Website Design

When you make an online purchase, what is the first thing you do? In an ecommerce world where customers cannot physically experience the products before purchasing, many customers turn their heads to the reviews section to get a rough idea about the product.

As online review sites have expanded, finding an opinion on just about anything is only a few clicks away! The proliferation of reviews has even gone so far as to shape how businesses are perceived online.

Studies show that an average customer is willing to spend 31% more on a retailer who has excellent reviews.

Negative reviews carry as much weight as the positive ones. It is possible that 2 people in 10 might have some complaints about the product. Some studies show that users spend five times longer on site when interacting with negative reviews.

Customers like to see lots of reviews. A single review with a few positive words makes up an opinion, but a few dozen that say the same thing make a consensus. The more reviews, the better.

Benefits of Ecommerce Website Reviews:

Here are some of the many benefits of reviews posted on your website

1. Drive Sales: Social proof refers to the psychological phenomenon in which people make judgments and decisions based on the collective actions of others. In this case, reading positive reviews from other people who made similar purchases drives confidence that buying a well-reviewed item is a good choice. In essence, people want proof from other consumers that a product or service is worthwhile, not just biased advertising from brands. Reviews are trusted 12 times more than other marketing materials, demonstrating that social proof is a powerful force.
   
   
2. Build Trust: While handling a product is the best way to gauge quality, reviews can be the next best thing for businesses that exist solely in the ecommerce space. Reading dozens of reviews that indicate good quality and services create an online reputation that customers can trust. In fact, customers are 63% more likely to trust and buy from a company with reviews.
   
   
3. Contributes to SEO results: Building an SEO-friendly web presence can take a lot of time and energy. Fortunately, customer reviews can further your mission without you lifting a finger. Most customers use keywords, like the name of the products, in their reviews, adding more content on the internet associated with you. That can benefit you twofold: your name is more likely to appear when web users search keywords related to your store, and they’re most likely to see your positive reviews.
   
   
4. Aid customer decision making: When purchasing online, the customer decision-making process becomes a lot more complicated. As such, most shoppers put a lot more time and energy into evaluating products, reading reviews, and comparing items with one another before pulling the trigger.

Reviews are key to the decision-making process, helping customers to get a better idea about the product, including material, size, and shape.

How to get more reviews ?

Ecommerce customer reviews have become such a crucial part of the DTC ecommerce process that marketers should gather as many as they can. 

Other than relying on customers, how can brands increase the number of reviews?

The answer is straightforward: simply ask. 

In fact, 70% of those asked will submit a review. Simply asking for feedback, whether on a checkout page, as a pop-up after making a purchase, or as an email or text request following confirmation of product delivery, may make a tremendous difference. 

One innovative technique to get more reviews is to create a review template that users may customize and publish under their own names. Review templates simplify the process of leaving reviews.

One more effective way of getting reviews is that brands can offer additional discounts to people who leave a review! In this way, brands get a review and customers get additional discounts! Win win for all!

Conclusion:

Customer reviews and feedback are just one part of the DTC ecommerce and post-purchase experience. e-Cliqs can help guide your brand through every aspect of successful ecommerce. We facilitate a faster, safer and smarter entry into Indian as well as global markets for businesses of all sizes through a powerful combination of technology and DTC ecommerce know-how. Contact e-Cliqs today to learn how your brand can partner with a true end-to-end DTC ecommerce.

Whenever you go to your favorite retail outlet, you are usually greeted by a friendly salesperson who is willing to help you pick the best product based on your requirement. They take into consideration your budget and solve any queries you may have during the process. In the end, you make a purchase and leave the store feeling happy, a satisfying offline customer experience.

Customer experience is the means by which a brand communicates with its customers at every step of the way during the buyer’s journey. As the e-commerce store continues to clutter, e-commerce shops need new ways to make their customers shop from them on an ongoing basis.Conversion rates can be boosted greatly by improving customer experience. In this article, we will look at 7 ways in which you can improve the customer experience for your Ecommerce store.

1. Personalized Email Campaigns: Email marketing remains a powerful tool for engaging existing customers. Create personalized email campaigns that cater to your customer’s preferences and purchase history. Send out recommendations, exclusive offers, and tailored product suggestions. A little personal touch goes a long way in retaining and converting customers.

