Posts in the category: WordPress

Taking ownership of your WordPress hosting could save your business money, as well as a great deal of time and stress. When I began freelancing I made the decision not to offer web hosting. I was, and continue to be insistent that clients purchase their own web hosting and domain registrations. Now that probably sounds counter intuitive for anyone developing websites. After all it’s an opportunity for an additional revenue stream. I also appreciate that...

One of the easiest ways I’ve found to improve my WordPress development skills is to stop installing plugins. Instead I started focusing on writing them and learning more about WordPress filters and actions. When you start out it might be more convenient to quickly install a plugin which solves your problem. However every time you add another plugin you increase your technical debt. This could mean more time spent running updates and increasing the odds...

Keeping your WordPress development website password protected is an important requirement that shouldn’t be overlooked. It’s a useful way to keep progress and information secure from outside sources should they stumble onto your development domain. Previously I have been using the WP Maintenance Mode plugin to achieve this. And whilst it’s good at what it does, it requires you to login to the admin area first before being able to view the frontend. This just...

Recently I’ve been using the All-in-One WP Migration plugin for hassle free database migrations between local, staging and production environments. I have also found it helpful for copying clients existing websites when a local development version is needed. So far I like the straight forward nature of it. It’s easy to run a find and replace on domain names so turning mywebsite.local into staging.mywebsite.com or mywebsite.com is simple. You can then export your database to...

Whilst doing some research on WordPress performance I came across this excellent article from Kinsta® It’s in-depth and long read but there’s some great value in here if you want to get your head into the technical aspects. https://kinsta.com/learn/speed-up-wordpress/

Whether it’s your website or a clients it’s important to have responsible practices for WordPress backups. You need to be proactive about backing up your WordPress website. Do not not rely on the chance that nothing will go wrong. Ideally you want to choose a web hosting supplier who has backups built into their service. My recommendation is to always look for WordPress specific packages where possible. They typically have other WordPress specific optimisations as...

Learning the WordPress visual editor shortcuts can really save you time. It will help you get the most out of your content creation experience, and keep you in the flow when you’re writing. You don’t want to be searching for buttons on the toolbar when you’re trying to express your thoughts. With that in mind I’ve compiled a cheat sheet of the most common shortcuts I use. You can find the full list in the...

The WordPress admin provides a rich editing experience with a variety of features and tools at our disposal. However there are times when these features just aren’t required for our websites – so wouldn’t it be nice if we could hide them? Less clutter keeps us focused, so fewer menus and options should make our path to completing our tasks a little more straight forward. Removing unnecessary items may also be helpful for anyone who...

Have you ever needed to rollback a WordPress installation to a specific version? If so, WP Downgrade might be the plugin you’ve been missing. It allows you to simply specify the target version of WordPress you want to install. You can then click Save Changes and initiate an update from the provided prompt. As always, remember to backup your website before making any changes.

WordPress makes it easy for us to upload images to our websites, but I wonder how often we stop and consider the impact of these images. Your websites page load time is a key metric that isn’t going away anytime soon, and we’ve seen time and again that lowering it can improve conversions and other KPIs. Image choice and optimisation is an important consideration for the web. Images that are too large, badly optimised, or...

If you’re looking to create a new website in 2020 make sure you consider WordPress. Whether your building a website for yourself or your business it’s got some great options to help you achieve more online. Did you know WordPress is the CMS of choice for over 30% of the web? It’s also open-source, has an astonishing list of plugins which give you access to some excellent features, and boasts a fantastic community for your...

The first thing that springs to most peoples minds when thinking of WordPress is blogging, or a personal website, however there’s a lot more you could use it for… You could build a website for your business or professional services. Just be mindful of the theme you choose and how it will deliver your content to your audience. Its also essential to consider if it will work with your branding. With the WooCommerce plugin you...

This week I wanted to focus on essential (in my opinion) WordPress plugins that you should consider when building a new WordPress website. These suggestions are made with everyone in mind, so if you are a DIYer, a web designer or an agency, these should be useful to you. Now I strongly believe if you’re going to spend your time and effort building a beautiful website and filling it with great content, then it’s essential...

WordPress sometimes gets a bad reputation for security but I believe it’s quite often unfair, and that the real issue is in providing better information for everyone about correct WordPress setup. Making sure you have the correct file permissions, unique database prefixes, properly generated salt keys (yes that’s a thing), secure and unique usernames and passwords are all absolute essentials. An excellent way to make a start on these is by choosing a web hosting...

Today I wanted to talk briefly about improving the performance of your WordPress site. It’s important to remember that page speed has a direct relationship to bounce rates and conversions on your website. So if your website load times are slow your going to loose potential customers and revenue. The best way to achieve a highly optimized site is to hire good quality designers and developers who understand the best way to build your site...

Remember to be selective over the plugins you choose for your WordPress website. One of WordPress’s biggest appeals is the vast array of plugins available to help achieve the functionality you want. There’s a plugin to do pretty much anything you can think of on WordPress, and there’s definitely a temptation to keep adding plugins to increase what your site is capable of. But there comes a point when you have to ask if your...

As a front end web developer there’s a lot I can do to help maximise how secure the websites I build are from a technical standpoint. However I also think part of that is a responsibility to remind the users, customers, and owners of these products just how important good password practice is. I think we are as a whole becoming more aware of the need to keep things secure in this digital age where...