Category: Wordpress

When you think of keywords, which are the words and phrases that people use to search on the internet about a particular topic, you have to remember that not all of them work for every type of business. Especially if your business is aimed at a particular niche, it could be that the keywords that work best for you wouldn’t really work as well for anybody else in the world. That gives you a great opportunity to bring in your target audience and enhance your marketing potential, but it will only work if you can identify what those precise words and phrases are which can be a bit like finding the needle in the digital haystack.

When you choose to create a blog, you should first go into it with at least a rudimentary understanding of how best to market it. That means you should always be seeking ideal keywords, which you can find if you have a plan in place that includes these basic steps.

Get in the searcher’s head

What is it that separates your business from all others in the market? You may have an idea of what that is, but it’s what your customers think it is that really matters. Once you’ve established a solid branding strategy, the keywords will play off that. But until that occurs, you might have to undergo a little bit of trial and error in terms of trying to imagine what someone might possibly be searching for on the web that your business can provide.

Analyze before and after

Going into the process of selecting keywords without any real clue how the words will perform seems like an impossible task. Luckily you can find any number of tools online devoted to showing the impact of specific keywords as they might relate to your specific business. And, once you’ve chosen them, you need to take advantage of the analytics that demonstrates if the keywords you’ve chosen are performing like you’d hoped. There are no excuses for guesswork in this area when you have clarifying resources available to you.

Don’t settle

You have to stay vigilant in your search for the next effective keyword. Your business is changing, the market is changing, and your customers are changing. What works today might not work tomorrow. Complacency can be devastating to your business, especially when it comes to staying on top of your SEO efforts.

With the right keywords in place, you can be assured that your ideal customer base will find you. That’s why it’s so important that you solve the keyword mystery without delay.

This is a guest post by Robert Borden.

Better content

Whatever your site is about, the key to getting traffic and sales is to offer visitors useful content. Without it, it doesn’t matter how fast, pretty and optimized your site is – it won’t attract any interest.

So if there’s one thing we should all thrive at in 2018, it is definitely making the content of our sites the best we can. How do you define “good” content? Good content is the information that will make people want to read it, share it, and come back to your site for more articles.

Make your SEO on point

A website well optimized in terms of SEO will get Google to drive a lot of traffic to you, so this is indeed something to work on. Make sure that your blog uses pretty URLs, accurate meta descriptions and proper internal linking.
Also, getting quality backlinks from relevant sites will definitely help.

For those working in a WordPress environment, make sure that you have installed and configured an SEO plugin as such as All in One SEO or Yoast SEO.

Install a SSL certificate on your website

Google has now started to favor secured websites (those starting with HTTPS) over the good old HTTP ones. SSL offers encryption and safety for your visitors, and nowadays it will also boost your SEO rankings. Therefore, if your site doesn’t have its own SSL certificate yet, now it’s the time to get one.

If you need help to install a SLL certificate on your WP-powered site, just check out my step-by-step WordPress HTTPS guide.

Refresh your blog look and feel with a new theme

Is your blog or site in touch with the current web design trends? How optimized is the code? Getting a new WordPress theme will not only make your site look refreshed, it will also feature a code in touch with today’s standards, assuming the theme you pick is a quality one.

Amongst the plethora of premium WordPress theme vendors, I definitely recommend ElegantThemes which features gorgeous design and clean, optimized code.

Optimize your images for a faster website

Images are worth a thousand words, but they are also heavy on resources and can slow down your site like crazy. Optimizing your images isn’t a hard process and will make your site load way faster.

Make sure you have installed WP Smush on your WordPress blog, and also take a look at my image optimization guide for further information.

Cache, cache, cache!

Caching is a vital process on any quality website. But as crazy as it sounds, I still see a lot of sites without any proper caching implemented, which slows down the loading time.

On WordPress, many free, quality caching plugins are available. I use W3 Total Cache on most of my sites and definitely recommend it to any site owners looking to boost their website’s performance and loading time.

Make sure your site is mobile friendly

In 2018, most of your site traffic will be coming from handheld devices such as smartphones or tablets. Therefore, it is a must that your website displays properly on smaller screens. If you are a serious website owner, I’m sure you already have a responsive website. But if not, don’t wait any longer because a non-optimized site is costing you traffic.

If needed, check out my article on how to make a website responsive in 3 easy steps.

Boost your social media presence

Social media has been around for a very long time now, yet many bloggers and website owners fail to use it to drive traffic to their sites and build up a bigger audience.

A Facebook page and a Twitter account are mandatory companions of a successful website. Depending of your niche, other sites like Reddit, YouTube, Pinterest or LinkedIn can be good sources of traffic as well.

Switch to a quality web host

You can’t have a quality website without having a quality host. Cheap shared hosting will only get you a very basic service which won’t deal well with traffic and will suffer from many downtimes, i.e. times when your website simply can’t be reached at all.

I use VidaHost since 2012 and I’m very pleased with the service and amazingly fast support. I can also recommend Dreamhost which has been good for other sites I work with. WordPress users should definitely have a look at managed WordPress hosting as such as WP Engine, which is 100% optimized for the open-source blogging platform.

You can find discount coupons for many hosting services on CatsWhoCode’s deals page.

Perform a loading time speed test

I’ve discussed quite a few times why loading speed is very important. In order to make sure that your website loads fast enough, you have to use the right tools.

My favorites are Google PageSpeed Insights and Pingdom. The first one is Google’s, so it’s a great tool to know whether your site fits the quality standards of the most powerful search engine. The second tool shows tons of data about your site’s loading time, allowing you to easily find what’s wrong and fix it.

