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You know you need a web presence, but you shouldn’t just rely on a website template and hope it works. You want a website that will serve visitors. A site that will provide a great user experience and make them want to engage with your brand.

Creating a strategic site that will convert means understanding the website components for a successful site. Keep reading to learn the eight website components for a successful site in this post.

Website Components You Need on Your Site

1. An Intuitive CMS

Your content management system (CMS) works behind the scenes to help you organize and maintain your website. You should choose a CMS that is intuitive for you to use. Once you’ve used a CMS, many of them are similar, but small features in their design and functioning can make a big difference for you and your users.

According to W3Techs, WordPress is the CMS of choice on 41.8% of all websites. There is a reason so much of the internet uses WordPress — it is endlessly customizable with thousands of plugins while still being easy to use.

The Essential Guide to WordPress Plugins >>

2. Reliable Hosting

Web hosting services make it possible for people to view your site online. When it comes to web hosting, you get what you pay for. A host can make or break your site. Choose a host that provides fully managed hosting with exceptional customer service — because hosting support is important. Look at reviews from other clients and get recommendations before you choose a host.

Top 10 Questions to Ask a Cloud Hosting Provider >>

3. Strong User Experience

It’s challenging enough to get people to visit your website. If they come to your site and have a poor experience, they won’t stay, and they won’t come back. A successful website is accessible, usable, efficient, and easy to navigate.

When thinking about the user experience on your site, consider:

• Performance. Website performance matters. How well your site performs is everything to your visitors. If your pages load slowly or they find missing links, they’ll leave your site, and they won’t come back. Slow loading times are the most common reason for high bounce rates. Make sure your site is performing its best.
• Screen Variety. Make sure to prepare for your audience’s viewing choices. People visit websites from laptops, desktops, tablets, and mobile phones. Your site should be accessible and look great on any screen size.
• Calls to Action. You want people to visit your site, then do something. What does conversion look like for your brand? For example, do you want visitors to sign up for an email newsletter, schedule a call, or purchase a product? Think about what action you want visitors to take, then be sure to include those specific calls to action on your posts and throughout your pages.
• Intuitiveness. Visitors shouldn’t have to dig through your site to find what they need. Moving around the site should be intuitive, which has a lot to do with navigation menus. Be sure your site’s menus are simple, concise, and use the common words visitors use to find information in your niche.
• Consistency. You create consistency when you use similar elements throughout your website. The theme you choose creates a lot of consistency with heading sizes, fonts, colors, design elements, etc. But consistency in wording and theme application or usage are up to you. Decide how you want your site to look, feel, and read, then maintain those styles throughout its pages and content.
• Purchasing. If you want people to purchase while visiting your site, you have to make it easy to do so. The primary reason people abandon their online shopping cart is that the checkout process is too complicated. Streamline the process and make it as simple as possible for customers to go from selecting a product to completing their payment.

4. SEO Basics

There are millions of websites online. You can’t just launch your website and hope the right people find it. Search engine optimization (SEO) entails using certain words or terms on your site’s pages strategically, so Google recognizes it for those topics. SEO requires you to discover what words your visitors frequently use to find your site through keyword research. From there, it is critical to include those words and their synonyms across your site.

How to Do SEO for Ecommerce Websites: Techniques, Tools, & Best Practices >>

5. Analytics Tools

Once you create your site, you want to see how it’s doing. Analytics tools help you determine things like how many people visit your site, how long they stay, and what pages they view. You also can gather information on what people search for when they find your site and who those people are. Monitoring basic analytical information helps you improve your site based on how people are using it.

6. Expected Pages

There are some certain pages visitors expect to see on your site. If they can’t find those pages, your site feels incomplete to them. They can’t get the essential information they expect. They may even question the validity of your site if those website components aren’t present.

