitive user interface.

Neve Pricing

Neve costs from €69 per year.

8. Struct

Struct theme demo

Struct makes a great first impression. It uses an image background in the header with font and tablet image overlaid. The rest of the page uses alternating white and darker image background to add contrast alongside modern typography to communicate your message.

The rest of this WordPress business theme includes the usual features we like to see including graphics, effects, animations, colour and layout options, pricing tables and forms. Overall, Struct is a strong showing and well worth checking out if it suits your brand.

Features

  • Showcase your previous work, services, whitepapers and use cases of your products. 
  • Provide insights into your business website with a team member page. 
  • Includes typography and color control options. 
  • Integrations with page builders like Elementor and Gutenberg. 
  • Compatible with popular WordPress plugins like HubSpot, WooCommerce, Popups by OptinMonster, Yoast and Advanced Custom Fields.

Cons

  • A few more free templates would be a nice touch.

Struct Pricing

Struct costs from $49 per year.

9. Ultra Theme

Agency 2 Ultra demo site

Ultra Theme is a flexible WordPress template for business with a wide range of demo websites tuned to different industries. Each offers clean design with great use of images, colours and fonts that create a professional first impression. Just what we look for in WordPress business themes.

Ultra Theme designs include a drag and drop page builder, a wide array of layout options and the opportunity to build your pages with as few or as many elements as you want. Each could represent your business in the professional manner your customers expect.

Features

  • Provides WooCommerce support to create any type of eCommerce website.  
  • Create your business website with demo content including portfolio sections in minutes.
  • Allows you to insert a banner anywhere in the template without coding.
  • Comes with dynamic content and display conditions.
  • Supports drag and drop based website design. 

Cons

  • New users might find it a little complex to get to grips with.

Ultra Theme Pricing

Ultra Theme costs from $59 per year.

10. Authority Pro

Authority theme demo

Authority Pro is an excellent WordPress theme for business. It’s clean, well balanced and offers a different way of delivering a page. There is a lot of white space here with a main image and effective borderless content elements. This lack of obvious structure works in the design’s favour, allowing the visitor to scroll down as they like to learn the story.

This is a minimal design with strong fonts, a striking blue contrast colour and a nice shadow effect that gives the page depth. With some well-chosen images and strong copywriting, this could make a very effective business website.

Features

  • It’s free so can help you lower your initial investment cost. 
  • It’s WooCommerce ready so you create your online store with all the necessary bells and whistles. 
  • You can load demo content in the form of Gutenberg blocks onto the homepage of your business website. 
  • It was developed using the Genesis framework. 
  • You can easily tweak the colors, typography and other settings using a live preview option.

Cons

  • Fewer templates for other page builders other than Gutenberg.

Authority Pro Pricing

Authority Pro is available as part of Genesis Pro costing $360.

11. Sydney Pro

aThemes Sydney Pro demo

Sydney Pro is a beautiful theme developed for freelancers and business owners. It comes with the Crelly Slider plugin that allows you to create smooth sliders in the header or even add video headers to hold audience attention.

The theme comes with a range of predefined templates covering a range of business types and makes modifying easy by using the WordPress customizer and unique blocks to build pages. It also supports WooCommerce for those businesses that want to sell their own products.

Sydney Pricing

There’s a free version of Sydney while Pro costs $69 per year.

12. Moesia Pro

aThemes Item Moesia Pro demo site

Moesia Pro is a fast-loading, elegant business theme that lets you create user-friendly business websites. It comes with eleven premade blocks and a ton of effects, such as a parallax background, multiple layouts, and translations.

The pages are designed in a simple, minimalist way which helps build the professionalism of the website. The theme also comes with the Crelly Slider plugin that lets you add beautiful sliders to your website if you want to level it up a bit.

Moesia Pro Pricing

Moesia Pro costs from $59 per year.

13. Business Times Pro

Prosys Theme demo

Business Times Pro is a premium WordPress theme suitable for consultants, entrepreneurs, and startups. This theme has a corporate design and feel to it and you can design it to cater to other industries too. 

This theme comes with 5 different header layouts, 5 layouts for blogs, attractive service section, customizable contact us layouts, and compatibility with WooCommerce. For anyone who wants to build a corporate website, this theme is suitable and totally worth paying the $59 fee.

Business Times Pro Pricing

Business Times Pro costs $59 for a lifetime license.

14. Venture

Venture WordPress Business Theme

Venture is a business WordPress theme with a corporate look. The clean design, font and colour choices are perfectly suitable for a business that wants to stand out. It comes with a built-in portfolio page where you can show your work to help convert. 

Venture also supports WooCommerce and comes with multiple responsive layouts for portfolio, testimonials, blog posts and pages. This theme includes everything a business needs in their website.

Venture Pricing

Venture costs €69.

15. Guten Theme

Guten WordPress theme

The Guten is an elegant, minimalist WordPress theme that draws you in from the moment it loads. Its clean look and simple fonts establish the professionalism of the business right away. It loads fast and also integrates page builders such as Gutenberg, Elementor, BeaverBuilder and SiteOrigin.

It comes with multiple layouts for different sections, which makes it easy for you to customize. The integration with page builders gives you complete freedom to design your WordPress business website however you like without touching any code.

Guten Theme Pricing

Guten Theme has a free version, with premium costing from $24.

16. StartUp

StartUp theme demo

Startup, as its name suggests, is built for startups and small businesses. It uses the core WordPress Customizer and inbuilt widget functionality which makes it very easy to work with. 

With this theme you can customize your website completely starting from the website hero image to the footer. It integrates well with other plugins in WordPress such as JetPack, WooCommerce, Gravity Forms and many more that enable you to build your website to include as many features as you need.

StartUp Pricing

StartUp costs from $59 per year.

17. Consulting

Consulting Business WordPress Theme

The Consulting theme is designed and optimized for the most popular drag and drop page builders on the market, Elementor and WP Bakery. If you’re looking for a professional corporate theme for WordPress, this could be it.

The theme provides over 100 different templates from each demo layout and 500+ theme options. The page layouts are really easy to design and organize and a variety of infographics, personalized pie charts, and progress bars are provided. Overall, it’s a very competent theme with a lot to offer many business types.

See Also: Website templates for consultant

Consulting Pricing

Consulting costs $49.

18. Presence

Presence Demo site

The Presence theme is a super flexible, easy to use WordPress theme. You can pretty much create any type of website with the Presence theme including business, blog or even an eCommerce store.

The drag and drop page builder allows for design customization without having any coding knowledge. The theme comes with 10+ demo websites and the developers are constantly creating more such demo websites to cover different businesses so you’re covered whatever you do with the theme.

Presence Pricing

Presence costs €69 per year.

19. Corporate Plus Pro

Corporate Plus onepage WordPress theme

Corporate Plus Pro is a clean, responsive WordPress theme that is specifically designed for businesses. It covers all the features required for a good looking professional website. 

You can sell products online with its efficient WooCommerce integration. With 12+ custom widgets, you can add lots of cool features to your sidebar as well as your pages and posts. This theme gives you complete control over page design and lets you build your website with ease.

Corporate Plus Pro Pricing

Corporate Plus Pro costs from $55 per year.

20. Bordeaux

Bordeaux Demo site

If you are building a website for a hotel, inn or B&B, Bordeaux could be a great choice. It comes with a beautiful full-width slider and multilingual features that make this theme great for hoteliers. 

Bordeaux has built in features to showcase rooms, room types, highlight attractions and add blogs about the hotel and the location. This makes the theme very unique and user friendly and an excellent choice for leisure of hospitality businesses wanting to showcase their location.

Bordeaux Pricing

Bordeaux costs $175 for a lifetime license.

21. TheGem

Gem theme site image

The Gem is a dynamic WordPress theme that can be used to create almost any type of website. It comes with 400+ beautiful website demos that cover a wide range of businesses. These categories include Agency, Business, eCommerce, Blog, Landing Pages and Portfolio.

The Gem WordPress theme supports both Elementor and Visual Composer website builder which gives you the ability to customize your website completely. These tools along with some well-designed demo templates makes TheGem well worth checking out.

TheGem Pricing

TheGem costs $59.

22. eStar

eStar demo site

eStar is a free multipurpose WordPress theme suitable for any type of website, especially eCommerce. The theme has a clean full screen design with unfussy layout, beautiful pastel color palette and attractive Sans Serif fonts. It’s very easy on the eye.

The design manages to be simple but attractive, minimal but full of features and could work in almost any situation. eStar is compatible with WooCommerce and most WordPress plugins and has been designed to load fast and offer maximum flexibility when building pages.

eStar Pricing

eStar has a free version while premium costs from $49 per year.

23. Extra

Extra Theme demo site

Extra is a standalone theme from the people behind Divi. This is something slightly different as it’s a magazine theme. They are often used for news websites but some businesses use them too. This theme has the advantage of having an online store element which adds an extra commercial benefit.

Extra uses great page balance with simple navigation, straightforward organization and strong imagery to tell the story. While it wouldn’t suit every organization, it could work amazingly well for some.

Extra Pricing

Extra costs from $89 per year.

24. Cressida Pro

Cressida Pro Luxury Lifestyle and Fashion Blogging Theme demo

Cressida Pro is a soft feminine theme that could work well for certain industries. The demo website is a cross between a blog and an online store with content added. Either could work for certain industries and the template is flexible enough to be able to fit almost any niche.

Cressida Pro is another boxed layout with a patterned full width background. It uses soft colours, a mixture of serif and sans serif fonts, effective images, ads and all the page elements you could wish for. It’s a very descriptive demo that shows exactly what this theme can do.

Cressida Pro Pricing

Cressida Pro costs $35.

25. Balance

Balance theme demo

Balance from WPZoom is an eCommerce oriented WordPress theme for business but could feasibly work for any enterprise given the right attention. It’s a modern theme with contemporary font, subtle use of colour and nice balance throughout the page.

It does look and feel like an online store but that could benefit a range of businesses. It can also be changed to a more traditional layout or tweaked to create something original with the included drag and drop page builder. While not as flexible as some, what Balance does, it does very well which is why it’s in our list of top WordPress themes for business.

Balance Pricing

Balance costs €69 per year.

26. Modules

MODULES wordpress theme

Modules is a contemporary template with a lot going on. It uses an impactful header image to grab attention along with stark contrasting fonts and minimal navigation. Further down the page, a mixture of white space and parallax effects keep your interest while the story unfolds.

Modules has a selection of demo websites covering most industries and comes with a front-end editor for simple customization. It offers all the content elements you might need and delivers that professional look we’re after when representing our business online.

Modules Pricing

Modules costs from £129 per year.

27. Mai Reach

Reach Agency Mai Reach Agency Demo

Mai Reach makes a great first impression with that pop of purple in the demo. It then calms down with a mainly off-white background, standard sans serif fonts and minimal colour pops with a complementing lilac. This is a minimal design that provides an almost blank canvas for you to build upon.

Mai Reach is in our list of WordPress themes for business because of its potential. It’s another Genesis Framework theme that can be customized with ease and tweaked to suit any business. It is expensive though but seems well worth it if the design suits your brand.

Mai Reach Pricing

Mai Reach costs $99.

28. Mercantile Pro

Mercantile business theme

Mercantile Pro is a standard WordPress theme for business that works well. It uses an image slider with a blue filter to match the main colour. The navigation bars are small but effective and the images below the header match their niche perfectly. It’s a great first impression that keeps getting better.

The rest of the theme includes the content elements, forms, images, animations and other goodies some businesses like to use. Fonts and colours are great, page balance works well and the theme includes every conceivable page element you could ever need.

Mercantile Pricing

Mercantile is free while premium plans cost from $69.

29. Binder Pro

Binder pro theme image

Binder Pro is another magazine-style theme that could work exceptionally well in the right hands. It’s a clean, modern theme with lots of white space and great use of colour. The mixture of serif and sans serif fonts works well, as does the flow down the page.

Binder Pro includes most of the elements we look for in a WordPress theme for business. Content elements, images, graphics, animations, flexible page layouts and that certain something that draws you in and keeps your attention. Whatever that certain something is, Bonder Pro has it and then some.

Binder Pro Pricing

Binder Pro costs from $129 per year.

30. Roxima

Roxima Theme Demo

Roxima is a corporate WordPress template for business that is flexible enough to be used almost anywhere. It has a nice filtered image header with complementing button colour, stark white header and simple but effective navigation up top.

Further down the page, a selection of service elements, images, calls to action, pricing tables, biographies, testimonials, blog posts and form options provide all the functionality you’re likely to need. While this theme may take some work to make it truly unique, it has all the ingredients necessary to do it.

Roxima Pricing

Roxima costs from $34 per year.

31. Zakra

Zakra Agency wordpress theme

Zakra is a very clean WordPress business theme with a range of demos covering most niches. Each uses white space exceptionally well and includes good page balance, simple navigation, effective content layouts and simple effects like shadows. The overall impression of Zakra is of a simple website done well.

Depending on the demo you choose, the layouts are simple and effective or more feature rich. Colour choice is first class and the typography equally so. Pages load quickly, the use of contrasting white and coloured backgrounds works well and the range of layout options gives you the freedom to design your site as you see fit.

Zakra Pricing

There’s a free version of Zakra while premium plans cost from $69 per year.

32. Amaryllis

Amaryllis wordpress theme

Amaryllis is a modern WordPress theme for business that makes an instant first impression before settling down. It begins with a seamless slider without any fussiness that just lets the images speak for themselves. Along with an attractive modern font and minimal navigation, it sets the scene for what’s to come.

Further down the page we evolve into a standard page with logs of white space, minimal copy and simple divider elements. The demo is set up for eCommerce but the theme comes with standard content blocks so you could build out your pages however you like. We think this is a very strong theme!

Amaryllis Pricing

Amaryllis costs from $49 per year.

33. Total

Total agency free wordpress theme

Total is another impactful theme that uses a header image to make an entrance. This time accompanied by a bold orange contrast colour to add additional interest to the page. It’s a very effective combination that could be easily customized to suit any niche and any brand.

The rest of the page is a combination of white and dark backgrounds and fonts with image and graphic overlays. It tells a story very effectively and while the orange colour is used sparingly, it is very effective when you see it. It can of course be changed to suit your own colour scheme if orange isn’t your thing.

Total Pricing

Total Plus costs from $55.

34. Screenr

Screenr demo template

Screenr is a free WordPress theme for business but really doesn’t look like it. This is a professional looking template with all the qualities you expect. It opens with a bold header image with contrasting fonts and opens out to add colour and white space as the page unfolds.

Font and colour choice is excellent and makes a great impression. The page includes a range of content blocks to cover most needs including video. Some simple animations and a very clear form concludes what is a very strong showing considering this theme is completely free.

Screenr Pricing

Screenr is a free WordPress theme for business.

35. Monstroid 2

Monstroid2 Multipurpose Modular Elementor WordPress Theme demo site

Monstroid 2 is the opposite of Agency Pro. This is a light and breezy theme that makes you relax from the moment it loads. A mixture of pastel colours with easy going fonts and nice graphics creates a friendly, welcoming impression that continues as you scroll down the page.

We don’t often feature Templatemonster themes but Monstroid 2 is the exception. It’s a well balanced design with a wide array of content blocks and includes the Elementor drag and drop page builder. It’s a flexible theme that could genuinely be customized to suit any industry you could think of.

Monstroid2 Pricing

Monstroid2 costs $95.

36. Angle

Angle Portfolio WordPress Theme

Angle is a smart, minimalist website template for business. It’s a well thought-out design with a monochrome header image with small colour pops. It uses contemporary typography, lots of white space and smooth flow while also including everything you want to see on a business page.

Borderless content blocks, subtle colours provided by images and an unfussy design makes this theme stronger. The inclusion of a timeline, social media, blog, forms and extra content elements means you could tweak this template to suit your brand with ease.

Angle Pricing

Angle costs €69 per year.

37. Delicio

Delicio Restaurant WordPress Theme

While Delicio could be used for any type of business, it has some features that make it shine for food; a perfect WordPress theme for restaurants. Those include a specific menu section, online ordering and reservations elements. All combine to create a professional website that you could build in your spare time.

The page begins with an attractive header image and parallax background. Content elements include menus, booking options, a map, block, social media and all the elements you would expect to see on a food website. The dark background and mixture of serif and sans serif fonts also makes an impact.

Delicio Pricing

Delicio costs €69 per year.

38. Vogue

Vogue Kaira wordpress theme

The Vogue demo is built around an online store but could easily be customized to offer a more traditional business website. It’s a simple but effective theme designed to allow images to tell the story.

A nice logo and navigation area opens to an image slider before transitioning into a standard layout. Font and colour choice is excellent, as are the contrast colours on the side. Page flow is smooth and the overall impression is of calm competence. While built around a store, the template is easily flexible enough to work without it.

Vogue Pricing

Vogue is a free WordPress business theme.

What Should I look for in a Business WordPress theme?

Every business is different and has unique requirements. That said, many of the requirements of a business theme are largely the same.

They include:

Niche Relevance

A business website needs to portray the personality of the business and the people running it, but also reflect the industry you’re in.

You’ll notice different businesses tend to go for specific design schemes that reflect the industry they are in.

For example, lawyers tend to go for trust or heritage colors, sober tones and stoic images to portray the seriousness of their business. Doctors and hospitals tend to use lots of white, light blues and greens as we associate that with health and cleanliness.

We recommend doing the same for your business website.

Design

The design of a WordPress theme should also reflect your business. As with the niche relevant point above, businesses tend to use design to reflect the characteristics of their niche while also portraying the specifics of their brand.

The advantage with WordPress is that you can adapt that design to your specific tastes with minimal effort using drag and drop page builders.

You can choose modern, heritage, minimalist and any design scheme that suits your brand.

Mobile friendly/Responsiveness

Over half of web users now browse on their phones and your business website needs to cater to that audience. Search engines now rank all websites according to whether they are mobile friendly or not.

Fortunately, most modern WordPress themes are now mobile friendly. It’s also referred to as responsive, as in the website responds to the size of the screen it’s being viewed on.

This is an essential for any website.

SEO Friendly

SEO friendly means including features that can help your website rank better in search engines.

SEO friendly features include being fast, being able to use unique titles and descriptions on pages, optimized images, a meaningful structure and using compliant code.

All things that can help the user experience as well as SEO.

Things You Need to Build a Business or a Company Website

Having a professional website doesn’t have to be time consuming or expensive. It can be achieved with the minimum of knowledge of WordPress or of how websites work.

There are four main components of a website:

  • Domain
  • Hosting
  • Themes
  • Plugins

Domain

The domain is the www. name of the website. The name you type into the URL box of a browser. The name is vitally important and should be the same, or very similar to, the business name to avoid confusion.

Hosting

Hosting, or web hosting, is where you install the website so it becomes available to the general public. Essentially you’re renting space on a web server that will ensure your website is connected to the internet and accessible using your domain name.

Themes

WordPress themes are a skin we place over the mechanics of the system to make it look the part. WordPress is a little utilitarian and using WordPress business themes offers the freedom to make your website look and feel unique.

Plugins

WordPress plugins add features that the system doesn’t include by default. WordPress can do a lot but no system can do everything. That’s where plugins come in. They bolt onto WordPress to add extra features or make existing features look, feel or work better.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I use free WordPress themes for my business?

Yes, you can use free WordPress themes for your business. We recommend checking each theme carefully though as not all free themes are created equal. You’re looking for a theme like Astra that makes it easy to deliver a professional website with minimal effort. After all, you’re planning to portray your business with it so it needs to be good!

Which is the best free WordPress theme for business?

Astra is the best free WordPress theme for business. You would expect us to say that because it’s our theme, but it’s true! Astra is the most popular third-party WordPress theme in the world with over 1.7 million users and over 5,600 five star reviews. It’s also incredibly flexible, compatible with leading page builders and offers professionally-designed templates you can use to build your website.

Which types of businesses can I use WordPress themes for?

You can use WordPress themes for any type of business. As you can typically change everything about them, you can customize a theme to your exact requirements.