Update, redirect or remove outdated content

If you have been blogging for many years, there’s probably some outdated content on your website. Outdated content, even if it used to be a valuable resource, is never a good thing since it will provide information that isn’t up-to-date to your audience.

So what to do? Either update the content, redirect those old articles to newer content, or if the resource doesn’t have any backlinks to it, you can also consider removing it.

Also, you can consider warning visitors if a post is older than X years. I’ve written this tutorial to show you how it can be done on a WordPress blog.

Hunt broken links

Broken links are hurting your SEO and provide a negative experience to your readers. But if your site is huge or has been around for quite a while, you can be sure that it contains broken links.

To find out broken links on your site, you can either use this handy tool or even better, the Broken Link Checker plugin which finds broken links and allows you to remove them by a single click.

For a lot of new businesses and developers, some hosting options can be overkill. Maybe you just want to test out your code first and make sure nothing breaks before committing to the best web hosting solutions. Before contemplating your options with a fine comb and forking out the money for top notch hosting services, let’s take a look at some affordable hosting solutions that will get your site up quickly so you can start testing.

Static or dynamic

What kind of website you have plays a pretty big role in what kind of hosting you could benefit from to test out your code. While websites come in all shapes and sizes, they can ultimately be divided into two types: static and dynamic.

A static website only consists of HTML files that represent the physical pages of a website. So when you visit the homepage of a static website, you are viewing the actual homepage file. It’s pretty straightforward and was how most websites were initially built during the nascent years of the world wide web.

A dynamic website has HTML files, of course, but also makes use of server technologies such as PHP to dynamically build a webpage when a user visits the page. What’s happening behind the scenes when a user goes to a web address is the server is finding different bits and pieces of information that it then writes into a cohesive webpage, which is what the user sees. Dynamic websites deal with more flexible data and can utilize things like databases.

Cheap or free static website hosting

• Github pages: Whether you’re learning to code, or just need a fast, easy, and free way to host your projects, Github Pages is a great solution. Github has been around for awhile. In a nutshell, it’s a website and service that provides an open-source, version control system, aka Git. When developers create a website or application and need to make constant changes to their code, Git allows them to release new versions up to and after the first official release. Developers can also store their projects on Github and review the open-source projects of others, making it a great dev community.

  Github will host your static site for free using a custom domain. This is a good option mostly for developers, as it requires having knowledge of and using Git. To publish a website, you simply create a git repository, add your files to it, and then push your updates to Github’s copy. One setback using the free version is that your website is open-source by default. You can also create a private repository by upgrading your account.

• Amazon’s web services offer a powerful infrastructure for hosting a static website by using their AWS S3 service. The first year is free and after that, it’s only pennies a month. Most hosting providers charge a monthly flat rate fee and put a limit on resources such as bandwidth or file space. With AWS, there is no upper-end cap, making it easy to scale. They charge by usage, perfect for a small site to test out your code! Their interface can be a little confusing to navigate, but they have some handy tutorials if you’re not as tech-savvy.

Some other affordable hosting providers perfect for testing out your newly made website are Reclaim Hosting, Neocities, and BitBalloon.

Cheap or Free Dynamic Website Hosting

Hosting a dynamic website might not be as cheap and plentiful as a static site, but there are still some affordable and even free options you can make use of for your next project.

• Digital Ocean: For only $5 bucks a month, you can launch all kinds of environments and test things out with full root access fairly quickly using hosting platform Digital Ocean, an American cloud infrastructure provider headquartered in New York City. It’s also very easy to scale your environment up or down if you require more computing power.
• Firebase: Firebase Hosting is ideal for web developers looking to test their code. It offers production-level web content hosting so you can easily deploy static content or web applications to a global content delivery network.

  With Firebase, you get a secure connection, fast content delivery, rapid deployment, and one-click rollbacks to undo mistakes. You can also store and sync your app’s data with their NoSQL cloud-hosted database.

• InMotion: For the non-devs out there, InMotion is one of the largest independent web hosting companies in the world and is a great hosting solution whether you’re looking to test your website or not. They’ve been around since 2001 and offer very affordable solutions.

  InMotion offers all accounts with a temporary URL that you can use to test your website if your website’s domain name is not yet pointing to their servers. This is a nice option to have and lets you essentially test-drive their platform to see if it fits your needs.

There are tons of web hosting solutions out there that make testing easy. The best one for you really depends on what kind of website you have, the requirements it will need to get it running, and how tech savvy you are. Some platforms, like AWS, GitHub Pages, or Heroku, might be more tricky to navigate if you aren’t a programmer. But remember that there are many popular hosting providers like InMotion who are much more user friendly and even offer customer support.

Scroll to an element

Scrolling endlessly on a smartphone isn’t the most fun thing ever. This is why it can be very useful to set scrolls so your visitors won’t need to take 10 seconds to reach the info they’re looking for.

Let start with an auto-scroll: The code below will programmatically scroll to a specific element on the page:

$('html, body').animate({
    scrollTop: $("#target").offset().top
}, 1000);

Now, let’s set a scroll that the user will activate by clicking on a link:

$('a#source').on('click', function(event) {
    $('body').scrollTo('#target');
});

Detect viewport size

CSS media-queries allow you to detect the viewport size and apply different CSS style to elements depending on the viewport width.