Here are some pages to include on your site:

• Homepage. Of course, you will have a homepage, but what it tells visitors about your site is important too. Your home page should establish your brand visually and through text. It sets the tone for the rest of your site. At the least, you want your homepage to establish what your site is about quickly.
• About Us. The About Us page on your site lets visitors know who is behind the organization. It puts names and faces to the brand and tells the brand’s story. The About Us page also typically includes contact information so visitors can ask further questions or provide feedback. It may come as a surprise, but it is usually one of the most visited pages on a website!
• Products or Services. These pages show customers what products or services you offer and allow them to make a purchase.
• Blog. The blog page allows you to write directly to your visitors, informing them about all types of information and happenings related to your brand and area of expertise. The best blogs are those that help educate visitors and are based on a digital content strategy. Supporting them in their journey will keep them coming back to your site.
• Contact. Your contact page is your customer support page. It helps them reach out to you if they have questions or concerns.

You Don’t Have to Be A Designer to Design Your Store’s Home Page >>

7. Social Media Integration

Your website is your home base. Social media helps get people there. You don’t have to be on every social medium, but you should be active where your audience members typically are. You’ll want to use social media to share information in your niche and to promote your online content. Send people from your social media pages to your website. Encourage people on your website to follow you on social. And continue the conversation with your visitors to strengthen the relationship.

8. Media

Visuals are an essential website component of your site. We are all different types of learners, so think of the media you post as an addendum to your written content. Some people would prefer a video to a blog post and vice versa. Plus, images and videos help draw people in, focus their attention, and build on your content.

No one wants to see a big chunk of text. Choose appealing images for your website, then optimize them before you post. Also, be sure to name your images in a way that reflects your SEO keyword strategy. And do not forget to add alt text to your images. This helps those who use screen readers consume your content as well.

Use StoreBuilder for a Successful Website

There are a lot of website components to consider when launching a new site. Hostdedi is here to help with fully managed hosting. And, if you want to get an ecommerce site up and running in minutes, Hostdedi’s StoreBuilder is the way to go.

StoreBuilder is an intelligent website assistant that helps you start and launch a WooCommerce store faster than any other solution in the market.

Getting started is simple. Hostdedi’s easy tool helps you build an ecommerce site in four steps. You just answer a few questions about your products, industry, assets, and whether you’ve already started an online business.

Essentially, you communicate your vision for the site. StoreBuilder then uses industry insights to build customized ecommerce sites in minutes.

You don’t need templates, coding experience, or any technical web knowledge. And you don’t need to spend a lot of time or money with a designer to build a unique site you and your customers will love.

Contact us to learn more about how Hostdedi’s StoreBuilder can have your ecommerce site up and selling in no time.

Have you lately considered starting an online business, but you’re not sure how exactly you could do it?

Today we will cover five key steps to starting an online business. Here are the factors you should consider when entering the competitive arena of the online business world.

What Are The Benefits Of Starting an Online Business?

An online business entails selling, advertising, and conducting other business activities entirely or partially online. Working online brings plenty of benefits. You can set your own schedule, develop a full-time job or create a passive side income, live wherever you prefer, and work as much as you want, depending on how big you want your business to be. Being a part of the virtual world allows you to reach anyone in the world. However, creating a business is all about connecting the right users with an adequate offering. Let’s check some of the key steps of how to achieve that.

5 Steps To Starting an Online Business

1. Choose a Niche Based On Your Passion And Knowledge, But Also Try to Fill the Market’s Need

Finding the right idea is definitely something you should approach systematically. Before you start, carefully consider what you want to do and why. Which area are you the most experienced in? What can you offer to the world and in which niche can you add extra value?

The ideal scenario includes industry or idea based on your passion and knowledge — but also a business niche focused on gaps in the marketplace. What exactly does that mean?

When starting, people mostly make the mistake of focusing on a product first, leaving a market behind. Try something different and start by exploring a market first. The point is to create a business that fills market needs, not just your personal ones.

In other words, find people who are looking for a solution to a particular problem but are not able to find an adequate one.

