There are a number of businesses and services belonging to the financial sector. These include startups, small firms, private financial advisors, investment firms, etc. Launching any business or financial website becomes much simpler and easier with the help of the ready-made WordPress themes. As a rule, these are loaded with all functionality, elements, and tools that you will need when working on the effective online presentation of your site.

Why Is WordPress the Best Choice for Business Sites

The today’s web offers you a wide variety of CMS and online platforms that you can use as the foundation of your web resource. WordPress is undoubtedly the most popular CMS that includes everything needed to launch a feature-rich business project of yours. Indeed, more than 30% of the websites accessible to the public access are built on the basis of WordPress. The community expands with a number of the creative designers and developers launching ready-made themes and extensions that allow you to save tons of time, money, and efforts on the launch of online resources of any level of difficulty. Consequently, the number of WordPress themes continues to grow, with the choice of financial WordPress templates getting more diverse.

How to Select the Best Financial WordPress Theme?

The best finance WordPress themes should be designed in the clean and clear manner, making the visitors feel the ease of coming across the desired pieces of data as they scan through the web page. More than that, such designs need to be loaded with the sections and functionality for revealing contacts, team members, pricing details, services, testimonials, portfolio, and other content. This bunch of features will provide the web users with the quick ways to access the essential content from the financial website.

It goes without saying that the perfect WordPress theme for business and financial purposes should be running on the responsive frameworks. Building a website on the basis of the mobile-first design will be much more effective in the competitive today’s world. Additional skins, pages, layouts, and UI elements will be the great benefits for the creation of the user-friendly web designs. All of these and a number of extra functionality are included in the 20 WordPress themes that we’ve handpicked for this showcase.

Read More at Top 20 Financial WordPress Themes for 2017 to Build Corporate Sites

WordPress themes are in the great demand among the business owners planning to bring their projects to the web, ordinary users who want to let a wider audience learn about their skills and read their thoughts, as well as web design studios that need to bring a number of cool projects to the web as quickly and effectively as possible. There are loads of ready-made WordPress designs available on the web. Some of them are free, others are available for download at a fee. As you’ve already guessed, today we are going to pay more attention to WordPress business themes and the benefits that you can derive from using free designs.

Top Reasons to Choose Free WordPress Themes

Premium themes are considered to be helpful when you need to bring a small business project or a large corporate project online. Priced $45 or higher (on TemplateMonster) these are commonly enhanced with all pages, extensions, and theme customization options needed to launch a fully-fledged web store without the need to search for the third-party extensions somewhere else on the web.

However, theme providers have started to release free WordPress themes that do not leg behind the premium ready-made solutions. The functionality those store under the hood is pretty much similar to what paid templates include. For example, it’s become a common practice to release website templates integrated with visual page builders.

• TemplateMonster releases WordPress themes integrated with the Power drag-and-drop page builder.
• Their ready-made designs also include live customizers, which reveal the results of the layout customization in real-time, without making you click the “update” button every time you bring changes to the design.
• Additional layouts are also provided to make the web resources more informative, as well as bring them to the web in the shortest period of time.
• Bootstrap-based layouts are provided to make the web resources mobile-friendly.
• Endless customization options are also included in the admin panels.
• All free WordPress themes released by TemplateMonster run on Cherry Framework. The latest version includes a number of the smart Cherry plugins, which are included to streamline the process of the design personalization.
• Cross-browser compatibility and optimization for the search engines are set as default features.

Join TemplateMonster Marketplace!

It’s a well-known fact that TemplateMonster offers a huge collection of premium templates for any possible niche. After being 15 years in the web-design industry, we’ve decided that the time for some global changes had come. From now on all talented web-designers all over the world who have a fancy for developing websites are welcome to become a vendor at TemplateMonster’s Marketplace. Amateur-designers can show their talent and, in addition to this, earn their first thousands of dollars for their work. Professional designers can become even more recognizable and earn a great amount of money that they’ve never dreamed of.
If you are looking for a place where it’s easy and profitable to sell your digital products and earn up to 70% commission from each sale, don’t miss this chance and join our digital marketplace here and now!

Every template (even if it’s free) is unique. So, it’s always better to take a look at its technical details and live demo before you decide if it meets your requirements or not.

Read More at 10 Best Free WordPress Themes from TemplateMonster Marketplace

WordPress is used to power an estimated 27.4 percent of all websites, and templates in general are popular across all sites. In other words, the search for templates and themes that are compatible with WordPress is very prevalent among professional and hobbyist designers. In the past, this led to a long and boring list of template options that could only be tweaked in minor ways.

