Look Under the Hood With the Block X-Ray WordPress Plugin

One of my favorite tools in the past few days is the Block X-ray Attributes plugin by Sal Ferrarello. It is geared toward developers and shows block attributes in the WordPress editor.

After seeing his tweet on Friday, I immediately installed it.

The plugin is currently only available via its GitHub repository, and anyone who wants to give it a spin can grab the latest build from the 1.0.0 release page.

Ferrarello and his colleagues get a full day on company time to give back. WebDevStudios’s employees consistently devote one day each month to Five for the Future, an initiative that encourages organizations to contribute five percent of their resources to the WordPress project.

The company’s first Five for the Future day of 2022 landed last Friday. Ferrarello opted to build a plugin that will likely be immensely helpful to other developers who are building blocks.

Block X-ray Attributes adds a new tab under the Post sidebar panel in the editor named “Block X-ray.” It simply shows a code field with the currently-selected block’s attributes in JSON format.

WordPress block editor with demo content in the canvas.  The Columns block is selected.  Shown in the sidebar is a "Block X-ray" panel that lists the JSON attributes of the block.
Viewing attributes of a Columns block.

When I first installed the plugin, I expected the tab to be under the “Block” panel. Since the attributes are specific to the block, it made sense that it would be there. It is instead under the “Post” or “Page” panel, depending on what type of content you are editing.

One missing feature that I would like to see is a copy button. For nested blocks, the output can be lengthy to copy with a mouse, and having a quick way to grab and paste it in my code editor would save some effort on my part.

I imagine that other developers would find the plugin invaluable in taking a quick look at attributes while building new blocks. That would also be my primary use case for it, so I inserted a breadcrumbs plugin that I need to finish at some point:

WordPress block editor a breadcrumbs block in the canvas. Shown in the sidebar is a "Block X-ray" panel that lists the JSON attributes of the block.
Testing custom attributes for a block.

Being able to quickly look at custom attributes for my blocks allows me to see everything I need to know about them. I can note if the values are being added and correct when I toggle options on and off.

Another use case is the wealth of information available when the dreaded invalid block error appears.

WordPress block editor an invalid paragraph block in the canvas. Shown in the sidebar is a "Block X-ray" panel that lists the JSON attributes of the block, including validation issues.
Diving into block validation issues.

If there is one feature I want to put to the test, this is it. There are times when WordPress randomly gives me a block validation error within custom patterns for seemingly no reason. Maybe it is stray whitespace or some other invisible ghost poking around underneath it all. The block recovery options do not help. Therefore, I am leaving Block X-ray Attributes installed until I can finally catch one of those oddly-random cases. Will it help? We will see in time.

For now, I recommend anyone developing anything related to blocks to install and activate this plugin. It is a handy tool that could mitigate a headache or two.

API Development Workflow With Python and Zato

Zato is an integration platform and backend application server which means that, during most of their projects, developers using Zato are interested in a few specific matters.

The platform concentrates on answering these key, everyday questions that Python backend developers routinely ask:

Render Announces New Public API to Support its Cloud Infrastructure Platform

Render, a cloud infrastructure provider that offers solutions requiring minimal development investment, has announced the release of a new public API that is intended to increase “flexibility and control” for users that are managing cloud applications. This announcement also includes improved DDoS protection and native SSH support.

Render is all in on what they refer to as a “Zero DevOps” strategy and Anurag Goel, the company’s CEO, had this to say about what the new API provides:

UI Interactions & Animations Roundup #21

We’re back with a new roundup of the latest, hottest and most creative motion designs from the last month. This time we feel the roundness is going on in many designs and the animations based on these shapes are super interesting.

Remember, when those distortions took off like a rocket ship? Well, those are much more toned down now and we see a lot more sophisticated and meaningful warping and curving going on, which is a good thing.

I hope you enjoy this collection and get up to date with the latest animation trends in web design!

MKTLM

by Roman Salo

Interactive Project Index

by Luca Fasoli

radical.

by Andrew Baygulov

Explorway Web Design

by Juste Navickaite

Woven Planet

by Glenn Catteeuw

condé vilde //

by Andrew Baygulov

Looks like it’s going to rain…

by Ivan Gorbunov

Jarang Macul – Landing Page Animation

by Risang Kuncoro

Moooji NFT

by Slava Kornilov

ATLAS

by Zhenya Rynzhuk

Editorial Landing Page – Cole Haan

by Francesco Zagami

m.vertigo | Gallery

by Ivan Gorbunov

ward //

by Andrew Baygulov

Jam of the Week | 156

by Britton Stipetic

BWE e-commerce website

by Layo

Dala

by green chameleon

Tuning In

by Ali Zafar Iqbal

The Heritage Museum Landing Page Animation

by Vitalii Burhonskyi

Frøya //

by Andrew Baygulov

Expo Dubai 2020 – Canada experience (Homepage)

by Nicolas Bonté

365 Magazine

by Ruslan Siiz

ZeroWaste – Web Design for Recycling Company

by Outcrowd

The post UI Interactions & Animations Roundup #21 appeared first on Codrops.