2. Reward Loyalty with Loyalty Programs: Implementing a loyalty program is an excellent way to engage your existing audience. Offer points, discounts, or exclusive perks to customers who keep coming back. It not only improves retention rate but also makes your customer feel valued and important.

3. Interactive Content: Make your website a hub of interactive content. Incorporate quizzes, polls, and surveys to collect customer feedback and data. Engaging content keeps visitors on your site longer, increases their investment in your brand, and can even lead to impulse purchases.

4. Product Recommendations: Leverage AI and data analysis to provide your existing audience with product recommendations. Similar to what they’ve previously purchased or viewed can pique their interest and drive more sales. Display these recommendations prominently on your website and in your emails.

5. Social Media Engagement: Stay active and engaged on your social media platforms. Encourage discussions, share user-generated content, and host giveaways. You have to keep your customers excited about your brand so that they will be more likely to get converted into prospect customers and visit your website more often. 

6. Live Chat Support: Offer live chat support on your website to assist customers in real-time. Being readily available to answer questions or provide guidance can alleviate concerns and lead to more confident purchases. It also shows that you care about their shopping experience.

7. User-Generated Content (UGC): Showcase UGC such as customer reviews, testimonials, and photos of your products in action. This not only builds trust but also creates a community of like minded people  around your brand. Happy customers can be your best advocates, driving more sales through word-of-mouth marketing.

8. Push Notifications: Push notifications are an immediate and direct way to engage with your website visitors. Here’s how they can help:

• Timely Updates: Send real-time updates on product launches, promotions, and sales to your subscribers. This keeps your audience informed and engaged, driving them back to your website to make purchases.
• Abandoned Cart Recovery: Use push notifications to remind users about their abandoned shopping carts, offering incentives like discounts or free shipping to encourage them to complete the purchase.
• Personalized Recommendations: Send personalized product recommendations based on users’ browsing and purchase history. This increases the chances of cross-selling and upselling, leading to more sales.
• Flash Sales and Limited-Time Offers: Notify users about limited-time offers and flash sales, creating a sense of urgency and driving impulse purchases.

9. Retargeting: Retargeting: Retargeting involves showing ads to users who have previously visited your website. It’s a highly effective way to re-engage your existing audience. Here’s how it helps:

• Stay Top of Mind: Keep your brand in front of potential customers who have shown interest in your products but haven’t made a purchase. This reminder can lead to return visits and conversions.
• Personalization: Show tailored ads based on users’ past interactions with your website. This personalization can make them feel more valued and understood, increasing the likelihood of conversion.

10. Marketing Automation: Marketing automation allows you to create personalized and timely interactions with your audience. Here’s how it contributes to engagement and sales:

• Drip Email Campaigns: Set up automated email sequences that nurture leads and guide them through the sales funnel. Provide relevant content and offers to move them closer to conversion.
• Segmentation: Segment your audience based on their behavior, demographics, or purchase history. This enables you to tailor messages and offers to specific groups, increasing the likelihood of conversions.

Conclusion:

The market of e-commerce is constantly evolving according to the customer preferences which you can catch up for better customer engagements. Hope these tips will help you to increase your customer engagement.

Website speed, or website performance, refers to how quickly a browser is able to load fully functional web pages from a given site. Poorly performing sites that render slowly in a browser can drive users away. Conversely, sites that load quickly will typically receive more traffic and have better conversion rates.

Why Website Speed Matters:

1. User Experience (UX): A slow-loading website frustrates visitors and can lead to a high bounce rate. Users expect instant gratification, and a delay of just a few seconds can significantly impact their perception of your brand. A smooth and swift user experience is essential for retaining and converting visitors into customers.
2. Search Engine Rankings: Search engines, particularly Google, consider website speed as one of the ranking factors. Websites that load quickly are likely to rank higher in search results. Google’s algorithm values user experience, and fast-loading pages contribute positively to your site’s SEO, potentially increasing your visibility and organic traffic.
3. Mobile Responsiveness: With the majority of internet users accessing websites through mobile devices, mobile responsiveness is paramount. Slow-loading pages can be especially frustrating for mobile users, leading them to abandon the site. Google’s mobile-first indexing also emphasizes the importance of a fast and mobile-friendly website.
4. Conversion Rates: Website speed directly impacts conversion rates. Studies have shown that even a one-second delay in page load time can result in a significant drop in conversions. Whether you’re selling products, services, or aiming for newsletter sign-ups, a fast website is crucial for encouraging users to take the desired actions.

