WP-TEST

Die Digitalisierung hat in den letzten Jahrzehnten in fast allen Bereichen des täglichen Lebens Einzug gehalten und beeinflusst die Art und Weise, wie Menschen kommunizieren, arbeiten und Informationen konsumieren. Durch die zunehmende Verfügbarkeit von Daten und die Vernetzung verschiedenster Geräte entstehen neue Möglichkeiten, die Arbeitsabläufe optimieren und die Effizienz steigern können. Diese Transformation betrifft sowohl Unternehmen als auch Privatpersonen und stellt alle Beteiligten vor neue Herausforderungen.

Insbesondere Unternehmen stehen vor der Aufgabe, die Digitalisierung in ihre Geschäftsprozesse zu integrieren, um wettbewerbsfähig zu bleiben. Die Automatisierung von Routineaufgaben ist eine der wichtigsten Anwendungen der Digitalisierung im Unternehmensumfeld. Indem Software-Tools repetitive Aufgaben übernehmen, können Mitarbeiter sich auf kreative und strategische Arbeiten konzentrieren, was die Produktivität insgesamt steigert.

Ein weiterer Bereich, der von der Digitalisierung stark beeinflusst wird, ist das Marketing. Die traditionelle Werbung in Printmedien oder im Fernsehen verliert an Bedeutung, während die Bedeutung von Online-Marketing und sozialen Medien stetig zunimmt. Unternehmen haben heute die Möglichkeit, ihre Zielgruppe auf direktem Weg über digitale Kanäle zu erreichen und individuelle, zielgerichtete Werbekampagnen zu schalten. Mithilfe von Analysedaten lässt sich genau nachvollziehen, welche Strategien erfolgreich sind und welche Anpassungen notwendig sind.

Die digitale Transformation bringt aber auch Herausforderungen mit sich, insbesondere in Bezug auf den Datenschutz. Mit der Einführung der Datenschutz-Grundverordnung (DSGVO) der Europäischen Union wurden strenge Vorschriften für den Umgang mit personenbezogenen Daten eingeführt, um die Privatsphäre der Nutzer zu schützen. Unternehmen sind gefordert, sich an diese Regelungen zu halten und sicherzustellen, dass die Daten ihrer Kunden sicher verwaltet werden.

Parallel dazu schreitet auch die Entwicklung von Künstlicher Intelligenz (KI) voran, die in immer mehr Bereichen Einzug hält. KI-gestützte Systeme können große Datenmengen analysieren und auf deren Basis Entscheidungen treffen, die vorher nur von Menschen getroffen werden konnten. In der Medizin kann KI beispielsweise zur Diagnose von Krankheiten oder zur Identifikation von Therapieansätzen eingesetzt werden. Im Bereich der Kundenbetreuung ermöglichen Chatbots eine rund um die Uhr Verfügbarkeit von Unterstützung, ohne dass menschliches Personal notwendig ist.

Die Digitalisierung wirkt sich jedoch nicht nur auf die Arbeitswelt aus, sondern verändert auch das Freizeitverhalten der Menschen. Streaming-Dienste und soziale Medien gehören inzwischen zum Alltag und haben traditionelle Medien wie Fernsehen oder Printprodukte in vielen Bereichen abgelöst. Die Möglichkeit, Inhalte jederzeit und überall konsumieren zu können, führt zu einer ständigen Verfügbarkeit von Informationen und Unterhaltung, was das Verhalten der Konsumenten nachhaltig verändert.

Auch im Bildungswesen hinterlässt die Digitalisierung ihre Spuren. E-Learning und Online-Kurse ermöglichen es Lernenden, von überall aus auf Unterrichtsmaterialien zuzugreifen und in ihrem eigenen Tempo zu lernen. Dies bietet insbesondere für Menschen, die in abgelegenen Regionen leben oder berufstätig sind, neue Möglichkeiten, sich weiterzubilden und Qualifikationen zu erwerben. Zugleich stellt dies Schulen und Hochschulen vor die Herausforderung, neue Lernkonzepte zu entwickeln und digitale Medien sinnvoll in den Unterricht zu integrieren.

Insgesamt ist die Digitalisierung eine der treibenden Kräfte des 21. Jahrhunderts. Sie eröffnet Chancen und Potenziale, erfordert jedoch auch eine Anpassung an neue Arbeitsweisen und eine fortlaufende Weiterentwicklung der bestehenden Strukturen. Die Fähigkeit, sich schnell an technische Neuerungen anzupassen und deren Potenzial voll auszuschöpfen, wird in Zukunft entscheidend sein, um in einer zunehmend vernetzten und digitalisierten Welt erfolgreich zu bestehen.

