It’s a New Year, but one thing hasn’t changed. The number of web design resources and tools just keeps on increasing. That’s a good thing. But it does make it that much more difficult to find a theme, plugin, or resource you really have a need for if you are to stay abreast of or leapfrog the competition.

We are in a position to make your search easier. Much easier in fact. We reviewed and tested web design tools & resources we believe many users, designers, and developers have a genuine need for. The types we believe to be essential, and that you will see in our final list of 15 are:

• website builders for building landing pages and multiple-page websites quickly, easily, and without any need for coding.
• WordPress plugins that can incorporate potentially game-changing functionalities, that are challenging to design, into websites.
• WordPress themes for building complex and high-conversion rate websites and online stores.
• Vector illustrations that can give a website a whimsical or entertaining aspect.
• font identifiers to identify and provide access information to a “must have” font or fonts.

A majority of the web design resources and tools in the following list have a free or trial version:

• Brizy
• Trafft
• WpDataTables
• Uncode
• LayerSlider
• Amelia
• WhatFontis
• Slider Revolution
• GetIllustrations
• Mobirise AI
• XStore
• Blocksy
• Total Theme
• Essential Grid
• Woodmart

What are a few of the important attributes these Excellent Web Design Tools & Resources for Designers and Agencies share?

• They look premium. There is something about a top tool or resource that makes you wish you had acquired it a long time ago, e.g., how enjoyable it is to use.
• They are intuitive. From signing up, to downloading, using, cancelling, and anything in between, everything needed is placed precisely where it should be.
• They add real value. They facilitate getting more and higher paid assignments by helping you deliver web design projects faster, making your final deliverables more attractive, or both.

15 best web design Tools & Resources for Designers and Agencies

To help you in your research, we’ve included top features, customer average grade on non-biased platforms such as Trustpilot, Capterra or WordPress.org, and client feedback.

Ready? Then let’s get started. 

1. Brizy Builder

Brizy is the best website builder for Agencies, Designers, and anyone else in need of a White Label solution.

Brizy’s top feature is without a doubt its 100% customizable White Label solution that allows its users to add their own branding, including the builder name, builder logo, domain URL, support link, about link, and project subdomain.

Brizy Builder’s library of demo/template/prebuilt websites is also highly popular with its users. Soulful and Cuisine is one of the 5 most downloaded pre-built websites. It is attractive and inspirational, and while it provides an ideal foundation for a restaurant or bistro, the layout can be used for other service-oriented website types as well.

There’s more to like as well. New users quickly become aware of Brizy’s intuitiveness, and their ability to edit any type of content in place. Many competing builders force their users to create their content in a disjointed sidebar. That’s not the case with Brizy.

Customer Average Grade: 4.6/5 on Trustpilot

Client Feedback: “I am amazed by my experience with Brizy. The tool is easy to use, and the support is one of the best I have ever experienced. Fast replies and my contact really went the extra mile in helping me solve my problem. I can only recommend Brizy to everyone who’s looking to build their own website”!

Instant Support Materials:  Documentation, Brizy Academy, Useful Blog Posts and YouTube videos

View the Builder 

2. Trafft – Booking Software

 The Best Free Scheduling Online Software Solution for Business Owners.

Flexibility is always important when selecting a theme or plugin. The top feature of this software solution is the ability to operate in a wide range of languages because of its powerful Multilingual Notifications System.

This user favorite:

• facilitates the effective management of appointments and events using email, SMS and/or WhatsApp messages.
• keeps users informed about the status of appointments or events.
• offers custom notifications that enable users to tailor alerts for specific services or events.

The library of prebuilt websites also plays a significant role in making working with Trafft a pleasant experience. The Career Mastery Coaching prebuilt website illustrates what an effective event booking system might look like.

Key features users notice once they start using Trafft include easy backend and frontend interface navigation and the power the customization options bring to the table.

Web developers and digital design agencies can be expected to be more than pleased to discover that Trafft offers a White Label option.

Customer Average Grade: 5 stars on Capterra

Client Feedback:  “ I love that Trafft has so much included – and that you can customize literally everything, including the email & SMS notification wording (which is a big deal for me since I like communications to be in my brand voice).”

Support Materials:  Trafft’s ticketing system. Support manual, YouTube videos, social media, and email.

View the Booking Solution

3. wpDataTables -The Best Tables & Charts WordPress Table Plugin

 wpDataTables offers an ideal solution for businesses and individuals who need to create tables and charts.

The wpDataTable plugin’s top feature, its Multiple Database Connections capability, represents a data management breakthrough by empowering every table to become a data hub that can pull information from different databases or servers.

By simplifying data management tasks, wpDataTables allows its users to create custom, responsive, easily editable tables and charts with ease.  A bookseller could probably put this Responsive Catalog Table with Books to good use.

Features new wpDataTables users will discover include:

• an abundance of useful functionality wrapped in an intuitive package.
• the ability to adroitly manage complicated data structures.

wpDataTables also supports separate connections for working with specialized database systems and features chart engines for displaying data for marketing, financial, and environmental uses.

Customer Average Grade: 4.5/5 pm WprdPress.org

Client Feedback: “WpDataTables is an excellent WordPress Plugin. What you are able to accomplish with this plugin is nothing short of amazing. Their support is even better! Highly, highly recommend using this product and supporting this company.

I have tried different utilities for creating charts out of a series of CSV files I use for weather data, but it has been a hassle until I discovered wpDataTables which does exactly what I need. Very user friendly and versatile. And it also understands that there are other standards for date, decimal, and time apart from the Americas.”

Instant Support Materials:  Support manual, the Facebook community, and YouTube videos

View wpDataTables

4. Uncode – Creative & WooCommerce WordPress Theme

Uncode is the #1 WordPress and WooCommerce theme for creatives, professional designers, and agencies looking for an ideal solution for any project.

While Uncode’s ensemble of website building tools and options would seem to more than justify its popularity, most of its users say the demo library is its #1 feature. The demos not only exhibit exceptional attention to detail but have proven to be excellent sources of inspiration as well.

Uncode’s classic Web Experiences is one of the 5 most downloaded  demos. Just imagine what you could do with it.

New users are impressed with the value inherent in Uncode’s demos and wireframes, the level of customization, and the top-notch customer support.

Uncode’s principal users are:

• Agencies and Freelancers, because of the multitude of options that cover the needs of every customer or client.
• Shop creators, who can easily make effective use of Uncode’s advanced WooCommerce features.

Customer Average Grade: 4.89/5

Client Feedback: “I have used Uncode on 6+ websites now, and it’s absolutely my go-to theme! The features, quality, and customer support are outstanding. The developers do an incredible job of keeping the theme up to date and stable, constantly implementing new features and optimizing the theme. A solid product with great documentation and responsive support team. Kudos!”

Instant Support Materials:  Support manual, Facebook groups, YouTube videos

Purchase the Theme

5. LayerSlider – Best WordPress Slider Builder Plugin

 LayerSlider, the top-rated WordPress slider plugin, empowers web designers to effortlessly enhance websites and make them truly shine.

LayerSlider’s scroll effect has emerged as its top feature. You can find it prominently displayed in the recent batch of full-size hero scene and whole website templates. Scroll through the Flavor Factory pre-built web page and see how easy it can be to use LayerSlider to help capture and engage visitors.

LayerSlider easily accommodates a range of uses, from creating simple sliders or slideshows to sprucing up your site with captivating animated content.

Newer users appreciate:

• LayerSlider’s customizable interface that suggests the plugin was created specifically for their use only.
• easy access to millions of stock photos and videos plus other integrated online services.
• the Project Editor that ensures that what you need is right where you need it.

LayerSlider also really shines when there is a need to create content for marketing purposes. Marketers are impressed with the mind-blowing effects that can be incorporated into their popups and banners.

Client Feedback: “A fantastic slider plugin with regular updates to make sure compatibility is never a problem. Keep up the amazing work!”

Support Materials:  Product manual, In-editor help, support tickets, and email.

Preview LayerSlider

6. Amelia – WordPress Booking Plugin for Appointments and Events

 Amelia is the best WordPress plugin for Agencies and Businesses in need of a streamlined booking solution.

The automated notifications system is Amelia’s top feature. Users could tell you how easy it was to categorize and position appointments as pending, approved, cancelled, rejected, or rescheduled. Special notices such as upcoming events or birthday congratulations can also be forwarded via the notifications system to assist clients and enhance their loyalty.

Amelia offers a number of templates that can be customized to help businesses grow. Yoga Studio is a notable example of how a template can be put to use to advertise a business.

Those new to Amelia could tell you about:

• the ease of navigation they discovered, the innovativeness exhibited in the backend and frontend interfaces, and its functionality and user-friendly design.
• the value its transparent pricing policy offers.
• the extent of the customization options.

