Another awesome update from the developers team over at ElegantThemes for the Divi theme, version 2.4 has been released with a whole set of amazing features and enhancements. Which makes it -in our opinion- one of the most advanced WordPress themes in the market. Hence, we’ve decided to accept the invitation to write this review for Divi, and share with you all the amazing new features that has been shipped in Divi version 2.4 release.

You can view Divi 2.4 launch here.

Update: ElegantThemes has release Divi Builder Plugin.

Below is what you will get in the new Divi version 2.4 update:

Revamped Customizer Settings

Divi 2.4 comes with a new whole set of amazing features that will rock your WordPress Customizer. These features including:

• General theme settings
• Theme gutter widths
• Website content width
• Sidebar width
• Control section and row padding
• Body text styles
• Header text styles

New Navigation options (in Customizer)

The Customize have gotten great new options including:

• Show/hide logo on scroll
• Show header after scroll
• Centered inline logo
• Transparent background color
• Logo height
• Navigation link size
• Navigation link text styles
• Secondary navigation text size
• Secondary navigation text styles
• Dropdown menu background color
• Dropdown menu text color
• Fixed navigation logo height
• Fixed navigation text size
• Fixed navigation text color
• Fixed navigation background color

New Divi Builder Interface

Divi 2.4 come with a full redesign of the Divi Builder Interface, it’s never been better!

New Row Options

• Adjust column structure of existing rows
• Make rows fullwidth
• Choose custom row width
• Choose custom row column spacing
• Row background image/color/video
• Equalize column heights
• Column background image/color
• Column padding

Footer options

• 10 column layouts
• Footer widget header styles
• Footer widget body text styles
• Footer credit text styles
• Footer social media link styles

Tablet and Phone Styles options

• Section and row height
• Body text size
• Header text size
• Mobile header background color
• Mobile header text color

Divi Post Builder

The most awaited feature is here! Divi 2.4 will fire on blog posts!

For the first time, you will be able to use the Divi builder on posts. Yes… We are talking about traditional blog posts. there is options to show/hide page title/meta/featured image in addition to page builder content. You will also be introduced to the New Post Title Module that places the page title/meta/featured image within a page builder layout, and choose between fullwidth or sidebar layouts

Introducing The Divi Library

The new Divi Library will store saved layouts, section, rows, and modules, you will be able to:

• Create and edit sections/rows/modules from within the library
• Filter library elements by name, type, and/or category
• Access any library element from within page builder
• Import/export library elements for use on other installs

Global Library Elements for Reuse on Layouts

Divi Library elements can set to global (applies to section, rows, and modules), which means you can reuse themes elements ver and over. Save one instance of a section/row/module and add it into any number of layouts. You can update from within a page, or from within the Divi Library. I must mention that updating one element will update all other instances of that specific element.

Global Button Styles

• Text size
• Text styles
• Background color
• Border styles
• Border radius
• Button icon
• Button icon placement
• Hover styles

New Fullscreen Header Module

Divi 2.4 ships with new header layouts, which fills the height and width of the browser window no matter what, there is new 24 unique layouts that you can choose from.

Layout elements include, logo, title, subtitle, text content, header image, background image, background video, background color overlay, parallax background image, and up to 2 call to action buttons.

New modules also include:

• Fullwidth image module
• Fullwidth code module
• Regular code module
• Fullwidth Post/Page title module
• Regular post/page title module

Advanced Module Settings & Custom CCS

There are 100s of new advanced module options and unique options per individual module, example:

• per module text options
• per module color options
• per module button styling
• per module margin and padding

Custom CSS

You will be able to enter in custom css right inside the module.

Fluid Grid

Your visitors can enjoy 100% fluid grid, it allows settings like:

• Custom content width
• Custom column spacing
• Custom sidebar width

Custom Spacing Controls

You will have custom control over all of elements listed below:

• Global/individual section padding
• Global/individual row padding
• Individual module padding
• Individual module margins
• Global/individual row column spacing
• Global/individual row width
• Content/sidebar width

Bottom line

I can’t really think of any full of features and control over layout than Divi, it’s by far a great handy tool for developers, and a fantastic theme for WordPress users. You can use it to build both, simple and complicated websites. Divi theme will increase your creativity and speed up the developments and design process of your projects.

You can view Divi 2.4 launch here.

If you haven’t heard of Divi theme, then probably you are missing an awesome opportunity. Divi theme by ElegantThemes created a lot of buzz when it was first released, and even recently when Divi 2.0 came out.