Although this was a huge success story at first as it allowed people to break away from doing their own HTML coding, the reality is that the look and feel of many of these templates is no longer up to par. Fortunately, Themify offers a new way of looking at the popular website building option. Instead of being stuck with the exact layout of the theme you choose, you now have an unprecedented level of control.

Themify Ultra Takes Things to a New Level

Themify Ultra is by far the most powerful WordPress creation that the Themify team has developed. Designers of all skill levels will enjoy the vast selection of choices that transform the basic theme into a professional looking and fully responsive website. This theme is alterable through the easy to use drag and drop builder.

Have you ever found a template you adored but wanted to tweak the header, background or footer? Perhaps you’ve also encountered issues getting the layout to cooperate for single posts and archives. With Themify Ultra, you’ll gain access to a robust list of customizable layout choices that will enable you to truly make the resulting website unique.

Header/Page Styles 

First up is the impressive list of header/page styles. Your theme can be altered to feature any of 15 styles that range from the Header Magazine look to a Header that slides out from the left or right-hand side of the page. You can also choose no header at all, which is ideal for any landing pages that you are planning to build.

Header Background Options

Next, there are six header background options to improve upon the header you select. Again, you can choose between a nice array of looks such as an image, a slider or animating colors. You can even upload a video, which is a nice feature that is a lot of fun to work with.

Footer Layouts

It would be odd to have so many customizations available for the header without also giving some love to the footer. Themify provides six footer styles, and each style can be further altered with widgets, a menu, credit text and visibility toggling.

Single Post Layouts

Themify Ultra comes with a default single post layout, but it doesn’t end there. Users have four more layouts to choose from, including gallery style and split.

Archive Layouts

An archive is something that most website template designers have given little to no thought to. This is evidenced by the complete lack of a designated archive layout that is found within most website builders. Themify has again stepped up to provide users with yet another useful way to set their site apart from the competition. Choose from six archive layouts that can each be further customized through visibility toggling of several components.

Introducing: Section Scrolling

One of Themify’s newest features is also among the most exciting! Section scrolling has been designed to allow website visitors to scroll one row at a time through your entire page design. This mimics the concept of a presentation slideshow and can be extremely useful for a wide variety of online businesses. Unsurprisingly, Themify took this beyond the basics by offering six ways to configure section scrolling so that it fits in the best with the rest of your layout.

Pre-Designed Layouts Offer Simplicity

All of the cool stuff that Themify can do is only going to be as useful as your level of skill and patience. For example, if you don’t want to make a bunch of decisions about the layout of your site, you’re probably not going to spend a lot of time tweaking things such as your footer and header. However, website owners who still want to end up with the best possible appearance can select from more than 60 pre-designed layouts.

Much like every other pre-designed template that is offered by website builders, you’ll be able to look through your options, pick your favorite and plug your own words and images into the provided boxes. Unlike most pre-designed layouts, Themify has impressive parallax landing pages available for their layouts. This helps ensure an end result that doesn’t look like it was quickly put together with an existing layout. Instead, users get professional quality results without needing to hire a website designer.

Of course, even if you are working with a professional, Themify is a great way to get a look and feel you truly like. If this is what you’re planning to do, though, it makes the most sense to give the website designer access to Themify Ultra so that they can tweak your site more extensively.

Free Bonus Builder Addons

The Ultra theme becomes an even better bang for your buck when you take advantage of the builder add-ons. With a simple click, you can access and add elements to your website that include a pricing table, a contact form, a map, a progress bar and a timeline. Themify values this add-on pack at $100, but they toss it in free of charge with Ultra.

Image Filters

We’re living in an Instagram world, which means that images need to be hip in order to capture attention. Themify removes the need to purchase expensive editing software such as Photoshop by offering built-in filters. There’s also a portfolio feature and you can utilize website alterations such as overlays, animated colors and gradient colors to make your site truly pop!

What We Love

Now that we’ve provided a breakdown of some of Themify’s best features, it’s time to look at what really works for us. We absolutely love all of the layout customizations that come with Themify Ultra. The pre-designed layouts, add-ons and image features are also a nice touch, as is the easy to work with WooCommerce Shop.

What We Don’t Love

There’s nothing about Themify that we actively dislike, but it would be nice if the image customizations offered more filter choices. Additionally, the long list of custom options that can be used with Ultra is almost too long! People who are indecisive by nature may take a while to make their final selections as a result.

Final Thoughts

Themify is one of the most powerful WordPress compatible website builders we’ve ever encountered. The ability to change almost every single detail of a layout without needing to know HTML or CSS coding is a game changer, and we suspect most intermediate to advanced users will choose to make a lot of alterations. This couldn’t possibly be easier thanks to the drag and drop technology.

