One of the many great features of WordPress is how easy it is to install. You can have a live site set up on your hosting platform before your coffee's done brewing.
It really is that quick when you factor in the famous five-minute install. But not only that, there are so many alternate ways to install WordPress that are just as quick. Some of the most popular methods use different software and platforms including cPanel, phpMyAdmin, FTP with FileZilla, SSH, and MySQL.
In this post, I'll show you how to install WordPress using all of these methods, including the famous five-minute install. I'll also go through how to setup WordPress with an auto-installer, such as Softaculous, which takes just seconds.
Roll up your sleeves, fire up your hosting account and let's get started.
What You Need
You should have a hosting account all set up, but you may not be ready to install WordPress just yet. Before you dive right in, there's some software you need to have already installed and some decisions you need to make as to the type of WordPress installation that will suit your needs.
You need to choose whether you want a single site or a network of sites, called Multisite. While the main installation process is the same, there are some additional steps required for Multisite. If you're not sure which option is right for your needs and need help deciding, check out The Ultimate Guide to WordPress Multisite.
One of the other decisions you need to make is what you want your site address to be for your visitors. You can choose to have your site accessible through your main domain such as www.your-site.com or through a sub-directory such as www.your-site.com/wordpress/. Where you install WordPress on your server will dictate the URL where your visitors can access your site.
If you want to install Multisite, it's recommended that your main site is accessible through your main domain since it won't work with a subdirectory, though sites in your network could be set up to a sub-directory or sub-domain such as site1.your-site.com.
No matter which type of install and URL you choose, you need to have certain combinations of software and platforms and many of the ones you need wholly depend on your preference. You do need to have your favorite browser installed, but here are the main combinations of other software and platforms you could use:
File Transfer Protocol (FTP) via FileZilla, a text editor and cPanel
Shell Access (SSH) to your server via PuTTY for Windows or Terminal for Mac OS X and MySQL
Most hosting companies have some of these platforms already installed for you on your server and can vary from host to host. If you use a VPS or dedicated server, you may need to install some of these yourself, though FileZilla and PuTTY are both desktop applications that are installed onto your operating system and not your server.
Once you have your desired programs all set up and have decided what kind of domain path you want, you're ready to Install WordPress through the famous five-minute install. You can scroll down through each section below to view the instructions for the specific software you chose.
1. Downloading and Extracting the Files
Exactly how you download and extract WordPress to your site depends on the method you choose. Let's step through what's available.
FTP and FileZilla
First thing's first: You need to download WordPress to your computer from WordPress.org. Extract the compressed folder and don't forget the path where it's located on your computer.
SSH and PuTTY or Terminal
If you prefer using SSH, you can download and extract the files right onto your server using the wget command. Keep in mind that when you extract the WordPress files via SSH, everything goes in a folder called wordpress so that means your site's URL would automatically be a sub-directory and written similarly to www.your-site.com/wordpress/.
If this is your goal, then go ahead and start by logging into your server in the command prompt. After logging in, you start at the root of your server by default, but most hosting accounts have a folder in the root where all publicly accessible files and folders are located. This is where you want the WordPress files to go so your site can be visited by everyone so you need to go to this folder.
To do this, you need to know the name of this folder and by typing ls into the command prompt, then pressing the enter key, you can view a list of the folders on your server. Once you have identified the public-facing folder where your site needs to be installed, you can enter the command below to access it. Just don't forget to replace public_html with the actual name of your folder if needed.
Next, type in the following command to download the latest version of WordPress into the folder you just selected:
You do need wget installed on your server for this to work, but most of the time, your hosting company installs it for you. If this command doesn't work, it may mean you don't have it installed. If you're not sure, open a support ticket with your hosting company and they can tell you what you need to know.
Finally, extract the files with this command:
Keep in mind that SSH commands may differ depending on the program you use so if you run into difficulties, consult your program's documentation for the correct commands.
2. Creating a New Database and User
Your website also needs a database to hold important information such as usernames, passwords, post and page content, and many other key bits of information.
When you're creating a new database and user, there are a few important things to keep in mind. While you can enter just about anything you want for your database or name, you should make sure any names you pick aren't easily guessable in order to prevent hackers from being able to easily guess your credentials and force their way into your database. This means you should try to stay away from obvious names such as wordpress or your domain name.
