Category: WORDPRESS ROLES

“This category covers the WordPress Administrator role, including its key capabilities like managing plugins/themes, user permissions, site settings, and security best practices. Learn how to master administrative tasks and secure your WordPress site.”

  • WordPress Creators Work with Facebook to Bring Support for Instant … – Examiner Gazette

    Facebook will let any WordPress blog post Instant Articles

    On Monday, Facebook said it would add a WordPress plugin that makes it easier to generate and publish Instant Articles from WordPress.

    Facebook’s Instant Articles are near-instant loading articles which offer all of the information in an article without loading any additional scripts or content.

    To develop and test the new plugin, which essentially adapts Web content for Facebook’s Instant Articles feature, Facebook has partnered with WordPress.com VIP parent company Automattic. Rather than requiring publishers to manually format each article, the plugin for WordPress users will automatically optimize stories to appear as Instant Articles.

    According to Facebook, over 25% of the websites on the internet are powered by WordPress, which quite a massive number. Then, it decided to make it easier for some publishers to share their content on the platform.

    Automattic is planning to release the plugin as a free option for all WordPress users in time for the broader launch of Instant Articles in April.

    The plugin is now available to download from GitHub, but they have revealed that it’ll be coming to the plugin repository soon.

    Apple, whose content and social initiatives take a backseat to their software and hardware, jumped into the mix when they replaced Newsstand with News.

    Once the plugin is set up, making Instant Articles will be as easily as checking a box.

    “We encourage all interested publishers on WordPress to review the plugin’s documentation and FAQs”, the post said. And to increase the number of publishers getting on board with Instant Articles, they have announced their own WordPress plugin to make articles Instant Articles friendly.

    Considering the partnership with WordPress, the Instant Articles feature may gain a lot more ground in the near future. Publishing directly to Facebook would keep readers from visiting the site.

    It will be interesting to see how Facebook’s Instant Articles play a role and how this feature really ensures that traffic and revenue get to back to the publisher.

  • 5 ways to speed up your WordPress Blog – Fourth Source

    No one likes a slow blog. Your visitors don’t like a slow loading site and will most likely abandon it before it even loads.

    And you, yourself as a blogger know how frustrating it can be when you are trying to write a blog post, but uploading images, or navigating the back end takes forever.

    Not to mention, load speed is a ranking factor in Google. A fast loading website is more likely to appear higher up in the search results.

    Fortunately there are ways to speed up your WordPress blog.

    The first thing you want to do is check your website speed. The 3 free tools outlined below should provide you with a good overview.

    Google PageSpeed Insights – This is a tool by Google and will show you the speed for your mobile and desktop websites. They will score both websites out of 100. In addition Google will provide a number of recommendations to help speed up your WordPress blog.

    Pingdom Website Speed Test – This is another good tool. It provides more information than the Google test. You will be able to see all the resources that loaded on the page as well as sort it by order of your choice. Pingdom also features a timeline so you can compare the speed again once you have implemented changes to improve the speed.

    WP Engine Speed Test – WP Engine is a WordPress hosting company. They specifically analyse your WordPress blog. You have to enter some contact details and they will send you a link to the report to your email. They provide useful and simple recommendations.

    Here are 5 ways you can speed up your blog:

    1. Cache

    Every time someone visits your website, WordPress has to access the database, read code and then produce the webpage for the visitor. This happens every time a web page is loaded on your blog.

    Solution:

    Consider installing a caching plugin such as W3 Total Cache. This plugin helps to save a version of your website in the database, so rather than creating the page again from scratch this page is served to the visitor a lot quicker.

    2. Images

    Images take a lot of time to load, especially those of large sizes. If your blog uses a lot of imagery, this may be causing your blog to load slowly.

    Often people running blogs are unaware of image resolutions and they use print quality images on their blogs, which are very large in nature because they are created for print.

    Solution:

    Use a plugin such as WP Smush. This plugin will automatically resize large images and compress them to make them faster to load.

    3. Backend

    WordPress saves a lot of information in its database, over time this can clog up the database and make it slow. Things such as post revisions, unapproved comments and post trash to name a few all build up over time and remain in the database. This can result in making your blog front end slow as well the backend slow.