There are a couple of things you can do to conduct market research right away:

• Search through online forums to check what questions people ask and what issues they’re trying to find a solution for.
• Do your keyword research thoroughly. See what people have been searching, and what niche needs to be backed up with valuable, high-quality content.
• Don’t forget to check out your potential competitors’ sites. Take notes of what they’re focused on when it comes to products, services, content, and marketing strategies. Are there things that could be slightly different or even better? Here’s your chance!

2. Choose an Adequate Platform and Set Plugins

Do you want to focus on sharing content or selling stuff? Ideally, you’ll choose both. There are two types of platforms you’d want to consider — a content management system (CMS) and an eCommerce platform.

With a CMS you can manage all types of content related to your offer, such as informative videos, portfolios, forums, a knowledge base, guides, blogs, etc. WordPress is a widely popular example of a platform that facilitates creating and maintaining your content. It offers different themes where you can combine various WordPress plugins and features that will help you adjust your website to your own preferences.

The Essential Guide to WordPress Plugins >>

Meanwhile, an ecommerce platform is actually a software app that’s focused on selling your products or services online. It can also help your online store with managing the website, which includes operations, sales, marketing, and all other areas related to your business. It’s some sort of home base that provides your business with powerful features and tools that allow you to centralize operations.

It’s more likely you’ll need to combine these two as well as pair plugins that will help you manage the overall business. Either way, choosing the right platform will help you reflect the unique needs of your business along with creating an online place where your visitors/customers want to return.

3. Develop a Business Plan and Set the Structure

Rarely does a startup become a profitable online business right away. But having a comprehensive plan is one of the essential steps toward achieving profitability. It will allow you to anticipate any potential bumps that may occur down the road. A comprehensive plan will also help you make your business profitable and better in the future. Ask yourself questions such as:

• What’s the purpose of your work?
• Who are you trying to reach by starting a business?
• What are your short-term goals, and where do you picture your business in one to two years?
• How will you finance your business?

These and many more questions are essential to answer before you start. The answers to these questions will help you formulate your business plan. A well-set plan is there to help you identify your market, determine the target group, be more precise with your objectives, set marketing strategies, and predict some of the potential obstacles.

It’s also a great base to set your business structure, which includes dictating all the tax and business regulations as well as the legal requirements you need to meet when running the business.

For instance, small businesses owners often choose to register some of these structures:

• Sole proprietorship.
• Partnership.
• Limited liability company (LLC).
• Corporation.

Each of these structures has different tax requirements and different levels of liability, so you may want to consult with professionals to determine which one is the right choice for your new business. And you’ll need to check not only your state sales tax obligations but online sales tax requirements too.

4. Develop Your Prelaunch Marketing Strategy

Email campaigns, SEO, social media marketing, content marketing — these are just a few of the aspects that need to be covered to build a successful online business. Your detailed business plan should help guide you with the valuable information you need to create effective and compelling strategies for your target market.

Here are some considerations for creating a marketing plan.

Invest in Web Design​​

Even though we don’t often see it as a part of a marketing tactic, web design surely influences the amount of attention and time a visitor will spend on your site. After all, your website is the base and the center of all your digital efforts, so don’t hesitate to spend the time and effort to make it attractive, attention grabbing, and packed with valuable information your potential customers are looking for. Also, don’t forget to make it mobile-friendly.

Utilize SEO and SEM

Search Engine Marketing (SEM) is one of the most effective methods to develop an online business in the competitive arena of today’s world. Search engine marketing, also known as paid search advertising or pay per click (PPC), ensures your business is visible in search engine results. By targeting specific keywords your audience may be searching for, you can appear in the search results to gain visibility and visitors to your site.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a set of techniques you can use to achieve a better ranking of your website on search engine results pages (SERPs). Whereas SEM is a paid approach, SEO is free to use. By implementing SEO techniques on your website, you can rank higher on Google to drive more organic traffic.

