Crocoblock offers many features and functionalities to help you design and customize rental websites that meet your specific requirements. This article will explore some of the best WordPress rental websites. Whether you’re looking to create a rental site, Crocoblock provides the tools to turn your vision into a reality.

Table of Contents

• Special Mention: Dynamic Templates for Rental Websites
  • RentGo
  • BaliRento
• Property Rental Websites
• Transport Rental WordPress Websites
• Vacation Rental Websites
• FAQ
• Last Words

Special Mention: Dynamic Templates for Rental Websites

Creating a rental website can seem daunting. Because such a site should have many elements:

• image and description of the booking/rental options;
• ability to create catalogs;
• filters and search tools;
• ability to choose a convenient date and time;
• calendar with available dates;
• ability to customize the map.

You can implement all these features by writing code or using different WordPress plugins. But suppose you are not ready to spend much time and effort. In that case, you can use ready-made dynamic templates that are easy to customize in terms of design and functionality – for example, RentGo and BaliRento from Crocoblock.

RentGo

RentGo is a rental website template that is great for creating car rental websites. It contains nine Crocoblock plugins. With their help, you can quickly create single pages and catalogs without coding and design them as needed.

The template has the following functionality:

• custom post types and custom fields;
• single post templates;
• pre-designed page templates for single vehicles and catalogs;
• six taxonomies for displaying necessary options through dynamic widgets (genres, color, state, body type, class, location);
• built-in advanced filters and a search tool;
• Listing Grids for “Search Results,” “Get Our Rental Cars,” and other content groups needed;
• booking functionality.

You can install this car rental template on a WordPress website, configure the necessary style settings and parameters, provide additional information about the vehicles, and allow users to choose the ones they like. All template components are fully customizable.

BaliRento

BaliRento is a vacation rental template by Crocoblock. It contains 11 plugins, and you can create a powerful, functional website without coding. The template saves you time on manual page and post creation and provides the tools for efficient website building. So you can make any design and functionality quickly and easily.  

Let’s take a closer look at BaliRento functionality:

• customizable single page templates for showing property details;
• custom fields and custom post types;
• taxonomy terms for payments, meals, and property types;
• listing grids for “Similar Villas,” “Most Popular,” and other content groups; 
• inbuilt advanced filters and a search tool;
• extra filtering features: pagination, search button, additional providers, indexer;
• profile builder;
• WooCommerce integration;
• Map Listing;
• Dynamic Visibility and Query Builder for advanced data fetching and output.

Booking and rental websites fall into the complex category, but still, they must work quickly and conveniently. Luckily, with ready-made templates, you can significantly speed up their creation and get the desired result.

Property Rental Websites 

Mathieu Immobilier & Conseils

The first site is dedicated to renting and purchasing real estate in France. Here, customers can find houses and apartments of different levels and prices.

To prevent the user from getting lost in the variety of choices, the developers added a filtering tool created with JetSmartFilters.

Such a filter allows users to select a suitable city, budget, area, and number of rooms and see only those options that suit them. It saves time and makes the site more functional when choosing housing.

Developer: Vincent Delhaye
Theme & Template: Bricks
Plugins: JetSmartFilters

Check the live website 

Cape Managed

The next website is dedicated to housing rentals in Cape Town. The central part of the welcome screen is reserved for a quick search, where, just like in the first example, you can filter the housing options by the number of rooms, check-in and check-out dates, and the number of guests. These filters help the user quickly find what they need.

Also, the site logo in the header was added using a JetBlocks widget, and the navigation menu was built with JetMenu.

Below is a field created using JetEngine. Here, you can see the created Listing Grids, dynamic data, clickable taxonomy tiles, sliders, and more.

The site design is minimalistic, but it is fully functional. The users can quickly find suitable accommodation and save it to their wishlist.

Developer: Woolf’s Media Design
Theme & Template: Hello Elementor
Plugins: JetSearch, JetBlocks, JetBlog, JetCompareWishlist, JetElements, JetEngine, JetMenu, JetReviews, JetPopup, JetTabs

Check the live website 

Augusta 29

Augusta 29 is a WordPress site dedicated to office rentals in Barcelona. It offers different meeting rooms, virtual and land-based offices, and coworking.

There is a JetEngine-built block created using Listing Grid. It is a listing template showcased as a grid and showing dynamically changing data.

There is a navigation menu from JetBlocks in the header. It helps to navigate the website quickly and looks great.

Developer: Samir Haddad
Theme & Template: Hello Elementor
Plugins: JetBlocks, JetEngine

Check the live website 

Transport Rental WordPress Websites

Star Kar

The next site on the list offers users the opportunity to find a new/used car.

Star Kar generously uses the parallax effect, which helps to scroll through the website smoothly. The car selection page has a sticky filter panel made using JetSmartFilters widgets.

It is very convenient for users because they can change the parameters they are looking for at any time and select the appropriate vehicle.

Developer: BDZlab
Theme & Template: Hello Elementor
Plugins: JetBlocks, JetElements, JetEngine, JetMenu, JetPopup, JetReviews, JetSearch, JetSmartFilters, JetTabs, JetTricks, JetThemeCore

Check the live website 

JoyRyde

JoyRyde is a website dedicated to bike rental. Here, you can see different types of electric bicycles and choose the right one. For convenience and speedy search, you can use the quick search tool on the welcome screen hierarchical filters inside.

After selecting the appropriate bike option, the user must fill out a booking form created using JetFormBuilder. Here, the user is asked to provide contact information, choose rental dates, and select additional services if necessary.

Developer: Binh Nguyen
Theme & Template: Hello Elementor
Plugins: JetBooking, JetEngine, JetFormBuilder, JetSmartFilters

Check the live website 

Exotic Auto Club

The next website on the list is dedicated to exotic car rentals in Sydney. It looks stylish, sporting videos and dynamic elements throughout the site.

Here, a quick search on the homepage helps users select the desired car brand. Next, there is a listing grid featuring car options and a JetWooBuilder-built gallery, helping to view the car from different angles and choose the right one.

Developer: Ryan Chang
Theme & Template: Ryan Chang
Plugins: JetEngine, JetElements, JetBlocks, JetSmartFilters, JetTabs, JetProductGallery, JetMenu

Check the live website 

Vacation Rental Websites

Royal Cliff

Royal Cliff is a 5-star hotel website that allows you to book high-quality oceanfront vacation spots.
On the welcome screen, there is a slider featuring photos taken on the hotel premises. It is made using JetElements. The navbar in the header is made using JetPlugins, too.

Developer: Gun Kimsong
Theme & Template: Hello Elementor
Plugins: JetEngine, JetElements, JetBlocks, JetSmartFilters, JetCompareWishlist, JetPopup, JetFormBuilder, JetMenu, JetTricks 

Check the live website

My Blue 4 You

The My Blue 4 You website offers yacht chartering services and tours around the world. 
To make the yacht search convenient, the developers have added a quick search bar from JetSearch. Below are popular destinations presented as a convenient listing grid.

Developer: Andrea Sorrentino
Theme & Template: Hello Elementor
Plugins: JetElements, JetSmartFilters, JetTabs, JetBlocks, JetSearch, JetEngine, JetReviews

Check out the live site

Go Safari

This site is dedicated to one of the most exciting leisure – safari. You can choose which African country to visit and book the next adventure there. 

On the website, you can see a JetMenu-built menu; it is responsive and looks different on different devices.

Developer: Selfmade
Theme & Template: Hello Elementor
Plugins: JetElements, JetSmartFilters, JetTricks, JetMenu, JetEngine

Check out the live site

If you want your WordPress website to be included in our Made with Croco selection, do not waste time and submit it here.

FAQ

Last Words

Rental websites are convenient resources that help users book services, vacations, transportation, and experiences.

In this article, I’ve enumerated and described some interesting rental websites made with JetPlugins by Crocoblock. Their functionality allows you to create any website you can imagine. And ready-made dynamic templates simplify the task even more.

Have you already tried to build a rental website? Did you use a dynamic template for it? Feel free to share in the comments.

The post Top 9 WordPress Rental Websites Built With Crocoblock  appeared first on Crocoblock.

Why Do I Need the Load Level Editor?

The Editor Load Level tool is available for JetTabs, JetTricks, JetBlocks, JetElements, and JetBlog plugins, so you get extra controls over the Elementor editor.

Here is why you’ll definitely like load level editor:

1. Speed up Elementor editor performance by choosing a Low or Medium load level; thus, some styles and scripts will not load on the front end.  
2. The Editor Load Level tool allows you to remove all the unnecessary styling options just by choosing the mode. You are the one who decides whether you need some style settings or you are good to go with the basic ones.
3. Use CSS to add custom styles without overloading the editor. Another option is to proceed with the Low level, where there are very few settings available, and use CSS code as well. Basically, it can be added at any stage of your editing by inputting it directly to the customizer if you use the Elementor free version or to the Advanced tab in a particular widget if you use Elementor Pro.
4. Load Level Editor is more than easy to use! Just pick the best-suiting load level option in the dropdown for the desired plugin.

Now go ahead and check out the routine below, which will do you good in terms of optimizing your Elementor editor.

How Do Load Levels Work?

Let’s look at how it works using the example of the JetTabs plugin. Other plugins that support this tool will work the same way. Go to the WordPress Dashboard and click the Crocoblock > JetPlugins Settings > JetTabs.

Now, you can see the JetTabs settings screen with two tabs. Open the General Settings tab, and here you can notice the Editor Load Level dropdown.

By default, it is set to “Full,” but if you pick a different option from the dropdown, you will see how the value changes. There are five available options – “None,” “Low,” “Medium,” “Advanced,” and “Full.” Let’s see each of them.

If you choose “None” from the dropdown menu, the Style tab disappears from Elementor completely when you edit any of the JetTabs widgets. No additional styles will load, which means the fastest speed. 

If you choose a “Low” loading editor level, the Style tab will appear with minimal and the most basic settings for background and border and basic settings for text content. In my case, it’s the Accordion widget, while for the other plugins and their widgets that don’t have text, there will be something else, but the logic is the same. 

In case you choose a “Medium” load level, padding settings will be added for Container and quite detailed settings for text content, as well as margins for inner content and a lot more. 

For the “Advanced” load level, almost all the available settings will appear except the most over-the-top ones, like box shadow.

Finally, the “Full” option will display all the styling options available for the particular widget, and consequently, all the styles will be loaded on the front end.  

Remember that if you have styled the widget on “Full” and then changed the value to “Advanced” or less, your adjustments will disappear. However, once you switch back to the “Full” option, your style adjustments will roll back to the way they were before.

FAQ

Takeaway

One of the great advantages of Crocoblock plugins that work specifically with Elementor is a huge number of settings that give you full control over the layout and the widget. But if you don’t need all of them and wonder how to speed up Elementor websites, you have control over the load level. As a result, unused styles will not clog the page code.

The post Speed Up Your Elementor Website With Load Level Tool appeared first on Crocoblock.

That’s why it’s time to do a Kadence theme review and show how it can work with Crocoblock plugins (JetPlugins). 

Table of Contents

• Kadence Theme and Plugins Overview
• Kadence AI
• Pricing
• Kadence and Crocoblock
• FAQ
• Takeaway

Kadence Theme and Plugins Overview

Kadence Theme is difficult to imagine without its satellite plugins, which are the Starter Template and the Kadence Blocks plugins. In this section, I will have a closer look mostly at the free version of them, yet highlight the free and pro features and bundles and talk about pricing plans. 