    Solution:

    Use the plugin WP-optimise to clean up your database. This should help improve the speed in the back end.

    4. Use a CDN (Content Delivery Network)

    A CDN is essentially a network of severs spread out across the globe. When you use a CDN static version of your web pages are stored on these servers. The server used to show your web page is usually the one nearest to the location where the visitor is accessing your website.

    Solution:

    Use a CDN for your blog. I would recommend using CloudFlare which has a free service as well as a paid service for larger websites or those who require additional features.

    5. Hosting

    The type of hosting you use can have an impact on your WordPress speed. Shared hosting is cheap but also means you are sharing the server with a number of other websites which could have an impact on your speed.

    Solution:

    Consider opting for a dedicated server, or choosing a managed WordPress hosting service such as WP Engine. Fourth Source is hosted with WP Engine, you can read our review here.

     

  • 5 Tips for Maintaining WordPress Websites – Business 2 Community

    So you’ve launched a new website – hooray! While most of the heavy lifting is complete, investing in proper website maintenance will go a long way in ensuring your WordPress site remains healthy and insusceptible to cyberattacks. Just like a car needs regular preventative maintenance, simple maintenance tactics are important to the long-term health of your website. Here, we break down five simple steps to help you maintain your WordPress website.

    1. Backup your website

    Rule number 1: always back up your website. We suggest that you back up your WordPress website on a monthly basis, either through your hosting provider (which may have options for website backup) or by downloading a local copy of your website via FTP. If you frequently update content on your WordPress website, this step is especially important.

    2. Ensure WordPress and plugins are up-to-date

    Any software you use will need constant maintenance to function properly and remain secure, and the same goes for WordPress and any plugins you have installed on the site. We suggest you log in to your website on a monthly basis and update WordPress and website plugins.

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    3. Avoid installing new plugins as much as possible

    Any plugins on your website have been vetted by your web development team and have been deemed secure. At Stryve, some of our favourite plugins include Yoast SEO, WP Smush and WordFence. When passing off a website to one of our clients, we suggest that they avoid installing new plugins, as many can leave their site vulnerable and may conflict with website programming. Typically, if you or your team is looking for a particular functionality, a custom development solution may be better suited.

    4. Manage user accounts

    It may go without saying that dolling out your website password may leave your website vulnerable, but it’s an often overlooked aspect of website security. We suggest that you avoid giving your main administrative credentials to multiple users. Ideally, each user should have their own unique login and password. In addition, each user should be given the appropriate user role. In our experience, editor is usually a sufficient level of access for most users.

    In addition to managing login information, it’s important to make sure you don’t have a user account called “admin”. Similarly, changing your URL login so that it is not the WordPress default (company.com/wp-login.php) is extremely important. Most often, brute force attacks occur because one or both of these items has been overlooked.

    Pro-tip: At Stryve, we use the plugin Rename wp-login.php to change the login URL.

    5. Invest in web security

    Website downtime can be a nightmare, so investing in a web security option for your WordPress website instantly provides peace of mind. While there are many options for web security, our go-to for malware detection, clean up, and prevention is Secure. For a monthly fee, Sucuri’s security experts will thoroughly scan, clean, monitor and protect your website 24/7.

    The post 5 Tips for Maintaining WordPress Websites appeared first on Stryve Digital Marketing.

  • 20 Helpful Plugins for a WordPress Blog, for Ecommerce | Practical … – Practical Ecommerce

    Writing a blog can be a good way of providing your shoppers with useful product information while also establishing your expertise.

    Here is a list of helpful plugins to customize a WordPress blog. There are plugins to manage your content, improve your site speed, optimize your pages, engage your readers, and add ecommerce solutions.

    Plugins for a WordPress Blog

    Editorial Calendar. This editorial calendar gives you an overview of your blog and your publishing schedule. Drag and drop to move posts, edit posts right in the calendar, and manage your entire blog, including posts from multiple authors.

    Editorial Calendar.