This can also be done in jQuery, and it can be very useful to achieve results you couldn’t using CSS alone. The following example shows how to detect the viewport width, and subsequently add an element to a list.

if ($(window).width() < 960) {
    $( "ul.mylist").append("<li>One more list element</li>");
}

Turn navigation menu into a dropdown

When your website features many menu items, it can be tricky to display on small screens. Therefore, an easy fix to this problem is to turn a navigation into a dropdown menu.

The code below will get items from nav and append them to a select dropdown:

// Create the dropdown base
$("<select />").appendTo("nav");

// Create default option "Go to..."
$("<option />", {
   "selected": "selected",
   "value"   : "",
   "text"    : "Go to..."
}).appendTo("nav select");

// Populate dropdown with menu items
$("nav a").each(function() {
 var el = $(this);
 $("<option />", {
     "value"   : el.attr("href"),
     "text"    : el.text()
 }).appendTo("nav select");
});

$("nav select").change(function() {
  window.location = $(this).find("option:selected").val();
});

Source: CSS Tricks

Animate Height/Width to “Auto”

If you have tried using thing.animate({ "height": "auto" }); on an element, you’ve noticed that it didn’t work. Happily, there’s a quick and efficient fix to this problem.

Here’s the function:

jQuery.fn.animateAuto = function(prop, speed, callback){
    var elem, height, width;
    return this.each(function(i, el){
        el = jQuery(el), elem = el.clone().css({"height":"auto","width":"auto"}).appendTo("body");
        height = elem.css("height"),
        width = elem.css("width"),
        elem.remove();
        
        if(prop === "height")
            el.animate({"height":height}, speed, callback);
        else if(prop === "width")
            el.animate({"width":width}, speed, callback);  
        else if(prop === "both")
            el.animate({"width":width,"height":height}, speed, callback);
    });  

And how to use it:

$(".animateHeight").bind("click", function(e){
    $(".test").animateAuto("height", 1000); 
});

$(".animateWidth").bind("click", function(e){
    $(".test").animateAuto("width", 1000); 
});

$(".animateBoth").bind("click", function(e){
    $(".test").animateAuto("both", 1000); 
});

Source: CSS Tricks

Lazy load images

Lazy loading is a technique that forces a page to only load images which are visible on the clients’ screen. It has proven to be very effective for improving your website loading speed, which is extremely important in terms of user experience and SEO.

There are lots of jQuery plugins dedicated to implement lazy loading on your site. If you’re using WordPress, I definitely recommend this one.

As for jQuery lazyload plugins, I’ve been using this one, simply called Lazy Load, on a few sites. It’s usage is very easy. The first step is to import the plugin into your HTML page:

<script src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/[email protected]/lazyload.js"></script>

Now the HTML code: By default Lazy Load assumes the URL of the original high resolution image can be found in data-src attribute. You can also include an optional low resolution placeholder in the src attribute.

<img class="lazyload" data-src="img/example.jpg" width="765" height="574">
<img class="lazyload" src="img/example-thumb.jpg" data-src="img/example.jpg" width="765" height="574">

It’s now time to activate the lazy loading. The following will lazy load all images with the .lazyload class:

lazyload();

There are indeed many more options available, so just have a look at the plugin documentation.

Since then it has tasted immense and even unexpected success over the years and has established itself as a highly sought-after medium serving several high-profile clients. It is widely being accepted by various institutions as a tool for effectively improving the field of education.

WordPress for course management

It is used as a ready-made excellent tool for hosting courses which can be tailored for the all the criteria and requirements as the specific needs call for. WordPress offers the right interface which is necessary for the job. Even though there are quite a few such tools readily available, paid as well as open source, they are mostly restrictive in various ways or needs additional plug ins to serve their purpose which can be time and money consuming. Thus, it eliminates the need for investing in additional systems for a full functionality.

WordPress For providing open content lessons

Blogging is also used to create open content that can be accessed by students from various universities. Be it a one post thing or a series of lessons via open content, this is an extremely useful medium which facilitates in sharing of information and its quick and easy to keep updated. As a platform it is versatile and can be utilised according to the need. This is useful for students so that they can access certain lessons on topics they want, even outside their curriculum, which promotes the love for learning. This helps in eliminating the limits of the classroom.

WordPress for peer review and content sharing

Blogging is a powerful tool used by students all over the world to share their research, development, projects, thoughts and ideas across universities, breaking the barriers of geographical boundaries. This has helped in the creation of a knowledge chain across the globe, enabling students to share, contribute and perform better, within as well as beyond their curriculum. This is particularly useful for peer review as it reaches out to a huge chunk of people within seconds for them to read, review and work on.

Educational blogs for assignments and grading performance

Owing to the influence of the internet and world wide web, blogging is an integral part of education. Academic institutions use WordPress blogs are used by students to compile, share and complete their assignments. It is also used by institutions to grade the performance of the students over the academic session. Being incredibly easy to use and nifty, WordPress has actually become the backbone of the assignment system and its grading for several universities.

Website designing

Plenty of websites have been designed using WordPress. Even though it was not conceptualised as a website designing tool, it has gained huge popularity among web designers all over the world owing to its simplicity, flexibility and wide range of utility. Not only is it used to teach web designing effectively, it is also the platform on which several academic websites are built on, making it a crucial tool in the world of academics.

Right from applying to college to getting the degree, WordPress plays an important role in several major steps that students encounter. Most universities use it for their essential processes, making it an essential tool for education. It is a powerful medium and has rightfully gained its pivotal place with its excellent services and options.

This is a guest post by Stephen Marshall.

