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Address To Impress: 9 Of The Best WordPress Email Marketing Plugins

Email marketing is tough. What to include? When do you send them out? How do you come across as non-Spammy McSpam? With so much to think about, often design and functionality are overlooked. Luckily, with the help of an email marketing plugin, you can get assistance with automation, visuals, organization, and much more.

Before we get started, you should know that all of these email marketing plugins have terrific reviews, thousands of users (sometimes millions), and are up-to-date.

They also cover the full spectrum; from opting-in, to helping you create long-term loyal subscribers.

By the end of this article you’ll hopefully be able to identify the subtle differences between them all, and know which will work best for your list.

Plus, I’ll be going over what to look for in a good email marketing plugin, and various email service providers.

It will then be up to you, fellow email marketer, to decide which plugin to try.

Soon, you’ll be delivering your email more efficiently than your local postal service (if they ever delivered mail digitally, that is).

Dev Man email marketing plugins.
Not the best way to deliver mail on your computer.

What All Good Email Marketing Plugins Should Address

Some plugins can send a newsletter directly within WordPress, others have very attractive opt-in forms, and some offer easy customization.

So… what do you look for when deciding?

A few questions you can ask yourself are:

  • Will this work for the purpose I want it to?
  • Is this something I can set up on my own, or will I need someone else to do it for me?
  • Will the free version work? If not, how much of a budget do I have for an email marketing plugin?

Also, look at the reviews — both positive and negative. All of the plugins featured in this post have a 4.5-star or above-average reviews, which is great!

But still, dig around a bit more at some of the negative remarks. You can also ask questions on each plugin’s method of communication, whether that be with support, a public forum, or live chat.

Plus, considering these are all free, test them out first. You will discover your likes and dislikes — ultimately leading to a comfortable decision when deciding on what plugin to use.

From there, you may feel more inclined to upgrade to any pro options, if needed.

Time to Deliver

Here are nine amazing free email marketing plugins. Even though they’re all free, all offer upgrade options for advanced features. Included is a price range of the premium costs. Depending on your use, an upgrade may, or may not, be needed.

Luckily, none of these require any postage.

  • HubSpot

    The HubSpot all-in-one marketing plugin includes all of the essentials. Everything from the striking responsive newsletters, automation, pop-ups, and more makes this plugin a distinctive choice compared to many others. This plugin is perfectly tailored to grow businesses. Plus, it has over 100K users and a 4.5 average star rating. Spot-on!

    Key Features:

    • Easily create responsive newsletters to distribute to your contact database with their drag and drop email builder. You can build your own or select from over 20 pre-designed templates.
    • You can send automated emails when a visitor to your WordPress site fills out a form or sends you a live chat message. Beyond that, all emails are automatically logged in your CRM and keep track of open and click rates.
    • Feature attractive forms & popups on your site with their drag and drop builder. Or, you can integrate with other WordPress forms and popup builders.
    • The analytics are built-in to make it easy to understand which sales and marketing actions are successful and which ones require some more work.

    Premium Price Range:

    The email plugin is free to download and use for up to 2,000 email sends per month. Upgrades are available starting at $50 and up to $3200 per month when billed annually.

  • Hustle

    Hustle by WPMU DEV is our free email, social share, popup, and opt-in marketing plugin. Hustle allows you to quickly grow your email lists with popups, slide-ins, widgets, and shortcodes.

    This is a perfect plugin for individuals, growing businesses, or any company that wants to dance their way to having effective email marketing. It’s groovin’ to over 80K downloads and a 4.5 average user review.

    Key Features:

    • Simply integrates with all of the popular email services when you connect your account. You can then create automated email campaigns, welcome messages, or add to a specific list when a user opts-in.
    • A groovy smart exit-intent that detects when visitors are about to leave your site. It will then display a pop-up or slide-in to grab their attention.
    • It can breakdance around the block. Your pop-ups and slide-ins will still work around ad blockers.
    • You can easily measure performance and results with three metrics that help you make better marketing decisions; including stats on form displays, forms submitted, and conversion rates.

    Premium Price Range:

    You can get advanced features with Hustle Pro. It includes 24/7 support and other premium plugins with a WPMU DEV membership. Try it FREE for 7 days. After that, membership is only $49/m for everything (including hosting)!

  • Sendinblue

    Sendinblue Subscribe Form and WP SMTP is another all-in-one email marketing plugin.

    Everything is easy to use, clear, and organized. You can get a nice email newsletter set up in just minutes.

    It has advanced capabilities to handle small, midsize, and big businesses looking to enhance their email marketing efforts. Plus, they offer support and are regularly updated.

    It can’t be blue considering it has over 50K users and 4.5-star average reviews.

    Key Features:

    • Subscription forms that allow you to customize accordingly and integrate them into your pages, posts, or sidebars.
    • You can manage your contact lists with segmentation, which will enhance your campaign performance.
    • Email marketing campaigns are delivered with beautiful newsletters. They’re all mobile-friendly and are created with a drag and drop builder with your own customization or their template library.
    • Automation enabling in WordPress that will auto-install the script on your website.

    Premium Price Range:

    This plugin does use Sendinblue’s API to synchronize contacts, send emails, and get stats. The free plan is for up 300 emails per day, otherwise, you’ll need to upgrade. Various plans start at $25 to $66+ per month.

  • MC4WP: MailChimp for WordPress

    MC4WP: MailChimp for WordPress by ibericode is made specifically to help grow your MailChimp lists and create better newsletters.

    Their attractive opt-in forms integrate with any existing form on your WordPress site; specifically your comment, contact, or checkout form.

    If you’re currently using MailChimp for your email lists, it’s a great option that’s catered to their service. This chimp comes in with a solid 5-star review and over a million downloads!