    YARPP. Yet Another Related Posts Plugin (YARPP) displays pages, posts, and custom post types related to the current page, leading readers to other relevant content on your site. Customize settings by post titles, content, tags, categories, and custom taxonomies. YARPP finds related content from across your site.

    Yoast SEO. Write better content and have a fully optimized WordPress site using the Yoast search-engine-optimization plugin. Yoast SEO analyzes your page and checks the essentials, including keywords, images, tags, and more. Export your settings for multiple blogs.

    Jetpack. Jetpack simplifies managing a WordPress site by providing visitor stats, security services, faster images, and more traffic with tools like Related Posts, Publicize, Enhanced Distribution, and Sharing. Jetpack includes other features that help you customize your site including custom CSS, contact forms, notifications and subscriptions, and more.

    Jetpack.

    Disqus. Disqus is a tool for web comments and discussions. It replaces your WordPress comment system with comments hosted by Disqus. Disqus features comment indexing, spam filtering, subscribe and RSS options, and more.

    Google XML Sitemaps. This plugin generates a special XML sitemap which helps search engines like Google, Bing, Yahoo, and Ask.com to better index your blog. Make it easier for crawlers to see the complete structure of your site and retrieve it more efficiently.

    Akismet. Akismet checks your comments against the Akismet web service to see if they look like spam or not. Each comment has a status history, so you can easily see which comments were caught or cleared by Akismet and which were spammed or unspammed by a moderator.

    Akismet.

    Akismet.

    Membership Pro 2. Turn your blog into a membership site. Provide access to downloads, online content, videos, forums, support, and more through a flexible membership system. Employ set-and-forget automated recurring payments.

    WP Smush. Reduce image file sizes, improve performance, and boost your SEO using the free WP Smush.

    All In One WP Security & Firewall. Add security and firewall to your site by using a security plugin that enforces many good security practices. It reduces security risk by checking for vulnerabilities and implementing recommended WordPress security practices and techniques.

    All In One WP Security & Firewall.

    BackUpWordPress. BackUpWordPress will back up your entire site including your database and all your files on a schedule that suits you. No setup required.

    Google Analytics by Yoast. The Google Analytics by Yoast plugin for WordPress allows you to track your blog easily and always stays up to date with the newest features in Google Analytics.

    ShareThis. Use free sharing tools to implement and increase traffic and engagement on your site. Select your preferred layout and over 80 social channels including Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, LinkedIn, WhatsApp, and more.

    ShareThis.

    ShareThis.

    Safe Redirect Manager. Safe Redirect Manager is a HTTP redirect manager for WordPress. The plugin uses the wp_safe_redirect function, which only allows redirects to whitelisted hosts for security purposes.

    Seriously Simple Podcasting. Seriously Simple Podcasting is an easy-to-use podcasting solution for WordPress that is powerful and simple. It uses a native WordPress interface and has minimal settings so as not to distract you from publishing your content.

    W3 Total Cache. This plugin is designed to improve user experience and page speed. W3 Total Cache improves the user experience by increasing server performance, reducing the download times, and providing transparent content delivery network integration.

    W3 Total Cache.

    Gravity Forms. Gravity Forms is a WordPress plugin for contact forms. It allows site owners to create forms to collect information. Gravity Forms can be used for contact forms, WordPress post creation, calculators, employment applications, and more.

    Page Builder. Here is a tool to build responsive page layouts with a simple drag-and-drop interface and live editing. Page Builder works with standard WordPress widgets and works with any theme you want. It also features a selection of free themes that work well with Page Builder.

    WP Easy PayPal Payment Accept. Here is an basic payment plugin to accept PayPal payment for a service, product, or donation in one click. Create payment buttons on the fly, and embed them anywhere on your site using a shortcode.

    WooCommerce. If you need a full ecommerce solution on your blog, here is the popular WooCommerce plugin. Sell physical and digital goods. With premium extensions, you can offer bookings, memberships, and recurring subscriptions. More than 140 region-specific gateways integrate with WooCommerce, including popular choices like Stripe, authorize.Net, and Amazon Payments.

    WooCommerce.