The way we communicate has been changed by digitalization and also by the growing use of social media platforms. There are around 4,7 billion internet users worldwide. Most of them are using social networks like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and more. Therefore, social media offers great potential for your marketing.

Social signals help you to see which of your posts generate engagement from your followers in the form of likes, shares, and comments. You can use this data to review specific campaigns and optimize your social media marketing.

In this blog post I’ll show you

• what are social media metrics,
• which metrics are important for your social media posts,
• how to use social media metrics to optimize your marketing strategy.

What are social media metrics?

Social media metrics, or KPIs (Key Performance Indicators), are metrics you can use to assess how successful a social media strategy is. More precisely, it shows you exactly how successful a single social media post is. The social media metrics can be prioritized and selected according to your (business) goals and serve their purpose.

There are qualitative and quantitative metrics. Quantitative metrics include for example the number of followers, likes, shares, retweets, comments, etc.

Qualitative metrics measure how people react to the content of the post. Is the feedback positive or negative, do people love, criticize or miss something?

In this blogpost, we will focus on quantitative metrics.

Which social media metrics are important for your social media posts?

If you like to analyze the performance of your social media posts, take a look at the following metrics:

• Impressions: A count of how many times the post has been viewed.
• Link clicks: A count of link clicks, to further content.
• Likes: A count of how many times the post has been liked.
• Re-Shares/ Re-Tweets: A count of how many times the post has been reshared or retweeted.
• Comments: A count of how many times the post has been replied to.

How to use social media metrics to optimize your marketing strategy?

Metrics are valuable indicators to assess how well a post is received by followers and readers and how users engage with it, like or share the content. To make sure you grow your community and reach your goals, it pays back, if you regularly check your metrics on your social media accounts across all platforms. This helps you to

• keep track of which posts, topics, campaigns work well
• adjust any laps in your social media strategy
• identify trends and challenges to implement into your future campaigns.

Platforms that reach so many people in real-time can open new avenues for lead generation, increase brand awareness, and increase sales. Analyzing the performance of your posts therefore proves to be a good way to adapt and optimize your social media marketing and grow your business.

How to get social media metrics?

Some networks, like Facebook and Instagram, offer their own tools to get insights. However, it can be very time-consuming to check the performance of your posts in each network separately. A social media metrics analysing tool is a good way to reduce this work and save time you can better invest in optimizing your strategy.

The WordPress plugin Blog2Social is a social media automation tool that enables you to manage your entire social media scheduling and sharing directly from your WordPress dashboard across multiple social platforms. You can schedule and share your website content, your blog posts, and product posts. You can also create and share any other social media posts consisting of texts, links, images, and videos automatically. A social media calendar shows you an overview of all scheduled posts. And, with the Social Media Metrics Add-on you can track the performance of all your social media posts you shared with Blog2Social – all in one tool.

With Blog2Social you can track the following metrics (depending on the data availability of each social network):

• Impressions: A count of how many times the post has been viewed.
• Link clicks: A count of link clicks, to further content.
• Likes: A count of how many times the post has been liked.
• Re-Shares/ Re-Tweets: A count of how many times the post has been reshared or retweeted.
• Comments: A count of how many times the post has been replied to.

How to optimize your marketing strategy with social media metrics?

Social media marketing should be used to serve your (business) goals. Social media metrics help you to assess how successful a specific campaign, your topics are, in each single post.

Let’s take a closer look at what you can do to even achieve social signals and use the data to optimize your social media strategy.

1. Share high quality content

The social media metrics make it easy to see which social media post is performing well. However, you first need to reach your audience on social media at all to get those social signals. To do so, it is important to publish good content that brings value to your readers. Share high quality content that leads your readers to interact and to give feedback by keeping the following points in mind:

✔ Look for inspiration on relevant industry channels, blogs, newsletters, or from the comments of your followers. Can you pick up on a current topic, is there a gap in coverage you can fill, or are there questions you can answer?

✔ Pimp your content by using multimedia, since visuals like photos, infographics, videos, GIFs, etc., can improve 200% more shares and engagement.

More facts: Tweets receive 150% more retweets for posts with images than without. On LinkedIn posts with images generate a 98% higher comment rate. These are social signals you need to boost the ranking of your posts.