Here’s a quick guide to help you narrow down the choices and choose a WordPress theme that will work well for your business website:
– If you’re running a small business or startup, look for a simple and clean theme that won’t distract from your content.
– If you have an eCommerce store, choose a theme that includes all the features and functionality you need to sell online including support for WooCommerce.
– If you want to showcase your portfolio or create a blog, choose a theme with a design that reflects your brand and personality.

Which is the fastest WordPress theme for a business website?

In our opinion, the fastest themes for a business website include Astra, Neve and GeneratePress. In general, faster WordPress themes will tend to be less complex and have fewer features than slower themes.

That said, there are some fast WordPress themes like Astra that are both feature-rich and fast at the same time. So, these themes are the most suitable for businesses of all types.

Which is the most affordable website template for a company website?

Astra is one of the most affordable website templates for a company website. There’s a free version so you can try before you buy and three premium versions. All are priced reasonably considering the value they offer.

If you are on a tight budget we recommend you go for the free version of the Astra Starter Templates. This way, you won’t have to worry about spending too much. Later, you can get the premium version of the Starter Templates to scale your business website.

Summary of the Best WordPress Themes for Business/Corporate Websites

What do you think of our list of the best WordPress themes for business?

We worked tirelessly to scour the internet for the best business themes for WordPress. We think we have covered the current range of top performers and are confident you will find few better out there for WordPress!

Which WordPress Theme for Business Should You Choose?

It’s always difficult to single out particular products from a list of top performers. However, there are some standout WordPress themes for business.

Astra is always a standout theme. It has enough demos to cover almost every conceivable use. It includes drag and drop page builders, works with most WordPress plugins and is very easy to use. This is of particular interest to those new to WordPress or who don’t want to spend weeks building a website.

Other notable WordPress themes for business include Punte Pro for overall design, Cressida Pro for sheer number of options, Doko Pro for showing that clean design won’t leave you wanting and Locales for providing a credible option for directory websites.

What WordPress themes for businesses stand out for you? What themes did we miss? What theme do you use and want to recommend? Tell us about it below!

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22 Fascinating eCommerce stats and how you can benefit from them in 2023 https://wpastra.com/resources/ecommerce-statistics/ https://wpastra.com/resources/ecommerce-statistics/#respond Mon, 17 Apr 2023 10:19:12 +0000 https://wpastra.com/?p=149270 22 Fascinating eCommerce stats and how you can benefit from them in 2023 Read More »

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The eCommerce landscape is evolving at a rapid pace and keeping up with the latest buying trends and consumer habits can be difficult.

In this post we’ll be sharing 22 eCommerce stats as well as providing actionable advice on how to utilize these facts to improve your results.

Knowing the key facts about the eCommerce industry could give you a huge advantage over your competitors and help you make better decisions.

Let’s dive into these valuable insights and see how they can benefit your business!

Knowledge is power: Discover 22 #eCommerce stats that can help you make better business decisions.

The importance of data

There is a whole universe of statistics and evidence out there.

Some will be useful, some not so much. But:

  • Data-driven decision-making can help you make smarter and more informed business actions by reducing subjective bias.
  • You’ll be able to discover patterns and trends that may otherwise be difficult to detect.
  • It leads you to make more rational decisions, which can help you improve your business performance or mitigate risks you may not see coming.

Let’s explore these 22 eye-opening eCommerce stats in 2023 and see how you can start using them in your business today.

Sources

The data presented here are taken from studies and analyses carried out by different companies.

Where possible we’ll use global data, although sometimes the information is only available for the U.S. market.

eCommerce secrets: Statistics and trends you should be aware of

Here are all the facts we’ve compiled that can be useful to you, listed in no particular order.

1. 49% of worldwide eCommerce transactions are made via digital wallets

According to Statista and many other sources, credit and debit card checkouts are falling behind in favor of digital wallets.

In 2021 purchases completed using this method were nearing the halfway mark.

It’s likely that by the time you are reading this the 50% will have been surpassed, as the estimate was 53% by 2025.

percentage of payment methods

Takeaway

Give potential buyers as many payment methods as you can, making sure that digital wallets such as Apple Pay and Google Pay are included.

If you use Stripe as your payment processor you can easily activate these two digital wallets.

If your payment or eCommerce solution doesn’t allow you to use this payment method, consider switching to a better one.

2. Global “buy now pay later” value will be x10 in 2026 compared to 2020

In the table above you saw that “buy now pay later” (BNPL) has a 5% global market share.

This payment method is not as popular as digital wallets but it can be equally relevant.

This trend should be especially taken into account if you sell expensive products.

Global transaction volume of buy now pay later

Global transaction volume of buy now pay later (BNPL) in eCommerce. Data source: Statista

Buy now pay later doesn’t necessarily mean deferring the whole payment to a future date. It usually means offering an installment plan which makes it easier to purchase more expensive goods or services.

Takeaway

If what you sell has a high price, consider using platforms such as PayPal Credit, Afterpay, Affirm and Klarna to offer buy now pay later to customers.

Tools like SureCart also allow you to offer installment plans, which have similar benefits.

3. 45% of consumers search online before a major purchase

Selling can be as much about offering reassurance and validation as actually selling products.

“When I plan a major purchase, I always do some research on the internet first” – Statista dixit

It’s no longer enough to have a fast and intuitive eCommerce website. You need to solve the doubts and concerns of your potential buyers too.

Takeaway

Users want to know what they’re buying. Offer that information and they will most likely reward you with a purchase.

Include reviews and testimonials on product pages. Provide FAQs, information or case studies and any research material relevant to what you sell.

Start a YouTube Channel or create a blog and:

  • Record unboxings.
  • Write detailed reviews.
  • Compare similar items.

The more information you provide, the more research a visitor can do on the page. The more objections you overcome and the more questions you answer, the more likely they are to purchase.

4. Shopping via online streams is becoming increasingly popular across the globe

Live selling skyrocketed with Covid. Platforms such as Amazon Live and many others enable retailers to set up their own online shopping channel to demonstrate and sell goods.

According to Statista live stream eCommerce sales were valued at 17 billion dollars in the United States in 2022.

And it’s estimated to triple by 2026!

These numbers are even higher in the Asian market.

Takeaway

Selling through a live stream appears to be here to stay.

Clothing and fashion are the most popular product categories for this approach, but it’s worth experimenting with whatever you sell.

Buywith livestreaming platform

Use tools such as BuyWith to showcase your new products, answer questions and doubts, or collaborate with an influencer to boost sales even more.

5. 61% of consumers prefer to be contacted by brands via email

Making your brand visible to new customers is quite an odyssey. Once you succeed, how are you going to keep in touch with them?

According to Statista, 61% of American consumers prefer to be contacted by brands via email.

Takeaway

This fact doesn’t mean that you should leave aside any other communication means such as social networks.

But if you want to keep the majority of your clientele happy, be sure to set up a good email marketing infrastructure. Keep in touch with them via email and notify them about new products or discounts.

You only need two things for this:

  • An email marketing platform like Mailchimp.
  • A plugin like Convert Pro to capture email addresses efficiently.

6. 62% of customers won’t buy from you again if your store is not optimized for mobile

Smartphones account for a significant part of the world’s internet traffic.

Device usage rate
Data source from Dynamic Yield.

It’s not surprising that it’s one of the devices from which most purchases are made (up to 65% of users did so in the USA in 2022).

mobile shopping experience

However, more than half of those users wouldn’t return to your online store if it’s not properly optimized for mobile.

Takeaway

Offer an excellent mobile shopping experience for your users.

This means:

  • Optimize your page on a technical level so that it loads quickly.
  • Optimize the design to be readable and easy to use on smaller screens.
  • Make mobile payment easy by adding mobile wallets as a payment method.

7. 70% of carts in online stores are abandoned

More than 70% of shopping carts are abandoned according to Dynamic Yield.

Think of all the effort you put to attract customers to your online store.

All for only 3 out of 10 to complete the purchase.

cart abandonment rate
Data source from Dynamic Yield.

It’s a devastating statistic that every store has to work on to reduce.

Takeaway

There are many strategies you can follow to reduce cart abandonment.

Streamline the checkout as much as possible to reduce friction, avoid unexpected costs, keep delivery charges minimal and you should reduce that figure.

A very simple way to reduce this abandonment rate is to send a reminder email if someone doesn’t complete a purchase.

The results of this simple solution may surprise you.

eCommerce solutions like SureCart include abandoned cart recovery features.

Others like WooCommerce require an additional plugin for this feature.

8. Buyers are becoming greener

There is a growing concern about pollution and sustainability, especially with younger buyers.

That’s why many consumers consider the environmental impact of their purchases when making buying decisions.

According to Business Wire, more than a third of global consumers are willing to pay more for sustainable products.

Takeaway

This consumer behavior can lead you to take several different actions, but all pointing in the same direction.

Adopt more environmentally friendly practices throughout your store.

  • If you sell your own product, create a more sustainable version.
  • Use a more environmentally friendly transportation company.
  • Donate a portion of profits to a green cause.
  • Offer a product replacement program.
  • Switch to recyclable or reusable packaging.

Leading your eCommerce store toward a more sustainable place will be good for your business and for everyone.

9. Noon and Friday are your allies for increasing sales

Have you ever wondered what time and day of the week people shop online the most?

The answer according to a Klarna study is pretty clear:

Fridays and 12 noon are the busiest time and day for eCommerce. At least for the US.

In other countries the sales peak is delayed to the evening (7/9 PM).

average online shopping day

What doesn’t change so much is the favorite day for shopping, which is usually Friday.

Although there is also some difference depending on the country you choose.

Takeaway

One of the great advantages of eCommerce is that it will work and sell for you 24/7.

But when it comes to fine-tuning your results, try to use the relevant values of your country to maximize sales.

  • You can send your promotional newsletters or schedule your live shopping on those days.
  • Activate promotional coupons on your website or the ads on third-party platforms in the optimum time ranges.

10. 8 out of 10 people won’t buy from you again after just one bad experience

A study by Khoros claims that 83% of customers cited good service as their most important criterion for deciding what to buy.

And according to Venture Beat, 76% of consumers would stop doing business with a company after just one bad experience

These are high percentages that every online store should take into account.

Good customer support can be the difference between winning or losing the sale.

Takeaway

Do your best to offer good customer service and make the customer aware of it.

Many of your customers may never need your help. But knowing that they can contact you quickly by email, a contact form, chat or phone, may encourage them to choose you over your competitors.

Promote your support as if it were a product.

11. Influencers are your new best friends

Many years ago the most influential recommendations used to come from friends and family.

This trend has changed so much over time.

In 2022, and according to data collected by HubSpot, 30% of consumers reported influencer recommendations as one of the most important factors in deciding on a purchase.

Takeaway

Establishing a collaboration with an influencer is usually straightforward.

The vast majority will show their business email on their social networks where they are active.

The general recommendation if you’re considering doing this is to choose niche influencers who are respected in their industry.

Promoting a pair of sneakers through a beauty influencer will have less impact than if you collaborate with an influencer in the running space.

12. The most influential factor in an online purchase is free shipping

An exhaustive report by GWI tells us the main reasons that encourage users to complete an online purchase.

All of them will give you many ideas to improve your online store’s conversions.

most influential factors in an online shopping

In this article you have already seen some of them:

  • Knowing the product or company is eco-friendly.
  • Ability to spread payments over time (buy now pay later)
  • Live-chat box to speak to the company (good customer service)

All of them are important.

But the number one factor that is most important when it comes to completing a purchase is free shipping.

Takeaway

eCommerce customers love free shipping.

You can use this to your advantage by offering free shipping:

  • Using minimum order value to increase the average spend.
  • On special occasions to generate scarcity.
  • Only to your newsletter subscribers.
  • Or only to members of a yearly payment plan to generate more loyalty.
  • Or just add the cost to the price of the item.

These are just a few ideas that you can put into practice.

If you come up with more, share them in the comments below!

13. The top 5 factors of great delivery

As you’ve seen, offering free shipping is one of the key ways to encourage a user to complete a purchase.

But this is not the only decisive factor.

According to Metapack, these are the five major concerns regarding shipping:

  1. Cost
  2. Speed
  3. Convenience
  4. Return policy
  5. Visibility

Takeaway

Improve the points mentioned above in relation to shipping:

  1. Costs: If you can’t offer free shipping, at least make it as affordable as possible.
  2. Speed: Offer an option to receive a package fast, even if it’s a more expensive alternative.
  3. Convenience: Use companies that offer modifiable time slots, or work with pick-up points that make life easier for the buyer.
  4. Return policy: Explain in detail and be as generous as possible regarding returns. Returns are one of the biggest concerns of online shopping.
  5. Visibility: Offer item tracking, both the status of your products and their location to keep your customers informed and happy.

14. The category that generated nearly $900 billion during 2022

If you’re considering starting your own eCommerce business but are still not sure which category people invest in the most, Statista has the answer:

Fashion.

Followed closely by electronics ($767 billion) and toys, hobbies and DIY ($600 billion).

Takeaway

If you have an eCommerce store selling third-party products, consider increasing the selection to include one or more of these categories.

15. Around 70% of Internet users pay for digital content on a monthly basis

We often think of eCommerce as online stores where we buy physical products that are delivered to our homes.

Although eCommerce stands for electronic commerce, it’s not uncommon to overlook the fact that digital product sales are booming.

In the same GWI study we mentioned before, we also found that 71.5% of internet users aged 16-64 pay for digital content each month.

Takeaway

Consider adding digital products to your catalog.

Ebooks, audio, video, digital assets, courses or even consulting could help you tap into what is a hugely lucrative market.

16. Surf the wave of subscription-based eCommerce

In the traditional eCommerce model the customer pays to receive one or more products on demand.

That’s not the only way to operate.

The revenue of companies that use a subscription-based business model is growing steadily.

Subscription in eCommerce means that customers pay a recurring monthly or annual fee to receive a product on a recurring basis.

An example could be BarkBox, which sends a monthly box of pet products.

example of subscription ecommerce

Takeaway

Try to implement a subscription model in your store to build customer loyalty and have a more stable income.

There are two general ways to do this:

  • Send recurring perishable products: The typical example would be beauty products. But you can also send a book a month, a puzzle, or anything else you can think of.
  • Create loot boxes: Select and add different types of products for a specific audience: DIY kits, pet products, or food to try a new recipe a week.

As long as the product fits the model and offers genuine value, it could be a great earner!

17. A personalized shopping experience is key to customer engagement

This is the opinion of more than 90% of the companies consulted by Econsultancy.

As we mentioned at the beginning of this article, we live in a world surrounded by data. The best thing you can do is use it to your advantage.

If you offer the same shopping experience to all your customers, you’re not leveraging the full potential of your eCommerce.

Takeaway

A powerful CRM like HubSpot will help you keep all your customer data properly organized and accessible to take specific actions based on it.

For example, offering a discount if the customer visits a product page but doesn’t buy, or reach out if they visit many similar products in the same category without completing a purchase.

A word of caution here.

Customers are also becoming increasingly concerned about their privacy and the use of their data.

If you put this strategy in place, explain properly to your customers what information you’ll collect, and above all, why it will be beneficial to them.

18. The secondhand market is expected to grow 127% by 2026

According to a study by Thredup.

This goes hand in hand with the fact that customers are becoming more environmentally conscious.

Do you think resale would affect your brand image?

Think again, big brands such as Amazon and Apple have been offering refurbished products for years!

Takeaway

A smart way to do this is to offer to buy back old purchases from customers in exchange for a discount on their next order.

Part exchange offers easy money and a simple way to make space for a replacement. All while helping keep more items out of landfill.

The other benefit is that another customer will be able to benefit in a more economical and environmentally friendly way.

19. Half of U.S. shoppers have already purchased from a foreign site

According to Invespcro, more than 54% of US digital shoppers have made an online purchase from a foreign website in the past.

If you have an eCommerce store, you’re no longer limited to selling to your customers locally, to your own city or country.

Consumers are gradually losing their fear of shopping abroad and seem to be embracing it.

Takeaway

Allowing your products to be purchased from more places in the world will help you reach more potential customers.

One of the most important factors here would be to translate your website so that it is available in the native language of the country where you want to sell.

This is especially interesting in Europe, where countries are very close to each other, and different languages are usually spoken in each of them.

20. The forever trend of gifting

Almost 90% of consumers shop online for holiday gifts.

And this trend will be repeated throughout the year: Valentine’s Day, birthdays, anniversaries, Mother’s Day and Father’s Day, among many others.

There is always an occasion for a gift. It’s a trend that will hardly disappear.

Takeaway

Get your online store ready to make life easier for gift-givers.

  • Sell gift cards.
  • Offer gift wrapping (better if free!)
  • Add the option to include a personalized message.
  • Make it easy for the person receiving the gift to return it.
  • Hide sensitive information such as the price of the product.

21. One in three people in USA will have used AR for shopping by 2025

eCommerce offers many advantages, but also some disadvantages, especially for the buyer.

One of them is not being able to actually see the physical product.

This is where augmented reality can play an essential factor in increasing sales.

According to Statista, by 2025 one in three shoppers in the United States will have used AR-powered technology when buying products online.

Takeaway

At the moment it’s a bit complex to implement AR in your eCommerce store unless you use a specific tool like Shopify AR.

If you have the knowhow and it would fit your niche, we recommend getting in on the action.

eCommerce AR

While more options appear on the market, Here are some examples of large companies using augmented reality to enhance their customers’ shopping experience.

22. With a 40% growth rate, the Metaverse might be the next place to be

If you take a look at the statistics that Statista has prepared about the Metaverse you’ll understand why we have added this point here.

It’s estimated that the Metaverse eCommerce industry will generate a revenue of $5.7 billion by 2023.

With an estimated growth rate of almost 40% the projected market volume for 2030 is $58.07 billion!

Takeaway

The Metaverse has both supporters and detractors.

Although the actual numbers may not be close to those planned, they are figures to at least consider making some tests around this field.

Metaverse is a complex concept to explain here, so we recommend reading this guide to learn more about it.

Then, if you can implement it in your store somehow, we recommend preparing as much as possible as the Metaverse is coming!

Wrapping up

In summary, thanks to the different statistics we analyzed, we recommend you should:

  • Allow payments with digital wallets, and offer buy now pay later options.
  • Provide relevant content that solves potential doubts of your buyers.
  • Sell through live streams and with the help of influencers.
  • Contact your customers via email.
  • Be optimized for mobile.
  • Reduce cart abandonment, since it’s one of the biggest conversion leaks.
  • Work with sustainability in mind. Even reselling used or repaired products.
  • Take advantage of the days and times when shoppers are most active.
  • Offer quality customer service.
  • Offer free or inexpensive, fast and well-tracked shipping.
  • Offer products in the fashion category since it’s one of the largest.
  • Sell not only physical products but also digital ones.
  • Sell subscriptions to physical products in addition to one-time on-demand purchases.
  • Personalize the shopping experience for customers.
  • Sell abroad.
  • Have features to help people who want to buy items as gifts.
  • Adapt to new technologies such as AR and the Metaverse.

Which stats or facts surprised you the most?

Tell us about it in the comments below!

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20 Best digital marketing course creators to boost your skills in 2023 https://wpastra.com/resources/digital-marketing-course-creators/ https://wpastra.com/resources/digital-marketing-course-creators/#respond Wed, 05 Apr 2023 10:53:11 +0000 https://wpastra.com/?p=147555 20 Best digital marketing course creators to boost your skills in 2023 Read More »

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In the ever-changing world of digital marketing, it is essential to stay ahead of the curve and hone your skills.

With more businesses relying on digital platforms for their success, having a well-rounded understanding of digital marketing has become increasingly important.

To help you do that, here are 20 best digital marketing course creators that can give you an edge in 2023 and beyond.

From SEO to social media, these creator’s courses cover all aspects of modern digital marketing tactics and provide practical advice on how to apply them in real-world situations.

So if you’re looking to boost your knowledge in this field or just want a refresher course, look no further!

Why taking digital marketing courses is a good idea

According to the Content Marketing Institute, 73% of B2B marketers and 70% of B2C marketers use content marketing as part of their strategies.