What factors affect site speed?

1. Page Weight: The resources required for website loading significantly affect performance. As web technologies advance and websites become more complex, maintaining a light website (with small file sizes and fast-loading pages) is increasingly challenging. 
2. Network conditions: Even if a website is designed to be lightweight, it may not load quickly in browsers due to network slowness. The local networking equipment used and the quality of the ISP’s services impact network connectivity. Additionally, mobile devices using 3G or 4G instead of connecting to the Internet over WiFi will typically have slower network connections.
3. Hosting Location: If content has to travel a long way to arrive where it is needed, this results in a high amount of network latency. For instance, if a website’s HTML and CSS files are hosted in a data center in Delhi, and its images are hosted in a data center in Kashmir, a user will have to wait while all of these files travel thousands of miles to their device.

Tips to improve website speed:

1. Optimize pages: Images often take the longest to load on a website since image files tend to be larger in size than HTML and CSS files. Luckily, image load time can be reduced via image optimization, which typically involves reducing its resolution and dimensions, and compressing the image file itself.
2. Limit the number of HTTP requests: Webpages usually prompt browsers to make numerous HTTP requests for assets like images, scripts, and CSS files. This process involves round trips to the server, contributing to the overall load time. To mitigate these issues, it’s crucial to minimize the number of assets per page. Conducting a speed test can pinpoint which HTTP requests are causing delays.
3. Limit use of external scripts: Any scripted web page elements that are loaded from somewhere else — such as external commenting systems, CTA buttons, CMS plugins, or lead-generation popups — need to be loaded each time a page loads. Depending on the size of the script, these can slow a webpage down, or cause the webpage to not load all at once
4. Limit redirect usage: A redirect is when visitors to one webpage get forwarded to a different page instead. Redirects add a few fractions of a second, or sometimes even whole seconds, to page load times. Website owners should institute clear guidelines on redirect usage and periodically scan important web pages for unnecessary redirects.

Conclusion: As we look forward, one thing is clear: optimizing your page speed is necessary for the future. As Google continues to reward mobile-friendly sites with a positive page experience, your SEO focus should be on improving your page speed.

Many say that the trends in websites come and go so you don’t have to pay too much attention to them and not waste your time, money and resources!
One day a big bold typography makes a big impact and the other day small fonts and minimalistic designs amazes the audience.

However, a good website is something that does its job, promotes your brand, showcases your brand values and is a real reflection of who you are!
Of Course it has to be functional and meet the technical web standards as well as audiences’ expectations!

This is where the web designs come into play. They allow you to meet current expectations of the audience and make the website look worthy of your audience’s time.

Let us see what are the biggest trends to watch to stay on the top of your A game!

1. Interactive Websites:

Modern technology (including web browser support capabilities) has vastly improved. As a result, we can see how this trend is gradually maturing into something extravagant yet significant and becoming an essential component of website design, such as a slide-out menu or mobile-friendliness.

Creating an interactive experience for your user has a solid ground. This is what the market expects from you. Interactive content is more likely to engage a visitor than any static content!

2. Low-Code Websites:

Previously, building a website was all about hiring a developer, conveying your thoughts and then getting it done. The biggest problem being, the website always turned out to be different than you had thought as the developer had technical knowledge but limited business knowledge so while he was good at providing the required functionalities, he might not be that good at providing the required look and feel and the user experience. Also these websites took lot of time 

But now tables have turned. Anyone having relevant experience on no-code builder applications like wordpress, shopify and similar tools can build a website using their drag and drop functionalities. Thus, now someone who understands business and competitors can help you build the website with an attractive look and feel and amazing user experience. In addition to this this can be built in fraction of time taken by a developer who is building from scratch 

3. Immersive 3D World: 

This style entails creating an imaginary environment with abstract and occasionally ludicrous features. It has a distinct attraction and a significant impact on consumers, enticing them to immerse themselves in a glitzy world where they can escape mundane routines.

These projects are typically visually heavy. They contain a slew of dynamic effects and interactive elements that allow viewers to interact with the environment. Some have audio backgrounds and video elements that are merged.

4. Gamification:

Gamification is another big trend to adopt in your website. It makes things easy to understand and makes it less boring. Gamification is usually advised for educational websites where there is too much knowledge and no one wants to read long paragraphs. Gamification comes into play here!