Those who want a very quick and simple way to build a website can’t go wrong with the pre-built templates, although upgrading to Themify Ultra’s wonderful level of creative control will offer a much more unique result. Ultimately, we love and highly recommend Themify for a wide variety of website needs!   

Read More at Themify Helps You Say Goodbye to Boring Website Templates

If you’re feeling overwhelmed when attempting to select a theme for a WordPress site that will work for you, you’re not alone. There are so many to choose from, that after a while, all the good candidates begin to look alike.

The real problem could be that you’re unsure of what theme characteristics to look for. After all, you want to build more than just websites; you want to build web experiences.

Here’s what to look for:

A theme featuring aesthetically pleasing designs. These are designs that are attractive, and have a good deal of lasting power; themes that won’t quickly become outdated or passé.

A theme that produces SEO-friendly sites. SEO friendly is mandatory if you expect a site to draw good traffic.

A theme that is easy to customize. This characteristic gives you flexibility; plus, ease in customizability can be a genuine time saver.

Theme’s authors who provide top quality support. When you choose a premium theme, you have a right to expect top-notch support.

To make things even easier, we’ve compiled this selection of 14 Best WP themes for 2017:

Be Theme – Responsive Multi-Purpose WordPress Theme

Be Theme is multipurpose. It’s the biggest WP theme ever. It has the features you need. And, it’s ridiculously easy to use.

Be gives web designers the capability to produce any type or style of website, and the ability to precisely meet the needs of their clients. Be’s page-building tools, along with an outstanding selection of pre-built websites, also gives designers the ability to create pleasing and engaging experiences for end users.

Be’s 230+ pre-built websites are definitely the highlight. They provide you with a niche or theme-based concept to work with, they help you get any project off to a fast start, and the elements they contain are what are needed to create a pleasing UX.

Other highlights include the two fast and efficient page builders: Muffin 3, and Virtual Composer. Shortcodes allow you to add detail and functionality, without having to resort to code; there are plenty of grid, header, and layout options, and Be’s support is superb.

The Core – Multi Purpose WordPress Theme

There’s much that you’ll like about this WordPress theme. The Core is fast, flexible, and user-friendly. No special skills are needed on your part, nor do you have to worry about coding.

It’s hard to say what this WP theme’s 154,000+ users like best, although they’ve really taken to the Visual Page Builder, and the way it speeds up the entire design process. The thematic demos are another plus. They are easy to install, and easy to customize.

Even though this WP theme has been designed with the professional web designer in mind, working with it is so intuitive that it doesn’t require an experienced designer to provide a client with a truly sharp deliverable.

100+ informative articles are included in The Core’s documentation, and there’s a nice selection of video tutorials to help you one your way.

Enfold – Multi-Purpose Theme

Enfold is super flexible, it’s a top ThemeForest seller, and a time saver as well. Enfold is Designed for every skill level.

You can either start your design from scratch, or use the Content Importer to set up a preliminary site that closely matches the demo you’ve selected. With that approach, you can be on your way to completing a website in record time, or providing a client with a prototype of your proposed deliverable.

Enfold demos are customizable, and you can pick and choose elements from more than one demo while you design a page. There is also a selection of portfolio templates to work with. Once you’ve customized one of these templates, you can save it for future projects

There’s much more of course, including a wide selection of header and menu options. ThemeForest also has a hosted version of Enfold.

Hestia PRO

Hestia PRO will be a good choice if you have one or more one-page website projects in mind, and/or you are trying help a startup client that is badly in need of a top-quality website based on a Material Design theme.

Hestia PRO is WooCommerce ready, it’s responsive, and its authors are dedicated to giving its users quality support.

Houzez – Real Estate WordPress Theme

If your client or clients deal in real estate, you won’t find a better and easier way to meet their website needs than with the Houzez WordPress theme.

This specialty theme has the functions and features needed to quickly build websites with all the functions and features real estate agents require. A specialty theme enables you to deliver a better product, and do so more quickly, than is generally the case with multipurpose themes.

Divi 3.0

Divi attracted a large following when it first came out of the gate. With the later release of its state-of-the art frontend Divi Builder, sales for Divi 3.0 have increased by leaps and bounds.

The Divi Builder is one of the fastest and most powerful page builders you’ll find anywhere, and it is well worth a close look, as are the other features that make up this premium WordPress theme.

Uncode – Creative Multiuse WordPress Theme

To build a stunning website, you must start with a well-defined concept. This is where Uncode shines. This pixel-perfect WordPress theme offers several concept categories, with each concept designed to get your project off to a quick start.