How to Increase Your Landing Page Conversions by 300% (Proven Tips)

Do you want to increase your landing page conversions?

Landing pages are designed to convert website visitors into customers, subscribers, and leads. However, there is always room to improve their conversion rate.

In this article, we’ll share some of the proven ways to increase your landing page conversions by up to 300%.

Increasing landing page conversions with proven and tested tips

1. Creating a Conversion Oriented Landing Page Design

First, you need to make sure that your landing page is designed for conversions.

As a business owner, you may not have the skills to design a landing page for higher conversions or code the design from scratch.

This is where SeedProd comes in.

SeedProd landing page builder

It is the best landing page builder for WordPress and allows you to easily create beautiful landing page layouts that are professionally designed and optimized for conversions and sales.

SeedProd works with essential third-party tools that you may already be using. This includes top email marketing services, WooCommerce, Google Analytics, and more.

First, you need to install and activate the SeedProd plugin. For more details, see our step by step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, you need to enter your license key. You can find this information under your account on the SeedProd website.

After that, you can simply go to SeedProd » Landing Pages and click on the Add New Landing Page button.

Add new landing page

Next, you’ll be asked to choose a template.

You can start with a blank template or choose from one of several pre-made landing page templates that are already optimized for conversions.

Choose template for your landing page

You can then provide a title and URL slug for your page.

Once you do, SeedProd’s intuitive drag and drop builder will load.

Drag and drop landing page builder

You can simply point and click on any item on the page to edit it. You can also add commonly used landing page design blocks from the left column.

For example, you can add testimonials, optin forms, FAQ accordions, and more.

Once you are satisfied with the design, you can switch to the Connect tab to integrate with popular email marketing platforms or more than 3000 third-party apps via Zapier.

Connect email marketing services

After that, you can switch to the Page Settings tab.

From here you can change the SEO settings, add Google Analytics tracking, and add header or footer scripts.

Landing page settings

You can also connect your page to a custom domain name. This comes in handy for users creating multiple landing pages targeting different regions.

Finally, you can go ahead and save or publish your landing page.

Publish your landing page

You can now see your landing page live in action by opening it in a new browser tab.

Landing page preview

Creating a beautiful landing page is not the end of conversion optimization. In fact, there is a lot more you can do to boost conversion rates even further.

Let’s take a look at some of these tried and tested landing page best practices.

2. Choose One Call to Action for Your Landing Page

One of the most common landing page mistakes is not setting a proper goal for your campaign.

For instance, having multiple calls to action on the same page can distract or confuse your visitors, so that they end up leaving without taking an action.

Best practice is to set one course of action for users to take. For instance, if your goal is to capture email leads, then your optin form should be the only action to take on your landing page.

That can mean removing navigation menus and other links from the page, or making them stand out less.

Or if you want users to make a purchase, then this should be the only course of action users are directed to.

Following are a few examples of clearer calls to action on landing pages.

1. MonsterInsights

MonsterInsights

The MonsterInsights landing page has two very clear calls to action that leads users to make a purchase.

2. OptinMonster

OptinMonster landing page example

OptinMonster is a conversion optimization software, and they have several landing pages for different use cases. Each one of them is targeted to different audiences.

3. All in One SEO for WordPress

All in One SEO landing page example

All in One SEO is the best WordPress SEO plugin on the market. For their landing page, they use a similar strategy. Under the features tab, you can view more landing pages for each feature, all of which lead users to make a buying decision.

As you can see, all of these pages have a clear call to action that is designed to stand out from the rest of the page.

3. Use Simplicity in Landing Page Design

For higher conversion rates, you want users to focus on the call to action and not get distracted.

A cluttered landing page design can easily distract users away.

To avoid this, make sure that you keep your landing page layout clean and simple. Using lots of empty space, color contrast, and large fonts can help you easily achieve that simplicity.

Keep your landing page design simple and clean

4. Use Colors and Contrast to Drive Action

It’s smart to make your call to action more prominent than other sections of your landing page, so that it draws the eyes of your visitors.

The easiest way to do this is by using bright, contrasting colors.

Using colors and contrast in your landing page

You can also use this technique to keep less significant information distracting users from main conversion goals. Simply choose a color that is similar to colors on the rest of the page.