The Amelia plugin offers an ideal booking solution for service-oriented businesses including those specializing in ticket sales and/or events. Programming agencies and developers could also profit from having Amelia in their design toolkits.

Customer Average Grade: 4.8 on Capterra

Client Feedback: “Great plugin, I have tested similar, but Amelia seems to be the best for my site, I have many customers through the site, and everybody is satisfied with this appointment system. Sometimes there are a few bugs but quickly corrected through regular updates. Globally very good notation.”

Instant Support Materials:  YouTube videos, Discord Group, and Support Manual

View Amelia

7. WhatFontIs

The most powerful and  accurate free font identifier.

This tool’s top feature is its accuracy. WhatFontis users have a 90%+ chance of finding whatever free or licensed font they want identified.

No other system can claim that accuracy, and most of them charge a fee for whatever service they provide. It is worth noting that the ability of WhatFontis to identify a given font correctly can be compromised if the quality of the submitted image is subpar, and that is what accounts for some of the roughly 10% of missed identifications.

WhatFontis can do what it does best in part because of its database of 990K+ free and commercial fonts. This is nearly 5 times as many fonts as that attributed to the nearest competitor.

Whether the goal is to identify a specific font sent by a client, or simply because it is attractive, a customer wants to know what it is and where to find it. A search can be conducted for a font regardless of its publisher, producer, or foundry.

The process is as easy as can be.

• Upload a clean font image.
• In response, an AI-powered search engine identifies the font and as many as 60 close neighbors.
• Links are provided that show where a free font can be downloaded or where a commercial font can be purchased.

Note: Cursive font letters must be separated before being submitted.

Client Feedback: “I came across this website courtesy Google search, used their services successfully; and today I find out it’s on product hunt! If you are ‘driven’ by the need to discover what font ‘that person/ company’ uses, then this should be your go-to solution site. For most of us it would be a once in a blue moon need, except for the professionals.”

Types of Instant Support Materials: User Forum

View WhatFontis

8. Slider Revolution – More than just a WordPress Slider

 Slider Revolution is the best WordPress plugin for Designers, Web Developers and anyone seeking a way to create jaw-dropping animated sliders.

This plugin’s top feature is the ability it gives to its users to visually create stunning animated effects for WordPress.

The Slider Revolution plugin is not limited to creating sliders. It can be used to:

• create stunning home pages that immediately engage its visitors.
• create portfolios that will be viewed a second, or third, time because of the method of presentation.
• design eye-catching sections anywhere on a website.

A stroll through Slider Revolution’s library of 250+ templates may be all that’s necessary if you need a little inspiration to get started. These templates have been 100% optimized for different screen configurations and feature special effects you won’t see on most websites. The Woodworking Website template for example, makes clever use of the hover effect to highlight both text and images. The layout itself can be used for a wide variety of website types or niches.

The Slider Revolution plugin is tailor made for individual web designers and developers, web shops, and small agencies.

Customer Average Grade: 4.6/5 on Trustpilot

Client Feedback: “I absolutely love the Slider Revolution. It does wonders for my projects. I am super excited about all of the templates that are ready for use. Their support has been incredible”.

Instant Support Materials:  Support Manual, YouTube videos

View the Plugin

9. Getillustrations – Creative Stock Illustrations Library

The best resource for designers who are looking for top quality illustrations with terrific attention to detail.

Getillustrations’ top feature is three things in one; 21,500+ vector illustrations, free updates for one year, and new illustrations added every week. In other words, once you get started, good things keep coming your way!

You will have 40+ nicely arranged categories to select from. Most categories have several hundred illustrations, a few have more than 1,000.

These illustrations appeal to clients ranging from students and businesses to designers and developers. You’ll find pencil and basic ink illustrations, several 3D illustration categories, and fitness, logistics, and ecology illustrations to name but a few, and since they are exclusive to Getillustrations you will have an edge over those using other stock illustration resources.

You can purchase illustrations by the pack if you choose to. The Motion Illustrations pack is one of the larger ones with 1,090 vector web illustrations at latest count .These Motion illustrations feature a diverse range of themes, each of which makes a statement.

Client Feedback: “I really like the different styles available in this library. I used it to illustrate some of my blog posts. Since you get vector files, you can also recolor them to have them match your brand and product identity!”

Support Materials:  Vector stock illustrations in .Ai .Figma .PNG and .SVG

View Getillustrations Offerings

10. Mobirise AI Website Builder

The best tool for creating and downloading full page websites using prompt commands only.

The Mobirise AI website builder is a revolutionary tool that uses intelligent algorithms to generate beautiful websites. Its top feature enables its user to generate a website using a single prompt.

The super-intuitive single prompt interface makes Mobirise AI an ideal choice for anyone looking for a simplistic yet efficient design approach.

• Describe in detail what your site is all about, and this AI website builder will take your data and through the use of intelligent algorithms auto-generate a basic layout.
• Once that is accomplished you can use prompts to customize style, colors, fonts, etc., and edit pre-generated content to suit your needs.
• When you have the beautiful, optimized for Google and mobile devices website you want you can launch it with a single prompt.

Note: Even though Mobirise AI does much of the work, you retain full ownership of your website.

Client Feedback: “The AI website builder was astonishingly intuitive. What I appreciated the most was the seamless drag-and-drop interface which allowed me to position elements anywhere on my site. The AI’s design recommendations saved me hours of second-guessing my layout choices. Not to mention, the automatic SEO feature was a godsend–it optimized my site without me having to learn the complex ins and outs.”

Instant Support Materials:  Support Manual, User Forum, YouTube Videos

View the AI Website Builder

11. XStore – Best WooCommerce WordPress Theme

XStore is the best WooCommerce theme for anyone looking to quickly build a high-converting online store.

XStore is obviously tailored for use by shop owners and prospective shop owners who seek an online presence. While the selection of ready-made stores (pre-built websites) has always been highly popular, the recently introduced selection of Sales Booster features has emerged as the top favorite.

New users soon come to appreciate the Builders Panel and the intuitive XStore Control Panel, both of which give them the store-building and customization flexibility needed to create the custom store they envision.

They also like the solid start XStore’s pre-built websites make possible. The layout of the Marseille prebuilt website is an excellent example of why it’s possible for a novice to get a store up in running in a few hours.

XStore doesn’t stop there. Its users have instant access to the powerful family of Single Product, Checkout, Cart, Archive Products, and 404 Page Builders; all favorites of shop owners.

Customer Average Grade: 4.87/5

Client Feedback: “I love this theme! There’s a wider learning curve to go through before getting a hang of the features, but the overall versatility and aesthetic factor is excellent.”

Instant Support Materials:  Support Manual, YouTube videos

Buy the Theme

12. Blocksy – Premium WooCommerce WordPress theme

Blocksy is the best free WordPress theme for building attractive, lightweight websites in 2024.

There doesn’t appear to be much about Blocksy that its users don’t love. Consequently, when it comes to identifying this premium WooCommerce WordPress theme’s top feature, there’ s a 4-way tie.

• Blocksy’s footer and header builders are super-user friendly.
• Gutenberg support ensures top performance.
• Developers love the advanced hooks and display conditions.
• Everyone appreciates seamless WooCommerce integration together with its associated features.

And on top of it all, Blocksy is free!

Several of the things new users quickly recognize is that Blocksy:

• uses the latest web technologies.
• provides exceptional performance.
• integrates easily with the most popular plugins.

Cosmetic is a beautiful, meticulously crafted starter site with a pleasant design that lets products take center stage. While centered on beauty products, its layout can be used for a wide variety of website niches. Cosmetic is one of the 5 most commonly used starter sites.

Customer Average Grade: 5/5 on WordPress.org

Client Feedback: “Blocksy is fast and light, responsive and beautiful.
Blocksy has nothing superfluous and has everything you need.
I love Blocksy, and Blocksy loves me.”

Instant Support Materials:  A readily accessible Documentation Section, Support Manual, YouTube videos. Facebook Group

View Blocksy 

13. Total WordPress Theme

 Total is the best WordPress theme for web designers and developers seeking the flexibility required to design from-scratch.

Total’s top feature is its seemingly unlimited flexibility. Its assortment of design tools and options makes it a Swiss Army knife of website design and is one reason its name is so appropriate. A well-deserved reputation for amazing support also tends to set Total apart.

Not long after becoming acquainted with Total, its users could tell you about a number of things they discovered and like including the fact that:

• Total has settings for everything, tons of page building options, a font manager, custom post types, and more.
• Total is speed optimized.
• Total provides dynamic templates for posts and archives.

Total’s pre-built website collection is another favorite. Synergy’s minimalistic design lends itself to a wide range of uses and is one of the 5 most widely used pre-built websites.

Total is tailored for beginners, developers, and DIYers. Advanced designers like Total as well, and for all intents and purposes, anyone else will too.