Many hosts also add a prefix to your database name and username automatically, usually ending with an underscore. It's used to distinguish your database from others on the server. You need to know both parts later on so make note of the names before continuing.
You also need to make note of your host name, which in most cases is localhost. Sometimes it's also followed by a colon and a few numbers. If you're not sure what your host name is, ask your hosting provider.
cPanel
Log into your cPanel home screen and click the MySQL Database Wizard button under Databases. This wizard guides you through creating a database one step at a time. You can also create and assign a user for your database here, which you need in order to complete the installation.
On the first page of the wizard, type in a name for your database, then click Next Step.
On the next page, there should be a message toward the top of the page letting you know your new database has been created successfully.
Create a new user with a strong password.
Now it's time to create a new user by entering your desired name and password. When you're done, click the Create User button.
Your new user needs to have full database privileges.
Once your user had been successfully created, you need to be grant full database privileges in order for WordPress to work. Click the All Privileges checkbox in the next step to automatically select all the available privilege levels then click the Next Step button at the bottom of the page.
You should see a "success" message on the next page to let you know everything went well. Now you're done and you can move on to the next step in the installation process.
phpMyAdmin
To create a database in phpMyAdmin, log in and click on the Databases tab to access the database creation form. If you only see a list of your current databases and no form, you can only create a database with an alternate method such as with cPanel.
Enter a name for your database in the first field. In the Collation drop down box, you will find a list of character sets. Click on it and scroll down to uft8 and see if you can find your language listed. If you find it, select that one. If you don't see it, choose the uft8_unicode_ci option.
You need to create a new database for WordPress.
Finish by clicking the Create button. You should see a message appear to let you know that your database has been successfully created.
Next, click the User accounts tab toward the top of the page and click the Add user account button. Enter a username and password and be sure the corresponding drop down boxes have Use text field selected for each then click Go at the bottom of the page.
Create a new user if you don't have one already that you want to use.
In the most recent versions of MySQL and since version 5.6.7, the host name option has been dropped altogether so it's actually meaningless now. In earlier versions, the any host selection meant that you're allowing your database to be potentially accessed from anywhere. If you chose any of the other options, you would be telling phpMyAdmin to only allow the database to be accessed from your computer or IP address. If you chose these options, it could be nearly impossible to access your database if you are traveling or using a different computer, for example.
Fortunately, it's no longer necessary so you can just leave it at its default setting and move on.
On the next page, you can select the privileges for the new user you created. Click the Check all checkbox next to the Global privileges label and then click Go at the bottom of the page.
You need to be sure global privileges are selected for your user.
You should see a message appear that lets you know your changes have been accepted. You can also conveniently note that your host name is listed at the top of the page, directly after Server:.
SSH and MySQL
If you still have an SSH session open in your command prompt, go ahead and type in the following command to access MySQL:
Be sure to replace "yourusername" with your actual username that you use to access your databases. When you are prompted, enter your password. If all goes well, you should see some introductory information about MySQL.
Next, enter the query below:
Don't forget to replace databasename with the actual name you want to use for your database. If you get an error message, you may not have access to this feature and in which case, you can try one of the other methods such as through cPanel or phpMyAdmin.
Once a message appears saying Query OK, you can enter the next command:
You should change databasename in this example to the name you chose in the previous query. You should also change newusername to the username you want to create and also update hostname to your actual host name.
When you have submitted that query, you can choose a password by entering the query below replacing password with the actual one you want to use.
When you see another Query OK message below your last query, you can go ahead and continue entering the next one:
Finally, enter the word exit and you're done. Your database and its user has been created and the user's global privileges have been set.
3. Edit the wp-config.php File
At this point in the process, you should have your files and database ready to go. There's still a crucial step you need to take. At the moment, your WordPress files and database aren't able to communicate with each other. If you tried to view your site now, your would only see an error.
To fix this, you need to add your database information to your wp-config.php file. If you try looking for it right now, though, you won't find it since it's named wp-config-sample.php and it's located directly in the forefront of the WordPress files and folders.
