So my wife is going to build a blog about her life… with me……. This is going to be interesting!

or consider this recent comment on a WordPress news site

I’d show someone using WP – someone like me, a grandmother with a personal site

Everyone is blogging. Given the reality that WordPress makes it easy for almost anyone to start a blog, how does the blogging professional stand out in the crowd. We now have a simple answer. Get out of the box with the BloggingBox theme from Mythemshop.com.

BlogginBox is a perfect WordPress theme solution for established or aspiring professional bloggers who need a theme that provides a distinctive look and let’s their content shine. This multipurpose theme comes with the option to import four pre-configured layouts. This means there are some solid design options that can be tweaked to create a distinctive look without needing to start from scratch. We like that! There is a default blog configuration as well as configurations for news, fitness and travel blogs. But that is just a starting point there is no limit to creativity in setting up a blog with BlogggingBox.

Customisable home page

Let us walk you through some of the key options and features in BloggingBox. Starting with the home page. The homepage theme options include a slider (which can be configured to only show blog posts from specific categories); a featured posts section (where you can choose post from specific categories you want to highlight); an always useful latest posts section and our favorite a popular posts section (which displays your most read posts over a period of time you choose). All these home page options can be enabled or disabled from the easy to use theme options page.

Elegant Content Presentation

Content presentation is everything in a successful blog. With BloggingBox presenting your content your way has never been easier. Full width feature images (with or without a parallax/zoom out effect) are supported. Feature images and be useful to help tell a story on pages and posts, if well implemented, as they are in this case. This theme includes all the Google fonts so you can set the typography to fit the feel and mood of your blog. It also includes vector icons to add visual flair that won’t slow your site down. Speed optimization options allow readers to see your content quickly even if you use images.

Information Footer

The footer region of any site is an important element that shouldn’t be ignored. Information for readers to subscribe and reader engagement is usually placed there. BloggingBox comes with all that built-in. These options can be turned on with just two clicks. In addition the theme comes with several widgets that can be placed in the configurable footer regions to add other relevant information about a blog.

There are many other feature options essential for a great blog included with BloggingBox. In addition to the necessary social media sharing button the theme also includes a like/dislike feature in comments. This is a proven way to increase user engagement and the stickiness of a blog. Tags can be added to social media shares, and long posts can be paginated. It’s the little things that matter. The built-in breadcrumbs feature makes the theme SEO friendly so search engines can find and index your content. BloggingBox is Woocommerce ready and includes and option for a shopping cart in the header. Support is included for Google Adsense or other ad management code. It is also translation ready so elements of the user interface can easy be translation to a specific language.

The are just some of the extensive features we have mentioned included in the fantastic theme.

• Pre-configured layouts
• High customizable home page
• Woocommerce compatible
• Adsense ready
• Social media sharing
•  Built in user engagement tools
• Translation Ready
• Excellent typography and visual display options
• Speed optimization
• SEO friendly
• Great Price
• Awesome support

To sum up, BloggingBox is feature rich beautifully designed fully responsive predefined layouts, tons of custom options, widgets and snappy performance. It is well suited for any blogging niches. In our opinion with its high level of customization, and built-in features BloggingBox is the quintessential WordPress blogging theme. The best of the best in premium class blogging themes for WordPress we have ever come across. We like it so much we are switching the news site of one of our sister companies to BloggingBox.

You should get the BloggingBox theme now while it is still on sale for $19! Get your blog going with BloggingBox and get outside the box. Let us know if we can help comment to share how it goes.

Natural choice is a MyThemeShop.com affiliate.

My themeshop provides preconfigured setup for six types of web sites out of the box with the feminine theme. They include a gossip style site, fashion, style, and trend blogs as well as a portfolio site.

