10 Tips for Maximizing the Benefits of WordPress Google Analytics

By Mark Zeni

The importance of statistics is undeniable. They give us valuable insight on the website traffic and how visitors interact with it. By analyzing and getting deeper into your website stats you can significantly improve its performance, accelerate its growth and better serve your visitors.

If you’re looking for good analytics tool you’ll most probably end up by choosing Google analytics, the free and most complete analytics tool offered by Google.With its second to none tracking and monitoring functionalities it’s the first choice for millions of users and website owners. Another great thing about Google Analytics is that it’s pretty flexible, which allows you to obtain individual statistics and maximize the benefits of the tracked information.

The partnership of Google with WordPress made it easy to bring GA to WordPress powered websites and get tracking reports directly from the website dashboard. Moreover, with the available plugins you also get tons of tracking customization options to make your data more valid and useful. Below, you can find 10 tips that will help you maximize the benefits of WordPress Google Analytics.

1. Add Google Analytics to WordPress

Adding Google Analytics to your WordPress website comes with a bunch of advantages. It will allow you to access your website stats from the comfort of your WordPress dashboard, and ease you from the hassle of checking your GA account separately every time you need to get a glimpse of your website stats. There are a lot of tools out there that will help you to add Google Analytics to your WordPress website without touching a line of code. And Google Analytics WD plugin is one them. It’s the official member of  Google Analytics Technology Partners Program, and makes GA integration with WordPress a breeze. The plugin comes with all the advanced tracking and reporting functionalities that GA provides, and makes it way easier to collect and monitor the data.

Google Analytics WD comes in FREE and PRO versions, both offering a set of most needed analytics features. Find the plugin demo here, and see how it tracks and collects data.

2. Get a more accurate picture of your stats with data filtering

Of course, there can be data from specific resources that you might not want to be included in the tracking reports. Using filters is a smart way to improve the accuracy of the collected data. With data filtering option of the Google Analytics WD you’ll be able to filter out the traffic from specific IP addresses, countries, regions, and cities.

3. Exclude specific tracking

Tracking exclusion is a form of data filtering which allows you to exclude tracking based on specific roles and user accounts. Any activity and interaction performed by them on your website will be ignored and you’ll get a valid data on your website performance. You can exclude interaction tracking for site administrators, editors, authors, contributors, subscribers, admin and user accounts.

4. Get the most out of custom reporting

With the sheer volume of the data that Google Analytics provides, sometimes it’s overwhelming to figure it all out. Plus, there can be specific data which is not automatically reported by the plugin, but you’d really like to track it .This is where custom reporting functionality of Google Analytics WD comes to rescue. You can set custom reports for any metrics and dimension and access them directly on the plugin reports page. For example, you can set pageview as a metric and session duration as a dimension, and track how much time your visitors spent on viewing pages.

Google Analytics also allows you to export the tracking reports to CSV and PDF formats, and forward to specified email recipients on a scheduled basis.

5. Display frontend reports

With Google Analytics WD you can enable displaying reports on the frontend of your website and give access to them to specific users, such as site administrator, editor, subscribers, and contributors. This is a great option to enable those users to access individual page or post reports right on the frontend while working on the pages. This saves a lot of time and keeps them focused on their work.

6. Set reports for custom dimensions

You can maximize the benefits of your stats by tracking specific data that you have on your website. That could be the tracking which of the authors is the most popular among your readers, or what type of posts your readers like to read the most. With Google Analytics WD you can track custom dimensions based on logged in users, post type, category, tags, post author, post publishing year and month.

7. Measure how often your visitors complete specific actions

You website visitors perform thousands of activities on your website every day. With some additional setup you’ll be able to track targeted activities and get notified as soon as they are accomplished. You can set visiting a certain page as a goal, or measure how many of your visitors proceed to checkout on your shopping website. For setting and managing goals you’ll have to provide its name, select one of the goal types (destination, duration, pages/screens per session) and configure the options for the goal type. The plugin collects data based on the configured options, and keeps you notified by sending you an email or pushover notification.