Today, ElegantThemes is introducing a new update release for Divi, now we’ve got Divi 2.4 ready for all ElegantThemes lovers.

We’ve reviewed Divi theme before on our website, I personally use it and loving it, I mostly use it to create quick websites. Today we’ve published a new fresh review to share with you the latest features of Divi. Find out all about thew new exciting features of Divi 2.4.

What’s New in Divi 2.4

The developers team over at ElegantThemes have done awesome job on revamping Divi. Alot of work has been done to make Divi more awesome. Here is a little overview of the biggest features:

Divi Builder

Divi 2.4 got big improvements in the Builder (Divi Builder), which is a drag & drop page layout builder that comes built-in Divi theme. The 2.4 release also ships with the most waited feature, which is enabling the Builder on posts, not only pages. I’ve seen many people asking ElegantThemes for this feature!

Divi Library

Divi Library is a new feature in 2.4, it stores your saved layouts, sections, rows, and modules. It has everything you’ve created and saved before. Here comes the new Global Library Elements feature, which allow you to make any Divi Library element global, and add unlimited number of instances of this element to reuse it in your page. Updating any instance will update all other instances.

The Customizer

The WordPress Customizer has been loaded with massive amount of options for you to have full control over your website’s layout. Also, a set of options for customizing the navigation. You will be amazed of what you are able to do!

Learn More

We have done a review of Divi 2.4, with an overview of all awesome new features.

So, you may have heard the news about Matt Mullenweg (WordPress and Automattic founder) to purchase thesis.com domain name for $100,000 with no clear reason than trying to destroy Chris Pearson’s (DIYThemes founder) WordPress business. Or more specifically; this meant to make Thesis framework part of History.

Even though, he owns Thesis trademark, Chris Pearson lost the legal battle against Automattic for the ownership to the domain name: Thesis.com.

This childish domain hijacking made many people upset!

How This Affected My Business?

Matt seems to not only ruined Chris’ business, but mostly likely he have ruined some other relevant businesses on his way to Kill Thesis. I can see it clearly in the comments of Chris’ post: The truth about thesis.com, were he told the real story.

The thing here is, all this reminds me how my Thesis Skins business went bad more than two years a go. I was thinking that the delayed release of Thesis 2.0 was the reason (actually many people went off Thesis that time), then I thought that when Thesis 2.0 went out, it made things easier for WordPress users to build their own sites without needing to purchase a premium skin, or maybe it gave more power to newbie developers to build awesome stuff which increased the competition and pushed me out of the market.

This hurts, especially after making a profit of around $100,000 in only two years of developing for Thesis framework. I was depending on it to pay the bills!

I’ve mentioned here: The reason why I haven’t released new Thesis skins when that happened. But, well… It turned out that I have been partially mistaken, it wasn’t really like what I thought. So, it’s not only the Thesis 2.0 effect, it was something much bigger than that leaded me to fail in maintaining the Thesis design and developments business I was having.

My business actually got smashed between Automattic and DIYThemes, because it depended on both of them at the same time. By the way; that’s the reason why I moved to developing plugins for WordPress instead of creating Skins (or child themes), at least this will reduce the risk being under the mercy of only one monster!

WordPress Is A Risky Business!

I know this since the beginning, Theme and Plugin businesses built around WordPress have always been at risk. You may work for several months developing something awesome for WordPress and build a successful business around it, then lose it all overnight because of someone else’s decision.

Have you suffered the same?

Did something similar happened to your commercial theme or plugin?

Image source: Automattic HQ

It’s well known that page loading time is an important part of user experience. Google pays a lot of attention to website page load speed and consider it an important factor when it comes to search engine rankings.

So, fast loading sites will most likely to rank higher in search engines, gets more visits (more returning satisfied visitors), and have a higher conversion rates than slower sites.

Impact of Images on Page Loading Time

Images are responsible for big percentage of page loading time. One great way to reduce page loading time is to reduce size of image files on the page.

Optimus plugin is made for this job.

Optimus Plugin

Optimus targets a lossless compression of media uploaded to WordPress while focusing on protecting your data, it slims down the original image and all preview images of the original uploaded image.

The Optimus plugin is free of charge, it can be downloaded from WordPress repository. however, the free version is limited to the essential features.