• Default Layout – This is the basic layout that fits a wide range of feminine niches and purposes. This multipurpose layout is ideal for webmasters who want to build a beautiful, minimalist and uncluttered girly site.
• Fashion Layout – this layout is uniquely designed to impress every fashion addict out there. Its simple elegance perfectly blended with matching fonts that redefine class and style. Every girly fashion enthusiast out there will want to get a copy of this theme.
• Trendy Layout -This layout is for those users who want to have a socially viral feminine site that is also truly gorgeous and makes an impact in connecting with the social media audience through content shares and likes.
• Style Layout – This is a polished and pristine layout that is a new entry into the style design, every pixel is perfectly placed with a classy and stylish finish. This layout is suitable for those feminine bloggers in style, beauty and showbiz blogging niches.
• Gossip Layout – A clean layout that lets you establish a high-end gossip site that commands authority and influence. All the necessary features to grow your popularity in the gossip industry have been incorporated in this layout.
• Portfolio Layout – This creative layout that is ideal for professional portfolios with a girly concept. It is visually appealing and very easy to use for creating a unique portfolio website.
• 

The Feminine theme includes an option for a customizable slider on the home page which could be used to to feature specific content. The theme also has support for the portfolio post type built which makes it perfect for showing designs on a fashion design site or looks on a style site.

The color scheme can be set to any thing that fits your needs. Specific compatible color schemes can be imported with the preconfigured setup provided by mythemeshop. The theme header is  highly customizable and can include a logo, two navigation menus and an optional header widget to display an ad or other featured content. All these options can be turned on or off.

The Feminine theme also seamlessly connects  social media with the web site. It featured options for social media buttons and a genius option to import an Instagram feed into the site footer simply by entering a IG username. An Instagram feed can also be added to a sidebar using an included widget.

The Feminine theme is Woocommerce ready so setting up an ecommerce shop using the woocommerce plugin is easy. Like other mythemeshop themes Feminine is fluid responsive so it looks great on all screen sizes and is optimized for speed. The Feminine theme includes a host of widgets that can be used to highlight site content, display tweets and even advertising if desired. There are three different layout options for posts This theme has so many ways to customize that even if one the pre-configured setups is used it can still communicate your content in a distinctive way. So if you’ve ever thought of starting a fashion/style blog or your existing blog needs a refresh try the Feminine theme on for size. We think you will find it’s a good fit

Visit mythemeshop To purchase and download the theme which is on sale this week.

naturel choice is a mythemeshop.com affiliate

After downloading from the WordPress plugin repository Anti-Spam by Clean Talk is easy to setup. Some spam plugins have myriad options to configure and setup making them difficult to use effectively due to a sleep learning curve. Anti-spam by Clean Talk doesn’t overwhelm with options setup is simple.  A few clicks to choose what forms should be protected and the service is activated What could be easier? Clean Talk’s Anti- Spam operates invisibly in the background. We wouldn’t even know it was there except for the activity counts and logs which show the number of spam mails blocked and show those emails to allow white-listing in the case of a false positive.

It’s affordable for any kind of site so we recommend to all our clients and use it ourselves. The basic Anti-Spam subscription service that brings functionality to the plugin costs only $8 a year. There are discounts for subscribing for. Multiple years. Tweet usage or share your use of Anti Spam by Clean Talk and you can get additional months added to your subscription for free. That a real deal compared to other premium anti-spam services. For that affordable costs Anti-Spam by Clean Talk protects not just comments forms, but registration, contact and orders forms. That’s real value.

Most importantly it’s effective. Dramatically so in fact. We could go into all the details about the way the plugin/service tracks and collects notorious spam emails and uses their extensive database to filter those emails before they even get access to your web site comment or email system. But who wants to get into all that nitty gritty. Not our clients so let just say IT WORKS! Before Anti- Spam by Clean Talk we spent a lot of time combing through built in WordPress moderation tools on client web site cleaning up spam. After installing Anti – spam by Clean Talk that all but disappears. We like that and our clients do as well. The plugin supports forms from Formidable, Contact form 7, JetPack Contact, Fast Secure Contac, Ninja forms, Landing pages, Gravity forms, Contact Form by BestWebSoft, Simple Contact Form Plugin – PirateForms, Visual Form Builder, Form, Contact Form by WebDorado, Contact Form Email, MW WP Form, Contact Form by Jeff Bulllins, Easy Contact, Contact Us Form, Grunion Contact Form, WCP Contact Form, Easy WordPress Contact Form Plugin, WPForms Lite, Custom Contact, Forms, Amo Forms, Caldera Forms, Visual Form Builder, Contact Form Clean and Simple, Divi by Elegant Themes and many more.