SEO Trends in 2022: The Future of SEO, What Matters Most and Why >>

Be Strategic With Email Marketing

Consider adding an opt-in where you allow visitors to sign upto receive your emails. This way, you’ll be able to directly connect with those who are really interested in your brand in a personal way — through email marketing.

Make the Most of Social Media

By now, you’ve already realized who your target group is. This allows you to explore their online habits, which include their social media platforms. Include a social media strategy in your marketing plan to connect with customers, reach a wider audience, and establish an online presence.

8 Ways to Use Social Media to Grow Your Small Business >>

Start a Blog

Consider implementing a digital content strategy by starting a blog. By starting a blog, you get to consistently publish posts with new keywords — which is vital to your SEO strategy. Also, your blog can become a valuable source of reliable information, advice, and plenty more content your customers may find useful.

Consider Affiliate Marketing

This is one of the most popular ways to get passive income online. How exactly? Well, you actually earn a commission by promoting other company’s or people’s products.

The person that promotes a particular product or service is called an affiliate. They mostly get paid when one of the users clicks through to a merchant’s site and buys something. Some other formats of affiliate marketing you might see are:

• Pay-Per-Sale (PPS) — This model is the most common one with the affiliate earning money for every generated sale.
• Pay-Per-Click (PPC) — You can get money for all generated clicks or traffic.
• Pay-Per-Lead (PPL)  — Here you can get paid for every lead you, as the affiliate, generate. For instance, there are trial creations, free demo signups, or some other types of pre-purchase.

5. Time To Launch Your Business

Potential customers need to know you’re starting something they might be interested in. You can make the announcement in various ways, including through email lists, social media, or online or traditional ads.

After starting an online business, make sure to track its growth. There are simple and free tools like, for instance, Google Analytics, where you can track popular keywords, location of clicks, traffic sources, popular pages, etc.

Also, plenty of web hosting companies offer packages or additional website plugins with traffic analyzing tools. With these, you’ll see what’s working, and what’s not — which will eventually help you determine what needs to be improved.

Now that you know the key steps to starting an online business, you’re ready to begin. You’ve got your idea — now it’s time to build your online business’ website. That’s where StoreBuilder comes in.

There’s no coding required to build a beautiful, customized website.

StoreBuilder by Hostdedi is:

• Fast — Get your store launched in minutes.
• Smart — AI-powered insights build your store based on your inputs.
• Template-free — So your site will be unique and custom to you.

For unparalleled support and limitless design potential, explore StoreBuilder today.

Whether you’re looking to create an online store or start up a different type of ecommerce business, writing up a solid online store business plan is one of the major jumping off points. This could feel like a daunting task, but with some preparation, it doesn’t need to be.

Read over our steps and tips to creating a strong online store business plan.

Who Needs an Online Store Business Plan?

If you’re looking to jump into ecommerce, you need a business plan. It will prove vital to your overall success by creating an overarching guide for your new venture.

Your business plan can serve multiple purposes. It can help you secure investors or business loans. You can use it as a tool for recruiting employees and partners. Also, you’ll be able to use it as a roadmap.

Creating Your Ecommerce Business Plan

As with so many things in the world, there aren’t really many hard and fast rules when it comes to crafting an ecommerce business plan. However, the most effective business plans tend to have the following components:

• Executive summary
• Company description
• Market analysis
• Products
• Marketing plan
• Logistics and operations
• Financial plan

We’ll go through each of the steps you’ll need to take to complete these components.

Step 1: Write an Executive Summary

Your executive summary is the first thing that will be presented in your online store business plan. As the name implies, it acts as a summary for the entirety of your business plan, with high-level information laid out for readers to easily peruse.

The importance of a concise and informative executive summary cannot be understated. It’s likely any potential investors or lenders with busy schedules are going to read the executive summary before taking any time to read the more detailed parts of your business plan. You don’t want to lose them here.

Make sure your executive summary is easy to read and includes pertinent information you want to communicate. You want to give the audience an idea of who/what your company is, without trying to sell yourself too hard. The rest of your business plan will do the selling, as your executive summary should entice them to read the business plan.