The best part of gamification is, it not only includes games but game-like elements , mechanics and features to your website.

5. Minimalism: 

Not everyone desires a showy website with bright colors and quirky animations. As a result, one of the top web design trends for 2023 is minimalism. Minimalist designs employ limited color palettes and as few design elements as essential to convey the message. 

Although choosing a minimalist aesthetic has various advantages, you must pay special attention to the general balance of each design, as a huge amount of white space makes it clear when something is out of place.

Google’s new page experience measurements, known as Core Web Vitals, have been incorporated into the Google Search core algorithm as part of Google’s page experience update in 2021, which might have serious ramifications for underperforming websites.

Google invented and popularized the notion of Core Web Vitals (CWV) after discovering that visitors prefer-and are more likely to convert on-websites that provide an excellent user experience. Websites can become better, higher quality search results for Google by using technical SEO that boosts CWV scores–meaning sites with “Good” Core Web Vital scores can earn higher search rankings than sites with “Poor” Core Web Vitals.

What are Core Vitals?

Core Web Vitals, which evolved from Google’s Web Vitals initiative, are a quantitative way of assessing the overall user experience of your website pages. They are a collection of specific criteria that Google considers essential to the core user experience of a webpage.

Core Web Vitals consist of three specific measurements of page speed, stability, and user interactivity:

• First Input Delay (“FID”): Response time is measured by FID. It gauges how long a user must spend interacting with your website. A FID score of less than 100 milliseconds is advised.
  
• Cumulative Layout Shift (“CLS”): Your website’s visual stability is measured by CLS. Less than 0.1 seconds is ideal. CLS determines the movement of the items on your website and how stable it is. Any element on your website that moves as the page loads degrades the user experience.
  
• Largest Contentful Paint (“LCP”): LCP determines how quickly a webpage loads overall. It takes up the most visible space when loading. LCP, then, is the amount of time it takes a page to load from the perspective of a real user. Text or a picture that is the largest can load before the rest of the page’s content.

   

Why are Core Web Vitals Important?

Each Core Web Vital represents a unique aspect of the user experience, is field quantifiable, and reflects the real-world experience of a vital user-centric outcome. As a result, they have become essential components of Google’s “page experience” search ranking signal.

Ultimately, the most important takeaways are:

• Core Web Vitals will be coupled with other ranking signals in Google’s “page experience” change, affecting your website’s SEO directly.
• Core Web Vitals are the most important component of Google’s page experience signals.
• Websites that do not match Google’s Core Web Vitals standards will face lower search rankings after the page experience change is completed in the summer of 2021.

Conclusion:

According to Google, crawl rate, indexation rate, and load speed are significant for SEO ranking because slower sites may take longer to load. Google may take longer to crawl, index, and rank pages on slower sites. The quicker a website loads, the more likely it will be indexed and ranked higher.

Web Vitals allows businesses to assess performance, detect concerns, measure progress, and make data-driven decisions. It also assists businesses in developing and implementing digital marketing strategy.

The first decision you will need to make after coming up with a website idea is whether to use a CMS or custom development. Content Management Systems make the process of constructing a website much easier and frequently less expensive than building it from scratch. It also takes less time to deploy pages created with CMS platforms. At the same time, a custom-built site will be more robust, secure, and visually distinct than one created using a CMS.

What’s the Difference Between CMS and Custom Development?

A content management system (CMS) is a piece of pre-configured software that already incorporates the many functionalities required to construct and manage a website. These platforms are packaged with a variety of themes and plugins to facilitate customizing and saves the time required to tailor the platform to your individual requirements. Overall, a CMS enables people with no technical knowledge to quickly design and publish beautiful and functioning websites.

Building a website from the ground up, on the other hand, is a time-consuming and difficult task. To accomplish this, developers employ open-source tools and frameworks while customizing the majority of the code for each customer. In most circumstances, building a website from scratch allows you to have a more original, secure, and trustworthy system. Furthermore, depending on your needs, custom development may be the only realistic choice to accommodate for the intricacy of your system. To build a website from the ground up, you must have deep knowledge of web design and programming to construct the backend logic. You might also need to hire a software development business to build the site for you.