    Key Features:

    • Install attractive signup forms that are quick and easy to set up and use with your MailChimp account. It takes less than a minute to sync your MailChimp account and get up and running.
    • You can integrate with numerous other plugins, such as Ninja Form 7, BuddyPress, WPForms, MemberPress, Events Manager, and WooCommerce.
    • They have a knowledge base that is updated daily.
    • It’s developer-friendly for adding additional code snippets and customizing.

    Premium Price Range:

    You’ll need a MailChimp account, which is also free for a list of up to 2000 subscribers. There is an upgrade option with this plugin that features multiple forms, advanced e-commerce integration for WooCommerce, email notifications, and more. The price range for upgrading begins at $59 to $149 per year.

    Interested in MC4WP: MailChimp for WordPress?

    Details

  • Newsletter

    Newsletter by Stefano Lissa & The Newsletter Team is a newsletter and email marketing plugin for list building, tracking emails, and is easy to use.

    Once you have it installed, it’s practically ready to go. The main feature is the drag and drop builder. You can easily arrange your newsletters with this feature and provide attractive results.

    With over 300K downloads and average 4.5-star reviews, it makes this plugin news(letter) worthy.

    Key Features:

    • You can have unlimited subscribers without having to resort to email service (e.g. MailChimp). They’re all updated directly in your WordPress dashboard.
    • There is an unlimited amount of newsletters you can send that include tracking.
    • There’s customization with the opt-in feature. You can choose single, double opt-in, and even a privacy checkbox for EU laws compliance.
    • It is compatible with every SMTP plugin.

    Premium Price Range:

    There are premium options that include one-to-one support, WooCommerce integration, reports, and more. The costs for premium starts at $65 to $249 per year.

  • MailPoet

    MailPoet is a marketing plugin that provides sign up forms for newsletters, subscriptions, and emails.

    What’s nice about this plugin is that you can schedule your newsletters, send them right away, or automate it to send notifications whenever there’s a new blog post.

    The plugin was developed in 2011 and trusted by over 100K poets and has a 4.5-star average review.

    Key Features:

    • The newsletter subscription options are nice to have when you’re looking for ease and automation.
    • Everything is based on WordPress and can be synced with a 3rd party email provider.
    • Includes a free WooCommerce email customizer.
    • You can view audience engagement and more. Stats provide open rates, unsubscribes, and all the vital information for your email campaigns.

    Premium Price Range:

    Free for the first 1000 subscribers. After that, you can upgrade for as low as $13 to $292+ per month (depending on the number of emails).

  • Ninja Forms

    Ninja Forms by Saturday Drive delivers a knockout plugin for email marketing. It coins itself as the most user-friendly WordPress contact form builder — and it might be right.

    The easy to use drag and drop fields make creative a complex looking form quick to create. It’s an extremely up-to-date plugin and packs a punch with over a million downloads and a 4.5-star average rating.

    Key Features:

    • The drag and drop form builder is easy to use and perfect for someone with not much knowledge on using WordPress.
    • There are over 27 different field types for forms, which makes creating them to suit your needs very obtainable.
    • Unlimited forms and form submissions.
    • You can export and import forms as needed.

    Premium Price Range:

    You can upgrade as needed with a ton of options that start as low as $29 to $499 per year. Some of the upgrades include the ability to accept payments, user management login, advanced analytics, and more.

  • SendPress

    SendPress is another easy to set up email marketing plugin that’s extremely customizable. You can arrange the subscription widget, page, or custom form exactly how you would like.

    It’s perfect for anyone wanting to grow their email lists and has the essentials; such as single and double opt-in, analytics, and newsletter templates.

    Though it has fewer downloads so far than the rest (8k), it’s updated regularly and is a great option to press-out your email marketing.

    Key Features:

    • You can have unlimited subscribers and unlimited responsive newsletters with tracking.
    • Everything is code free. It has a simple editor to make editing a breeze.
    • Allows for single and double opt-in.
    • Tracking is included. You can track clicks, opens, unsubscribes, and more.

    Premium Price Range:

    You can always go PRO. Some of the pro features include API sending, custom HTML templates, spam score, and one year of updates. It starts at $39 to $399 per year.

  • Email Subscribers & Newsletters

    Email Subscribers & Newsletters by Icegram does a ton as a free plugin. It was specifically created to suit the needs of regular bloggers, website owners, marketers, and developers.

    In a nutshell, it has everything you need to build email lists and market out to them. Plus, you can subscribe to the fact that they have over 100K installations and a 4.5-star average review.

    Key Features:

    • You can create unlimited broadcasts, post notifications, email templates, and form.
    • There is a subscription spam check with domain blacklists. A good feature to keep your email lists in good standings.
    • The choice between single or double opt-in plus a privacy checkbox.
    • There is an HTML editor to create broadcasts and post notifications

    Price Range:

    They have pro options that have extras; such as premium email, high security, autoresponders, and more. If you want to upgrade, their pro version is quite affordable. It starts at $9 to $10.75 per month.

    Interested in Email Subscribers & Newsletters?

    Details

Getting Good Email Service Is Not a Disservice

At this point, you’ve now seen some plugins that can work and you’ve either started or are about to start an email marketing campaign for your site. However, how do you go about picking the best email marketing software? Hmm…

There are lots of decisions when it comes to picking an email company to work with. You want to feel at ease knowing your email lists are in good hands.

Some good reputable companies, such as MailChimp, AWeber, and Constant Contact, all have the essentials. However, there are also many other options out there.

There are a few key things to look for in email software:

  • Automation: Make sure that the automation provided will work for your needs.
  • Campaigns: There should be options to support a wide variety of email types. That includes newsletters, autoresponders, and A/B tests.
  • Editing: You want to be able to edit your email templates easily, so a good drag and drop visual editor is best for this. Anything that eliminates coding and makes it simple.
  • Support: Make sure the support they offer is effective. Check for support like live chat, phone, and email and learn of their options.
  • Integration: Ensure that you can integrate with whatever plugin you decide works best for your WordPress site.

