The following is external content provided as a free resource for blog readers.
Can you make money just by sharing your experience and giving advice?
What if I tell you that is possible and people are doing that? Look at folks like Pat Flynn, John Chow, and Neil Patel who’ve built their affiliate empire on a simple formula, TO GIVE HONEST ADVICE. And you’re being here on this page confirms that you want to start affiliate marketing, too.
Great! Before you officially call yourself an affiliate marketer, you first need to setup an affiliate website. But way before doing so, you need to select a niche!
Don’t worry! We’re here to guide you through each step needed to get into the affiliate marketing world.
Affiliate Marketing Overview
Since you’re new to affiliate marketing (or maybe, have a little knowledge) let’s take a quick look at what it is.
In simple words, affiliate marketing is promoting a product on your blog and earning a commission whenever anyone purchases that product on your advice.
Now let us describe affiliate marketing in a detailed way to help you in understanding it in full context.
There is a manufacturer, there is a consumer and there is you (the future affiliate marketer) who the consumer trusts. The core idea is to share an honest review about the manufacturer’s products so the consumer can make the right decision with respect to the purchase.
Since you wrote a fantastic post that talks about both positive and negative aspects of the product, people can read it at any given time. And you’re not required to stay online as your words work for you and make money for you. (This is how you earn by advising people on something, remember?)
In other (and simpler words), whenever someone is redirected to the manufacturer’s website (and places an order), you get a cut from that sale.
How Affiliate Marketing Works?
You got the big picture, right?
Let us give you a more detailed timeline of how you earn an affiliate commission.
In order to understand the affiliate marketing ecosystem, you must familiarize yourself with its lingos (the essential elements) without which everything would sound an alien language to you.
The whole affiliate marketing world consists of 3 individuals!
Merchant – A merchant is the one offering a certain product (both tangible and intangible) for generating profit off every sale. He could be anyone from a large organization selling branded clothes to a small vendor offering top-up cards for AT&T or Etisalat, maybe.
Consumer – A consumer is the lifeblood of affiliate marketing because the whole process depends on his one click on the ‘Order Now’ button. This being is constantly seeking the best deal for fulfilling his need and eventually stumbles upon your blog post containing affiliate links.
Affiliate Marketer (YOU) – Now comes the most active part of our puzzle (affiliate marketing) who shares his knowledge, experiences, and pro tips on a specific topic (that we call niche). The affiliate marketer writes in-depth blog posts (or creates detailed video) to suggest a few products of the same nature to help the end consumer in finding the best deal.
In order to set your affiliate sales on autopilot, you must select a niche that you have studied deeply. You start your affiliate blog, promote it in likeminded people, and create a devoted reader-base that is actually interested to read/watch that content. And there are high chances 1 out of every 3 readers would click on the affiliate link to buy the product (as they’d be reading your post with that intent all along).
Steps to Select a Niche
Congratulations for enlightening yourself with the key aspects of starting an affiliate blog. Now, let’s move towards the actual step for selecting a niche and starting your affiliate marketing journey like a pro.
# Research Different Niches
In order to be an affiliate marketing superstar, you first need to decide on a niche. Because everything that you’d ever do to promote your affiliate blog would be influenced by that niche.
First, start brainstorming some ideas, some categories that you enjoy writing (or discussing) about. For that matter, you can take help from Google and see the volume of searches for each topic that you’ve listed as a prospective niche.
Or, you may take help from a data aggregator website such as Alexa or Quantcast. There, you can evaluate what companies are in top searches and also mark down the industries, too.
That primary data would help you in defining a certain category that you can further refine. Next, you need to go deep into the selected niche to understand what kind of queries people have and how you can answer in a more trustable way? To do so, you may opt for websites like Quora or niche forums where people post questions and get answers by fellow members.
# Check Commission Average
Once you list down a few niches, you need to check their commissions. This is because you don’t want to make pennies out of the hard work you’d put into your affiliate blog, right?
So, do check what’s the average commission you may earn on every sale.
If you opt for non-tangible products, we recommend you to access an affiliate marketplace such as Click Bank where you can search for different categories.
And if you want to sell both tangible and intangible goods, Amazon is the best place to conduct market research about commissions.
Access their affiliate marketplace section and type the phrase related to your niche. There, you can find a few listings having the accurate commission across the product’s name which is enough for you to make a call and select the niche.
# Evaluate Searches
Once you finalize a niche and know what commission average it offers, the next step is to plan the traffic.
Let’s suppose you finalized health as your primary niche and now you want to plan the topics (or say, the sub-niches).
You can take help from Google’s keyword planner (which is still FREE) and generate different topic ideas along with concluding the search volume. You need to go a little deep into the niche and type it in the planner for generating different topic ideas.
You may categorize your primary niche (which is health) into
Best skincare products
Best protein shakes
Stress relieving techniques
Now, when you put these phrases (or similar ones) into the keyword planner, you’ll get new topic ideas for your affiliate blog. Along with that, you can also get search volume to consider a keyword phrase for the inclusion in your blog’s topics.
Start Creating Content
Now that you’ve all the right ingredients with you (I mean you’ve decided a niche and a few topics) its time to start your affiliate marketing journey.
Understand your readers and design your post into that format which they deem as comfortable and easy for digesting the information. Plus, you need to put the affiliate links in strategic places right where their interest develops to go onto the main website and place the order.
Because all your efforts are useless if your affiliate blog fails to generate a sale.
So, once you decide a niche and start creating content, you constantly need to monitor for your reader’s behavior for optimizing the blog in a sale generating machine.
Some Popular Niches
If you’re feeling overwhelmed from the above (virtual) tour of the whole affiliate marketing journey, we’ve some suggestions to make. Try researching one of these niches and go deep down in whatever interests you.
Technology
Health
Digital Marketing
Personal Finance
Movie & Music
Pet Care
Fashion & Beauty
Travel & Tourism
Self-Improvement
The above-mentioned niches are the high-paying ones that you can further refine according to your interest if you’re confused about selecting a primary niche at the start.
Important Tips
You’ve a full understanding of the affiliate marketing world, you’ve a roadmap to start your journey and you even have suggestions for top-paying niches. But before you leave this page, here are the key tips that you must memorize and apply to everything you do while starting an affiliate blog:
Never seek the inspiration for selecting a niche outside when the answer is inside your head. The first rule for starting an affiliate blog is to look for your hobbies and incorporate the above-mentioned steps to find something you truly enjoy. Because its not a one-time gig that you’re going to start but a marathon that requires time and patience. And if you start an affiliate blog by copying someone successful, you may end up in exhaustion and disappointment. So, always follow your heart when finding a niche in order to enjoy your work.
Never fall for lucrative commissions if the niche is already saturated! Because you’ll face a lot of competition (with little chances of success) if you opt for a high competition niche. Pick a niche where there’s little competition in terms of creators and promoters so that by the time you reach the apex, you can establish yourself as an authority in the industry.
Along with a low competition niche, you must select a niche having multiple sub-niches. This would help you in creating different flavors of content on your blog and double the chances of sales. For instance, health can be segregated into many different focused-niches that you may link with each other for generating the link juice and benefiting your SEO. Or in other words, if one topic fails to get you a sale, it’d at least redirect the reader to another one where there are high chances of generating a sale.
How to Make Affiliate Marketing Website With WordPress?
WordPress is the most popular website builder in the market. Many top brands use WordPress for their websites and eCommerce stores.
There are 2 types of WordPress and it’s important to know the difference. WordPress.com is a hosting solution and WordPress.org is a self-hosted platform.
We have explained the full difference between this two in details, check out our complete article on the How to Start a WordPress Blog?
You will need to use self-hosted WordPress.org for your affiliate marketing website. It’s highly flexible and works seamlessly with third-party resources and other WordPress plugins.
Before you start, you will need a domain name for your store’s website. Your domain name is your website’s address on the internet, such as amazon.com or pixel2pixeldesign.com.
You will also need web hosting. Your web host stores all your affiliate marketing website’s files, such as your product review pages and images.
We recommend using HostGator. It’s one of the most popular web hosting companies and HostGator gives you 99.9% uptime guarantee and easy cPanel to install WordPress.
For Pixel2Pixel Design users, HostGator offers a fantastic deal. You can get a free domain name, free SSL certificate, and a 65% discount on web hosting when you sign up.
We have also written a detailed article on HostGator Hosting Review you can also check this article first before purchasing HostGator hosting.