✔ Customize your posts with individual comments, hashtags, handles, and emojis to invite your followers to engage with you.

2. Share your posts at the best times on social media

The time of publishing can play a decisive role in achieving engagement. Posting at the time when your audience is most active will help you to generate more social signals. So get as many likes, shares, and comments as well as a wide reach posting at the time your readers are online.

The following infographic provides you with the perfect starting point for the right timing. Use the suggested days and times for orientation. Please note that weekdays differ from weekends.

3. Track the performance of your posts

Start sharing your posts at the best times and monitor what happens over time. Use different post formats and share them to the same conditions (same time of day and same day of the week).

Track how often a post was commented on, re-shared and liked. Then you can analyze how well a post has performed or not to use the results for your further strategy and optimize your social media marketing.

Conclusion

As you can see, the social media metrics provide many options for optimizing your social media marketing. You get feedback in a different way from your followers, readers, customers and you can use it to see the success of your posts and discover trends. As more and more people around the world get access to the internet, the presence on social media will continue to grow. So take the chance, and track the performance of your social media posts now!

The best WordPress themes add uniqueness, style and usability to your website with colors, fonts, individual formats and more.

WordPress itself makes it easy to set up your website and manage your content, but when it comes to front-end design, you might want more than the default look. This is where themes come in. They allow you to set-up intricate navigation menus and headings, membership forms for community websites or online shops without the need to have any expertise in coding yourself.

Are you wondering which theme could be the best for your website? Then you’ve come to the right place!

Do I need a theme for WordPress?

Technically, no. For example, if you use WordPress as a test environment or to learn how to code. If you are already proficient at coding, you might want a completely custom design for your website. However, I would nonetheless recommend basing your website on a template to save yourself unnecessary work.

Overall, most website admins, developers, agencies and bloggers use a WordPress theme as an easy way to start a website design.

With a theme you can even change the look of your website quite easily. You are not stuck with it once you’ve chosen a WordPress theme: Themes don’t change the underlying structure of your website content – they only change the look and feel of your site.

For example, if you’ve already published several blog posts, changing your WordPress theme won’t remove or edit any of the content in those blog posts. It will only change the appearance of that content.

One way or another: Using a responsive WordPress theme is a great idea for beginners, intermediates and even for WordPress pros.

What makes a great WordPress theme?

There are thousands of themes on WordPress. It’s really hard to decide on the best one for your website, but here are some things to keep in mind when you are on the lookout.

Look either for a multi-purpose theme with a general, versatile design or a theme with a niche design that is tailored to your business or topic. Make sure to choose a modern design: Take a look at your favorite websites for inspiration.

Elements that make a good WordPress theme

• Fast loading times, so your website runs smoothly and doesn’t take long to render
• Lightweight and clean code that doesn’t conflict with plugins
• High quality, fast responding support and helpful FAQs
• A responsive layout that works on multiple devices, including phones and tablets
• Content, like images and menu design, that fit your style
• Options to work with either the built-in WordPress block editor Gutenberg or one of the many reputable page builders
• Options to add your own branding and design elements such as typography and colors

Free vs. Premium Themes

WordPress is an open source CMS. That means WordPress and many of its add-ons, like themes and plugins, are free to use and customize. However, there are so-called premium themes which do cost money. Is it worth spending some of your budget on a premium theme?

Free WordPress Themes

Pros:

1. It’s free – You will have to spend absolutely none of your budget on a free WordPress theme.
2. High quality – The free themes you will find on wordpress.org are bound by and committed to a high quality standard by WordPress. Every theme you can find there has gone through a strict theme review process.
3. Trial and error – Of course, it is much easier to try out free WordPress themes until you find one that you like. However, most premium themes offer a basic free version or a free trial to try and see if it matches your expectation.

Cons:

1. Limited support options – Some of the developers offer support through WordPress forums for free themes, but they are not obliged to help you out.
2. Not very unique – If you use a popular free theme, your website will probably look like many other websites out there. Also, there are usually limited options to customize the visual appearance of a free theme.
3. No warranty – Free themes are distributed without obligations, so if it doesn’t work as expected, you’re on your own.