Try to write no more than two pages for your executive summary, but you really should be aiming for just one page. At the end of the summary, the reader should know who you are, the problem you have identified, and your approach to solving that problem.

Beyond high-level points in the summary, you can get a bit more granular in pointing out things such as current partnerships, customers, product development, monetization strategies, and other details that will help the reader get a better idea of who you are, and what to expect when reading your full business plan.

You might want to save writing the executive summary until after you have completed the rest of your business plan, or you could write it first to help give you a guide to the bulk of the plan.

Step 2: Complete Your Company Description

Where your online store business plan executive summary should give readers and potential investors a high-level sense of your business, creating a company description is where you need to get extremely specific.

Include all identifying elements of your company, including:

• Brand name
• Business structure, such as:
• LLC
• C-Corporation
• S-Corporation
• Sole proprietorship
• Website domain name

Now, start getting more detailed in describing who and what your company is on a grander scale. This is where your business plan should include your company’s mission statement and vision.

Your mission statement should be short and sweet. You’re essentially wrapping up your entire company in one sentence. Tell the reader and the world why your company exists as quickly as possible.

If you’re having trouble coming up with your mission statement, start with something extremely grand and general. Then try to insert your company into that grand statement.

What grand thing or problem are you attempting to solve are you doing, and for whom are you doing it? If your company sells food from organic and sustainable farms to schools maybe your mission statement is something like, “Keeping the world green and our kids’ diets clean.”

Where your mission statement tells the world who you are now, your vision statement shows where you want to be in the future. Think about the overarching goal you want to reach through your mission. “Our vision is to ensure the health of the people and planet. Through this, we will get nutritional and tasty meals to kids across the country, sourced from our curated and highly-vetted sustainable farmers and producers.”

After sharing your mission and vision statements, give the reader some more background into where you are coming from. How did you find the problem and what made you think about the solution? What experience do you have?

Then, introduce yourself formerly. List the key players involved from ownership down to staff. Though if you are already substantially big, you probably don’t need to list absolutely everybody. Be proud of who your team is and show why their contributions matter.

Step 3: Document Your Market Analysis

As with any good business, conducting market analysis plays a big role in getting off to a good start. Including your analysis in your business plan not only shows anybody reading it what is happening in the market, it also shows the that you fully understand the market yourself.

Break up your market analysis into three distinct categories:

• Audience analysis: Identify the demographics you are selling your products and services to. Use key identifying factors such as age, gender, location, and income. Show your understanding of what is important to your audience.
• Industry analysis: What is the current state of the industry? How did it get there, and where is it heading? Are there ecommerce trends that could impact your business? Back your conclusions with data where possible.
• Competitive analysis: Know and understand your competition. What are the products/services they offer? What is there pricing structure? What is their current standing with the public? Identify their strengths and weaknesses. Find learnings from your competitors’ successes and failures. Identify any gaps that you can fill. Show how you can reach higher profits, how your product is better than theirs, and you might target an untapped audience.

You can even go the extra mile and analyze yourself. Conduct a SWOT analysis to name your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. This will give you huge insight into how you are already set up for success, and things that could use extra attention and work.

Step 4: Describe Your Products & Services

Here is your chance to dive deep into your products and services with your online store business plan. Use this space to detail how your products differ from competitor products. Point out how your products helps address any problems.

Keep in mind that this probably isn’t the place to get very technical. Avoid jargon here and make things simple and easily digestible for a wide and varying audience. You also don’t have to go into every single product or service if you have a large selection. Concentrate more on categories of products rather that each single individual item.

Step 5: Put Together Your Marketing Plan

You’re sure to go far with a good plan to market your ecommerce business. Outline your marketing plan here as part of your greater website business plan.

Start by pointing out who your audience is, where you’re most likely to find them, and how best to grab their attention. Then consider how much you want to invest in marketing strategies.