Customizer

If you need a comparison, this theme really reminds me of Astra: it has a detailed Customizer with header and footer builders; you can make the header sticky or transparent, set up main layouts, their paddings, the way featured images are placed, control a sidebar placement, and so on right from there, completely visually. Also, there’s a quite detailed fonts customizer where you can choose styles not only for headers and body but for breadcrumbs and content titles and set font subsets, which is great for performance. 

And, of course, there are plenty of settings for blog pages and archives. Design tabs there let you choose all the main design defaults to follow the design system of your website without effort. 

If you purchase a Kadence Theme Pro, you’ll get these additional features:

As for me, these features are cool, but nothing mindblowing, especially for its price. But Kadence was never on the cheap side for their premium products. However, if you have some WordPress knowledge or are building a pretty simple website, the free version will be enough for you. Alternatively, you can make good use of Crocoblock plugins to put your Kadence WordPress theme on steroids and build fast, dynamic sites of any complexity. 

Starter Templates plugin

This plugin adds great value to the theme because it comes with 49 free and 34 Pro templates for Gutenberg (however, many free templates still require some paid plugins from the bundle, so they will not be fully operational without a Pro bundle). Templates are modern and well-designed and will be a great solution for simple websites and landing pages, not to mention that they are perfect for beginners or those who don’t want to dive deep into design details. 

You can import either the full site with demo content or just an individual page. Also, you can choose a color scheme to match your company’s identity. Note that if you want to access Pro templates, you must buy one of the Bundles, not only the Pro theme. 

Kadence Blocks plugin

After testing a lot of block plugins for Gutenberg, I can definitely say that this one is one of my favorites because it’s well-thought-out and has a great user interface. You won’t get lost in all the settings, while there are a lot of them for customization of each block. 

But let’s start with blocks. There are 21 blocks in the free version and 31 in the Pro (which include Modal, Carousels, etc.). Both come with fully-fledged responsiveness settings. Another thing that some block plugins often omit is advanced font settings, where you can select a custom font family (not only the one from the Customizer), and Kadence offers this. 

They even offer the on-page CSS editor with syntax highlighting, which can be opened in a modal window. It is a trifle but nice, and such small things add to the feeling that the product is polished.

Now, a couple of words about their layout logic. They use rows as a base, and you can choose how many columns (sections) inside it should have. It’s very easy to change their width by just dragging the borders; also, you can either rearrange them using the template on the right panel or do it manually by clicking on the section and clicking the “left” or “right” icons. 

There’s one very interesting feature I should mention: Kadence block control. Nope, it’s not for custom visibility but for control of the blocks available in the editor for different groups of users. You can even switch off Design Library or font control. It can be useful for membership websites or just for some of your colleagues who work on the website, who can be confused or use certain blocks wrong.

One more thing I’d like to point out is the layout editor on every page, so you can choose the layout, be it fullwidth, boxed, with a sidebar, etc., for each page. You can also disable headers and footers, control paddings, show or not the featured image, etc. 

Kadence AI

There’s a new cool feature that is, as of the end of 2023, in the making, but it already seems not bad. Using this tool, you can generate texts, color themes, and more. However, all the images come from the Pexels free library and are not generated customly. If you want to know more about this feature, watch this video from our recent WordPress Agency AI Summit. 

Pricing

There are three main categories of pricing for the Kadence suite. To be precise, there can be even four if you buy a theme separately (the Pro costs $59 a year). But buying the Kadence Blocks Pro makes much more sense, in my opinion, or just investing in the Essential Bundle ($129 a year). 

However, if you work with WooCommerce, it’s better to pay $199 a year, and you’ll get all the Kadence benefits, including the Cloud, Conversions, a powerful Shop Kit, and so on. 

Also, it’s better to remember that Kadence gives discount prices only for the first year, while the renewals will be charged at the full (crossed) prices, which are $20 more.  

So, maybe it’s better to buy a Lifetime, which they also offer; it costs $799. 

Kadence and Crocoblock

Many users still think that Crocoblock is only for Elementor, but it’s absolutely not. Years ago, it started with it, but now, almost all the JetPlugins work with Block Editor (Gutenberg) except those specifically Elementor add-ons. Moreover, the key plugins, such as JetEngine and JetSmartFilters, are compatible with Bricks Builder as well. 

So, first of all, Kadence and Crocoblock are a great match when it comes to custom post types, so their content area can be designed with all the tools the Kadence Blocks plugin offers. 

Another use case is that the Posts block by Kadence fully supports Crocoblock listings. So you can use it to create a post loop by tools of Kadence (alternatively, you can use the Listing Grid block by JetEngine, which has more dynamic settings). 

FAQ

Takeaway

I won’t hide the fact that I really like Kadence products, and there are many reasons for that. First and foremost, their tools are done very professionally, easy to work with, and you can enjoy working with Gutenberg, which is not such a joy without additional plugins sometimes, especially if you design sophisticated landing pages or complex dynamic layouts. 

While the Pro versions and bundles are a bit on the pricy side, they offer a full-fledged free theme with Blocks and Templates plugins, which balances everything. They don’t overload with a pile of blocks, but each of them is very functional and has many settings. 

Last but definitely not least, Kadence is fully compatible with Crocoblock (JetPlugins), which means that you can build complex websites with a lot of dynamic content on Gutenberg, using all its advantages and enjoying a great UI and design toolkit.  

The post Kadence WP Theme: Great Choice for Using With JetPlugins appeared first on Crocoblock.

It has more than 5 million active users and a 5-star rating.

In this review, we will explore why it’s so popular and what features you should try.

Table of Contents

• Why Is Yoast SEO WordPress Plugin So Popular?
• Yoast SEO WordPress Plugin Key Features
  • Yoast SEO meta box
  • Readability
  • XML Sitemap
  • Schema.org
  • RSS protection
  • Custom blocks for Gutenberg
  • Yoast SEO PRO features
• Yoast SEO Plugin: Pros and Cons
• FAQ
• To Sum Up

Why Is Yoast SEO WordPress Plugin So Popular?

Today, you can find millions of websites covering every possible topic, from learning Italian to flying into space. Therefore, there is a life-or-death competition for the first position on the Google search results page.

When you have a recognized web resource with a ton of useful content, massive traffic flow, user trust, and expertise, getting to the top positions is not so difficult.

But what about those who don’t have such strong trump cards?

In such a task, WordPress SEO plugins come to the rescue. They help optimize content for search results, show what you can improve, add metadata, etc.

The mission of the Yoast SEO development team is “SEO for everyone.” Therefore, the plugin has extensive capabilities even in the free version. For example, it can:

• add metadata;
• create XML sitemaps;
• show SEO optimization tips for pages and publications. 

The free version can be downloaded from WordPress.org or the Plugins tab on the Dashboard.

The paid version additionally offers the following:

• AI-powered headline generation feature;
• powerful internal linking tools;
• broken link detector;
• a possibility to add several main keywords at once;
• 24/7 support.

Yoast SEO Premium costs from €99 per year.

Before you start optimizing a WordPress website, Yoast SEO will prompt you to do a quick setup first. You can follow the list and select the features and options you want. Thus, your website will be prepared to rank higher in the search results before the SEO optimization. Details about each item in the settings can be found in the video below:

Yoast SEO WordPress Plugin Key Features

Firstly, let’s explore the free features because many users decide not to buy the PRO version and use only the free package. 

Yoast SEO meta box

A simple and convenient panel at the bottom/right sidebar helps add SEO data and improve the content by adapting text to search engines. You can add the focus keyphrase, SEO title, slug, and meta description in the meta box.

When you add a focus keyphrase, the plugin analyzes the entered text and advises on improving it. In the paid version of the plugin, you can add several focus keyphrases at once. This feature is pretty beneficial for your content, and here is why:

• You can rank for several keywords at once, making a larger coverage of search results.
• Google and other search engines will show your content for related keywords. 
• It helps increase ranking and attract more organic traffic to your website.

Below the snippet, there are fields for adding an SEO title, which is a name that the page will have in the search results, a slug (a post/page URL), and a meta description. These few sentences will show the user what the material is about. The plugin advises on the metadata length, too. After you add this data, you can see a snippet preview.

Additionally, in the same meta box, you can choose whether to show the page/publication in the search results. For SEO-proficient users, there is the Advanced tab to set additional parameters.

Readability

Another feature that helps you improve the content is readability. As you know, the more complete and transparent the material, the longer people stay on the site, which equals a better position in search results. Yoast SEO detects problems, helps to fix them, and improves whatever you’ve written. Follow the readability suggestions, and you will see the text is getting better.

XML Sitemap

Many SEO plugins in WordPress do not create a Sitemap, forcing you to install additional plugins. With Yoast SEO, you don’t have to. It automatically creates an XML Sitemap of your site and sends it to search engines. Afterward, search engines can easily recognize the general structure of your website and index it effectively.

Schema.org

You’ve seen examples when the search results displayed not just the website’s SEO title and brief description but additional facts, such as rating, price, cooking time, etc. You need to know coding or use Yoast SEO capabilities to set up this look. In the second case, it takes over all the complex technical parts. It uses the Schema.org search engine dictionary.

Schema.org provides standard tags and capabilities for describing products, sites, and ads.

It can improve your Google ranking by giving search engines a better understanding of your site’s organization and helps you control how your website appears in search results.

RSS protection

Some unscrupulous website owners use RSS feeds to copy the content of various websites. If you are not protected from this phenomenon, you may find your page or post on someone else’s site.

The sad thing is that, as a result, the content on someone else’s pages may then overtake you in search results. The Yoast SEO plugin protects your website’s content with a copyright-like link and shows search engines where the original material is located.

Custom blocks for Gutenberg

You can attract even more traffic to your site if you provide answers to common user questions.

To do this, you can add a FAQ block to articles (posts) or pages. Google search results have a separate section where you can see answers to common questions. Many users will flow to your website if you provide a high-quality response.

How-to instructions are popular and convenient. You can add them to your website using a ready-made block called Yoast How-to. The plugin automatically adds its content to Schema, and search engines display it in a separate block. As a result, you get more attention from potential customers. 

Another helpful thing for improving SEO is breadcrumbs. This feature helps users get where they are on the site and navigate where they need to go. Breadcrumbs are added automatically, but you can customize their appearance if required.

Yoast SEO PRO features

Now, let’s take a quick look at the Yoast premium features, which are meant to boost SEO even more:

• AI that helps you improve headlines and meta descriptions;
• the plugin finds connected keyphrases and synonyms to the main keyword;
• automatic redirection to avoid errors;
• the plugin automatically adds structured data to increase traffic flow further;
• integrations with Semrush, Wincher, Elementor, and WordProof;
• 24/7 support.

Yoast SEO Plugin: Pros and Cons

Since the plugin has many users, there are many different opinions on it. Let’s see what users highlight most often.

Main advantages:

• ease of use and configuration;
• extensive feature set in the free version;
• the ability to optimize any type of website;
• quick content analysis based on focus keyphrase;
• the ability to view the SEO report directly in the dashboard;
• supports 19 languages;
• it’s easy for beginners;
• automatic creation of XML Sitemaps, which speeds up the website and improves positions in search results;
• features to obtain additional traffic from search engines: FAQ, breadcrumbs, how-to blocks, etc.

Main disadvantages:

• some advanced functions are difficult to understand;
• too many ads in the free version in the dashboard; 
• time-to-time new updates cause issues on the website, but the latest version of the plugin is still needed to avoid problems;
• sometimes, there are errors in assessing readability and tips for improving SEO.