Best WordPress Theme for Your Affiliate Marketing Website
We recommend using Astra. It is a modern multipurpose WordPress theme for all types of websites. It comes with several ready to use website template that you can use to get started quickly.
It supports drag and drop page builders to create and customize landing pages. It’s fast, lightweight, and easy to set up even for absolute beginners.
Astra offers full-width page templates, responsive font sizes, multiple header options, different blog layouts, and much more to help your site look great.
You can also use their Astra’s pro add-ons to get access to their ready to use template that you can import and build your website within a minute.
You can also read our detailed review on Astra Wordpres Theme and check out all the premium features that you will get with Astra Pro WordPress theme.
Conclusion
So, this was all! Start your affiliate marketing journey with the right footing and always remember the tips you just read. Plus, always remember the drill i.e. research, refine, and redo until you find the right niche for your affiliate blog.
The following is external content provided as a free resource for blog readers.
One of the most trendy jobs nowadays is having an online business, such as a blog or a website. When sufficient effort is put, online mediums can yield a fair amount, and one can lead a luxurious life of the income. The hard bit is becoming visible and getting that exposure so that your website gets interaction and recognition. The struggle is inevitable in such situations, the initial management of a website is hard, but web hosting services can help. No wonder when we are talking about web hosting services, HostGator takes the crown for being the best.
A web hosting service that helps make an individual or an organization’s website accessible via the world wide web. The space provided to the website is either bought or leased by the clients. HostGator is one such web hosting company that has helped multiple websites get visibility and presence online. HostGator is one of the most famous hosting companies currently available and is the first choice for many. Today we will review HostGator and talk about what makes the best hosting company in the world, the best.
We will take a look at all the features and perks that HostGator takes pride in. We will see for ourselves if their claims are valid or not and give you the most honest review. We will cover the following aspects:
Features: What are the multiple features that can help you in creating and managing your website?
Performance: How well does the company perform, and how exactly does that help your website?
Customer Service: What are your options when the site crashes or the expectations are not met? How do you reach the company?
Usability: How user-friendly is the hosting company? Does one have to have the excellent technical knowledge to use the services?
Reliability: Is the hosting service completely reliable? Do website holders need extra precaution or support while using the company’s services?
Free Migration: How can a website migrate from one plan to another? What are the eligibility criteria?
Pricing: Are the services provided by the company affordable? Is the investment worth it? Is there a cheaper alternative with the same or better results?
Overall: What is the overall verdict for the web hosting company? Are there competitors who can provide better services?
We will find out the answer to all of these questions and let you know what we honestly think. Let us now jump into the topic without any more delay!
HostGator Hosting Reviews 2020 What’s up With HostGator? Is It Worth Your Money. Why?
HostGator: The Origins
In October 2002, an ambitious and smart student of Florida Atlantic University, Brent Oxley, founded HostGator. The company aimed to provide the best servers for websites and help them grow. The first office of the company was in Boca Raton, Florida and later, the office shifted to Houston, Texas. HostGator got their first office in 2006 and soon after, they opened their first international office in Canada. Within two years, HostGator was in the list of fastest-growing companies, ranking 21st in the US.
By 2008, HostGator started providing unlimited offers and increased its staff, increasing its sales by 30%. 2011 witnessed HostGator going global with their office and operations in India and other nations. HostGator was sold off to Endurance International Group in 2012, at an estimated price of $299.8 million. HostGator has since only kept growing, adding more services and features to become the best possible in the game. 18 years later, this company is now one of the leading service providers globally and is trusted by millions.
HostGator has multiple packages and hosting plans; these HostGator hosting plans are all enriched with various features. These features give websites the boost needed for best performance worldwide. The numerous plans and features are:
# The Best at Saving Pennies: Shared Web Hosting
The best plan for beginners is the HostGator Shared Hosting plan. In our HostGator Cheap Hosting review, we will discuss features of the same. One website shares its resources with the new websites in the same space or server in this plan. HostGator shared hosting is a good option for a website that has low traffic and is new. The website can upgrade to other plans as they grow in size and traffic. There are three sub-branches to this plan that the user can use as needed.
Hatchling, which enables the hosting of just one website, comes with standard features. Baby, which allows the user to host unlimited sites, add-ons such as private SSLs are available with the hatchling features. Lastly, Business, that is good for new businesses that want to establish e-commerce. The plan has a free SSL certificate and dedicated IP for the same.
Free site builder with $100 for Google ads and Bing ads credit.
We will start by HostGator WordPress Hosting review, the shared hosting plan for websites that are powered by WordPress. HostGator managed WordPress hosting plans for a long time now and it is a plan worth considering. The HostGator managed WordPress plan includes a lot of features that we shall discuss today.
The services optimize the website’s performance while simultaneously protecting the website from WordPress hackers’ expected attacks. The HostGator WordPress hosting plan includes these special features apart from the usual shared hosting features.
The managed WordPress hosting has an interface dedicated to minimizing complications on WordPress sites. Increasing usability and eliminating major complications. The easy to use cPanel interface makes it convenient to back-up one’s WordPress sites. One can also manage traffic spikes and their email IDs with the interface. This plan has 100% free migration as is every other plan.
Provides great speed up to 500k visitors per month.
# The Affordably Exclusive: Virtual Private Server
Up next is the HostGator VPS hosting review, here we talk all about HostGator’s VPS server. The combination of a cloud host and a shared host is the virtual private server. The HostGator VPS hosting plan essentially gives one the resources of a shared host but in a private server on the cloud. The websites that are growing and have relatively high traffic spikes should go for this plan.
The entry-level VPS nodes gives one the flexibility and significant performance at a cheap rate. The VPS server hardware infrastructure is constantly improved with help from companies like AMD and Intel. The hosting plan also has an off-site backup for the site’s data so that no mishap can change the way things rolled.
Now, the HostGator Dedicated Hosting Review will be a delight sheerly for its features. The most independent websites should go for HostGator’s Dedicated hosting, as there is complete autonomy. HostGator’s dedicated hosting plan gives a website its own server, with no other site taking a share. The idea might seem very liberating, but it also demands responsible and learner moderators to handle the site.
The hosting plan also provides the users with a data center level DDOS protection and an IP-based Firewall. Making sure there is optimum protection for your website and no worries about data being hacked or stolen.
Lastly, the HostGator Reseller hosting review, giving you an elaborate account of HostGator’s reseller hosting services. HostGator Reseller Hosting plan is the kind that a user can use on behalf of other clients. As in, one website holder can manage the website of their clients.
This is a second-hand income opportunity and can be used to make a few extra bucks. Features like SSL certificates, and domains, along with the services that best fit the client’s needs, makes the plan appealing.
The reseller accounts come equipped with private nameservers based on the domain name for additional privacy. The accounts further have unlimited FTP accounts, email accounts, domains, and SQL databases for your perusal. Lastly, the WHM panel allows complete monitoring of server status.
60GB to 140GB disk space.
600GB to 1400GB bandwidth.
Free client management and billing.
Several brandable video tutorials for the clients.
A cloud hosting uses multiple servers to provide optimized performance and resources to a website. Websites that receive frequent spikes in traffic should go for this plan as it is good at handling broader interactions.
All these features and plans make HostGator massively feature-rich and the right choice for any and every kind of website.
# Performance
A hosting service’s performance can be determined by how fast, and visible the website is on the web. Having a slow as a snail website that often becomes invisible indicates enough bad server performance. Having a lousy service does not only mean your money has gone to waste; it is also time to shift. The entire process is unbelievably troublesome and hectic, so it is essential to check for the best performance before investing. HostGator has terrific speed and loads your page under a second and is faster than 92% of other tested sites.
In peak traffic time, the sites still perform exceedingly well, with even 100 users accessing the website. The site starts slowing down oy after it exceeds 80+ visitors on a shared host. No matter the traffic, the site does not go down quickly and does not crash at peak hours. The site’s response time depends on how fast it loads the pages; the more significant the page size, the slower it loads. Bigger pages mean the pages that have more images and videos in it; regardless, fast load time is good. HostGator has a great load time globally, and with any size of the page, it is always under a second.
# 24/7/365 Premium Customer Support
HostGator has one of the best customer care services available in any other web hosting company. The customer care services are active every day, and one can live chat or call to interact. The respondents are very patient and guide you through to solutions very carefully till you are satisfied with the answer. There is also an option for ticket-based email support, which would be suitable for you if you have time. The email system also helps people who have anxiety talking and better follow written instructions, although this is a slower process.