Working in ecommerce gives you several tried and true online methods of marketing.

1. You can help your audience find you organically by building a digital content strategy where you create and produce related content, like articles and videos.
2. You can learn and establish best practices for search engine optimization (SEO) for ecommerce so that your website will rank higher in web search platforms like Google.
3. You can take advantage of Google’s popular pay per click (PPC) program to get your site listed in front of a target audience.
4. It’s also a good idea to build a strong social media presence where more people will be able to find you. Social platforms also offer a breadth of paid advertising tools if you want to go that route.
5. With affiliate marketing, you can have external editorial websites leverage their built-in audience to highlight your product to get a cut of sales that come through their funnel.
6. Many influencers will work with companies to promote products. Target influencers in your niche rather than looking for just the people with the most followers.

It’s important to note that organic marketing (or unpaid) doesn’t exactly mean free. It takes labor and quite often a good chunk of money to build out and implement a good organic marketing strategy.

Step 6: Detail Out Your Logistics and Operations

Here is where you’ll point out all the things you need to keep your business running day to day. If you are selling physical products, you’ll need to consider things like:

• Shipping
• Suppliers
• Production
• Inventory

Many small ecommerce companies rely on third parties to handle the bulk of their logistics. If you are doing so, be sure to highlight that here.

If you are selling a service, your logistics and operations will look a bit different. You’ll be more concerned about things like transportation, computer hardware and software, office upkeep, and more. Of course, that doesn’t mean that companies selling products aren’t also concerned with these operational items.

By completing this section, you should get a strong grasp of what your business needs to run well, and you’ll be able to give potential investors an idea of the costs required to operate well.

Step 8: Lay Out Your Financial Plan

There’s a ton that goes into ecommerce business planning, and one aspect does seem to loom large: financials.

While you may have touched on your finances in other parts of your business plan, here’s where you need to be much more granular and detailed. Just how into the weeds you get will depends on what you deem crucial for others to know. Investors and lenders, for example, are probably going to pay more attention to your financial plan than anyone else.

You’ll want to include these main pillars of a well thought out financial plan:

• Income statement: This will give your reader a look into your bottom line by showing your total revenue against your expenses over time. Of course, if you have yet to launch your business, you can project these numbers.
• Balance sheet: Used to calculate shareholder equity, your balance sheet reflects your total assets (everything your business owns) minus liabilities (all your reoccurring costs).
• Cash-flow statement: True to its name, this shows how your cash flows in and out. You’ll detail out when your revenue comes in and how much. You’ll also explain when you must pay out all your expenses and how much too.

Wrapping Up Your Online Store Business Plan

Coming up with an entire business plan for online businesses is no small feat. If you need a little more help, check out the many ecommerce business plan templates available online. Once you’ve tied all loose ends, don’t forget to at least give yourself a small pat on the back. As you wrap things up, keep in mind that your business plan can absolutely be a living document. It’s even a good idea to tailor it according to whomever is reading it.

For example, if you know an investor who gets excited by big ideas, you might want to put more thought into products and services. If you’re presenting it to somebody highly experienced in the industry, you might want to throw in a few more ecommerce terms than you normally would. If you have a number cruncher, you probably want to fine-tune your financial plan. If you’re just using it as a roadmap for your organization, you might be content to keep things high level.

Whatever the case, remember that you have the power to make your business plan perfect for your needs. If you need more help with your new company, take a look at some of the top ecommerce KPIs to build your business and grow revenue.

You already use WordPress to run your website. Why not use it for project management? With the best WordPress project management plugin, you can organize your tasks and projects in no time.

Keep reading to discover our top picks for the best WordPress project management plugin, as well as our tips for how to optimize your project management plugin for speed, so it doesn’t slow down your site.

Why Do You Need a WordPress Project Management Plugin?

WordPress project management plugins are an excellent alternative to purchasing project management software. You’ll maintain control of your data and often pay less than subscribing to a proprietary project management software.