Sure, there are free anti spam plugins and captcha plugins that can be used to slow the spam bots from flooding your web site.  But this plugin and the service it provides is exceptional and highly recommended. We rated Five of five stars in the plugin respository for high quality, high effectiveness and high value.

The history

First a bit of history. Our team used WordPress from its earliest days. Back then it was just a fledgling fork (a new version of a software derived from another) of a then popular open source blogging platform called B3. When the first fork version of WordPress became available it offered several options not available in its predecessor. That along and the promise of regular updates got members of our team using WordPress as tool for personal blogging. At that time some knowledge of HTML (the display language of the web) was needed in order to make even the most rudimentary web sites. WordPress helped to lower the learning curves and made common HTML functions available. Over time WordPress grew from a simple blogging tool into a CMS (content management system) adding database functionality to store content, allowing it to be used to build complex sites. Now WordPress the web platform that it is today is used for all kinds of sites.

Fast forward to current day, and WordPress is used to power over a quarter of the web sites on the internet. Almost 77 million blogs worldwide run on WordPress. WordPress comes in two flavors. WordPress.com and WordPress.org. WordPress.com is an easy to use hosted platform for blogs and basic web sites. WordPress.com includes hosting and file storage. WordPress.org is the self hosted version, which requires a separate web host to store your files and data. Our team has extensive knowledge of both version and is ready to assist in designing a site using either one.

Not just for blogs

WordPress usage isn’t just for personal blogs or small business sites. Some big companies use WordPress to power their sites. Media sites like The Chicago Sun Times, the New York Post and BBC America, all use WordPress powered sites. Technology sites like TechCrunch and Slash Gear use WordPress. Entertainment sites for Beyonce, Sony Music and Variety magazine all use WordPress. Major business web sites like Walt Disney, Boston Market, Izod are powered by WordPress.

Our choice

As you can see WordPress is able to address a variety of web site needs. This was the main reason we choose WordPress as our design/development web platform. Stay tuned for the next post in our introduction to WordPress as a design platform.

Statistics quoted from https://www.codeinwp.com/blog/wordpress-statistics/
naturel choice design is a WordPress Affiliate

How you engage?

Most subscription plugins work with one or two services like Constant Contact or Mail Chimp. Many are limited to free subscription services like FeedBurner. WP Subscribe Pro gives you many options for your email subscriptions service. All the big ones are there and much more take a look at this extensive list.

• FeedBurner
• Aweber
• MailChimp
• GetResponse
• MailerLite
• Benchmark
• MailerRelay
• Acumbamail
• FreshMail
• K-news
• Mad Mimi
• MailerLite
• MailPoet
• MyMail
• SendGrid
• SendInBlue
• Drip
• Sendy

We had been looking for a subscription plugin to work with our favorite WordPress newsletter plugin MailPoet for some time until we came across WP Subscribe Pro. It’s a perfect fit and includes a double opt-in for MailPoet so emails send from your WordPress install are less likely to be considered spam.

How do you subscribe?

Some subscription plugins give you a static widget to engage and prompt visitors to your site to sign up for email or newsletters. WP Subscribe Pro gives you multiple options. Want a widget? They have that. Want pop ups? They have that. Need a shortcode? They have that.