Price: Using a CMS is less expensive than custom development. Despite having access to a plethora of libraries, frameworks, and reusable code components, engineers will create the architecture from scratch, which will stretch your budget further than a less flexible but fully functional CMS. If cost is the decisive element in your decision, you should be prepared to go with a CMS. However, it is always a good idea to contact a software development business and describe your proposal in order to obtain quotes. Without prior knowledge in the sector, it might be difficult to precisely estimate the cost of your project.

Performance and User Experience: Overall, a website built from the ground up outperforms its CMS counterpart. CMS platforms produce comparable outcomes on small projects with little user traffic and simple functionality. However, as your company grows, you may realize that improved performance, design, and efficiency are required to improve user experience.

CMS platforms sometimes perform worse than custom-built websites due to the quantity of capabilities packed into them, regardless of the functionality you choose to use.

CMS vs Custom Development Scalability: All CMS systems have standard functionalities. Because you may use pre-coded pieces instead of building them from scratch, they are quite handy in the early stages. However, this advantage of CMS platforms quickly becomes a disadvantage when users seek to integrate more complicated features, increase site speed, or expand site availability. As your company grows, so will your website, and CMS platforms are not suited to providing truly scalable solutions.

Custom-built sites are not impervious to scalability; they are just as prone to underperformance and being a nuisance to update or modify. Nonetheless, high-quality tailored solutions will be more comfortable and less expensive to modify when the need arises.

Security: In a conventional CMS, the platform’s provider is responsible for ensuring the appropriate security. On the one hand, it’s convenient because you don’t have to spend money establishing and maintaining the site’s security. On the other hand, the level of security frequently falls short, owing to the fact that huge CMS platforms with standard security policies become easy targets. Furthermore, your CMS will rely on many plugins provided by third-party firms, each of which may pose security issues.

Custom creation pays careful attention to security in each individual scenario, ensuring that your website has adequate and up-to-date protection at all times.

CMS vs Custom Development – What to Choose?

In the end, custom development will always be superior to using a CMS. Having a page constructed precisely to your specifications will pay off in a more beautiful design and flawless working in the great majority of cases, regardless of how tiny your website is or what purpose it serves. Websites that are created from scratch are also more secure and scalable. They function not only as a showcase for your items, but also as an extension of your brand. If your budget permits it, hiring a professional development team to design you a site from the ground up is likely to provide greater benefits than spending time adjusting a CMS.

A CMS, on the other hand, can be extremely beneficial to companies, artists, bloggers, e-commerce businesses and other producers who do not need outstanding distinctiveness or capability. When you are just starting out it can be a good choice as the pre built themes – both free and paid provide nice designs with all required functionalities so you don’t have to worry about little details. Moreover CMS is a wonderful choice to create a simple, appealing, and inexpensive fully functional website. If your customer base grows in the future and you require a more scalable solution, you may always go with bespoke development.

References: 

1. https://www.freelancinggig.com/blog/2016/09/05/building-a-website-from-scratch-vs-wordpress/

    

2. https://www.urjasoft.com/blogs/which-is-better-custom-website-from-scratch-or-CMS-standard-website
3. https://www.reddit.com/r/webdev/comments/i0mhvf/thoughts_on_building_a_website_from_scratch_vs/

Choosing the best web design firm is essential while building a website. A well-designed website can help you attract and retain customers, boost your online visibility, and establish your brand as a leader in your industry.  So far, choosing the best web design company for your needs might be difficult given the abundance of options available. While selecting a web design firm, keep the following factors in mind.

Portfolio and Experience

The portfolio and experience of the web design business you choose should be one of your first considerations. If you want to know whether they have experience with projects like yours, look at their past work. Verify their level of skill, attention to detail, and aptitude for producing eye-catching designs. A business with extensive industry knowledge and a solid track record will be better able to produce a website that lives up to your standards.

Services Offered

Various web design firms provide various services. While some may also provide website development, content production, SEO, and other services, some may just specialize in website design. Choose a business that can provide the services you might need later as well. By minimizing the need to work with different businesses, you will be able to save both time and money.

Client Reviews and Testimonials

Reading client reviews and testimonials can give you insight into the quality of a web design company’s work and customer service. Look for reviews on their website, Google, and other review sites to see what previous clients have to say about their experience working with the company.

Communication and Support

Good communication and support are essential when working with a web design company. Choose a company that communicates effectively and offers timely support. You should be able to reach them easily and get answers to your questions quickly.