8. Set alerts for specific conditions

Google Analytics WD comes with an advanced option to send you alerts and pushover notifications when a specific metric meets the predefined condition. It could be the highest/lowest number of the traffic, bounce rate range, and average session duration. For example, you can set to get an alert or pushover when the number of your website visitors exceeds a specific number. The alerts and pushovers are sent based on the selected period, either daily, weekly or monthly.

9. Track your sales stats

You can link your Ecommerce account to Google analytics WD and track your sales stats based on revenues, transactions, time to purchase, product name and category and sales performance. It’s a time-saving option for tracking your sales stats.

10. Google Adsense and AdWords reports

If you have authorized accounts on AdSense and AdWords, Google Analytics WD will enable you to view relevant information tracking within the reports page of the plugin. All you have to do is to link your accounts to the Google Analytics and access the tracked data from the WordPress dashboard.

Google Analytics WD is a powerful tracking tool. The data that it tracks includes tons of valuable information that you can use to improve your website performance. So, why not use these useful tips and get the most of your website stats.

Would you like to have your website or product featured here? Email daniel@dailyblogtips.com

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9 Types of Widgets You Should Add To Your WordPress Sidebar

The sidebar is an integral part of a WordPress blog. But a lot of bloggers ignore it.

When I started blogging, I used to add a lot of widgets on the sidebar. It seemed cool to me. But I was not getting the results that I wanted from the sidebar. That’s because I was not using the proper widgets.

Proper widgets can help you to make your sidebar work for you. But the problem is, it’s not easy to find the right widgets from thousands of WordPress widgets.

To make things easier, I am going to share a list of different types widgets for WordPress sidebar. This list will help you to find and add the right widgets for your WordPress blog.

Before going further, I’d recommend you to check your existing widgets. Because WordPress Installation comes with some default widgets. And if you are using a premium theme, it might add some widgets too. You should check if there is a same kind of widget before adding a new widget. Just go to WordPress Admin Panel > Appearance > Widgets.

Now let’s see the must-have widgets for your WordPress Blog.

1. Email Subscription Widget

The Sidebar is one of the best places to add opt-in form. It converts well. And it gives a professional look to the blog as most of the pro bloggers use it. Whether you are offering freebies or just ask your readers to subscribe, you should add an opt-in form in the sidebar. Here are some plugins you can use to add opt-in form in the sidebar.

• Thrive Leads: Thrive Leads is all in one solution for list building. It has everything to build an email list quickly. I am using this plugin on my blog.
• OptinMonster: This is another popular plugin for list building. It is created by the popular blogger Syed Balkhi.
• WP Subscribe: It’s a free plugin, created by MyThemeShop. It’s a good choice when you don’t offer freebies.

Few Widgets offered by Thrive Leads.

2. Social Media Widget

Social Media is the best way to connect with your readers. Having social media widget in the sidebar means your visitors are just one click away to connect with you. However, there are several social networking sites. You need to figure out which networks suit your blog. You can add a single network or a bunch of networks widget in the sidebar.

Follower Counters by Easy Social Share Buttons.

3. Posts Widget (Recent/Popular)

You can showcase your recent or popular posts on the sidebar. This way visitors can easily find your best posts or recently published posts. By default, WordPress has a widget for recent posts. However, some plugins allow you to show posts with thumbnails or posts arranged by tabs.

• WordPress Popular Posts: It’s a highly customizable widget that lets you display most popular posts on the sidebar,
• Recent Post Widget: It allows you to show recent posts with thumbnails. It’s created by Theme Junkie.
• WP Tab Widget Pro: It’s a fantastic widget that lets you display posts arranged by tabs. You can also show tags or categories. It offers 21 predefined layouts, 29 new pagination styles, and 6 unique AJAX loaders.

4. Author Widget

Visitors always want to know who’s behind the blog. That’s why About page is one of the most visited pages of your blog. We add Author bio box under the blog posts or footer. But it gets more attention when you add it to the sidebar. While you can add Author Bio by using the text editor, you can consider using a plugin to make the box more attractive.