Essential features of the plugin:

• Reduction of file size with no change in image quality
• Automatic optimization of original and preview images
• Optional: no removal of EXIF and IPTC files
• Quick image loading thanks to progressive compression
• Compatible with WordPress Multisite and WooComerce
• Several years of experience in the area of image optimization
• Minimization of traffic thanks to smaller images
• No source code and template changes necessary whatsoever
• Increased PageSpeed score thanks to reduced file sizes
• For SEO & readers: improved page loading times
• Support of WordPress Mobile Apps and Windows Live Writer
• Software developed in Switzerland and hosted in Germany
• Continued development & updates

Optimus Bulk Optimizer

This is a cool feature in the plugin to allow you bulk optimize images on your website with one-click. You can find this feature under the Tools menu in your WordPress dashboard (Tools > Optimize all images).

Once you click on the “Optimize all images” button, the plugin will start to automatically optimize images and show you the process.

You mostly will need to optimize all images on your website when you first install the plugin, after that, all new images that you upload latter on will get optimized automatically whenever you upload it via the WordPress media uploader.

Media Library List Page

In the Media Library list page, a new Optimus column will show. The percent value in the circle displays the achieved optimization rate of each image.

Here are some other image optimization rates that may show:

Want more power and features?

Think premium…

Optimus HQ

The Optimus HQ (Premium) can handle several image formats, compress larger files and connects through HTTPS. More details on optimus.io site.

Once you get Optimus HQ, you will receive an activation key that you can use to get the premium features and be able to compress more image formats.

Optimus HQ PRO

The Optimus HQ PRO (Premium) license allows you to use the Optimus plugin on customer websites, this is very useful and will save you money if you develop websites for clients.

WordPress has gotten a new update. WordPress 4.2.3 is now available. This is a critical security release for all previous versions, it’s strongly recommended that you update your sites immediately to this release to make sure your website is secured.

There are a couple of main security fixes in this release:

WordPress versions 4.2.2 and earlier are affected by a critical cross-site scripting vulnerability, which could allow anonymous users to compromise a site.

Also there is a fix for an issue where it was possible for a user with Subscriber permissions to create a draft through Quick Draft.

This latest version of WordPress 4.2.3 also contains fixes for 20 bugs from 4.2. For more information, see the release notes or consult the list of changes.

Rating and reviews became more important than ever when it’s about purchase decisions they make. So, I always feel the need for knowing more about the value of reviews, how consumers read reviews, and how their opinions and behavior are affected by the reviews they read.

So, since I’ve developed a Schema markup plugin for WordPress that has support for ratings and reviews, I try to educate myself and learn about reviews to be able to fulfill my customers’ needs and keep my plugin up to date.

I’ve decided to review a few WordPress rating and reviews plugins to see how they work and what those plugins are capable of. Practically, this is some kind of a study of my competitors! However, I think it won’t hurt if I share it along with my personal opinion, perhaps someone will find it useful.

Of course, I needed to make some criteria for my reviews, here it is…

Reviews Criteria

• I won’t be reviewing any plugins with low rating.
• Plugins must have some sort of high active installation count (not less than 30,000 )
• My reviews will be based on functionality, integrability, and extensibility.
• I will review only 5 plugins.
• I will install and check every single plugin personally on a test WordPress website.
• I will compare those plugins to the WPRichSnippets.

So, let’s start by making a quick search in wordpress.org and see what comes up.

Compare Reviews and Ratings WordPress Plugins

Certainly, I’ve enjoyed this and got some useful ideas!

It’s often hard to find a graphic design website that truly has free content. But, here’s some good news! Vecteezy lets you explore the creations of other artists from all over the world to find the perfect (FREE!) vector file for your next project.

Vecteezy makes it easy to look through thousands of graphics created all for your use! All the graphics are free to download and, depending on the license, free to use in your commercial and personal projects.

Not only can you browse through and use the free vectors you find on Vecteezy, you can share your created resources for others to use, too. Talk about a fun community to be a part of!

Vecteezy also offers premium memberships to those who are interested in thousands more premium vector files. You really should check the site out – it’s not one you want to miss!  And don’t forget about their other design site Brusheezy.com

Get this Freebie

The Twitter Bird Vector Icon and the Data Center Icon are here to take your designs to the next level, use professional caliber tools to begin make your designs efficient and aesthetically pleasing with the same two things in the header we should feed the number.

This infographic provide a step-by-step view on marketing your WordPress published content and getting backlinks from relevant WordPress sites, which makes it an interesting and useful visual guide.

WordPress Content Marketing

This is some exciting news from the makers of Divi Theme, now that the new Divi Builder Plugin got released, you will be able to use it with any theme, not only themes created by ElegantThemes, but actually any WordPress theme out there.