Once underway, you’ll be able to make good use of Uncode’s enhanced Visual Composer, its Adaptive Images system, the Advanced Grid System, and other powerful features.

TheGem – Creative Multi-Purpose High-Performance WordPress Theme

A quick way to see what TheGem offers is to check out a few of the demos (don’t forget the “Others” demo). Then, check out the features, to see what all can be done with any of the demos.

TheGem may well be your ultimate tool for building WordPress websites; especially if you’d rather not spend your valuable time attending to various technical details, or coding.

Ultra WordPress Theme

The Themify Builder is a feature that sets Ultra apart from most other WP themes. Ultra also offers a post type builder, a highly-useful selection of builder addons, including the clever typewriter animation and infinite scrolling background image, plus a host of plugins, including flappable Tiles, and the WooCommerce Shopdoc.

Ultra is a theme you can have a great deal of fun with as you go about creating pleasing user experiences.

Kleo – Pro Community Focused, Multi-Purpose BuddyPress Theme

Community-oriented features is an area where many, and possibly most, WordPress themes fall short. KLEO gives you precisely the kinds of tools you need to incorporate widely-used community activities.

They include profile search, Facebook Login, and forum functionality. The rtMedia feature lets you add audio/video and photos to a page. This fast, easy-to-use WP theme is just right for creating a community-oriented website.

XStore – Responsive WooCommerce Theme

Its name says it all. XStore is a WooCoomerce theme devoted to building online shops known for their awesome user experiences.

XStore’s creators wanted to provide web designers with a comfortable tool to work with; and they succeeded admirably. You’ll have a great selection of demos to works with, plus the plugins you need to create an eye-popping online shop.

Kalium WordPress Theme

Kalium is clean, minimalist, and well-organized, and its demos are visually stunning. This WP theme was built for professionals, although it is also well suited for beginners.

The page builder is Visual Composer, and Kalium comes with the WooCommerce plugin and other commonly used plugins as well. Shortcodes obviate any need for coding, plus they give you great flexibility and more design possibilities. Valuable bonus elements are included in the package.

TheFox Responsive Multi-Purpose WordPress Theme

TheFox bills itself as being the smartest WordPress theme on the market. Once you’ve tried it, you may agree. This is a clean, good-looking multipurpose theme.

It’s remarkably easy to customize, and the package includes a souped-up version of the popular Visual Composer page builder. Just as you should do with any theme before you make a purchase, try out one or two of the demos. You’ll be impressed with what you see.

Impreza WordPress Theme

The easiest way to see what Impreza can do for you, is simply submit your email address. In return, you’ll receive an invitation to test drive this multipurpose WP theme. Impreza is clean as a whistle, it’s frequently updated, and it’s perfect for building business websites, blogs, and portfolios.

As far as ThemeForest buyer ratings go, Impreza comes as about as close to 5 stars as a theme can get.

Conclusion

As you’ve no doubt noticed, there are 14 great selections listed. Hopefully at least one of them is the solution to your immediate needs. Whether you’re in the hunt for a multipurpose theme to get you started in 2017, a specialized theme, or something in-between, you should find it here.

If you’re looking for a one-page theme, a real-estate specialty theme, or an eCommerce theme, you’ve hit the jackpot. If you haven’t found exactly what you need, please let us know.

Read More at The Best WordPress Themes for 2017 – Why Settle for Less?

Picture this scenario.
You have a lineup of ten people in front of you and you have to guess which one is a consultant. I bet you 20 dollars that you will spot the consultant almost instantly.
They are known to be people-oriented individuals who inspire trust through their professional look and leverage their knowledge to grow your business. Usually, the professionals from this industry put a lot of time and effort into their image, perfecting aesthetics to inspire trust and empathy.

Now, the challenge is;

How do you design a website that serves as an online consultant?

What makes a page feel trustworthy, professional and straightforward while looking good at the same time?

Designing a website that serves as a virtual salesman can be difficult. It’s very unlikely for a  consultant to pull out a complex gaming laptop with flashing red buttons and alien looking design during a meeting or while pitching.
Analogously, a consultancy website shouldn’t be flashy with complex design elements and widgets popping out of everywhere.

You have to dress to impress!

What you are looking for when designing a consultancy website is simple design with practical, actionable information on it. Call it, the web design equivalent of MacBooks.
A great theme that fits this description is the consulting WordPress theme by Stylemix Themes.