Customer Average Grade: 4.86/5

Client Feedback: “I have been using Total for several years now for several (10+) websites. Out of the box it’s already a great theme and very well documented. Some websites required specific functionality and so far, there was nothing I couldn’t provide. If I can’t figure it out myself, support is always willing to help. I don’t need another theme anymore.”

Instant Support Materials: Support Manual

View the Theme

14. Essential Grid – WordPress Gallery Plugin

Essential Grid is the best WordPress Gallery Plugin for businesses who want to capture visitors’ attention with breathtaking galleries.

Essential Grid is the best WordPress Gallery Plugin for anyone who wants to create a unique, attention-getting gallery.

Essential Grid’s library of 50+ unique grid skins is its top feature and is what this WordPress gallery plugin is all about. Why these skins are such a favorite is easy to see. Most web designers and developers would not want to have to take the time to create a gallery from scratch and the grid skins offer an excellent alternative approach.

In addition to making it easier to create a gallery layout you want, it’s also possible you’ll come across a grid skin layout you haven’t even thought possible and can’t wait to put into use.  The YouTube Playlist layout for example shows how the hover effect can transform a seemingly run-of-the-mill gallery into a real attention getter.

Essential Grid’s users will tell you how much of a time saver this plugin can be, and how effective it is at helping them organize their content streams.

Customer Average Grade: 4.7/5 on Trustpilot

Client Feedback: “I have to say that the level of support I received is definitely one of the best I have ever experienced. Big thumbs up!”

Instant Support Materials:   Support manual and YouTube videos

View Essential Grid 

15. WoodMart – WordPress WooCommerce Theme

WoodMart is the best WooCommerce theme for niche ecommerce design.

Just a glance at the WoodMart website is enough to grab your attention. Woodmart’s top feature, super-realism, pops right out at you. The custom layouts for shop, cart, and checkout pages are so well done that it’s easy to forget where you are and start window shopping.

There is plenty more to about WoodMart too, for example:

• A multiplicity of available design options.
• Easy customization to fit the brand.
• The time-saving Theme Settings Search and Theme Settings Performance Optimization features.
• Widely used “Frequently Bought Together”, “Dynamic Discounts”, and social integrations options.

WoodMart also has a White Label option.

Finding the most popular demos isn’t easy since most of them enjoy lots of usage.  WoodMart Organic Baby Clothes is one of the 5 most downloaded demos.

Customer Average Grade: 4.93/5

Client Feedback: “This theme is perfect. It has all the options you can imagine and tooltips to help you understand what you are about to change. It’s fast out of the box and makes a great use of Elementor. Great responsive design.”

Instant Support Materials:  Support Manual and YouTube Videos

View the Theme

*******

Do you see one or more web design resources and tools you would like to add to your toolkit? It would certainly be easier than having to sift through hundreds on your own. That is why we did the vetting process for you. You still will want to preview those that interest you and try them out if possible. The free ones are of course for the taking.

What will you be looking for? These 15 excellent web design tools & resources have several characteristics in common. Characteristics that are necessary to be considered as “best-in-class”. Those characteristics are as follows.

• Plugins, themes, and resources are easy to install or set up and are user friendly.
• They give your website an edge in terms of design, functionality, or visitor appeal; or all three.
• Customer support is friendly, fast, and competent.
• They allow you to test the product for free. Or give you enough information to ensure that won’t end up feeling like the product you purchased is markedly different from the one you saw advertised.

Check out any or all of the 15 best web design tools and resources you believe you could put to good use.  Test them out if you can and either add them to your toolkit or write them off.

Are you done? Not really. Since there are many new web design tools & resources coming into the marketplace every day, some of which might offer greater opportunities, your search will never really end.

Read More at 10+ Excellent Web Design Tools & Resources to Use in 2024

The WordPress directory has 50k+ free plugins that were developed so you can extend a WordPress website with functions and features far beyond your imagination.

Additional thousands of WordPress plugins are available from various marketplaces.

No matter how much you might have a need for a specialized plugin or two, would you really want to spend a full workday on reseraching? Probably not.

So, what, if anything, can you do? We have an answer to that.

We tested tens of WordPress plugins and selected the 8 best WordPress free and premium plugins for a range of both popular and lesser used functions.

These plugins focus on important functionalities that you won’t typically find in a WordPress theme. They address web designer/developer needs for:

• problem-free building of landing pages that catch the eye.
• management and displaying of financial, commercial, scientific, statistical, and other data, as well as of substantial amounts of data.
• visual storytelling that enhance UX.
• automating and streamlining appointments bookings.

These 8 best WordPress plugins for 2024 are available in trial, free, or premium.

• Amelia
• wpDataTable
• Brizy Builder
• Slider Revolution
• LayerSlide
• Essential Grid
• Web Stories
• Tablesome

What key qualities do these top WordPress plugins have?

Support – We reviewed product development teams’ responses to problems and questions and recommended only those products whose teams have a history of answering support issues within 24 hours.

Reviews by users. We extensively read product reviews and testimonials that specified both ‘Have’ and ‘Have nots’ of these plugins.

Features – We scrutinized each plugin to ensure its advertised features would meet the goal the plugin was designed and built to satisfy.

Free version – All 8 have free versions with a large number of features.

Compatibility – We made certain each plugin was fully compatible with the latest WordPress and PHP versions, and has been updated within the past two months.

8 Best WordPress Plugins for 2024

These 8 WordPress plugins are excellent in their areas. And we have made your job easier by doing time-consuming work for you.

Below, you will read about each plugin’s key features, how their customer evaluated them, and we will give you links to test them out or find out more info for yourself.

1. Amelia WordPress Plugin — Appointment Booking WP Plugin

Amelia is the best WordPress plugin for a service-oriented business looking for an automated booking system.

More than 70% of Amelia’s users agree that Amelia’s standout feature is its powerful multilingual Notifications system that enables users to seamlessly manage their appointment and event bookings via SMS, email, and/or WhatsApp messages.

Product qualities users realize once they begin using Amelia:

• effortless navigation and ultramodern backend and frontend interface attributes.
• the ability to tailor Amelia to meet their specific needs.
• a user-friendly design that is free from unwelcome surprises together with the value inherent in transparent functionality and pricing.

A service-oriented business like the one shown in the barbershop template can take advantage of Amelia’s new and improved booking form, organize an appointment flow that best suits their business model, and receive appointment requests online  24/7.

Product rating: 4.8/5 on Captera.

Customer Insight: 
Pros: “Amelia is one of my favorite plugins because: 1. Easy to install and use. 2. Reliable and professional quality. 3. Full of great features – better than any others I have used. 4. Great layout, versatile and works seamlessly with clients 5. It is always updated and improved. 6. Support help and communication is fast, friendly, and excellent. 7. Not just a flash in the pan. It has been around for a long time.”

Cons: “Nothing I can think of or have had to be concerned with.”

Instant Support: Documentation, Videos on YouTube and a Discord Group.

Find out more here

2. wpDataTables: The Best WordPress Table & Chart Plugin

wpDataTables is the best WordPress plugin for organizations or individuals tasked with creating tables and charts from complex and/or massive amounts of data.

wpDataTables’ key feature is its Multiple Database Connections capability. This groundbreaking feature is a data management breakthrough that allows a table to set up independent connections to MySQL, MS SQL, or PostgreSQL databases and become a versatile data hub in the process.

Product qualities users quickly become aware of:

• a user interface that does not require technical ability to effortlessly create tables or charts.
• wpDataTable’s blend of powerful features that handle complex data structures with finesse.
• effortlessly show informative tables by seamlessly incorporating data and information sourced from diverse origins.

wpDataTables is excellent for statistics data tables that are responsive. Other uses include:

• fixed headers and columns that ensure that key columns and headers remain visible while scrolling and make data analysis more straightforward.
• Shortcode for single cells: helpful for useful adding multimedia, links, or other dynamic elements to a table.
• The ability to populate tables with data from various APIs.

Product rating: 4.83/5

Customer Insight: “Really great for tables using csv or Excel. Solved a very difficult content issue for me. Thanks so much!”

Instant support options: Excellent documentation and on point YouTube videos.

Use WpDataTables for free.

3. Brizy: Best Website Builder

Brizy is the ideal WordPress website builder for those looking for a White Label solution to market their own brand.

Brizy’s standout feature is its White Label option. You can brand the Brizy builder as your own and encourage clients to create websites using “your” builder.

Product qualities users discover as they use Brizy Builder:

• You will never have a problem editing in place whether you are clicking on a text, an image, or any other kind of content.
• Content is never created in a disjointed sidebar, as is the case in some competing builders.

Tailored features for agencies and resellers in addition to the White Label option, include Billing, Reseller Client Management, Multi-language capabilities, and Marketing integrations.