Having an email software provider is nice to have beyond just using the WordPress dashboard. It’s a way to ensure your lists are stored in a safe place and can be organized more efficiently.

Signed, Sealed, Dev-livered

When developing your email marketing strategy, there is a lot to consider. Hopefully, these options presented to you today will help narrow down some specific plugins that will work well for your needs. Also, I hope you have some good ideas for an email marketing company that will work well, too.

To deliver the goods, consider signing up for our 7-day free premium trial and get access to all of our plugins (including our email marketer, Hustle), 24/7 support, security, blazing-fast hosting, and tons more.

It’s vital to have a WordPress email marketing plugin to help increase and update subscribers. Once subscribed, keep them from opting out by delivering great content, attractive newsletters, quality emails, and — yeah — not being a Spammy McSpam.

Soon, your email marketing will be tough to beat and earn a stamp of approval.

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What is PHP?

Some programming languages have been around a while—PHP is one of them. It’s been around since 1994! But, just because PHP has been around the block doesn’t mean it’s not useful today. In fact, PHP has made a comeback in...

The post What is PHP? appeared first on Treehouse Blog.

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Track Coronavirus (COVID-19) Cases in India with Google Sheets

The Government of India website has a live dashboard that provides, in near real-time, the number of Coronavirus (COVID-19) cases in various states of India. This is the best resource to get updates around active COVID-19 cases in India.

COVID-19 Tracker for India

The official website provides the current data but if you were to check how the number of confirmed cases increased in India over time, there’s no historic data available. That’s one reason I built the COVID-19 Tracker with Google Sheets.

The tracker scrapes data from the official website every few minutes and uses Sparklines to help you visualize how the coronavirus outbreak is spreading in India over time. The Government has been actively publishing reports since March 10 and all the data can also be accessed through the Google Sheet.

Covid-19 India tracker

COVID-19 Sheets Tracker

COVID-19 JSON API

If you are a developer, I’ve also published the data as a JSON API that will provide you the latest state-wise data of COVID-19 cases as available on the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare website of India.

How the COVID-19 Tracker Works

The Coronavirus Tracker is written in Google Apps Script and it uses time-based triggers to scrape numbers from the mohfw.gov.in website every few minutes.

/**
 * Scrape the homepage of mohfw.gov.in (Ministry of Health, India)
 * website for latest numbers on Coronovirus positive cases in India
 */
const scrapeMOHWebsite = () => {
  const url = 'https://www.mohfw.gov.in/';
  const response = UrlFetchApp.fetch(url);
  const content = response.getContentText();
  return content.replace(/[\r\n]/g, '');
};

Google Apps Script doesn’t support HTML parsers like Cheerio so we had to quickly build one from scratch using regex. It grabs the HTML content of the page, looks for the table tag and then extracts data from individual cells of the table.

If they change the layout of the website, this parser is likely to break.

/**
 * Parse the webpage content and extract numbers from the HTML
 * table that contains statewise data on Covid-19 Cases in India
 */
const getCurrentCovid19Cases = (json = true) => {
  const states = {};
  const html = scrapeMOHWebsite();
  const [table] = html.match(/<div id="cases".+?>(.+)<\/div>/);
  const rows = table.match(/<tr>(.+?)<\/tr>/g);
  rows.forEach((row) => {
    const cells = row
      .match(/<td.+?>(.+?)<\/td>/g)
      .map((cell) => cell.replace(/<.+?>/g, ''));
    const [, stateName, indianNationals, foreignNationals] = cells;
    if (/[a-z\s]/i.test(stateName)) {
      states[stateName] = Number(indianNationals) + Number(foreignNationals);
    }
  });
  return json ? states : JSON.stringify(states);
};

Once we have the data in JSON format, we can easily write to a Google Spreadsheet using Apps Script. The script adds a new column per day while retaining the old data for comparison.

/**
 * Write the parsed data into a new column in Google Sheet
 * All the historic data is also preserved in the sheet.
 */
const writeNewCovid19CasesToSheets = (covid19Cases) => {
  const sheet = SpreadsheetApp.getActiveSpreadsheet().getSheetByName(
    'Dashboard'
  );
  const states = sheet
    .getRange(3, 1, sheet.getLastRow() - 2, 1)
    .getValues()
    .map(([state]) => [covid19Cases[state] || 0]);
  sheet
    .getRange(2, sheet.getLastColumn() + 1, states.length + 1, 1)
    .setValues([[new Date()], ...states.map((count) => [count])]);
};

The COVID-19 tracker in Google Sheets also provides a JSON API that you can use to import data directly in your apps and websites.

To publish a JSON API, we have published the script as a web app with the doGet callback function. The ContentService service returns the raw JSON output whenever an external app invokes the Google script URL.

const doGet = () => {
  const key = 'Covid19India';
  const cache = CacheService.getScriptCache();
  let data = cache.get(key);
  if (data === null) {
    data = getCurrentCovid19Cases(false);
    cache.put(key, data, 21600);
  }
  return ContentService.createTextOutput(data).setMimeType(
    ContentService.MimeType.JSON
  );
};

All the code is open-source and you are free to use in any project.

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Top Applications of Litho Printing

The history of printing dates back to 1800 years ago. Ever since the printing started, people witnessed lots of evolution in the industry. In 1991, digital printing emerged. It became one of the cost-effective and exclusive printing techniques. But when it comes to the finest quality prints with a fast turnaround, nothing beats the quality […]

The post Top Applications of Litho Printing appeared first on designrfix.com.

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View Custom Fields Meta Box in Gutenberg Block Editor

I get bunches of emails asking what happened to the "Custom Fields" meta box on the "Edit Posts" screen. They're hidden by default with the new Block Editor, so questions like, "do I need to install a plugin to get them back again?" No you don't. To view the Custom Fields for any post click the three dots in the upper-right corner of the screen, and then go to Options. There you will find a checkbox to enable Custom Fields (under "Advanced Panels"). Scroll down the page and you will see the Custom Fields meta box.