5. Use Urgency For Higher Landing Page Conversions

Limited offers are an effective marketing technique you’ll see everywhere.

That’s because the scarcity adds urgency to an offer which makes it harder to ignore for users.

You can use the same marketing principles on your landing page by adding a countdown timer to your landing page layout.

6. Add Social Proof to Your Landing Page

People are more likely to buy a product if they see other people buying or recommending it. This concept is called social proof, and there are many different ways you can add it to your landing page to boost conversions.

The most common type of social proof is customer testimonials. SeedProd comes with a built-in testimonials block to easily add testimonials to your landing page.

Another way to add social proof is by using your landing page is by using TrustPulse.

It allows you to easily show small popup banners with live notifications of customer activity on your website.

Social proof via TrustPulse

This adds a FOMO effect to your landing page encouraging more users to convert.

TrustPulse works with all popular eCommerce platforms, and can automatically detect your visitors’ actions on your website. It can show email conversions, user sign ups, and many other notifications as well.

Lastly, you can also embed actual tweets and social media posts from your customers to your website as social proof. Smash Balloon’s Custom Feeds Pro allows you to create a custom feed of user tweets that you can then embed to your landing page.

Social media testimonials

7. Using Live Chat to Answer User Questions

Most of the time customers abandon a landing page simply because they couldn’t find the information they need.

A lot of time, they need that information instantly. Luckily there are easier ways to help your customers without setting up a dedicated team.

First, you can add a live chat bot to your website that can help users find the answers they are looking for right there on your landing page.

Add live chat to your landing page

You can also set up a business phone number that allows customers to reach out to your sales or support team directly from your landing page. You could even use an auto attendant service so you don’t have to answer the calls yourself.

8. Make It Easier for Users to Contact

Some of your customers may not have time to make a phone call or interact with live chat. Often customers just want to leave a message. 

That’s why it’s important to make sure that it’s easy for users to reach out by adding a contact form to your website.

WPForms is the best contact form plugin for WordPress. It allows you to easily add contact form to your website.

Plus it is a full-fledged form builder that you can use to capture leads by adding a request a quote form, order form, user registration form, and more.

9. Convert Abandoning Visitors with Timely Prompts

Showing users a personalized message just when they are about to leave your website has proven to be a successful technique in capturing abandoning users.

OptinMonster allows you to easily create exit intent popups that automatically detect when a user is about to leave your landing page and display a popup.

For example, Easy Digital Downloads shows this popup when a visitor is about to abandon the checkout page.

Easy Digital Downloads (EDD) exit intent popup example

You can display a popup with custom coupons, time limited offers, buy 1 get 1 free offers, and other promotional tools to convert those customers.

OptinMonster also allows you to create personalized campaigns. You can modify your popup based on user’s geographic location, pages they have seen, or products they have looked at.

10. Optimize Your Landing Page for SEO

Search engines are the main source of free traffic to any website. Optimizing your landing page for SEO helps you rank higher in search engines which brings more traffic for you to convert.

All in One SEO for WordPress is the best SEO plugin for WordPress on the market. It allows you to easily optimize your WordPress website for SEO.

For more details on using it, see our tutorial on how to properly install and setup All in One SEO for WordPress.

Another benefit of this is that it ensures that your landing page shows the right title and image on Facebook and other social networks.

11. Improve Page Load Speed for Higher Conversions

No one likes a slow website. In fact, studies show that one second delay in page load can cause 7% loss in conversions, 11% fewer page views, and 16% decrease in customer satisfaction.

Strangeloop case study

You can see how much time your landing page takes to load by testing it with an online speed test tool.

For speed optimization, see our guide on how to improve WordPress speed and performance with step by step instructions.

12. Track Conversions to Optimize Your Landing Pages

We believe that you can’t improve what you can’t measure.

To optimize for higher conversions, you need to first make sure that you properly set up conversion tracking for all your landing pages.

This helps you see how your landing page is performing. If you have multiple landing pages, then you can also see which ones are performing best.

The easiest way to set up conversion tracking is by using MonsterInsights. It allows you to easily install Google Analytics in WordPress.

Conversion tracking

It also comes with enhanced eCommerce tracking which allows you to see your eCommerce conversion rate inside the WordPress admin area.

For more details, see our ultimate guide on conversion tracking in WordPress to learn how to set it up and how to track different conversion goals on your website.

Once you have baseline data, then you can set up A/B test campaigns to further optimize your landing pages.

We hope this article helped you find ways to improve your landing page conversions. You may also want to see these bonus tips on capturing abandoned cart sales, or see these proven tips to increase your website traffic.

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The post How to Increase Your Landing Page Conversions by 300% (Proven Tips) first appeared on WPBeginner.