Brizy Builder is ideal for building creative websites and landing pages in the Brizy Cloud or when used with the Brizy WordPress theme. “Petits” Brizy’s pet website template is ideal for a pet shop in addition to having a wide range of  other uses.

Product rating: 4.6/5 on Trust Pilot

Customer Insight: “In many way a very satisfying pagebuilder, with a generous and fantastic free version. Especially the way of working with pictures is really nice. However, sometimes experience that Brizy is a little unstable, some things that in between do not flow as they should. But can warmly recommend it, not least for beginners.”

Support capabilities include the Brizy support manual and YouTube videos.

Click here to check out  the Brizy Builder plugin.

4. Slider Revolution

Slider Revolution is the best WordPress plugin for those looking to incorporate a WOW factor into their sliders without any need for coding.

Some say it’s the knockout effects for WordPress that turn them on. With others, Slider Revolution’s top feature is the one that enables them to create sliders visually. Both are right.

Revolution Slider has a host of design options for every category of user:

• Web shop builders will tell you that the WooCommerce sliders are especially useful.
• Businesses and small agencies find the one-page portfolio templates particularly helpful.
• The images and cool scrolling effects in Slider Revolution’s mesmerizing Brewery Website slider template will tempt you to take time out for a cool one. It’s great for a wide variety of uses.

Users quickly take note of the features that allow them to easily upgrade a WordPress website visual in mere minutes.

Product rating: 4.6/5

Customer Insight: “This is a stunning tool. There are great templates that are easily modified to suit you. There’s a learning curve which should come as no surprise once you recognize its potential (and therefore yours.) I don’t know one line of code.”

Support: Slider Revolution’s support manual and YouTube videos provide instant support.

Click for a preview of the Slider Revolution plugin.

5. LayerSlider: #1 WordPress Slider Plugin

LayerSlider is the best WordPress plugin for web designers looking for an uncompromising approach to making amazing web content with gorgeous visual effects.

LayerSlider is not only for building responsive sliders and popups but is also excellent for creating more complex websites. LayerSlider’s top feature is, in fact, a scroll effect in which a hero image magically animates as visitors scroll through the page, as is the case in the Fairy Magical Company example with its scroll scene, scroll transition, and pinned layers.

With respect to templates, the Wood Sculptor website template shows a great example of LayerSlider’s capabilities.

Qualities that only its users will notice include:

• A Project Editor that matches professional desktop applications in terms of performance and usability.
• A complete suite of visual content creation online services without leaving the UI.
• Built-in transitions and effects that can be applied instantly.

Although LayerSlider’s popup and banner-creating capabilities and popular animation features are excellent for marketing purposes, LayerSlider is “tailored” for use on any website niche.

Customer Insight: “Powerful features and a flexible slider for many effects. Makes a very professional looking slider.”

Support: A support manual comes with the package, plus built-in help for almost everything inside the LayerSlider Project Editor.

Click for a preview of the LayerSlider plugin.

6. Essential Grid

Essential Grid is the #1 WordPress gallery plugin for creating galleries guaranteed to capture visitors’ attention.

The grid skin options and 50+ unique grid skins are clearly Essential Grid’s top feature.

Users can easily plug and play these customizable templates to complete projects in no time at all, plus Essential Grid’s visual skin editor enables users to create as many skin variations as they want.

• Essential grid created galleries load with a rocket-fast speed and are responsive to display the content on all devices in the most perfect way.
• It’s also possible to do search engine optimization of an Essential Grid gallery using deep linking and pagination to achieve a higher ranking on Google.

Team, blog, portfolio, and You/Tube Vimeo channel stream grids are popular among target client categories. The Portfolio Grid example features a image-based portfolio grid layout with pinned text layer and hover effects.

The developers of the wildly popular Slider Revolution plugin, which also appears on this list of best plugins, created Essential Grid as well.

Product rating: 4.7/5 on Trust Pilot

Customer Insight: “It’s rare in today’s world to find support that is competent and responsive, but Theme Punch’s Essential Grid support is AMAZING!!! My issue was resolved on the first contact, and within an hour of submitting a ticket.”

Support: Look to the support manual and YouTube videos for instant support.

Preview Essential Grid.

7. Web Stories – WordPress plugin

Web Stories helps users create powerful narratives and fast-loading full-screen experiences.

The top feature of this WordPress storytelling editor is how smoothly it blends a selection of story creation capabilities into a WYSIWYG creation tool. WebStories also provides an impressive selection of templates. Bike Shop is simple, straightforward, and also one of the most popular eCommerce themed templates.

Other popular features include even more beautiful page templates to help get story creation activities underway together with:

• a visually rich and intuitive dashboard that makes it easy to navigate through the entire story creation process.
• drag-and-drop capabilities designed to make composing beautiful stories as easy as possible.
• access to the WordPress media library through the plugin’s dashboard.

Product qualities that Web Stories’ users discover when they begin using the plugin include:

• fast loading times that keep visitors engaged and entertained.
• sharing and linking stories on the open web.
• tracking and measuring stories for monetization.

Product rating: 4.1/5

Customer Insight: “On our website, we personally love the web story platform! It’s SO beautiful and customizable, we can create different posts that fit our media outlet, and our public likes it a lot. It isn’t that easy to make in the beginning, but once you get it, you can produce a lot!

Instant support option: Solid documentation.

View the Web Stories plugin.

8. Tablesome

Tablesome is the best WordPress form automation plugin for those who need to efficiently transfer information from submitted forms into tables.

Tablesome’s top feature is easily its WordPress Automation feature which enables users to automate certain data management processes when people have submitted forms such as:

• storing the form entries in a table.
• saving the form entries to Google Sheet.
• sending the form entries in an email.

Tablesome’s users appreciate what Workflow Automation does to make their work easier. As they become familiar with Tablesome they gain a better understanding of the tasks it can do, and also become aware of the significant reduction in the number plugins needed to carry out those tasks.

Tablesome can also be used to support building of or improving data-centric websites thanks to its integrations with MailChimp, Google Sheets, Slack, HubSpot CRM, OpenAI/ChatGPT, and WordPress.

Product rating: 4.7/5

Customer Insight: “I was searching for a simple responsive table plugin that allowed Excel file imports in the free version, and after testing all the so-called popular table plugins, I realized that none of them offered excel imports in the free version or if they did, they were not responsive. Then I found Tablesome, and it worked perfectly! Within minutes I had the table setup from the existing excel sheet. Thank you to the authors of Tablesome, and I highly recommend it to everyone!”

Support: YouTube videos and Tablesome’s user manual are best for instant support.

Preview Tablesome.

***** 

Which plugins or plugins you might use in 2024?

It’s understandable you would not need every one of them, but having one or two could add significant value to your projects. With so many free and premium WordPress plugins to select from in the 4 areas that we covere, we saved you a great amount of time.

Each of these best WordPress plugins is:

• super-fast, solid, and has excellent UX.
• free of restrictions or limitations within its area.
• a huge time saver thanks to its prebuilt demos that make creating web projects efficient and enjoyable.
• designed for looking excellent on both desktop and mobile.

And customer support for each of these plugins is on point, responsive and pro.

Check out these free and premium wordpress plugins, take them for a spin and go premium if you need the extra features.

Read More at 5+ Best WordPress Plugins to Try Out [2024 edition]

Web design tools and resources, both free and premium, are designed to help you take full advantage of your creativity. Thereby enhance your ability to create stunning websites. There is a huge variety of products and services to choose from. They are ranging from complete platforms to specialized software applications. Just like design frameworks, wireframing tools, and UI enhancements.

We’re not going to pretend that creating wow-worthy websites is easy. Your creative talents can sometimes take you only so far. You can get to the point where you need a particular tool or resource to do some of the heavy lifting and help you work efficiently. Or, complete your projects on time, and exceed clients’ expectations.

Having the right design tools can even help you bring your creative visions to life. With this in mind, here are 13 Awesome Tools & Resources for Designers and Agencies.

1. Be – Best Multipurpose WordPress Theme

Are you in the midst of stocking up on web design tools to add to your design toolbox? You won’t have to look far beyond BeTheme to get most of what you need. This popular (250,000+ customers) and powerful (40+ core features) multipurpose WordPress theme places an abundance of site-building tools, aids, and options at your fingertips.

5 “must have” features you won’t find anywhere else:

• Be Builder, the fastest, lightest, and most intuitive website builder for WordPress.
• Be Blocks, a workflow-reducing library of pre-designed sections.
• Be Builder Woo, a simple and effective way to create an online store.
• Be’s Header Builder 2.0 makes it easy to quickly create the pixel-perfect header you need.
• Be’s library of 650+ Pre-Built Websites; each one is customizable, responsive, and features basic UX functionality.