Read here about Divi Theme 2.0, and also our review of Divi Theme 2.4 releases to get to know this awesome theme for WordPress and it’s built-in page builder.

Read our Divi Builder Review for more details.

Now, you’ve got all the good stuff shipped in a form of a WordPress plugin, so practically you will be able to use the Divi Builder plugin on any WordPress project you are building and speed up the development process to the max.

Divi Builder Plugin

Get 20% Off Your Account Upgrade

ElegantThemes plugins, including the Divi Builder Plugin, are only available to customers with Developer and Lifetime subscriptions. But don’t worry, you are in luck, because today ElegantThemes is offering 20% off all account upgrades!

(This offer will only be available for a limited time)

If you are thinking about upgrading your account to use the Divi Builder Plugin, today’s the day to do it!

What Next?

The question that comes to mind now is should you use the Divi Theme or Divi Builder Plugin?

Well, this is absolutely up to you, I would personally use the new plugin for websites that I already built and maybe use Divi theme to build websites for new projects.

Today, I am going to review and walk you through the new Divi Builder plugin that was released recently by ElegantThemes, which adds a page building functionality via an extremely easy to use drag and drop interface.

In this Divi Builder review, you will get to know the main features of this awesome WordPress plugin, so keep reading.

Actually, the page builder was released as part of Divi theme and it quickly received a lot of interest in the community, and this was the reason why ElegantThemes team decided to release this functionality in a form of plugin so it can be used with any of the available WordPress themes, not only themes created by ElegantThemes, but actually any WordPress theme.

Divi Builder Plugin Main Features

The divi Builder plugin has amazing flexibility and fantastic features that will work really well for a beginners, advanced and even professional users.

Here are four main features we can focus on when speaking about Divi Builder plugin:

1) No Coding Or Design Skills Required

Even though, you don’t have coding or designing experience, you will be able to build amazing things using the simple drag and drop builder interface.

Everything on the page can be arranged visually and you are able to simply add new content blocks, arrange them in your desired order. This is what we mean by no coding required!

Almost everything built with the Divi Builder is customizable. You can use the Advanced Design Settings to adjust element color, size, spacing, fonts, and do more. There are controls for almost everything you could ever need!

2) Use On Any WordPress Theme

The most exciting thing about Divi Builder is it works with any theme, this is what many people were waiting for. So, if you already have an established WordPress site, you may want to have a page builder for your content, but this means you are forced to switch away from your theme to use Divi theme. But, that was before!

Now that Divi Builder ships as a WordPress plugin, you no longer have to switch away from your theme, you just need to install the plugin and you are good to go.

3) 40+ Content Modules

The Divi Builder comes with over 40 different content modules, each module has its own set of powerful design and configuration controls, you will be able to customize it pretty much the way you like.

4) 20+ Premade Content Layouts

A blank canvas is not always a good idea, it can be so frustrating, and creating a basic foundation for your site is sometimes not where you want to spend all of your time. That’s why Divi Builder comes with numerous pre-made layouts to help you get started quickly.

Load of other amazing features

The Divi Builder plugin has loads of other amazing features that will make your life easier and save you hours of design and development time.

We are sure you gonna love it, join to download Divi Builder now!

If your coming WordPress project require a reliable booking management system, then you are on the right place. Continue reading our Salon Booking plugin review to figure out what’s in it for your business .

The Salon Booking System is a complete and easy to use plugin for WordPress, it’s meant to serve appointments booking for busy barber shops, beauticians, therapist, spas, tutors and whoever sell his skills and time to live on appointment base.

Click to view Salon Booking plugin.

Who is it for?

Practically, this is a WordPress plugin that can be used by freelance web designers and web agencies that need a reliable and solid solution for WordPress based projects where an online appointment booking system is required by their client.

Which business fields can benefit from this system?

• Hair dressers salon
• Barber shop
• Beauty salons
• Spas
• Therapists
• Tattoo Artists
• Chiropractor Scheduling
• Tutors
• Car shops
• Hourly based rental shops
• And, it could be a good fit for any consultants business booking!

What makes Salon Booking System different?

There are a few other WordPress plugins in the market that deals with booking, however the main focus of Salon Booking is on specific needs of hourly based, “to-persons” services provided upon appointment.

So, Salon Booking is not-for all solution, but is specific niche market focused solution, which mostly means better performance for end-user.

What are the plus of Salon Booking?

Providing all those settings that allow to replicate all the common characteristics of our customers real business in order to control all crucial appointment bookings processes.