FAQ

To Sum Up

The Yoast SEO plugin is a great helper for those who want to optimize their content and are not ready to learn the basics of SEO optimization. It contains all the necessary features to increase the website’s position in the search results:

• ability to add metadata, slug, and focus keyphrase;
• tips for optimizing content and readability;
• easy XML Sitemap creation;
• the ability to add FAQs, breadcrumbs, and how-to blocks to attract traffic to the site;
• improved page indexing and site navigation;
• optimization of the WordPress site in general.

The plugin developers tried to ensure that even a beginner could easily optimize their website and created many intuitive tools. The WordPress Yoast SEO plugin could be an excellent option if you are considering different options.

Share in the comments what is your favorite one among SEO WordPress plugins.

The post Yoast SEO Plugin Review: What You Need to Know appeared first on Crocoblock.

Apart from the dedicated talks, there were panel discussions packed with information, sharing experiences, and sometimes new product presentations. So, it’s highly recommended to check them out. 

In this overview, I will try to highlight the brightest ideas and insights from the summit. I’m sorry if I missed someone’s ideas or products; you can always add them in the comments below or by participating in the discussion in our Facebook community. 

Table of Contents

• AI for Saving You Time
• Generative AI
  • AI for creating content
  • Code generation with AI
• AI for Translation
• AI and Effective Search
• AI and Accessibility
• AI that Enhances Things
• Will AI Take Our Jobs?
  • Do clients want to add AI features to products?
  • Ethical issues and maturing AI
• Bonus: Going From Freelancer to Agency Owner
• Useful AI-Related Links
  • AI tools directories
  • Instruments that help you to code
  • Tools for marketing and content generation
  • Miscellaneous
• The Bottom Line

AI for Saving You Time

“AI is great for saving you time,” this phrase can be a motto of the Summit and the most frequently used sentence there. It all comes down to it and making work more efficient. I guess there’s no need to go too deep into this topic because each and every article on the Internet about AI tells something about it. I will just give you a list of the use cases that the Summit experts have mentioned the most (and here, we are talking mostly about ChatGPT functionality):

• explaining code and help with “spaghetti” code;
• verifying code;
• generating new code (should be taken with caution);
• generating labels for plugin and theme UIs for non-native speakers of English;
• giving the starting ideas for the emails that you don’t know how to start (all those uncomfortable ones where you have to reject candidates or stand up for your point of view);
• kick-starting any writing or rewriting existing texts;
• generating CSS/HTML/PHP/JavaScript or other code (faster than you write it, even if you know it – but don’t forget to review it).

But the most unexpected use cases came from Anil Gupta, who seems like taking the most of AI powers; he uses it for planning travel itineraries, getting tips on what should be packed for a trip to a particular destination, and even asking about the nutrition values of his breakfast ingredients. 

Key takeaways:

• You can use AI for almost anything nowadays, but it seems like not so many people actually use this opportunity.  
• Use the right tools because dedicated instruments for particular tasks (e.g., for WordPress coding) are trained specifically for that and will give much better results than ChatGPT or Bard.

Generative AI

AI for creating content 

Code generation with AI

AI for Translation

AI and Effective Search

There were two very insightful talks about AI search during this conference. The first one was by Andrew Shevchenko, and he talked about the whole process of creating a search functionality for complex and branchy documentation (which Crocoblock plugins have). OpenAI recommends the use of Embedding API for enhancing search engines. As we all probably know, WordPress default search is a complete disappointment, so we definitely need something better. 

Andrew walked us through the whole process of working with Embedding API to create a tool that is able to add a precise and effective website search, indicated the pros and cons of this API, and even made an experimental plugin so anyone can play with it and test it themselves. 

Aaron Edwards from DocsBot showed another case: his tool scans your website and, in just a few minutes, trains a bot that can answer users’ questions and give suggestions and links based on the website’s content. It can become a great asset for simple or not-so-branchy documentation, especially considering that it’s a SaaS tool that doesn’t require coding from your side and doesn’t consume your server’s resources.

AI and Accessibility

AI’s main purpose is to help people with daily tasks, and when it comes to accessibility, I guess it’s pretty obvious that it must be an asset in this matter. However, according to Hans Fuchs from accessiBe, only 3% of the Internet is accessible. That’s why they’ve crafted an automated widget that scans a site every 24 hours and analyzes the purpose of each element and potential problems that users with certain disabilities can have with them. After that, it offers a user a tool that makes the site accessible to any user and can even store individual settings. 

AI that Enhances Things

It seems like Elementor takes AI very seriously and offers not only content generation, translation, and so on, but it even has a tool to enhance prompts. We all know that a good prompt is the key to a great result. So, it was really smart to add the extra sort of mediator to make things work more efficiently. 

Will AI Take Our Jobs?

I guess the biggest elephant in the room when it comes to any discussion regarding AI nowadays is whether it will take our jobs. It’s a complex question, so let me break it down into a few topics that our experts talked about during the panel discussion, which was highly insightful. 

Do clients want to add AI features to products?

It may surprise you, but according to our panel talk experts, clients don’t really request adding AI features to their products – probably because they don’t see things that way. I really like this tweet used by James LePage from CodeWP in his presentation:

Kevin Geary even assumed that high-end clients might request not to use AI for their projects because they would prefer a human-crafted solution. However, to meet their requirements, you should be a very qualified specialist, be it a coder, writer, designer, photographer, etc. Will AI-generated sites be cheaper? For sure! So, low-end clients supposedly prefer this solution. 

On the other hand, we all know these all-in-one solutions, like Wix, are advertised to be an easy and fast tool for business owners who don’t want to spend money on developers. But when they actually start to use them, a lot of additional questions and issues arise. Well, probably because development is not only about tools but about expertise. Or, as Eduardo Daolio said in the comments, “It’s important not only to know how to use a hammer, but where to hit with it.”  

There’s one a bit unexpected side of this “AI-usage-by-clients” coin: after using AI to generate some code, clients have to go to support to fix the issues caused by that code. Apparently, the quote about a hammer fits here very well. 

Ethical issues and maturing AI

Anil Gupta from Multicollab shared an interesting case about the ethical concerns of their clients, particularly those at the enterprise level. At first, they got really excited about the AI features and even were about to request their integration into the product. But then, after reading the headlines about the AI ethical issues, they decided to wait until AI became more mature. 

Currently, even UNESCO has posted an article about ethical dilemmas related to AI, particularly lack of transparency, biased results, copyright issues, etc. While small businesses are unlikely to get lawsuits somehow connected to AI, for big enterprises, it’s a real thing, so they have to be careful. 

Key takeaways:

• If you don’t have a goal to evolve fast in what you do, you might be in danger as someone who works in the field of development, design, content creation, etc.
• If you are able to use AI for your own improvement and as an asset for your work, you are safe.

Bonus: Going From Freelancer to Agency Owner

This special session was not about AI but the second part of the Summit’s topic: agencies. In this passionate talk, Jeffrey Dalrymple walked us through his journey, starting as a freelancer and then transitioning into an agency owner. It was a really insightful talk for all freelancers – highly recommended. 

Useful AI-Related Links

I’ve collected some of the links that were mentioned during the Summit, and I hope they will be useful to you:

AI tools directories

• WP AI Universe 
• There’s An AI For That

Instruments that help you to code

• CodeWP
• WPTurbo
• Copilot
• Cursor

Tools for marketing and content generation

• DocsBot AI 
• Bertha AI
• Inboxy
• Smartly AI
• Runway
• Affinity
• HyperWrite
• Jasper

Miscellaneous

• Grammarly – to not only check your writing but to train you and improve your grammar. 

The Bottom Line

The post Insights From WordPress Web Agency AI Summit 2023 appeared first on Crocoblock.

Table of Contents

• What Is Elementor Managed Hosting?
  • Elementor Hosting review
  • Elementor cloud website builder
• Elementor Hosting Pricing
• Weighing the Pros and Cons of Elementor Managed Hosting
  • Advantages of Elementor Hosting
  • Disadvantages of Elementor Hosting
  • The target audience of Elementor Managed Hosting
• Elementor Hosting Alternatives
  • SiteGround
  • Bluehost
  • WordPress.com
• FAQ
• Conclusion

What Is Elementor Managed Hosting?

Elementor page builder now offers services usually purchased separately and possibly from different providers. These services allow for easy website setup and encompass hosting, SSL, security backup features, and the tools for designing the website itself, including pre-installed WordPress and Elementor Pro.

In simple terms, you can host a WordPress website with Elementor hosting, design web pages using the Elementor Pro plugin, and manage all processes through a user-friendly dashboard. Unlike many other hosting providers, Elementor Hosting doesn’t impose hidden fees for SSL, backups, bandwidth, and more. Now, let’s take a closer look at the specific features included in this bundle.

Elementor Hosting review

For its hosting, Elementor uses the formidable Google Cloud infrastructure widely acclaimed as one of the foremost cloud hosting platforms. The significance of this choice lies not only in the cutting-edge technology but also in the commitment to security. Google Cloud ensures that your website remains invulnerable to threats, boasting six layers of protection. And with data centers positioned worldwide, your website should be equally accessible to all users.

After easy Elementor Hosting setup process, users are granted these features in the Basic Plan:

• Zero downtime allows your website to stay accessible to visitors 24/7.
• You can easily link your custom domain to the website.
• 10 GB storage: space for diverse content, including images and videos.
• 30 GB bandwidth: handles high traffic volumes without slowing down.
• 25K monthly visitors: capable of hosting a substantial audience.
• Automatic daily backups are stored for 14 days, with manual backup options.
• You can export your website to another hosting platform using backup files.
• Free Elementor subdomain such as yourname@elementor.cloud.
• SSL certificate provided by Cloudflare encrypts data and establishes trust with your visitors.
• DDoS protection against malicious attacks is guaranteed by Cloudflare’s CDN.

Elementor cloud website builder

In addition to hosting services, Elementor Managed Hosting websites come with pre-installed WordPress and the Elementor Pro plugin. With these editing tools, you can effortlessly design and customize your site, making it uniquely yours, without writing a single line of code. 

Elementor Pro has many outstanding features, making it one of the most popular website builder plugins. Let’s mention some of them:

• intuitive drag-and-drop editor to design and customize your website;
• a diverse array of powerful widgets for enhanced functionality;
• a variety of AI-driven tools for generating images, codes, and text;
• 300+ templates to choose from for rapid design;
• theme builders to design and manage every part of website pages from one place;
• the “Hello” WordPress theme built-in;
• form builder to integrate forms for user engagement;
• popup builder to captivate your audience with interactive pop-ups;
• dynamic widgets and tags to make your website dynamic and data-driven;
• ability to integrate other plugins to extend the functionality of your site;
• eye-catching animations and motion effects;
• responsive designs to ensure your website looks impeccable on all devices.

In addition to a standard WordPress dashboard allowing site management, the Elementor cloud subscription will enable you to manage all your websites through the Elementor account dashboard. This is where you can lock your site for the search engines, create new backups, link a custom domain name, and more.

Furthermore, the Elementor Hosting license includes 24/7 Premium Support, covering all your website needs, whether you encounter challenges with the Editor or technical matters related to Hosting. Premium support eliminates the need to switch between services to identify the root of the problem.

Elementor Hosting Pricing

Initially, Elementor offered cloud services for a flat fee of $99 per year for one site. There was no information about the price changing for renewal either. 

Now, there are four Elementor hosting pricing plans, and some options previously available for a flat fee are accessible only to those buying the most expensive plan (storage, bandwidth, and monthly visitors). 

