Live chat is a must for all websites, especially if you are offering services like mine. Visitors may need to talk about a possible project, and I must be there to reply in real time. What features am I looking for? It must be a totally free service, no sneaky pay for upgrade gimmicks. I’m sure there are other more creative ways of generating income. It offers private one-on-one messaging. Highly customizable settings. No limitations whatsoever. Most importantly, it should be very easy to use and integrate. Wow, that’s too much to demand for a free service, but I did find one that meets all the criteria.
Tawk.To offers a full-featured live chat widget. Although it is free, it has all the bells and whistles of a commercial version, such as visitor monitoring and advanced trigger support. There are no limits to the number of agents you can add or how many messages you can send and receive. Integration just involves pasting a short JavaScript code.
If you prefer a public chat room, check out Tlk.Io. It is free too, and it doesn’t require registration.
Using free is good, but being a blogger for several years, I’ve learned the advantages of always having a backup. Such services tend to shut down, some without prior notice. So, what’s better than free? Of course, a free plan from a paid service, haha. Commercial websites can support their operations for a long time and are generally more stable. Obviously, these types of services come with limitations, but hey, it works for me.
You might find those drawbacks deal breakers, but don’t fret. SmartSupp will surely excite you with their turbocharged offer: 3 agent seats, unlimited sites, and custom chatbox free forever!
Chatra is free for 1 agent only, but their WordPress plugin has WooCommerce and ECWID support with an exit-intent feature. Kommunicate provides premium-grade chat with 2 team members but only 1 website, while PureChat is giving away 3 operators/seats but only for 1 site.
Chaport provides 1 operator and unlimited chats and websites. UserLike gives out 1 operator and 1 widget. Crisp Chat offers 2 seats for free, while Respond.IO provides 5 team members. The most generous is JivoChat offering the first 30 agents free and unlimited chats and websites.
ArtiBot is a free chatbot service. SnatchBot is another option with live chat support. ChatBot + Conversational Forms for ChatBot are free WordPress plugins.
Web or browser push notifications are messages from a website you receive in your browser, regardless of the device. It may be a smartphone, laptop, or desktop. They notify you about promos, important updates, or new content. It’s a new marketing channel and a good supplement or alternative to email marketing. It is, in fact, easier, as people do not need to give away their email addresses to subscribe.
FoxPush is a 100% free, unlimited web push notification provider with no ads. It comes with RSS support, which I use for notification every time I have new content.
DigiTalPush is also unlimited but ad-supported (2x a week) and you don’t earn money. With their monetized plan, there’s an option to limit the number of ads between 1 and 4 daily, and you share the income. TruePush‘s free plan with no ads is limited to 30,000 subscribers. After breaching the threshold, it will enter the monetization plan that’s unlimited but comes with ads. Be careful though; if left uncontrolled, ads can be spammy and turn off a lot of visitors.
OneSignal gives you unlimited mobile push, but web push is limited to 30,000 subscribers only. It has a WordPress plugin that can send a notification when a post is published. WebPusher is free for up to 60,000 subscribers.
To unsubscribe from web push notifications, follow the instructions here.
The European Union requires websites to show information about cookies being used. The General Data Protection Regulation or GDPR requires visitor consent regarding the use of cookies. Although this law is exclusive to European visitors, I’ve decided to implement this.
Searching for the fastest way to do it, I stumbled on a few free-to-use cookie scripts. See some below.
Attacat‘s is a button simply to inform you that your site uses cookies. CookieInfoScript has a lot of customization, but it only displays information. The code is hosted on their site. Dare to Think have 2 versions, one with the “Accept” button, and the other just displaying the banner. It is self-hosted, so you have to download the files.
2GDPR has a cookie consent that does more than just inform. It actually has code to not activate the cookies when the visitor declines. The code is hosted on CloudFlare’s CDN so it’s mostly available. The options available are limited, just position, style, colors, and text. That’s it. But it looks beautiful and functional. It requires you to add the codes used by services like Google and Facebook. You can also scan your website to see if it is GDPR compliant.
Osano CookieConsent is customizable. It has 3 compliance types. Each type differs in the complexity of coding needed. CookieConsent has a cookie preference center, where visitors can update their cookie settings. It requires coding, but the instructions are easy to follow. I’m using it on my site.
Google has released a new Google Tag Manager feature: Google Consent Mode (GCM), still in Beta. It is the new API developed by Google to measure conversions while still respecting user consent. It helps to honor both marketing and privacy efforts at the same time. With the Consent Mode, you can modify the behavior of Google tags based on user consent. Currently, some paid services are supporting GCM. They offer a free account limited to a maximum of 100 pages scanned. CookieYes has a monthly 5,000 consent log cap, while CookieBot has none.
A majority of the world’s population aren’t well versed in English. If you intend to cater to this segment, you’ll need to localize your website. It means providing your visitors with the means to read the content using their preferred language.
ConveyThis offers a nifty free-to-use button that shows a selection of popular languages to translate content into. It’s easy to generate the code for website integration. Plus, no registration is needed.
Speaking of translation, if you are interested in knowing the English equivalent of Hiligaynon terms, then head on over to Bohol.Ph. The dictionary is based on Kaufmann’s Visayan-English Dictionary which is considered as one of the best dictionaries with regard to the Hiligaynon language. The dictionary has over 1000 pages and was first published in 1934 in Iloilo. Hiligaynon is spoken in Panay and Negros islands and is the fourth most spoken dialect in the Philippines.
Do you know what higugma means?
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