This theme conveys a great amount of vital information and is an accurate portrayal of the consultancy company.  While displaying all this information, they still found a way to do it in an easy to follow manner. The theme has clearly been optimized by a CRO professional and it has a great marketing team behind it. Today, we are going to use this theme as an example for how to build a consulting website without compromising aesthetics.
So without further ado, here are seven elements every consulting website needs.

1. Human Interaction

This comes without saying, a consultancy related website should focus a lot on human interaction. Undoubtedly, adding that personal element to your brand, your website can be one of your brand’s most effective weapons.
Starting with the header image depicting a person smiling or a friendly face from the consultancy team and finishing with a chat integration; these are elements that are reportedly converting your users.

2. Trust

I’ve always been fascinated by the power of typography and colors. Typography in branding is important because it carries the message of the brand.
Very often you can actually understand a brand’s identity just by looking at the typography before you even read the words.

People are subconsciously trusting fonts like Baskerville or Helvetica more than a font like Times New Roman or something similar.
Michael Berut says

“In a way, typefaces are the graphic equivalent of the human voice, and each voice has a specific timbre and accent. In my mind, Baskerville speaks with a calm, confidence-inspiring English accent, sort of like Colin Firth. No wonder it’s so trustworthy.”

You can read more about that here.

As far as colors go, the color Blue actually creates chemicals in the body that are soothing because they slow down human metabolism. Blue is commonly used in situations where diplomacy or negotiation skills are required. This is just one reason why it makes a great main color for a consultancy website.

3. Validation

Quality validation through case studies and testimonials is still alive and kicking. Although it might seem a bit mainstream and overused to display testimonials or logos of companies you’ve worked with on your website, it still is a powerful marketing technique.
Since it’s crucial that you build credibility, it’s recommended for consultants to show pictures of their office environment, provide thorough background information, highlight their accomplishments, display logos of companies they’ve worked with, and include case studies. Showing your physical address on your website will also clearly communicate to clients that you are fully accessible. Another interesting technique I’ve seen being used by consultancy companies or development companies is showing the industries or the technologies you are proficient on. For example, this web development company has seen a 36% increase in conversions since they’ve implemented a slider with all the technologies they master and work with.

The consultancy WordPress theme has a similar feature and you can easily customize it to convey the message that resonates best with your user personas.

4. Clear Call to Actions

Call to Action, the three words you hear as often as “I love you” and “Made in China”.
Although everybody is talking about it, a Call to Action is consequential and can seriously influence your conversions. Although this theme gives you the possibility of having two CTA’s on your homepage, that isn’t recommended. Multiple calls to action lead to cannibalization, so you should focus on what’s relevant for your users.

5. Blog

List or Grid? Now that’s the real question. We all know that content marketing is tremendously important for growth, so I’m not going to talk about that very much. But if you’d like, you can read more about it here. However, let’s take a look at blogs from a design perspective. The two most popular blog layouts are the grid and list layouts. I personally find the grid layout a bit more practical since you can scan through all the titles faster and find what you are looking for.

A grid layout is excellent when you have a very information-heavy site (like many blogs) and add a sense of order and structure to a design.

6. About Us Page

A study conducted by the folks from Blue Acorn states “On average, visitors to an About Us page were five times more likely to make a purchase than those that didn’t. They also spent an average of 22.5% more on their purchases. In cases like the one below, where the About Us page was of very high quality, the results were almost double that figure…These figures represent two things. First, people who look at your About Us page are more likely to buy and more likely to spend more. Second, the better the page is the more these figures increase. It’s not a question of whether or not you should have one. It’s about having the best page possible to maximize your revenue..”

Web designers should know that the “About Us”  page is, on average, the second most viewed page after the homepage. A consulting website should have an about us page with three major components. A “meet the team” section where they can find out who the consultants are that they are working with, an explanatory video to visually illustrate the firm’s beliefs and mission, and lastly, the company overview.

7. Practical

I asked Brandon Howard from All My Web Needs to give me his feedback on this consultancy theme from a technical perspective and here are the pro’s that he found and what makes this theme practical.

• They have several different pre-loaded color combinations to choose from.

• The theme is coupled with Slider Revolution.

• The theme is coupled with Visual Composer.

• Love the ability to insert parallax background images in those sections where the content scrolls but the background stays put.

• Pre-integration with WooCommerce is a huge plus. Not sure that it makes a big difference for consultants, but it expands the capabilities of the theme and makes it a viable option for a variety of other business types.

To be honest, we don’t review themes very often, but looking at what this theme created by the amazing theme from Stylemix Themes has to offer and it’s capabilities impressed us deeply. Alongside the features mentioned by Brandon, the theme has 18 layouts, including three RTL layouts in Hebrew, Persian, and Arabic.