• Fanciest Author Box: This is the most famous Author Box plugin for WordPress. It offers a widget that allows you to add an Author box on the sidebar. You can also show your social profiles on different tabs.
• WP – Author Box: It’s another cool plugin for Author Box. It offers 6 predefined skins.

Sidebar Widget by Fanciest Author Box.

5. Login Widget

If you are running a multi-author WordPress site, you should add a Login widget on the sidebar to make login easier for your authors. Some impressive WordPress plugins allow you to add simple and attractive Login/Registration Form in the sidebar.

• Login Widget With Shortcode: It’s a simple plugin that allows users to login to the side from the frontend.
• Social Login: This plugin allows your visitors to login with social networks like Facebook, Twitter, PayPal, LinkedIn, Google, etc.
• Tabbed Login Widget: It’s a beautiful tabbed login widget that allows users to login, register, and retrieve forgotten password from the sidebar.

6. Search Widget

Adding Search widget depends on the amount of posts you have on your blog. There is no reason to add a search box widget to a new blog. It will disappoint the visitors who search. If you have a decent amount of blog posts on your blog, you can consider adding a search box. WordPress has a default widget for a search box. But it doesn’t show the accurate result. Here are some alternatives you can try.

• Google Search Box: It shows more relevant results than the default search. And it does not have any impact on server resources.
• SearchWP: It’s a premium plugin that shows relevant results than the default WorPress Search.
• Relevanssi – A Better Search: This plugin replaces the default search with a better search that shows relevant results.

7. Testimonial Widget

One of the easiest ways to increase the credibility of your blog is to add testimonials. Having testimonials is must when you are offering services/products. It will increase your conversion rates. You can easily add testimonials by using a text widget. But if you want more functionalities like collecting testimonials, you need to use a plugin.

• Testimonial Widgets: It lets you show testimonials on the sidebar randomly or selectively. You can insert testimonials via shortcode or widget.
• Easy Testimonials: It’s an easy-to-use plugin for adding testimonials to your WordPress sidebar.
• Testimonials WordPress Plugin: It’s a premium plugin for showing testimonials. It offers responsive layouts, group testimonials by category, shortcode/widget, several style options, etc.

9. Ratings/Poll Widget

Ratings Widget is a must-have widget for product/review based blog. Even if you are not running a review based blog, but you write a lot of reviews on your blog; you can showcase your reviews on the sidebar. Another important widget is Poll widget. It’s the best way to run quick surveys on your visitors.

10. Others

There are some others widgets you can consider adding to your sidebar. But it depends on your needs. There is no reason to slow down your blog by adding unnecessary widgets.

Note: If you are wondering which widgets I am using at RoadToBlogging, here is the answer for. We use default widgets offered by Thrive Themes.

Conclusion

So these are the widgets that you can use on your blog. But remember that, using unnecessary widgets may slow down your blog.

Now I’d like to hear from you. Let us know which widgets are you using right now on your blog.

However, if you found this post useful, help me by sharing this post on Facebook, Twitter, or Google+

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7 WordPress Blogs to Follow for the Best Tips, Tutorials, Guides, and More

WordPress is the most popular CMS for many reasons, but the most important one is that it’s free and open source. This has fostered a huge developer community around the platform that continuously builds beautiful themes, premium plugins, and even contributes to the core code.

As the user, you have the freedom to stick to the basics or really get hands-on with HTML, CSS, and PHP to customize your website in any way you like. Obviously, there is a lot of be learnt and you need to stay updated if you want to make the best of what WordPress has to offer.

Thankfully, there are many amazing publications online dedicated to covering all things WordPress starting with those that cover the very basics for beginners to more advanced ones that delve into plugin reviews, advanced in-depth guides, and how-to tutorials with code snippets.

In this post, we list the best WordPress blogs you need to follow to stay ahead of the curve.