Here’s a breakdown of the four available plans billed annually:

• Basic Plan: $120 for the first year, renews at $180. It includes all discussed hosting and website-building features. 
• Business Plan: $240/$300 per year. It allows 20 GB storage, 50K monthly visits, 50 GB bandwidth, 30-day backups, and a staging environment.
• Grow Plan: $276/$396 per year. It allows building three websites with 25 GB storage, 75K monthly visits, 75 GB bandwidth, and site cloning.
• Business Plan: $600/$720 per year. It allows building ten websites with 40 GB storage, 100K monthly visits, and 100 GB bandwidth.

Weighing the Pros and Cons of Elementor Managed Hosting

Now that we have a clear understanding of what Elementor Hosting offers and the cost of its subscriptions, we can summarize its advantages and disadvantages and identify the target audience it caters to.

Advantages of Elementor Hosting

Elementor Hosting offers a streamlined way to establish a live website. It bypasses the intricate steps in hosting, ensuring security, downloading design tools, and managing backups. With this tool, you gain access to a trusted hosting service and the WordPress building plugin favored by many professional web developers. Furthermore, it provides a library of Elementor’s template kits to make the website-building process even faster.

Elementor Hosting shines as a one-stop solution. You can overcome the technical complexities tangled with WordPress hosting with a single payment. Finally, you get premium support, where you can ask questions about hosting or site-building.

Disadvantages of Elementor Hosting

However, no solution is without its limitations. Elementor Managed Hosting restricts bandwidth and monthly visitors, even within its most premium plan. The 100,000 monthly visitor cap may prove insufficient for highly active websites. Moreover, despite its label as an all-in-one solution, the users still have to pay extra fees to get a custom domain from a registrar.

Users have reported that Elementor Hosting’s website speed falls short of industry-leading standards. This flaw can be attributed to its layered structure – a builder plugin atop WordPress, all resting on cloud hosting. While a 1 to 5-second download speed may suffice for certain websites, it can harm others.

Importantly, not all WordPress plugins are compatible with Elementor Hosting. It disallows those designed for builders other than Elementor; some may be flagged as conflicting by the Elementor team. A thorough compatibility check is advisable before committing to an Elementor Managed Hosting license.

The target audience of Elementor Managed Hosting

Elementor Hosting caters to a specific audience niche. It’s for the users seeking an all-inclusive WordPress package that simplifies website creation. Familiarity with Elementor Pro also proves advantageous when creating a website with the Elementor cloud services.

The prospect of a single fee covering all facets of launching your live site may be compelling for:

• web designers looking for a time-saving solution that allows them to focus on front-end design;
• small WordPress agencies;
• developers, simplifying hosting and setup for clients;
• marketing specialists who want to streamline the website creation process;
• bloggers to quickly set up and manage a personal or professional blog.

However, it’s essential to recognize the limitations. Elementor Hosting may not suffice for larger enterprises or agencies handling substantial traffic loads or extensive inventories. Even the top-tier plan’s visitor limit of 100,000 can fall short of bustling membership platforms or global online stores. In such cases, alternative hosting solutions may be a more suitable choice.

Elementor Hosting Alternatives

SiteGround

SiteGround stands as one of the premier WordPress hosting providers in the industry, offering an excellent environment for websites of all types and sizes.

When purchasing a SiteGround license, you will get access to a WordPress Starter wizard – a helpful tool that simplifies the WordPress installation process into just a few clicks. This user-friendly feature ensures that even beginners can easily set up their WordPress site.

SiteGround excels in performance and uptime, ensuring the WordPress website remains available and loads rapidly. This commitment to performance makes it a reliable choice for those prioritizing speed and reliability. It also allows users to pick their custom domain name on the SiteGround platform, which is also a valid domain registrar.

Pricing:

• StartUp: €48 for the first year, €192 on renewal. Ideal for hosting a single website with 10 GB of web space and 10K monthly visits.
• GrowBig: €84/€336 per year. It supports unlimited websites, offering 20 GB of web space and up to 100K monthly visits.
• GoGeek: €130/€480 per year. It supports unlimited websites, offering 40 GB of web space and up to 400,000 monthly visits.

SiteGround outpaces Elementor Hosting in terms of loading speed, thanks partly to Elementor Pro’s potential impact on the latter’s performance. SiteGround also offers more generous monthly visitor allowances in its highest-tier plan.

The initial pricing for SiteGround and Elementor Managed Hosting may not differ significantly for users who decide to buy Elementor Pro separately. But it’s worth noting that SiteGround’s renewal costs are notably higher.

Bluehost

Bluehost stands out as a robust WordPress hosting provider endorsed by none other than WordPress.org itself. This hosting platform provides a one-click installation of WordPress software. Together with a user-friendly dashboard, this makes website management a breeze, even for beginners.

Unlike hosting platforms with tight limits, including Elementor hosting, Bluehost offers the freedom of unlimited monthly visitors and unmetered bandwidth. Another Bluehost’s perk is site analytics provided by natively supported ManageWP, simplifying website management tasks.

Pricing:

• Basic: $33 for the first year, $144 on renewal. Hosting a single website with 10 GB of web space.
• Choice Plus: $60/$264 per year. It supports three websites, offering 40 GB of web space.
• Online Store: $120/$324 per year. It supports three websites, offering 40 GB of web space, an online store theme, and a bundle of eCommerce plugins.
• Pro: $168/$348 per year. It supports five websites, offering 100 GB of web space.

Bluehost excels at handling busy websites with substantial traffic and monthly visits. Moreover, its pricing is exceptionally competitive. However, it’s worth noting that some features in Elementor Hosting’s basic plan, such as automated daily backups, are included only in Bluehost’s premium plans.

WordPress.com

Those looking for maximum simplicity or want to try how WordPress works should check out WordPress.com managed hosting.

Users can effortlessly build and oversee websites without the need for technical configurations. WordPress.com offers a user-friendly experience as it handles hosting, security, updates, and backups. However, this ease of use entails constraints on customization and plugin choices compared to Elementor Hosting.

Pricing:

The good news is that WordPress.com has a free plan for everyone to try.

• Free: provides a free subdomain and basic hosting services. The website is limited to 1 GB of storage and will feature heavy WordPress advertising.
• Personal: €48 per year. It supports one website, offering 6 GB of web space, no-ad experience, and a free custom domain for one year.
• Premium: €96 per year. It offers 50 GB of web space, additional customization options, and live chat support.
• Business: €300 per year. It offers 50 GB of web space, access to plugins, WordPress.org themes, SEO tools, 50 GB of storage space, and unrestricted bandwidth.
• Commerce: €540 per year. It is the same as the previous plan, plus essential features for building e-stores.

WordPress.com platform is an ideal tool to build simple and small websites quickly. But even the most expensive plans offer less customization and control over your site than the alternative hosting providers.

FAQ

Conclusion

In conclusion, Elementor Managed Hosting presents a unique and compelling solution in the web hosting arena. It integrates hosting services, a top-notch website builder, and comprehensive customer service support under a single license. This all-in-one approach is ideal for those who seek to dive right into website creation, omitting many technicalities.

For enthusiasts of Elementor products, this is an excellent choice. However, if your website demands unlimited bandwidth or expects traffic exceeding 100,000 monthly visits, it may be wise to explore alternative hosting providers and buy the Elementor Pro license separately.

The post Elementor Managed Hosting Review: WordPress Hosting for Websites Built With Elementor appeared first on Crocoblock.

But even if you are an experienced web developer, we would love to hear your feedback in the comment section. I will try to make this article easy to understand without too many technical details because there’s a lot of information on the Internet. But our goal today is to cover the most frequently asked questions about PHP in the context of WordPress. 

While PHP is the most popular backend programming language in the world, WordPress is the most popular CMS platform in the world. So, this couple is really interesting. 

Table of Contents

• What Is PHP?
  • PHP versions
• How Is PHP Involved in Rendering WordPress Pages?
• Object-Oriented Programming Concept
  • OOP key concepts explained
  • Cheatsheet: 10 most frequently used PHP functions in WordPress
• What Is a WordPress Theme?
  • WordPress themes hierarchy
  • WordPress template tags
• WP_Query, Main Query, and WordPress Loop
  • Crocoblock Query Builder
• FAQ
• Takeaway

What Is PHP?

PHP is a programming language; to be precise, it’s a server-side scripting language, which means that it processes data on the server and generates dynamic content before sending it to the client’s browser. It is also often used in conjunction with databases.

For many years, even with the invention of more modern solutions, it still remains one of the most popular languages for web development. Here are some of the reasons why:

• It’s quite fast when it comes to server-side web processing.
• PHP is supported by most of the shared hosting providers, so small and middle-sized projects can rely on it instead of building the whole custom structure from scratch. 
• PHP has excellent support for interacting with databases.
• The PHP ecosystem is huge, stable, and mature, and we are talking about frameworks and libraries, as well as tons of tutorials, documentation, and troubleshooting because of the massive community. 
• The most popular CMS platforms, such as WordPress, OpenCart, Drupal, Magento, Joomla, and many others, are based on PHP. Also, such websites as Facebook and Wikipedia are based on it. 

As of now, PHP is used by almost 77% of all the websites in the world that are based on server-side programming (according to W3Techs), which means that 8 out of 10 websites you visit are running on PHP. 

PHP versions

You may have heard a lot about updating the PHP version to improve WordPress performance and security. But what does it actually mean? 

PHP is an open-source language, and it’s one of many reasons why there must be a strictly defined lifespan for each release so the language can evolve. That’s why each PHP stable release is supported for two years, which means that bugs and security issues are being fixed regularly (and users receive such updates in point versions). After two years, there’s one more year of only critical updates for security fixes. And then, it reaches the “end of life,” meaning updates for that version are no longer being released. 

You can always check the current supported version on the official website of PHP Group. 

Not only the security issues are the reason for updating the PHP version. Website speed also depends on the PHP version because each release comes with performance improvements. However, while the difference between the 5.6 and 7.0 versions was the whole 400%, now, this number is smaller, e.g., the 8.1 version is just around 20% faster than 7.0. 

Does it mean that the developers stopped working on the optimization? Not at all; they just have done a great job already. 

To boil it down, if you continue using the unsupported PHP version, you do it at your own risk, and only you are responsible for security fixes connected to the PHP, as well as the performance drawbacks. Also, some versions come up with some changes in syntax, so plugins and theme developers keep up with such releases and update their code. This is one of the reasons why it’s so important to update plugins and themes regularly. 

How Is PHP Involved in Rendering WordPress Pages?

To understand what’s going on under the hood when the user opens a website and how PHP is involved there, let’s break this process down into the main steps. I will not go too deep into technicalities because it’s important to get the idea. 

1. The user requests the WordPress page by clicking the URL.
   The browser parses the HTTP/HTTPS protocol, domain (e.g., mysite.com), path (e.g., /blog), and the specific query parameters (e.g., id=123&hl=en).
2. The server receives the requests.
   It checks it to figure out how to handle it. If the request should be handled by PHP (in most cases for PHP-based sites), it routes the request to the PHP interpreter.
3. Processing the PHP requests.
   For this, the server must load the PHP interpreter, gathering information about the request (whether it’s GET or POST), the query parameters, cookies, session data, files uploaded, etc., so the request can be processed properly.
   WordPress also executes an initialization script (wp-config.php) that loads configuration files, sets up error handling, and establishes database connections.
4. PHP execution.
   At this stage, the interpreter executes what was specified in the request: retrieves or writes content from/to the database, renders templates with the dynamic content that PHP snippets (which you can see in any template file that is typically a mix of HTML and PHP) generated, and executes plugins. 
5. Generating the response. 
   No, the content is being “packed” for sending back to the client (browser), and GZIP compression or encoding is being applied if such was intended. 
6. Sending a response and cleanup of the environment. 
   Now, it’s time to send the preprocessed HTML files (as well as all others, such as CSS, JavaScript, fonts, images, etc.) to the browser and do a cleanup: close all the database connections and stop using server resources for PHP execution.  