Features to look for in a WordPress project management plugin include:

• Project Tracking and Organization. How do you need to track progress on projects? How do you organize projects? Do you need to organize by type of project or client?
• Communication Tools. Do you need task and project comments, email notifications, or other ways to communicate in the system?
• Permissions. Do you need to set different permission levels by role or project?
• Time Tracking. Do you need a way for team members to log how much time they spend on a task?
• Frontend Access. Do you want to publish a public view of projects so clients can see what is going on without logging into your WordPress admin?
• Integrations. What other systems or plugins do you need the project management system to work with?

6 of the Best WordPress Project Management Plugins

Project management plugins vary in price and features. But no matter your needs, you’ll find one that will work on this list.

1. UpStream

UpStream’s free WordPress program management plugin allows you to manage multiple types of projects from your WordPress admin dashboard. You also can set up a frontend view for clients to see the details of their project without giving external parties access to your WordPress site.

Active Installations:	WordPress Repository Rating:	Developer:
1,000+	4.5 out of 5 stars	UpStream

Pricing:

The plugin is free. A paid premium version unlocks additional features. Extensions that require an upgrade include:

• Calendar view
• Copy project
• Customizer
• Custom fields
• Email notifications
• Frontend edit
• Project timeline
• Naming
• Time and budget tracking
• Reporting

Prices for a single site license range from $79 to $179 per year depending on which premium features you need.

Features

UpStream includes many necessary project management features such as:

• Milestone and tasks with linking and dependencies
• Project discussion thread to move the conversation out of your email inbox
• Custom fields and status
• File and document uploads
• Custom role and permission settings

Download Upstream

2. WP Project Manager

This project management plugin includes all the features and reporting you’ll need to keep your projects and team organized.

Active Installations:	WordPress Repository Rating:	Developer:
10,000+	3.5 out of 5 stars	weDevs

Pricing:

The plugin is free. You only need to purchase a subscription if you need more advanced features.

Plans and features for WP Project Manager are:

• Personal $79 per year
  • Uploading files on comments
  • To-do and deadline management
  • Milestones
  • Subtasks
  • Private messenger
  • Folder and file management
  • Manage from the frontend
• Professional $149 per year
  • All the features from the Personal plan
  • Gantt charts
  • Invoicing
  • Time tracker
  • Four additional domains
• Business $249 per year
  • All the features from the Professional plan
  • Kanban boards
  • BuddyPress
  • Woo Order and Stripe
  • Recurring tasks
  • 10 total domains

Features

WP Project Manager includes a robust set of features, including:

• To-do lists and milestones
• Messages and comments to keep communication inside the project management system
• File upload and sharing
• Personal dashboard for users so team members can keep track of their own tasks lists
• Privacy and permission settings by role and project

Download WP Project Manager

3. Zephyr Project Manager

Zephyr Project Manager is an innovative WordPress project management plugin that even includes an Android app that syncs with your website data.

Active Installations:	WordPress Repository Rating:	Developer:
1,000+	5 out of 5 stars	Dylan James

Pricing

The plugin is free. For a one-time fee of $99, you can upgrade to the Pro version, which includes:

• Custom task and project templates
• Custom project templates
• Custom fields
• Customizable front-end project manager page
• Kanban board style projects
• Asana integration
• Reporting and statistics

Features

Zephyr Project Manager stands out for its modern and clean user interface. Project management features include:

• Project and tasks deadlines
• Communication tools, including comments and email notifications
• File and document uploads
• Copy tasks and projects
• Personal dashboards
• Calendar view
• Team and user management

Download Zephyr Project Manager

4. Project Panorama

Panorama is a project management and client dashboard plugin. The plugin’s main goal is to make it easier for team members and clients to see the status of their projects.