You will find the Set-up Wizard on Be’s completely reorganized dashboard. Click on the banner to learn more about BeTheme or check out this free Live demo.

2. Trafft – Service Business Management Software You Can Count On

Trafft allows a business to manage appointment bookings operations with a single tool. The operations include, but are not limited to:

• managing, client appointments, events, group bookings, and staff schedules including special days for employees, as well as on-site and virtual meeting schedules.
• sending reminders to clients and accepting payments from them online via MailChimp and SendFox.

Other Trafft features clients, employees, or management can take advantage of include:

• selecting custom domains and custom fields for assignment to the Trafft platform.
• Coupons and other service extras.
• integration with Google Calendar, Google Meet, and Outlook Calendar when tracking appointment and event scheduling
• integration with Zoom to conduct virtual meetings
• Stripe, PayPal, Mollie, and Authorize.net payment options

Click on the banner for more information. 

3. wpDataTables – The Best Tables & Charts WordPress Table Plugin

wpDataTables is the best tables and charts WordPress plugin you could possibly select for your design toolbox. It enables you to create charts and tables that up to now you’ve may have been hesitant to try building.

Tables and charts that –

• are informative, responsive, easily maintainable, and attractive.
• are precisely what a client is looking for, and in minutes, even if huge amounts of complex data are involved.
• require data from a variety of sources and in a variety of formats including nested JSON

wpDataTables does all the above quickly and efficiently with its –

• ability to organize and process huge amounts of data.
• powerful chart-building engines, filtering and sorting tools, and features that allows users to edit their own entries
• conditional formatting feature that allows you to color-code key data.

Click on the banner to learn more about this time and labor saving plugin. 

4. Uncode – Creative & WooCommerce WordPress Theme

The Uncode creative WordPress theme is one of Envato’s all time best-sellers with more than 100,000 sales. The reasons for this are many, and include the ability to build incredible WooCommerce websites with features that include:

• an advanced Drag & Drop Product Builder, configurable Ajax product filters with Variations Swatches, and impressive Shop layouts.
• 70+ Carefully crafted mix-and-match importable pre-made designs, and 550+ Wireframes plugin section templates. 

5. Pixpa – Easy & affordable website builder for designers

Is an easy website builder for beginning designers suitable for more advanced web designers? With Pixpa, the answer is a definite yes. Pixpa is the top-rated website builder on Capterra and Trustpilot, with a 4.8/5 rating based on its:

• 150+ Customizable templates that allow designers to create unique and professional-looking websites.
• affordable plans starting at under $5/mo.
• a drag-and-drop editor that makes it easy for users to design their website
• blog platform, responsive design, and more.

6. Amelia – Appointments & Events WordPress Booking Plugin

Add Amelia WordPress booking plugin functionality to a WordPress-designed website and good things happen. The website’s user now owns an automated booking system that will flawlessly manage an unlimited number of appointment bookings at multiple locations from a single platform and dashboard.

• Amelia is an excellent choice for beauty, healthcare, fitness, consulting, educational, and other client-oriented businesses.
• both appointments and events can be booked
• Amelia supports PayPal, Stripe, Mollie, and Razor payments. 

7. Slider Revolution – not just a WordPress slider plugin

Slider Revolution has been the leading WordPress slider plugin for a long time, but it is more than a WordPress slider plugin now. Trusted by more than 9 million users worldwide, Slider Revolution gives you the ability to create visuals your clients and visitors love with its:

• 250+ website and slider templates designed to impress.
• website animation effects and other innovative features that push the boundaries of what is possible in web design.

8. WoodMart – WooCommerce WordPress Theme

Woodmart enjoys the distinction of being ThemeForest’s most highly regarded WooCommerce WordPress theme.

It is loaded with features you won’t find in most other eCommerce-oriented themes including –

• 75+ premade websites and 400+ templates that can also be used for quick prototyping
• 15 special pages together with a valuable selection of product page display options.

Note: You can’t order furniture from Wordmart’s website, even though you might be tempted.

9. Getillustrations Web and app illustrations bundle

Once a popular new website design trend, it appears that UI illustrations are here to stay. Even though the popularity of certain illustration styles may vary with time, the opportunities for innovation and creativity remain limitless.

Getillustrations brings to the table:

• 14,000+ ready-to-use illustrations in nearly 200 different categories.
• Illustrations for web, apps, presentations, and other purposes.
• Available in PNG, SVC, Ai, Figma, & Sketch formats.

Use coupon code ULTIMATE30 to receive a 30% discount. 

10. Mobirise – Website Building Software

Mobirise is a free downloadable website building software app for Windows, Mac, and Linux. Mobirise is especially well suited for creating  small/medium websites, landing pages, and simple web stores.

• Mobirise is perfect for non-techies who may not be familiar with the intricacies of web design.
• Mobirise is great for fast prototyping and small customers’ projects.
• Mobirise features a minimalistic, extremely easy-to-use interface, it is Mobile & Google-friendly, and can be hosted anywhere. 

11. The Essential Grid WordPress plugin

Essential Grid is hands down the best WordPress grid plugin you could have in your web design toolkit. Essential Grid’s –

• easy-to-use drag and drop builder makes it possible to bring your creative vision to life in minutes rather than hours.
• 50+ impressive, customizable templates make it easy to complete projects at lightning-fast speeds.

With Essential Grid, you can create any gallery design you can think of without writing a single line of code. 

12. Blocksy – Best Free Ecommerce WordPress Theme

Blocksy is packed with dozens of hyper-intuitive features and options, yet it is both lighter and faster than most similar WordPress themes.

• Features include advanced WooCommerce integration, a header builder, a footer builder, custom post types, and dynamic data support.
• Options include White Label, layout, header and footer options, and a customizer Dark Mode.

This best free eCommerce WordPress theme gives you complete control over your page and web designs. 

13. Total WordPress Theme

This aptly named WordPress theme has all the flexibility you could ask for, yet it is surprisingly easy to work with, even for a beginner. Total’s features include –

• an extended version of the WPBakery page builder
• 90+ ready to use section templates plus quick import demos, unlimited color options, and custom fonts.
• WooCommerce integration, full support for Elementor (with custom widgets), live customizer theme settings, and dynamic template and layout functionality.

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Creating a stunning website is not always easy. Your creative talents can sometimes only take you to a point. You will need a particular tool or resource to do some heavy lifting.

Website design has become easier, however. More and more new web design tools and resources are being introduced the marketplace. Many older ones are being upgraded to make assembling a well-rounded tool kit a relatively easy task for any web designer.

Having the right design tools can help you bring your creative visions to life. With this in mind, here are 13 Essential Tools & Resources for Designers and Agencies.

Read More at 13 Awesome Tools & Resources for Designers and Agencies for 2023

If you’re using the WordPress platform for your website building projects, you’re definitely on the right track. Still, building a better website than the competition’s is usually easier said than done. As doing so may require design or coding skills beyond what you currently possess.

The good news is that there are WordPress tools that can be precisely what you need to improve a website’s features or add desired functionality.

These tools are called plugins, and they are software addons you can install on your websites to add features. You can extend functionality, optimize SEO, boost speed and performance, and more.

Check out these 9 great  WordPress plugins for your website projects in 2023. One of more of them could give you exactly what you are looking for.

1. Brizy: The Best Website Builder for Non-techies

If is unlikely that the Brizy design team really intended to pander to you, but once you start using it, no other website theme builder will ever feel as nice and easy to work with. The Brizy cloud website builder is ideal for beginners and non-techies (and for techies as well), and you can download it for free.

The Brizy WordPress theme builder has many uses. You can, for example –

• build a new website.
• improve upon an existing one.
• create dynamic templates and use them for creating blog and archive pages, headers and footers, and custom pages exactly as you want them.
• choose among more than 150 high conversion pre-made templates
• access elements and templates to customize an eCommerce shop site

Key Brizy features include a Theme Builder, Global Blocks, Global Styling features, and WooCommerce integration. You can take advantage of the 100% White Label option if you want to brand the Brizy Builder as your own.

Click on the banner to give Brizy a closer look. A Pro option is available.

2. WpDataTables – WordPress tables plugin

You probably enjoy facing a challenge now and then, or you wouldn’t be a web designer. Still, working with massive amounts of complex data can be frustrating at times. Especially when it takes hours of effort to create a table or chart and the final result is disappointing.

wpDataTables is a power-packed WordPress tables plugin that can process huge amounts of complex data to create attractive, interactive, responsive, and easily editable and maintainable tables and charts in minutes.

wpDataTables key features include –

• 4 chart-building engines — Google Charts, Highcharts, Chart.js, and Apex Charts.
• the ability to work from multiple database sources, MYSQL, MS SQL, PostgreSQL and with all standard data formats
• using Conditional Formatting to highlight and color code key data
• integration with Elementor, Divi, Avada and WP Bakery.