The owner of HostGator, Adam Farrar, fully guarantees each of the accounts himself; with a special ticket, one can consult him. Adam himself listens to your problems and tries to come up with a solution for you. We’re sure no other company’s founder personally comes to assist with issues the user is troubled with. The company’s dashboard also features a support portal, which has solutions to every generic problem faced by a user. The portal has about 700 articles and more than 500 videos to assist one with whatever they may need.
# Usability
HostGator makes it easy for a user to manage all their websites, emails, support portals, and Billings. The cPanel, which is extremely easy to use, assists in this task to make the management very easy. The user has access to several website scripts, all different from each other, that can be used in new websites. The one-click installer helps you to open a new website with these scripts conveniently.
HostGator is further equipped with HostGator website builder, a complete drag and drop builder. The feature is jam-packed with more than 100 templates that are mobile-friendly and easy to use. Lastly, the flawless collaboration with PayPal ensures smooth financial transaction between you and your customer with the HostGator built site. All in all, even a newbie at website building can access and build websites with ease at HostGator. The management of these websites is effortless as well.
# Reliability and Money-Back Guarantee
We have compared HostGator along with many of its competitions, and no other company is as assuring. The factor that makes HostGator even more trustworthy is that the company is confident in its services. The company guarantees a 99.99% uptime; anything shorter than that will give you back one month’s credit. The company also has a 45-day money-back guarantee if you are not satisfied with the services or performance. The period of money-back is more prolonged than the rest as the rest of the companies have 30 days.
The overall HostGator reviews by customers on the performance are excellent too; almost all customers are satisfied with the services. The company delivers what it promises, and if their promise isn’t matched, they will payback. What is not to like about such honest policies?
# What about Free Migration?
Migration is the process of shifting from one hosting company to another. The shift is usually a process that requires money and patience, but the situation is rather different with HostGator. The shift is completely free and there are two major ways through which a site can shift.
You can either shift all by yourself with the help of a detailed guideline, or you can take expert assistance. The expert help will make your transition smoother and faster, all the while ensuring protection to your site. It is ideal to shift your site when the server gets slower, you tend to lose traffic, and when your host isn’t compatible with your needs.
Shifting sites also helps in preventing downtime, ensuring your SEO ranking is intact and your audience is interacted with. Usually, migration can be a hassle as one has to spend quite some amount and has to deal with the repercussions. HostGator can easily provide you with the smoothest migration experience that too at no cost.
# What is HostGator Pricing?
HostGator has relatively cheap plans, and with what they offer, the pricing is irrevocably justified. No matter which plan you purchase, you will be getting unlimited bandwidth and unmetered storage. You will also be able to create unlimited email addresses for your domain.
The Shared Hatchling plan comes at $2.64 per month.
The Hatchling Cloud plan is priced at $4.95 per month.
The Host gator WordPress hosting plan comes at $5.95 per month.
The Virtual Private Server is priced at $19.95 per month.
Lastly, the Dedicated Server comes at $119 per month.
With such pricing and unlimited features, this hosting company is easily the best cheap web hosting company for 2020.
We can jump to a conclusion and say yes, this is the best company ever. You can blindly trust and invest in it, but that might sound like a biased opinion; why not recapitulate once instead? The web hosting service is available worldwide and can be accessed everywhere, on every device.
HostGator America to HostGator India, the service speed is tremendous, and there is no drop-in loading time. The websites do not crash even in peak traffic periods, and the momentum only starts dropping at very high traffic.
The HostGator hosting plans are diverse, and there is a plan that suits everyone who wishes to have a website. The programs are packed with several resources and features that optimize the website’s performance and visibility on the web.
The plans are priced affordably and can be upgraded as per the website’s need based on growth and traffic. The understanding of the websites that use HostGator is better than 92% of sites that do not use HostGator. HostGator also has a record speed that is better than most of its new companies.
The HostGator services are user-friendly, with multiple unique scripts that can be used to build a website. The various templates can also open a website via phone, not to mention the HostGator website builder.
The builder does the task of building your website, coming to the customer care services available for your perusal at any given time. There is email, call, and live chat facilities to communicate from, and the founder himself can assist on request.
Multiple articles and videos are available if you want to go ahead and help yourself find a solution. Lastly, the billing time is flexible, and all the prices assigned per plan is justified and affordable. A noteworthy fact here is that all the packs come with unlimited bandwidth and email id usage.
Perhaps the one thing that may be taken as a con for the hosting service is that nothing is free. The usual free domain that other companies provide upon signing up is not available here. The money-back-guarantee makes up for that since the payment will be refunded if it does not suit you anyway.
Keeping all these factors in mind, after this summary, we will leave it upon you to decide if the investment is worth it. We will raise all our thumbs and ask you to go ahead blindly, but ultimately your decision to make.
We hope you found this article helpful. If you read this complete article, we know for a fact what your decision will be. On that note, all the best with your website; we hope you achieve great heights and have great success in your field!
In order for us to keep our business model sustainable and provide you with this excellent service, we require users to signup with our partner web host. This company is hand-picked by our founder, Suresh Patel, and they are known to offer top-notch service.
This way you get quality web hosting, which you were going to pay for anyways. At no additional cost to you, we receive a small commission from our partner web hosting company for referring a new client. You actually end up getting significant discounts because HostGator offer special deals to our readers.
It’s a WIN WIN WIN, all the way around.
To get started, simply signup with HostGator web hosting providers using the links on this page.
Note: Please DO NOT use any external coupons. If you use any coupon that is not attached here, you will not qualify for our free blog setup service.
Once you have signed up for a web hosting plan using the link above, go ahead and feel free to email us, if you want help in setting up your website (Please Attach HostGator Receipt) – info@pixel2pixeldesign.com, so our team can start working on your blog.
Please send your receipt from the HostGator. This will be the email that you will receive right after you successfully purchase the web hosting. We need to know the date of your signup and the domain you used for the signup.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q1. Is there a free trial for HostGator hosting plans?
Ans. HostGator does not provide its customers with a free trial period; however, there is a money-back guarantee if one does not like the services.
Q2. How do I know which hosting plan is the best for me?
Ans. HostGator has a section in its site dedicated entirely to the explanation of different hosting services. If those explanations are not enough for you to decide, you can also call their customer service. The process is simple, and they can advise you based on what you tell them about your wants and needs.
Q3. How do I get started now that I have signed up?
Ans. There are sections dedicated to guiding you on how to get started with your site as per the hosting service you have chosen. In case you wish for further assistance, the customer service is available for your perusal and can give you a helping hand.
Q4. What is the system for payment at HostGator?
Ans. A page called ‘Make a payment’ in the official site enables you to pay your dues to the company. You will find four options based on what issue you are facing, such as paying for the first time, payment error, recurring payment, or payment methods. You should be able to pay through PayPal, debit or credit cards, bank wire, or cheques.
Q5. Where can I seek assistance if I face issues with my site or the services?
Ans. HostGator has a dedicated customer portal apart from the main site, which ideally covers the solution to common issues. For unique issues, there is always customer support where trained technicians and experts can help you. The customer’s community is also there, which can assist a fellow member gladly.
The following is external content provided as a free resource for blog readers.
Think about creating a website; what factors would you think won’t be taken for granted? Website’s color? Photography? Inevitably these elements are also worth considering, yet fonts and Typography play a crucial role in this regard.
You can’t overlook the importance of fonts because it gives a special message to the audience about the website, and if it went wrong, all the hard work would go in vain. Choosing the font isn’t easy as you have to go through various processes to reach the perfect one finally.
Selecting Fonts is not a matter of 4 or 5 seconds; it involves a deep understanding and study to finally reach the perfect one. It is a digital world where people have become more aware of fonts and their significance. Moreover, various platforms are offering free and paid fonts from where we can easily find the appropriate one for our design.
Now a vast range of fonts classes is being used by people that have made the selection process easy because they have thousands of choices among which any font can go best for their website.
Importance of Typography
As an ordinary person who isn’t linked with Designing and typography, have you ever thought what difference it makes not to select the appropriate font or to select the best font for your design? Typography is not about collecting colors and sizes; it is something huge that contains a hidden message that can only be perceived if using rightly.
Typography is tied in with changing the content inside the design while making a fantastic substance. It gives the appealing appearance and jams the value of your content. It assumes an indispensable part in establishing the general pace of your site and guarantees an extraordinary client experience.