Active Installations:	WordPress Repository Rating:	Developer:
1,000+	4 out of 5 stars	37 Media

Pricing

Project Panorama offers a lite version for free on the WordPress repository or paid version with three subscription tiers:

• Personal $99 per year
  • Projects
  • Team
  • Task management
  • Deadlines
  • Notifications
  • Communication
• Agency $129 per year
  • Everything from Personal plan
  • Sub-tasks
  • Sequential tasks
  • Front-end editing
  • Use on up to five sites
• Enterprise $169 per year
  • Everything from Personal and Agency plans
  • Kanban board
  • Delay tracking
  • Image gallery
  • Use on an unlimited number of sites

Project Panorama also sells a Lifetime plan offering all features for a one-time fee of $399.

Features

Project Panorama really shines with its dashboard views to get a high-level view of all your projects. Plugin features include:

• Public or private view of projects
• User and project access management
• Project phases and calendars
• Due date and progress tracking
• Project and task discussions

Download Project Panorama

5. Projectopia

Projectopia is a great choice for freelancers or agencies looking for a WordPress project management plugin.

Active Installations:	WordPress Repository Rating:	Developer:
20+	5 out of 5 stars	Projectopia

Pricing

The Projectopia plugin is free. You can purchase additional add-ons to unlock additional features.

Add-ons that require a paid upgrade include:

• Kanban board
• Roles and permissions
• Support tickets
• Time entries
• 2Checkout
• Subscriptions
• Bug tracker
• WooCommerce integration
• Custom field
• Expenses
• Twilio integration
• Reporting

Add-ons range in price from $15 to $49. Depending on how many add-ons you need, you might save money by buying the Regular or Ultimate version from CodeCanyon. Projectopia also sells a yearly subscription for $129 that includes premium support and up to eight add-ons.

Features

Projectopia is an excellent project management tool if you need to bill clients. The built-in invoicing and payment functions make it an obvious choice for creative agencies and other service-based businesses. Other features include:

• Adding and managing team members
• Client management and billing
• Time-tracking
• Project and task tracking and communication
• Support tickets

Download Projectopia

6. Kanban Boards for WordPress

If you love Kanban boards and agile project management, this is the tool for you. Kanban Boards for WordPress claims to be “Trello for WordPress.”

Active Installations:	WordPress Repository Rating:	Developer:
1,000+	4.5 out of 5 stars	Kanban for WordPress

Pricing

The version on the WordPress repository is free and offers most of the basic features. Advanced users might want to consider upgrading to the Pro version with an annual subscription of $149 or a lifetime license for $499.

Pro version features include:

• Task comments
• Advanced user manager
• Task detail and attachments
• Notifications
• Task colors
• Multiple boards

Features

The free version likely works great for people looking for a simple project management system. You’ll probably want the task details, comments, and attachments available in the Pro version for more complex projects. Features of the free version include:

• Custom boards and swim lanes
• Edits tasks in place
• Task due dates and time estimates
• Custom views
• Task assignments

Download Kanban Boards for WordPress

Which is the Best WordPress Project Management Plugin?

Every company uses different workflows. Time tracking might be the most critical part of a project management system for some companies, while others could care less. “Best” is relative to your needs.

Start by mapping out your workflow and make a list of features you’ll need in a project management system to determine which one is best for your business.

How Hostdedi Helps with Project Management Plugins

Before you get started with a WordPress project management plugin, you’ll want to consider if your website can support it. For starters, check to see which WordPress version you’re using, as well as make sure whether you’re using WordPress.org vs. WordPress.com.

Too many plugins or overloaded databases can slow down your site. If you have a high-traffic website, you’ll want to consider adding a bunch of behind-the-scenes project management data and requests to the same site. Consider installing your project management plugin on a separate installation of WordPress.

With managed hosting from Hostdedi, setting up a new version of WordPress is just a click away. You can easily add your project management system to a subdomain like projects.yourwebsite.com.

Sign up today to get started with Hostdedi’ state-of-the-art WordPress hosting.

For more WordPress help, check out our tips for WordPress for beginners and our guide to WordPress.