WordPress hosting and server types

WordPress is world’s most popularly used content management software (CMS). About 28% of the best one-million websites across the globe use WordPress. Whether you want to run an ecommerce store or a community site, or even a blog, the user-friendly, adaptable and flexible WordPress – complete with forums and private messaging facilities – has proved to be equally effective option for all.

The WordPress hosting options available in the market range right from basic Shared Hosting to a server dedicated entirely to your website. We’ll look at the hosts and their full range of offer through various packages later.
Here we will take a whirlwind tour of the major distinctions between basic types of hosting, which will help you have some context to understand things further. You can skip this part if you have already moved past the basics.

• Unmanaged hosting: In this type, the hosting company gives you space on a server and how you want to use it is left to you.
• Managed hosting: This one is the WordPress hosting type as here everything regarding your site is taken care of for you by the hosting company. You do not have to be concerned about security settings or server configuration.

It is actually easy to set up, run and maintain an installation using the unmanaged hosting type. Managed hosting option still proves to be better for a lot of reasons:

• If there is any problem, there is someone who has an equal responsibility towards solving that.
• You do not have to compulsorily bear the pressure of your site’s system administration. This is a relief as running a WordPress site successfully involves a lot of hassles such as ports, proxies and possible server meltdowns.
• Managed hosting ensures an automatic upgrade of your WordPress installs with every new release, so you have the best security system in place.

Although managed is the best WordPress hosting option, it is good to have some knowledge of various alternatives that are available. Let us quickly look at the major pros and cons of each of such alternatives.

WordPress hosting: traditional shared hosting

Shared hosting is commonly the first thing to be known if you are starting to learn about WordPress. In this, a host allots sections of its servers to various websites. Each site, while it co-exists with all the other sites, has access to only its own part of the server.

Pros

1. Cost: Since you share the space, it costs you lesser.
2. Low maintenance: You have limited access to the actual server you’re on, but then the installs and updates, such as PHP and MySQL, is the host’s headache.
3. Upgrade support: The host company provides you with easy migration tools to advanced hosting packages if your site is doing well.

Cons

1. Loose control: A shared hosting package doesn’t allow you to configure advanced server options, and this can be a huge stumbling block if you are ignorant and it comes as a surprise.
2. Performance issues: A high traffic is sure to make a shared hosting package shaky, resulting into a sluggish pace.
3. Security: Shared hosting providers are usually pretty serious about server-wide security. Still multiple sites on one machine is a potential risk. Therefore, the shared option is definitely not the best WordPress hosting type.

WordPress hosting: Virtual Private Server (VPS)

A Virtual Private Server (VPS) is an excellent solution for resource-heavy sites which can’t work on a shared hosting account. Although not the best WordPress hosting type, the VPS packs up server space in a balanced manner so you can almost run your own machine in isolation. There are, of course, advantages and disadvantages to this.

Pros

1. With a VPS, which you can freely configure to suit your needs, you’re in good control of your own resources.
2. It is more expensive than shared hosting, but VPS still costs reasonably given the considerable power and flexibility it brings for you. A well-set, cost-effective VPS can deliver possibly some of the most amazing WordPress performances.
3. Your website has its own little area on a standard VPS setup, which rids you of nearby vulnerabilities and noises.

Cons

1. Although VPS allows you to fiddle with configuration and settings, the hardware still remains out of your control. This is more like renting a room rather than buying the property. Whether this should be an issue remains the customer’s decision.
2. You need a strong heart and head to maintain a server on a business-critical, public-facing site. Taking care of your site’s technical setup with VPS is a process that needs a lot of alertness.

WordPress hosting: Dedicated

This type is, without any doubt, the best WordPress hosting type. It is like running a VPS with full control over your own machine. The fact that a website owner is toying with the idea of using a dedicated server shows that he already knows a lot about server setups in general. He doesn’t need to be told much.
While the plus point of this option is that it gives you total control, the disadvantage is mostly a heavy system administration burden and unaffordable pricing.

Conclusion

Compare the options available today for hosting a WordPress website to a scenario just half a decade ago, and you will be amazed at the number of simplified and affordable offers by various companies. But, experts claim that ResellerClub has been most consistent when it comes to WordPress hosting.

This is a guest post by Tejas Vernekar.

The problem with passwords

As the keys to unlocking our online profiles, passwords are a ubiquitous part of the digital age. Since each of our profiles necessitates a separate password, it is not uncommon for people to need up to 50 passwords.

There’s a lot of conflicting info about password security. Some websites will tell you that you need at least 8 characters including capitals and symbols, some will recommend using a passphrase, and so on.

Of course, the stronger a password is, the less you are likely to be a victim of brute force attacks. But in any case, no password is 100% secure. This is why we have been seeing more and more apps and websites offering 2 factor authentication, an extra layer of security that requires not only a password and username but also something that only, and only, that user has on them, i.e. a piece of information only they should know or have immediately at hand – such as a physical token.

What is MagicPassword?

Released a few months ago, MagicPassword makes your WordPress log in process completely passwordless. You only need a phone with the dedicated app installed.

MagicPassword is a free security Clef-like app which allows you to log in to your WordPress quickly and in a secure manner. All you have to do is to open your application, scan the QR code, and you’re done.

That way, only the person in possession of your phone can access your WordPress dashboard.

MagicPassword stands in between the “classic” user/password authentication, and the two-factor authentication process we discussed earlier. This allows you to make your WordPress dashboard much more secured, but also keeping the login process quick and effortless.