Hands down the best resource for users who are just getting started with WordPress, WPBeginner offers quick tips and tutorials on how to get things done in and troubleshoot problems in WordPress.

WPBeginner has over 320,000 subscribers all over the world, making it one of the most popular WordPress-related publications. It has also been featured in publications such as Inc., WIRED, Mashable, and garnered praised from internet marketing heavyweights such as Neil Patel and Chris Brogan.

If you’re looking for where to begin, here are a few links:

WPMU DEV is an independent third-party provider of 100+ premium themes and plugins which they bundle and sell as a service with 24/7 support. Apart from this, they run an amazing blog where known WordPress experts share detailed features for intermediate and advanced users on topics such as site set up, UI/UX, security, development, multisite, and much more.

If you want to go from being a beginner to someone who has the confidence to execute more complex tasks such as site management, migration, and optimization… this is the blog you should be reading.

Unlike most other publications on this list, Smashing Magazine isn’t only about WordPress, but it is the leading online magazine about web design and has a section dedicated to WordPress.

This section contains features about WordPress techniques, plugins, themes, freebies, and downloads. Apart from this, their main focus is on technologies such as HTML, CSS, and Javascript which are used extensively in WordPress development, so if you want a deeper understanding of how the WordPress front-end works, Smashing Magazine is a must-read.

Over and above what has already been mentioned, the magazine also has sections dedicated to design, mobile, graphics, and user experience—making it a comprehensive resource not only only for people who build things with WordPress, but for anyone who wants to gain a deeper understanding of the nuts and bolts that come together to make the internet that we see.

If you’ve done your time as a beginner WordPress user and want to stay updated about the latest updates in the WordPress development community along with tips, tools, and hacks to stay ahead of the pack—Torque is for you. They publish some of the best features about WordPress related topics.

Torque is a news site featuring all things WordPress. We are dedicated to informing new and advanced WordPress professionals about the industry. Check in daily for tutorials, interviews, news, and more.

Along with three staff members, Torque features content from a collection of writers, each with different skill-sets and experiences with WordPress.

Since its debut in July 2013, at WordCamp San Francisco, Torque has been on the forefront of news and events in the WordPress community.

I also personally love their clean layout and design; something all WordPress users can learn from.

ManageWP is a provider premium white label WordPress solutions that assist in managing multiple WordPress websites from one dashboard with tools that allow backups and cloning, managing plugins and themes, client reports, SEO, security and performance checks. It was recently acquired by GoDaddy as their second largest deal in Serbia.

On their blog, they publish tutorials, infographics, and opinion pieces to enable medium to large WordPress users to achieve their business goals. You get to learn from top contributors such as Vladimir Prelovac, Charnita Fance and Brenda Barron, along with regular AMAs with industry experts.

Bob has been working on WordPress since 2007, over the years, he has established himself as one of the most popular and prolific voices in the WordPress community. On his blog, he publishes tutorials and reviews, features on digital media and making better content, and theme and plugin updates.

What Bob really specializes in though is eCommerce, a lot of what he publishes in that section of the blog tends to be about WooCommerce, so if you’re on that platform, this blog is an essential read for you.

Apart from WooCommerce, he also publishes posts about related topics such as payment gateways, sales process, conversion optimization, and regular interviews with industry experts and successful site owners.

But wait, that’s not all, there’s also a podcast called Do the Woo which focuses on WooCommerce users, shop owners, designers and developers. They also chat about tech stuff, marketing, social and anything else you can think that relates to eCommerce. I told you Bob is prolific.

WP Tavern has an interesting history: Since its inception in 2009, the site changed multiple hands and ultimately landed with Matt Mullenweg in 2011, although it was revealed much later in 2013.

For the uninitiated, Matt is the founder of Automattic—the company that makes WordPress along with a host of other platforms and tools for the web such as BuddyPress, bbPress, Akismet, VaultPress, and more. After taking control, Matt took down all the ads from the blog and made product experts at Automattic in charge of the editorial strategy.

As of now, WP Tavern is the go-to source for all product and development updates about everything that Automattic makes, although, the major focus is on WordPress.