After you extract the compressed WordPress file, you should see a wp-includes, wp-content, wp-admin folders and many files. This is where the wp-config-sample.php file is held.
When you find this file and open it the section you need to edit is toward the top and looks exactly like this:
Before you go rogue and start editing with your preferred method, it's important to understand what needs editing and why. When you have a good handle on this, making the changes is not only quicker, but you're less likely to make a mistake that results in errors later on so let's take a look at the edits you are going to be making.
The first change you need to make is to include your database name, which you created earlier. The specific section you need to focus on is this one:
Replace database_name_here with the actual name of your database. Be sure to keep the quotation marks and other characters intact throughout this editing process.
On the next couple of lines, you need to replace username_here with your database's username that you created earlier. The line you need to edit looks exactly like this:
Once you're done here, move on to the next couple of lines to enter your database password. This is the exact line you need to edit to include your password:
Replace password_here with your actual database password. This is the one you created at the same time as your database user.
Next, check to see is your host name is correct. This is the line you need to locate:
By default, it's set to localhost and in most cases, you don't need to change this, but in some cases, it may be necessary. If you haven't been able to locate this information yet, check with your hosting provider since they can give you this information.
The final stretch of edits you need to make in this file have to do with authentication keys and salts. It's the section that repeats put your unique phrase here toward the end. This is a security feature that helps keep your WordPress site safe from hackers.
To get your own set of fresh and unique authentication keys and salts, go to the WordPress online key generator to randomly generate keys for you. When you visit the generator, you should see a stretch of code that looks similar to this:
The generated code provides you with secure keys and salts that you can use. It's important to never use the same generated code for more than one of your sites. Otherwise, this security feature won't be secure anymore.
You also shouldn't share this information with anyone and you definitely shouldn't use the example above since it's publicly available for everyone to see. If you do use it, it would be that much easier for hackers to exploit your site since that's one less thing they would need to figure out.
That's the last of the edits you need to make in this file. You can save your changes from here. The final step you need to take here is to rename the file to wp-config.php. Of course, how you do this depends on what editor you use so you can scroll down below this section to find out how you can make these edits with different programs and platforms.
It's worth mentioning that, technically, this step is optional. Later on, when you run the install script, it can try and complete this step for you so you don't have to worry about digging into code.
Just keep in mind that you still need to know the database name, username, password and host name. While it works most of the time, there's still a chance it may not. The only way to truly be sure your files and database connect correctly is to complete this step yourself.
So here's the part where you choose your own adventure. You can either skip this step and move on to the next one or if you're keen on giving it a try, let's take a look at how you would edit this file with SSH and if you prefer FTP.
A Text Editor and cPanel for FTP
If you prefer to use FTP over SSH to handle file transfers, then you can either open the wp-config-sample.php file in your preferred text editor or you can also edit the file directly in cPanel.
I prefer to use Adobe Brackets much of the time because it works really well for editing code, it's open source and it's free. With Brackets, you can visually differentiate between different parts of the code since it's color-coded whereas cPanel doesn't have this feature. Brackets also has many other features that help you edit code faster and easier.
Adobe brackets has a nicer editing experience than cPanel.
Of course, there's no one-size fits all for editing code so choose the editor you like the best and go ahead and make the edits you need. If you prefer a text editor, open the wp-config-sample.php file and when you finish applying the edits that are needed, save it as wp-config.php in the same location as the original file.
If you prefer cPanel, log in and click Files > File Manager. Navigate to the wp-config-sample.php file, click on it once and then click Edit at the top of the page. When you're finished making the necessary edits, click Save Changes at the top, right corner.
Select the file again if it's not already highlighted and click Rename at the top of the page. Edit the field in the inline pop-up to read wp-config.php, then click Rename File to apply your changes.
SSH and PuTTY or Terminal
Start by logging into your server if you haven't done that yet. To view and edit the contents of wp-config-sample.php, first navigate to its location within your server just as you did in the first step with the cd command.
Next, select the file for viewing and editing with the following command:
Press the arrow keys on your keyboard to navigate through the document to edit the necessary portions. When you're done, click the "Esc" button, then enter :wq anywhere in the file to save your changes and exit.