Now, it’s the browser’s turn to work on the files it received and render a page you see on the screen. 

Object-Oriented Programming Concept

All the necessary information about WordPress classes, objects, template tags, and other important components can be found in the developers’ documentation. But to understand some terms from there, it’s better to have an idea of what object-oriented programming is (and PHP is an object-oriented programming language). 

Object-Oriented Programming (OOP) is a programming paradigm that uses objects and classes to structure and organize code. OOP is a powerful and widely used approach for creating modular, maintainable, and reusable code. Here’s an explanation of OOP in PHP.

OOP key concepts explained 

Classes

A class is a template that defines the structure, behavior, and properties of objects. It encapsulates data properties (attributes) and functions (methods) that operate on that data. Classes serve as a blueprint for creating objects.

Classes are like a fictional universe with its own rules and superheroes, for example, Marvel, DC, or Harry Potter’s world. Superheroes have particular properties (e.g., in Harry Potter’s world, they own magic wands, have robes, etc.) and methods (actions they are capable of, e.g., flying, using spells, etc.). All of them have these qualities. 

Objects

An object is an instance of a class. 

Object is a concrete, tangible entity created based on the class’s blueprint. Each object has its own unique state (attributes) and can perform actions (methods) defined by the class.

In a frame of an object, you define what properties and actions the particular superhero objects should have. So now, we are talking about specific superheroes, not all of them. For example, object Harry Potter can speak to snakes and read some of Voldemort’s thoughts. 

Or, a Catwoman can be played by Michelle Pfeiffer, Halle Berry, or other actresses, but her “object” properties are pretty much the same: she is wearing a black catsuit, loves diamonds, and can jump very well. 

Properties (Attributes)

Properties are variables that store data within a class. They define the characteristics or state of an object. 

I’ve already mentioned them: in the Harry Potter universe (class), Harry Potter (object) can have certain properties (magic wand, do magic, glasses, etc.). 

Methods

Methods are functions defined within a class that perform specific actions or behaviors associated with objects of that class. Methods allow you to encapsulate functionality related to the class.

Using our example, in the Harry Potter universe (class), Harry Potter (object) can have certain properties (magic wand, do magic, glasses, etc.) and perform certain actions, such as flying on a broom or using spells. 

Well, if you don’t like Harry Potter, you may like Superman. So, read this code that determines his world using OOP terms. 

To understand it better, please note: 

• the dollar sign ($) is used to denote variables, including both object attributes (properties) and standalone variables. Object attributes are accessed using the arrow operator within the context of an object (e.g., $objectInstance->propertyName;), while standalone variables are used independently without an object (e.g., $objectInstance;).
• “echo” returns values of variables, strings, expressions, etc., in a simple, human-readable format.  

class Superhero {
    // Properties (Characteristics)
    public $name;
    public $powerLevel;
    public $costumeColor;

    // Constructor to initialize properties
    public function __construct($name, $powerLevel, $costumeColor) {
        $this->name = $name;
        $this->powerLevel = $powerLevel;
        $this->costumeColor = $costumeColor;
    }

    // Method 1: Flying
    public function fly() {
        return $this->name . ' is flying through the sky!';
    }

    // Method 2: Shooting lasers
    public function shootLasers() {
        return $this->name . ' is shooting powerful lasers from their eyes!';
    }

    // Method 3: Saving people
    public function savePeople($numPeople) {
        return $this->name . ' saved ' . $numPeople . ' people!';
    }
}

// Create a superhero object
$superman = new Superhero('Superman', 100, 'blue and red');

// Access properties and call methods
echo 'Superhero Name: ' . $superman->name . '<br>';
echo 'Power Level: ' . $superman->powerLevel . '<br>';
echo 'Costume Color: ' . $superman->costumeColor . '<br>';

echo $superman->fly() . '<br>';
echo $superman->shootLasers() . '<br>';
echo $superman->savePeople(5) . '<br>';

Such an OOP structure makes it possible to create well-organized and reusable code without a need to declare and individually write a set of properties, methods, and rules for each particular thing you use in the code. 

Cheatsheet: 10 most frequently used PHP functions in WordPress

In WordPress development, several PHP functions are commonly used to interact with the WordPress core, manipulate data, and customize themes or plugins. Here are ten of the most frequently used PHP functions in WordPress, and understanding what they do will help you to get the idea of what’s going on in the code better as a non-developer:

• wp_query()
  This function initializes the main query in WordPress. Developers often use it to create custom queries for retrieving posts or other content.
  
• the_title()
  Used to display the title of the current post within The Loop. It’s frequently employed in theme templates.
  
• the_content()
  Displays the content of the current post within The Loop. It’s used to output the main content of posts and pages.
  
• get_template_part()
  Enables you to include reusable template parts in your themes. It’s handy for keeping your code organized and DRY (Don’t Repeat Yourself).
  
• get_permalink()
  Retrieves and displays the URL (permalink) of the current post or a specified post by passing its ID as an argument.
  
• get_option()
  Used to retrieve values from the WordPress options table, making it helpful for accessing settings and configuration data.
  
• wp_enqueue_script()
  Registers and enqueues JavaScript files in WordPress. It’s essential for adding custom scripts to your theme or plugin.
  
• wp_enqueue_style()
  Similar to wp_enqueue_script(), this function registers and enqueues CSS stylesheets in WordPress themes and plugins.
  
• add_action()
  This function is crucial for adding custom hooks and actions to WordPress. It allows you to execute your own code at specific points in the WordPress lifecycle.
  
• add_filter()
  Used to add custom filters, allowing you to modify data or output generated by WordPress, themes, or plugins.

What Is a WordPress Theme?

WordPress theme is a front-end part that determines a website design and the visible content structure. It’s basically a collection of files with templates, layouts, and customization settings. Themes also give you a toolset to slightly edit how the website looks and interacts with a user without having to dig into code. For example, you can modify colors, fonts, some styles of layouts, set up the main page, site identity, etc. The number of such settings available for direct customization is determined by the theme. 

WordPress themes hierarchy

When the block (FSE) themes first appeared, they offered a different approach to the templates, where global settings and styles are stored in the theme.json file (which is unique for such block themes).

Just like classic themes, block themes use files for determining different templates. So, understanding the hierarchy is essential, no matter how the theme is built. 

Classic themes consist of PHP templates, and this is their hierarchy: 

The logic of it is quite simple: to move from right to left. If there are no templates for a particular post type/page, WordPress will use the templates that are one level higher and continue until it reaches the top level. 

This structure is efficient because it’s universal and implies fallback solutions if some templates are not there. 

As you can see, there are two largest categories here: for singular and for archive. The basis of such templates are the WordPress loop and the WP_Query.

WordPress template tags

If you see something like get_header();, get_content();, or get_footer(); in the theme template, let me introduce you to functions that are called WordPress template tags. They are used to fetch dynamic content within the template and are declared in the wp-includes folder. 

They fetch certain content and give theme developers a chance to create dynamic websites instead of duplicating content on every page. 

WP_Query, Main Query, and WordPress Loop

When the user opens a page, some data is retrieved from the database. And, as we talked about it before, in WordPress, PHP is responsible for it, and it’s querying that specific information from the database. 

WordPress relies heavily on the Loop. It’s a PHP code structure used to retrieve and display a collection of posts or other content from the WordPress database. 

The loop gets data from the main query, which is a default query, or wp_the_query. If you see the PHP code structure that begins with if (have_posts()) and contains while (have_posts()) – it is The Loop. It’s used to fetch and display posts.

The main query is determined by the wp_the_query global variable. In simple terms, when you open a website, this is the information that is inquired from the database by default. If you want to customize the output of this query, use WordPress hooks. 

WP_Query is a class in WordPress that allows you to create custom queries. This query generator will be really helpful for understanding how it works.  

Crocoblock Query Builder

The freedom of fetching and displaying very specific content on particular pages of your website is a must for complex and highly dynamic websites. That’s why Crocoblock developers have created a Query Builder, which is a part of the JetEngine plugin. So now, you can build queries of any complexity without having coding skills. All you have to do is to open the interface and choose what exactly you want to fetch, and then (using JetEngine listings, dynamic tags, and widgets/blocks) define how this content will displayed and style it. 

FAQ

Takeaway

PHP is the basis of the WordPress CMS platform, and it has its own specific classes and functions. Understanding their basics can be really helpful if you are not a developer: it will give you a better understanding of WordPress and how it works. That’s why this article is here to list some of its essential things and outline the idea of how WordPress works under the hood.

The post WordPress PHP Explained for Non-Developers appeared first on Crocoblock.

Table of Contents

• Crocoblock Car Rental Website Functionality
  • Wrapper functionality: header and footer
• Crocoblock Car Rental Website Core Functionality
  • Enhancing content management
    • Creating custom listing layouts
    • Adding listings to website pages
  • Building the site structure
  • Advanced filters for car rental catalog
  • Booking functionality
  • Basic content elements and visual effects
  • Adding pop-ups for improved conversions
• Car Rental Website FAQ
• Bottom Line

Crocoblock Car Rental Website Functionality

RentGo is a car rental dynamic template, which is basically a pre-made website built with Crocoblock plugins and Elementor. To make it clear to you, I’ll expose every plugin and added functionality. 

Wrapper functionality: header and footer 

Crocoblock Car Rental Website Core Functionality

Enhancing content management 

The JetEngine plugin lets you create a dynamic structure for the website. For starters, create a custom post type titled Cars. Once done, you’ll get to find this post type in the WordPress admin panel.  

For this particular post type, we’ve added 16 different meta fields, but you can surely add more or delete any. Meta fields allow us to display the car-related details on the front end, and filling them out properly is essential.

NOTE

You are supposed to input all data once, and then it will be automatically displayed on the single page template.

To make it happen, use JetEngine dynamic widgets and blocks. They can pull out the car parameters to the front end and help to automate the process. Consider Dynamic Field, Dynamic Link, Dynamic Image, or any other widget you need. 

The next step is taxonomy creation. A taxonomy can help you categorize the available cars and ease out filtering. For the RentGo template, we created five taxonomies – Color, State, Body Type, Class, and Location – thanks to which sorting all car categories will be plain sailing in the long run.

Creating custom listing layouts

Now that we’ve created car post types, we want them displayed on the website. And that’s when listings take the spotlight. They let us create terrific layouts, making the same post types look fancy on different pages. To create a listing, follow these steps.  

The best part about listings is that you style up a listing item just ONCE, and these settings will automatically apply to all your items.       

Let’s focus on RentGo listings now. The first you can see is placed on the Home page. This “Main Listing” item was made using JetElements and JetEngine dynamic widgets:

• Dynamic Field widget;
• Dynamic Image widget to illustrate the listing item;
• Headline widget to bring out the texts;
• Headline widget + Dynamic Function tag > “Custom field (Area)” to pull out the price;
• Dynamic Link widget;
• Button widget.

Pro tip

Except for Headline, Dynamic Tags work with other Elementor and Crocoblock widgets. You can pull any metadata from the custom fields; just submit it beforehand.