In addition to updates about development, latest plugins, how-tos, and industry news, WP Tavern also publishes a podcast called WordPress Weekly on which experts are invited from different fields related to the larger web development ecosystem where they specifically address issues that are of concern to the everyday WordPress user. The podcast already has over 200 episodes and is a must-listen.

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10 WordPress Security Tips to Defend Your Site From Hackers [Infographic]

WordPress is a popular choice among bloggers and web publishers alike. As a CMS, WordPress promises a lot of features and benefits to its users such as a simple to use interface, flexibility in terms of the content that it can handle, a wide array of publishing tools, a huge library of free and paid plugins, among other things. According to WordPress.org, WordPress is currently running 24% of the worldwide web, making it the most used CMS in the market today.

However, lately, WordPress has also been a favorite target for hackers.

Because of its popularity, many organized cyber criminals choose WordPress websites to install ransomware on the end user’s machine, distribute malicious programs through the contact database of the website, or worse, gain access to confidential data such as credit card information and bank accounts.

To counter these threats, this visual guide from WP Shrug provides some WordPress security tips that you can use to safeguard your website.

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25+ Awesome WordPress Themes For Tech Blog

Technology is the most popular and saturated niche for blogging. A lot of tech blogs launch every day. But a few of them can stand out.

No, there is nothing wrong with tech niche. Tech is still a hot niche. Though it’s the most crowded niche, it has a huge audience. You can attract a lot of traffic to your tech blog. All you need to have some fleshy contents, good design, product displays, regular updates, etc.

When it comes to standing out from the crowd, firstly you would need a good-looking blog design. You cannot stand out with an average looking design. You’ll have to make sure that your blog looks AWESOME. To make things easier, I am going to share some amazing WordPress themes for your tech blog. 

Here are the few things that I consider while choosing the below WordPress themes:

• SEO Friendly – All of the themes are optimized for SEO.
• Adsense Ready – You don’t need to worry about ads placement.
• Responsive – These themes work great on any resolution.
• Speedy – Optimized for speed.
• Easy Customization – You don’t need to have designing skills to customize your design.

1. GoMedia by Theme Junkie

GoMedia looks like TechCrunch WordPress theme. This magazine style theme comes up with an elegant and responsive design. If you are running a WordPress blog on latest technology news and information, this theme can be your number one choice. It’s also optimized for Adsense ads placement.

More Details/Demo

2. Sahifa WordPress Theme

Sahifa is my personal favorite. I’ve used it on my tech blog. This is one of the best selling WordPress theme on Themeforest. The best thing about this theme is, it is highly customizable. You can easily get a unique look for your blog by using this theme.

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3. Splash by MyThemeShop

Splash is review based WordPress theme. If you write gadgets review on your blog, this theme is for you. It has an Inbuilt review system that will make your reviews stand out. If you are an affiliate marketer, this theme will help you to generate more sales.

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4. Alpha by WPZOOM

Alpha is a unique looking magazine theme. If your blog is about trending tech news, you can consider buying this theme for your blog. It has responsive layout, featured slideshow, Video widget, Breaking news ticker and many more.

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5. Performag by Thrive Themes

Performag is Magazine WordPress Theme which is designed to increase ad revenue, increase social sharing and increase user engagement. It will help you to make more money.

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6. WordPlus by Theme Junkie

WordPlus is a simple and stylish WordPress theme. If you are looking for a simple yet good looking theme, you can choose this theme. It has a cool slider on the header. It is built with HTML5 and responsive design.

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7. Pinstagram by MyThemeShop

Pinstagram is a Pinterest-Inspired WordPress theme. This is also a Mashable style WordPress theme. This theme will make your blog as engaging as Pinterest. And it will help you to increase your page views.

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8. TruePixel by MyThemeShop

TruePixel is an Adsense ready WordPress theme. If your blog main income source is AdSense, use this theme to increase your earning. ViralNova, a trending stories sharing site, uses TruePixel theme and makes over $400,000 every month from Adsense.