This shows just how important it is to have a clear understanding of digital marketing if you’re looking to succeed in today’s market.

With the right knowledge and training, you can create effective campaigns that will help your business reach its goals.

A good digital marketing course can teach you about the different aspects of digital marketing, such as search engine optimization, content creation, social media management, and more.

You’ll also learn how to use analytics to track the success of your campaigns and measure their ROI. With a comprehensive understanding of digital marketing, you’ll be able to create strategies that are tailored to your business’s needs and goals.

Here are some more reasons taking a course might be a good choice for you professionally:

  1. Gain insights into the latest trends: Digital marketing is constantly changing, with new strategies and tactics appearing every day. Taking courses in digital marketing will help you stay ahead of the game and give you a competitive edge over other professionals in your field.
  2. Understand the fundamentals: With so many different aspects to digital marketing, it can be difficult to know where to start. Taking a course in digital marketing will help you understand the basics and develop a strong foundation for success.
  3. Make better decisions: Knowing what works and what doesn’t is key to succeeding in digital marketing. With courses in digital marketing, you’ll learn how to analyze data, identify trends, and make informed decisions that will lead to success.
  4. Unlock new strategies: Digital marketing is constantly evolving and learning new strategies can help you stay ahead of the competition. Courses in digital marketing will provide you with the latest tactics and strategies so you can apply them effectively in your business.
  5. Improve customer engagement: Digital marketing is all about engaging with customers in meaningful ways. A course will help you understand how to craft campaigns that are tailored to your target market and create content that resonates with them.

These are just a few of the reasons why taking courses in digital marketing can be beneficial for your career. With the right course, you’ll be able to develop the skills necessary to succeed in this competitive field.

Now that you know why taking digital marketing courses is beneficial, let’s get to the list.

20 Best digital marketing course creators

We’ve put together a list of some of our favorite digital marketing course creators that are available online, presented in no particular order.

From fundamentals to advanced tactics, the courses these creators have made will help you become an expert in the field of digital marketing and help take your business to the next level.

1. SkillJet

SkillJet

SkillJet.io is an online platform that offers a wide range of courses and education programs for web entrepreneurs, business owners, and marketers. It provides access to unlimited courses, rapid skill acquisition, and training from industry experts.

Courses

The courses available on SkillJet are designed to help entrepreneurs understand all aspects of building a successful web design business.

There are also beginner-friendly courses that break down introductory concepts to the uninitiated. There’s a combination of free and premium offerings currently available.

Courses include:

Who is it for?

Courses offered by SkillJet are ideal for web entrepreneurs, business owners, marketers who want to enhance their knowledge and skills in order to take their businesses further.

Coursework

Since there are many courses offered at SkillJet, what specific coursework you’ll be doing will depend on the course you wish to take.

Some courses include full tutorials and walkthroughs. Others include more broad discussions of topics and suggestions for how to adjust your mindset for success.

Course length

The length of each course varies depending on the topic but typically ranges from 2-3 hours with additional resources for further learning.

Cost

Some courses available at SkillJet are currently free — you simply need to sign up for an account to access them.

The rest of the courses are premium offerings for which you’ll need to purchase the Annual Growth Bundle from Astra.

It provides access to all of the premium courses at SkillJet as well as the Astra WordPress theme, Starter Templates, multiple plugins, addons, premium support, and more.

2. WPCrafter

WPCrafter

Put together by Adam Preiser, WPCrafter provides a comprehensive library with a variety of courses that are perfect for anyone looking to take their website to the next level.

Courses

The course library offers digital marketing classes for those looking to improve their WordPress skills as well as those who’d like to learn how to monetize their sites more effectively.

A few current offerings include:

  • The Course Creator Masterclass: This digital course teaches you how to create engaging content that will attract visitors and keep them coming back.
  • The Ecommerce Masterclass: Provides tips on setting up an online store, optimizing it for search engines, and increasing sales.
  • WordPress SEO Masterclass: Covers everything from keyword research to link building and more.

Who is it for?

WPCrafter is ideal for anyone looking to gain an advanced understanding of WordPress, digital marketing, and eCommerce. It’s especially useful for entrepreneurs, bloggers, and website owners looking to maximize their site’s potential.

Coursework

The coursework consists of videos you can follow along with to learn various marketing-related subjects. Many courses also come with extra resources and/or coursework you can use to help solidify concepts.

3. Funnels to Income

Funnels to Income

Funnels to Income is a comprehensive resource and membership website for entrepreneurs who want to build an online business.

It provides courses, tools, and resources to help entrepreneurs create successful businesses.

Courses

The courses are designed for anyone looking to start or grow their own online business and includes topics such as creating funnels, driving traffic, building an email list, and more.

Some of the courses available include the following:

  • Freelance to Income
  • Online Business Mastery
  • Divi Jumpstart

Who is it for?

Funnels to Income is ideal for entrepreneurs, bloggers, and digital marketers who are looking to grow their online business.

You should have some understanding of how websites work to learn these more in-depth monetization and site building techniques.

Coursework

Depending on the course you choose, you’ll be doing a variety of tasks such as creating funnels and optimizing websites for search engine rankings. You’ll also have access to exclusive tools and resources, such as templates, tutorials, and expert advice.

Course length

Courses are typically self-paced and designed to fit within your schedule.

Cost

You can gain access to all 14 courses at Funnels to Income with a yearly membership, which costs $197. This membership also includes email automation templates, Divi website templates, live workshops, and more.

4. Ferdy Korpershoek – Free Affiliate Marketing Training

Ferdy Korpershoek

This comprehensive course is offered by Ferdy Korpershoek and is designed to help beginners learn the basics of affiliate marketing and get started on the path to success.

Who is it for?

This course is perfect for anyone who wants to learn more about affiliate marketing, from complete beginners to experienced marketers who want a refresher on the fundamentals.

It covers all the basics of affiliate marketing, including understanding what it is, how it works, and how to get started.

Coursework

The course consists of 11 lessons that cover everything from setting up your website and choosing a niche, to creating content and driving traffic.

Each lesson includes step-by-step instructions, helpful tips and tricks, and real-world examples. By the end of the course, you’ll have a solid understanding of how affiliate marketing works and be able to start earning money with your own website or blog.

Course length

The entire course takes approximately 2 hours to complete. However, you can take as much time as you need – there’s no rush!

You can also revisit any lessons at any time if you need a refresher or want to review something again.

Cost

The entire course is completely free. All you need is an internet connection and a willingness to learn – no credit card required.

5. Create a Kick-Ass Website in 5 Days Flat

free 5 day course

The Create a Pro Website Free 5-Day eCourse is the perfect place to begin your site-building journey.

This comprehensive course will provide you with the knowledge and skills you need to build an attractive, functional website that will help you reach your business goals.

Who is it for?

This course is designed for anyone who wants to create a professional website but doesn’t have any prior experience or coding knowledge.

Whether you’re just starting out in business or are an experienced entrepreneur, this course will give you the tools and resources to build a successful online presence.

Coursework

The Create a Pro Website Free 5-Day eCourse covers everything from choosing the right domain name and hosting provider, to designing your site and optimizing it for search engines. You’ll learn how to use WordPress, HTML and CSS, SEO, and more.

Plus, there are plenty of helpful tips and tricks along the way that will make building your website easier than ever before.

Course length

This digital marketing course takes approximately five days to complete, depending on how quickly you work through each lesson.

The course is broken down into easy-to-follow modules so that even those with no prior experience can understand each concept easily.

Cost

The best part about this course is that it’s completely free. Just sign up and each day’s worth of content will be delivered to your inbox free of charge.

6. Pootlepress WordPress and SEO Courses

Pootlepress WordPress and SEO courses

PootlePress offers a range of WordPress training courses to help you get the most out of your WordPress website.

Whether you’re a beginner or an experienced user, these courses will provide you with the knowledge and skills to take full advantage of the powerful features that WordPress has to offer.

Courses

Pootlepress courses are taught by Jamie Marsland via live Zoom sessions with hands-on activities and instruction. Some are provided through one-on-one sessions and you can even book him for in-person training sessions.

Some of the courses currently available from Pootlepress include:

Who is it for?

These courses are designed for anyone who wants to learn more about using WordPress. They’re ideal for beginners who are just getting started with WordPress, as well as experienced users who want to expand their knowledge and skills.

Coursework

These courses cover everything from setting up your website with a domain name and hosting, to learning about the frontend and backend of a WordPress website.

Courses also include how to install plugins and themes, creating content, managing users, optimizing your site for search engines, and much more.

Course length

Course length varies. Some take a few hours over Zoom. Others are full-day sessions.

Cost

Pricing for these digital marketing courses range from about $30 per person up to about $150. Courses with a day rate are priced at about $711.

There’s also Club Pootle, which offers access to some of the courses and other features and it’s priced at $97 for a 6-month membership.

7. Darrel Wilson – How to Make a WordPress Website with Elementor Page Builder

darrel wilson

If you’re looking to create a website with WordPress and the Elementor page builder, then this might just be the course for you.

This course, instructed by Darrel Wilson on Udemy, is perfect for anyone who wants to learn how to create a website with WordPress and Elementor.

This course is designed for beginners who are interested in creating their own website. It covers everything from installing the Elementor plugin and setting up your first page, to designing and customizing your site with advanced features.

You will also learn how to use the drag and drop editor to build pages quickly and easily.

Who is it for?

This course is ideal for anyone who wants to learn how to use Elementor page builder with WordPress. It’s perfect for beginners, as well as those who already have some knowledge of WordPress and want to expand their skills.

Coursework

This course covers everything from how to install the Elementor plugin on your WordPress website, to how to create beautiful and functional pages with the drag and drop editor.

You will also learn how to customize your pages with the Elementor features, add animations and effects, create custom menus and headers, manage content, optimize your site for SEO, and much more.

To complete this course, you’ll follow with the on-demand videos at your own pace, which you can access on your computer as well as on your TV and mobile device.

Course length

The course is broken up into 3 sections and consists of 13 lectures, total. The lectures are 1 hour and 19 minutes in length.

Cost

The course costs $19.99 on the Udemy website.

8. Spectra 101 with Dave Foy

spectra 101 with dave foy

This course is instructed by Dave Foy on the WP101 website and is designed to help beginners learn how to use Spectra to build their own professional WordPress site.

Who is it for?

Spectra 101 is a great choice for anyone who wants to learn the basics of using Spectra.

Whether you’re a beginner or an experienced user, this course will provide you with the knowledge and skills needed to create your own WordPress website.

Coursework

The course consists of 14 parts that cover topics such as setting up your site, customizing it, creating content, and more. You’ll also get tips on how to optimize your website for search engines and social media platforms.

Other covered topics include:

  • Discover how to quickly and efficiently create global brand styles, so that you can easily make updates in the future.
  • Create a beautiful, contemporary home page in Spectra with ease.
  • Discover how to craft intricate layouts with the help of sections and containers.

Along with the video lessons, you also get a private Spectra sandbox site to experiment with for 30 days as you work through the course.

Course length

The entire course takes approximately 4 hours to complete.

Cost

The first two lessons in this digital marketing course are free. After that, you’ll need to sign up for WP101 with the Annual All-Access Pass, which provides access to all lessons on the site for a year. Pricing is just $48 per year and there is a 7-day free trial available as well.

9. WPTuts courses with Paul Charlton

WPTuts courses

If you’re a designer who wants to learn how to build WordPress websites, the courses taught by Paul Charlton on WPTuts are a must-enroll.

From tackling using Figma in conjunction with WordPress to establishing a design system, Charlton lays out workflows and processes masterfully.

Courses

Charlton currently has two courses available on WPTuts:

  • From Figma to WordPress: This digital marketing course shows you how to take your designs from Figma and turn them into a working WordPress site. The coursework entails building a WordPress site from scratch, adding content and pages, and customizing the design. The course is currently not open to enrollment but you can sign up to be notified when its accepted new students.
  • Design System for Designers: This course is for designers who want to learn how to create a design system. You’ll learn how to take your designs and make them usable by other designers.

Who is it for?

These courses are for designers looking to build their skills in creating design systems and working with WordPress. It’s especially useful for those who work with Figma as a design tool.

Course length

The Design System for Designers course is 80-minutes in length and includes written materials and step-by-step instructions.

Cost

Charlton’s courses cost a one-time fee of $79.

10. Tyler Moore’s WordPress guides

tyler moore

Tyler.com offers comprehensive guides that are perfect for beginners to the WordPress world.

Created by Tyler Moore, these step-by-step tutorials will help you get started quickly and easily, so you can create a website with WordPress in no time.

Courses

There are three guided video digital marketing courses currently available at Tyler.com. They include:

Who is it for?

These WordPress guides are designed for anyone who wants to learn how to use WordPress. Whether you’re a complete beginner or an experienced user, these video tutorials will provide all the information you need to get up and running with WordPress.

Coursework

Each course is broken up into practical steps, so you’ll be able to create your own website with ease just by following along.

They also provide tips and tricks for mastering the basics and beyond, as well as a list of tools and resources that will help make your experience even smoother.

The courses come with free images and assets you can download before beginning the course so you can follow along with the videos exactly.

Course length

Varies, but they typically range between 1-2 hours.

Cost

All of Tyler’s video courses are completely free.

11. WP Learning Lab courses with Bjorn Allpas

WP Learning Lab

WP Learning Lab offers a range of digital marketing courses that can help you develop your skills and knowledge in this field.

Instructor Bjorn Allpas covers a wide range of subjects for various skill levels.

Courses

The courses offered by WP Learning Lab cover everything from SEO, content marketing, social media marketing, SEM, email marketing, and more.

Each course is designed to give you an in-depth understanding of the subject matter and provide practical advice on how to apply it to your business.

Who is it for?

These courses are suitable for anyone who wants to learn more about digital marketing.

Whether you’re a business owner, marketer, student or just someone interested in the subject matter, these courses can help you gain a better understanding of how digital marketing works and how to use it effectively.

Coursework

What’s included with each course varies, but you can generally expect a series of videos that provide follow-along instructions.

Some courses are actually ebooks. Others include action plans and even quizzes.

Course length

How long it’ll take you to complete each course varies greatly, though each is broken down into modules with lessons contained within each to help you better keep track of your progress.

Cost

The cost of each course varies depending on which one you choose but they are all reasonably priced and offer great value for money.

12. WebTNG Academy by David McCan

WebTNG Academy

WebTNG Academy is an online training platform that offers courses in WordPress and web development. It provides students with the skills and tools they need to achieve their desired results.

At the moment, there is one course on WebTNG Academy provided by the instructor David McCan.

It’s called Local WordPress Development – Laragon and Beyond and covers topics such as installing Laragon, installing WordPress, adjusting PHP settings, and more.

Who is it for?

The instructional materials offered by WebTNG Academy are suitable for anyone looking to learn more about WordPress or web development. It’s aimed at beginners but anyone in need of a brush-up could benefit.

Coursework

Each lesson is structured with a follow-along slideshow with voiceover and an accompanying article complete with screenshots.

As you follow along with each video, you’re also given the opportunity to provide feedback — this is where you can ask questions if you run into an issue somewhere along the way.

Course length

Lessons are broken down by reading time, all of which take less than 5 minutes to get through.

Cost

WebTNG Academy is completely free.

13. Living with Pixels by Rino

Living with Pixels

Living with Pixels is set to offer a range of courses designed to help entrepreneurs, business owners, and other professionals understand how to use digital tools effectively.

These courses are aimed at helping people figure out how to manage their digital presence and build successful design businesses.

Courses

The courses offered on Living with Pixels aren’t available yet, but this is what’s slated to be released in 2023 through early 2024:

Who is it for?

This course is designed for anyone that would like to learn how to use Elementor Pro and create their own website with no coding knowledge. It is suitable for beginners and experienced users alike.

Coursework

What the coursework will entail is not yet clear as the course hasn’t been launched yet. However, you can sign up for the pre-launch now to be one of the first to get your hands on it.

Course length

The length of these courses isn’t known yet, but it’s likely to be on par with other popular courses in this niche.

Cost

Currently unknown, but the landing page for the Elementor Pro course does indicate if you sign up for the pre-launch, you’ll receive an early-bird discount.

14. Blog With Ben

Blog with Ben

The Blog With Ben YouTube channel is owned and operated by Ben Cummings, who created the channel to provide all of his blogging tutorials in one convenient location.

His videos aim to help people to grow and monetize their WordPress blogs.

Some of the topics covered on his channel include:

  • How to build a blog with WordPress
  • Growing your audience through email marketing
  • Monetizing your blog with multiple revenue streams

Courses

There are tons of videos on the channel as of this writing, covering everything you need to know to start a blog and monetize it.

Here are a few of his most recent video titles to give you a sense of the subject matter covered:

Who is it for?

Blog With Ben is suitable for anyone with an interest in blogging. Whether you’re just starting out or have been blogging for years, there’s something for everyone.

Coursework

The coursework is all based on the videos available on the channel, so you can watch, pause and rewind as needed. The videos are easy to follow and contain step-by-step instructions for each task.

Course length

The length of each video varies, with some being as short as 10 minutes and others as long as 5 hours. So you can go through the content at your own pace.

Cost

It’s free! The videos are available to watch on YouTube and there are also blog posts with additional resources on his website.

15. Caffeinated Blogger

caffeinated blogger

Caffeinated Blogger and its YouTube channel, run by Greg Kononenko, are dedicated to helping you make money online.

From in-depth blog posts to informative YouTube videos and free training, everything you need to know about monetizing your site is here.

Courses

In addition to the blog posts and YouTube videos, Kononenko also provides a free training course called “How I Make $15k to $20k a Month With ‘Passive Niche Websites Using 100% Free Traffic.”

Once you sign up, you’ll gain access to the training module, which covers topics such as:

  • How to generate free passive page views to your digital assets
  • How to create digital “money machines”
  • How to create digital assets

Who is it for?

This course is suitable for anyone with a basic understanding of the internet and online marketing. It doesn’t require any prior knowledge of web development, so even beginners can get up and running quickly.

Course length

The free training is delivered via exclusive videos and you can follow along at your own pace.

Cost

This training module is completely free!

16. Passion Product Formula

passion product formula

Created by Travis Marziani, the Passion Product Formula is an in-depth course designed to walk you through how to build an eCommerce business by creating a product and selling it on Amazon.

The course covers topics such as:

  • Researching and finding a profitable niche
  • Creating and selling physical products on Amazon
  • Developing marketing strategies to increase sales

Who is it for?

The course is suitable for anyone interested in creating and selling physical products on Amazon. It’s ideal for entrepreneurs who want to start an online business but don’t know where to begin.

Course length

The course consists of:

  • 117 video lessons
  • Weekly Q&A sessions
  • Access to a private Facebook group
  • Checklists
  • One-on-one coaching sessions
  • Bonus advertising courses
  • A Shopify marketing course

Cost

The Passion Product Formula course costs $997. However, there’s a 30-day money back guarantee if you’re not satisfied with the course.

And you can get the entire course fee back if you follow all the provided steps and don’t earn the course fee back within the first year of building your business.

17. Perfecting Blogging by Sophia Lee Blogging

sophia lee perfect blogging

Sophia Lee provides an invaluable resource on her YouTube Channel, offering in-depth videos on how to start a blog and make money doing so.

She also offers digital downloads and courses with the aim of helping you get more organized and adopt her strategies for success.

Courses

Sophia Lee currently offers three courses to help expand your blogging and social media skills.

Each course breaks down the exact techniques and methods she’s used to find success with digital marketing online.

Current course offerings include:

Who is it for?

These courses are suitable for anyone who wants to learn more about blogging, social media marketing, and email marketing. They will also be useful to those who are just getting started with their own blog or want to revamp an existing one.

Coursework

Each course is broken up into a series of videos that cover specific topics in detail. The courses also come with worksheets and printables you can use to further propel your business.

Course length

Each course is designed so that you can complete it at your own pace with follow-along videos you can watch whenever you’d like.

Cost

The cost for these courses ranges from $169 to $219.

18. John Morris

John Morris

Whether you’re a freelancer looking to get your start or an experienced developer wanting to brush up on their skills, John Morris has a course that can help you succeed online.