Installing MagicPassword is easy: Just login to your WordPress dashboard and navigate to Plugins, then Add New. Search for MagicPassword and install/activate it. Once done, you’ll be provided instructions on how to download the app from Google Play or Apple’s App Store. Scan the QR code with your app, and you’re ready to go.

Pros and cons

• It is really easy to log in (maybe not so easy as typing a password, but easier than typing a password and 2FA code as a second step verification).
• Due to the change in the standard way of logging in, the security of the login process is increased. Even if a hacker ‘eavesdrops’ on the communication, they will not be able to log in to the system because the communication is encoded, and the key is systematically changed. Moreover the password cannot be cracked by means of a ‘brute force attack’ (due to limited attempts) or ‘keylogger attack’ (the keyboard isn’t used).
• The user doesn’t need to remember and store passwords and simultaneously, has a possibility of logging in from any device. So, this is much more comfortable and doesn’t cause trouble with managing passwords?—?which is very common when logging in in a traditional way or remembering passwords in a browser.
• This system is more effective because it doesn’t involve new passwords being constantly generated. It is regularly done for us by the system in the background.
• MagicPassword also works with many users and supports TouchID/FaceID/FingerPrint, etc.
• The plugin is 100% free and can be downloaded from the official WordPress plugin repository.
• One the cons level, the main thing is that logging in to your site will be more complicated and will take longer than using the classic password authentication. But security always comes at a price.

Final thoughts

MagicPassword provides a secure way to handle authentication on your WordPress site, while still being less of a hassle than a classic two factors authentication.

If you are looking for a simple way to effectively protect your website against brute force attacks and other malicious attempts to fraudulently access your WordPress admin, MagicPassword is a serious option to consider.

Not convinced that you can create a perfect WordPress website? Check out these five easy steps:

1: Get a Domain Name Plus Hosting Package

The first step is to get domain name so people can find your website. For better understanding, google.com is a domain name.

Where can I purchase a domain name?
There are many hosting companies where you can purchase an affordable domain name. GoDaddy and a couple of domain providers are sites to check for an affordable domain.

The domain name must be unique. What this means is that the name should be available and not in use by another person. Your next target after purchasing a domain name is to get a WordPress hosting package.

2: Install WordPress

After you have purchased your hosting package, your next target should be installing WordPress platform on the new site.

How can I get help to install WordPress?
WordPress is easy to understand and use. And there are WordPress experts available to help you when you encounter problems while installing WordPress platform. Most of the companies that host websites provide IT support to beginners. They help their clients with the installation process and ensure their website is running fine. You can also install WordPress on your own through the control panel area.

3: Choose A Suitable Theme

Choosing a suitable theme is what should be on your mind after installing WordPress. You will find hundreds of free themes from WordPress, though most people prefer buying premium themes from other providers.

Themes are the main background design or foundation of your website. Just as choosing the right essay research topics is great for students, the right theme will make your site look great.

There are things you should consider before choosing any premium theme:

• Is the theme customizable?
• Does it meet all my requirements?
• Will I outgrow the theme quickly?

What to do with a premium theme?
If you are buying a premium theme from other providers such as Elegant Themes or WPZoom, ensure that you download the theme onto your computer, then upload to the WordPress installation. After uploading the theme click activate to get it running.

4: Customize your theme

There are customizable themes you can get. You can customize logos, colors, menus and even the website layout. Your website should be designed to the liking of your customers or visitors, so take time to edit it properly.

5: Add quality content and images

You have gotten to the last stage of finalizing your website. You need to create pages, add content and upload the relevant images. Remember that the content is king so provide top quality contents always. You can get custom paper writers to provide quality content for your site even if you are not a good writer.

Once you have provided contents, then you are ready to go live.

Conclusion

Creating a WordPress site isn’t as difficult as many people think. You don’t need to have any programming or coding knowledge when dealing with WordPress. This guide will improve your understanding of how to create a website even though you are a beginner. Follow them and you will be able to create your first site like a pro.

This is a guest post by Amber Wilson.

This, in turn, will favor you to get better rankings on search engines. That being said, here are 5 WordPress plugins that can make your site faster and rank better in SERP.

WP Rocket

WP Rocket is a premium WordPress plugin designed to make your site faster in the simplest way possible. The selling point of the plugin is that it’s super easy to use and comes with a lot of useful features that just work right out of the box.

In the huge array of features that the plugin brings to the table, a few of the highlighted ones include cache preloading, browser caching, HTML, CSS, JavaScript minification and concatenation, GZIP compression, and even lazy loading options. The plugin can also seamlessly integrate with CloudFlare.
Details

WOT Cache

WOT Cache is designed to make your site load faster and to subsequently improve conversion rates, generate more traffic, and increase user engagement. The plugin does what is needed to make sure that everything is optimized and doesn’t hamper loading time.

It can cache your pages which itself will cause an improvement in loading speeds. On top of this, you will get features like browser caching, HTML JavaScript and CSS minification, GZIP compression, image optimization, lazy loading and much more. There even are options to remove render blocking CSS and JavaScript as well as query strings.
Details

W3 Total Cache

W3 Total Cache is a free WordPress plugin designed to boost user experience and improve page loading time. By default, everything works out of the box, but you also get 16 pages of settings to give you complete control over all of its features and functionalities.