Cost

The cost of web design services can vary greatly depending on the company and the scope of the project. While you should not choose a company based solely on cost, it is important to consider your budget and choose a company that can provide quality services within your budget.

Technology and Tools

Web design companies use different technologies and tools to create websites. Choose a company that uses up-to-date technologies and tools to ensure that your website is modern, fast, and user-friendly.

Timelines and Deadlines

Timelines and deadlines are important when it comes to web design projects. Choose a company that can provide a realistic timeline for the project and is committed to meeting deadlines. A company that can work within your timeframe and can deliver the project on time will help you avoid unnecessary delays.

Final Thoughts

Choosing the right web design company is crucial for the success of your website. By considering the above factors, you can choose a company that meets your needs, communicates effectively, and delivers a high-quality website that meets your goals and objectives.

Considering how many potential clients, consumers, and audiences are always online these days, it’s essential for every company to have its own website. Customer patience is often low among digital users. It is becoming increasingly important for both user experience and SEO that websites load quickly.

A poor page load time has negative effects on user experience, bounce rate, search performance, and revenue as websites become more complicated and content-heavy. While there are many variables that contribute to how long it takes a page to load, there are also some simple changes that can make a big difference.

Google now uses page speed as a major signal for where a site will show up in the search engine giant’s unpaid, organic results. In this post, we’ll discuss why it’s crucial for search engine optimization to have a fast-loading website, as well as some strategies for doing so.

What is Website Loading Speed?

When someone visits a website, how long it takes for the page to load is an indicator of how quickly the content will be shown. Google has stated that the speed of a website (and individual pages) is an indicator utilised in its algorithm. Google can accomplish more in less time by crawling websites that load quickly.

The time it takes for a web page to load is a major factor in the site’s overall usability. The loading of web pages occurs incrementally rather than all at once. In addition, the properties of each page, the user’s browser and device, and the user’s Internet connection all affect how quickly a website loads. Fast-loading websites do better in several areas of marketing and search engine optimization.

There are a few distinct types of website loading times:

• After landing on a website, the amount of time it takes for you to view the first piece of content on that page is referred to as the First Contentful Paint (FCP) time. In most cases, web pages load each component one at a time, as opposed to all of them simultaneously.
• The time it takes for all of the code at the top and bottom of a webpage to load is referred to as the DOMContent Loaded (DCL) time. This is because the different components of a webpage do not load all at the same time.
• The moment in the timeline for loading a page that is indicated by the acronym LCP, or largest contentful paint, is when the page’s primary content has most likely finished loading.

Google will penalise websites that load extremely slowly (taking more than four to seven seconds for the page to become functional). This is due to the fact that after approximately three seconds, visitors begin returning to the SERPs to hunt for anything else. The Page Speed Insights (PSI) tool developed by Google divides the overall quality of the user experience into three distinct categories: Good, Needs Improvement, or Poor.

How to Improve Your Page Load Time

A slow website is annoying to everyone. As an indication for ranking, Google considers how quickly your page loads. In order for your website to show up in the search results provided by Google, you will need to optimise your page load time by adhering to the tips that are provided below:

• It is important to optimise graphics and video because they both slow down the loading time of a webpage and account for a considerable amount of the page’s total size.
• You can lower the size of your larger CSS, HTML, and JavaScript files by enabling compression.
• Utilize browser caching so that when a visitor returns to your site, the browser does not have to reload the entire page. This will save the visitor time.
• Utilize a Content Distribution Network, or CDN, to have several copies of your website stored at a variety of data centres that are located in different parts of the world. 
• Reduce the number of redirects on your site because they force your visitors to spend more time waiting for the HTTP request-response cycle to finish.

How eCliqs Consulting helps?

Your website’s search engine rankings, client satisfaction, and conversion rate can all be negatively affected by a slow page load time. If your site is sluggish and unresponsive, it may be time to start fresh.

As one of the simplest methods to make a significant improvement to your site, page speed is often one of the first things we check while providing SEO services.

If you’re worried that your site’s performance is subpar or if you want advice on how to increase your page speed, don’t hesitate to get in contact with us.

Conclusion

Even though it could seem like a lot of additional work, the return on your time investment will be more than sufficient to justify the hassle. When customers know they can depend on your website to load quickly on any device, they are more likely to make a repeat visit, and an increase in loyal customers equals an increase in return visits. A quick loading website often leaves a good impression about your brand and customers also enjoy browsing through it.