If pressing the escape button doesn't do anything, just skip to saving and exiting the file. Not every SSH program is exactly the same so you may need to look up the commands as they correspond to the program you're using if you're not sure.
4. Uploading Files
Sure, you have your files on your computer, but if they're not on your server then they won't do you much good. Let's remedy that, shall we?
FTP and FileZilla
Uploading your files with FileZilla is as easy as dragging and dropping, literally. If you're not familiar enough with FTP or FileZilla yet or need a refresher, take a look at our comprehensive guide called How to Use FTP Properly with WordPress.
SSH and PuTTY or Terminal
Guess what? If you have been using SSH up until this point all your files have been already uploaded and you can skip over to the next step.
5. Running the Install Script
At this point, you're on the home stretch of installing WordPress. To finish up the process, open your preferred browser and navigate to the install script. To access it, type in the path to your site then follow it with /wp-admin/install.php.
Depending on the path of your WordPress installation, the URL may differ in your specific situation. Here are some possibilities depending on where your WordPress files are located:
Root of your server - www.your-site.com/wp-admin/install.php
In the /wordpress/ folder - www.your-site.com/wordpress/wp-admin/install.php
In a different sub-directory - www.your-site.com/sub-directory/wp-admin/install.php
Select the language the WordPress admin dashboard should be in.
Once you're there, you first need to select your language, then click the Continue button.
You can change the language WordPress is in later under Settings > General so you don't have to worry too much about it now. This also doesn't affect the language your site is written in on the front end.
If you didn't edit your wp-config-sample.php file earlier you should be prompted with a message next to let you know that you need to enter your database details. Click the Let's Go button to continue to the next page.
The following page is where you can enter the necessary details to connect your WordPress files to your database.
Enter your database details if you didn't edit them before.
It's recommended that you change the table prefix to something less well-known if you feel comfortable with it. This is so it's less guessable for hackers. Since most users have their table prefixes set to the default wp_, it's one less detail hackers need to figure out to try and force their way into your site and server.
The downside is there may be plugins and other scripts that won't work because they are programmed to access your database and assume you are going to have your table prefixes set to its default. It's important that you make this decision carefully since it could impact your site in the future.
When you're done entering in all your details, click the Submit button at the bottom of the page to continue.
If you are met with an error message letting you know that the attempt to establish a connection between your files and database has failed, click the Try Again button to re-enter your database details.
If you enter in your database details incorrectly, it results in an error.
If your database name and username contains a prefix, don't forget to enter it in with the name you typed in when you created your database. That's usually the most common mistake. If you know this information and your password is correct, make sure you have the right host name. You may need to contact your hosting provider or server admin if you don't have this information.
When you receive a message letting you know the connection was successfully established, click on the Run the install button to continue.
If you went ahead and edited your wp-config-sample.php file already, you should automatically be sent to this next page to start installing WordPress.
Enter your basic site details and you're ready go.
Enter basic details such as your site's name, the username and password you want to use to log into your admin dashboard and your email address. If you want your site to be indexed by search engines (read: Google) then leave the Search Engine Visibility checkbox unchecked.
A strong password is already generated for you, but you can enter your own in if you would prefer that.
When you're done typing everything in, click the Install WordPress button at the bottom of the page. When you receive a message letting you know the install was a success, click the Log in button to be directed to the login page.
Enter in the username and password you just chose in the last step and click Log in. You're now directed to your admin dashboard, you're done installing WordPress and you're ready to start fully customizing your site.
Auto-Installing WordPress
If the famous five-minute install isn't fast enough for you, you can use an auto-installer and have your new WordPress site up and running in about one minute. In fact, the part that takes the longest is entering a few details such as your site's name, and the username and password you want to use.
One of the most popular auto-installers is called Softaculous. Some hosting companies give you this option by default when you sign up while it may be an extra cost or not at all available with others. Some hosting providers provide their own auto-installer.
Some hosting providers provide their own auto-installer. If this is the case with your hosting plan, consult your hosting company's documentation or contact them if you're not sure how to use this feature.
Most auto-installers are fairly similar to Softaculous so you can generally learn how to use them all when you know how this one works.