His website features numerous articles about digital marketing. He also has a YouTube channel, where he delves into everything under the sun related to freelancing, web development, and online marketing.

Courses

John offers tons of courses via Skillshare that are definitely worth checking out.

Just a few of his latest courses include:

Who is it for?

John Morris’ courses are perfect for freelancers and digital marketers of all stripes. Whether you’re just getting started or have been in the industry for decades, his courses can provide valuable insight into various aspects of web development and online marketing.

Coursework

John’s courses feature comprehensive step-by-step video tutorials that you can follow along with at your own pace. Some also provide a certificate of completion.

Course length

These courses typically range from 4 to 8 hours in total.

Cost

You can access John’s courses on Udemy for about $69 each. His courses that are on Skillshare are accessible via a free one-month trial, which is a high-value deal and worth checking out.

19. CareerFoundry Digital Marketing Program

careerfoundry

This comprehensive program offers expert-authored curriculum, hands-on projects, personalized mentorship, and more. You’ll learn all the fundamental skills, tools and processes required to become a job-ready digital marketer.

No prior knowledge or experience is required – the program is designed for complete beginners.

Who is it for?

This program is for anyone who wants a career in digital marketing. It’s especially suited for those with no prior knowledge or experience, and provides an excellent foundation from which aspiring digital marketers can build on.

Coursework

The course consists of individual modules broken down into lessons and activities. They cover a wide range of topics including SEO, content marketing, social media marketing, email marketing and more.

There are also assignments and projects throughout the program that give you real-world experience. You’ll also have access to mentorship and career support throughout the duration of the course.

Course length

You can take the course at a part-time or full-site pace. Part-time consists of 15-20 hours per week for 7 months total to complete. A full-time pace requires 30-40 hours per week for 4 months total.

Cost

Pricing for CareerFoundry courses ranges from about $700 up to several thousand dollars. You’ll need to contact them specifically to see if their digital marketing program fits within your budget.

20. The Complete Digital Marketing Course – 12 Courses in 1

complete digital marketing course

If you’re looking to become an expert in digital marketing, this innovative course bundle is what you need.

It provides more than 20 hours of thorough training on strategies for social media marketing, SEO, YouTube and Facebook; as well as quizzes with practical step-by-step instructions for mastering these areas.

This comprehensive package puts forward one of the most extensive selections of digital marketing courses out there.

Who is it for?

This course bundle is perfect for those who want to get a comprehensive look at the various aspects of digital marketing.

It’s especially suited for beginners looking to gain expertise in this area, as well as more experienced marketers who want to take their skills to the next level.

Notably, the course description indicates you don’t need any prior experience to get the most out of this course.

Coursework

The 12 courses included in this bundle cover topics like social media marketing, SEO, YouTube and Facebook Ads. You’ll be taught through step-by-step video tutorials and quizzes that make it easy to learn at your own pace.

The video instruction is supported by 8 downloadable resources, 35 articles, and you’ll receive a certification of completion at the end.

Course length

The course consists of 22.5 hours of video content as well as printed materials to read through. You can follow along at your own pace, so you can reasonably expect to spend anywhere from a week to a month on this course, depending on the time you have to spend on it.

Cost

This course is currently priced at $179.99 on Udemy.

What makes for a good digital marketing course?

A good digital marketing course will provide you with the knowledge and skills needed to succeed. From search engine optimization to social media marketing, a comprehensive digital marketing course should cover all the basics of digital marketing.

Or, if the subject matter is more specialized, the course should provide in-depth insights on the particular subject.

Courses that focus on topics such as online advertising, email marketing, and data analytics are essential for those wanting their online business to succeed as well.

The ideal course should also be kept up-to-date with the latest trends and best practices. And it should provide helpful resources such as website templates and tutorials to make learning easier.

All these elements will ensure that you receive the most comprehensive and effective digital marketing education.

Also look for courses that take an integrated approach and that respect how different channels work together to create an effective online presence.

Lastly, a good course should include practical exercises and real-world examples so that you can apply your newfound knowledge in your own business or career.

What’s a reasonable price to pay for a digital marketing course?

Prices for digital marketing courses can vary greatly depending on the type and length of course, as well as the institution offering it.

For instance, Coursera offers 436 digital marketing courses from top universities and companies with prices ranging from free to several hundred dollars.

Similarly, Udemy has courses for all levels of digital marketing experience that range from $19.99 – $199.99.

The Digital Marketing Institute also offers globally accredited digital marketing courses starting at $1,764.

Smaller, more specialized instructors may offer courses for free or as a part of an ongoing membership.

In these niche spaces, pricing anywhere from $100 up to $400 is reasonable. It just depends on the content being provided and what it’s worth to you.

Ultimately, the price you pay for a digital marketing course should depend on your budget and needs.

How to check a digital marketing course for quality

With the rise of digital marketing, it can be difficult to know which courses are of high quality and which ones are not.

To ensure that you get the most out of your digital marketing course, here are a few tips on how to check for quality:

  • Check the course outline: A good digital marketing course should provide an outline of what topics will be covered in the course. This will give you an idea of what to expect from the course and whether or not it is suitable for your needs.
  • Look at reviews: Reviews from past students can be a great way to gauge the quality of a digital marketing course. Look for reviews from people who have taken the same course and see what they have to say about it.
  • Ask questions: If you have any questions about a particular digital marketing course, don’t hesitate to ask them before signing up. Contacting the instructor or school directly can help you get answers to any questions you may have about the content or structure of the course.
  • Research instructors: It’s also important to research who is teaching the digital marketing course before signing up for it. Make sure that they have experience in teaching this type of material and that they are qualified to do so.

By following these tips, you can make sure that you get the most out of your digital marketing course and ensure that it meets your needs and expectations.

With some research and due diligence, you can find a high-quality digital marketing course that will help boost your skill set.

Is a certificate necessary?

A digital marketing certificate can be a great way to demonstrate your knowledge and expertise in the field.

A certificate program can provide you with an in-depth understanding of digital marketing concepts, tools, and strategies, as well as the opportunity to network with other professionals in the industry.

With a certificate, you can stand out from the crowd when applying for jobs or seeking promotions.

However, it is important to note that

A certificate is not always necessary for success in digital marketing. Depending on your experience and background, you may be able to gain the same level of knowledge through self-study or by taking individual courses.

It is up to you to decide if investing in a certificate program is worth it for your career goals.

Which digital marketing courses sound interesting to you?

No matter what your experience or background is, digital marketing courses can be an incredibly valuable tool to help you advance in the field.

With a wide range of options available at different price points, it’s important to do research and select a course creator that fits both your budget and needs.

Additionally, make sure to check reviews and ask questions before signing up for any digital marketing course so you know exactly what to expect when taking it.

With some due diligence and effort on your part, you should be able to find the perfect digital marketing course that will help boost your career goals. Hopefully the 20 creator options listed above will give you plenty to research and dive into!

Good luck!

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Create your own WordPress affiliate program to boost store sales https://wpastra.com/guides-and-tutorials/create-affiliate-program-for-wordpress-site/ https://wpastra.com/guides-and-tutorials/create-affiliate-program-for-wordpress-site/#comments Thu, 09 Mar 2023 08:08:10 +0000 https://wpastra.com/?p=145644 Create your own WordPress affiliate program to boost store sales Read More »

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Creating an affiliate program on a WordPress eCommerce website is a great way to increase your online presence and boost sales. In fact, according to Influencer Marketing Hub, 59% of companies currently have some sort of affiliate marketing program.

And for good reason.

Affiliate marketing is a rapidly growing industry, with a current global market size of over $17 billion. This constitutes an increase from $13 billion in 2016.

This growth is not limited to just the global market, as the American affiliate marketing industry alone is valued at over $6 billion according to Mhojhos Research.

Keeping this in mind (and with the right tools) you can set up your own affiliate program to promote your store, products or services.

In this article, we’ll provide step-by-step instructions for how to create an affiliate program on a WordPress eCommerce website.

We’ll cover everything from setting up the program to recruiting affiliates and tracking results.

By the end of this article, you’ll have all the information you need to start your own successful affiliate program.

Why creating your own affiliate program is a good idea

Creating your own affiliate program is a great way to boost your online presence and draw in new customers.

Here are some advantages of creating an affiliate program you may not be aware of:

Reach a wider audience with minimal effort on your part

One of the main advantages to setting up an affiliate program is that it allows you to reach a wider audience with minimal effort on your part.

Affiliates will do the work for you, helping to promote your products or services to their network of followers.

Creating an affiliate program can cause increased exposure for your brand and more opportunities for sales.

Increased exposure as more people become aware of your brand

By engaging with affiliates and third-party networks, you increase the chances of reaching potential customers who may not have come across your website or products before.

Increased visibility often leads to more interest in what you are offering and improved brand recognition over time.

Allows you to tap into word-of-mouth marketing

Affiliate marketing is also highly effective because it allows businesses to tap into the power of customer reviews and word-of-mouth recommendations.

In fact, according to the Edelman Trust Barometer Special Report, 77% of consumers make purchasing decisions based on reviews.

Affiliates that present products or services in review format will drive greater sales to your business, for certain.

Edelman Trust Barometer Special Report

Cost-effective

With an affiliate program, all associated costs are compensated by commissions from each sale made from referrals—you don’t need to pay out anything else upfront.

This makes it cost-effective compared with other forms of marketing where there are fees associated even if no sales result from the campaigns.

So yes, the benefits of starting an affiliate program are numerous. But there are a few challenges to be aware of.

Potential drawbacks of starting an affiliate program

Setting up an affiliate program for your business can be a great way to increase visibility, reach new customers, and drive sales.

However, there are potential drawbacks to consider.

Let’s explore those now.

Time and resources required to set up and maintain the program

Creating an effective affiliate program can take significant time and resources. From setting up a platform, onboarding affiliates, and increasing visibility with third-party networks, there are many steps to be taken in order to create a profitable partnership.

Once established, regular maintenance is also required such as tracking commission payments, resolving disputes and troubleshooting technical issues.

Risk of fraud and abuse

Unfortunately bribery, false leads, fraudulent accounts, stealing of intellectual property, or other unethical practices may occur with some affiliates.

As all commission fees are ultimately paid by you, the business owner, it’s important to monitor activity closely in order to detect any suspicious behavior.

Potential for decreased profitability if not managed properly

If an affiliate program isn’t managed correctly it can lead to decreased profitability or even losses for the business.

This can include ineffective processes for onboarding new affiliates or tracking sales commissions that don’t accurately reflect the true revenue generated from each sale.

To minimize this risk it’s important to set clear expectations for affiliates upfront including commission rates and terms of agreement.

Now that you’ve done your due diligence and know some of the issues that having an affiliate program can cause, we can now get down to the good stuff.

How to create an affiliate program in WordPress.

How to create affiliate program on an eCommerce website

Creating an affiliate program on your eCommerce website is a great way to increase sales and attract new customers.

With AffiliateWP, you can easily set up an affiliate program in just a few minutes. So that’s what we’ll be using today for the tutorial portion of this article.

AffiliateWP

Step 1. Installation

To start, you’ll need to install the AffiliateWP plugin.

To do this, complete the following steps:

  1. Go to the AffiliateWP website and purchase the plugin.
  2. Once purchased, you’ll be prompted to login.
  3. Next, go to the Downloads tab in your account view and click the Download AffiliateWP button.
download affiliatewp
  1. Once the plugin is downloaded to your computer as a .zip file, log into your WordPress dashboard and navigate to the Plugins section.
  2. Click Upload Plugin then Choose file and select AffiliateWP from your hard drive. Click Install Now.
  3. Once installed, click Activate to activate the plugin.
  4. Go back to the AffiliateWP website and access your account once more. Click the Licenses tab and copy your license for the plugin.
affiliatewp license
  1. Now back in WordPress, go to Affiliates > Settings in the WordPress dashboard and input your license key.
  2. Click Activate License to verify the validity of the license key and to complete the installation process.

With installation complete, you can move on to setup.

Step 2. Setting up your affiliate program

Creating an affiliate program is straightforward and just requires a few steps.

  1. Navigate to your WordPress dashboard and go to Affiliates > Settings. From here, you can select the options that best suit your needs for setting up your program such as commission and referral rates.
  2. Under General you can customize how affiliates are registered on your site. Choose between manual approval or automatic approval of applications or set up an affiliate registration form.
  3. Under Payouts you can configure how often payouts will occur as well as choose which payment gateway you would like to use for processing payments (PayPal, Stripe and others).
  4. On the Opt-In Form tab, you can set up the form people will fill out to apply to become an affiliate.
  5. Under Emails, you can connect your preferred email marketing platform to WordPress.
  6. The Affiliate Area tab allows you to set up how the affiliate area will look for those who sign up. By default, the URL on the user-end is set to https://www.yoursite.com/affiliate-area, but you can customize this under Affiliates > Settings > Misc.
  7. You can also create a custom affiliate registration form anywhere you’d like on your site by simply inserting the Affiliate Registration block into a page or post.
Affiliate registration settings

Step 3. Tracking referrals and commissions

With your affiliates added, you’ll of course want to be able to conveniently and easily track referrals and commissions.

You can add, delete, and edit referrals by going to Affiliates > Referrals in the WordPress dashboard.

You can click Add New to manually add a new referral.

On this form, you can add their name, the amount earned per referral, when it occurred, payment status, and more.

To get a bird’s eye view of referrals made by affiliates on your site, navigate to Affiliates > Reports > Referrals Report in your WordPress dashboard.

You will find detailed information about each referral including date created, amount earned per referral, status of referral (pending/paid/unpaid) and other stats.

You can also add a referral summary report to your dashboard as a widget.

Just go to Screen Options at the top of the dashboard and make sure the box next to AffiliateWP Referral Summary is checked.

Step 4. Add custom links and banners for affiliates to use

Custom links and banners are an important part of any affiliate program. Not only do they help affiliates to promote your products or services on their blogs or social channels, they also allow affiliates to track the performance of their campaigns.

With AffiliateWP, creating custom links and banners for affiliates is easy:

  1. Log into your WordPress dashboard and navigate to Affiliates > Creatives in the sidebar menu.
  2. Click Add New at the top of the page to create a new creative asset for affiliates to use in their marketing efforts.
  3. Enter a title for your creative asset, as well as a description that will be visible on your website when affiliate link/banner is clicked/viewed by visitors.
  4. You can then either upload an image file (if creating a banner) or enter a URL (if creating a text link).
  5. Once you have uploaded or entered the appropriate details, click Add Creative at the bottom of the page to save changes made and add it to your list of creatives for affiliates.
adding creatives in affiliatewp

Step 5. Creating banners — even if you lack design skills

As a store owner, you want to make sure that your business stands out from the competition.

One way to do this is by creating custom banners that will draw attention and help promote your products or services.

Creating custom banners can be a daunting task. Fortunately there are plenty of tools and resources available to help you get started.

Free online banner makers like Canva, Adobe Express, and Visme offer templates and designs that you can customize with your own images and text.

You can also use these tools to create banners for social media posts or digital ads.

Canva

No matter what you’re looking to create, these free online banner makers provide all the tools you need to create professional-looking banners quickly and easily.

If you need some more guidance, here are some tips for creating custom banners:

  • Choose an appropriate size based on the platform and device you’re using. The most common sizes for web banners are 728×90, 300×250, 468×60 and 160×600.
  • Include relevant keywords in the alt text of your banner to help it appear in search engine results and make sure that any text is clear and legible.
  • Incorporate colors, shapes and images that reflect the brand identity of your business.
  • Add a call to action that encourages people to take the next step with your business (e.g., “Learn More” or “Sign Up Now”).
  • Make sure your banner is optimized for mobile devices; if it doesn’t look good on smaller screens then it won’t be effective.

By following these tips, you can create attractive banners that will help affiliates to promote your business through their own affiliate marketing sites and attract more customers.

With the right tools and a bit of creativity, you can make a lasting impression and encourage more conversions.

Deciding on commission rates

When it comes to running a successful store, one of the most important decisions you will make is deciding on commission rates.

This decision is critical because it will determine how much you are able to pay your affiliates.

It also will determine how well they are incentivized to sell your products or services.

Setting up reasonable commission rates can help ensure that everyone in the sales process feels adequately compensated.

It can also ensure that your business’s bottom line is taken into account.

In this section, we will discuss some important considerations when deciding on commission rates.

Factors to consider when setting commission rates

There are several factors to consider when deciding commission rates for your affiliate marketing program.

Let’s review them now:

  • Cost of Goods Sold (COGS): It’s all about finding a balance between pricing that is attractive to customers while covering costs and generating a profit. Understanding your COGS is step one.
  • Labor costs: Think about what you currently spend on labor costs and ensure it’s in line with your target commission rate.
  • Overhead expenses: Be sure you’re accounting for all overhead expenses before considering a commission or referral rate. Think rental costs, employee salaries, supplies and so forth.
  • Competition: Check out what other companies in the industry are offering in terms of commission rates for their affiliate programs. You’ll want to stick within this range as well.

Keeping these considerations in mind when determining commission rates will help ensure that you’re setting a rate that is both competitive and advantageous for your business.

Best practices for determining commission rates

In addition to the factors mentioned above, here are a few best practices you should take into account when determining commission rates:

  • Create individual targets: If you only plan on using a few affiliates, you can set sales targets for individual affiliates and offer an increased percentage when they meet those targets.
  • Create different commission tiers: Another option is to set up different tiers based on performance and create incentives for reaching higher levels. This will help ensure that your sales team is motivated to continue working hard. You can actually accommodate this in AffiliateWP by using the Tiered Affiliate Rates addon.
  • Update regularly: Make sure you’re regularly checking in with your top affiliates to ensure that the commission rate you’ve set is fair and reasonable.
  • Set clear expectations: Let affiliates know what their commissions will be upfront and make sure they understand what it takes to reach their goals.
  • Communicate the benefits: Explain the advantages of working with you in clear and concise language. There should be no confusion about what affiliates can expect from you.

By following these best practices, you will be able to set commission rates that are both fair and advantageous for your business.

How to adjust commission rates over time

As your business grows, it is important to adjust commission rates as the need arises. This allows you to reward and incentivize good performance while also driving sales.

When adjusting commission rates, there are a few tips that can help:

  • Analyze performance: Regularly analyze the performance of your affiliates and determine if they need an increase or decrease in their commission rate.
  • Monitor competition: It’s important to keep an eye on what other companies in your industry are offering in terms of commission rates. This will help ensure that you remain competitive.
  • Think long term: Make sure that when adjusting the commission rate, you consider how it will affect the performance and motivation of your affiliates as a collective.
  • Stay up-to-date on industry trends: Adjust when necessary so you can remain competitive while also making sure affiliates feel rewarded for their hard work.

Providing support for affiliates

Once you have determined commission rates, it is important to provide support for affiliates throughout the entirety of their work with you.

You can accomplish this in several ways.

Provide detailed tutorials and guides

Make sure that your affiliates are equipped with the necessary tools and resources to effectively promote your products.

This can include tutorials, videos, PDFs, or any other type of content that can help them better understand the product.

We actually have our own affiliate program so affiliates have the best shot at promoting our products with minimal effort.

Astra affiliate program

Communicate effectively with affiliates

Make sure you are in constant communication with your affiliates. Reaching out and providing updates regularly can help ensure that they stay engaged and motivated.

Provide regular incentives

Incentives can be a great way to reward good performance. Regularly offering bonuses, discounts, or other rewards can help keep affiliates engaged.

Provide transparent affiliate performance tracking

Providing affiliates with accurate and up-to-date performance tracking is essential for running a successful affiliate program.

This ensures that both you and your affiliates have a clear understanding of how the program is performing.

Promptly resolve any issues that may arise

Any issues or disputes that arise should be addressed quickly and professionally. This will help maintain a good relationship between you and your affiliates and ensure that they stay focused on achieving their goals.

You can do this by:

  • Being available to answer any questions or concerns
  • Resolving disputes quickly and fairly
  • Listening to feedback from affiliates and making changes when necessary

With these ideas in mind, you can provide your affiliates with the support they need to effectively promote your products.