We asked a few other professionals for their feedback on this theme and here are their answers.

The Consulting theme is a great looking responsive theme that is ideally suited for consulting firms or can easily be changed a bit to work for any small – mid sized business.  One of the main things I like about this theme is that it has a built-in Job board where you can list your internal jobs or even just use this a local job or specialized job directory in the field you are in. Usually, this feature would be an additional expense yet it is included in this theme. The pre-built template pages they have for service listings is a really nice and professional touch. This will make it much easier for anyone to create a stand out services page. This will save you from having to hire outside help to create a spectacular page for you. Another great feature is that it has themes to work with Woocommerce if you wanted to also setup an online store to sell anything.  All in all the Consulting theme from Stylemix Themes is a great and professional theme that is easy to use, even if you are not a ‘webmaster’.

Rob Boirun

CEO

PopNet Media LLC.

I do believe that the Consulting WordPress theme has a great combination of a corporate feel whilst still having plenty of modern necessary WordPress features.

Sites which are designed for services must have a corporate look and this is, of course, something which is set in people’s minds from the current websites which they would visit.

As a recognized winner of an Envato award, this is a sentiment which is shared by many people, making the choice of this theme a sure winner. (If it’s popular on Envato, it’s going to be popular with the public).

One thing which I’ve found necessary for modern WordPress themes is the drag and drop page builder. For a modern web designer, and for the person who will be administering the site, a drag and drop page builder is a real necessity. It makes a great difference for me when designing using a page builder, because I can set up brand new (complex) pages in hours with ease.

David Attard

DART Creations

This theme is very interesting, on the surface, bundled with a lot of beautiful layouts and designs. However, it makes me wonder whom this theme targets. Is this for the small business owner who has no experience with WordPress? Alternatively, is this for an agency or other WordPress enthusiast to be able to launch a beautiful site more quickly?

The install was fairly straightforward if you are familiar with WordPress. I was able to get up and running in under 10 minutes following the well-written included documentation. When you install the initial theme encourages you to download 14 recommended plugins by default.

The only issue I encountered when installing the theme was an error when I tried to activate visual composer.

I found this puzzling because it encouraged me and even offered nag screens to download the entire recommended plug-in suite. While this may be useful for someone who is setting up their initial WordPress site, be confusing for people who do not know what plug-ins they want or need. The best example of this is Woo Commerce. I am a fan of installing the fewest number of plug-ins required to do the specific tasks. Installing the recommended plug-ins are completely optional and I only wish I had better direction for people to know what they may or may not need.

After the theme is installed, you can either build off of that or choose one of the many included demos to import and build off. The included demos are nice because it gives you a jumping off-point without knowing anything about WordPress.

Something to be aware of, however, is the demo that I imported without images weighed in at 1.54 MB. In today’s mobile connected world we need to make sure our sites load very efficiently.

However, this can easily be mitigated by optimizing images and leveraging performance improvements inside of WordPress. One plug-in that you may want to consider is JCH Optimize which is an excellent caching, compression and build image optimizer.

As far as managing the customization of the theme is concerned. I found it easy to modify the essential elements provided you follow the included documentation. I would not recommend this theme to any person who has no experience with any CMS. On the other hand, I think this theme could be a workhorse for someone developing sites for consultants and professional service firms. The large variation of included demos allows you to ease the multiple times and not have it be noticeable for your portfolio.

Mike Demo

BoldGrid evangelist

Read More at 7 Elements Every Business Consulting Website Needs

Due to the ever-increasing reach of the internet, having an online presence or website for your business is no longer a luxury but a necessity. Now, not everyone can code and deploy websites. Similarly, hiring web developers or design agencies too might be overkill and beyond the budget of many folks. If this is the case, a website builder can come to your rescue.

Basically, a website builder lets you create a blog, website or an eCommerce store with ease without having to deal with technical aspects of web development. A good website builder will take care of everything for you such as web hosting, coding, mobile-friendly websites, etc.

If you are looking for one such solution, meet Mozello. It lets you create modern, feature-rich and amazing websites in just a matter of a few clicks.

Mozello: A Website Builder For Creating Amazing Sites

What is Mozello?

Mozello is a simple and no-nonsense website builder that does just what it is supposed to do: help you create websites. It has a ton of features to its credit, and whether you are building a blog, a website or an online store, Mozello can handle it all.