Direct link to article | View post at DigWP.com

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Did You Know the Ordered List Element Has Start and Reversed Attributes?

I sure didn't! Tomek Sułkowsi shows how we can reverse the numbering of ordered lists with a simple HTML attribute:

<ol reversed>
  <li>Apple</li>
  <li>Banana</li>
  <li>Pear</li>
</ol>

And the start attribute can be added to begin the list at a number other than one, like this:

<ol start="2">
  <li>Apple</li>
  <li>Banana</li>
  <li>Pear</li>
</ol>

I’m not sure how I never knew about these properties! I guess I can see how they might come in handy in the future. There are plenty of times when we need to break up ordered lists here on CSS-Tricks with things like code blocks and having a way to pick a list back up where it left off is a nice convenience.

The post Did You Know the Ordered List Element Has Start and Reversed Attributes? appeared first on CSS-Tricks.

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Yoast Publishes Free Online Training Course for the Block Editor

Yoast, the company behind the popular Yoast SEO plugin, launched its free block editor training course today. The course is available to anyone by signing up for Yoast Academy, which also includes multiple other free and paid courses. Users can learn everything from SEO and copy writing to basic WordPress skills. The Academy team’s latest course promises to get first-time users up to speed on using the block editor.

“At Yoast, we are huge fans of the block editor,” wrote Marieke van de Rakt, CEO of Yoast in the training course announcement. “Admittedly -not right from the start-, but we’re now block-editor fanboys and fangirls. That’s why we created an awesome free block editor course! We hope it will help everybody to use the block editor to the fullest!”

Currently, the course on block editor training has at least two or three hours of content to work through, depending on how quickly users digest the content. The course offers three major sections:

  • What is the block editor?
  • Using the block editor
  • Extras

Each of these is further broken down between one and three sub-sections. At the moment, there are seven lessons in total, which range between 7 and 49 minutes based on Yoast’s estimated time.

The courses are similar to taking a school class. The Academy team provides short videos that cover individual topics around the block editor. The team also provides a PDF version of the lesson for those who prefer text over video format. At the end of the lesson, users take a quiz and move on to the next lesson. A score of 80% or more is considered a passing grade.

The team keeps each lesson digestible enough to complete in a short bout. Even if watching the videos, the PDF version of the lessons, which are high quality and have loads of useful information with links to third-party resources, are recommended reading.

The team has provided a preview of the block editor course via YouTube:

Moving to the Block Editor and Building Training Courses

Joost de Valk, founder and CPO of Yoast, said the team would continue building on the training course over time as new features are added to the block editor. There are no plans to update it on a strict schedule, but the team wants to keep it current.

Yoast, as a company, focuses on SEO. Therefore, some of the advice offered through the course puts focus on creating content that is useful for people and friendly for search engines. One of the primary topics the course touches on is publishing “resources” and how this is made better by the block editor. “Resources are larger articles, evergreen content or in our SEO terminology ‘cornerstone content’: the stuff you want to rank within the search results,” said de Valk. “You can’t just throw some words on a page and expect to rank anymore. You’ll have to try a bit harder. Gutenberg makes that extremely easy.”

The Yoast team has been moving its massive site to the block editor over time. “The post types I deal with regularly are all written with the block editor, but we might have some areas of the site that aren’t there yet,” said de Valk. “It’s a rather large site, with e-commerce, training, jobs, etc. all built into one giant WordPress multi-site install, so that was a bit of an undertaking. We always try to dog-food stuff though, so we moved everything over quite quickly.”

Getting the 11 million users who are using Yoast’s products to make the switch is not quite as easy. Not everyone has embraced the block editor. “The usage of the block editor is definitely improving, but it’s not going as fast as we’d like to see,” said de Valk. “We honestly think a lot of people don’t understand the chances the block editor brings yet, one of the reasons for releasing this course and trying to help more people to start using it.”

The team’s latest SEO course had over 10,000 signups within a week. While that number is a drop in the bucket in comparison to their full user count, it is promising. With a similar turnout for the block editor training course, it may convert more users from the older classic editor.

Putting together full training courses is a large undertaking, but these are the types of resources the WordPress community needs moving forward. “It’s a lot of work,” said de Valk. “We have four people in our Academy team, a crew that records our videos, and our design team designs all the PDFs and slides within the videos. It’s a non-trivial investment, but we’re happy to make that if it helps make more people enthusiastic for the block editor.”

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Emojis as Favicons

Lea Verou had a dang genius idea to use an emoji as a favicon. The idea only recently possible as browsers have started supporting SVG for favicons. Chuck an emoji inside an SVG <text> element and use that as the favicon.

https://twitter.com/LeaVerou/status/1241619866475474946

Here's the one-liner in use:

<link rel="icon" href="data:image/svg+xml,<svg xmlns=%22http://www.w3.org/2000/svg%22 viewBox=%220 0 100 100%22><text y=%22.9em%22 font-size=%2290%22>🎯</text></svg>">

Demo Project

I made a quick little demo project so you can see it at work. See the deployed project to actually see the favicons. That works in Firefox and Chrome. Safari only does those "mask" style icons in SVG so this doesn't work there. Maybe it could though? I dunno I'll let you try it.

Here's a video in case you just wanna see it.

Related Concepts

The post Emojis as Favicons appeared first on CSS-Tricks.

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Spotify Launches Podcast API

Spotify has launched a suite of Podcast APIs. Through the APIs, developers can create Podcast experiences specifically for Spotify listeners. The Podcast APIs add nine new endpoints to Spotify's host of developer APIs. For the moment, all of the new Podcast endpoints are in beta, and Spotify encourages developers to suggest additional endpoints.

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Are Your APIs Intelligent Enough for Digital Transformation?