If you have cPanel installed on your server as well, you can access the auto-installer by clicking the Softaculous Apps Installer button on your account home page.
WordPress should be listed right on the homepage. Click it to access its auto-installing process.
The WordPress auto-installer is easily accessed through the Softaculous main page.
Click the Install tab to start the installation process. Fill out the information and when you're done, click Install at the bottom of the page.
The WordPress auto-installer form is straight forward.
While the auto-installer is mostly straightforward to complete, some of the fields may be trickier than others if you're not too familiar with WordPress.
Here's an explanation of all the options:
Choose Protocol - If you have an SSL certificate installed, you can choose to automatically apply it to your site. You can also set whether you want www. to used by default for your URL
Choose Domain - You can choose from the domains you have already added to your account
In Directory - You can choose to locate your site in a sub-directory by typing something into this field or leaving it at its default setting
Site Name - This is the name of your site or blog
Site Description - This is your site's tagline
Enable Multisite (WPMU) - You check click this checkbox to automatically install Multisite
Admin Username - This is your desired WordPress username to access the admin dashboard
Admin Password - Your desired password for your WordPress admin account
Admin Email - The email where your site's administrative email notifications are sent
Select Language - The language your admin dashboard should be in
Limit Login Attempts (Loginizer) - If checked, this option installs the Loginizer plugin to limit how many times a visitor can unsuccessfully try to log in to help prevent your site from getting hacked
Database Name - If you want to specifically name your database, you can do so in this field or leave it up to Softaculous to create a random database name for you which is the default
Table Prefix - If you want to change the prefixes of your database tables, you can change it in this field
Disable Update Notifications - If checked, you won't receive an email when there are updates available
Auto Upgrade - When checked, Softaculous can automatically attempt to update WordPress when they become available
Auto Upgrade WordPress Plugins - Softaculous can also attempt to update plugins if you check the box
Auto Upgrade WordPress Themes - Similar to the previous option, you can also authorize Softaculous to attempt to update your themes automatically
Automated backups - This drop down box contains the option to disable automatic backups of your installation or to choose how often backups should be made
Backup Rotation - If the last option is enabled, this drop down box becomes accessible and you can choose how many backups for Softaculous to save at one time. Older backups are deleted when new ones roll in or you can choose to keep them all
Select Theme - There are many free themes available in a carousel that you can choose to install. You can choose multiple themes if you want
Email installation details to - You can enter an email here if you want the details of your installation and site to be sent to you including your username, password, URL and admin URL
Softaculous is almost done installing WordPress.
When the installation starts, you are directed to a page with a progress bar. When the installation is complete, you're redirected to a page with your site's address and admin login page. At this point, your site was successfully installed and you can visit it right away.
When the installation is complete, you're redirected to a page with your site's address and admin login page. At this point, your site was successfully installed and you can visit it right away.
Depending on your internet connection, the auto-installer can take a few seconds or three to four minutes on slower internet connections so don't panic if it seems to take quite a while. It also depends on the resources your server has available to run scripts such as Softaculous.
Wrapping Up - and Dealing with Errors
By now you have successfully installed WordPress and you're ready to write posts or customize your theme. What seemed like a daunting task actually ended up being quite quick. That doesn't mean you can necessarily get away with not receiving any errors at all.
If you do receive errors, make sure you didn't mistype anything when entering your database details and also make sure they're entered in correctly into your wp-config.php file. You can also create new passwords and re-enter them in if everything seems right, but still doesn't work. You can also try generating new authentication keys and salts and replacing the old ones in your wp-config.php file.
In the event that none of these suggestions fix the issue, make sure you're also running the latest versions of the software you're using. If all else fails, try deleting everything you created and start again. When in doubt, you can also get in touch with the WordPress community in the support forums or also try contacting your host. It's also worth a try to check out the WordPress Codex's Installation Guide as well.
What's your favorite method of installing WordPress? Do you find the famous five-minute install fast and easy? Would you change anything or add certain capabilities? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
Do you want to display WordPress posts in a grid layout? Most WordPress themes do not come with a grid layout display for your posts. In this article, we will show you how to display your WordPress posts in a grid layout on any theme without writing a single line of code.
When Do You Need a Grid Layout for WordPress?