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9. ExtraNews WordPress Theme

ExtraNews is a uniquely responsive Magazine theme. It’s a 2 column theme with integrated reviews, video, slideshows and galleries in each post.

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10. SmartMag WordPress Theme

SmartMag is clean, modern retina ready WordPress theme for tech blogs. It has drag and drop page builder to create unique and creative homepage. It will make your content more appealing, engaging and usable. It could be an smart choice for your blog.

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11. Rexus by Theme Junkie

Rexus is an awesome looking WordPress theme. It has an appealing homepage design which can help your blog to stand out on crowded tech niche. This theme is perfect for tech and gadgets blog.

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12. Texured by MyThemeShop

Textured is a premium magazine theme. The soft background color of the theme will make your content attractive. With built-in widgets, you can add functionality wherever you desire. It’s a minimalist WordPress theme.

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13. Point by MyThemeShop

Point is Free, yet Premium looking WordPress theme. If you are not ready to invest some money on buying a Premium theme, just go with this theme. It has an advanced option panel that helps you to get a unique look for your blog.

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14. News Pro by StudioPress

News Pro is clean WordPress theme by StudioPress. It supports all of the great articles, audio and video of your content-heavy site, with eye-popping design and simple navigation.

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15. ThunderStruck by MyThemeShop

ThunderStruck is an eye-catching and colorful WordPress theme. It’s lightning fast and fully optimized for SEO and Adsense. It has an awesome option panel and custom widgets.

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16. OldPaper WordPress Theme 

OldPaper is a magazine theme which will make your site more creative. If you are looking for an old style newspaper WordPress theme, this theme is for you.

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17. Nexus by Elegant Themes

Nexus is a gorgeous theme packed full of custom widgets and content modules that give you control over your page. It has homepage builder, unlimited colors, custom widgets and many more.

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18. Split by MyThemeShop

Split is a pearly white, minimal and crisp WordPress theme by MyThemeShop. With better design, advertising revenue and readability, it will take your blog to the next level.

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19. Gadgetry by ThemeFuse

Gadgetry is free WordPress theme by ThemeFuse with a clean and modern style, best suited for gadgets blog. It is very customizable and easy to use.

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20. DotMag by MyThemeShop

DotMag is magazine style theme which can be used for tech blogs. With featured post slider, dual column layout and drop down menus, it will make your content shining.

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21. Magazone WordPress Theme

Magazon is a magazine-style theme. It offers smart homepage builder, custom widgets, category styler to help you personalize your environment.

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22. Gadgetine WordPress Theme

Gadgetine is a 3 column WordPress theme that is highly optimized for tech and gadget blogs. This theme is very helpful for affiliate marketer or who wants to make money blogging.

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23. BookShelf by MyThemeShop

BookShelf is a multipurpose theme that can function as technology blog. It has customizable background image and colors. BookShelf is the perfect theme for you if you like simplicity.

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24. Novelty by TeslaThemes

Novelty is a Premium magazine WordPress theme with bold, modern and responsive design. It helps you to showcase your content in an appealing way. This theme is powered by Tesla Framework.

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25. Collection by Theme Junkie

Collection is an eye-catching gallery theme that has a lot of amazing features. It has custom post types and post formats. It can be an awesome theme for product showing.

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26. Agazine WordPress Theme

Agazine is a magazine-style retina ready WordPress theme. It can be used for technology blogs, news sites, and online magazines.

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Over to You

So those are some amazing WordPress theme for technology blog that can help your blog to stand out on crowded tech niche. As all of the above themes are optimized for Adsense and SEO, you’ll be able to generate more traffic and revenue by using these themes.

Hope you’ll be able to choose a theme for your blog. Do let us know which theme you are going to use for your tech blog. If you are using any other tech blog theme, share your experience with us. However, if you like the post, please help me by sharing this post on Facebook, Twitter, or Google+.

Disclosure: This post contains “affiliate links”. This means if you click on any link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission without any extra cost to you.

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