According to Steve Jobs, Typography is not an instant decision, various factors are being involved behind choosing the best one for your website so it takes a lot of struggle to generate the best Typography that make your website look classy and attractive. Make your website in a way that it actually means something.
Why It Matters
We’ll get into arranging textual styles and how to pick them in one moment in any case, I need you to consider what typefaces genuinely mean to you (or the venture you’re dealing with right now). Of course, you can utilize pretty much any typeface to make a word – however, what does that typeface really state about the word?
More than some other structure choice that you make, the sort determinations that you make give your site value and setting. Pick them cautiously, and they will either assist you with communicating with the public or divert them and being a professional designer, you should be able to communicate with your audience through your font selection.
Difference Between Fonts and Typography
Before moving ahead, let’s figure out the difference between both the terms as people often get confused and mix both the terms. Many people mistakenly use the term ‘Font’ instead of typeface while thinking it doesn’t make much difference which is totally wrong. Let’s put a light on the difference for better comprehension.
Text styles allude to the loads, widths, and styles that establish a typeface, while a typeface is a group of related text styles. There are three unique classes of typefaces; serif, sans-serif, and decorative. Whenever you are about to choose the font for your site you have to look for various other terms including your brand’s personality, the product or service that you are going to offer, and the mood and style of your brand.
After examining all these things, you can get your hands on the perfect one. Every font brings a unique perspective that should match to your product. These little things make a huge difference in the end.
Things to consider Before Choosing a Website Font
From where to begin? Should it be Serif or Sans-Serif? or either one should go with Handwritten Fonts? You can get the answers once you brace yourself with the idea behind these fonts. Ask yourself that does the tone of a selected font match your brand’s personality, or will they complement each other?
Is the size of the chosen font appropriate for all screen devices? Will it do justice for your website, or will it be able to attract the readers for whom you have created an entire website? Once you get all your answers, it will be easy for you to make a selection. Those 8 essential elements include:
#1 The User Experience
The audience is your biggest asset because, without them, you stand nowhere. If the users are not contented with the website you have originated, how would it succeed in the market? The better user experience involves around appropriate font selection, and from better font selection, we mean perfect size, color, contrast, proper line spacing, etc.
Handover your website to a professional designer who will make sure to make the user experience supreme and premier by taking care of size, line spacing, color, contrast, and other factors. It will grab people’s attention, and they would love to visit your site.
For example, the Montserrat font is a Sans-Serif Typeface and is often used as a replacement of many sans-serif fonts. You can use it for your website and can easily make its design more beautiful and attractive. It is being used by the leading websites and magazines that has enhanced its popularity.
#2 Web-Friendly Font
Always select web-friendly fonts for your website that can be opened on multiple browsers. Every person uses a different device or browser to reach your site, and if it is not visible on their site, they won’t be able to open it for which they will prefer to switch to someone’s else site where it is clearly visible and available.
A few text styles, including numerous ordinarily utilized on print materials, are not viewed as web-accommodating fonts and don’t show accurately on the web. Before you move a print font to web content, ensure it shows accurately. You may need to locate another option. You can have the web-friendly fonts from anywhere. Though it requires a little effort for the web safe fonts.
#3 Readability Should be your Priority
If your site’s readability is not up to the mark, it won’t attract the audience as they will face a tough time in understanding the context for which they would better switch to another site where the context is easy to read and understand.
One of the main rules of Typography is to make your context readable and it can only be done by choosing the right font. Hence, your readability should be your priority, make sure that your site is visible on every device, and people won’t find it hard to understand. Experiment it on different devices, and you will know where you stand.
Your text or website appears differently on every device so try to experiment it on different screens from large to small to examine it thoroughly. Once you are sure that a particular font is appropriate and easily readable for the desktop and all the mobile screens, go for it.
#4 Color and Contrast
Color and contrast are the main issues that affect the readability level of your website. Sometimes, people choose a dark background that makes it hard for people to read the text written on it and decrease the readability level. Never keep the background dark, otherwise it will blur the text written over it and people will find it read to read.
You can use the Contrast ratio tool to test background contrast. You can attain the perfect background color and contrast ratio by experimenting. Observe different colors and check either it goes well with the context or not. By experimenting you can reach the perfect contrast on your site.
#5 Build a Font Hierarchy
When you build a Font hierarchy at the start, it will be easy to maintain a structure that will look attractive and eye-catchy. For instance, in the beginning, decide either your main heading and other headings should have the same font, or you prefer to keep them different.
Moreover, choose which 2 or 3 fonts you are going to use and later stick to them. Using multiple fonts in a single site is not a wise decision as it looks odd and people the reader frustrated. If you have decided to use Serif fonts, stick to it for the entire text or if you want to have Sans-serif, go for it.
Moreover, how bold should your bold be? It will help you deliver a special message, and people will better perceive what you are trying to communicate. Communication is an important element and it can be done appropriately with the right font selection.
#6 Keep an Eye on User Errors
When you develop a website, many employees publish content on it, and many of them do not take care of font rules and regulations. Hence before letting them start the content, educate them properly about the terms and conditions. Moreover, most employees randomly highlight the words in the middle of the article that distract people’s attention.
If it is highlighted with lime green color, it has a destructive impact. Whenever you chose a font, first decide how it should look and how much bold it goes in the article. Once you choose all these things, teach your employees and later work on it. These little errors should be highlighted before to avoid any future issue.
#7 Audience Reaction and Testing
Measure the aftereffects of your font determination with testing and client input. Address your web advancement group about directing client testing and assembling information on your font determinations alongside the other plan and data engineering decisions made on your site.
Your Audience reaction is necessary to depict either you have succeeded in creating an appropriate site, or it needs to be modified. Hence keep a special eye on the errors and later do testing to clear them. You can also take recommendations from your fellow designers or through the feedback from the public.
#8 Look for your Competitors
On whatever niche you have created your website, keep an eye on your competitors’ site that what additional elements they have added, and what changes you can bring on your website. You have to deal with your competitors, so always stay one step ahead of them.
Once you have made the website, keep modifying it according to your client’s demand. Also, make sure there should not be similarities; otherwise, it will have an adverse impact. For example, you go to a party, and suddenly you see a person wearing the same outfit as yours, will it not spoil your mood?
The same is the case with your website; instead of copying them, try to beat them. Looking at your competitor’s site means to get different ideas from them that will help you to grow your own site and it will keep you one step ahead of them.
Conclusions
Whenever you decide to build a website, keep in mind these 8 crucial factors that will help create an extraordinary website that will capture public attention. Creating a website is an easy and straightforward task, but the actual issue arises when you have to select the fonts that make your website grow.
Font pairing is an important element of Typography so do it efficiently. Use those pairs that better compliment each other. Though various classes of fonts are used by the designers, yet we recommend you to stick to Serif or Sans-serif font as they go best for every niche on which you have created the website.
We have possibly plunged our feet into the water with regards to the standards for picking a font yet this ought to be sufficient to kick you off. I hope you will get notes from this guide in the future projects. Be a professional designer and make your work extraordinary that reflects your professionalism.
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The way you look and your appearance in public seek volumes about you. Like it or not, most of the time, you are judge from the way you dress. This even applies when seeking employment in an organization. Immediately the employer sets their eyes on you, they can decide on whether to hire you or not. The decision is based purely on your dressing even before reading your resume.
The same applies when it comes to your website. The themes you use determines how attractive your site will be and the traffic. Therefore you cannot use any common theme to build your site. You need a unique and user-friendly theme, which attracts traffic to your blogs.
At Pixel2Pixel Design, we understand this. Hence we recommend using the Astra Pro WordPress theme. It is a unique theme that transforms your website with a click of a button. In this article, we’ll discuss the theme and learn how it works. That said, let’s dive in and learn more.
What is Astra Pro WordPress Theme?
Astra Pro Theme has one of the amazing tools to use in developing and customizing a website. Brainstorm Force developed Astra in 2017 and the idea behind its birth was to provide users and businesses with reliable themes.
It is one of the most popular WordPress themes with its free version gathering over 1,000,000+ active installations. That’s huge!
The theme is user friendly, elegant, stylish, and attractive to ensure a website is ranked on top in Google search engine. Furthermore, you won’t have to learn any coding to use the Astra free theme. Hence, with a click of a button, you can customize your site according to your needs.
Whether you’re a beginner or an expert on WordPress, Astra is a theme you need to develop your site. Though it is one of the many free themes available on the internet, it has unique features that make it stand out.