NOTE

Please note: all data is input manually on the backend. Dynamic widgets just help pull it to the front end, but if you want to change the car details, you do that on the backend and stay aware that minor changes will apply to all listing items.

The next listing, “Main Listing v2” item, is crafted for the Search Results page. This listing displays almost the same information but uses a different layout:

Lastly, there’s a service listing named “Main Listing Class” item. Its major purpose is to output the taxonomy terms – Economy, Intermediate, Standard, and Luxury. We strongly advise not to alter the car rental template’s settings for it to function correctly. 

Adding listings to website pages

Now, it’s time to “accommodate” the listings. Let’s open the Home page. As you can see, it houses four car categories. 

To deliver such a structure, you must use a Listing Grid widget and carefully tune the settings. We want prospective clients to search directly in the category they prefer. So we created a custom query for posts using Query Builder from JetEngine and set it to be Tax Query type. These listings are for the Class taxonomy, and the query determines which vehicles to output by the slug.

Let’s take the Economy class as a reference to see how it all works. We’ve added a Listing Grid widget to the Home page, picked the “Main Listing” item in the General tab, and chose a Custom Query – “Economy.” In the most basic terms, this query ignores all vehicle classes except for Economy and outputs them in the listing grid. 

Repeat the routine for each remaining vehicle class.

Have you noticed the price tag next to the class title? The truth is you can set the starting price for each category and let the potential clients pick from the one they can afford. More to it, if you add a new car to any class, you won’t have to edit the starting price manually – the Dynamic Function tag feature will detect the change and do it for you!

Regarding the Search Results page, we’ve used the pre-cited Listing Grid to output the “Main Listing v2” item. Unlike the previous layout, this one showcases the post types as single-column tiles. You can switch between Classes at the top of the page.

Dynamic content and listings – checked! Now, it’s time to delve into the page building.

Building the site structure

We’ve already spoken about JetThemeCore at the beginning of the functionality overview. In addition to the header and footer, JetThemeCore helps us create car single pages and archive templates where all data is shown dynamically. 

The RentGo dynamic template houses five theme templates applied to four theme parts: CPT Archive, CPT Single, Entire Site, and Front Page.

To create all templates, you’ll need static and dynamic widgets. Here’s the trick: static widgets are rigid and will look the same everywhere you place them.  Conversely, dynamic widgets showcase the data you’ve added to custom fields. That’s why they look different on different pages.  

Let’s see which widgets make a car single page:

It contains Dynamic Image to display the car pic, Dynamic Field to pull the data from the post’s meta fields, Headline to output the selected custom field, and JetForm to embed a booking form. 

Archive templates

Advanced filters for car rental catalog

You’ve made it to the search routine, woop-woop! To implement the filtering functionality, you will need JetEngine and JetSmartFilters. These plugins go well together, making you more likely to create fully workable filters.

For this template, we’ve added Location, Image Filter, Year, Drivetrain, Transmission, Engine Capacity, Price, Body Type, Fuel Types, Pick-Up, and two hierarchical filters – Location Search Hierarchy and Search Hierarchy. You can find them all in the Smart Filters tab:

On the Home page, we’ve got a Quick Search option, which consists of two Select filters (Search Hierarchy), one Date Range filter, and the Apply button. After hitting the button, users change over to the Search Results page.

Now, this is where things get interesting. The Search Results page encapsulates the advanced filters, which are as follows:

• Active tags for displaying the parameters that are already applied;
• “Remove all filters” button;
• 4 Checkboxes filters for Transmission, Fuel Types, Body Type, and Drivetrain with a pre-set Indexer option;
• 3 Range filters for Engine Capacity, Price, and Year;
• 1 Visual Filter that lets you switch between the car categories;
• Pagination widget for smoother navigation.

Remember that JetSmartFilters has a lot more to offer, and these are not the limit. You can add/remove any filters you want to make them comply with your site’s concept.

NOTE

To ensure proper filtering, pay due attention to taxonomies and meta fields. Poorly developed items will take a toll on the search routine.

All filters we’ve enumerated above use the AJAX request type, meaning they apply immediately without reloading the page. The page URL doesn’t change whatsoever.

Pro tip

The Indexer makes the filtering even smarter. It grays out the search parameters incompatible with those you already applied.

Booking functionality

Basic content elements and visual effects

Adding pop-ups for improved conversions

The last stop for today is JetPopup. We’ve created two pop-ups storing car rental terms. You can spot them next to the car model name on its single page. Dubbed “Important Information” and “Insurance,” these two icon-bearing links open a pop-up window once clicked. As a space-saver, the solution is a real catch.

Start by creating a pop-up, then go to Elementor and use its Icon List widget to place the pop-up. You can create as many pop-up sections as necessary, set different visibility conditions, and embed them wherever needed. Just try to go easy on it.

The pop-up templates for RentGo are stored in the JetPopup > All Popups section in the admin panel. You are free to modify their content, settings, and visibility conditions.

Car Rental Website FAQ

Bottom Line

The post Using Elementor & Crocoblock as a Car Rental Website Builder appeared first on Crocoblock.

WordPress and Elementor offer a lot of static website templates. You can install such a template atop a WordPress theme for a preferred design layout. But when dynamic templates appeared in the arena, it changed the game forever. 

A dynamic template is a pre-made website. It covers web design layouts and the website’s logic, including relations, custom post types, taxonomy terms, categorization, etc. 

Now, pre-made dynamic website templates are the best way to get a fully-fledged but customizable site because they provide the following benefits:

• easy to use and customize: even a newbie web designer can turn a good template into a website using free tutorials;
• professional design: good templates look so professional, so you hardly need to customize them;
• low price: pre-coded templates will cost you less than developing a site from scratch;
• basic SEO optimization. 

The most prominent theme and plugin developers build their templates. Here, I want to showcase 13 dynamic templates by Crocoblock and tell more about their features.

Table of Contents

• What Is the Best Elementor Template?
• Closer Look at Crocoblock Dynamic Templates
  • Car Dealer
  • BaliRento
  • Only Books
  • Travengo
  • LaborTime
  • Findero
  • Zolden
  • Once
  • RentGo
  • Bristol
  • Foreo
  • MedCenter
  • CutCloud
• Bonus: Design Templates by Crocoblock
• FAQ
• Conclusions

What Is the Best Elementor Template?

To create a website, you either need to know how to code or be ready to customize a pre-coded template. Themes and templates do not need coding, only editing. But the first problem is the mutual compatibility between WordPress themes, templates, plugins, CMS (such as WordPress), and a website builder. Needless to say,  themes and templates should support the Elementor visual builder.

Crocoblock templates tick all those boxes. Moreover, did you know dynamic templates for WordPress are a unique Crocoblock development?

For instance, WordPress themes have customizable pages and sometimes offer free or paid demos for different purposes. You can install other plugins atop the theme to add value to the site and make it more attractive. 

Elementor templates usually allow you to customize only one page and support its free version and Elementor Pro. You can apply them to one WordPress theme. Currently, Elementor boasts 170+ different site templates. However, one should use additional plugins to add dynamic content to Elementor layouts.

As you can see, Crocoblock dynamic templates do offer more. All templates are pre-configured websites for consumer-oriented businesses. You can install the template to the current theme and get a ready site. A standard dynamic template has several pages (homepage, search results page, archive pages, product pages, blog page, user’s account, forms, sitemap, filtering tool, etc.).

All top dynamic templates envisage pre-configured relations, taxonomy, forms, and more. They are fully responsive and customizable websites. Crocoblock templates include more benefits:

• you can install them to the currently used WordPress theme;
• they support the Crocoblock theme called Kava;
• SEO optimized;
• these are the best templates for Elementor;
• one support team covering every question according to subscription terms;
• the All-Inclusive subscription gives access to all Crocoblock dynamic templates downloads.

Closer Look at Crocoblock Dynamic Templates

As mentioned previously, Crocoblock features dynamic templates and regular design templates. 

Today, dynamic templates interest us the most. Crocoblock has 13 dynamic, fully customizable website templates for Elementor suitable for business use. All Crocoblock dynamic templates comprise:

• single pages as custom post types, including options referring to the specific business (i.e., car rental, doctor appointment, tour booking, etc.);
• a homepage (including customizable header/footer, sidebar, menu, etc.) to place posts and provide search/filtering;
• forms for internal communication;
• WooCommerce integration and payment options;
• queryable options referring to the specific content group;
• reviews and comments section.

Car Dealer

Car Dealer is a top dynamic car dealer template having the following pages:

• product pages;
• product catalogs for showcasing car ads and filtering them.

Functionality: 

• pre-made single templates, including necessary car data;
• custom fields and pre-made custom post types to fully cover car options;
• taxonomy for grouping car posts;
• listing grids and layouts: one template for category listings;
• advanced multi-level filtering and search;
• profile and form builder to develop different user profiles (including reCAPTCHA v3, email notification, and profile customization) and communication forms;
• dynamic features: glossary, map listing, taxonomy, dynamic visibility, meta boxes, query builder.

BaliRento 

BaliRento is a vacation rental Crocoblock dynamic template for Elementor. Here are the pages it contains:

• property single pages covering different rental and property options;
• property catalogs presenting posts on the same page and providing data search/filtering.

Functionality:

• a pre-made, fully customizable single template for showing tour details;
• custom fields and pre-made custom post types to categorize housing ads;
• taxonomy to present data through dynamic widgets;
• listing grids for “Similar Villas,” “Most popular,” and other pages; 
• inbuilt filters to search necessary data (i.e., meals and facilities checkbox filters);
• extra filtering features: pagination, search button, additional providers, indexer;
• profile builder: dynamic user profile, frontend ads posting, roles, login, smart notifications;
• booking functionality: WooCommerce integration, custom booking settings, a step-by-step wizard to manage the booking settings, and weekly/one-day bookings.

Only Books

Only Books is a bookstore dynamic template for Elementor, which has the following pages: 

• book single pages comprising dynamically changing book descriptions, rating, and wishlist functionality, sticky “Add to Cart” section, reviews and comments system, and filterable product tags;
• a book catalog displaying the book details as clickable category cards and banners;
• customizable author and promo pages;
• custom shop pages with WooCommerce-integrated and work-ready Checkout, My Account, Cart, and Thank You page templates.

Functionality:

• three book types (paperback, e-book, audiobook), dynamic description, rating & wishlist, reviews & comments system, filterable product tags;
• archive templates: Shop List and Shop Grid layouts, cross-sell templates;
• rating & wishlist functionality;
• layout switcher to Shop pages;
• custom header expands the default Shop header with a custom mega menu, quick AJAX search, “Bookmark” and “Cart” icons, and sorting category tabs;
• built-in AJAX filters: “Sort by” Popular, New & Sale, Search filter for Author, Price Range filter, Checkboxes filters for book attributes;
• extra filtering features: indexer, pagination, search button, see all results option.

Travengo

Travengo is a dynamic travel website template for Elementor, which has the following pages:

• tour single pages to showcase dynamically changing tour details;
• catalogs to collect custom posts and present them on the main page.

Functionality: 

• single post templates, custom fields, meta boxes, custom post types;
• pre-designed and fully customizable archive templates for destination catalogs;
• taxonomy to show all customizable options using dynamic widgets;
• ready-made listing grids for “Popular Tours,” “Popular Destinations,” “Related Tours,” etc.;
• adjusting standard parameters for all posts;
• inbuilt filters: Quick Search filter, сategory-specific Checkboxes filters, Price Range filter, and Sorting filter;
• extra filtering features: pagination, search button, reset, indexer;
• booking functionality: custom field types, departure dates, attaching as many people as wanted to a single booking form, and providing their personal details.