Premium WordPress Plugins

Pros:

1. High flexibility – Premium themes almost always come with more features and customization options: Shortcodes, images, buttons or even complete page builders for custom design creation.
2. Ongoing support and updates – A great advantage: the ongoing support provided by the developers and the communities that comes with a premium theme.
3. Showstopping design – In general, premium themes tend to have a higher design quality. Even though free themes are held to high standards, the standards for premium themes are much higher.
4. Plugins & extras – Many premium themes come with a bundle of plugins. This way, they make it much easier to handle your design and even add options such as SEO, marketing and more with just one purchase.

Cons:

1. The cost – Of course, premium themes are not free. They can be quite expensive, actually. Especially for beginners it might be hard to assess if a theme is worth its price. However, look out for free trials that will help you with your decision.
2. High complexity – Some premium themes are quite complex, if they were not specifically made for beginners. This gives you more customization options, but it will require a little more expertise in coding.
3. Switching – If you set-up your website using an intricate theme, switching themes and creating a new cohesive layout might be more complicated. Also, when switching premium themes, there is also the added cost.

Find the best WordPress theme for your website

There are thousands of WordPress themes out there, for every business, topic, and style preference. But for now, we’ve gathered some of our favorites for you. All of the themes have been tested and rated by users around the world. They are all available in the WordPress theme database, which makes them easy to install. They have all been reviewed and approved by the WordPress team. All of these themes offer a basic version for free,  with more options at affordable prices in the premium versions that you might find worth looking at.

We’ve selected multi-purpose and very customizable themes that are well supported and have already been proven by thousands of active installations. While being popular, the themes will still give you plenty of options to make your website look unique. Take a look and find the best WordPress theme for you!

Make sure to give us your feedback on these themes in the comments. Do you use one of these themes and want to share your experience? Do you have another favorite theme that we should feature in this list? We’d love to hear from you!

Astra

Developer	Price	Active Installations	Rating
Brainstorm Force	$ 49.00+	1.000.000 +	5/5 (5.054 ratings)

Astra is suitable for blogs, personal portfolios, business websites and WooCommerce storefronts. It is very lightweight (less than 50KB on frontend) which means it offers unparalleled speed. Built with SEO in mind, search engines will love your site. It offers special features for designing your own headers, footers and much more. Through templates it is fully customizable even if you have no experience with coding. Astra works perfectly with all page builders like Elementor, Beaver Builder, Visual Composer and more. Astra is regularly updated and the Brainstorm Force Team offers support to the users. It is compatible with WooCommerce, responsive & translation ready, also for all languages that are read right to left.

Neve

Developer	Price	Active Installations	Rating
Theme Isle	$ 59.00+	300.000+	5/5 (876 ratings)

Neve is a super fast, easily customizable, multi-purpose theme. It’s very popular, because you can do so many different things with it. The theme’s perfect for blogs, small businesses, startups, agencies, e-commerce shops (compatible with WooCommerce) as well as personal portfolio sites and most types of projects. A fully AMP optimized (for mobile) and responsive theme, Neve will load in mere seconds and adapt perfectly on any viewing device. While it is lightweight and has a minimalist design, the theme is highly extendable, it has a highly SEO optimized code, laying the groundwork for resulting in top rankings in Google search results. Neve works perfectly with Gutenberg and the most popular page builders (Elementor, Brizy, Beaver Builder, Visual Composer, SiteOrigin, Divi). Neve is also WooCommerce ready, responsive & translation ready.

BuddyX

Developer	Price	Active Installations	Rating
wbcomdesigns	$ 59.00+	4.000+	5/5 (12 ratings)

BuddyX is an ideal theme for community and membership website providing a solution to all kinds of communities. Thanks to it’s BuddyPress support, your website can now have member profiles, send a private message, create groups and so much more. It is a lightweight, fully responsive, seo-optimised, RTL & translation ready theme. BuddyX provides support for WooCommerce and many other plugins.

It is highly customizable and works perfectly with page builders such as Elementor and Gutenberg. BuddyX is perfect for creating social learning, marketplace and blogging websites using BuddyPress integration. BuddyX is built using the latest best practices for progressive web content and optimization. It is well tested with the latest BuddyPress version and popular BuddyPress addons. It is developed, maintained, and supported by Wbcom Designs.

NewsUp

Developer	Price	Active Installations	Rating
Theme Ansar	$ 59.00+	20.000+	4,5/5 (100 ratings)

NewsUp is a fast, clean, modern-looking responsive WordPress theme. It’s great for any newsfeed or magazine style website. The theme is fully widgetized, so users can manage the content easily by using widgets.