Here is a list of awesome features within the plugin:

1- Easy setup

Once you install the plugin, it will add a new section called “Salon” on your admin dashboard menu and create a few pages that will be used by the plugin such as”Booking“, “Booking my account” and a “Thank you page“, plus some services and bookings data for demo purpose and to get you started quickly.

So practically speaking, with this plugin; things are more clear and easy to figure (more features and screenshots).

2- Payment Gateway

Out of the box; the plugin comes with two main payment gateway integrations, it has support for:

• PayPal
• Strip

3- Google Calendar

The plugin has ability to integrate with your Google Calendar, you can easily synchronize your reservation on your Google Calendar account.

Salon booking Plugin Pricing

There is a free version available over at wordpress.org plugin directory, which giving 50 bookings. This should be a good start if you are looking to test out this awesome plugin.

You can download the free Salon Booking plugin here.

If you are looking for a pro version with plugin support, here are the options:

• A single site activation PRO license for 69.00 Euros.
• A five sites activation PRO license for 149.00 Euros.
• Unlimited site activations for 229.00 Euros.

Check out the Salon Booking plugin pricing page for more details.

Bottom line

Many business owners would like to offer the choice to customers that will allow them to book an appointment directly from their site. If you are looking for one of these options, then consider using the Salon Booking plugin as it gives you great functionality and features.

Today, another awesome update for WordPress core has been released, named “Coleman” in honor of jazz saxophonist Coleman Hawkins. The new release is available for download or update in your WordPress dashboard.

So, what’s new in WordPress 4.5 ?

Editing Improvements

Inline Links

Stay focused on your writing with a less distracting interface that keeps you in place and allows you to easily link to your content.

Formatting Shortcuts

Do you enjoy using formatting shortcuts for lists and headings? Now they’re even more useful, with horizontal lines and <code>.

Customization Improvements

Live Responsive Previews

Make sure your site looks great on all screens! Preview mobile, tablet, and desktop views directly in the customizer.

Custom Logos

Themes can now support logos for your business or brand. The Twenty Fifteen and Twenty Sixteen themes have been updated to support custom logos, which can be found in the Site Identity section of the customizer.

Under the Hood

Selective Refresh

The customizer now supports a comprehensive framework for rendering parts of the preview without rewriting your PHP code in JavaScript. See it in action with Menus.

Smart Image Resizing

Generated images now load up to 50% faster with no noticeable quality loss. It’s really cool.

JavaScript Library Updates

jQuery 1.12.3, jQuery Migrate 1.4.0, Backbone 1.2.3, and Underscore 1.8.3 are bundled.

Script Loader Improvements

Better support has been added for script header/footer dependencies. New wp_add_inline_script() enables adding extra code to registered scripts.

Better Embed Templates

Embed templates have been split into parts and can be directly overridden by themes via the template hierarchy.

A new plugin has been released over at wordpress.org yesterday, which deals with schema.org markups on WordPress sites. The new plugin is actually maintained by me. It will be a framework for schema and structured data in JSON-LD format, which I think is the feature.

In the past 4 years or so, I’ve been working on developing amazing plugins for schema and structured data, I’ve used microdata format in my WP Reviews and WPRichSnippets plugins as it was the most recommended by Google.

Being working with schema and structured data for a long time, I can clearly see that JSON-LD format is going to raise soon. This means; the Schema WordPress plugin will be an important addition (if not requirement) of any healthy WordPress site, it will simply tell Google and other search engines a lot more about your content and will lead to a better positioning and presentation for your site in search results.

What is Schema Markups?

Schema.org provides a collection of shared vocabularies webmasters can use to mark up their pages in ways that can be understood by the major search engines: Google, Microsoft, Yandex and Yahoo! (source: schema.org)

What is JSON-LD?

JSON-LD is a lightweight Linked Data format. It is easy for humans to read and write. It is based on the already successful JSON format and provides a way to help JSON data interoperate at Web-scale. JSON-LD is an ideal data format for programming environments, REST Web services, and unstructured databases such as CouchDB and MongoDB. (source: json-ld.org)

What Schema markup is supported?

At this point, the Schema plugin supports:

• Knowledge Graph
  • Logos
  • Company Contact Numbers
  • Social Profile Links
• Style Your Search Results:
  • Enable Sitelinks Search Box
  • Show Your Site Name in Search

In future updates, I will be adding more schema types support.

Download and Install Schema Plugin

You can download Schema plugin, or install it directly within your WordPress dashboard (simply search for Schema when you are on the WordPress plugins install screen).