LaborTime

LaborTime is a Crocoblock dynamic template for job board creation. It has the following pages:

• job and applicants single pages where the related data is pulled from custom fields, glossary, meta boxes, etc.;
• filterable job and employee catalogs.

Functionality: 

• custom fields and pre-made custom post types;
• AJAX filtering for showing relevant job results to customers;
• dynamic listings;
• flexible layout for profile creation; 
• theme builder for quick and intuitive website creation;
• custom taxonomies;
• ten premade custom queries;
• Dynamic Visibility module;
• possibility to create dynamic pop-ups.

Findero 

Findero is a Crocoblock real estate template for Elementor with the following pages inside:

• agent and property pages to display data about agents and properties;
• agent and property catalogs to present all data on the property/agent at the same place and present them attractively;
• profile builder to specify user roles and restrict access to data;
• dynamic reviews to indicate who reviewed the property and liked/disliked it.

Functionality: 

• single post templates, custom fields, meta boxes, custom post types;
• pre-designed and fully customizable archive templates;
• taxonomy to display necessary options through dynamic widgets;
• listing grid layouts showing the property details and badges;
• hierarchical filters and the ability to showcase ads by date;
• advanced filters and search: showcase search results, multi-level filtering by various parameters: purpose, location, property type, and amenities), quick search functionality, output property ads on the Map Listing;
• profile builder to restrict access to data (add custom profile menu with settings and login form);
• forms for communication;
• posted, pending, and deleted ad statuses (allow submitting new ads and editing the posted ones);
• dynamic reviews in the reviews section on the single page, the possibility to leave comments, reply to posted reviews, like/dislike other reviews, output the likes/dislikes counter, and allow users to star-rate agents;
• dynamic features: glossary, map listing, taxonomy, dynamic visibility, meta boxes, query builder.

Zolden 

Zolden joins the Crocoblock WooCommerce templates and comprises the following pages:

• similarly designed single product pages to display the garments in the best light; 
• single pages contain a reviews section and related products block;
• product catalogs to present product attributes as clickable banners and compact category cards, apply filters to them, and discount badges;
• custom shop pages to structure site logic, including My Account, Cart, Checkout, and Thank You pages. 

Functionality:

• ready-to-use customizable templates for WooCommerce employing JetWooBuilder widgets;
• focus on products and their attributes: clickable banners and compact category cards;
• advanced sorting, search, and filters by categories (Men and Women), visual for brands and colors, price range and rating, checkboxes and select,
• two pre-designed archive category templates;
• compare and wishlist functionality;
• site elements and four flattering product gallery layouts: dynamic clothing color change, compact size chart pop-up, sticky elements, reviews and comments system.

Once

Once is a spa appointment website template having the following pages:

• treatment and therapist singles are single pages for a beauty spa website;
• treatment and therapist catalogs are to show available treatments and therapists.

Functionality:

• single post templates, custom fields, meta boxes, custom post types;
• archive templates: a ready-made header and footer containing social media icons, a newsletter section, and more;
• taxonomy to display options through dynamic widgets;
• listing grid layouts for “Team” and “Treatments” displaying the appointment details and badges;
• hierarchical filters, search, and the possibility to query ads by date; 
• multi-step and single-page booking forms;
• WooCommerce integration, a guided wizard to set up the schedule, customize providers and services, 12 custom field types, and a ready-to-use schedule.

RentGo 

RentGo is a car rental website template which has the following pages:

• vehicle single pages;
• vehicle catalogs to present the car rental data on the same page.

Functionality:

• single post templates, custom fields, meta boxes, custom post types;
• archive templates: a ready-made header and footer comprising social media icons, a newsletter section, and more;
• taxonomy to display necessary options through dynamic widgets;
• listing grids for “Search Results,” “Rental Cars,” and other content groups;
• built-in filters: quick search filter, category-specific checkboxes, and filters to show some attribute ranges (i.e., price from-to);
• extra filtering features: pagination, search button, reset, indexer;
• booking functionality: WooCommerce integration, step-by-step wizard functionality, manageable booking settings, and weekly/one-day rentals.

Bristol

Bristol is a grand hotel booking project for Elementor. It has the following pages:

• room single pages; 
• rooms catalogs to present the available room types and service pages as neat catalogs.

Functionality:

• single post templates, custom fields, meta boxes, custom post types;
• customizable archive templates: a ready-made header and footer template featuring the advanced map;
• taxonomy to display necessary options through dynamic widgets;
• listing grids for “Room Categories,” room types, and additional services;
• AJAX filters: quick search filter, search by category, date range filters;
• extra filtering features: check availability button, indexer;
• booking functionality: WooCommerce integration, custom booking settings, wizard setup, weekly/one-day bookings.

Foreo

Foreo is a mini-hotel booking template available under the Crocoblock Lifetime and Yearly subscriptions. Here are its pages:

• suite single pages;
• rooms catalogs to display the room data pieced together as a catalog.

Functionality:

• single post templates, booking forms, custom fields, meta boxes, custom post types;
• customizable pre-designed archive templates with ready-made header/footer;
• taxonomy to show data through dynamic widgets;
• listing grids for “Suites Residences,” “All Rooms,” and a slider for the photo gallery;
• AJAX filters: quick search filter, search filter on the catalog page, date range filters;
• extra filtering features: book a stay button and indexer;
• booking functionality: pre-configured WooCommerce checkout, custom booking settings, step-by-step Wizard functionality, weekly/one-day bookings.

MedCenter

MedCenter is a doctor appointment Elementor template having the following pages:

• department and doctor single pages;
• department and doctor catalogs to showcase all doctors you can visit, their specialization, and available time slots.

Functionality:

• single post templates, custom fields, meta boxes, custom post types;
• available service list, icons, multiple service providers, and individual operational schedules;
• showcasing doctor details by pulling data from meta fields, querying all services assigned to a specific doctor, adding certificates to a clickable photo gallery, reviews, displaying appointment duration and price, and adding a link to the appointment booking form;
• appointment/booking functionality: multi-step booking forms, availability calendar, appointment confirmation, different payment options, WooCommerce checkout supporting PayPal, Stripe payments, etc., automated appointment booking via Google, third-party calendar services;
• query and output appointment data from the database using a custom SQL query and table builder, apply smart filters to the table;
• the best dynamic website builder, JetThemeCore, allowing you to assign the header, body, and footer templates to certain pages;
• dynamic features: dynamic visibility, relations between departments and services CPTs, a query builder for blog articles, table builder, and pre-filled specialty values from the glossary.

CutCloud 

CutCloud is an appointment scheduling Elementor dynamic template having the following pages:

• barber and service single pages;
• team and service catalogs to present the available services and barbers.

Functionality:

• customizable single page templates: meta fields for service details, pre-made custom post types;
• pre-designed and fully customizable templates for team and portfolio pages;
• taxonomy to show necessary options in the front through dynamic widgets;
• listing grids for the “Team,” “Works,” and “Services” pages;
• appointment functionality: multi-step forms, appointment forms on the provider and service single pages, and ready-to-use customizable schedule;
• WooCommerce integration.

Bonus: Design Templates by Crocoblock

Additionally, Crocoblock boasts 47 design templates for all site types. They are ready-made websites without dynamic functionality but rather well-designed layouts. All these Crocoblock design templates have the typical features:

• contain pre-designed customizable sections of the site (e.g., products, benefits, etc.);
• use widgets to present content items attractively (e.g., sliders, videos);
• easily customizable header and footer;
• can be installed fast and effortlessly;
• qualify for support services.

FAQ

Conclusions

Professional sites have dynamic content, so dynamic templates are a must-have. Dynamic templates not only make website building more straightforward and less error-prone but also spare website developers time on manual coding.  In this article, you have found the 13 best Elementor templates by Crocoblock.  

What makes them peculiar? Dynamic templates help you:

• develop a functional and attractive website faster since no manual coding is involved;
• save time because all the needed elements are already pre-configured;
• customize every little thing using a visual page editor – it’s fast and convenient. 

Besides, it’s planned to add new dynamic templates in the Crocoblock roadmap. Which one would you like to see? One more question: what is the best template for Elementor? Feel free to share in the comments below. 

The post 13 Best Dynamic Elementor Templates by Crocoblock 2023 appeared first on Crocoblock.

Black Friday is a worldwide phenomenon that gives businesses possibilities to attract more customers. During this period, the social media budget typically increases by 30%. The sellers also try to grow the audience: launch ad campaigns, collect leads, set up retargeting, and change texts and visuals.

A successful Black Friday sale launch can cause high stress for many online store owners.

They must deal with massive traffic influx, plan a marketing strategy, and prepare social media and websites for sales.

Analytics working for the World Economic Forum say that online spending rose with the start of the pandemic but has since fallen. 

Table of Contents

• Planning Stage: General Tips
• Website Tips & Tricks
• Technical Aspects
• Afterword

Planning Stage: General Tips

The Black Friday marketing strategy rests on three whales: pricing policy, social media presence, and technical aspects of the site. Let’s focus on the planning stage to develop your Black Friday campaign and prepare a WordPress website for Black Friday.

Analyzing data

First things first, you need to evaluate last year’s results. You can’t go further without this analysis. Black Friday is not a unique event; you have data to rely on. How to prepare a WordPress website for Black Friday? It is crucial to analyze two data groups:

• general statistics and practices of other companies to understand market conditions and get insights;
• historical data on your business: you will find what works specifically for you.

Also, collect:

• general statistics for your country: peak purchasing activity, average check, number of items per transaction, etc.;
• niche statistics: what goods do people buy and how;
• business and marketing agency cases: for inspiration, exciting ideas, and adapting existing solutions.

After you gather the necessary information, you can make data-driven decisions and elaborate pricing strategies.

Pricing 

Keep in mind that customers love real discounts on Black Friday, as well as simple and understandable terms and conditions. Try not to be extra with language and rules.

For eCommerce, there are several popular Black Friday pricing strategies:

• Classic discounts. Yet, don’t make the discount too big; otherwise, customers will think you’re selling something cheap.
• Buy one item and get a discount on a second one — a good offer for sets of goods or last season goods pre-sale.
• Buy one item and get the second one for free. This option is suitable if you still have a stale product or need to launch a new product quickly.

How and what to sell

Since the options are different for two types of businesses — online stores and service companies — consider them separately.

What to sell as an online store:

• All goods with the same discount. This option is not suitable for all companies. Everything depends on the products sold, the pricing features, and the benefits that the entrepreneur wants to achieve through the promotion.
• Discounts on all goods up to -90%. The deal on various items may vary, but at least one of them should cost 90% less than usual. Be sure to put the sign “-” (minus) on the banners to attract special attention.
• Gift Certificate. Gift Certificates themselves are a profitable selling tool. They serve as an idea for a gift and attract new audiences. In addition, about 20% of them are not used, which implies net profit for the online store.
• Sets of goods. A nice idea for increasing the average check size and getting rid of not the most expensive goods. The main thing is that the goods in it logically complement each other.
• Discount when buying from a certain price. It motivates the buyers to spend more to get a bigger deal. 

What to sell as a service company:

• Discount on the service in the future if paying today. Set a time limit for the customer to use the service.
• Discount coupon. Ordering a service during Black Friday, the client receives an additional benefit — a discount on a future order.
• Additional Gift Service. In this case, the bonus is the main attention-grabbing item of the order. It motivates the customer to buy another, not the most popular service. At the same time, the gift should have maximum value for customers and require a minimum cost from the company.