It is SEO friendly, WPML, Gutenberg, translation and RTL ready. There are many child themes based on NewsUp,for example NewsTalk, so you have many beautiful pre-made designs to choose from.

Rosa 2

Developer	Price	Active Installations	Rating
Pixelgrade	$ 70.00+	900 +	5/5 (15 ratings)

Rosa 2 is a freemium WordPress theme designed for Gutenberg, the block editor from WordPress. This makes it very beginner-friendly. The beautiful theme will allow any type of small business, from restaurants, coffee shops, bakeries, beauty salons, hotels, and more, to capture the attention of online visitors. With just a few clicks, you can add a gallery of images, a slideshow gallery to showcase your location’s hot spots, and even a background video on each section of the page. The built-in Food Menu lets you quickly add menu items, highlight the important ones, and display special discounted prices for each item. This saves you a lot of time and makes this theme worth the money. The predefined color palettes from the Style Manager offer a fast way to customize your site’s overall appearance and design. In case you get stuck, you can use the help section to look for the right FAQ or contact the support team directly.

Woostify

Developer	Price	Active Installations	Rating
Dylan NGO	$ 49.00	10.000+	5/5 (67 ratings)

Woostify is the theme for beginners who want to start their own online shop in an affordable and easy way. It is a fast, lightweight, responsive and super flexible WooCommerce theme built with SEO, speed, and usability in mind. They offer Add-Ons, so you only pay for the features you really want to use. The theme works great with any of your favorite page builders like Elementor, Beaver Builder, SiteOrigin, Thrive Architect, Divi, etc. Therefore, you can build many types of websites with it.  They also have a 24/7 support ticket system, which will come in handy, if you have any questions or problems with the theme. Woostify is compatible with all well-coded plugins, including major ones like WooCommerce, OrbitFox, Yoast, BuddyPress and Blog2Social.

Inspiro

Developer	Price	Active Installations	Rating
WP Zoom	$ 79.00+	30.000+	4,5/5 (54 ratings)

Inspiro is a professional & lightweight photo and video-focused WordPress theme with a modern design. Of course, it is not only a great fit for photographers and filmmakers, but also for agencies, companies and bloggers who want to make their site more lively and engaging. Packed with features including a fullscreen area that supports Vimeo, YouTube & self-hosted video background, Page Builder integration, Inspiro is perfect for showing off your photography and video portfolio. Moreover, the theme is compatible with WooCommerce and popular Page Builders such as Elementor, Beaver Builder.

ColorMag

Developer	Price	Active Installations	Rating
Theme Grill	$ 59.00+	100.000+	5/5 (1.366 ratings)

ColorMag helps you to create your blog or magazine site with ease. Perfect for news, magazine, newspaper and any kind of publishing sites. Fully compatible with Elementor page builder plugin to create any layout imaginable.

It loads in under 1 second, is fully search engine optimized and has been tested with multiple speed testing tools. What is also great about this theme is the many customization options it comes with. You can choose out of many templates and customize the theme with just one click.

The theme is compatible with WooCommerce and many page builders, like Gutenberg, Elementor, Brizy and more.

Kadence

Developer	Price	Active Installations	Rating
Kadence	$ 45.00+	100.000+	5/5 (145 ratings)

Kadence is a lightweight yet full featured WordPress theme for creating beautiful fast loading and accessible websites, easier than ever. It features an easy to use drag and drop header and footer builder to build any type of header in minutes. It features a full library of gorgeous starter templates that are easy to modify with our intelligent global font and color controls. With extensive integration with the most popular 3rd party plugins, you can quickly build impressive ecommerce websites, course websites, business websites, and more.

Next steps to your website success

Your website just got a successful style make-over, thanks to the amazing theme you picked out. What more is there to do but leaning back and watching the traffic and sales come in?

A lot, actually. A great-looking website alone will not give you traffic and sales. You need to give people the chance to find it in the depths of the internet. For example by improving your visibility in the search engines. This way, people will find your website e.g. by googling “Vegan Food Berlin” or “Dentist in Bristol”. You could create backlinks so people come to your site from related sources or start a social media presence to showcase your services. To do that, of course, you need to create more content: Videos, graphics, blog posts, articles, studies, the list goes on.

Sounds overwhelming? The good thing is, you don’t need to do it on your own. With WordPress, plugins are your best friend and will help you out with all kinds of daily tasks. For example SEO, visuals and even list building and social media marketing!