The reason why it stands out is because of the theme’s ability to integrate perfectly with most popular page builders available in the market. The Page Builders include Gutenberg, Elementor, Beaver Builder, Divi Builder, Site Origin, and Visual Composer.
Brainstorm Force team has also developed some of these well-known plugins the Ultimate Add-ons for Beaver Builder and Ultimate Add-ons for Elementor. They extend the capability of the said page builders by adding new custom widgets, blocks, elements or templates.
It’s also SEO friendly to ensure your site is ranked the best in the webpages. Therefore, incorporating the theme in your blogs, business, or personal portfolio gives you an added advantage.
Now with all this features, the theme come in two versions, the Astra Free and Astra Pro theme. Though they serve the same purpose they are slightly different.
You might opt for the Free version when building your site, but if you want to unlock extra amazing features. Astra Pro is the perfect theme for the job.
Before you continue, have a quick look at this short video with an Astra Quick Start Guide.
Astra Theme Features
The Astra theme allows you to do more without learning to code. Once your site is set up, you’re good to go. All the features that the theme comes with enable you to customize and build the website easily.
In this section, we are going to discuss the amazing features and their purpose.
# Pre-Built Starter Sites
Gone was the day when one had to build a website from scratch. In the past, one had to go through vast volumes of coding data to build their desired site.
Today, vendors sell websites that have Pre-Made Website templates. The Starter Templates or Starter Sites are developed to target a particular niche.
Astra themes come with 100+ Stunning Elementor Templates (Free + Premium) ready to import. Hence, one will only need a template that targets their needs perfectly.
Astra Starter Templates library has a number of templates, some are FREE (without any tag) while some are marked with AGENCY tag. You have to upgrade to Astra Pro if you want to use their Agency templates.
Some of the templates that might come in handy when building your site are:
Restaurants
Education and courses
Fitness and Sport
Food and drinks
Different types of online stores
Freelancers, bloggers, artists, and photographer
Service providers such as plumbing, electricians among others
And many more
It is essential to note the Starter templates need certain page builders to work effectively. You can use either the Elementor, Brizy, Gutenberg, or Beaver Builder to develop the site.
It is important to note you won’t access certain page builders starter template if you don’t upgrade to the Premium packages.
A while back, customizing a site involved learning to code and grasps how the programming language works. One had to learn coding languages such as Java, Python, and JavaScript. This particular requirement locked out many businesses, organizations, and bloggers from the online platform.
However, thanks to tech advancement, one can develop a site without learning any programing language. Businesses, organizations, bloggers, and affiliate marketers can set up a website within hours and start earning from it.
Plus, you’ll not need a professional to update and maintain the site since it’s a simple process. Furthermore, the page builders help you to customize, maintain, and update your site. This, in turn, saves you money, since you won’t have to hire a professional to handle the work.
# Learning Management System (LMS) Integrations
There are other plugins that you can use in WordPress to customize your site. Some of the plugins include LearnDash and LifterLMS. With the help of this, you can create your own Learning Management System (LMS) and start offering an online course.
The Astra + LearnDash Integration makes it easier for you to create and design a beautiful website for offering an online course. Astra gives you several design options and features that focus more on providing a better learning experience.
Want to create a distraction free, conversion oriented website for your next online course with LearnDash? Combine that with Astra and explore many customizations that will help you do so.
We have written a detailed article on Best WordPress LearnDash Themes. You can check that out too if you want to build an online course offering WordPress site.
# Site Layouts
This feature helps the user select the type of layouts from the Max Width, Full Width, Fluid Layouts, Boxed, or Padded.
The layouts come with formatting tools to adjust the spacing to suit your needs. The amazing thing is that one can use the Site Layout Module to customize your overall website appearance as well.
# Multiple Header and Footer Layouts
The theme also comes with variety of header and footer customization tools. This helps in formatting your page content, making it more appealing. This feature is found in both Astra Free and Astra Pro.
You will get an extended header version when you upgrade to the Astra Pro theme. The Astra Pro theme has advanced options such as the Sticky Header, Below Header Content, Above Header Content, Transparent Header, and Mobile Headers.
# Better Typography
When it comes to typography and fonts, the theme gives you full control. This means you can change the typography size and even the Fonts. Hence, you can customize them according to your taste and preferences.
Plus, you gain access to 700 and more Google Fonts to work with when developing your site. On the other hand, the typography also gives one access to additional transformation options such as Font-size in EM or PX and also in Text Transform for headings.
# WooCommerece Integration
It is a feature that allows an individual or a firm to set up an online shop.
The integration comes with unique attributes such as Grid layouts for products, Dropdown shopping cart, Gallery options, Sales Bubble Style, Quick view option for product images, "click on the button", and infinite scroll among others.
These features help the users to navigate easily through the webpages and order for what they want or need.
# Colour and Background
The color you set as your background matters a lot. This is because most people are attracted to what they see. Hence, having a vibrant color for your background is not an option.
Astra Pro theme understands this. Hence you are provided with different colors to use in customizing your site according to your needs.
# Blog Layout
For the bloggers and Marketers, the Brainstorm Force didn’t forget to add a few features to boost your business.
This is because the way your post appears impacts on the traffic and how long the visit will stay on the page.
Hence, the theme comes with different layouts such as list, date box, masonry, and grid to choose from. This makes your blog stylish.
# Global Design Options
The way one designs a website determines how attractive it will look.
Hence, you need to use the designing tools to make your site exceptional. For example, when designing a brand, you might decide to left-align, right-align, or even center align. Additionally, the features can also be used to customize your mobile device to have similar or different designs.
# Widget Optimized
These refer to tools that work together with sidebars to optimize your page. A good example is the Drag and Drop feature, which adds variations to the filters on your sidebars.
# Mobile Device Integration
The theme comes with responsive design option to make your website Mobile Friendly. This allows the users to access the site from their handset anytime and anywhere. Moreover, they’ll maintain the same level of experience since no information will be omitted due to screen size.
# Page Builders Integration
Astra Theme integrates with all the popular available WordPress page builder plugins perfectly. This gives you a chance to design your content using “Drag and Drop” features. The moment one creates a page, Astra Theme gives you control of the builder.
Hence, you can choose what to use among the different layouts. One can opt for the sidebar or full-width canvas when building a website and still get the desired outlook.
The disabling feature is also something that makes the theme worthwhile. You’ll be able to disable a specific part of the post, which could be the website header or post title.
Hence if you don’t want to include the sections in your blog, you can remove them. The changes are reflected immediately.
How Astra Works?
Astra Pro Theme is user-friendly; hence it is easy to use. Now that you understand the basics, we will see how you use the theme to customize your site.
Here is how Astra works
# Importing a Starter Site
This is the first step after installing Astra free theme. You’ll be required to install a Starter Site. This is what determines how your site will look like. As we discussed before, a Starter Site refers to a template developed for a particular niche.
For example, if you’re running a restaurant website, you’ll require a Starter Template covering this field. Therefore, choose a template and install what fits your site.
The restaurant templates homepage and about page had to be created from scratch in the past. But, now all you do is select the one that fits your site and install it.
However, you shouldn’t import the contact page, since you require to create it in line with your site. The page shall include your personal information and contact details. Hence, importing it is never a good idea.
# Appearance
The outlook of your blog depends on the Starter Site you use to develop it. For example, if one chooses to use a Beaver Builder, the site will be developed using its features. The page builder will give you a list of options and features to use in developing your site.
The features can be seen from the designs, background color, typography, Headers, and Fonts among others. Remember that each page builder, whether the Elementor page, Brizy, Gutenberg, or Beaver Builder, has unique attributes.
# Customization
Whether you’re importing a site or developing one from scratch, you need to customize it. This is where WordPress customization tools come into the picture. The tool gives you a chance to edit and build your website designs without learning any coding language.
The changes you make using the tool will reflect immediately. This is why we recommend using the Pre-made templates than building one from scratch. It saves you time and money as well.
# Premium Features
Though Astra comes with two versions, we recommend the Astra Pro. This particular version gives one access to new modular features. This means one can opt to enable or disable the features anytime. This, in turn, makes the Astra Theme lightweight and easy to use.
You must also explore all the premium features available before picking the best for your site. Thus, making your site user-friendly, stylish, and attractive.
Some of the Astra Pro Theme Modules you can choose from are
Astra comes with two versions of the Astra Theme to choose from. What you choose for your site is entirely up to you. However, you must understand what you’re getting into, you wouldn’t want to be left hanging in the middle.