Notable features of the plugin include GZIP compression, concatenation of HTML, CSS and JavaScript, support for CDN and much more. You also get full access to every type of caching, including database caching, browser caching, object caching, page caching, and so on.
Details

WP Super Cache

WP Super Cache is another free plugin you can get from the WordPress repository. The plugin can generate static HTML files out of your dynamic WordPress blog and then cache it. For speeding up the loading time of your site, the plugin can use the mod_rewrite function to deliver static pages, serve static pages using PHP, or even use a legacy caching mode which can cache pages for users when they log in.

Besides all this, the plugin also offers other features including page compression and dynamic caching, caching for visitors on a mobile device, a scheduler that manages re-caching or deletion at given intervals, CDN support and much more.
Details

WP Fastest Cache

WP Fastest Cache is somewhat similar to WP Super Cache and generates static HTML files based on your dynamic WordPress install, also using the mod_rewrite function. However, in terms of being easy to use, WP Fastest Cache is probably number one. If you are new to WordPress or don’t want to spend too much time on the technical aspect of things, then this will be an excellent plugin for you.

Noteworthy features include minification, GZIP compression and browser caching. There is also an added ability to combine JavaScript and CSS files together to reduce requests from the server.
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In Conclusion

In this article, we have listed the top 5 players when it comes to caching your WordPress website. However, if we were to choose just one, then that might have been Wot Cache. It is a premium plugin, so you will have to invest a little, but you will get a lot of necessary features. Image optimization and lazy loading are some important features which themselves require the installation of other plugins. Getting those features along with caching, site compression, and removal of render blocking content will make your site much faster.

This is a guest post by Roi Ben.

What is Maintaingo?

Maintaingo is a company based in Seattle, WA. Their aim is very simple, yet needed: To provide WordPress users with easy maintenance and efficient technical support.

Basically, Maintaingo works with you in 3 easy steps:

• You register an account. Maintaingo will then set up your site with essential services and configure an effective backup solution.
• You send your requests to Maintaingo: Reach out to them and get assistance via email, open up a ticket, or simply give them a call. Their team of experts works for you, keeping you updated on the whole process. No more loss of time due to technical issues anymore, you can fully concentrate on running your website.
• Maintaingo bills you monthly. Thanks to their time tracking system, accurate estimates for work, and proactive maintenance, your maintenance costs will be kept down.

Getting started

Feeling like giving Maintaingo a try? Simply head over to the sign-up page and select the plan that will fit your needs. You can try any of Maintaingo’s no-contract plans for 30 days. If you’re not completely satisfied, they will refund your money.

Maintaingo has currently 4 plans for you to choose from:

• Speed & Security: This plan doesn’t contain any specific support but instead configures your site for it to be secure with daily backups, 24/7 security monitoring and downtime alerts.
  Maintaingo knows that website speed is important, and therefore, has included a CDN in the plan for faster load-times and bandwidth savings.
• 1 Support hour: This plan grants you one hour of support with Maintaingo’s team of skilled US-based agents. In case you don’t need any technical help in a given month, your hour will be automatically reported so you won’t pay for anything. This plan can be paired with the Speed & Security plan for an additional $39/mo.
• 3 Support hours: Same as the 1 hour plan, but with 3 hours instead. This plan can be paired with the Speed & Security plan for an additional $29/mo.
• 5 Support hours: Same as the 1 hour plan, but with 5 hours instead. This plan can be paired with the Speed & Security plan for an additional $19/mo.

How it works

Once you create your account, you are able to submit support requests to the Maintaingo WordPress experts. To do so, simply use the form you’ll find in your account area on their website. You can also send them an email or give them a call if you prefer.

I asked them to set up speed and security optimization on a website I own. They came back to me the same day and forwarded me the results of a test they have been performing:

As you can see, the results of the test show poor performance. The Maintaingo staff suggested a solution to the problem. I asked them to proceed.

It took around 24 hours for them to complete the work on the site. They ran a new performance test and sent me the following results:

As you can see from the image above, their work significantly improved the speed and performance of the site.

Final Thoughts

So is Maintaingo worth it? My final answer depends on your situation. If you are good with WordPress and have enough time to spend on maintenance, you probably don’t need Maintaingo’s services.

On the other hand, if you are a blogger or site owner with limited WordPress knowledge, or if you want to concentrate your time on your clients or content, then delegating your maintenance to Maintaingo can be very beneficial.

I have enjoyed how friendly, helpful and honest the staff is. The fact that the company is 100% US based can also be very beneficial for US companies, as your company and Maintaingo are working very similar hours.

You can try any of Maintaingo’s no-contract plans for 30 days. If you’re not completely satisfied, they will refund your money. Easy! Also, as a special treat to CatsWhoCode readers, Maintaingo is offering an exclusive 30% discount! Simply use coupon CWC30 when checking out.

How does a reseller account work?

You buy reseller hosting from a web hosting company. This has limited, but generous, bandwidth and disk storage. You then offer hosting to your clients, often providing unlimited bandwidth and storage. You over-sell the limits on your reseller account because clients want ‘unlimited’, and you know they are highly unlikely ever to reach your account limits.

Each client gets their own cPanel control panel and can do almost everything they can do with a big hosting company.

You have a WHM® (Web Hosting Manager) control panel, where you allocate bandwidth and disk space. Your WHM® panel is also where you handle your invoicing and support.

Pros and cons of offering reseller hosting

Reseller hosting looks like a win-win situation because nobody ever talks about the downside. And there are downsides for both parties.

Clients’ big downside is that they can’t chat with the support experts: The only person your clients can contact for support is you.