Here is a basic run-down of all that Mozello has to offer:

• Mozello lets you setup and build websites in just a matter of few clicks and within minutes.
• Every website that you create using Mozello is fully responsive and mobile-friendly. Thus, no matter which device your visitors might be using, your website will look great across all screen sizes.
• Mozello supports multilingual websites and also offers exemplary SEO features.
• You can integrate with external services such as Disqus or Google Analytics.
• Mozello offers support and detailed documentation if you ever run into a problem.
• Mozello can be used to create virtually any type of website: a portfolio, a corporate site, a blog, a news site, an online store, etc.
• Mozello is totally ad-free (even on the free plan).
• You need absolutely zero technical skills in order to use Mozello. In other words, there is no steep learning curve.

Pricing

Mozello offers three plans for you to choose from — Free, Premium and Premium Plus. Let us run the features of each plan.

The Free plan, as the name suggests, is free of cost. You get 500 MB of storage and you can create an online store with ten items. The catch is that the free plan shows a Mozello link in the footer. Plus, you must use a sub-domain for your site such as yoursite.mozello.com If you have had any experience with WordPress.com free plans, you can notice a good deal of similarity here.

The Premium plan of Mozello does away with all the limitations. You get 50 GB of storage and can add up to 100 items in your online store. Plus, you also have the ability to map your custom domain and there are no links to Mozello anywhere on your site. This plan costs $7 per month.

And the Premium Plus offers everything of the Premium plan, but with no limits. You get unlimited storage and can add unlimited products to your online store. For this plan, you will have to pay $14 per month.

Also, it is worth noting that all plans support mobile devices and offer great customization features to help you setup your website. Furthermore, social media integration, SEO, support for Google Analytics as well as access to HTML code is available on all the plans, including the Free plan.

Mozello in Action

Once you login to your Mozello account, you are presented with the choice to select the design template that you wish to work with. This, of course, can be changed later on.

Thereafter, the customization and editing happens by means of a frontend live editor. You just need to click on the concerned block or section and then you can edit it therein.

Similarly, adding a new font scheme or color scheme is also a matter of just a few clicks.

The sidebar on the left offers you links to the sections that you might need.

You can add a blog or news section to your site. It is interesting to see some fine details in Mozello. For instance, you do not see any mention of comments when live editing your website. But if you head to the Settings part of your blog, you will find a field to add your Disqus shortname and integrate Disqus comments on your blog.

In the Settings panel, you can specify the favicon for your website as well as Google Analytics tracking ID. You can also change your account settings.

For code junkies, the ability to add custom HTML code in body or head is also there.

As you can see, creating and editing a website using Mozello is fairly easy and requires no knowledge of web design at all.

Conclusion

A good website builder should be able to do two broad tasks: save the user’s time and be powerful enough to accommodate different types of websites. Mozello accomplishes both of these tasks very well.

First, it can save you not just time and efforts but also money. Picturize this: you can code and build your website yourself. So you probably can invest time and save the Mozello fees. However, you still will need some place to host your site, and good web hosting is not always cheap. As such, even if you possess the technical skills required to build websites, you might still end up spending more than what you would’ve with Mozello. For $14, you can get unlimited storage with Mozello as well as a handy website builder; doesn’t happen everywhere, does it?

Secondly, Mozello does not churn one website after another. Instead, it gives you full control of your site. Don’t like a given block or page? Remove it or edit it. Wish to change the font scheme? Need a blog on your site? All yours!

Website builders are not everyone’s cup of tea. Sometimes, you do need access to a proper database as well as custom coded scripts. For example, if you are running a gigantic forum, you might be better off with a dedicated piece of software. However, for all practical purposes, if you wish to get online quickly either for your own site or your clients’, Mozello is a decent and worthy site builder that you should surely take a look at.

Visit Mozello

Read More at Mozello: A Website Builder For Creating Amazing Sites

For many designers, developers and agencies, customer service can be a burden, slowing down the day, stifling the creative process. It doesn’t have to be – here are five things to try today to turn support from your enemy to an ally.

1. Make Support Flow

If support is frustrating, consider the perspective of the customer. They’re in touch because something has gone wrong and can’t find the answer to their query. Ensure you have the steps in place to handle this and avoid cranky customer support.

Like your sales funnel, channelling customers to a make a purchase, support needs to be thought of as a funnel, directing customers to the right place to find relevant answers to their queries. For example, if you’re fielding support queries from email, Twitter, Facebook, contact forms… STOP. Direct all queries to a central support location, a single contact point that customers can find answers or reach out directly if needed.

Sketch out your support process flow, identify key pinch points – where customers are getting lost. Place as much documentation online as you can, ideally before any email or ticketing systems, and help customers to help themselves.

Make support flow – capture queries, direct to a support center, then to a contact form connected to email or support ticketing software.