One significant challenge posed by digital transformation is the need for organizations to leverage existing technology investments, which often hold business and technical intellectual property built up over many years. The combination of integration and application programming interface ("API") is a powerful tool in making the connection between an enterprise's existing and future technology investments.

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Indicating Scroll Position on a Page With CSS

Scrolling is something we all know and do on the web to the extent that it’s an expectation or perhaps even a habit, like brushing our teeth. That’s probably why we don’t put too much thought into designing the scrolling experience — it’s a well-known basic function. In fact, the popular “there is no fold” saying comes from the idea that people know how to scroll and there is no arbitrary line that people don’t go under.

Scroll-based features tend to involve some bespoke concoction of CSS and JavaScript. That’s because there simply aren’t that many native features available to do it. But what if we could accomplish something that only uses CSS? 

Take this ingenious horizontal scrollbar with CSS, for instance. I want to do something similar, but to indicate scrolled sections rather than capture continuous scrolling. In other words, rather than increasing the length of the indicator during scroll, I only want to increase the length when a certain section of the page has been reached.

Like this:

Here’s my plan: Each section carries an indicator that’s undetectable until it reaches the top of the screen. That’s where it becomes visible by changing color and sticks to the top of the viewport.

The exact opposite should happen in reverse: the indicator will follow along when scrolling back up the screen, camouflaging itself back to being undetected to the naked eye.

There are two key parts to this. The first is for the indicator to change color when it’s near the top of the screen. The second is for the indicator to stay put at the top of the screen and come down only when its section is scrolled down to.

The second one is easy to do: we use position: sticky; on our elements. When a page is scrolled, a sticky element sticks to a given position on the screen within its parent container.

That brings us to changing colors. Since the background of an HTML document is white by default, I’m keeping white as the base color for the demo. This means the indicator should look white when it’s over the base color and turn to some other color when it’s over the indicator bar at the top of the screen.

The dashed indicator is currently invisible, but becomes visible when it sticks to the top and blends with the background color of the indicator container.

This is where CSS blend modes come into play. They give us so many options to create a variety of color amalgams. I’m going to go with the overlay value. This one is quite dynamic in nature. I won’t explain the blend in depth (because the CSS-Tricks Alamanac already does a good job of that) but taking this demo into account, I’ll say this: when the background color is white the resulting foreground color is white; and when the background is some other color, the resulting color is darker or lighter, depending on the color it’s mixed with.

The indicator stops in the demo are black. But, because of the blend, we see them as white because they are on a white background. And when they are over the indicator container element, which is a lovely shade of violet, we see a dark violet indicator stop, because we’re mixing the indicator stop’s black with the indicator container’s violet.

Starting with the HTML:

<div id="passageWrapper">
  <strong>Sections Scrolled ↴</strong>
  <!-- Indicator container -->
  <div id="passage"></div>
</div>


<!-- Indicator stop -->
<div class=passageStops></div>


<!-- First Section -->
<div class="sections">
  <!-- Content -->
</div>


<!-- Another indicator stop -->
<div class="passageStops"></div>


<!-- Second Section -->
<div class="sections">
  <!-- Content -->
</div>


<!-- Another indicator stop -->
<div class="passageStops"></div>


<!-- Third Section -->
<div class="sections">
  <!-- Content -->
</div>

Pretty straightforward, right? There’s a sticky container at the very top that holds the indicators when they reach the top.  From there, we have three sections of content, each one topped with an indicator that will stick to the top with the indicator and blend with it.

Here’s the CSS:

.passageStops {
  background-color: black; /* Each indicator stop is black */
  mix-blend-mode: overlay; /* This makes it appear white on a white background */
  width: 33.3%; /* Three sections total, so each section is one-third */
  top: calc(1em + 3px);
}


#passage, 
.passageStops{
  height: 10px;
}


#passageWrapper,
.passageStops {
  position: sticky; /* The container and stops should stick to the top */
  z-index: 1; /* Make sure the indicator and stops stay at the forefront */
}


#passage {
  background: violet; /* Will blend with black to make a darker violet indicator */
  margin: 0 0 20px 0;
}


#passageWrapper{
  background-color: white; /* Make sure we're working with white to hide indicator stops */
  height: 40px;
  top: 0px;
}


/* Each stop will shift one-third the width of the indicator container to cover the whole thing when the last section is reached. */
.passageStops:nth-child(4){ margin-left: 33.3%; }
.passageStops:nth-child(6){ margin-left: 66.6%; }


/* More styling, blah blah. */

The indicators (.passageStops) are black. But the overlay blend mode makes them appear white when it blends with the white background under it. Since there are three sections, each indicator is of one-third width.

The indicators have position: sticky; with a top distance value. This means the indicators will stick once they reach the calculated position from the top of the screen. When that happens, the black indicators that appeared white blend with the violet indicator container, which makes them appear to be a dark violet, representing the new scroll position on the page.

The reverse is also true. When an indicator loses its sticky position, it will move from the violet background of the indicator bar to the white background of the page, hiding it once again… like it was never there!

Here’s the demo again:

That’s it. You can perhaps further experiment with this by having a non-white background with another blend mode, or a gradient for the indicator bar or stops.

The post Indicating Scroll Position on a Page With CSS appeared first on CSS-Tricks.

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Performance Links

I've had a number of browser tabs open to articles all related to web performance and gosh darn it if blogging them is a way for me get some closure. They are all good!

Manuel Matuzovic, Why 543 KB keep me up at night:

Yes, I know, it depends. 543 KB aren't always bad, but on that specific page there's only a single image (the logo ~20 KB) and a single paragraph. So why then is the page still relatively large, where are the remaining 523 KB coming from?

Spoiler: it was the JavaScript. Also, I had no idea Google has a recommended ideal DOM that:

  • has less than 1500 nodes total.
  • has a maximum depth of 32 nodes.
  • has no parent node with more than 60 child nodes.

Next up, Performant front-end architecture (no byline):

Bundle splitting will result in more requests being made to load your app. But as long as the requests are made in parallel that’s not a big problem, especially if your site served over HTTP/2.