Other useful features include sorting and filtering, formula columns, nested JSON, and more. Click on the banner to learn more.

3. Amelia – WordPress booking plugin

Adding the Amelia WordPress booking plugin to a business’s WordPress website can completely streamline and fully automate its appointment booking operations with its ability to –

• manage an unlimited number of client appointment bookings at multiple locations from a single platform and dashboard.
• enable clients to book appointments online 24/7.
• manage group appointments, packages, and events.
• send notifications and reminders to clients via Email or SMS
• accept payments online using PayPal, Stripe, Mollie, or

Booking forms can even be customized to match the business’s brand. Amelia provides an ideal booking solution for beauty, healthcare, fitness, consulting, educational, and other client-dependent business enterprises.

Click on the banner to learn more about how you could use the Amelia WordPress plugin streamline and automate your business’s booking operations.

4. LayerSlider – Best WordPress Slider Builder Plugin

Choosing LayerSlider to add sliders to a website is a wise choice as it’s the best WordPress slider plugin on the market, and it can also be used to create image galleries, popups, landing pages, animated page blocks, and parallax and scroll scenes.

• LayerSlider will fully support whatever WordPress theme and page builder you happen to be using.
• LayerSlider’s 210+ highly customizable website, slider, and popup templates provide a great starting point for your new projects.

5. TheDock – Ship Solid Websites

TheDock WordPress theme builder helps teams create websites faster; websites that are guaranteed to look sharp, perform great, and be easy to support because of this plugin’s –

• well organized selections of Custom Post Types and Custom Fields.
• extremely fast page loads
• auto-adjusting, highly flexible layout system and its global UI components
• White-label builder for sharing access to TheDock’s theme builder only when you want to
• high security and easy maintenance.

6. Slider Revolution – more than a WordPress slider plugin

If you would benefit from injecting a few healthy doses of spice and flair into your websites, you should have the Slider Revolution WordPress plugin in your web design toolbox.

Slider Revolution’s-

• 250+ website and slider templates and innovative website animation effects will impress the most jaded of visitors
• web design tools take you to the limits of web design possibilities.

Slider Revolution is used and trusted by over 9 million worldwide users.

7. Ads Pro – WordPress ad manager

The Ads Pro WordPress advertising plugin presents its users with an exceptional range of advertising sales, management, and display options.

Ads Pro’s easy to work with key features include –

• an Admin Panel and front-end order form that supports efficient ad management.
• 25+ customizable ad templates and 20+ ad display options including 3 Facebook display options
• 3 billing methods and 4 payment gateways together with click fraud and ad block protection.

8. Download Monitor – Best WordPress Download Manager

Download Monitor is a WordPress downloads manager that can help streamline your business operations without having to set-up a complex tracking solution, such as Google Analytics.

Download Monitor enables you to –

• track multiple file download types (ZIP, PPT, XSLX, PDF, etc.)
• aggregate file download statistics for total downloads, downloads by IP, by user role, etc.
• establish access rules based on user roles and download quotas.

9. Essential Grid – Best WordPress grid plugin

You can use this, the best WordPress grid plugin on the market, to incorporate breathtaking, professional-looking galleries into your websites.

It isn’t all that difficult to do so. Essential Grid places at your fingertips –

• fully customizable and stunning boxed and full-width to full-screen grid layout options and masonry and cobble grid designs
• responsive designs that enable you to control how your grids will appear on various devices
• access to social media content.

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WordPress is a highly flexible content management syste for building websites. A driving force behind this flexibility is the wide variety of great WordPress plugins you can use to add features to your site.

Choosing the right WordPress plugin is important for a website’s performance. It can be critical with respect to what it will be capable of accomplishing.

Check out these 9 best WordPress plugins for your website projects in 2023. One of more of them could be a game changer.

Read More at Use these Great 9 WordPress Plugins in 2023

Web designers generally become more efficient at what they do as they gain experience. This gained efficiency saves time and typically results in higher quality end products.

Carefully chosen design tools and resources can have much the same effect. That they can enable web designers to accomplish more in a shorter time. Adding to their overall competence and adding value for their clients.

Whether it’s a tool or a resource you’re looking for, you want one that adds to your design options (flexibility). Also one that makes your work easier at the same time.

That is precisely what these top 15 tools and resources for designers have in common. Use one or more of them as you work your way through your projects in 2022. Then you can expect to more in a given amount of time and do it better.

1. Be – The Biggest WordPress and portfolio WordPress theme

Let’s start with BeTheme’s 650+ pre-built websites. They have efficiency written all over them. They cover all major industry sectors and website types, they are responsive and fully customizable, and they have UX functionality built into them. Pick one that best fits your needs, and you may be able to build a reasonably complex website in a few hours.

All of BeTheme’s 40+ core features contribute their fair share. They include –

• The Admin Panel, the Shortcode and Layout Generators, and the new fast, flexible, and easy to use BeBuilder page builder, the premier WordPress page-building tool.
• An absolute gem of a BeBuilder Woo with customer-centric shopping features and single product layouts.

Size matters. BeTheme is the biggest multipurpose WordPress and WooCommerce theme of them all and can boast of having more than 240,000 customers.

Click on the banner, check out each of Be’s core features, and be prepared to be impressed by what this powerful theme and its new page building features could do for you.

2. Total WordPress Theme

One mark of an efficient WordPress theme is that it will not slow you down by placing limits on the page layouts you create. Total’s designers know this and created a theme whose multiple style options and its flexible page builder are designed to never let you down.

• You can create a page quickly and easily using Total’s easy-to-import Theme Demos and the selection of 90+ section templates.
• You can also start from scratch if you prefer.
• An extended version of WPBakery with frontend and backend drag and drop page capabilities is Total’s page builder of choice.
• Live customizer theme settings combined with a dynamic template and dynamic layout functionality give you all the flexibility you’ll ever need
• Total is 100% responsive and is loaded with animations and custom backgrounds

Click on the banner; there’s much, much more to see.

3. LayerSlider

LayerSlider is one of the most popular and established products of its type on the market. It gives you the ability to build everything from sliders, animated page blocks, and popups to even complete websites. What LayerSlider does best of all is to add spice, flair, and excitement to an otherwise so-so website.

• LayerSlider is cost-effective and easy to work with.
• You can use it to create an expensive-looking website for a very small investment.
• This WordPress plugin comes with an easy-to-use and modern editor interface similar to professional desktop applications. Anyone can use it without prior experience.
• It has 150+ website, slider, and popup templates. Templates are a great way to learn as well as an ideal starting point for new projects.
• LayerSlider includes thousands of icons, custom typefaces, shape generators, and other helpful add-ons.

Click on the banner to find out more about this amazing tool.

4. Trafft

Trafft is an automated appointment scheduling system that lets you schedule appointments and group bookings, as well as meetings and events from a single platform.

• Trafft also manages staff and service schedules, sends reminders to clients, and accepts payments online.
• Trafft can schedule and manage bookings and manage staff services at multiple locations.

Trafft is free forever for single individuals, is free to get started, and offers Basic, Pro, and Expert plans.

5. wpDataTables

The ability to quickly process huge amounts of data makes wpDataTables the most powerful and efficient WordPress plugin of its type on the market.

wpDataTables makes it a relatively quick and easy to –

• create responsive, interactive, and easily maintainable tables and charts
• quickly manage thousands of rows of data and process data from a variety of sources and in various formats
• create informative tables and charts by color-coding key data

6. Uncode – Creative & WooCommerce WordPress Theme

More than 90.000 sales make Uncode, a pixel-perfect multiuse theme for freelancers, bloggers, businesses, and agencies, an Envato Top Seller.

• Uncode’s most impressive feature may be its WooCommerce custom builder
• Uncode’s Wireframes plugin with 550+ section templates lets users create virtually any page layout, while the powerful frontend editor allows pages to be completed quickly and efficiently
• The best way to see why Uncode is such a good investment is to view its gallery of user-created websites.

7. Slider Revolution

Slider Revolution is a versatile WordPress plugin that helps beginner-and mid-level designers WOW their clients with pro-level website page visuals.

Rather than spend a lot of effort trying to change a boring website into one that at the very least borders on awesome, Slider Revolution lets you do so quickly and efficiently with its –

• 200+ impressive website and slider templates and 25+ addons
• use of dynamic content from social media sites
• WebGL slide animations

8. WHATFONTIS

“Find the font source yourself” might be a chore, but WHATFONTIS can usually do it for you in a matter of seconds.

• With a catalog of 850K+ fonts and font-finding AI algorithms, whatfontis presents you more than 60 fonts for every image you upload.
• 1 on 1 support is there for you if the AI search engine yields a strange result
• Separate the letters and cursive fonts can be located as well.