Whom to sell

Black Friday’s peculiarity is an overheated audience and an incredible number of promotional offers. Don’t try to attract new customers during this period because it leads to outrageous advertising spending and minimal income. Give all your attention to loyal customers, subscribers, and regular visitors.

Increasing average check

Don’t forget to develop a strategy for increasing your average check. Black Friday is a crazy time when people are ready to spend more than usual, and stores can play their cards right. There are two ways to increase the average check in the online store: increase the number of items in the bill (cross-sell) or increase the value of goods (upsell) by adding extra services or accessories.

Social media strategy to-do list

#1. Announce discounts for customers who are already exploring the market.

The sooner you start informing about the upcoming sales, the less likely you will miss part of your audience to competitors.

Plan the main questions on Black Friday, post an announcement on the site and social media, promote future discounts — attract as many people as possible, and heat their interest.

#2. Partner with someone

Find in your niche the sites that talk about offers on Black Friday, gift guides, and the best products of the week selections. Contact them and tell them about your goods and future discounts. It will provide additional coverage and help to increase interest for the mentioned groups of goods.

#3. Create an atmosphere of anticipation

Attract your customers by email, provide discounts on social networks, and start inciting curiosity. A couple of tips and ideas on how to promote discounts in the online store:

• Don’t reveal attractive offers right away. Withstand the intrigue and invite subscribers on social media to guess what surprise awaits them on this day. Of course, you will need to invent something more interesting than a regular discount.
• Use original advertising visuals. The main Black Friday pain is the template solutions.

E-mail marketing tips for Black Friday campaigns

Of course, you should announce your Black Friday sales via your e-mail campaign. But it’s quite tricky, and this activity needs to be very well-considered because users are overloaded with e-mails on sales days. So, here’s a small checklist to help you:

• send e-mails before the craze starts;
• make them stand out using your signature elements and visuals;
• consider using flash sales: for example, particular brands or product types get 70% off within the next hour;
• test the subject lines to be really catchy and appealing;
• make products on sale just a click away, and also give clients a chance to “touch” them: at least photos of the most attractive goods and deals would be a good idea;
• find a way to reward your loyal customers: offer extra perks to those who already bought a lot during the year; free deliveries, discounts for next purchases, and other incentives might help you to gain a true brand advocate or at least a regular and loyal customer;
• consider using more or less personalized promo codes in your e-mails;
• and don’t forget about the design to win the customers’ hearts (which looks attractive on any device).

Website Tips & Tricks

We talked a lot about the background website’s preparation, planning stage, and technical aspects. Yet, we have some ideas and tips for you to make your website more interactive and appealing for Black Friday. 

Special Black Friday header or landing page

No matter how enticing the ad is on third-party resources, the client makes a decision when visiting your site. You need to announce Black Friday and its basic conditions from the get-go. Therefore, first of all, prepare the header for the home page or landing with the following details:

• date and time of the event starts;
• the number of discounts offered;
• additional promotions and offers (if any).

And, of course, come up with an eye-catching design for the title image. Traditionally, for Black Friday, white, black, and red are used as the main colors. But there are no strict standards, and you can create using different combinations. 

Also, you can use Scroll Navigation widgets from our JetElements pack and place them on the first scroll to catch the visitors’ attention.

Banner on the shop page or home page

The next step is to prepare special banners for the rest of the web pages. You can’t know where the visitor will start purchasing. The design rules are similar: relevant image, basic conditions, and start date. Our Banner widget comes to the rescue here.

Indicate on your banner that you will provide the customers with huge deals and free shipping on Black Friday. According to a Walker Sands study, 90% of buyers noted that free shipping was the main incentive to buy.

Content reveal and WOW-effect

When you add gamification elements on the page, you already involve users and motivate them to make the next step. JetElements plugin has a great Animated Box Widget to impress users when showing offers or whatever you need. Just use your fantasy and play with the effects’ settings and images. You can use scratch, peel, reveal, and slide-out effects. Look at just a few examples of slide-outs:

Pop-ups and CTA button

Pop-up is a robust marketing tool, especially if you approach it wisely. Configure the appealing pop-up with the JetPopup plugin, add a tempting offer, and place a CTA button to convert the customer. Apart from that, we provide Interactive Popup Library to gamify the hot deals and discounts, or you are welcome to create a pop-up from scratch.

Simplified navigation

Straightforward navigation is the condition that your visitor will not stack somewhere on the website without the possibility to purchase the necessary item. You can simplify the navigation significantly using the JetMenu plugin: set different menus per page, output items for sale in the mega menu, and access them right away.

Sale badges

Everyone loves discounts, especially on Black Friday. Use our Single Sale Badge widget to set clear and attractive sale prices for the products and display them on your WordPress website.

Product reviews

Reviews on the goods you sell are necessary because they increase the loyalty rate and make your business more solid. Our JetReviews plugin provides the full functionality to develop a classy review system for your website. Besides, you can further review them on the special dashboard to see the whole picture.

Countdown timer

A countdown timer shows how much time the customer has before the sale begins or ends, how much time the special offer will be available, etc. It is a nice tool for creating anticipation and attracting attention. We have a clear and customizable Countdown Timer widget you can apply to increase demand on Black Friday.

Black Friday wishlists

Okay, Google, are wishlists important for online stores? Google Customer Insights gives us an answer: 40% of shoppers surveyed think their shopping experience would be better if retailers offered a wishlist where they can save items they’re interested in. It’s an extremely useful instrument for customers to add products when the idea of buying them pops up in their minds. And then, when the right time comes, they can make a purchase. 

Another idea here is to create pre-Black Friday warm-up offers, where goods can be added to a particular wishlist and then purchased when deals are on. 

And in this case, Crocoblock got you covered as well: with the JetCompareWishlist plugin that offers excellent capabilities to create wishlists and compare things, and, of course, with JetEngine’s amazing Data Store functionality. 

Offers based on previous purchases

Wishlists play an irreplaceable role in studying the clients’ priorities and behavior to grasp patterns and use them not only to improve the store assortment but also to create personalized offers for clients. As Google Customer Insights suggests to us again, 49% of online store clients are sure that their shopping experience would be much better if they received deals and promotions based on their previous purchases (and, of course, wishlists).

Technical Aspects

The next step is to check whether your website is ready to deal with the Black Friday traffic influx and critical load. The primary aspects you have to check are the website’s security, hosting, speed, responsiveness, secure payment gateways, and disaster recovery plan (backup).

Let’s get to the bottom of each of them.

Security

You can check our complete security of WordPress website guide. Yet, let’s recall the simplest measures you can take right away to protect the website from scammers and hacker attacks. 

Change your login

Do you still have it as “admin”? Login is the first thing bots check, looking for safety holes. Log in to the admin panel and create a new administrative account with another name. Then log out of the management system, log in again, and delete the old admin account.

Complex password

No one wants to remember 20 different passwords, but it is vital to ensure the website’s security. Use uppercase, lowercase, punctuation, etc., or apply complex password generators.

Update WordPress

Outdated scripts cause a huge number of vulnerabilities. Update your WordPress version to the latest one; having lost a minute, you will save hours in the future.

Be cautious about themes and plugins 

Many sites offer you to download already ready-made themes. Some of them have unpleasant hidden “surprises.” Use only trusted sites, such as WordPress.org, to download themes.

Also, be aware of the plugins you install because some of them open the door to hackers. Download plugins only from trusted websites and pay attention to all warnings that appear. Also, remember to update plugins.

SFTP is not FTP

All uploads to your site must be via SFTP if your provider allows you to do so. If not, go to a more secure hosting provider. SFTP is an encrypted connection, so hackers won’t be able to intercept it.

Change the prefix of the database tables 

This step is only for new installations and experienced users. Removing the default WordPress prefix will significantly complicate the hacker’s path. Open the wp-config.php file, find a $table_prefix line, and change the prefix. Also, do it in the database with the help of a simple SQL query. 

Protect directories from viewing

To prevent hackers from viewing folders on your server by typing their full path, protect them with .htaccess, or place an empty index.html file in the directory.

Use an SSL certificate

To prevent hackers from viewing folders on your server when typing their full path, protect them with .htaccess, or place an empty index.html file in the directory.

Read also: How to Add SSL and HTTPS on WordPress Website?

Responsiveness

Mobile traffic is the future. In 2016, Google reported that mobile-friendly sites would be ranked higher. Moreover, sites that have only a desktop version will take the lower positions in search results. Therefore, those who continue to use a non-adapted risk losing most of the traffic. Also, the statistics show that 54.8% of the website traffic worldwide was mobile. Considering that it will increase dramatically, it is required to make sure your website is mobile-friendly before Black Friday starts.

The easiest option to make the WordPress website responsive is to choose a different adapted theme for it. Another option is a plugin that optimizes the site for mobile devices, but there is a small problem here — your site will most likely begin to load a little longer than before. Therefore, installing the plugin is a good solution, but only in the short term.

Speed

Time is money: Forbes says that mobile websites’ load time influences customers’ experience and sales. For 70% of users, the page loading speed affects the decision to buy.

What are the consequences of increasing the site download time by only one second? For Amazon, this could result in a loss of $1.6 billion a year.

Of course, if your site is not as large as Amazon, you will lose a smaller profit. But this is not a one-time loss, but regular throughout the entire site operation.

Overall, site download speed is a competitive advantage. You can optimize the site in several ways. We described them in our guide too. 

Secure payment gateways

Secure payment gateways are a must for a successful Black Friday launch. WooCommerce payment gateways are widely used because they serve most countries and process payments safely. To make your business look more professional, choose the direct gateways, e.g., PayPal, Stripe, Authorize.net CIM, and Braintree.

Disaster recovery plan (backup)

Not all cyberattacks will damage you, but even one successful (sorry for painting it black) will ruin your life. Make regular backups of your site! I mean, seriously. The full backup is just a copy of all the files, media, and database. In case of problems, you can quickly restore the website.

Why is backup essential?

• Loss of time

Restoring your site after the hacking involves a lot of big changes (removing infected plugins and corrupted files) that will take a lot of time. The situation can become even sadder if you do not have your backup since hackers often infect backups of your site stored at the host. 

• Loss of income

Again, time is money, which means you lose revenue every minute while your site is unavailable. Moreover, you will spend time re-installing and configuring the website (most often from scratch) instead of spending time selling.

Address the backup plan we published in our blog and stay on the safe side.

Hosting

Good hosting is another critical aspect of preparing a WordPress website for Black Friday. You should find the answers to the following questions:

• Can your hosting plan handle surges in traffic that may occur during Black Friday/Cyber Monday sales?
• Can it keep you safe from virtual vulnerabilities?
• If your site goes down, will you be compensated by an uptime guarantee?

So, when choosing a hosting provider, it is recommended to pay attention to the equipment used by the company. Make sure that they use time-tested server solutions. 

Once you have decided on the hosting, calculate the amount of disk space, features, and apps you need and match your hosting capabilities.

Check the quality of technical support, feedback about the provider, and objectively assess whether the price and quality of the services provided correspond.

Your website’s work depends on the hosting’s quality.

Afterword

You see, it’s quite a challenge to prepare a WordPress website for Black Friday. Yet, nothing is impossible: come up with a strategy, ensure the technical side, and implement some appealing tricks. Maybe, you used some ideas we stated above, or you have other tips. Please, don’t hesitate to share your recommendations to make our article a complete guide.

The post Preparing WordPress Website for Black Friday: Tips, Tricks & Strategies appeared first on Crocoblock.