References

• https://www.browserstack.com/guide/why-website-speed-is-important
• https://www.searchenginejournal.com/6-key-steps-improve-websites-loading-speed/123617/#close
• https://www.shopify.com/blog/site-speed-importance
• https://www.semrush.com/blog/how-fast-is-fast-enough-page-load-time-and-your-bottom-line/

Using plugins, you can greatly increase WordPress’s usefulness. Anything you can think of that would make your work with WordPress easier already exists as an add-on, whether it is a contact form, a heatmap, or a new visual editor. But what about attractive add-ons that improve the visual appeal of your website?

In this blog, we’ll define plugins and provide a curated list of the best ones for enhancing the functionality and aesthetics of your WordPress site.

What are WordPress Plugins? 

Plugins allow you to extend your website’s functionality without touching a single line of code. With the help of browser plugins, WordPress extends its functionality in a variety of ways for its users. Plugins are often lauded among web designers because of the significant impact they have on improving a site’s overall performance.

They can change the look of your website and add features like dropboxes and forms for visitors to fill out. To further facilitate communication between the user and the website, these plugins can also have specialised social media buttons.

Listing all the plugins would take forever, so it’s crucial to zero down on the most pressing problem areas. Consider the Learning Management System (LMS) plugin, for instance, if you’d like to streamline a number of back-end processes, such as programme tracking, reporting, and distribution.

The following are some examples of essential plugins that you, as a website owner, should think about using: 

• Security – There is an ever-increasing amount of cyber risks and breaches, making it imperative that all websites use WordPress security measures. Without the right WordPress security plugins, a website can easily be hacked, exposing sensitive data. 

• Backup – To back up their data, WordPress site owners should also install a backup plugin. Despite a prolonged site outage, we can quickly restore service thanks to our offshore backups. 

• Contact Forms – As far as plugins go, this is one of the best at turning readers into paying clients. Readers are more likely to stay on a website and make a purchase if they can use the contact form to ask questions or provide feedback. While there are several options for contact forms, many companies choose either Gravity forms or WPforms. 

• SEO – WordPress’s SEO plugins are a terrific asset for increasing a site’s visibility in search engines, which is why they are so important for website content creation. Useful plugins for WordPress include SEO Press and All-in-One SEO. 

Now that you have an idea about what WordPress plugins are, here are some plugins that will make your WordPress website attractive and useful.

1. UberMenu

What good is a website if it doesn’t have a well-designed menu that lets users easily traverse the various sections?

The UberMenu plugin was developed with this sort of intuitive menu access in mind. The very flexible and adaptive plugin provides seven primary menus and a number of drop-down menu choices to accommodate a wide range of preferences and requirements.

Notable features:

• Fully responsive and compatible with mobile and touch-enabled devices
• Easy to add images and descriptions
• Choice of 18 layout variables
• Google Maps
• Extensive user-friendly documentation

The WordPress menu system is already compatible with UberMenu, so you can get started right away designing beautiful menus.

2. Justified Image Grid: Premium WordPress Gallery

Displaying photographs in a grid might be challenging if you have images with varying sizes and orientations. The preceding illustration, however, shows how straightforward it is with the Justified Image Grid add-on.

The most notable features are:

• Retina-ready
• Right-click content protection
• Responsive gallery
• Gallery support for YouTube, Vimeo and self-hosted
• Special effects on-the-fly
• Video gallery support

3. Real3D FlipBook WordPress Plugin

If you’d like to provide your users with the same page-turning experience they’d find in a book or magazine, this layout manager is for you.

It’s a novel approach to web page design, and the main benefit of this WordPress plugin is that no additional plugins, such as Adobe Flash, are required. You may make your own dynamic pages with minimal effort and a lot of personalization options.

Notable features:

• Optimised for mobile
• Create flip-books directly from PDF files
• Font Awesome or Material Icons
• Responsive mode
• Light/dark skins
• 100% HTML5 (no Flash!)

It’s possible to customise the flip book’s layout for various devices. In addition to the usual two-page spread, mobile devices also make advantage of a single-page view that improves readability by eliminating the need to scroll horizontally, all while preserving the 3D page-flipping effect and shadows.