Traditional vertical layout of displaying posts works well for most websites. However this layout can take up a lot of space specially if you want to display a large number of posts.
If you are using a custom homepage for your WordPress site, then you may want to use a grid based layout to display your recent posts.
It will save space, so that you can add other items on your homepage. It also looks more visually pleasant due to prominently displayed featured images.
WordPress themes designed for magazine or photography websites already use grid based layout to display posts. However, if you are using a theme that doesn't support it, then you will need to create your own template for that. This would require you to learn PHP, HTML, CSS, etc.
Let's see how you can show WordPress posts in a grid layout on any theme without having to write any code.
Upon activation, you need to visit Post Grid >> New Post Grid page to create your post grid.
The post grid page is divided into different sections presented by the tabs on the top row. First you need to click on the 'Query Post' tab.
This is where you will define how you want the plugin to retrieve the posts for display.
You can select the post type you want to display. By default, it will display 'posts' but you can choose pages if you want, or select any custom post type.
Next you need to click on the layout tab. This is where you can select how you would want to display your grid.
You can select the content layout. The plugin comes with a few choices like flat, flat center, flat right, etc. You can also click on the edit button and that will open the layout editor where you can create your own layouts.
You can choose from one of the 5 available skins. Some of the skins have cool visual effects that flip or rotate the image when a user takes mouse over to the thumbnail.
Now you need to click on the 'Layout Settings' tab. The settings here should work on most websites, but if your grid layout does not fit on your page, then this is where you can fix that.
Finally, click on the navigation tab and select your pagination style.
Once you are done, simply click on the publish button. This will make your post grid available, and you can add it to the page where you want to display post grid.
Adding Posts Grid in a WordPress Page
On the post grid editor, you will see the tab shortcodes. Clicking on it will display a shortcode.
Copy the shortcode and edit the WordPress page where you want to display your post grid. Paste the shortcode inside the content area where you want to display the grid.
Next, save your page by clicking on the update button. You can now visit your website to see the post grid in action.
You can also use the PHP code if you want to add the post grid directly into your WordPress theme files.
That's all we hope this article helped you display your WordPress posts in a grid layout. You may also want to see our guide on adding multi-column content in WordPress posts.
If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.
The web is going to die because mobile is winning. Email is going to die because everyone uses instant messaging. We've heard it so many times, but the reality is these channels will never die. What we are seeing is more - more channels, more traffic, and more ways of reaching audiences.
Last year saw developers grappling with the complexity associated with the explosion of these channels and the device operating systems that come with the never-ending list of new devices on the market.
As we look ahead, mobile developers need to focus on getting micro-moments right - a concept developed by Google to highlight the moment where user demands meet user access via mobile.
It's clear the smartphone has driven this behaviour and opportunity. So the question now is not what the possibilities are, but what can mobile developers do to maximise this?
WP Engine Vice President of Product Jason Jaynes examines the future for mobile developers in this Smart Chimps blog.
Whether you're just beginning your own startup, blog or creative portfolio, or perhaps an already well-established corporation or small business, I've come across the Tenzing Norgay of WordPress themes to get you to the top of your own Everest. With an already large following of 28,000 users, the Jupiter business WordPress theme, created by Artbees Themes, has recently released its most updated version, the Jupiter V5, which stands apart from other business WordPress themes in more than just one way.
If you're creating or setting up a site for clients or non-technical users, customizing the WordPress admin can help them manage their site and work with content more easily.
Most of the sites I build are for clients who aren't too familiar with WordPress and don't have a lot of time to spend working out how to manage their site, so I like to customize the dashboard and other admin screens to make life easier for them. I also like to add some branding to the admin screens, just to remind them who created their site for them!
The customizations I make will vary depending on the needs of each client but will normally include one or more of:
Branding the login screen with my own logo.
Adding branding to the admin screens, from something as simple as changing the header and footer text to going further and rebranding the colours and layout of the screens.
Removing dashboard widgets that my clients don't need and adding a new one with a helpful introduction to their site and what they need to know about it.
Removing admin menu items that clients don't need access to and adding new ones where needed.
Adding metaboxes to editing screens to help clients add data via custom fields.