Many WordPress themes developers has implemented schema.org markups into their templates code, I personally think this is not a good practice, WordPress SEO should be done via plugins like Yoast SEO and not be a theme thing.

Don’t get me wrong, Genesis is great theme, and it’s number one in my opinion, it’s also the most recommended theme for my WPRichSnippets plugin users. However, I just think that SEO should be done via a plugin.

You can read more about this in an article written by Rob Neu explaining why Genesis SEO need to go a way, which proves my point of view, I don’t need to repeat this!

Why Remove Genesis Schema?

In some cases, you will want to remove Genesis theme Schema.org structured data markup from your WordPress site. This could be because:

• Genesis hasn’t been updated its schema markups.
• You want to add your own schema markups via a plugin.
• You want to extend schema markups specific content.
• Whatever other reason!

There is no complete guide or documentation for this anywhere on the web till the moment of writing this article, so I decided to make a simple plugin to do the job.

Genesis Schema Removal Plugin

I’ve just release a super light, install it and forget it WordPress plugin called Genesis Schema Removal, which will disable Genesis Schema markups on your WordPress site.

Download Genesis Schema Removal plugin, or install it automatically within your WordPress dashboard.

One you install and activate the plugin, there is no more further steps or configurations, the plugin will remove Genesis schema markups on your site automatically.

Also, take a look at my new Schema WordPress plugin, which adds valid schema markups in JSON-LD format to your WordPress site with ease.

I’ve started to use AMP plugin along with my Schema WordPress plugin to experiment how things work out and try to get my sites to benefit from this experience. So, I will share with you a few tips on how to solve those errors you get when you test your AMP posts in Google’s Structured Data Testing Tool.

What AMP Plugin Does?

The AMP plugin enable Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) on your WordPress site, which is an an open source initiative that aims to provide mobile optimized content that can load instantly everywhere.

I think you will find the AMP plugin useful, it may take a few weeks till Google pick that up though, so give it some time!

You can download AMP plugin or install it within your WordPress dashboard.

Fixing Schema Errors

The errors I am talking about here is within the schema markup, this happen mostly because a missing markup. The reason why AMP plugin fail on this, is because it doesn’t get quite enough updates to follow up with changes that Google push often.

One error I’ve got was from a missing image object that is part of Publisher schema.

The problem here is you will need to add an image to present the Publisher Organization logo. AMP plugin doesn’t have a way to do that, maybe AMP will need to have this in a setting item, but AMP doesn’t have a settings page, it’s a very simply activate and forget plugin.

The Solution

To solve this issue, I’ve integrated a function into the Schema plugin, which solve the errors in the Structured Data Testing tool.

Thankfully, the AMP developers has provided a way to override the schema markup output, I’ve found a filter within the plugin to allow me to do it, so I’ve hooked into that to use Schema markup output instead, which worked great and the Testing Tool errors has gone.

So, since I am using the Schema plugin, my sites got more detailed schema markups than what APM plugin will give.

In this review, we are going to spot the lights on SoloPreneur theme by FancyThemes, a new truly fancy WordPress theme made especially for bloggers and internet marketers who wants to take their online business to a professional level.

Continue reading our SoloPreneur review to get to know this awesome WordPress theme and see how it can help your blogging and online marketing profession.

Why SoloPreneur Theme?

Simply, because it has all you need as a professional blogger or internet marketer, here is a list of the main features of SoloPreneur theme:

• SEO Optimization – Engineered to follow SEO best practices and coded accordingly, rest assured your theme will be optimized and searchable. Google will always find you site and rank it well.
• Cross Browser Compatibility – All the major search engines, try as they might, will not render your website any other way then the way you intended…guaranteed.
• Retina Ready and Mobile Friendly – Your theme will look good on any screen and any device, no matter how small it is.
• Blazing Fast Speed – Just as design is a high priority with the FancyThemes team, so is page loading time. No excess code is present in any theme; you have what you need to perform well and nothing more.
• Translation Ready – Use the included .po and .mo files to turn your website into a global presence instantly.
• Regular Updates – Your theme will always keep up with the latest WordPress version.
• Endless Customization – Sliders, color schemes, widgetized homepages, logo uploads, crisp typography, and more will keep you plenty busy in the design phase. What’s more, the Live Theme Customizer makes it super easy for you to view as you edit so you will know exactly how your website will look to your visitors.
• Bold Imagery – Whether it be the customizable header image, the background image adding a unique feel, your blog excerpt’s thumbnail, or you actual post’s featured image, your themes will provide a spectacular viewing experience for your site visitors.