9. Mobirise Website Builder Software

Mobirise is an offline website builder that is perfect for creating small to medium size websites.

• You are not tied to a specific platform, and you can host your site anywhere you wish.
• Mobirise’s many page-building features include everything from sliders, galleries, and videos, to icons, forms, and Google maps.
• Google AMP/Bootstrap4 assures your website will be super-fast and 100% mobile

Mobirise is free for personal and commercial use.

10. Get illustrations Stock Illustrations Bundle

Downloading images from GetIllustrations’ library of premium illustrations could make a big difference in your approach to designing website UIs, apps, and presentations.

• This library of 10,000+ illustrations makes up the world’s biggest bundle of its type
• Vector AI, PNG, Sketch, SVG, Figma, and Adobe XD formats are featured
• A commercial license is included with any illustration.
• Illustrations you purchase are yours to keep and use without limitations.

11. XStore – Best WordPress WooCommerce Theme for eCommerce

Add XStore to your designers’ toolbox and you’ll quickly see why this WordPress theme has built up and enthusiastic following from day 1. The package includes –

• XStore’s 110+ impressive and inspirational ready-to-customize shops
• The popular and powerful Elementor and WPBakery page builders
• A live Ajax theme option and $500+ worth of hand-picked premium “must have” plugins
• A single product page builder, single product layout options, and other eCommerce features and elements.

12. Amelia

What separates Amelia from other booking solutions is the level of control it gives you over everything. Amelia enables you to tailor your booking forms to your business, and not all automated systems do that.

• Amelia is easy to set up and does not require training to use
• Clients can book appointments 24/7 online
• Amelia can manage individual and group appointment bookings, event bookings, and employee schedules at multiple locations from a single platform.

13. 8bio – Link in Bio Tool

Social media platforms like Instagram and TikTok allow you to include a link in the profile so followers can visit your website, product page or other important pages. The 8bio app enables you to create a link that people can’t help clicking on. A link that can feature –

• Your brief biography
• Images
• Beautiful skins and catch animation backgrounds

A biographical link can be much easier to maintain than an expensive website.

14. Essential Grid

Essential Grid is a WordPress Gallery Plugin Created By The Developers of Slider Revolution. It has a fan base of 9 Million users, and you can use it to create breathtaking galleries guaranteed to inject new life into your websites.

Essential Grid makes it fun and easy to –

• Present your thought-provoking and engaging blogs and your eye-catching portfolio
• Create appealing displays of your unique products
• Share your engaging videos and audio gems

And much more!

15. Pixpa – Portfolio Websites for Designers

Pixpa is the perfect, DIY tool for creating a full-featured e-commerce platform and selling your products and services online, effortlessly.

You can –

• sell products using the online store
• sell images as prints or digital downloads using e-commerce galleries.
• accept commission-free payments directly through Stripe or PayPal.

Pixpa’s cost-effective pricing plans start at just $3/month making it the preferred platform for creatives and small businesses around the world. You can start building your website, easily, with Pixpa’s full-featured, 15 day free trial. No credit card information required for sign up!

***** 

It’s not terribly difficult to find a tool or resource that is better than one you are currently using. There are so many of them out there.

What can be much more difficult is finding one that, for a small investment, can enable you to go about your design task with greater efficiency. While at the same time enhancing the quality and/or functionality of your end products.

The challenge in other words is to find tools and resources for designers that help you build websites better and quicker.

That is precisely the reason for publishing of this selection of top 15 design tools and resources. Picking one or more could help you “build better quicker”.

Read More at 15 Popular Tools and Resources That Designers Will Use in 2022

WordPress powers more than 42% of the web, making it by far the world’s most popular website platform. This platform has the tools needed to build any type of website. They include themes that serve to make building high-quality sites easier. Also, cool WordPress plugins that add special features and functionalities that themes often lack.

The right plugin can do wonders for a website’s design and performance. But with more than 42,000 essential WordPress plugins to choose from, finding the “best” plugin to satisfy a particular need can be a time-consuming task. It is one that has no guarantee of being successful.

Finding just the right plugin is best left up the experts, those people in the back room that are very good at comparing one thing against another.

What those experts have found as we enter 2022 is simply amazing. Perhaps one or more of these 9 top WordPress plugins will be exactly what you’ve been looking for.

1. Amelia

Amelia is an automated booking system that can flawlessly manage an unlimited number of appointment bookings for an unlimited number of business clients.

Amelia can manage appointments for multiple locations and does so using a single insightful dashboard from a single platform.

A WordPress website design that utilizes the Amelia plugin’s features and functionalities can completely streamline a business’s booking operations.

• Clients can make or change appointment bookings online at any hour of the day
• They can request appointments with specific employees
• They can receive reminders and follow-ups and be notified of forthcoming special events or learning sessions online
• They can also make any payments due online, or pay deposits for appointments and events
• Businesses can schedule training or educational sessions, or other events and sell packages of services online
• Booking forms can be customized to fit a business’s brand

Amelia’s time and money-saving automated booking system is ideal for service-oriented businesses like beauty parlors, gyms, health and fitness centers, training centers, and barbershops.

Click on the banner to see how Amelia can help you leverage your business.

2. wpDataTables

You’re tasked with building a responsive, interactive, and maintainable table, the task must be completed relatively quickly, and you’ve got several million rows of data to process. When you start to think seriously about seeking a new line of work, you hear about wpDataTables, an absolute workhorse when it comes to creating tables and charts from massive amounts of data quickly.

This powerful WordPress plugin –

• can process data from multiple sources using multiple formats
• can highlight key data and color code essential data in both tables and charts
• can help users build tables manually, from spreadsheet or database data, or a real-time MySQL database
• wpDataTables features a large amount of data sorting and filtering options. It also provides ready access to Chart.js, HighCharts, and Google Charts libraries.

Click on the banner to see what 50,000+ satisfied users already know. 

3. LayerSlider

The LayerSlider plugin has been on the market for more than a decade. Following web design trends and customer demand, the developers have elevated LayerSlider’s functionality and ease of use to new heights.

LayerSlider 7 has just made its debut. This is the biggest update yet, and by far the most exciting. With this release, LayerSlider has evolved into a powerful tool to dazzle your website visitors with eye-catching web design and effects.

• LayerSlider 7 introduces a powerful, totally redesigned project editor that is a joy to work with and gives users the ability to design anything without limits
• Users can also design popups with stunning effects. Popups can be used to grab visitors’ attention with adverts, store messages, newsletters, and similar solutions
• With a growing selection of templates and Add-Ons, LayerSlider continues to offer an all-in-one solution for every need

LayerSlider 7 is well worth a closer look. Click on the banner to do precisely that.

4. Essential Grid

A gallery is often meant to be the focal point of a website, but from a design standpoint it is all too often treated just like any other website page.

Essential Grid can give your website gallery a shot in the arm with its –

• features that let you display products, videos, and portfolios as you always meant them to be displayed
• variety of screen layout options coupled with row, column, and spacing adjustments

5. TheDock

As a web designer you’ve probably found website building easier when you use a website theme. You might even have given some thought to creating your own theme(s), but you don’t believe you have the skills to do so.

TheDock plugin’s visual editor changes all that.

• It runs as a plugin and writes the code for you.
• TheDock-created themes are always responsive.
• You can edit theme design, layout, and architecture without writing a line of code.

6. Slider Revolution

The Slider Revolution plugin is designed to help web designers incorporate healthy doses of spice and flair into their websites – and impress their clients by doing so.

• Slider Revolution takes into account today’s over-the-top web design demands
• The 25+ addons and 200+ website and slider templates that are included are designed to impress
• Slider Revolution users can also import dynamic content from the web

Customers can look forward to receiving one-on-one support.

7. Tablesome – Advanced WordPress Table Plugin

Tablesome is a data table plugin that enables its users to create tables they can embed in their website pages or posts.

• Tablesome’s drag and drop feature can be used to manually sort or reorder tabular data
• A table can be partially or fully duplicated to create a new table

Tablesome stores Contact Form 7 submissions and stored data can be uploaded to external sources such as Google Sheets, MailChimp, etc.

8. Wordlift

The WordLift SEO plugin helps web designers improve their websites’ search engine capabilities by working with them to create custom AI-powered Knowledge Graphs.

The designers can use their Knowledge Graphs to –

• enhance their websites’ expertise, trustworthiness, and authority
• help Google understand website content
• lead website visitors to content that is most likely to keep them engaged

WordLift also serves as an SEO knowledge and training partner for its users.

9. Heroic Inbox

Incorporate the Heroic Inbox plugin’s features into your company’s website and you’ll be able to manage all of your company’s emails from shared inboxes.

• A third party platform is not required. All email inboxes can be managed from your company’s website.
• Past customer email communications can be displayed on a sidebar to support customer-company dialogs.