This is all about assuming the app is largely a client-side JavaScript site. I think there is a huge pile of low-hanging performance fruit, but it's almost like a different list when talking about client-side JavaScript sites. It makes code-splitting one of the top priorities.

Jeremy Keith, Telling the story of performance:

Web Page Test is a terrific tool for measuring performance. It can also be used as a story-telling tool.

WPT ouputs video of the site loading. Put it side-by-side with a competitor and show it to the client.

CP Clermont, The Impact of Web Performance:

In this post, I’ll discuss what I did at ALDO to measure the revenue impact of web performance without having to spend time making performance improvements.

Not surprising that users with faster experiences generate more revenue. What is surprising is that it's a lot more. Over 3x more on mobile and nearly 6x more on desktop.

The post Performance Links appeared first on CSS-Tricks.

Posted on

PC turns on but no display and no beep

hey guys can u please help me. My pc turns on, the fans are on and so are the lights. But my monitors says there is no signal. I tried everything, i search on the web for answers but no of them worked like, reseting the cmos (i think i did it right) I also tried the beep test (dont know how to call it) but i never got any beeps. I also tried a different walloutlet for my PCU to see if it got enough power but nothing. Different monitors and cables. I dont know what to do anymore im lost. (if the english is not that good im Dutch so yeah)

PC Specs:
CPU: Ryzen 5 2600
Fans: Corsair h60 (2018)
Motherboard: MSI X470 Gaming plus
GPU: Asus Radeon RX 570
PCU: SeaSonic focus+ 80 650watt gold
RAM: corsair vengeance 2 x 4gb
Memory: Firecuda hybrid 1TB & Kingston A400 SSD 120GB
Case: CoolerMaster

Posted on

The Ultimate Coronavirus Small Business Guide – WordPress + Tools to Grow Online

Due to the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, there is a lot of uncertainty in the world, especially for small business owners.

Many small businesses are being forced to adapt and make critical changes just to survive.

During these tough times, the world seems uncontrollable. That’s why it’s extremely crucial for us, small business owners, to focus on what we can control because that’s how we will survive and thrive during these unprecedented times.

In this ultimate coronavirus small business guide, I will share the top tools, tutorials, and WordPress resources that can help you adapt to the changes, streamline your workflow, and even grow your business.

Ultimate Small Business Resource for Coronavirus - WordPress, Tools, and Training to Grow Your Online Presence

Note: I will be updating this guide through out the next couple of weeks to add more resources as I find them. If you’ve seen helpful guides, then please let me know in the comments below, and I’ll update the list.

Quick Intro (Covering the Basics)

A lot of you reading this coronavirus small business resource might be new to WPBeginner, and I want to welcome you to our community.

My name is Syed Balkhi, and I created WPBeginner over 10 years ago to help small businesses grow and compete with the big guys in the digital world.

In my 17 year career, I have built multiple successful small businesses with 100% remote teams. Currently, my companies have over 130+ employees, completely remote, all over the world.

I am creating this resource because many of my friends, family members, WPBeginner readers, and thousands of fellow entrepreneurs are hurting / going through a lot of change.

My hope is that by sharing my experiences, helpful tools, and useful WordPress tutorials, we can help others navigate through this crisis and succeed once it’s all over.

The only thing I ask in return is that if you find this guide helpful, then please spread the word (share it on social media, message the link to a family member, and / or email it to friends who can benefit from it).

Important: To save you time, this article DOES NOT contain information on how to get small business loans or anything related to coronavirus small business relief / business grants / financial assistance programs. Forbes is attempting to keep an updated list of various COVID-19 relief programs, but it’s always best practice to check with your local government authorities for this information.

I am going to divide this article into two sections. First part is for small business owners looking to transition to remote work and/or establish a digital presence to grow online.

Second part is for small business owners looking for side-hustle ideas to supplement their main income. The second part can of course be utilized by anyone (including students). I highly encourage you to take action.

Ultimate Tools to Help Small Businesses with Remote Work (Digital Presence)

In this section, I will share the list of tools that we use in my various companies to streamline our workflows, processes, and ultimately grow online.

You do not need to use all these tools, so please only pick what you need for your specific industry, business, and use-case.

Transparency Disclaimer: WPBeginner content is reader-supported, which means if you click on some of the links in this post, we may earn a small referral fee. Please know that we only recommend products that we use ourselves and/or believe will add value to our readers. See how WPBeginner is funded for more details.

Here’s a quick outline to help you easily navigate:

Best Website Builder for Small Businesses

If you’re looking to establish your online presence, then you’re likely looking for a website builder.

I have tested all the popular ones, and I can confidently say that WordPress is the best. Rest of the world agrees with me too considering WordPress powers 35% of all websites on the internet.

With WordPress, you can create any type of website from simple business sites to online stores, restaurant website, gym sites, etc etc.

You can follow my step by step guide on how to make a website for detailed instructions.

We also have specific tutorials on how to start an online store, and how to start a blog in case you’re looking for that.

The best part about WordPress is that it comes with tons of free templates (aka themes) that you can use. For easy customization and gorgeous designs, I recommend using Divi by Elegant Themes, it’s a powerful WordPress page builder.

Divi comes with pre-made layouts for every industry (gyms, cafes, restaurants, etc). You can also try Astra Theme because they also have tons of starter templates.

Once your website is live, use our WordPress SEO guide and these proven tips to grow your website traffic.

Business Phone Service that Work Anywhere

We use Nextiva for our business phone service.

Since it’s a business VOIP provider, they have a mobile and desktop app that allows our various team members to receive client calls without having to share their cell phone numbers.

It comes with tons of other powerful features like caller ID, call forwarding, routing, custom greetings, call analytics, customer CRM, live chat, and more. Basically it’s a unified communication platform that lets you work from anywhere.