This will help ensure that your affiliate program is successful and profitable.

Recognizing your affiliates’ success

In addition to providing support, it is important to recognize the success of your affiliates.

This can be done in several ways:

  • Award accomplishments: Providing badges or awards that recognize key accomplishments can be a great way to show your appreciation.
  • Send gifts or bonuses: Sending gifts, bonuses, or discounts is an excellent way to reward affiliates for their hard work and dedication.
  • Give public recognition: Publicly recognizing affiliates’ success on social media or in newsletters is a great way to show your appreciation.

When you take the time to recognize and reward your affiliates, you can help ensure that they stay motivated and engaged over the long haul.

6 Tips for setting up a successful affiliate program

Once you have implemented all of the above, there are still a few more steps you should take to ensure that your affiliate program is successful.

Here are 6 more tips to keep in mind:

  • Set policies on promotion types and quality: It’s important to have clear policies on the types of promotional activities that are acceptable and those that are not. This will help ensure that only high-quality promotions are made on behalf of your company.
  • Provide swipe files and resources to help maintain brand: Swipe files and resources can be a great way to help affiliates promote your products in an effective and consistent manner. This includes things like banner images, copywriting tips, logos (with transparent backgrounds), and other valuable resources.
  • Prioritize high order value items first: When setting up your affiliate program, prioritize products that have high order values first. This will help ensure that affiliates make the most money possible from their efforts.
  • Provide bonuses, discounts or other rewards: Offer these sorts of benefits can help keep affiliates motivated to perform. This could include anything from gift cards to additional commissions for top-tier performance.
  • Review performance regularly: Regular reviews of affiliate activity is key to ensuring that your program is running smoothly. This allows you to track progress, identify areas of improvement, and address any issues quickly.
  • Providing ongoing training opportunities: Providing ongoing training opportunities is essential for ensuring that affiliates are regularly updated on new products, promotions, or changes. This can include webinars, video tutorials, eBooks, or any other type of content that provides helpful information on how to successfully promote your products.

Yes, there are several factors to attend to, but keeping on top of these items can ensure your affiliate program is successful and profitable.

With the right setup, structure, and support, you can maximize the potential of your program.

Create an affiliate program for your WordPress site and reap the rewards

An affiliate program can be a great way to supplement your WordPress site’s income, and by following the tips outlined above, you can ensure that it is successful.

With the right strategy and support, you can maximize the potential of your program and start generating more revenue for your business.

Best of all, it works well to boost the profitability of your business.

If you’re in need of an eCommerce WordPress theme, we have you covered.

The Astra WordPress theme is fully optimized for WooCommerce and makes it easy to get your store up and running in no time. Pair it with one of our Starter Templates, and your store will have a solid foundation for success!

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SureMembers review: Does this membership plugin have what it takes to beat the top rivals? https://wpastra.com/review/suremembers-review/ https://wpastra.com/review/suremembers-review/#respond Thu, 23 Feb 2023 14:53:25 +0000 https://wpastra.com/?p=145371 SureMembers review: Does this membership plugin have what it takes to beat the top rivals? Read More »

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Are you looking for a membership plugin for your website? If so, you may have come across SureMembers, one of the top contenders in the market.

But is it worth investing in this plugin?

The subscription economy as a whole has grown substantially over the past year and is projected to reach $1.5 trillion by 2025.

It offers a great way to build revenue for your business or to diversify your income.

In this article, we will provide an in-depth review of SureMembers and compare it to some of its top rivals.

We’ll look at its features as well as its ease-of-use, pricing plans, customer support, and more.

All to help you decide if this membership plugin has what it takes to beat the competition.

So let’s dive right into our SureMembers review!

What should we expect from a membership plugin?

There are a few key features and capabilities that we need from a membership plugin.

These include:

  • Content protection: The primary purpose of a membership plugin is to protect content, so this is one of the most important features to consider. This can include restricting access to posts, pages, and other types of content based on membership levels or individual user permissions.
  • Payment processing: If you’re offering a paid membership, it’s important to have a payment processing system in place. Most membership plugins will include integration with a payment gateway, such as PayPal or Stripe, to handle transactions and recurring payments.
  • User management: Managing users is another key aspect of a membership plugin. This can include creating and managing user accounts, assigning membership levels, and tracking user activity.
  • Customizable checkout process: A customizable checkout process is important for creating a seamless and professional user experience. This can include customizing the checkout page with branding, adding custom fields, and setting up automated emails and notifications.
  • Integrations: Many membership plugins offer integrations with other tools and services, such as email marketing platforms, learning management systems, and analytics tools.

These are just a few of the key features that we typically expect from a membership plugin.

In general, it’s important to consider your specific needs and requirements and to look for a plugin that offers the features that are most important to you.

What are the primary types of membership plugins available?

There are three main types of membership plugins available for WordPress: content restriction plugins, membership plugins and learning management systems.

Content restriction plugins

Content restriction plugins are designed to protect and restrict access to specific content on your website.

They are often used to create membership-based sites or to sell access to premium content.

This type of plugin typically includes features such as content protection and other integrations.

Membership plugins

Membership plugins are a more comprehensive solution that typically offer a range of features. That can include payment processing, user management, and integrations with other tools and services.

They are often used by businesses to create membership sites and to manage recurring payments.

Learning management systems (LMS)

There are also learning management systems (LMS). These are a type of membership plugin specifically designed for online learning and education.

They offer a range of features for creating and managing online courses, including course creation tools, quizzes and exams, and progress tracking for students.

SureMembers falls into the category of membership plugins. It offers a range of advanced features and capabilities, including robust integrations and flexible content protection options.

Some of the main competitors of SureMembers include MemberPress, Paid Memberships Pro, and Restrict Content Pro.

Overall, the type of membership plugin you choose will depend on your specific needs and requirements.

Whether you need a simple content restriction plugin, a comprehensive membership plugin, or an LMS for online learning, there are several options available to meet your needs.

Also, if you want to build a membership site, it’s important to have a solid website template as your foundation.

If you use WordPress, that obviously means using Astra as your theme. It offers a wide range of Starter Templates you can use for launching your membership site.

starter templates

With a solid theme and starter template selected, you’re ready to get started with your membership plugin.

Today, our focus is on SureMembers and what it can specifically bring to your site.

About SureMembers

SureMembers is a premium membership plugin for WordPress. It was created with the aim of offering membership solutions at an affordable price with a clean interface and a robust payments system.

It was officially launched in September 2022. Since then has become a popular choice for website owners and businesses looking for a powerful and versatile membership plugin.

The impetus for creating SureMembers came from a desire to create a plugin that takes a payments first approach by offering full payment processing directly within the plugin.

Other goals were to offer checkout form customization options, a modern user experience, and thorough support options — all for an affordable price.

SureMembers is designed to be flexible and versatile.

It includes features such as robust integrations, flexible content protection options, and a whole lot more. But more on those in a moment.

SureMembers quick review

SureMembers is a comprehensive and easy-to-use membership plugin for WordPress that offers a range of advanced features and capabilities.

Pros:

  • Robust integrations and flexible content protection options
  • Drip content feature
  • Customizable checkout process (when used with SureCart)
  • Modern interface and user-friendly design
  • Can be used on unlimited sites

Cons:

  • A newer plugin, so not as well-established
  • No free version available
  • Integrations are facilitated by the SureTriggers plugin.

SureMembers features

SureMembers offers an impressive selection of sophisticated functionality to make managing your membership site easy and efficient.

This section of the review will explore each of these features in more detail, including an explanation of what they do, an evaluation of their effectiveness, and an assessment of their ease of use.

Here’s an overview of what you can expect:

FeatureDescription
Restricting downloadsAbility to control and restrict access to downloads and files
Drip contentOption to release content at predetermined intervals to maintain user engagement
Payment processingIntegration with SureCart to handle payments and subscriptions
Robust integrationsIntegrations with SureTriggers and other platforms to extend functionality
Post and page locksAbility to restrict access to specific pages and posts
Partial post and page locksOption to display partial content and prompt users to upgrade for full access
Visible excerptsDisplaying a visible excerpt for each post to improve conversions
Lock file downloadsOption to restrict access to downloads
Customizable login formsCustomization options for member login and signup forms 
Security and privacyHigh-level security and privacy measures to protect sensitive data
Modern interfaceSleek, modern user interface that is easy to navigate
Customizable checkout processAbility to customize the checkout process to align with branding
Comprehensive reporting and analyticsAccess to comprehensive reporting and analytics to track user behavior and plugin performance

1. Restricting downloads and content

SureMembers’ chief strength is its capacity to limit downloads and to restrict access to specific content.

This feature allows you to govern access to data, materials, and other content depending on membership status.

For instance, you can make premium eBooks, audio files, or any other digital material accessible solely for members while keeping all remaining resources available for everyone.

The restricting content tool is straightforward and simple to utilize, allowing you the ability to either lock files behind a login form.

This process begins by creating an Access Group:

Once you give the Access Group a name, you can select what content you’d like to protect as well as select actions that occur when a non-member attempts to access it.

You can set varying levels of access for different user membership profiles – giving you complete command over who has what level of access.

With this feature, you can safeguard your resources and guarantee that only members have access to premium content.

What’s more, its ease of use makes it convenient even for those with minimal technical expertise – no need to stress over the implementation process!

And as you can see below, when a user doesn’t have access to restricted content, they’re met with a stylish message and a signup button to gain access:

restricted content - front end

2. Drip content

SureMembers’ drip content feature is second to none. It enables you to strategically roll out your material over a predetermined time frame.

This grants members the ability to methodically keep track of what they have and haven’t consumed by providing access to new information in an orderly fashion.

drip content

The flexibility of the drip content feature allows you to fully customize your content release schedule.

You can choose when each piece of material is released, such as setting a specific date or number of days after sign-up, and even controlling its availability based on prior content completion.

Additionally, different membership levels may have their own respective schedules. This gives you unparalleled control over what members gain access to.

3. Payment processing through SureCart

SureCart is a powerful payment processing plugin that is integrated into SureMembers. It allows you to easily accept payments from your members.

You can use this feature to create and manage multiple checkout pages, offering pricing plans for one-time payment or recurring subscription models.

surecart

The payment processing feature is easy to set up and use and integrates seamlessly with the rest of SureMembers.

It also provides advanced features such as fraud protection, customizable checkout pages, and the ability to accept multiple payment methods.

In terms of effectiveness, SureCart is a powerful and reliable payment processing solution. It makes it easy for website owners to process payments with a need for third-party plugins.

Plus, the overall look of SureCart is appealing and well-designed, making it a pleasant experience for members to make payments.

4. Robust integrations

SureMembers also comes with robust integrations by way of SureTriggers. This feature allows you to use a variety of triggers such as subscriber signups and purchases to trigger automated actions in other applications.

suretriggers

For example, you can automatically add new customers to an email list or create a task for your sales team when someone signs up for your membership.

SureTriggers is easy to use and provides a wide range of triggers and actions, making it highly flexible and powerful.

In terms of effectiveness, SureTriggers is a great way to automate tedious manual tasks and save time while also increasing efficiency.

5. Post and page locks

The post and page lock feature in SureMembers allows you to restrict access to specific posts or pages on your website, so only members can view them.

This is a great way to protect valuable content and make sure that it is only being accessed by those who have paid for a membership.

Using the post and page locks feature is easy, and you can set different levels of access for different membership plans.

You can also set up redirects so that non-members are sent to a specific page instead of the post or page they were trying to access.

This is super easy to set up in SureMembers:

redirection rules

6. Partial post and page locks

Partial post and page locks are a great way to protect premium content while also allowing non-members access to some of it.

This feature allows you to lock only specific parts of your posts or pages, meaning that the rest is viewable by everyone.

It’s a great way to tease the content to help entice signups and can be very effective.

You can do this by creating content as usual in the Block Editor, selecting the block(s) you’d like to restrict access to, then assigning the Access Group to it that is permitted access:

restrict part of a post

This can be useful for giving members a taste of your content before they decide to sign up for a membership, as well as to provide more value for existing members by offering exclusive content.

Using the partial post and page locks is easy and you can set different levels of access for different membership plans.

This feature is the perfect solution for safeguarding precious data, yet still allow non-members to have access to certain details.

7. Visible excerpts (for better conversions)

SureMembers also allows you to set visible excerpts for your posts and pages, allowing non-members to see snippets of the content before they decide to sign up.

This is a great way to give potential members an idea of what they will be getting if they decide to join and can help increase conversions.

It is easy to set visible excerpts, and you can also adjust the length of them.

This helps to ensure that potential members are able to get a good idea of what they will be getting before deciding whether or not to sign up.

enable excerpt

Overall, visible excerpts are an effective way to give potential members a preview of your content, helping to increase conversions and boost membership numbers.

8. Lock file downloads

With SureMembers, you can also lock file downloads so that only members have access to them.

This is a great way to protect content such as eBooks and audio files, and also give more value to your members by offering exclusive downloads.

restrict download

With effortless setup of file downloads, you can customize the levels of access for various membership plans.

This feature is a fantastic way to shield valuable material and give added worth to your members.

9. Customizable login forms

This plugin also includes customizable login forms so that you can easily create and display them to prospective members.

You can personalize the forms and style them to suit the branding of your site.

login styler

This feature is very easy to use!

Just select primary and secondary colors, text and link colors, and any other style preferences you have.

Save your changes and anyone who comes across restricted content will be prompted to sign up via this custom form you’ve created.

10. Security and privacy

SureMembers also offers comprehensive security and privacy features that ensure your members’ data is safe and secure.

You can adjust the levels of access for different membership plans, as well as set up login restrictions if needed.

The platform supports SSL encryption, which helps to ensure that all data transmitted is secure and encrypted.

Overall, the security and privacy features in SureMembers are comprehensive and help to ensure that your members’ data is safe and secure.

11. Modern interface

Another standout feature is the modern and sleek interface SureMembers comes equipped with.

The platform includes an intuitive dashboard where you can manage all aspects of your membership site, from setting up plans to adding members.

The interface is also fully responsive, meaning that it looks great on any device or screen size.

This makes it easy for members to access your content from anywhere and ensures they have a positive experience.

This modern interface helps to create an enjoyable user experience and makes it easy for you to manage the platform and for your members to navigate with ease.

12. Customizable checkout process

SureMembers also offers a customizable checkout process that allows you to set up your payment system and manage subscriptions.

This feature works through a combination of SureCart and SureTriggers and is great for streamlining the checkout experience and making it easier to sign up.

customize the checkout process through suretriggers and surecart

You can customize the checkout process in a variety of ways. The biggest benefit here is the ability to add users to an Access Group after they purchase a membership plan.

This helps to make the checkout process more efficient and does a lot of heavy-lifting in terms of automating the signup process.

You can also adjust how the checkout process looks to be more in line with your site’s branding and overall look and feel via SureCart.

13. Comprehensive reporting and analytics

Finally, SureMembers comes with comprehensive reporting and analytics tools that make it easy to gain insights into your membership business.

You can access detailed data about the signup process, including total users as well as the specific users signed up to each membership plan (or who are a part of each specific Access Group).

view members of an access group

This information can help you understand how customers are interacting with your content and make better informed decisions about your membership plans.

Now that you know the features of SureMembers, it’s time to assess the plugin’s overall ease of use.

SureMembers ease of use

SureMembers has been designed with ease of use in mind, making it simple to manage your membership site and control access to your content.

The user interface is modern and intuitive, with a clean and straightforward design that makes it easy to navigate.

The plugin integrates seamlessly with WordPress. Setup is straightforward, with clear instructions and helpful tips to guide you through the process.

Once installed, the plugin is easy to configure and customize, with a range of options and settings to help you get the most out of your membership website.

SureMembers also includes extensive documentation and tutorials, providing you with everything you need to know to get started and make the most of the features.

The developers are also highly responsive. There’s a dedicated support team available to help you with any questions or issues you may encounter.

In terms of ease of use, SureMembers is one of the best membership plugins available. It provides a straightforward and user-friendly solution for managing their membership site.

Whether you are an experienced website builder or just getting started, you will find SureMembers easy to use and intuitive.

SureMembers support

SureMembers is backed by an experienced and knowledgeable support team, ready to answer any questions or queries you may have.

They provide a range of resources, including detailed documentation and video training to help you get up and running quickly.

The plugin also includes a helpful community on Facebook called SureCrafted (which covers SureMembers, SureCart, and SureTriggers).

Users can ask questions, share tips and tricks, and discuss their experiences with these plugins.

This makes it easy to find answers to common questions and get help from experienced users.

surecrafted facebook group

With its extensive resources and knowledgeable support team, SureMembers is sure to provide you with everything you need to get your membership business up and running.

SureMembers pricing

SureMembers is a highly affordable membership plugin, with the Pro plan starting at just $69 per year.

This makes it one of the most cost-effective solutions on the market and is ideal if you’re looking to get started quickly.

This plan includes a license to use it on one site, plus a year of updates and priority support.

sure members pricing

There’s also the Business plan, which provides everything in the Pro plan plus a license to use it on up to 5 sites.

Lastly, there’s the Agency plan, which includes everything in the Business plan, plus a license to use it on up to 10 sites.

With SureMembers, you now have access to an incredibly cost-effective solution for building your very own successful membership site.

Boasting a wide range of features and extremely competitive pricing plans, this platform gives you all the tools needed to build your dream and keep costs low.

Conclusion: Is SureMembers the right membership plugin for you?

SureMembers is an excellent choice for website owners looking to build a successful membership website.

With its modern user interface, intuitive setup process, powerful features and comprehensive support, SureMembers makes it easy to get up and running quickly.

The plugin’s pricing also makes it one of the most cost-effective solutions available, ideal if you’re on a budget.

So, if you are looking for an intuitive and easy-to-use membership plugin, then SureMembers is sure to be the right solution for you.

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The 30 Best WordPress Magazine Themes in 2023 https://wpastra.com/themes/wordpress-magazine-themes/ https://wpastra.com/themes/wordpress-magazine-themes/#comments Wed, 22 Feb 2023 11:50:00 +0000 https://wpastra.com/?p=63949 The 30 Best WordPress Magazine Themes in 2023 Read More »

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WordPress magazine themes

Looking for great-looking WordPress magazine themes? Want to build your own news or magazine website? Want to be the next Verge, CNN or BBC? It’s an ambitious goal but one that is accessible to anyone with some determination and plenty of time on their hands.

There is a lot involved in building a news or magazine website but we are going to help with the toughest part. Making it look good.

A WordPress magazine theme can be an excellent choice for creating online magazines, news sites, content-heavy blogs, and curated content niche sites.

And should include following features to be useable:

  • Multiple layout options
  • Ad management
  • Responsive design
  • Performance and SEO optimized
  • Social media integration

A magazine theme with these features will allow you to create a professional-looking site with the ability to manage your content and ads with ease, and provide a great user experience for your audience on all devices.

What Is a WordPress Magazine Theme?

A WordPress magazine theme differs from standard themes as they typically contain a lot of dynamic content on the front page. Where many design templates will be largely static, a magazine website is likely to have diverse, constantly changing content that needs to be displayed in an organized way.

Many WordPress magazine themes are designed with category sections to help with this organization. You can then set up categories for the content featured on the page and it will be dynamically updated whenever new content is published.

Examples of magazine websites that use WordPress include TechCrunch, and the Microsoft News Center website to name just a few.

Magazine websites and news websites are largely the same thing so rather than bore you by saying ‘magazine websites and news websites’ all the time, we will just refer to them as magazine sites from now on.

We have tried and tested dozens of WordPress magazine themes to build this list and came up with what we think are the 30 best free and premium WordPress magazine themes in 2023.

What websites can you build with WordPress magazine themes?

Magazine websites are a great way to share your knowledge and passion about a topic without having to do it from a very personal point of view.