Heroic Inbox tracks key company and team performance metrics.

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Having just the right plugin in hand can do amazing thing for a website’s performance and capabilities. But with so many useful WordPress plugins to choose from, searching for the “best” plugin to scratch an itch or satisfy a particular need can be a time-consuming if not hopeless task. The one that has no guarantee of being successful.

This is an area that is best left up to those who have the expertise to locate the top WordPress plugin(s) in a given category. They are recommended to web designers and interested businesses. The experts’ pick of the top WordPress plugins for 2022 is what you see in this post.

Read More at Top 9 WordPress Plugins (2022 edition)

There can be multiple reasons for not delivering a product on time. An example would be where progress slows down or grinds to a halt because of a client’s requirement cannot be met. It can be due to the designer who doesn’t have the right design tool for the task.

Your toolbox may be well stocked, but there may be a tool or web design resources you frequently use that simply isn’t up to the task at hand. Even though it is one that has served you well in the past.

The following 15 tools and resources for designers and agencies are the best in their respective categories. As such, they can be productivity boosters, and in some cases, life-savers.

1. Be Theme

This multipurpose WordPress theme is tops in its class in terms of its potent array of core features and design options, together with its flexibility and user friendliness. Given that sales of this long-time favorite web design tool now exceed the 200,000 mark, you you can be assured of getting tangible value and a great return on your investment.

• Be’s 40+ core features provide all the tools for designers and flexibility you’ll need to meet the harshest of deadlines
• The BeTheme Muffin Builder/Admin Panel/Shortcode Generator trio lets you drag and drop your way through a task without any need to write a line of code.
• If there is a single secret to Be’s success it would be its library of more than 600 responsive and customizable pre-built websites. They cover 30 industry sectors along with every popular website type or style.
• Be’s Layout Generator makes it a simple task to start a page from scratch, and you can rely on this theme’s wealth of layout and other design options to see your project through.

Click on the banner to learn more about what BeTheme can do for you.

2. Trafft Booking Software

Trafft’s brand new and modern design with easy to use dashboard and booking forms can simplify a booking operation’s workflows from beginning to end and speed up the operation by 75% or more, making it a real game-changer for service driven businesses.

Trafft:

• Manages your appointments, services and employees
• Automatically transmits email notifications to your customers and employees
• Easily and fully integrates with Zoom
• Lets you customize the Trafft Booking Form to go with your brand
• Manages pricing, online payments, and employee’s work and vacations schedules

Trafft is still in an early phase of operation. If you would like to help shape and improve it you can do so by providing feedback, this way you can shape this software to make it even better.

Click on the banner to learn more about Trafft and to sign up and participate.

3. wpDataTables

While there is no shortage of quality table and chart-building applications on the market, the number of those that can be counted on to do a good job for you significantly decreases if you require one or more of the following:

• The ability to create responsive and interactive tables and charts
• A frontend editing capability that allows tables and charts to be easily maintained
• An ability to process extremely large amounts of data that can come in various formats and/or from various sources
• The ability to process large amounts of data, including real-time data in minutes if not seconds
• Conditional formatting and styling capabilities to improve table/chart readability and understandability by highlighting or color coding key information

With the wpDataTables plugin, you can do all the above and more. Additional features include advanced filters, Gravity and Formidable Forms add-ons, and a detailed user manual.

Click on the banner to learn more about this best-in-its-class tool.

4. Uncode – Creative Multiuse & WooCommerce WordPress Theme

This pixel-perfect creative multiuse theme is particularly suitable for creative individuals and agencies. More than 80.000 sales have made it a ThemeForest best-seller.

Features include:

• A Frontend Editor for designing in real time;
• More than 400 Wireframe section templates and 70+ pixel perfect design concepts;
• The WooCommerce Custom Builder that features the Single Product, Cart, Checkout, and more;

When visiting the site, be sure and visit Uncode’s inspirational library of user-created websites.

5. LayerSlider

LayerSlider, a longtime favorite of web designers, is no longer just for creating amazing sliders. It is now a multi-use application for animation and content creation that millions of active users enjoy.

• It’s the perfect tool for giving an old website a modern look
• Popups with extensive animation capabilities are a unique LayerSlider feature
• LayerSlider is all drag and drop and mobile device and SEO friendly

6. Amelia Booking Plugin

With the Amelia WordPress booking plugin you can manage appointments, events, and employees’ schedules with a single tool.

• There is no limit to the number of appointments, clients, or employees
• Clients can book or change appointments online 24/7, and do not have to login to WordPress to do so
• Amelia easily integrates with Google Calendar, Outlook Calendar, Zoom, and the Elementor page builder
• Clients and employees have their own separate front-end panels for easy booking management

7. 8b Website Builder

8b is brand new, easy to use, features a simple and futuristic UI, and can be used on a desktop or a mobile device whether you are at home or on the go.

• Google AMP guarantees your site will be lightning-fast and responsive
• 8b comes with 250+ website sections and 16 cool starter templates
• You can link to any domain you wish

Download your own copy for free.

8. Total WordPress Theme

Total is a flexible, fast, super user-friendly multipurpose theme that you can use to create any type of website’

• Features you are not using won’t slow you down
• The Dynamic Template Function and Theme Customizer give you the flexibility to design layouts and pages exactly as you want to
• Total is Translation ready and WooCommerce and WordPress plugin friendly

9. Dr. Link Check

Broken links are not only annoying but can hurt a site’s search engine rankings as well. Dr. Link Check saves you the trouble of having to periodically check every link on your site.

Dr. Link Check crawls through your site looking for:

• Broken links and improper URL formatting
• Blacklisted sites with malicious content
• Placeholder sites that lack meaningful content
• and generates a daily, weekly, or monthly report with its findings.

10. Mobirise Website Builder

Mobirise is easy to use, offline, and free. This website-building tool enables you to create a fast, responsive, Google-friendly website in minutes.

• Because Mobirise is offline, you have total control over your design
• 4,000+ stunning website-building templates come with the package
• Since Mobirise is drag and drop there’s zero need for coding
• Mobirise’s Google AMP and Bootstrap 4 frameworks guarantee outstanding performance

You can download Mobirise to Windows or Mac for free.

11. Heroic Inbox

Heroic Inbox helps business departments and teams manage their email inboxes.

Heroic Inbox:

• encourages staff members to work together to manage email assignments and responses
• features a snappy UI and smart workflows that makes it possible for staff members to achieve the coveted Inbox Zero status in no time at all
• tracks key metrics to better understand team performance

12. WHATFONTIS

WhatFontIs is the best online tool for helping you identify fonts from uploaded images in a matter of seconds. This application’s rapid search capabilities are based on its advanced font-finding AI software and its catalog of more than 700K fonts.

• 60+ related fonts are shown for every clean uploaded image
• WhatFontIs correctly identifies a submitted font in 90% of the cases
• Cursive fonts can be identified as long as the letters are separated

13. Litho – The Multipurpose HTML5 Template

The Litho responsive multipurpose HTML5 template, with its ready-made template blocks and professionally-crafted inner pages, offers an excellent starting point for any business’s website design.

• Litho’s Bootstrap 4 framework guarantees fast performance
• The package features 36+ home pages, 230+ ready templates, and beautiful page styles for blog, shop, gallery, and portfolio sites
• Attractive hero sliders, interactive banners, working contact forms, and other useful website elements are included

Litho provides detailed documentation and top-of-the-line user support.

14. XStore – The Most Customizable WooCommerce Theme Ever

A word to the wise for anyone looking for a low-cost, trouble-free way to build an online store: Don’t overlook xStore!

Here is what you get for only $39:

• 100+ amazing shops you can customize to fit your brand
• $500+ worth of premium plugins
• A Single-product page builder, product filters, and a full Ajax shop

You’ll quickly discover that building an eCommerce website doesn’t have to be difficult.

15. Goodiewebsite

GOODIE helps people and businesses get their websites reliably coded and up and running.

• GOODIE delivers custom web design, custom WordPress development, WooCommerce development, email development, and more.
• GOODIE supports web designers who want to connect with a reliable web developer and startups looking to test their business concepts on the web

GOODIE specialties include small websites, WordPress websites, responsive email templates, and eCommerce websites

*****

You’ve no doubt placed an impressive collection of industry tools, tips, and tricks in your designer’s toolbox. There might even be a few old favorites of yours in that collection you would be hesitant to part with and replace with something else.

You want to remain competitive it’s important to seek out and stock up on the latest and greatest design tools you can find. Even though it can be time consuming and at times frustrating to do so.

We are delighted to be able to assist you in that regard by sharing with you these top 15 tools and resources for designers and agencies. Choosing one or more will definitely help you stay on top of your design game and could even make your day.

Read More at 15 Great Tools & Resources That You Need to Try