Astra Free and Astra Pro have unique attributes that we’re going to discuss.
Some of the features that differentiate the two include the following.
# Payment
The Astra Pro requires one to make annual or lifetime payments to access the extra features. In contrast to the Free version, which does not need any payments, though it has limited features.
# Exceptional Layouts
A business site requires one to gain trust from the clients. The more your clients trust you, the higher the sales you make. This is why you need to use the Pro theme. This is because it presents you with clean and functional layouts that are user friendly.
Additionally, Pro theme layouts make navigation easier since it provides you with call-to-action features and easy to read font. When it comes to Astra Free, these particular features exist with limited features. Therefore, making it hard for one to compete with their competitors online.
Astra Free comes with limited options making it harder to customize your site. For example, you might want to build a custom header and footer for your site. This particular feature does not exist in the Free version. Hence you need the Astra Pro, which gives you access to page builders such as the Elementor. The page builder helps with the customization of the header and footer.
# Speed
Astra Pro is faster compared to Astra free. This is because of the theme allows one to disable features that are not needed. Hence ensuring the website is firing unused code whenever a page is loaded.
# Header Styles
The free version gives you a chance to put a Sticky header using the Cascading Style Sheets code (CSS). The Pro version comes with added features that make the Header more personalized and unique.
# WooCommerce
Astra pro theme comes with WooCommerce integration. The feature offers one infinite scrolling, leading to an increase in time spent on page matrix. This, in turn, increases sales when running an only store. This is a feature you can only find in Pro.
Astra Pro Theme Demos
The theme comes with various Starter Templates that fit your website needs. All you have to do is pick out the right demo for your site. Here are some templates that increase your online presence and make you competitive.
# LearnDash Academy
Online courses are on the rise, especially during this pandemic. COVID-19 has forced learning institution to close to keep their students safe. This has forced them to move to online classes just to keep up with their studies and continue with their studies.
This, in turn, earns the individual running the websites extra cash. Hence, if you’re thinking of starting an E-learning site, Astra pro theme free download is the tool to use. The theme comes with a LearnDash template that builds your site according to the user’s needs.
For those looking to set up an online shop, this is the ideal template for you. The BrandStore comes with features that enable one to split their products into different sections. Just like in the supermarket where there is a section for groceries, clothes, and drugs. You will be able to organize your products in a similar manner.
Art is something that speaks for itself. For example, when you put up a painting, people will come up with a different opinion. The way they interpret the painting is according to their understanding and personal experience. Hence, your gallery needs to have ample space to display your artwork.
This is something the template offers. It uses a style that blends in with your work. It has a big white space around the piece, which focuses on the painting and not the site.
Having an online presence is critical for business if they want to remain competitive. This is something the pandemic has proven without any reasonable doubt. Therefore you need an eCommerce template to ensure you build a suitable site for your consumer. This allows them to order and make payments despite their location regionally or globally.
Covid-19 still proves to be a thorn in the flesh. We are not allowed to go to the gym to work out. However, that should not hinder us from working out. Gyms have now moved their services online. Using these templates, fitness trainers can offer their services as normal.
Plus, research has proven eating healthy, and exercising keeps your body in shape. Therefore, if infected, you won’t experience the acute symptoms but mild ones. If you’re looking to start a fitness website, Astra premium is the answer.
The theme comes with the Astra Photographer feature, which focuses on the image on the site. Additionally, the template can also be used as your portfolio theme. Hence if you’re a photographer, this the tool to use to take your art to a whole never level.
Blogging has taken a new direction, and free templates are not ideal for such a blog. You need a template developed and designed for the food or drink you are talking off. Hence you’ll be changing and customize your site in line with the content being talked about. This is what attracts visitors to your site.
Next, let’s check out their support and documentation.
Astra Support and Documentation
Aside from features and pricing, another important thing for premium products is support and documentation. In spite of how great a product is, people will still have questions.
So a critical question is: if you experience a problem and you need help, how fast can the team give you a satisfactory reply? Can they even help you?
Is the documentation any good? Can you easily find what you are looking for? Can you clearly understand what’s documented?
Those questions will help us understand whether a company or team is dedicated to serving its customers.
Therefore, in this section, we are going to find out the kind of support Brainstorm Force has and check out if their documentation is good or not.
Let’s begin!
# Documentation
Their documentation is one of the most extensive we’ve ever seen. They both have videos and articles that thoroughly explain every item in detail.
Their documentation contains over 200 articles discussing and detailing each feature the theme has to offer.
It’s very easy to navigate around their docs. There is a search form, a sidebar and a nice categorized grid of menus as its index page.
If you want a really quick way of accessing the documentation, you can just type in whatever you want to lookup for followed by the keyword “Astra” in Google and, most of the time, the top results will link to the official documentation.
You have two ways of accessing Astra’s documentation.
You can either bookmark their documentation page so you can easily access it or you can just open up a new tab and then type whatever you are looking for, followed by the “Astra” keyword and let Google guide you to the relevant documentation page.
The actual documentation is easy to understand. It’s clear, concise and well-structured.
Above is a screenshot of their documentation page for the Colors & Background module.
See how there’s a breadcrumb underneath the title which lets you know where you currently are and trace back to previous sections? There’s also a sidebar on the right containing links to other articles in the documentation.
Video Documentation and Tutorials
Aside from their text-based documentation, they also provide video documentation and tutorials on their own YouTube channel. For those who are more into video demonstrations and tutorials, you’ll find this very useful.
Their YouTube channel also contains information about general WordPress usage. They have videos not only for Astra but also for their other products like the Ultimate Addons, Convert Pro, etc.
# Support
They offer three types of support: pre-sale, pro and free. If you access their support page, you’ll be greeted by this:
Their support page will first attempt to direct you to their documentation by asking you what kind of problem or question you have. If there are no results based on your question, you can then access their actual support page (the button to submit a ticket will still appear even if there are results based on your question).
One downside here is that there’s no way to go directly to the actual support page without having to type something in the box. It’s an extra step.
While their support can be considered as one of the best in the market, there’s still a handful of people saying they are slow to respond, which is evident in their Facebook Page.
For the majority of the complaints like this, however, we can see a common pattern. The tickets of complainants were almost always sent during holidays or weekends. We can, therefore, say that you can expect a slower response time during these days. This is why our rating for their support is the lowest in our table at the beginning of the article.
If we had to nitpick and find something where there is room for improvement, this would be it. As a company serving hundreds of thousands of customers, they should be ready to answer questions as fast as possible, no matter the day.
Astra Pro Pricing
Astra comes in two versions that you can choose from. The Astra Free version is downloadable from the WordPress.org directory. Hence you can access it easily but with limited features. On the other hand, when it comes to Astra premium, you need to part with cash. This unlocks you an unlimited number of features.
The Pro pricing packages that one can opt for includes
Astra Pro: The basic package costs $ 59 annually. You might as well opt for the lifetime package for $249. Once you have paid the amount, you’ll access all the Astra Pro modules. You will have access to All Astra Pro Features, 20+ free Starter sites, One-to-one Support, Extensive training, and Unlimited Usage.
Mini Agency Bundle: This is the second-best package that you can upgrade to from Astra Pro. It will cost you $169 annually, and you can opt for a lifetime payment of $499. This gives you a chance to access extra features such as 50+ readymade Starter Templates, Ultimate Addons for Elementor, and Beaver Builder, among others.
Agency Bundle: The package includes all the features from Astra Pro and Mini Agency Bundle. However, you’ll need to part with $249 annually or opt for a lifetime package that costs$ 699.
Like any other product in the market, Astra’s pro-themed free download has a positive and negative side. Therefore, it is good to weigh your options before installing the theme on your website.
Pros
The theme comes with customized layouts.
It has a faster loading speed.
There is a free version that you can opt for and still enjoy unique features.
It has a clean design and easy to configure, making it user friendly.
It comes with a Pre-made designs template suitable for customizing your site.
Astra theme is compatible with other page builders and free Demo sites.
Cons
Fully extended version costs money.
FAQ
Is Astra theme Free?
Yes, Astra is entirely free to download and use it to customize your site. However, you will only enjoy the basic feature from Astra Free version. If you want extra features, you’re required to upgrade to the Astra Pro Theme.
Is Elementor a Theme or a Plugin?