So that you don’t miss an opportunity, here’s a list of ideas to inspire you:

  1. Travel: The world is finite, yet it’s possible to write infinite content about it. Just ask Lonely Planet or Fodor’s Travel.
  2. Politics: Whether local or national, you’ll never run out of content. Plus, the audience is very loyal and always wants to be updated with everything. Check out Politico for inspiration.
  3. Celebrity: We all like to know more about our favorite actors, singers and celebrities. TMZ is the best example of a digital publication around this topic.
  4. Sports: Another endless topic where you’ll never run out of content. Better if you focus it on a unique sport: Golf, wrestling or CrossFit. Like Morningchalkup does.
  5. eSports: Don’t forget that there are also competitions in the digital world. eSportsInsider didn’t forget about it and they’re doing pretty well.
  6. Gaming: Share the best video game reviews, tips or guides, just like Kotaku does.
  7. Cinema and TV shows: Trailers, premieres, reviews, trends… Make it easy for your audience to keep up to date with all the latest releases. The TV Addict explains the new releases on the most common streaming platforms, among many other things.
  8. Books: This type of entertainment magazine can be very lucrative as you can include affiliate links to the books you talk about. BookRiot publishes hundreds of articles around books and writing.
  9. Fashion: What’s more ideal for a magazine that constantly updates content than explaining what is and isn’t trending? Vogue has been doing it for over 100 years!
  10. General news: What’s happening in your area? It’s difficult to compete with international news sites but it’s easier to stand out locally.
  11. Hobbies and crafting: Woodworking? 3D printing? Pottery? Crochet? There are thousands of ideas for you to choose from!
  12. Cooking and food: A classic among classics. Everyone has to eat and we all like to do it in a tasty way don’t we? Don’t visit Foodnetwork for inspiration if you haven’t eaten recently.
  13. Tech: Technology is advancing at such a dizzying pace that it’s hard to keep up with everything, so tech magazines are pretty handy. For best results focus on specific topics, such as drones.
  14. Science: Although science is not advancing as fast as we would like it to, it’s still possible to talk about it on a daily basis. ScienceDaily is proof of this.
  15. Legal magazine: You probably find small legal disclaimers boring but many people enjoy reading this kind of content. That’s why online magazines like Above the Law exist.
  16. Health: Health is a very important topic so people never want to stop reading about it. As always, it’s best if you narrow your focus like Men’s Health.
  17. Business and financial: These topics often go hand in hand. It’s important to keep abreast of them as they could affect your business. Although you can also niche down the topic to Cryptocurrency news.
  18. Cars and vehicles: People who are passionate about cars or motorcycles love to keep reading about them. Even if they already have one! At MotorTrend you’ll find a good example to inspire you.

Any topic that interests you has the potential to become a good magazine, so don’t discard any idea! 

In fact mixing them will be great for creating a unique magazine. Like a magazine that talks about how to use new technology and apps to improve your health.

List of Best WordPress Magazine Themes

This is an extensive post covering 30 magazine style WordPress themes. While all of them are worth checking out, we particularly rate these 5 as being head and shoulders above the rest.

Theme namePriceOur rating
AstraFree / From $47 €44 ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Newspaper$59⭐⭐⭐⭐
Pixwell$39⭐⭐⭐⭐
Soledad$59⭐⭐⭐⭐
TheGem$59⭐⭐⭐⭐

We began with a list of over a hundred magazine WordPress themes and ended up with just thirty. Whatever type of news you want to share, one of these magazine themes can help you do it!

Let’s start with the best magazine WordPress theme.

1. Astra

Astra magazine theme template

Astra is a superb media-ready WordPress theme with a wide range of free and premium templates designed for websites of all types. The theme is light, loads quickly and uses WordPress customizer, Elementor, Beaver Builder or Brizy to help build pages. It is one of the most flexible themes out there in terms of customization and personalization.

Astra’s Starter Templates cover every type of website going. There are dozens of existing magazine website templates to choose from or you could build your page from scratch using the page builders. Whichever way you go, Astra makes it easy.

Recommended Astra’s templates:

Business Magazine

business magazine astra template

The Business Magazine template is a clean and modern design with plenty of white space complemented by strong images, fonts and a red contrast color.

The layout is a traditional magazine, with a headline slider at the top and category columns underneath. Everything can be fully customized easily using a page builder so it’s easy to create something unique.

Business Blog

business blog astra template

The Business Blog is an equally similar modern template with more white space and less contrast between images and colors. It’s an easy going theme with wide appeal and should work for almost any niche.

The layout follows traditional magazine format but can be changed with ease. As can the fonts, colors and page features.

Tech News

tech news astra template

The Tech News website template adds a little color to the magazine format while following similar lines. It is also light and airy, with pastel colors to help broaden appeal and add a warm welcome.

The template is compatible with drag and drop page builders and can include all kinds of page features depending on your needs.

Fashion lifestyle

The fashion lifestyle template is a great fashion magazine theme for WordPress.

All you have to do is slightly modify the homepage to make it more editorial than personal. This can be done by simply using the blog as the home page.

This template has very elegant colors and a fine font that will give your magazine site a sophisticated style by default. Although you can modify them if you want.

With a busy content website, layout is key. You need to communicate a lot of information in a relatively small space. This template does that nicely. 

Fashion influencer

The fashion influencer template features a luxurious and polished design that will go hand in hand with your content-rich website.

It’s a template where the visual content has great importance. There is a layout where you can display images gracefully without overwhelming your readers.

What type of magazines can you create with Astra?

So far, business, technology and fashion magazines are the easiest to start with today’s tools as we have templates for them already.

You could really use it for whatever you needed with a little work. Astra easily adapts to any topic and we’re constantly adding new templates so you can create anything you like. 

Pros of Astra:

  • Works with WordPress customizer, Elementor, Beaver Builder or Brizy page builders
  • No jQuery so pages load fast
  • Even large, image-heavy pages load quickly
  • Huge range of layout and customization options
  • Great documentation covering every aspect of the theme

Cons of Astra:

  • The sheer number of features may initially be daunting
  • Access to premium starter templates locked out of cheapest premium option

Astra Pricing

Astra is a premium theme but there is a free version with access to some free starter templates. The pro version costs from $47 €44 per year up to $187 €174 per year.

Opinion of Astra

As long as you spend a few minutes finding out where everything is in Astra, creating a website is genuinely simple. The opportunity to use your page builder of choice makes a huge difference to that experience and those starter templates are all top quality.

2. Divi

Divi theme site image

Divi is one of the most popular WordPress themes out there after Astra. It has a huge selection of demo templates, has been designed to offer maximum flexibility and can be customized to suit any type of website.

Divi has a range of styles but the Extra theme is designed specifically for magazine websites. It includes a drag and drop page builder, a solid demo to begin building, a category builder for the main page, responsive design and very straightforward user navigation.

What type of magazines can you create with Divi?

Divi’s magazine layout pack will allow you to create magazines of almost any type.

To speed up the creation, Divi promotes 12 child themes mainly oriented for lifestyle, fashion and travel magazines.

Pros of Divi:

  • Designed to load pages fast
  • Drag and drop page builder
  • Category builder specifically for magazine websites
  • Fully responsive and SEO-friendly

Cons of Divi:

  • Expensive

Divi Pricing

Divi is a fantastic product but you do pay for the privilege. It costs $89 per year or $249 for a lifetime licence.

Opinion of Divi

The Divi Extra theme is excellent and includes all the tools you need to build your magazine website. The price puts it out of reach of many though. If you can pay the price, there are few better options for WordPress.

3. Magazine Pro

Magazine Pro Gutenberg optimized wordpress theme

Magazine Pro is another superb WordPress magazine blog theme worth considering. It is built using the powerful Genesis Framework which underpins a wide range of websites. It is responsive, has a premium aesthetic and can be customized almost infinitely to suit any type of magazine website.

The default demo is fairly plain with either black, blue, green or orange accent colors but you can customize the look and feel of the page easily. The page editor is simple to get to grips with and makes short work of colors, fonts, imagery and any other changes you might want to make.

What type of magazines can you create with Magazine Pro?

Due to its sober style, Magazine Pro is more suitable for business, finance and law magazines where visuals are not particularly relevant.

Pros of Magazine Pro:

  • Built on the very stable and powerful Genesis Framework
  • Includes Gutenberg support
  • Includes a theme customizer to manage every aspect of design
  • Responsive and SEO-friendly

Cons of Magazine Pro:

  • Not as initially as attractive as Astra or Newspaper
  • More suitable for some website types than others

Magazine Pro Pricing

Magazine Pro comes with Genesis Pro package that cost $360

Opinion of Magazine Pro

Magazine Pro is stable, reliable and flexible. While not as visually impressive as some others in this list, it still has the potential to be something special with some work.

4. Hestia Pro

Hestia theme site image

Hestia Pro is another very popular newspaper-style WordPress theme. Like Astra or Divi, it has been designed to make beautiful websites that work quickly with the minimum of fuss. Designs are modern, flat and with good use of colour and could be ideal for the modern audience.

Hestia Pro doesn’t have a magazine demo but the page builder and inherent customizability mean you can build one with very little effort. The theme is compatible with the Elementor website builder, is designed to be responsive, load quickly and be all those things you want a magazine WordPress theme to be.

What type of magazines can you create with Hestia Pro?

Although Hestia Pro doesn’t have specific templates for magazines, the pre-made designs are cheerful and youthful so they would fit well with gaming and hobby magazines.

Pros of Hestia Pro:

  • Flat, material design is very contemporary
  • Great use of colour, fonts and page blocks
  • Comes with Elementor website builder
  • Demo sites are of a very high quality

Cons of Hestia Pro:

  • No pre-made magazine theme

Hestia Pro Pricing

Hestia Pro costs from $81 per year up to $353 per year for a single licence up to unlimited licences. There is a free version of Hestia available too.

Opinion of Hestia Pro

Hestia Pro is very easy to work with. Despite not having a magazine demo, the theme makes short work of building a page to your exact needs. The contemporary design and plentiful features make it worth checking out.

5. Newspaper

Newspaper theme site image

Newspaper is a best-selling WordPress magazine theme from ThemeForest. It is a dedicated WordPress magazine theme with dozens of demos covering all types of designs and site types.

The theme works well, comes with its own tagDiv page builder and a huge range of page elements. It also includes lots of magazine features such as content blocks, ad blocks and image blocks. These give you the ability to customize every part of the page and change individual colours, fonts and a whole lot more.

What type of magazines can you create with Newspaper?

As you can imagine by its name, the layout and design of this template fit perfectly to create a news magazine.

Pros of Newspaper:

  • Designed specifically for magazine websites
  • The tagDiv page builder is very flexible
  • Huge selection of page elements to choose from
  • Default demo sites are professional quality

Cons of Newspaper:

  • Requires some WordPress knowledge to get the best out of it
  • tagDiv page builder will need getting used to

Newspaper Pricing

Newspaper costs $59 for a single site licence. As this is a Themeforest theme, that’s all you pay.

Opinion of Newspaper

Newspaper is an excellent WordPress theme with dozens of layouts to suit most website types. The tagDiv page builder is very good but as it isn’t as well known as Elementor or Beaver Builder, there is a slight learning curve. Other than that, there is nothing to criticize about this theme.

6. Pixwell

Pixwell theme site image

Pixwell is another multi-purpose magazine WordPress theme from ThemeForest. It’s a top performer in terms of sales and has a wide range of demo layouts that could appeal to the widest audience. Each uses colour, font and white space exceptionally well while injecting a little originality.

Pixwell uses the Ruby Composer as a page builder which is user friendly and uses drag and drop. It is also compatible with Elementor if you prefer. There are lots of options for page elements, social media, SEO and lazy loading for page performance. Just some of the reasons it appears in this list of best WordPress magazine themes.

What type of magazines can you create with Pixwell?

Pixwell is a multipurpose theme. If you visit their demo sites you’ll find examples ranging from food, healthcare, cryptocurrencies or travel.

Pros of Pixwell:

  • Attractive designs with unique features
  • Uses Ruby Composer or Elementor website builder
  • Pages load quickly
  • Lots of social features to add engagement

Cons of Pixwell:

  • Support can be sporadic with ThemeForest themes

Pixwell Pricing

Pixwell costs just $39 for a single licence making this exceptional value considering what’s on offer.

Opinion of Pixwell

Pixwell is a very likeable theme. Demos are colourful, have real character and great page balance. If you know a little about WordPress and can figure things out on your own, this could make a great magazine theme.

7. Independent

Independent theme demo

Independent is another standout WordPress magazine theme. The theme comes with a range of demos covering everything from news to food, gaming to sports and would make decent websites with no customization at all.

As Independent comes with the WPBakery page builder plugin, you can customize every element of every page. You can add page elements, remove them, restyle them, change colours, fonts, change headers, change blocks, add banners and do whatever you like with your pages. It’s all very straightforward.

What type of magazines can you create with Independent?

The promotional image of Independent leaves no doubt that this is a perfect theme for gaming and eSports magazines.

Although having such a visual-centric look it also works great with travel or food among other topics.

Pros of Independent:

  • Characterful demos that are ready to go
  • Massive opportunity for customization
  • Huge range of page elements to use
  • Supports ecommerce and is RTL-ready

Cons of Independent:

  • Some issues with WPBakery compatibility reported

Independent Pricing

Independent costs $49 for a single licence that includes 6 months support.

Opinion of Independent

Independent is a great looking WordPress magazine theme with some distinct demos. If you’re looking for a theme that really stands out without having to do much, this could be one to try.

8. Gillion

Gilion theme demo

Gillion is a simple WordPress magazine theme but in a good way. It isn’t quite minimalist but it uses white space, colour blocks and strong fonts to great effect while also staying out of the way of the content. That’s a hard balance to strike but this theme does it well.

Gillion is a magazine style theme but could also be used as a blog or something else. As it uses WPBakery, customization is very straightforward. The theme is WooCommerce compatible, has a ton of social integrations, is responsive and designed to be quick and easy to set up. All things we like in a WordPress theme!

What type of magazines can you create with Gillion?

The top trending section makes Gillion a good choice for time-sensitive topics such as sports or celebrity-related magazines.

Pros of Gillion:

  • Designed to be easy to set up and use
  • Uses WPBakery page builder
  • Lots of page elements for you to use.
  • Generous integration including WooCommerce

Cons of Gillion:

  • Sheer number of features may increase the learning curve a little

Gillion Pricing

Gillion costs $55 for a single site licence and 6 month’s support. It’s a good price for a feature-rich magazine WordPress theme.

Opinion of Gillion

Gillion is both a standout and the opposite. Attractive yet low key and is one of those websites that users will either notice the design of or won’t. Either way, it delivers a solid theme that could be ideal for all kinds of websites.

9. Soledad

Soledad theme demo

Soledad has a similar aesthetic to Hestia Pro. Colourful with good use of white space, flat design and subtle background elements that makes a page easy to read. The theme comes with a wide range of demos covering many topics, so could potentially require very little work to get up and running.

Soledad supports AMP, Woocommerce, BBPress, BuddyPress, Elementor, WPBakery, Slider Revolution, Gutenberg blocks and most plugins and addons you would likely need.

What type of magazines can you create with Soledad?

Most of the templates that Soledad offers are news magazine templates. Although there are also some specific ones for gaming, traveling or recipes.

Pros of Soledad:

  • Demo websites are excellent and cover most genres
  • Works with Elementor, WPBakery and Gutenberg blocks
  • Compatible with a huge range of WordPress plugins
  • Fast loading pages for SEO performance

Cons of Soledad:

  • There really is a lot to get to grips with here

Soledad Pricing

Soledad costs $59 for a single licence and six months of support.

Opinion of Soledad

Soledad is a standout magazine WordPress theme, both in terms of aesthetics and features. Be prepared for a learning curve to get to grips with it all though. But, with a little patience and perseverance, you could have a great looking website in no time.

10. Smartmag

Smartmag theme demo

Smartmag is a dedicated magazine theme for WordPress that really delivers. Demos are more restrained than some others in this list but still work exceptionally well. They are predominantly black with blocks of colour and images but can be customized to almost any design you like.

Smartmag comes with its own page builder and five demos. Each demo provides a solid framework from which to build your own content with its own personality. The inclusion of Mega Menus, Slider Revolution, bbPress, WooCommerce and other plugins provides all the scope you need to deliver the site you want to deliver.

What type of magazines can you create with Smartmag?

The colors and style of this template make it ideal to talk about technology, movies and other entertainment magazines.

Pros of Smartmag:

  • Solid demos that provide the backbone of a multitude of designs
  • Comes with its own page builder
  • Compatible with WooCommerce, Mega Menu, Slider Revolution, bbPress and other plugins
  • Pages load quickly

Cons of Smartmag:

  • Smartmag will likely require more work than some of these other WordPress magazine themes to make your own.
  • Support mainly via user forum

Smartmag Pricing

Smartmag costs $59 for a single site licence and 6 month’s support.

Opinion of Smartmag

Smartmag is a great theme with a lot of potential but isn’t as out-of-the-box ready for use as some. It will take some customization to make the theme truly yours but makes it very easy to do just that.

11. Colormag

Colormag theme demo

Colormag is both a free and a premium WordPress magazine theme. The free version offers a lot of scope but it isn’t until you get premium that the theme comes alive. You get access to a range of demo sites that can be installed and customized in minutes and even left as default for some sites!

Colormag demos use classic magazine design with great aesthetics to provide a basis for personalization. There are a ton of page options, opportunities to add colour, change fonts, add or remove images and really make the theme your own. For those reasons alone Colormag is worth its place in our best WordPress magazine themes list.

Pros of Colormag:

  • Great looking demos
  • Free version so you can try before you buy
  • Compatible with Beaver Builder, Brizy, Gutenberg, Elementor and SiteOrigin page builders
  • Fast loading pages
  • Good documentation

Cons of Colormag:

  • You really will need to buy premium to get the best out of the theme.

Colormag Pricing

Colormag has a free version and a premium version at $69 per year. It’s good value but if you pay $99, you get access to another 15 themes for extra flexibility.

Opinion of Colormag

Colormag is a good looking theme with a lot of potential. As it’s compatible with most leading page builders, it won’t take too much effort to realize that potential.

12. The Issue

Issue theme demo

The Issue is a very competent, fully responsive magazine theme for WordPress with a selection of layout types to choose from. Some manage to combine minimalism with magazine layouts while others are more colourful or feature-packed. All of them load quickly, look good and can make a compelling web page.

The Issue provides clean designs that let your content shine. This would work exceptionally well for some magazine sites. The theme also supports most WordPress plugin types and includes social elements, ads, custom widgets, Lightbox and a host of other features too.

Pros of The Issue:

  • Wide range of clean templates for a wide range of uses
  • Lots of customization options
  • Support for different headers, layouts, styles and article types

Cons of The Issue:

  • The clean minimalist look isn’t for everyone

The Issue Pricing

The Issue costs $59 for a single site licence with support for six months.

Opinion of The Issue

The Issue is excellent. Pages load quickly, they have great balance and pages can be built to your specific needs. The clean modernist look may not be for everyone though.

13. MH Magazine

MH Magazine WordPress theme for adsense

MH Magazine is a flexible WordPress magazine theme with a free and a premium version. It is also another where the theme only really comes alive when you pay for it. The design is solid even if it doesn’t offer anything new and delivers an excellent platform from which you can customize it fully.

MH Magazine is a modular theme so you can add, remove or change most of the page elements. You can also modify headers, footers, sliders and include other WordPress plugins for extra functionality. It’s a solid theme that delivers more in features than perhaps it does in aesthetics.

Pros of MH Magazine:

  • Solid, reliable theme with clean code
  • Pages load quickly
  • Modular design makes building pages simple

Cons of MH Magazine:

  • There are more attractive themes out there

MH Magazine Pricing

MH Magazine costs just $49 per year for a single site licence. That’s good value considering what you get.

Opinion of MH Magazine

MH Magazine is not as aesthetically impressive as some of the best WordPress magazine themes here. What it does deliver is a fast website with clean code that forms the foundations from which you can add your own personality.

14. Magplus

Magplus theme demo

Magplus is a highly rated WordPress magazine theme on ThemeForest. It’s a very contemporary design with clean lines, good use of colours and fonts, distinct content blocks and the tools you need to build a website with real appeal.