4. Video Gallery WordPress Plugin

The Video Gallery WordPress Plugin is an excellent choice among WordPress video plugins since it provides more functionality than most users will ever need.

This plugin can be adjusted in a wide variety of ways and is responsive, so it will look amazing on everything from a mobile device to a 5K monitor. Analytics are included, videos may be indexed and optimised for search engines, and advertising can be used to make money if desired. The whole shebang comes with the regular six-month support.

Video Gallery WordPress Plugin works with videos hosted on your own server, as well as videos hosted on YouTube, Vimeo, and Facebook.

Notable features:

• Subtitle support
• Stream from many sources
• Shortcodes
• Play from a specific point
• Iphone/Ipad compatible
• Easy to install
• Ultra-responsive
• Extensive admin panel

5. The Grid: Responsive WordPress Grid Plugin

The Grid is an excellent alternative if you’d like to use your WordPress posts to create a grid. It allows for a variety of post formats and is loaded with capabilities, including as:

Notable features:

• Up to 12 Instagram posts per grid
• Quick and easy setup
• YouTube and Vimeo streams
• WooCommerce integration

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6. Essential Grid WordPress Plugin

Essential Grid is a layout plugin for WordPress that can be used to create a grid for displaying your content, whether it’s blog entries, photographs, products, testimonials, social media streams, services, or anything else you can think of.

With this flexible grid, you may organise your WordPress site’s content anyway you choose.

The first step in entering data into a grid is deciding where to get that data. Then, you may modify the grid to your liking by picking a layout from one of three options, tweaking the number of columns, rows, and item spacing. Once that’s done, you can change the appearance even further by using one of many skins.

Notable features:

• Various animation styles available
• Widely varied content sources possible, including images, YouTube, and HTML5 self-hosted video
• Over 25 example skins included
• Responsive and mobile optimised

You may make your WordPress page more aesthetically appealing and interesting by using the Essential Grid plugin.

7. Media Grid

Media Grid is a fantastic page template plugin for WordPress, allowing you to effortlessly construct endless flexible, filterable, and paginated portfolios.

Make your own gallery arrangement and use a wide variety of media. The plugin provides extensive control over your gallery’s appearance. 

Notable features:

• One-click grid cloning system
• Visual, drag-and-drop grid builder
• Ability to create grids using any public post on your website 
• Unlimited layout-free portfolios

8. Templatera

Templatera is a WordPress template manager developed by the same people responsible for the WPBakery Page Builder. It allows users to create, manage, and assign access to templates based on the user role or content type.

Notable features:

• Edit content across templates from one central place
• Easy content reuse across templates
• Ability to import or export templates in XML format

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9. Sidebar and Widget Manager

The Sidebar and Widget Manager is a great choice if you’d want the flexibility of adding widgets wherever on your WordPress page.

The widget placement options are not limited to the sidebar and bottom of the page anymore thanks to this plugin; you can now install widgets anywhere within the page content area.

Notable features:

• Supports any kind of content
• Drag-and-drop grid manager
• Ability to display or hide any widget on any page
• Vertical or horizontal widget alignment

The Sidebar and Widget Manager plugin for WordPress makes it easy to add widgets to any part of a page, giving users a lot of flexibility in creating their own custom page designs.

10. DHWCPage

DHWCPage is a page content plugin for WordPress that can be used to design a WooCommerce page in any layout. The plugin, which necessitates the use of WPBakery Page Builder, is simple to set up and requires no coding knowledge. 

Notable features:

• Display the product description and review separately
• Supports WooCommerce shortcodes
• Create a single product by category or product type
• Works with any theme

Wrapping up

The number of potential actions is overwhelming. Don’t forget that more is less when it comes to WordPress plugins. Your site’s load time could increase if you use too many, especially if they’re graphic ones like these. Don’t blindly click download on all of them; instead, give some thought to which ones would be most useful to your site and then download only those.

No matter which one you pick, your site will look amazing with these attractive plugins. We sincerely hope that you were able to use this collection to locate an aesthetically pleasing plugin that you will like using.

References 

• https://visme.co/blog/wordpress-design-plugins/
• https://monovm.com/blog/best-wordpress-plugins/amp/
• https://www.cminds.com/blog/wordpress/10-new-plugins-make-wordpress-site-look-great/
• https://neilpatel.com/blog/11-wordpress-plugins-you-need-to-create-killer-content/?amp