WordPress provides you with a bunch of hooks and functions that can help you if you want to code it yourself, which is what I often do (adding everything to a special admin plugin), but if you don't fancy delving into the code or are in a hurry, then a plugin can be a simpler and quicker way to go things.
In this post, I'll identify my top 10 plugins for customising the WordPress admin screens. These range from the full-featured plugins like Ultimate Branding which let you make a whole heap of admin customizations, to small plugins like Login Logo that just do one simple job. Which you use will depend on your needs and those of your clients.
Ultimate Branding has it all when it comes to admin customization. It not only lets you customize the admin screens, but also gives you the option of making customizations to the front end of the sites in your network to, if you're running Multisite.
But Ultimate Branding isn't just for networks: you can use it on standard installations or networks to brand your admin screens, customize the login screen, change the dashboard, remove unwanted menu items and reorder existing ones, create your own admin bar, add help text and much more.
All of these features can be turned on and off from the dashboard, so you only use what you need for your site, as you can see in the screenshot:
White Label CMS is the most popular free plugin for customizing the admin screens. It lets you add your own login logo, remove and add dashboard widgets, hide meta boxes on editing screens, remove items from the admin menus and add custom CSS in places.
It isn't as fully featured as Ultimate Branding and the single screen user interface can be a bit confusing, but it is free and offers the most functionality of all the available free plugins.
If all you need to do is add, remove, reorder or edit items in the WordPress admin menu, then the Admin Menu Editor plugin makes it simple.
The feature I like the most is the way it lets you change the text for each admin menu item: so for example if you're creating a site for a client who will be using Posts for news, you can change the Posts text in the admin menu to News. This works in a similar way to the Menus admin screen for navigation menus.
You can also reorder menu items and hide them from users who don't have a specified capability level. With the Pro version you can move second-level menu items to other menus, which could be useful if you've removed a lot of menu items from two top level menus and want to combine the two.
Something that often frustrates me about WordPress is how difficult it can be to add a link to the archive for a custom post type to the navigation menus. The only way to do it is to work out the URL of the relevant post type archive and then add that as a custom link, which can be tricky if you're not familiar with the way WordPress generates URLs.
The Post Type Archive Link plugin solves this problem for you. It adds a box for your custom post types to the menus admin screen, letting you add a link to each post type's arrive to your navigation menu. If you're using WordPress as a CMS and have registered multiple post types, this can be very useful.
If your site contains a lot of media files which you want to be able to manage more effectively than with the default media screens, the Media Library Assistant plugin can help.
It lets you add categories and tags to media files and also displays information about each media file in the main Media screen, such as which post(s) each image is featured in, with a link to the post. This can be very useful if you need to replace or remove an image and you know the media file's name but not where you uploaded it.
This plugin is a very simple one developed by WordPress core contributor Mark Jaquith. Login Logo lets you change the logo on the main WordPress login page by dropping a file called login-logo.png into the wp-content directory. Simply activate the plugin, upload the file and your logo will replace the WordPress logo.
When you access this plugin on the plugin directory you'll see a warning that it hasn't been updated in over two years. Don't worry about this: the plugin is so simple that it doesn't need updating, and it's from a developer you can trust.
Dashboard widgets can be really helpful - they give your users information about their site, let them quickly create new content, and help you get started with WordPress.
But something I often find irritating is the fact that as a site owner or developer you can't determine the default order of the widgets. You can remove them and add new ones but without some complex code, you can't reorder them.
The Dashboard Widget Order plugin solves this problem for you. It only works for Multisite but it lets you quickly reorder the widgets on your dashboard, meaning that every time a new site or user is created on your network, you know how the dashboard will appear to them.
If like me, you're creating sites for clients who aren't web developers and aren't particularly interested in WordPress, then chances are you'll want to remove the 'WordPress News' dashboard widget. What's even more useful is to replace it with another news widget.
The Dashboard Feeds plugin lets you do this. Add as many RSS feeds to it as you want and it will populate the dashboard with a widget for each of them. If you're creating sites for a particular industry, this might be a news feed for that industry. Or to promote your own work, you can use the RSS feed from your own site, to remind your users and clients what you're up to and encourage them to click through to your site.