Optin Forms Integration

This considered one of the most noticeable features of SoloPreneur.

SoloPreneur integrates and plays nicely with the Optin Forms plugin, which allows you to create beautiful optin forms via a simple set of options, you can choose a form design, customize it, and add your form to your site to start catching more emails in your email list.

Once you install and activate SoloPreneur theme, it will ask you to install the Optin Forms plugin automatically within your WordPress dashboard with only a couple of clicks.

A new version of WPRichSnippets plugin has been released today with new Schema for Recipes support to follow Google’s Structured Data guidelines.

This is good news for food bloggers, and anyone who want to share their awesome recipes on their WordPress sites.

Rich Snippets Post Meta

The Rich Snippets post meta box has been extended with new fields to allow easy inserting of recipe details.

Box template

A new Box template has been added especially for recipes, the WPRichSnippets plugin template has been extended with all required details for recipe rich snippets.

Demo: See it Live!

• Recipe Vote Example
• Recipe Aggregate Example

Read more about Schema for Recipes update.

Happy 4th of July everyone! Every year the WordPress community celebrates the American Independence day with great discounts, coupons, and promos, so it’s good time to get your WordPress business assets and tools for discounted prices.

WordPress 4th Of July Discounts

We will be sharing great WordPress deals, Themes, Plugins, and Web Hosting plans discounts as well.

Web Hosting Discounts

SiteGround

Great hosting deals from SiteGround during the holiday weekend – 70% off on all shared hosting plans, with prices starting as low as $2.95/mo.

Promotion duration: The promotion will last 4 days and will be launched on Friday, July 1st 2016 at 2 a.m. CDT. It will end on Tuesday, July 5th 2016 at 2 a.m. CDT.

Discount code: Note required!

Get 70% OFF SiteGround

WordPress Themes

aThemes

aThemes has great collection of free and premium clean looking WordPress themes, take a look at their Themes and discover how it can help you build your next professional WordPress site.

Ends: July 08

Discount code: JULY4

Get 30% OFF aThemes

Magazine3

Magazine3 is a WordPress theme design company founded in 2010, get a professionalWordPress theme by Magazine3 and enjoy this awesome offer.

Ends: 9th July

Discount code: 4JULY16

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TeslaThemes

TeslaThemes create and sell beautiful, modern WordPress themes with clean layouts, powerful features and Free Premium support.

TeslaThemes is hosting a massive discount, you get 40% off the regular prices of their amazing WordPress themes.

Ends: 9th July

Coupon code: 4JULY2016

Get 40% OFF TeslaThemes

WordPress Plugins

WPRichSnippets

Optimize your WordPress SEO with the WPRichSippets plugin, markup content with different Schema.org markups and many other awesome features.

Get 30% OFF the regular price of Personal, Plus, and Professional licenses, and all add-ons. Start from July 1, 2016 and ends on July 7, 2016.

Discount code: 4THOFJULY30

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99Robots

Premium WordPress plugins for publishers, which help you grow your email list, increase advertising revenue, build social influence, and improve your publishing process.

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CSS Hero

Premium CSS Hero plugin for amazing website layout customization and easy styling.

Get 50% off CSS Hero plugin starting today July 4th, this offer expires on July 09.

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Updates

We will be updating this page whenever we find valid offers or discount codes, so stay tuned and keep coming back.

Another popular alternative to nRelate Related articles is Yet Another Related Posts Plugin (YARPP). YARPP is another easy to install plugin that has a basic and pro version. The basic version is easy to configure. But the pro version requires a free membership and a little more confusing configuration. It took about five minutest to install and configure the basic version and about fifteen to twenty minutes to signup, configure, and test the results for the pro version.

How Does YARPP Work

The YARPP algorithm does the work on your web server. It also caches the results so once your article has been added to the list, it should only have to be calculated once.

Even though the results are cached, you may still have impact on your server load time. Many web hosts such as, WP Engine, have band the YARPP plugin due to its heavy load it can put on the web server. If your web host allows this plugin, it may have little impact on slower websites. On a high traffic website, ’it will have an impact.

How to Configure YARPP

First thing you will need to do is install and activate YARPP from the WordPress directory. So go to your admin panel >> Plugins >> Add New Plugin >> Install >> Activate Plugin

Next, go to the Admin Panel >> Settings >> YARPP

YARPP Basic

The first thing you will see is two tabs YARPP basic and YARPP Pro. Start with the basic and configure your settings. The first large box will have multiple check boxes and pull down menus. This section is used to limit the number of articles that will be displayed. Only use this section if you want a certain category or tag to be displayed. If you only want to display relative articles for certain amount of months back, set your months and use the check box.