If you’re looking for an alternative, then check out RingCentral. They’re fairly competitive as well.

Reliable Business Group / Team Chat

With remote teams, communication is like oxygen. You need to have a reliable team chat software.

I recommend using either Slack or Microsoft Teams.

Slack is free with limited storage and up to 10,000 message. However it gets expensive when you try to upgrade to the Pro version.

Microsoft Teams is free for everyone, and they give you even more features with Office365 accounts which is great because that saves you money in the long run.

Online Conference Calls (Group Meetings)

Call quality is my #1 priority when it comes to online conference calls.

If you’re only doing audio conferencing, then Nextiva is perfect. Everyone can either dial-in from their phone or connect using the Nextiva app.

If video conferencing is important, then I recommend using either Zoom or RingCentral.

Both solutions have desktop / mobile apps. Individuals can also dial-in from their phone as well in case internet connection quality isn’t good.

The free version of Zoom is good, but it restricts your calls to 40 minutes. If you’re thinking about upgrading to Zoom Pro, then you’re actually better off using RingCentral because they also offer virtual business phone number along with a complete platform.

If you want a completely free option, then you can use Skype as well. Although call quality suffers with larger groups.

Bulk Email Service to Contact Customers

In these tough times, you must stay in constant communication with your customers. Keep them informed about how you’re serving them, any special offers that you have running, and even how they can help you.

The easiest way to send bulk email is by using an email marketing service like Constant Contact or SendinBlue.

The cool part about these services is that they let you personalize the emails and save time. See this complete step-by-step email marketing guide for more details.

Setup Online Order Forms to Accept Online Orders

I know a lot of businesses are either switching to taking orders by phone or looking for an online alternative.

If you’re just looking for a simple order form, then use WPForms. It’s a WordPress form builder that let’s you easily create an order form and accept payments online.

If you need to sell multiple products online, then I recommend starting an online store using WooCommerce. It’s the most popular eCommerce platform in the world.

For more details, see our beginner’s guide on how to start an online store.

Create a Membership Site for Training / Tutoring / E-Learning

A lot of gyms, yoga classes, personal trainers, tutoring centers, and schools are shutting down due to this coronavirus pandemic.

You can transition to virtual classes using one of the many platforms.

With WordPress, you can use the MemberPress plugin to create members-only area, share content, collect payments, etc. We have a step by step tutorial on how to create a membership site.

If you want to have e-learning component that involves quizzes, grading, etc, then you can use LearnDash. It’s a powerful WordPress Learning Management Solution (LMS), and we have created a step by step guide on how to create / sell courses online.

You can combine both of these platforms with an online video platform like YouTube, Vimeo, or even a live conference software like Zoom to deliver content.

Some businesses and communities are using a membership site in combination with a Facebook Group where they’re using Facebook Live to run classes.

A lot of school districts are using Google Classrooms which is a free product by Google. It’s a bit complicated to use, but it gets the job done.

Basically, we need to use the resources available and be resourceful, so we can serve those around us.

Appointments and Booking Tools

As you move to remote work, managing appointments and bookings is a challenge. It’s hard to keep track of available time slots while avoiding the email back-and-forth.

The easiest tool that I have often used myself is Calendly. It’s a free tool for 1 calendar per user.

You can simply select available time slots, and send your calendly link to clients. Your client can pick a time that works best for them from your available slots, and Calendly marks that spot as reserved in your calendar, so no one else can claim it.

If you need to manage bookings for multiple people, then you can use WPForms. It has a booking form template that can seamlessly integrate with your Google Calendar and even Calendly.

For advanced booking plugins, I recommend checking out StartBooking or BirchPress.

Email Support and Ticketing Software

If you’re looking for an easy way to collaborate on emails with your team, then the most proven solution is to use an email support ticketing software.

At my team, we use HelpScout. It’s a robust platform, and small teams can use their Basic plan which is very affordable (scroll down on pricing page, since they list it below their main plans).

FreshDesk and Front App are two other alternatives that you can also take a look at.

Live Chat Software

If you’re switching to selling online, then you might be looking for a live chat software. There are a lot of them, and some of them are really expensive.

My team uses LiveChat Inc. They offer a 30-day free trial.

If you’re using Nextiva for your business phone number, then they also offer Live Chat feature as part of their platform.

Other companies that I mentioned above like HelpScout, SendinBlue, etc also offer Live Chat as part of their higher plans.

If you’re a small business and don’t have the staff to manage Live Chat, then you can also look at using a ChatBot.com platform and use their bot templates to automate some support.

Time Tracking Software for Productivity and Accountability

One of the biggest critique I have heard from small business owners about remote work is loss of productivity and accountability.

That’s simply not true because my business has been remote for over a decade (but that’s a whole different debate).

You can use time tracking software like Time Doctor and HubStaff for improved accountability and reporting.

Easy Online File Storage / Document Sharing Apps

The easiest way to improve collaboration online is by using smart file sharing and document sharing apps.

There are a lot of providers that you can use.

Microsoft Office365 suite includes OneDrive, Word, Powerpoint, etc. that you can use to easily share files and collaborate online.

Dropbox along with Dropbox Paper is another great tool that you can use.

If you’re using Gmail, then you can also use Google Doc and their doc platform.

Note: I’m purposefully not linking to G Suite because Google compliance team has decided that they don’t want G Suite partners like us mentioning them in any articles related to Coronavirus (COVID-19). I use and love G Suite, but I’m greatly disappointed by their compliance team’s decision.

Online Project Management Tools for Small Business

The key to succeeding with remote teams is project management. When I first started, this used to be a big challenge, but it’s gotten a lot easier.

My team at Awesome Motive uses Asana because it’s both powerful and easy to use. We love it.

In the past, I have also tried Trello and Basecamp. Both of these apps are also good for specific use-cases, but they have their limitations.

Company Hub / Wiki Tools / Intranet solutions

The easiest way to create a company wiki is to make a WordPress site and use one of the Heroic Knowledge Base plugin.