Support is the big issue for you as well. Clients send you their problems as support tickets, and you contact the web host’s support department. When you get the answer, you relay that to the client. It is unsatisfactory for everyone: The client has to wait longer for the solution to their problem, and you have the extra hassle of dealing with support requests at all hours of the day and night.

Some clients will need a lot of help. They may:

• Have trouble doing the simplest things, meaning you have to install WordPress and set up their site for them
• Install incompatible or poorly coded WordPress plugins, so they require your help to solve WP issues they should have avoided in the first place
• Not install anti-spam plugins, so your disk space gets overfull
• Spam their customers from their domain email addresses, causing all your clients’ emails to be classified as spam

You can spend hours every day dealing with support requests.

The alternative upsell – hosting advice

Every web hosting company has an affiliate program that pays $50-100 for each referral who buys a hosting package. This is easier money than dealing with endless support demands as part of a reseller package, and your client gets a better service because you have recommended the best hosting for their situation.

If your clients and their customers are in the UK, then recommend a UK-based web host. If they are in the US, then a US-based host will suit their needs better. Location is not something most clients ever think about, so just by considering that, you are helping them find better hosting than they would otherwise.

Devise a questionnaire for clients to elicit their needs. Include questions like:

• How many sites will you need hosting for?
• How many visitors do they anticipate per day?
• Will need an e-commerce site?
• How much support will they need?

Shared hosting

Shared hosting is ideal for first-timers, companies who have never had a website before. It is cheap but limited, and if the venture is successful your client will outgrow their shared hosting, but they can then upgrade to VPS hosting with the same company.

VPS hosting

VPS (virtual private server) hosting is the next stage up from a shared server. It is more complicated, more expensive, but will make a site with lots of users run faster than a shared server will.

Cloud hosting

Cloud hosting can be an alternative to a VPS. The complexity and speed are similar, though cost varies depending on requirements. Recommend cloud hosting where a client anticipates significant variations in demand or does not want to commit to a 3-year VPS contract because cloud hosting is bought on a monthly basis.

The short version

You are the expert in all things Internet, so your clients see you as the fount of all wisdom. They will listen and take action on your advice.

Reseller hosting has problems for both you and your clients. You get the run around from endless support demands, and your clients get a poorer service than they would by buying directly from a hosting company.
A better upsell is to assess clients’ needs and send them via affiliate links to your selected hosting company sites.

The list is prepared on the basis of information provided on https://thepaperwriting.com/coursework-writing and includes 10 books.

Web Designer’s Success Guide

With the help of this guide, web designers will confidently make their first steps in the field of freelancing. The author of the book describes how to start working as a freelancer step by step, how to search for new customers and keep the regular ones, how to make your projects successful, and what markets are available for freelancers.

Just Ask – Integrating Accessibility Throughout Design

This handbook is designed for web designers, developers, and managers. The book outlines the features of creating websites, software, hardware, and consumer products for the elderly and people in rehabilitation. Having studied the book, you can create useful and accessible projects for all users.

Essential JavaScript and jQuery Design Patterns

This book is for beginners and established professionals working with the JavaScript web technology. The book describes the basics of JavaScript and design patterns – their features and applications. Here, you can find real practical examples of solving various problems that often arise when creating software products.

Dive into HTML5

This is one of the must-have books for those who make the first steps in the study of HTML5. The manual, written by Mark Pilgrim, tells about the history and features of the modern version of the markup language. The author reveals interesting facts and gives examples of the application of such an element as canvas, flash, and other technologies in programming.

HTML5 Tutorials

The HTML Dog resource prepared for readers information about HTML5 technology. This guide is intended for people who do not even have basic knowledge of HTML or CSS. The online tutorial describes how to use tags, attributes, create items, headers, lists, and other elements using HTML5. Practical examples will help consolidate this knowledge.

Web Style Guide

This is a very popular book on web development published for the third time. The twelve chapters of the online book describe the process of creating websites in detail and the main errors that developers make. The author from a practical point of view considers not only the features of building a site structure and individual pages, but also design, usability, interface creation, and much more.

Meet Your Type: A Field Guide to Typography

This book is on typography. It gives data on various fonts – their device, functioning, and features of visual registration of each separate project. Practical examples will help you learn how to choose the most advantageous font for designing visual content and correctly displaying data.

Type Classification

This is a guide on fonts. The book provides a detailed description of the 10 main groups of fonts with a brief characteristic, history, and demonstration photographic materials. Information on typography will be useful to both freelancers-beginners and experienced web designers. Having studied the differences of fonts, you can easily compare and classify them.

Adaptive Web Design

This is a popular guide to the basics of adaptive design. The author Aaron Gustafson talks about the history of formation, features, and practical application of user-oriented design in the book. The manual tells how, using CSS, HTML, and JavaScript, you can remove the technological limitations that prevent user access to information.

The Design Funnel – A Manifesto for Meaningful Design

This is an interesting collection of tips for web designers, gathered by Stephen Hay. The author of the book suggests a different look at the process of creating design projects, making it more creative and consistent. Thanks to this approach, it is possible to create better, meaningful, and successfully realized projects, relying on ideas and wishes expressed by the customer.

This is a guest post by Amy W. Grunewald.

Using an unresponsive design

Presently nearly 40% of modern searches are conducted on mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets. It is extremely important to have a website which can display properly on mobile devices for businesses. However, estimates are available that fewer than 17% of the 876 million websites, which have been created, have a responsive web design. This is a major problem for businesses that are generating leads online especially after Google introduced a search update that penalizes unresponsive websites during mobile searches.