There is almost no way that this plugin cannot be placed to enhance your user engagement. Beyond placement WP Subscribe Pro allows cookies to be set to limit pop-ups over a period of time. Since obtrusive pop-ups now count against your SEO ranking, options can be set to delay the display of pop-ups.

How does your engagement look?

The final piece of functionality in the latest WP Subscribe Pro we want to review is the look and feel. The plugin creates gorgeous looking eye-catching subscription pop ups and box. The reflect the latest web 2.0 look and feel and can be customized with unlimited colors and text. Simply put you can customize WP Subscribe Pro to fit your taste and any color scheme. Though WP Subscribe Pro comes pre-configured with text for email subscription it can be configured with different text to extend its usage beyond email subscriptions. Triggers for pop-ups can be configured to display based on timing, the exiting the site scrolling to the end of a page and much more. Pop-up can be turned off for individual pages or posts.

 This is one of the best plugins we have come across for user engagement and we have tried many of them for all the reasons mentioned. Here is a summary of the advanced features included in the latest WP Subscribe Pro update:

• Fully Responsive Forms
• Optimized for Speed
• Unlimited Colors for easy customization
• Super Lightweight
• Compatible with SEO Plugins
• Compatible with Caching Plugins
• Custom Colors for Widget Subscription form
• Exclude Popups on Pages or Posts
• Newsletter Box Below or Above Content
• Flush Cookies
• Cookie Expiration
• Add custom HTML and Shortcode on forms
• Eye-catching Design
• Built-in Widget Support
• Variety of Popup Animations
• Preview Popup Button before Publishing
• Control Popup Box Text
• Delay Popup Display
• WP Subscribe Pro is now translation ready.

Great news

 WP Subscribe Pro is current on sale for $19 only until Saturday 15th April 2017 for just $19.- Coupon: SubscribePro19 GO get this great plugin now and go pro with your user engagement.

Naturel Choice Design is a MyThemeShop affiliate

One of the biggest challenges for web design is maximizing function while creating a distinctive look that reflects the nature and character of the site. The Writer theme has everything authors need to present and promote their work. Though this recently released theme from MyThemeShop has lots functionality built-in it also offers a clean customizable interface that puts the author’s work from and center. Preconfigured layout options can be imported to get an author site up and running in a jiffy. We tried the Writer Theme on a collaborative writing site we host and found it to be all that it was described to be. One key to high SEO ranking and reader stickiness is page speed. Faster pages get ranked higher in search engines and reader stick around longer reading more pages. We found the Writer’s Theme is as fast as advertised.

We particularly like the highly configurable home page which features many ways to present their work in a clean distraction free way. The unique home page design also features promotional sections to get the word out about past and future content.The Writer theme is a clean design that would be an asset for any Writer site by allowing readers to concentrate on the content. Typography options, with font choices, color schemes and blog layouts make this theme a great choice for a writing site. The new Writer theme from MyThemeShop lets authors do the writer thing!

1. Quality. All the themes from mythemeshop.com are high quality well written and light weight, and incorporate the latest web 2.0 features. Even their free themes.
2. Cost. Even though the quality of their themes is high they are reasonably priced. That allows us to design affordable, highly customizable web sites for our clients.
3. Support. mythemshop.com offers some of the best support around. Support tickets are responded to quickly and thorough solutions to problems with purchased themes or plugins are provided.

We already use several mythemeshop.com themes on our sites as well as those of our client sites.  So when we got the opportunity review the SocialNow theme we were excited to have the opportunity to share our thoughts with our readers. So on to the review.

SocialNow

We installed the SocialNow theme on our test site where we test out new themes and plugins before we implement for our clients.Installation is simple using the standard WordPress theme manual install to upload the zip file from MyThemeShop and activate once installed. The magic starts once the theme is installed. There is an option to import theme options, starter content and even widgets to configure the site in a snap. The options included are the default, site configuration, and fashion, health, or news, or viral site configuration and look like one of the several options demonstrated by MyThemeShop on their site. We chose the viral configuration for our review site. You can choose to import only the configuration options, the options and widgets, or everything including the starter content. This gives an easy way to see what the site will could like with content and the opportunity to quickly customize a base configuration to suit your needs. Once the you are ready to add your own content the imported content can be removed with a single click.