If you want to create a complete intranet, then WordPress can help with that. See how to create an intranet for small business with WordPress.

If you’re using Microsoft Office365 suite, then they also offer intranet and team sites.

Some of my friends are using Notion, and they really love it. I tried it long ago, and it didn’t have the same level of flexibility, but they seem to have added a ton since then.

Online Forms Solution

Online forms are essential for all businesses. Whether you need to offer your customers an easy way to contact you, collect feedback / surveys, accept appointments or bookings, take online orders, etc etc.

My company, WPForms can help here. You can use either the free version, WPForms Lite, or use the pro version. It’s a robust platform used by over 3 million websites.

If you’re a developer trying to help small businesses create advanced form solutions like calculators, directories, forms that displays data on front-end, and other advanced forms, then I recommend using Formidable Forms.

Side Hustle Ideas for Small Business Owners, Entrepreneurs, and Students

I know these are tough times for everyone. With so much craziness and uncertainty in the world, several people have reached out to me for suggestions on side-hustle ideas to supplement their main income.

Through out history, humans have done some of our best work during times of crisis and stress.

In 1665, when Cambridge University closed for a year because of the Great Plague of London, a young scholar named Isaac Newton was sent home.

While at home, he discovered Calculus and refined the ideas that later became his theory of gravity.

In 1606, Shakespeare wrote Macbeth, King Lear, and Anthony and Cleopatra while quarantined at home.

We may not be Newton or Shakespeare, but you can learn how to use WordPress to build your dream and / or improve your site, so you’re stronger when all of the craziness pass away.

If it helps motivate anyone, I too launched WPBeginner in 2009 towards the tail-end of the global recession of 2008.

With that said, I want to emphasize that there are no shortcuts to making money online.

It takes a lot of work, and you have to treat your website like an actual business. Yes, it is a REAL job.

Anyone person that’s selling a “magic” course that will supposedly help you replicate their success, don’t waste your time or money on that. It’s a scam. There’s a special place in hell for these people especially if they try to market during these times.

Anyways, as long as you’re willing to do the leg work, I think you can make money online.

Here are 30 proven ways to make money online with your website or by offering services.

Specific side hustle ideas:

The easiest way is to sell your knowledge. If you’re a chef, teach others how to cook or sell recipes. If you’re a personal trainer, show people how to work out and sell virtual coaching classes. You can create a membership site with WordPress to sell eBooks, courses, etc.

Along the same line, you can start a blog to teach what you know, so you can build a following. This way you have an audience that you can market your products to, and / or even make money with ads.

You can start a food blog to share recipes, your favorite cooking appliances (affiliate revenue), etc.

If you’re witty, then you can also create a site like Buzzfeed and create entertaining content. People are consuming a lot of content right now, and you can make some money with banner ads.

You can create a question and answers website where you can charge for giving professional advice. You can even invite other professionals

You can also create a micro-jobs site like Fiverr for your local community and help others earn money while taking a small cut of each transaction.

You can create an auction site like eBay, but focus on specific niche or vertical, so you can quality control better, offer expert advice, etc.

If you love craft and making things with your hand, then you can sell your work on Etsy, or better yet create an Etsy-like store with WordPress, so you can avoid middle-man fees.

Again these are just some ideas that others have used to make extra income on the side. For more ideas, you should check out these 27 online business ideas.

Remember, whatever you do, please DO NOT fall for any get rich quick schemes during these times of crisis. There are no shortcuts to make money online!

It takes a lot of hard work and dedication (like any other business would).

The good news though is that you don’t need to spend thousands of dollars to broaden your skillset.

With WPBeginner, you can learn WordPress for free in a week or less.

We also have tons of useful free resources like:

Aside from WPBeginner, there are a lot of universities and creators that are making their courses temporarily free to help others expand their skillset.

Here are some helpful resources from other creators:

  • Ryan Deiss (founder of Digital Marketer) has made all their digital marketing training available for free until March 31st. Get Digital Marketer Labs Plus for free.
  • Joost de Valk (founder of Yoast) has made their All-round SEO training course available for free. It’ll be free until June 1st. They also have a free training on WordPress block editor for those who need it.
  • Cole Joseph (founder of Cole’s Classroom) is offering all their photography training courses for free until April 8th.
  • … more coming soon as I find them.

Final Thoughts

I know these next few weeks will feel very long … and I hope that these guides help you create something amazing that you’ll be proud of in the next 6 months.

As small business owners, we need to be disciplined, make the most of the resources available to us (be resourceful), and focus on opportunities that will have the biggest impact.

While the world seems uncontrollable, it’s extremely crucial that we focus on what we can control because that’s how we will win and come out ahead.

I’ll end the article with this beautiful quote from Maya Angelou:

You may not control all the events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them.

Stay safe, healthy, and in good spirits :)

If you liked this article, then please spread the word. Share it on social media, message the link to a family member, and/or email it to friends who can benefit from it.

Lastly, don’t forget to subscribe to our YouTube Channel for our WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

The post The Ultimate Coronavirus Small Business Guide – WordPress + Tools to Grow Online appeared first on WPBeginner.

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Animated Custom Cursor Effects

So I have been playing with distortion effects using SVG filters recently and wanted to now try and apply these to a custom cursor. Imagine animating a circular custom cursor with those distortions when hovering over links (or any other element). Here are four demos that explore this idea.

The effects are done by applying SVG filters to a custom cursor element which is an SVG. Besides animating the cursor itself (scaling it up), the SVG filter is animated when hovering over anchors (or any other element you’d like this to interact with).

If you are interested in more of these kind of effects, have a look some previous related experiments:

I really hope you enjoy these and can make use of them! As always, feel free to use the designs in your projects.

Show me what you come up with and ping me @codrops!

Credits

Animated Custom Cursor Effects was written by Mary Lou and published on Codrops.