No, Elementor isn’t a theme but a WordPress plugin that works well with any theme. The plugins allow you to customize your theme without learning any programming language.
Is there a money-back guarantee after purchase?
Yes, there is a money-back policy that allows you to receive the cashback within 14 days; therefore, if you are not satisfied with theme services, you are guaranteed your money.
How to choose a WordPress theme?
To select a theme, you must know what your site needs to function properly. Here are some of the things to do to ensure you pick out the right theme.
The first step is making a list of the features you would want before picking a theme. The next step is checking the responsiveness of the theme. Is it compatible with your handset and computer? Is it user- friendly? These question you need to answer before installing the theme.
The theme color also matters when deciding on the template to use. If you choose a dull color, it will affect your traffic. Pick a vibrant color. We also recommend checking how much the theme costs since you’ll need to upgrade at some point. Lastly, test the desired theme to see if it meets your needs.
What is the Astra Child theme, and when to use it?
A child theme refers to the theme that one uses to edit some parent theme files. This, in turn, customizes your site, making it unique and user friendly. It is important to note that you’ll use the child theme only when you want to edit the theme parent files and not when customizing the site.
One of the benefits of using a child theme is, it will not overwrite your changes when you apply the theme update whenever the theme developer release theme update.
How to install Astra Theme?
Installation of the theme is a simple process. All you need is to log in to your WordPress admin panel and go to the DashBoard. Then click the "themes" link from the left-hand side menu panel and then search for Astra. This takes you directly to the Astra theme, click Install, and start the installation procedure. This takes only a few minutes of your time, and you are done.
How to build a WordPress site with Astra and Elementor?
Building your site has become a simple process that needs only a few hours. Thanks to the Astra WordPress theme, which gives you all the needed features. Plus, the theme is compatible with the Elementor page builder. Hence, all you have to do is install both Elementor plugins and Astra free theme and start designing your site.
Which is the best theme version between Astra Free and Pro?
The two versions work just perfectly since they are the most reliable themes in WordPress. The themes give one a chance to optimize their site, making it user friendly, fast, and effective. However, if you want to experience extra features, we recommend the Pro Version.
Which page builder plugins are used with Astra theme demos?
The page builders that are used in website demos include Beaver Builder, Gutenberg, and Elementor. These plugins customize the templates to fit your user’s needs. There is no need to learn any coding languages.
Does one need to renew the Astra theme license yearly?
No, one doesn’t need to renew their licenses annually. The theme will continue to work just like before after the initial one year purchase. However, you won’t be able to gain access to the support or even receive updates. Therefore, to ensure you have a fully functional website, ensure you make your payments on time. This prevents your account from being hacked.
How many sites one can create with the Astra theme?
One can create unlimited sites with Astra Pro. This is what makes it unique among other themes in the market.
Final Word
WordPress is a website builder that has been in the making for long. This has given them an upper hand in marketing their products and even improving it.
One of the improvements that have made the site efficient is the introduction of the Astra premium theme. This particular tool has made the site more effective and efficient. Whether you chose to use the Free or Pro version, you will still feel at home.
However, it would be wise to upgrade to the Astra Pro theme for your site to work perfectly. It might cost you a bit of cash, but it is worth every penny.
Do let me know if you find this Astra theme review helpful. Do you want us to compare the Astra theme with some other popular themes like GeneratePress, Genesis Themes or Divi? We will highly appreciate your comments and reviews about this article. Kindly leave your comments below and help us to make this article better.
The following is external content provided as a free resource for blog readers.
LearnDash is the most trusted way to create & sell online courses with WordPress. LearnDash has established itself as one of the most widely used WordPress LMS (Learning Management System) plugins, making it a popular choice amongst colleges, schools, businesses or any institution which requires an online educational portal.
10 Best WordPress LearnDash Themes For 2020 — Which One Will You Pick? Click To Tweet
Choosing LearnDash is an easy decision to make. However, you aren’t just done yet. The difficult choice is to pick a theme that best suits your requirements; given the fact that there is a wide range of themes available and most of them are pretty cool!
Well, worry not! We have compiled a list of 10 Best LearnDash Themes to help you nail down the perfect theme for your LMS in 2020!
What is LearnDash?
LearnDash transforms your WordPress site into a powerful learning management system (LMS). In minutes you can create & sell courses, track user progress, deliver certificates, award points & badges, and so much more! If you are serious about offering online courses, then LearnDash is the WordPress LMS plugin for you.
It’s more than just a plugin, however. LearnDash is built for a multitude of users, taking into account the different uses and reasons why one would want to have an eLearning platform.
It’s built for educational institutions, non-profits, developers, entrepreneurs, companies, or anyone who would want to teach online.
Who uses LearnDash?
Major universities, Fortune 500 companies, and best-selling authors trust in LearnDash as their WordPress LMS because it is intuitive, well-supported, has incredibly powerful features, and makes it simple to create impressive online courses.
LearnDash integrates seamlessly with the tools that you already use and love: WooCommerce, Easy Digital Downloads, BuddyPress, MemberPress, PayPal, Stripe, bbPress, GravityForms, ThriveCart, Mailchimp, and 300+ other apps when using our Zapier integration.
Here we’ll be sharing a list of 10 best LearnDash Themes to help you to build a complete learning management system. These themes will help you optimize the front end to provide a complete experience for your learners.
Let’s do have a look at 10 Best LearnDash Themes for 2020.
Astra is a WordPress theme that’s recommended by the LearnDash team for use with their LMS plugin.
After a recent update, there’s now a LearnDash website demo in the Astra package that can be imported into your WordPress Dashboard in just a few clicks. Thanks to this, you can save yourself much of the time and effort involved in creating an LMS website by using this pre-built content. The theme also integrates with WooCommerce and popular page builders like Elementor.
Highlighted Features
Student dashboard and profile page
Course progress bars
Mobile and search engine optimized
Courses in blog layout
Support for Schema markup
20+Ready to use website templates
Distraction-free learning
Conversion ready checkout page
Translation ready
Pricing
Astra is free, but there are a couple of added benefits to purchasing the Pro add on to be able to fully integrate LearnDash.
eLumine is a premium education WordPress theme that helps you take your eLearning platform to the next level. The theme comes with a clean and elegant design.
It is a learner-centric theme, that is to say, its layouts are specifically designed to assist the learning process.
It has multiple ready to import demo sites that you could launch with one click. Seven predefined styling options are available, which provide the ability to create your own style without touching a line of code.
Built-in customization options are available in the WordPress customizer, so you can make changes to your LMS and see changes in real-time.
It is a fast and lightweight theme designed by developers at WisdmLabs. This helps you provide better experience for your students and lets them see your content in less then 3 second of time.
Highlighted Features
Multiple Ready to Import Demo Sites
7 Predefined Styling Options
Swift-loading layouts
Readability focused layouts with collapsible sidebars
One-click demo import of prebuilt websites
Multiple color schemes
Custom LearnDash and WooCommerce templates
Extensive LearnDash quiz module customization
Integration with Live WordPress customizer
Gutenberg, Elementor RTL language compatibility
Contact Form 7 and Gravity Forms support
Integration with LearnDash Course Grid Plugin
Pricing
eLumine has multiple pricing plans, for annual and lifetime licenses, as well as with other useful LearnDash essential add-ons bundled together.
Includes a 1-hr consultation with our LearnDash experts to help you set up the theme.
Includes 4 additional plugins – WISDM Instructor Role, WISDM Ratings,Reviews, and Feedback, WISDM Group Registration, WISDM Quiz Reporting Extension, and WISDM Content Cloner for LearnDash.
Edumodo is an educational WordPress theme that integrates right away with LearnPress, Sensei, and LearnDash. It has a good set of website demos including one that has been built specifically for use with LearnDash.
The theme is compatible with the Gutenberg block editor. It is also compatible with the Elementor to help you create pages and customize them the way you want.
It is SEO optimized to help you get traffic from search engines. It’s also a responsive theme that comes with a 1-click demo installation.
Edumodo comes with 10+ different layouts to choose from that will suit your education business, whatever type it is, and you can choose the layout that is perfect for your brand positioning. It comes with 100+ theme options to help you customize different things in the theme, including header, footer, background, and so on.
Highlighted Features
10+ Homepage style
Header options, mega menu
Drag & Drop page builder – Elementor
Built-in course and lesson type
Multiple course style : Grid / List
Multiple teacher style
Course details page style with pagebuilder
Teacher page details style with page builder
Redux2 Framework
Full responsive
1 click installation and dummy data import
Fast and Excellent support
Pricing
Edumodo is available from ThemeForest for $59 with a Regular license. Including support for 6 months, which is extendable.