2. Choose the Right Tools

Email is great for one-to-one communication, but how good is at tracking persistent queries, analyzing time spent on support and delegating issues to the appropriate personnel? Ticketing systems tackle these points, but introduce their own nuances – who wants to log into a separate ticketing system just to see the status of their support request or post a reply?

Some try using a forum to offer support, but experience dictates otherwise. While it can be great for a community project, for a paid-for product, customers will have little tolerance for the digressions and thread hijacks that appear to be par-for-the-course with forums. Managing the community and keeping discussion on topic is not conducive for good support.

Tools such as HelpScout offer the best of both worlds – support tickets can be created from emails or a web form. They can then be handled like any other tickets – delegated, tagged, notes added. Crucially however, it’s all transparent to the customer, the response is sent directly to their inbox and they can just hit reply to follow up on a query.

To minimize support queries hitting your ticketing system in the first place try using a dedicated support center such as our WordPress Knowledge Base products, which centralises documentation and support topics, acting as a gatekeeper to your support request form or email. We use it ourselves and it has helped customers resolve issues themselves without needing to wait for a response from our support team.

Useful support tools to check out today:

• HelpScout ticketing software.
• KnowAll knowledge base theme for WordPress, documentation and support hub.
• Trello for making notes on ongoing issues, project planning and delegation.
• Bitbucket for tracking issues and effective software version control with git.
• Slack for the day-to-day discussions, replace instant messenger apps, incredibly useful integrations for keeping the finger on the pulse of support and sales.

3. Listen to Feedback

Though the customer may not always be right, they usually have a point. When tickets are closed, a follow up is great way to find out what went well and what could have gone better. This can be used to improve the support process flow.

Documentation feedback is great for gauging how well a guide or walkthrough is hitting the mark. At the end of the articles in our knowledge base we have voting buttons for visitors to rate article usefulness. Once they’ve voted they can submit comments which are reviewed by the support team to help refine the article and improve the helpfulness metric.

Feedback should be quick and easy for the customer. Review feedback on an aggregate basis, one irate customer may be an exception, but persistent similar comments are a sign that further action should be taken and regular review of customer feedback is a good starting point for refining the overall support process.

Write down your top ten comments from customer support and devise an action plan for each, the plan could be to do nothing, but by being aware of issues and tracking them effectively can help you better manage support in the long run.

Feedback is vital in establishing the success of your support center. Use it to improve and refine your articles.

4. Use Support as Your Brand

Great support is what we offer at HeroThemes, both by selling the products which help our customers deliver it and leading by example. It’s an ongoing process, but support can become the cornerstone of your brand by inspiring confidence and allowing potential customers to discover your products and services with SEO rich, accessible documentation, testimonials from well serviced customers and clear guides explaining your products.

This approach justifies the time and cost spent on support – no longer a time sink, support can be a marketing tool and a customer acquisition strategy in itself. Good and bad, people will talk about the experiences they have with your support team, so a proactive attitude is more crucial than ever. Invest in the right tools and people for the job, good documentation can not only reduce repetitive support emails but lead to increased sales.

Each aspect of the support process can be tailored to match your branding, the right balance of friendly and professional is key. Set expectations in the documentation to help reduce over-demanding requests, demonstrating any limitations of your products and pre-empting questions that could arise. Link to relevant third party documentation or further reading material to create jump off points if visitors get stuck.

Create a support branding document for your business that outlines standard responses and policies, try to avoid canned responses, instead use it as a framework for providing consistently great support.

5. Don’t Take it Personally

Support is like any relationship that can have good and bad days. The key is not to take it personally and understand that support is a process that is there to be crafted, worked on, improved, and with the right tools and people, should become an asset.

You need to remember that customers are reaching out for support from a position of confusion or frustration, something has gone wrong- see the opportunity to turn that customer into an advocate. For whatever reason, this may not always go right, but the learning potential from each interaction is there to build better support processes and flows. Don’t take issues to heart, but do take the time to understand what went wrong and where things can be improved.

Conclusions

Support is seen as a dreaded demon, a drain on resources. But it need not be, try the suggestions from each of these five tips to see how they can improve your business today.

Focus on building support that flows, with the right tools to match your customer base and service expectations. Listen to feedback from your customers and leverage support contact points to enhance your brand. Finally, don’t take it personally, treat it as any other process in your business, to be nurtured over time.

P.S. If you’re looking for an all-in-one knowledge base solution, consider the HeroThemes KnowAll theme, quickly create a brand-able and customizable support site that works with a range of ticketing and email systems.

What support hacks do you use to get through the day? Let us know in the comments below.

Read More at 5 Customer Support Hacks to Try Today