The demos for Magplus are superb and include designs that cover all genres. This is a strong showing and there should be a theme here that suits your site with minimal customization. If you do want to customize it, the template is compatible with Elementor or WPBakery page builders so it won’t take long!

Pros of Magplus:

  • Strong demo templates that cover most subjects
  • Compatible with Elementor or WPBakery page builders
  • Over 150 page elements covering most of what you could need
  • Some premium plugins included in the price

Cons of Magplus:

  • There is a learning curve unless you know how web pages are put together

Magplus Pricing

Magplus costs $59 for a single website licence and six months’ support.

Opinion of Magplus

Magplus is another magazine WordPress theme that covers all bases. There is a demo theme for every conceivable use plus the tools to customize it further. No more need be said really.

15. Uncode

Uncode theme demo

Uncode is a multipurpose theme with magazine demos. It’s an excellent template with more tools than many others in this list of best WordPress magazine themes. Designs are clean, modern and include strong fonts, great page balance and those content blocks that are all important on magazine websites.

Uncode has its own drag and drop page builder, 410 wireframe layout options, flexible content blocks, compatibility with WooCommerce, WPBakery, Layer Slider, Revolution Slider, Lightbox and more.

Pros of Uncode:

  • Very attractive suite of demo sites ready to go
  • Competent drag and drop page builder
  • Wide plugin compatibility including WooCommerce
  • Fast loading pages
  • Huge range of page tools for you to use

Cons of Uncode:

  • Includes a learning curve for the features and page builder

Uncode Pricing

Uncode costs $59 for a single site licence and six months’ support.

Opinion of Uncode

Uncode is a very powerful WordPress magazine theme that comes complete with lots of features. It will take you a little while to get to grips with exactly what’s on offer but once you do, the options are limitless.

16. Opinion

Opinion theme demo

Opinion is a single magazine theme that is very nice to look at. It’s a very contemporary theme with flat design, strong fonts and content blocks, great flow down the page and a very attractive aesthetic. If it suits your brand, this is a no-brainer.

Opinion comes complete with customization tools for colours, fonts, layout, menus and everything you might want to change. It is also fully compatible with WooCommerce, JetPack, Yoast SEO, WP Forms, Mailchimp and other WordPress plugins too.

Pros of Opinion:

  • Opinion has a very attractive default design
  • Includes lots of customization options
  • Compatible with most WordPress plugins
  • Designed to perform with fast-loading pages
  • Responsive design

Cons of Opinion:

  • Single design offers limited scope

Opinion Pricing

Opinion costs $69 for a single site licence and six months’ support. It’s slightly more expensive than some but seems worth it.

Thoughts on Opinion

Unlike other WordPress magazine themes in this list, Opinion is built around a single demo. This may be limiting but if that demo suits your brand, this is definitely a template worth checking out.

17. TheGem

Gem theme site image

TheGem is a very popular multipurpose WordPress template with a number of magazine demos. Each demo is very strong and covers different design aesthetics that should cover every genre or taste out there.

TheGem is compatible with Elementor and WPBakery page builders and includes a multitude of page elements, skins, extensions and customizations. Pages load quickly and are designed with SEO and responsiveness in mind. No stone has been left unturned, making TheGem well worth its slot in our list of the best WordPress magazine themes for 2023.

Pros of TheGem:

  • Includes over 400 demo templates
  • Compatible with Elementor and WPBakery page builders
  • RTL-ready
  • Compatible with WooCommerce, Contact Form 7, Yoast and other plugins
  • Good customer support and documentation

Cons of TheGem:

  • Sheer weight of options may be initially off-putting

TheGem Pricing

TheGem costs $59 for a single site licence and six months of support. Considering how much is here, that’s a great price.

Opinion of TheGem

TheGem is about as feature-rich as it gets but with that comes a learning curve. It will take a while to get to grips with how everything works and where everything is but after that, the sky’s the limit!

18. WonderWall

Wonderwall theme demo

WonderWall is a single template that can be customized almost infinitely. It’s a classic magazine style with white background, strong black font, multiple menus, strong image header and content blocks. It’s a very appealing design in the right hands.

WonderWall has 9 layout options, a newsletter widget, social media integration, ad placement and is built for speed. It uses the WordPress Customizer for live editing which should be familiar to most users, lowering the learning curve.

Pros of WonderWall:

  • Very attractive demo with 9 layouts
  • Classic design with good use of white space
  • Flexible WordPress Customizer page editor
  • Social media compatibility

Cons of WonderWall:

  • Single design may be limiting for some

WonderWall Pricing

WonderWall costs $59 per year for a single site licence or $89 per year for unlimited websites.

Opinion of WonderWall

WonderWall is an excellent addition to our list of best WordPress magazine themes. While it doesn’t offer the number of demos of some of these others, the quality of what you get makes it undeniably good value.

19. REHub

Rehub theme demo

REHub is a multipurpose WordPress theme that includes a magazine demo. It’s one of the most colourful and characterful demos out there and would work exceptionally well for some websites. It includes strong colours and fonts, a great header image element and very flexible pages.

REHub uses the Elementor website builder but is also fully compatible with Gutenberg blocks. It has social elements, business directory tools, price and ecommerce tools, review and comparison tools and a wide range of page elements for total design freedom.

Pros of REHub:

  • Flexible WordPress theme with high quality demos
  • Plentiful features including social and ecommerce
  • Compatible with Elementor and Gutenberg blocks
  • Supremely flexible design that could suit many website types

Cons of REHub:

  • Not designed specifically for magazine websites
  • Will require work to fully utilize all features

REHub Pricing

REHub costs $59 for a single site licence and six months’ support.

Opinion of REHub

REHub is an excellent addition to our list of best WordPress magazine themes. It may not be dedicated to magazine styles but the demo is of such high quality that we would be remiss to not include it!

20. Tribune

Tribune theme demo

Tribune, as its name hints, is a newspaper theme. It has an elegant minimal design that also lets you have a running news banner at the top of the page. This makes it ideal for news or financial sites that need to display up to date information. 

The theme also comes with an easy-to-use options panel, video and carousel widgets, and it is completely responsive.

Overall, Tribune is an excellent choice if you’re creating a news website. It allows you to display a ton of information in a well-designed way.

Pros of Tribune:

  • Minimal sleek design
  • Great for news sites
  • High information density
  • Latest headlines ticker at top or bottom

Cons of Tribune:

  • Somewhat expensive
  • Aimed at more busy sites that have tons of news

Tribune Pricing

The Tribune theme costs $59.

Opinion of Tribune

If you want a solid, minimal newspaper theme, Tribune is a great choice.

21. Felt

Felt Magazine theme demo

Felt is a very well-designed and professional looking WordPress magazine theme that is very flexible. It’s aimed at featuring large images, which makes it ideal for art, design, food, and similar types of magazines. The theme is responsive and comes with a ton of ways to easily modify colors, borders, buttons, spacing, and other design elements. You can also easily add carousel and slideshow widgets.

Customizing your site is easy with the unique Style Manager tool, which is built right into the WordPress Customizer. The theme is not only optimized for ads but it is well-integrated with WooCommerce, making it easy to use ads and sell products.

Pros of Felt:

  • Beautiful design
  • Tons of space for imagery
  • The feel of the site matches well with art or design-oriented sites
  • Easy to modify colors and fonts while maintaining design consistency

Cons of Felt:

  • If your content doesn’t need images, the theme may not look great
  • More of a focus on images than text

Felt Pricing

  • The Felt theme is $75 for one year or $112 for a single lifetime license.

Opinion of Felt

While it is expensive, this theme looks great and is a nice choice if you use a lot of images on your magazine’s website.

22. The Essence

The Essence WordPress demo site

The Essence is a WordPress theme aimed at women and feminine-oriented websites. It’s great for magazines, blogs, and other types of creative sites, especially those with a large amount of photos. The design is bright, colorful, and really gives a warm welcome to anyone that visits your content.

The theme comes with 17 different blog layouts, which you can install quickly and then customize to match your exact needs. All of the layouts are completely responsive and work well on every mobile device.

Pros of The Essence:

  • Attractive feminine design
  • Warm, colorful design
  • Social sharing buttons in header
  • Feature images prominently

Cons of The Essence:

  • Aimed primarily at feminine sites, so if you have a different brand, it might not fit
  • Large focus on images, so if you are mostly text-only, it might not fit

The Essence Pricing

  • The theme costs $59 for one site for one year. Unlimited sites cost $89 per month.

Opinion of The Essence

This is a great choice if you’re looking specifically for a more feminine-oriented design.

23. Public Opinion

Public Opinion Magazine WordPress theme

Public Opinion is a multipurpose WordPress theme designed to let you create any kind of magazine or news site. Its design is optimized for mobile devices, which is a must in 2021. The customization options are extensive and include fonts, colors, layouts, and other important elements. You can create custom archive pages, add a breaking news section, and use flexible headers too.

The theme is also integrated with WooCommerce, which helps you sell subscriptions, products, or advertising. Finally, it works flawlessly with well-known page builders like Beaver Builder and Elementor.

Pros of Public Opinion:

  • Very flexible and customizable
  • Build virtually any kind of magazine site
  • Well-integrated with the WordPress ecosystem
  • Lots of tabs and menus to feature different kinds of content

Cons of Public Opinion:

  • May have too many features for those just looking for a simple theme
  • Requires a bit of setup

Public Opinion Pricing

  • There are four different pricing plans with various options. The cheapest starts at $34 for one year and one site, while a lifetime plan costs $174.

Opinion of Public Opinion

  • If you want to build a unique and customized magazine WordPress site, this is an excellent choice of a theme.

24. Guten Theme

Guten WordPress theme

Guten is a solid theme that has a ton of customization options and pre-made layouts to help you quickly create a great website. You can choose between header, footer, blog and other types of layouts. 

It comes with 10 header layouts, 4 footer layouts, 5 blog layouts, and lots of other color and font settings. Everything is pretty straightforward to use, making it easy to set up a solid WordPress site.

The theme also integrates seamlessly with the top page builders like Gutenberg, Elementor, and BeaverBuilder. It works well with WooCommerce, too.

Pros of Guten:

  • Straightforward design
  • Very easy setup
  • Integrates well with Gutenberg, Beaver Builder, and other page builders
  • Free

Cons of Guten:

  • Basic look requires customization to look more professional
  • Only free support available

Guten Pricing

  • Completely free

Opinion of Guten

Guten is a simple free theme that gets the job done. If you are on a tight budget, definitely give it a try for your magazine site.

25. Magazine Express

Magazine Express WordPress theme

Magazine Express is a lightweight theme for building content publication websites. If you need a simple theme for starting a blog on travel, food, technology, or pretty much any topic, this theme provides a great starting point. 

In addition to setting up a blog, you could use the theme as a WooCommerce-compatible option for adding a store component to your website. To help you build the perfect website, Magazine Express comes with several customization options. 

Pros of Magazine Express

  • The theme is translation ready and supports RTL layout
  • Several layout options, including single, double, or no sidebars
  • Fully customizable with options for changing header design and colors
  • Fully responsive theme that fits all screen sizes
  • Comes with an integrated slider for optimal performance

Cons of Magazine Express

  • You need to know Bootstrap for styling the theme
  • Not a dedicated WooCommerce theme.

Magazine Express Pricing

The theme can be downloaded and used for free

Opinion of Magazine Express

If you need a simple theme for kick starting your magazine-style blog, Magazine Express is a great option. It is lightweight and comes with the option of integrating your social media pages. You can also change the color scheme and the header layouts for better styling.

26. Royal News Magazine

Royal News Magazine WordPress theme

If you need a free magazine theme to set up your news website or a blog, look no further than Royal News Magazine. It offers a simple layout that offers all the essential sections that you need for your website.

The theme comes with an integrated slide that you can set up to display individual posts or posts from a specific category. In addition to the slider, you can set up the homepage to show or exclude the categories. The header of the theme is pretty interesting. You get a simple menu that lays out the options in a horizontal layout.

Pros of Royal News Magazine

  • Royal News Magazine is a fast loading theme
  • Link your Facebook and Pinterest  pages right in the header
  • The main menu can be customized to display categories and pages 
  • The theme is translation ready
  • Use custom images as the theme’s background

Cons of Royal News Magazine

  • You need to upgrade to use advanced options such as mega menu and light and dark theme switcher

Opinion of Royal News Magazine

The free version of the Royal News Magazine is pretty basic, with minimal styling options. Having said that, it is a good enough theme for starting your projects.

27. Ostrich Magazine

Ostrich Magazine theme

Ostrich Magazine is a clean-looking publication theme that simplifies the setting up of your news and similar websites. The developers envisioned the theme to be multipurpose, suitable for news and blog websites of all descriptions. That’s why the design is pretty lean yet modern, emphasizing content presentation. 

The theme comes with the option of enabling breadcrumbs, a feature often not found in free themes. The footer section is fully editable, and you can add several widgets to make full use of the space.

Pros of Ostrich Magazine

  • Built for optimal performance and helps you achieve higher SERP positions
  • Add custom CSS for styling the various design elements
  • Link four social media accounts above the header
  • The header contains a space that could double as ad space
  • Tested across all popular browsers

Cons of Ostrich Magazine

  • The free theme doesn’t come with the demos

Opinion of Ostrich Magazine

Ostrich Magazine is a pretty good looking theme with a great hero section and the breaking news bar that instantly captures visitors’ attention. However, as your website grows, you might want to switch themes with something more feature-rich.

28. WP Travel Magazine

WP Travel Magazine Theme demo

A great free theme for your news or blogging websites, WP Travel Magazine offers everything that you need to launch your project. As the name suggests, it is primarily aimed at the travel niche. However, it can be used with pretty much any news-related project. 

The theme uses the WordPress Customizer to offer great customization for your website. The menu bar at the top of the homepage is very extensive and you can add multiple categories and pages to come up with exciting menu combinations. The post slider right underneath allows you to pin as many as six posts. 

Pros of WP Travel Magazine

  • Thanks to the Customizer, you don’t need to dive into the code to customize the theme
  • RTL-ready and can be translated into several target languages
  • The footer supports several widgets, including categories and posts
  • Set a custom image as the theme’s background
  • The theme is fully responsive

Cons of WP Travel Magazine

  • The free version comes with limited layout options
  • No image slider is offered with the free theme

Opinion of WP Travel Magazine

WP Travel Magazine comes in both free and premium versions. The free version is adequate for the initial launch. The post slider and the customizable menu offer many possibilities for beginners looking for a stable theme.

29. Spidermag

SpiderMag demo site

Spidermag is a minimal theme built for news websites. It favors magazine-style layouts with a great looking slider in the top left. The flat design ensures that you have a clean and robust design for displaying your content. The free version comes with a simple layout with just one header and footer layout option.

The theme is compatible with all popular plugins including Contact Form 7. In addition, the theme is WooCommerce-compatible.

Pros of Spidermag

  • Comes with 1-click automatic updates to make sure you always have the latest version
  • Supports WordPress Customizer, and you can change all major theme options with it
  • Edit the footer and add widgets to the design
  • The theme is translation ready
  • Customize the colors with the basic options included in the free theme

Cons of Spidermag

  • The free version comes with a single header and footer layout
  • No demo importer included with the free version

Opinion of Spidermag 

The free version of Spidermag is limited with just a single header and footer layout, minimal slider and shop layout options, and sidebar options. This appears to be intentional on the developers’ part and is intended to highlight the options included with the premium version.

30. Color NewsMagazine

Color Newsmagazine WordPress theme

If you need a free WordPress magazine that performs on par with the premium themes, you need to try Color NewsMagazine. This great looking theme comes with a clean codebase that emphasizes speed and performance. The theme offers a flat layout that presents your content in multiple column designs.

At the center of the page, you get a slider in the middle to present the highlighted content. On either side of this slider, you get two columns that you can use to add creativity to the website design.

Pros of Color NewsMagazine

  • The theme changes the highlighted color every time the website is loaded or refreshed
  • Comes with a powerful post search option that filters out posts based on several criteria
  • Drop Cap can be inserted in the post excerpt
  • Set up to five social media accounts at the top of the theme
  • Simple to customize with editable sidebars and footers.

Cons of Color NewsMagazine

  • The changing colors might turn off bloggers who need a consistent color scheme

Opinion of Color NewsMagazine

This theme has a unique design that cleverly uses a multi-column layout for setting up the homepage. You get a nice slider that complements the sections very well. Overall, Color NewsMagazine could make your website memorable.

Choosing the Best Magazine WordPress Theme

Every theme is different and we all have different requirements, but WordPress magazine themes need to have a few things in common.

Different page layouts

Magazine themes follow a particular pattern, with a headline slider at the top and category sections underneath. They don’t all have to be carbon copies of each other though.

The option to change the layout to suit your individual needs is a very useful feature. You can provide the right layout for your needs or for your users without having to follow the layout the template provides.

Ad space

Websites are much more sustainable if they can help pay for themselves and ads can play a part in that.

Whether you use AdSense, self-hosting ads, ad networks or something else, advertising is an accepted form of income generation. It’s also something uniquely enabled by magazine themes without interrupting the user experience.

Social sharing options

Sharing is caring or so they say. If you write amazing content and want to share it with the world, including social sharing options within your website can help with that.

You can share it with your followers and readers can do the same. The easier you make it to share content, the more likely people are to do it.

Responsive and mobile friendly

Responsive websites are essential. More people use mobile than any other device and search engines rank websites according to mobile first principles.

All websites should be responsive by default. If over 50% of your audience uses mobile, you have to cater for that if you want to become popular. As search engines also measure mobile friendliness, that’s another compelling reason to use a mobile friendly WordPress theme.

Every modern WordPress theme should be responsive but it’s essential to check and take nothing for granted.

Performance and SEO Optimized

Speed is everything. Every website has to load fast and provide a seamless experience for users. Page speed feeds into both the UX and SEO, so is another essential component.

SEO optimization helps your website rank in search engines and makes life much easier when you’re trying to hit the top spot for your niche.

Installing a WordPress Magazine Theme

Choose astra theme

If you’re new to building websites, installing a WordPress magazine theme is a breeze. The hardest part is selecting one of the many top class themes out there. The actual installation process can be done in under two minutes!

Here’s how:

  1. Purchase a WordPress magazine theme from the list above or download the theme you already have.
  2. Extract the theme on your computer so you have the ‘themename.zip’ file ready.
  3. Log into your WordPress installation.
  4. Select Appearance from the left menu of your WordPress dashboard.
  5. Select Themes from the submenu and Add New from the new window.
  6. Select the Upload Theme button at the top of the page.
  7. Select Choose File and select the ‘themename.zip’ file you prepared.
  8. Select Install Now.
  9. Select Activate when the button becomes available.

Most WordPress themes will add their own menu item to the left menu in your WordPress dashboard. From there you can add your purchase code to unlock the theme and begin setting it up.

Using Demo Data to Build Your Site

Import astra template

Some themes come with demo data that you can install so your website looks exactly like the demo pages you saw. Different themes handle this in different ways.

For example, Astra uses its own Starter Templates plugin for free templates and the Premium Starter Template plugin for premium themes. The Premium Starter Templates plugin is available from your account page on the Astra website.

To install a premium theme from Astra, do the following:

  1. Download the appropriate plugin for the theme you want to install.
  2. Select Appearance from the left menu of your WordPress dashboard.
  3. Select the Start Template submenu item.
  4. Select your page builder from the top right dropdown menu.
  5. Browser the list of templates for the one you want to use.
  6. Select Preview Site from within the template to make sure it’s the right one for your needs.
  7. Select Import Complete Site from the template main page.
  8. Select to delete previous sites, install and activate or import widgets, content or plugins from the list.
  9. Select Import and wait for the process to complete.
  10. Select View Site to begin customization!

You should now have a website that looks exactly like the demo that made you purchase it. What you do from here is entirely up to you!

Import process complete

Final Thoughts

There are hundreds of high quality WordPress magazine themes out there. We had to look very hard at those available to be able to come up with just 30 exceptional ones.

What you see in the 30 best WordPress magazine themes for 2023 is, in our opinion, the best of the best. Themes that deliver beautiful aesthetics, powerful features, fast loading and more importantly, ease of use.