SocialNow – social media

Everyone knows that social media is critical to connecting in the digital age. But the content that can be shared on social media is limited so web sites will never be replaced by social media. What is needed is a way to connect social media and web sites seamlessly to engage visitors and draw them to your site and convert web site visitors into social media followers. SocialNow is designed to use your web site in conjunction with your social media accounts to maximize your content for the greatest impact. This marketing concept called spiral branding in the ad industry is an essential tool for the digital age. The SocialNow theme makes it easy to share your social media accounts on a web site. It has several tools that makes it easy to not only add your accounts but determine where and how they are displayed.

SocialNow – social content

What good is social media and great content if no one reads it. The SocialNow theme does a fantastic job of presenting content in an engaging way with a stylish modern look and feel. This is one of the things we like the most about this theme. It is clear a lot of attention was paid to content display. One of our favorite features is the featured image sliders and parallax/zoom out featured images. This puts the ability to feature content in a visually appealing way at our finger tips. Creating eye-catching content display couldn’t be easier. The homepage slider can be turned on and configured with a couple of clicks to show a beautiful full width slider to display chosen content categories.

Another great looking feature we like is the styling of the comment/discussion box. Its formatting is inviting and engaging and promotes interaction. The built-in rating and social media sharing will certainly help to build community and give content the opportunity to go viral. The built-in related articles helps make you content sticky being visitors on your site longer and giving them more to share on social media.

One essential necessity for any modern theme is responsive display. That means the theme will display content differently based on the kind of the device being used to view it. So whether a site is viewed a mobile phone, a tablet or a desktop/laptop computer information should as easy to access and fit the viewing available area. SocialNow absolutely shines in this area.

site viewed on iphone

Beyond the built-in theme options which allows aspects of the theme to be quickly changed and customized, SocialNow “ships” with several free plugins that makes it easy to customize a web site so it doesn’t look generic. In addition there are many built-in options to get the maximum impact for your site. This includes customized home page display, ad management, typography options and fine-tuning header/footer options. This theme has so many features not found in other themes like built-in optimizations to so sites load more quickly.

Overall we really like this new addition to the MyThemeShop stable of themes. It is definitely a theme that we could recommend for a client or see ourselves using on one of our sites. The look and feel reflects the modern web and it has the necessary web 2.0 features one would expect in a top quality theme. The easily customizable features of the theme gives it a 4.5 out of 5 rating in our book. The solid support from MyThemeShop makes it a solid choice. If there was one omission we would like to see implemented for even more flexibility is content display is WordPress post formats, that would bump our 4+ rating to solid 5.

Naturel Choice is a mythemeshop.com affiliate.

New Creative Commons search engine for free to use images https://t.co/jzPpuOc8DF https://t.co/jzPpuOc8DF

— NaturelChoice Design (@NaturelChoice) February 8, 2017

]]> 290 https://www.naturelchoice.com/instagram-update-creates-photo-albums-allowing-some-users-to-post-multiple-images-simultaneously/ Thu, 02 Feb 2017 16:55:47 +0000 https://www.naturelchoice.com/?p=288

Instagram Update Creates Photo Albums? App Version Allowing Some Users To Post Multiple Images Simultaneously https://t.co/4c290AtP6K

— NaturelChoice Design (@NaturelChoice) February 2, 2017

]]> 288 https://www.naturelchoice.com/could-your-wordpress-site-usea-security-plugin/ Wed, 25 Jan 2017 16:52:12 +0000 https://www.naturelchoice.com/?p=285

Do You Need a WordPress Security Plugin? https://t.co/dSY95Q9mMT

— NaturelChoice Design (@NaturelChoice) January 25, 2017

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