Using a free website builder

The number of companies which are offering drag-and-drop apps for website building and allowing users to launch a fresh website within minutes is increasing by the day. While the services may look attractive to many there is a serious problem with the design facet which adds a number of lines of the back end code slowing down the loading time of the website. Over a period of time, it leads to performance issues apart from countless errors.

People who have budget restrictions but nevertheless want to launch a website should consider the purchase of a premium theme which will have the looks and style of a website that will be ideal. People should also consider hiring a talented developer who can complete the task for them cost-effectively.

Overlooking the actual design elements needed

Many businesses are going entirely overboard and ignoring the design elements of the website which are essential. They tried to include a number of customizations, which lead to similar issues as discussed earlier. The lack of proper design elements distracts the reader from the content published on the website. Businesses must bear in mind that the website with few design features can also be a deterrent to visitors and therefore it is essential for them to find the right balance.

It is also necessary for businesses to apply a similar concept to photographs, videos, banners and other types of graphics without ignoring them. Websites, which have a properly designed page, similar to the one used by heart bingo, will attract the customer’s eye and coerce them into making a favorable decision.

Failure to capture customer information

One can come across a number of websites with numerous ad placements and quite a few domains spend huge sums of money and time with advertising to drive customers to their website forgetting the need to capture leads. A customer that is not captured as a lead is unlikely to return back on his or her own. This requires the domain owner to invest additional sums of money and devise strategies to entice the customer back. Many corporations are wasting millions of dollars every year after being trapped in this vicious cycle because they never made an effort to capture the information of the consumer.

Creating an opt-in offer on the homepage, which will appeal to the visitors, can easily eliminate this problem. The opt-in offer need not be complicated and can be as simple as an instant discount or some free shipping on the retail sites. Website owners must consider having the opt-in offers on the homepage of the website.

Having high-quality content throughout the website

Search engines are ranked according to the quality of the content they display on the websites. Domain owners are spending thousands of dollars when building sleek and beautiful sites but are ignoring the need for quality content. The lack of quality affects more than just search results because it is considered as the best way to engage visitors and increase conversion. Understanding whether the content on the website is high in quality is not a difficult task because people need to look no further than the click-through and bounce rates of visitors. Domain owners must give adequate consideration to the content when designing a website just that they do their best to make the website look attractive.

Mentioned above are 5 common flaws that have the potential to hold back your website. Overcoming these flaws will not be a challenge for domain owners that are concerned about their business.

This is a guest post by Ellen Royce.

For many Email developers email testing has always been a painful task. In fact, setting up over 34 different email clients can take a full day and things change pretty quickly, meaning that you have to test again and again.

This is where Testi.at comes in: This tool allows you to do email testing and visualize your emails in various clients for a 5£ (around $7) fee.

Testing

After login to your account, previewing any email is made very easy by a handy drag and drop editor which allows you to import your email in both .html and .eml formats. You can also unpack a .zip file and attach all your images. If images are missing, no worries, you can simply drag them into the editor.
I found one issue with an .eml file from OSX mail and wasn’t able to properly convert it into HTML. Every other .eml files I’ve tested from both Outlook and Thunderbird, worked great.

Another very useful Testi feature is the newly available Spam testing. Using it, you can check how your email is likely to be treated by most popular antispam tools, used by popular email services as such as Gmail, Yahoo, Outlook, and much more.

Feeling like giving Testi a try?

So, are you up to give Testi a try? If yes, good news: Visiting the site and pressing the 1, 9 and “k” keys will grant you free full access until October 22.

If you keep these tips in mind, you can engage in many online activities without worrying about compromised security.

First, let’s emphasize the importance of using a strong password. You will have to log into several online accounts using usernames and passwords in order to perform a variety of actions varying from ordering your grocery to sell the shares. You should keep those passwords very strong; a combination of uppercase and lower case characters, numbers and symbols may make a good, strong password. Such passwords are hard to decode. Be sure that you use long passwords too. Also, it is better to avoid using the same password for all the accounts. For those who have problems in remembering passwords, using a password manager can be handy.

The next important thing you should remember in order to assure your online security is maintaining a smart approach when dealing with social media. Sharing your personal information with someone you meet online randomly can be a dangerous approach. Also, some bogus apps shared on social media platforms might ask you to type your login details (which are called phishing). So, strictly refrain from sharing your personal information, contact details, emails and login information.

One of the most common traps found online today is videos. Most of the internet users tend to download when they find an exciting, funny or rare video. Many users don’t think twice when downloading these videos; they are even ready to provide their emails and passwords to unlock download features. This can be really hazardous in terms of online security. Some of these videos may come with viruses, Trojans, and spyware while others may collect your personal information for unlawful purposes. So, stay away from the unknown video download websites (that look suspicious and unprofessional), avoid clicking on exe files you might come across and avoid providing your emails and passwords.

Streaming is another aspect that may make your IP address vulnerable to some intruders. Therefore, when you use streaming, you must use a VPN to ensure your online security. A VPN always masks your IP and replace it with their one to protect your privacy. Also, VPN is a tool that creates a secure and encrypted gateway from your computer to the server of the other end. All the data sent through this VPN gateway will be encrypted and it will be really difficult for intruders to sniff on you.

When you make online payments, you should always be wise enough to use the reputed platforms only. Never provide your credit card information or online bank account information to random websites you come across. If you use your credit card for online payments (even with the trusted platforms) as an additional online security measure, you should check your statements thoroughly and see if there is anything suspicious.

This is a guest post by Katherine Howe.