Which WordPress Magazine Theme Should You Choose?

We worked tirelessly to filter those hundreds of WordPress magazine themes down to just 30 and we think each represents great value combined with powerful designs, plenty of features and the opportunity to customize each page exactly as you need.

If we had to pick two that we would use ourselves, we would pick Astra and Newspaper.

Astra because of its ease of use, compatibility with drag and drop page builders, page speed and almost limitless customization options. There are also a lot of great quality free templates and some pretty spectacular premium ones. That also includes dedicated magazine website templates.

We would select Newspaper for its accessibility, price and range of magazine themes. While the tagDiv page builder has a slight learning curve, the sheer weight of features makes it worth trying. As does the wide range of dedicated magazine designs available with the package.

Whichever website theme you choose, if it’s from this list, you can rest assured you’re getting the best that money can buy!

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14 inspiring membership site ideas for your business in 2023 https://wpastra.com/resources/membership-site-ideas/ https://wpastra.com/resources/membership-site-ideas/#respond Wed, 15 Feb 2023 09:33:42 +0000 https://wpastra.com/?p=144579 14 inspiring membership site ideas for your business in 2023 Read More »

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Membership websites have become increasingly popular in recent years, and for good reason. They offer a sustainable way for businesses to generate recurring revenue, while also providing valuable content and resources to customers.

With the rise of eCommerce and digital subscriptions, the global eCommerce subscription market is projected to have a value of $904.28 billion by 2026, according to The Business Research Company.

This is further backed up by the research put out by the International Data Corporation (IDC) in 2021, which showed that 53% of all software revenue will be generated through the subscription model, as reported by the Digitalist Magazine.

It makes sense then why more businesses are flocking to the membership site model as a great way to capitalize on this trend.

With all that in mind, we’re going to explore 14 powerful membership website ideas your business can consider in 2023.

Why starting a membership site is a good idea

As the world becomes more digitized, many businesses are turning to subscription models as a way to generate recurring revenue and provide value to customers.

Up to 70% of businesses see memberships and subscription models as the key to future business growth, as reported by Manifesto Growth Architects.

Creators also start a membership for several different reasons.

The biggest reason is to achieve financial goals, of course. While 58.1% of people want to make more money, a similar percentage of people (58.6%) want to create a stable income source, according to the Online Membership Industry Report.

Online Membership Industry Report
Image source: Sell Courses Online, Online Membership Industry Report

No matter the reason, diving into memberships could be a successful path to extra profit.

How to select a membership site idea that works for you

When it comes to selecting a membership site idea, there are a few important factors to consider.

  • Look at the needs of your target audience and see how you can fulfill them: What content or resources could you provide that would be valuable to your customers?
  • Think strategically about how you can monetize the membership: Look at how you can structure the pricing of memberships and the additional services you offer to make it a profitable venture.
  • Consider how much time and effort you are willing to commit: A membership site requires maintenance and upkeep. Make sure you’re prepared to invest the time and resources necessary.
  • Think about the problems or pain points that your customers face: How can you provide solutions that help overcome unique challenges?
  • Think outside the box in terms of how to offer premium content: Membership websites often use several methods to keep members engaged (premium content or courses).
  • Look for creative ways to offer additional value: Think hard about how you can offer extra value to members. This could be through additional resources, webinars, or personalized coaching.

Now that you know what factors to consider when selecting a membership site idea, if you want to create a membership website, the SureMembers plugin can help.

SureMembers

This plugin provides all the features you need to set up a membership site in no time.

You may also wish to use a Starter Template along with the Astra Theme that caters specifically to memberships.

membership starter templates

These templates are ideal for setting up online courses, forums, and digital libraries for a wide variety of niches.

We’ll discuss SureMembers in more detail later. For now, let’s turn our attention to some fantastic ideas you can incorporate this year.

14 powerful membership site ideas to consider

In this section, we will explore 14 different ideas for membership sites that businesses can consider in 2023.

From providing access to premium content to offering one-on-one coaching sessions, there are many ways to create value for your customers and generate recurring revenue using a membership model.

1. Provide access to premium content

Premium content membership sites offer exclusive or special articles or videos to members.

These types of membership sites can be a great way to attract customers who are interested in high-quality or specialized content.

How it works: Customers pay a monthly or annual fee to access the premium content. The content is typically only available to members and is not published elsewhere.

Why people might be interested: Individuals seeking detailed or particular information may be willing to invest in top-notch articles and videos. Membership sites can also provide this content while providing customers with a sense of exclusivity and being part of a dedicated community.

What you need to do: To keep your target audience engaged and coming back for more, you’ll need to offer up-to-date, high-quality material that is both relevant and appealing. Think of ways to make the membership experience personal and exciting as well.

New York Times

The New York Times offers a digital subscription that gives members access to all of their articles, as well as exclusive content and events.

It also offers members a special rate for print editions.

2. Eliminate ads

Ad-free membership sites offer customers the option to pay a monthly fee to remove ads from the service.

These types of membership sites can be especially appealing to customers who are tired of being interrupted by ads while using a service.

How it works: Customers pay a subscription fee to access the content without advertisements. Non-subscribers can usually still use the service for free, but will have to deal with ads.

Why people might be interested: For those who can’t stand ads interrupting their usage, a paid membership might be a worthwhile investment for an ad-free experience. Not only that, but these sites often provide a more streamlined and pleasant experience for the user.

What you need to do: It’s important to make sure that what you offer for a membership fee is worth it. Consider giving members additional features or privileges that can’t be found in the free version of the service to make the subscription more attractive.

Spotify

Spotify offers a premium subscription that removes ads from the service and provides additional features like offline listening and improved sound quality.

This model has proven to be very successful for Spotify and other digital services.

3. One-on-one coaching sessions

One-on-one coaching membership sites offer exclusive, one-on-one classes, video chat, or training sessions with an expert instructor.

These types of membership sites can be especially appealing to customers who are looking for personalized coaching or instruction.

How it works: Individuals can pay a fee, either monthly or annually, to gain access to personalized coaching sessions. Whether it’s done virtually through video chat or in-person, these sessions are tailored to suit the needs of every individual customer.

Why people might be interested: Those seeking personalized instruction may be willing to pay to get the chance to work closely with a seasoned expert. Not only can these membership sites provide individuals with an exclusive experience, it also allows for members to receive individualized attention.

What you need to do: For a successful one-on-one coaching experience, the quality of the sessions and the value they offer should be top priority. Additionally, think of ways to make the coaching engaging and interactive for maximum benefit.

Glo

Glo offers monthly or yearly membership packages that include one-on-one video coaching sessions with experienced instructors.

The sessions are tailored to the individual needs of each customer and focus on helping them reach their goals.

4. Access to assets

Some membership sites offer access to assets of some kind. Think of things like templates, stock photos or videos, and graphics.

These types of membership sites can be especially appealing to customers who are looking for high-quality assets for their own creative projects.

How it works: Subscribers pay a recurring fee in order to have access to the site’s assets. These assets are not available anywhere else and are only accessible to members.

Why people might be interested: Customers who are seeking out premium or specialized resources to create their own projects may be interested in paying for a membership that grants access to a library. These sorts of sites also offer convenience by not requiring members to purchase or search for individual resources.

What you need to do: To offer something worthwhile to customers, be sure to only have assets of the highest quality on your site.

Envato Elements

Envato Elements is a subscription service that provides access to a library of digital assets like templates, graphics, and photos.

Customers can access the library of assets for a monthly fee and use them for their own designs.

5. Digital library or training access

Digital library and training membership sites offer a content subscription to resources like online courses, training materials, and exclusive books or articles.

Membership websites like these offer an alluring opportunity for customers who desire to sharpen their skills or expand their understanding in a specific area.

How it works: You can pay a monthly or yearly fee to gain access to the site’s digital library and training resources. These are typically only available for members and can’t be found published elsewhere.

Why people might be interested: Those looking to learn new skills or improve their knowledge in a particular subject may be willing to pay for access to a library of digital resources. These types of membership sites can also offer convenience and flexibility, as members can access the resources at their own pace and from any location.

What you need to do: It is essential for the content on your site to remain current, precise, and useful for customers. Think about providing exclusive material or resources that can only be acquired from your platform.

Udemy

Udemy is an online learning platform that offers a wide range of courses and training materials to premium members.

6. Access to tools

Tool access membership sites offer premium features or access to tools that become accessible to members.

These types of membership sites can be especially appealing to customers who are looking to improve their productivity or efficiency.

How it works: Customers can opt for a monthly or yearly membership to access special features or tools exclusive to members that are unavailable to non-members.

Why people might be interested: Those looking to maximize productivity or efficiency might be willing to purchase access to additional features or tools available on membership sites. Not only does this offer the convenience of not having to purchase or subscribe to each tool separately, but it also gives members exclusive access.

What you need to do: Make sure the offerings on your site are attractive to customers by providing exclusive tools and features unavailable anywhere else.

Canva

Canva is a graphic design platform that offers a subscription service that includes access to a wide range of premium templates and features.

7. Subscription-based services

Subscription-based service memberships can be a great option for customers searching for consistent support or help with any task.

These memberships provide a range of services, such as content production, graphics design and WordPress maintenance.

They are an ideal way to ensure that you have the right kind of assistance without having to invest in additional staff or resources.

How it works: Customers have the option to pay a monthly or annual fee for access to the subscription-based services. These services are only available exclusively to members, ensuring them special perks and benefits that non-members cannot take advantage of.

Why people might be interested: Those searching for long-term support or help with a specific task may be willing to pay for access to subscription-based services. Membership sites can provide convenience, allowing members to access the resources they need without needing to locate and hire individual service providers.

What you need to do: You’ll need to ensure that the services on your site are of real value to customers. Consider offering exclusive bonuses or added features that are not available elsewhere and that aim to simplify their lives in some way. Convenience is key.

Kinsta

Kinsta is a managed WordPress hosting service. It offers a subscription service that includes access to managed services including backups, security scans and performance optimization.

8. Online forums and communities

Online forums and communities can be a great way to bring together like-minded individuals who share similar interests.

These memberships allow customers to engage in conversations within the forum or community and gain access to exclusive resources.

In fact, hosting a forum or online community is a popular choice for boosting site engagement.

According to the Zuora Subscription Economy Index Report, 65.5% of sites indicated that hosting an online community is their top engagement strategy.

How it works: Customers pay a monthly or annual fee to access exclusive forums and message boards. They are typically only available to members and are not available to non-members.

Why people might be interested: People who are looking for a supportive, like-minded community or exclusive access to industry professionals may be willing to pay for access to the forums and message boards.

These types of membership sites can also offer convenience, as members do not need to search for other communities or resources.

What you need to do: Besides offering exclusivity, you’ll also need to provide members with a true sense of belonging and actual community. Make it clear what the point of the exclusivity is. Is it access to expert-level feedback? Is it the ability to join in conversation with industry professionals or something else?

Experts Exchange

Experts Exchange is a membership site focused on providing IT professionals with access to an online community and exclusive resources.

The site provides access to an exclusive forum where tech experts can answer your questions.

9. PLR subscriptions

PLR subscription sites offer access to private label rights content, which can be used to create your own businesses or products.

These types of membership sites can be especially appealing to customers who are looking for pre-made content or resources to use for their own projects.

How it works: Customers pay a monthly or annual fee to access the PLR content they can then use to populate their own sites and resources.

Why people might be interested: Customers looking for pre-made content or resources to use for their own projects may be willing to pay for access to PLR content. These types of membership sites can also offer convenience and time-saving benefits, as members do not need to create the content from scratch.

What you need to do: You’ll need to make the selling point clear here. Ensure that the content on your site is of value to customers in both its quality and availability. Perhaps consider offering content in underexplored niches as well.

MasterPLR

MasterPLR is a PLR membership site that offers a wide range of content, including articles, ebooks, graphics, and more.

Members pay a monthly fee to access all of the content on the site to use however they’d like.

10. Niche community and fan sites

Niche communities and fan membership sites, such as Ravelry, Craftsy, DeviantArt and Patreon-type memberships are a great way to engage customers who have an avid interest in certain topics or hobbies.

These websites offer everything from hobby sites to fan wikis that provide fans with exclusive content not found anywhere else.

How it works: Those who sign up to the membership site typically pay a monthly or annual fee to access the exclusive content and resources. Sometimes this garners access to experts in a particular niche, discussion boards or forums, and other community-based activities.

Why people might be interested: Customers who are passionate about a particular subject or hobby may be willing to pay for access to a community of like-minded individuals. These types of membership sites can also offer a sense of belonging and support to members.

What you need to do: If this is the type of membership site you opt for, be sure to make the selling point clear here. Ensure that the content and resources on your site are of value to customers who share a similar interest as well as offering a real feeling of exclusivity. Prospects should feel as though they’re missing out by not signing up.

Ravelry

Ravelry is a membership site for knitters and crocheters that offers access to a community of like-minded individuals, as well as patterns, tutorials, and forums.

This site provides an invaluable resource for knitters and crocheters and is popular amongst enthusiasts of the craft.

Another related example is Craftsy, a site that offers online classes and resources related to a wide range of crafting topics.

Members pay a monthly fee to access the classes, tutorials, and other resources available on the site.

11. Classifieds

Whether you’re seeking employment, looking for a special online community, hiring service providers, submitting your work to journals or exploring the dating scene – classified membership sites provide access to niche listings at an affordable cost.

This type of membership site can be especially appealing to customers who are seeking a specific type of service or connection.

How it works: People sign up to the membership site and pay either a monthly or annual fee. The fee allows them access to all of the classified listings available on the site, which are usually exclusive to the platform.

Why people might be interested: Customers who are looking for job postings, niche community opportunities, or service providers may be willing to pay for access to a targeted list of classifieds. These types of membership sites can also offer convenience, as members do not need to search for listings individually.

What you need to do: To compete in this space, make sure the classifieds you offer are of greater value than what is found elsewhere. Offer exclusive resources customers won’t find elsewhere. Consider also offering a money back guarantee to increase trust and confidence in the platform.

Angi

Angi is a membership website that provides access to a list of service providers in the US and Canada.

Members pay a monthly fee to access classified listings and can search for service providers in their local area that have received the platform’s seal of approval.

12. Entertainment access

Entertainment access membership sites are an ideal option for customers who want special access to their favorite show, network, or series.

For those passionate about a particular program or genre of entertainment, these types of memberships offer the perfect solution.

How it works: People sign up to the membership site and pay either a monthly or annual fee. The fee allows them access to exclusive content such as behind-the-scenes footage, sneak peeks of upcoming episodes, and other entertainment related resources.

Why people might be interested: For fans of a certain show or genre, exclusive access to content or early access to new episodes can be worth paying for. A membership site also brings convenience, as members do not have to purchase single episodes, seasons, installments or issues separately.

What you need to do: You’ll need to ensure that the content on your site is of value. Consider offering exclusive episodes, bonus content, or early access to new episodes that are not available elsewhere.

Netflix

Netflix is a streaming service that offers a subscription service that includes access to a wide range of TV shows, movies, and documentaries.

Members pay a monthly fee to access the content on the site and are able to stream it anywhere with an internet connection.

Netflix also offers exclusive shows and content that are only available to subscribers.

13. Serial content

Serial content membership sites provide members with an ongoing subscription to a wide variety of magazines, podcasts, fiction stories, newsletters and newspapers.

Such offerings can be especially enticing for customers seeking continuous access to specific types of content.

How it works: People sign up to the membership site and pay either a monthly or annual fee. The fee allows them access to all of the serial content available on the site, including old episodes or issues.

Why people might be interested: Customers looking for specific types of content such as magazines, podcasts or newsletters may be willing to pay for access to a subscription to ongoing installments. If your content becomes a part of their regular routine — listening while driving to work or reading an issue before bed — they’ll come to depend on it.

What you need to do: To compete in this space, make sure the content you offer is of greater value than what is found on other sites. Consider offering exclusive content that customers won’t find elsewhere, as well as curated collections that are organized by theme or specific interests.

TED Talks Daily

Premium podcasts are a great example of the kind of serialized content we’re talking about here.

Customers can pay for a subscription to access exclusive episodes and content from their favorite podcasters. A popular offering is the TED Talks Daily podcast.

14. Workshops

Workshop membership sites offer limited-time (or one-time) events or classes to members.

These could be in-person or online, and could be focused on a particular topic or skill. These types of membership sites can be especially appealing to customers who are looking for focused, intensive learning opportunities.

How it works: Customers pay a fee to access the workshop event or class. The workshop is typically only available to members and is not open to non-members.

Why people might be interested: Customers looking for focused, intensive learning opportunities may be willing to pay for access to a workshop or class. This type of membership site could also be appealing to customers who are looking for a one-time event or class that won’t require them to commit to a long-term subscription.

What you need to do: You’ll need to ensure that the workshop content on your site is of value to customers. Consider offering exclusive workshops or bonus content that is not available elsewhere.

The Writer's Center

The Writer’s Center offers an online workshop membership site that provides members with access to exclusive classes, events, and workshops.

These are all focused on writing, and customers can pay a fee to gain access to the one-time event.

Set up your own membership site with SureMembers

SureMembers

SureMembers is a WordPress plugin that allows you to easily set up and manage your own membership website.

With SureMembers, we’ve made it so you can create membership levels, manage subscriptions and protect content with ease.

Unlike other membership plugins, SureMembers doesn’t rely on other plugins for payment functionality, instead offering robust payment options built directly into its core features.

The plugin also supports subscription and recurring payments out of the box, eliminating the need for separate and expensive add-ons that other membership plugins may require.

Here’s how it works in simple steps:

Step 1. Install the plugin

To install SureMembers, first purchase it from the official website. Then, log in to your WordPress dashboard and go to Plugins > Add New.

Click Upload Plugin then select the appropriate zip file from your computer.

Once the plugin is installed, click Activate.

Step 2. Add your license key

Back on the SureMembers site, go to your account and copy the license key for the plugin.

Then go back to your WordPress dashboard, click SureMembers, then paste the license key into the appropriate field when prompted.

Step 3. Create an access group

After activating SureMembers, you can create Access Groups with all the necessary details: name, price and duration.

Even free trials are available if you’d like to offer them. Plus, you can decide what content each group has access to.

Step 4. Specify protected content

setting up protected content and page rules

When creating a group with SureMembers, you can decide exactly what content you’d like to protect.

Opt for protecting all posts and pages or choose specific ones based on taxonomies. If there are any posts or pages that should remain outside the rule’s scope, you have the option to exclude them.

Step 5. Drip content

SureMembers lets you determine the pace of content delivery. You can plan out what and when your members should have access to the content, allowing for a gradual progression through an online course.

This way, members are only able to view relevant pieces of information one at a time, instead of all at once.

Step 6. Set up unauthorized access parameters

unauthorized access parameters in SureMembers

Determine what happens when someone visits your content who isn’t part of the Access Group.

You can choose to redirect them to another page or show them a message. You can use HTML in your message and advanced content editor will be available in the future.

Step 7. Managing members

If you need to check which members belong to a specific Access Group, you can use the Access Groups admin page or simply navigate to WordPress’ Users page.

SureMembers adds filtering options as well as extra info next to each user’s name and email address that indicates which groups they’re part of.

Clicking into their profile will allow you to manage their associated Access Groups and figure out when they were added.

Installing SureMembers is simple and straightforward, and once activated you can quickly set up your membership levels, manage subscriptions, and protect content.

This plugin makes it so easy to create and administer your own website with a membership system.

For more details on setting up and using SureMembers, watch this video.

Conclusion

There are many different types of membership sites that businesses can consider in 2023.

From providing access to premium content to offering one-on-one coaching sessions, there are many ways to create value for your customers and generate recurring revenue through a membership model.

By carefully considering your target audience and the type of content or services that you can offer, you can choose a membership site idea that works for your business.

Don’t forget to utilize the resources available to you. Starter Templates can save you a ton of WordPress design and development work. SureMembers can streamline the membership management process, which is the icing on the cake.

Good luck out there!

Do you run a membership website? Have any tips for anyone planning to start one? Tell us about them below if you do!

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