In the next section, you will be able to configure YARPP and how the results are displayed. I told it to display only 4 results. For the rest of the settings in this section, I left them to default.

In the final sections, you get to the system layout for results in a list, thumbnail, or custom. Set it to thumbnail. At the very bottom there is check box you can select to add related posts to your RSS feeds. I left that one blank.

YARPP PRO

In the YARPP Pro section the first thing you will see is the sign up / sign in page with a little information about features of the pro version. Later on we will go into more detail about the features of both.

Once you have created your account, you will be given access to the pro features and your basic configuration will carry over to the pro version. The basic settings will be used in addition to the new pro features you setup.

Make sure to select widgets so can see all your related posts widgets. Here you see that I have setup 3 widgets for several different domains. But I’m only going to display display one set on the site. You have to setup these widgets to get more domains on your site.

With the pro version, you can add ads that link to other sites. Make sure to select the number of ads to match the number of relative articles you have configured. As for the rest of the settings, leave these alone.

In the next section, you can add links to other sites in your network or want to drive traffic to. Create a new widget by going back to the widgets sections and select add widgets. Follow the instructions. Once completed come back to the above section and use the drop down menu to add the domain.

The above image is the results that are be served on my Photoblog. (plugin will be removed soon)

A Few Things You Need to Know

• You have no control of the ads generated
• Some of the ads and links are not what you want to have linked from your site.
• You MUST use the featured image on each post in order for the plugin to generate a thumbnail. If you do not, you will get a default thumbnail.
• You can add a default plugin if you do want theirs displayed.
• Just because you have linked other sites to YARPP doesn’t mean they will display.

YARPP Basic VS YARPP Pro

YARPP Basic has everything you need to display related content on your site. If you want to serve related content from other domains you control, make money, or drive traffic to your site via ad creation, then you have to go with the pro version.

The above image gives you a complete list of features for each version of the plugin. For more details or to sign up for an account, head over to their information page and click on the signup link.

My Thoughts on Yet Another Related Posts Plugin (YARPP)

I like the look and feel of the basic design. The boxes around each result keeps  a sleek and clutter free look. If the title is to long, its cut off. But when you get down to the other sections, its squished together, the long titles stretch out, and because they proudly added those stupid “powered by” quotes it ruins the fluid look to the post. Because of those issues and several others, I will not be using those sections. Overall its a well designed plugin, but it looses a lot of the usefulness by processing the results server side.

As for the ad section, they aren’t even relative to the content. Some of the links are sketchy and shouldn’t be served. You should be able to tell the system what ads will be served on your site and ban those that could hurt your brand.

Another issue I have with this plugin is that many web hosts are banding this plugin due to the load it can put on a web host. Before testing this plugin, that alone made me question the thought of using this plugin. So instead of testing on a high traffic site, I added it to a slow site,

I didn’t notice a different load time while moving through out the site. I ran some speed test and test show a small change in speed. So this could be a big concern on a larger site.

After testing this plugin, I would only use the basic version of the plugin. Its all you need. If you want to earn money for your blog, there are other ways…

I will recommend this plugin for large scale sites. I am hesitant to recommend this plugin for small sites as well. At some point those small sites will get larger and you will have to make a change.

Overall its a well designed plugin, but it looses a lot of the usefulness by processing the results server side. If the plugin processed the results offsite like several of the other related articles plugins do, this plugin would have scored a higher score.

Until I find a better solution, I am still recommending the related posts plugin that is featured in the Jetpack Plugin.

Back to you!

Do let us know your thought and experience with the plugin and rate it in the reviews section below.

The guys over at ElegantThemes shared a new video sneak peak of the new coming Divi 3.0 Theme release to show us how this awesome WordPress Theme will look like. The release Date of Divi 3.0 is set by the company, it should be ready in the coming month.

Divi 3.0 (Alpha) In Action

The new coming Divi 3.0 Theme will ship with a new Page Builder than what was in Divi 2.0, so I expect this to be a new whole exciting experience for all Divi Theme lovers.

Check out the divi 3.0 Sneak Peak Video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YzRWmFagVsA

Learn More About Divi 3.0

We are looking forward for this coming release of Divi to share more with you about this legendary WordPress Theme.