LearnMate is a theme that helps you creating an E-Learning website that has never been easier with LearnMate by pairing it with LearnDash.
It comes with engaging course layouts, so you can improve your site’s UI for your students and provide them a better experience.
Customizable shop page layouts are available as well to provide a unique experience to the people visiting your site. And you can do this even without hiring a developer to do this for you.
You could also add course membership, with the power of Membership feature, create your membership levels and sell accordingly.
Engaging Course Layouts will make it fun and interesting for your students to learn with engaging course layouts on your eLearning site.
Powerful page builder allows you to turn your dream e-learning website into reality with advanced visual design elements. You could import all web pages and get started right away using the 1-click demo import feature.
You could show your courses as you want, either in grid or listing options. You could customize the columns and grid functionality as well.
Distraction free reading provide your learners with a focused learning experience. Course review modules are available to give your students the ability to rate your courses and provide honest feedback that other students can see.
Highlighted Features
Multiple demo options
Drag & Drop Visual Builder
Distraction Free Reading
Engaging Course Layouts
Course Membership
Color, typography, header options
Related courses, course coming soon options
Fully Gutenberg ready
One-click Demo Import
BuddyPress, GamiPress, bbPress support.
Pricing
LearnMate is built by WBCOM Designs the theme is priced at $99 for a single site, with support and updates for a year.
As this LearnDash theme is built on the Genesis Framework for WordPress, your website should be extra secure, fast loading, and search engine optimized, at least according to the marketing materials from this popular theme company.
Academy Pro is built entirely with ease of use in mind. You can easily set up and build your eLearning platform and shop with just a few clicks.
However, aside from the underlying technology of Academy Pro, if you choose this theme for your website, you’ll get access to a stylish design and useful set of templates.
Unlike some of the other options in this collection of LearnDash WordPress themes, Academy Pro isn’t packed with features.
Instead, this theme provides a solid foundation for your online course website, giving you the freedom to add the extra features you need via your choice of preferred plugins.
The only downside of this theme is despite its extreme customizability, it doesn’t have any templates that you can choose from. It’s basically just the one template that it comes pre-built with.
Highlighted Features
Built on the Genesis Framework.
Responsive & SEO Ready.
Customizer.
Ecommerce Ready
Pricing
There is no free version to Academy Pro, but you have bundled options that can be extremely worth it for the price that you’re paying.
Education Center is classy yet simple theme to use with LearnDash. It is a modern education WordPress theme that can be used by online and offline education institutes. It is created specifically for schools, colleges, and training centers.
It integrates with LearnDash LMS plugin to help you manage your online education using their course builder, advanced quizzes, schedules, awards, certificates, badges and more.
It’s also one of the few LMS themes that have course calendar integrations to help the learners keep track of the course schedules and availabilities.
The theme is built on the ThemeRex framework which provides you with a unique settings system, shortcode builder, custom theme options panel, media content manager and other cool features.
The theme is extremely easy to use and is compatible with WPBakery Page Builder which can help you customize it to your heart’s desire.
Aside from that, it also offers a lot of built-in customization options such as different header styles, screen layouts, hover effects, etc. There is basically an option available for anything that you want to customize.
Education Center also offers 4 pre-made pages with one-click-demo import support. Aside from that, you have the option to choose between a multitude of header styles and 10+ blog style templates.
Highlighted Features
Responsive & Retina Ready
Pre-made Pages for Different Sections
Custom Theme Options
Shortcode Builder and WPBakery Included
And of course LearnDash
Pricing
Education Center offers goes for $59 and offers 6 months of support, which is also extendable depending on your needs.
University WordPress theme is great for Education Institute, Events, Courses and even Learning Management System, Business and Shopping. This education WordPress theme is feature-rich but very easy to use.
It comes with lots of features that a modern WordPress education theme need to have. Some of those features include: responsive design, Slider Revolution included, Facebook & Disqus comments integration, Event Management, Course Management, and Built-in Event Calendar.
University is an LMS in itself but provides complete LearnDash support. The differentiating factor is the support for events. University allows event creation and management, the sale of event tickets and sports a cool event calendar along with providing comprehensive course management tools.
Furthermore, Educational WordPress Theme includes 7 home page demos which you can import into your website within few clicks.
You are also able to easily customize the theme as your liking by using its powerful Theme Options panel and drag-drop page builder.
University WordPress theme is now used by more than 2000 site owners and has always been on top of WordPress education themes.
Highlighted Features
7 homepage variations
Facebook + Disqus comments integrated
Unlimited colors and layout
Multi-column menu dropdown
Visual composer included
Event management ready
Drag & drop builder
WooCommerce integration
Pricing
Built by CactusThemes, University is priced at $49. It also included: 6 months support from CactusThemes.
Unidash is one of the few themes on this list that is multipurpose. It is the most flexible, multi-purpose and educational WordPress template.
The multi-purpose Unidash platform is specifically designed with educational institutes and online/offline teaching academics in mind.
It easily integrates with LearnDash too, so whatever industry you’re from, it’s a breeze to be able to build the eLearning platform that suits your niche.
Unidash also contains an unlimited color combination with 12 pre-defined schemas, allowing for endless options when creating your perfect speaking/instructing or event organizing website. On top of that it also offers a lot of shortcodes, widgets and customizations that would help you create the site that you need and want.
It also has dedicated areas for teachers, learners, and event managers. It has built-in styles for headers, contact forms, and even blog posts that make it extremely easy to be able to manage.
This theme is developed by CactusThemes.
Highlighted Features
5 course shortcodes
Multiple options of online courses lesson layouts
5 Event listings
5 Header layouts
Powerful theme options panel
One click demo install
Unlimited color combination with 12 pre-defined schemas
Pricing
Unidash costs $47 with 6 months support which is also extendable.
Invent is an education theme with a unique look and feel, designed to meet the needs of Schools, Colleges and Universities.
The theme works seamlessly with LearnDash. It has over 30+ page building elements and shortcodes which help you build and customize your LMS content easily.
It also has 16 premium widgets, with numerous customization features.
Shortcode builder is available and comes with 60+ shortcodes for rapid customization.
Theme options panel enables you to easily customize the theme with flexible options to edit minute details, and 200+ options to edit are available.
There are 8+ custom post types available, and it has a user friendly interface that is easy to use to create sliders, gallery, testimonials, team members, and so on.
Invent is quite a simple theme and perfect if you are looking for a theme with minimal functionality to support your underlying content.
Highlighted Features
Site Origin page builder integration
Shortcode builder.
Powerful theme options panel
Import demo theme content in one click
8+ Custom post types
Pricing
Invent is available for purchase on ThemeForest for $59 with 6 month support from theme developer.
Talemy is a LearnDash theme for educational institutions and individuals who want to publish courses online.
It integrates perfectly with LearnDash 3.0, so you could create multi-tier courses, drip-feed content, make access expire, add quizzes and assignments, add certificates, and more.
Talemy is a fully responsive theme. The best highlight being it’s gorgeous 6 unique templates and demos that are available for import.
It comes pre-built with Elementor and 20+ custom widgets. It’s extremely to use and be able to manage because of it. It also has tons of pre-built customizations options that will basically allow you to customize almost everything on your theme.
It is a complete theme for any person who wants to sell their knowledge and provide a complete experience to students.
It’s developed by Theme-Spirit.
Highlighted Features
Fully Responsive & Retina Ready
6 Uniquely Designed Demos
Powerful theme options on Live Customizer
One Click Demo Import
Prebuilt Elementor Page Templates and Sections
20 + Custom Elementor widgets
8 Header Variations
5 Footer Variations
Unlimited Colors
Pricing
Talemy costs $59 with 6 months’ support and is extendable.
As you can see picking a theme for your new course doesn’t have to be a headache.
If you want to create an online class, then using LearnDash for your learning management system is a great decision.
For most use cases, we’d recommend Astra. It’s blazingly fast, bloat-free and comes with ready-made demo sites you can use to get up and running quicker.
If you’re looking for something with a more minimalist look then check out Academy Pro which is simple, clean and straightforward.
Finally, if you’re looking for an all-singing, all-dancing then eLumine Theme you need!
We hope you found this guide helpful! What’s your favorite LearnDash theme? Let us know in the comments below.