Wrapping Up
Customizing the WordPress backend can make life easier for your clients and users and it can hep you to promote your business, either by improving your branding or displaying information about your business or content from your own site.
If you use these plugins, you'll be able to create an admin experience for your users and clients that projects a professional image and helps them manage and edit their sites.
Have you customized the backend of your site? What kinds of changes did you make? Are their customizations you always like to make for particular clients? Let us know what you think in the comments below.
It's easy to think that being on the Technical Support team at WP Engine means days and nights spent troubleshooting WordPress sites. And while as a company we do indeed do that 24/7, that's nowhere near the charter of our Support Teams.
At most companies, Technical Support is looked at like a call center. That is, you're there to answer calls, chats, or tickets in a certain amount of time and you have a quota of how many you need to respond to by typically following a script or automated prompts to provide the exact same information over and over again. Therefore, you're not strategic to the company, but rather a necessary evil required to keep the lights on, and a department to be treated like a machine versus a group of passionate human beings. It's robotic and lacks a human touch. And, frankly, it's why many approach the term "Technical Support" with skepticism.
At WP Engine, Technical Support is exactly the opposite. Our Technical Support-- our service -- is a big part of our product (and one of our clear differentiators in the managed WordPress hosting industry). Providing a world class experience is part and parcel of our business, and we include our support as part of that experience.
It's always true that, all else being equal, lowering the cost of service is good, because it increases profit margins and reduces waste (we all hate waste, don't we?). WP Engine will live or die by our ability to deliver a better experience to our customers, including better support, faster websites, more scalable websites, high-uptime websites, and secure websites; NOT by our ability to take an ever-increasing number of customer calls, chats, or tickets by an untrained staff because it helps the profit margin.
For us, Technical Support is an investment area, not a call center.
And the people and teams we're investing in support something amazing! Need proof?
WP Engine serves more than 2,000,000,000 (yes, that's 2 billion!) requests daily from thousands of servers in 13 data centers world-wide. We block 150 million malicious events and transfer 2 petabytes of data every month. We deploy 100 to 200 code changes every week, safely, at scale.
And we're still growing frighteningly fast, which means the challenges never stop coming. It's hard... but exciting. Scaling our business sees rare events become commonplace and requires an amazing group of individuals possessing the passion and ability to understand customer's needs before our customers do. Ensuring we're investing in the right people is what creates this incredible scale and growth.
Managing growth is a whole challenge in and of itself. We offer so many opportunities for our Technical Support team members to grow personally and professionally. Our Subject Matter Expert (SME) program, for example, currently consists of 15 subjects for which members of our Technical Support team own responsibility as the expert in that specific subject. We have SMEs on several topics, including CDN, MySQL, GeoIP, SSL, and Staging, just to name a few. These experts are our internal specialists, and ensure our teams continue to grow in knowledge of each subject and assist in the most challenging technical support requests. They also represent our customers when our Product and R&D teams are innovating on that subject. And it's not just these experts who contribute to the innovation of our business. Every single member of our Technical Support teams can create "suggestions" in our R&D system that are acted on, sometimes in a matter of days! And for those support techs brave enough to want to help make their suggestions reality, we offer a mentor program to help them develop the code and make their dreams become live on our platform!
But, we're not content to just scale the current business. Innovation is the heart of any successful tech company. If you stop innovating, even to the point of disrupting yourself, then you start withering. This is true in our Technical Support organization. Our Support Operations team also works with our Technical Support teams to leverage new technologies ranging from the latest cloud systems to brand new uses for WordPress using the WP REST API. Our world class service requires all kinds of people, including developers, admins, restaurant servers, and even professionally trained chefs (yes we have one on the team).
A lot of companies claim to provide the best service. Our customers tell us every single day that we do, just check our Twitter feed!
We're collecting amazing metrics around quality and satisfaction that are brand new to our industry so we can't write about them yet , but at our scale, these great metrics can't be achieved without amazing people volunteering their best from our Technical Support team. We all are necessary parts of our success.
Finally, we actively support contributing back to WordPress (naturally) and other communities, including Ansible, HHVM, Hadoop, nginx, and anything else we use. Contributing code is one way (our own John Dittmar and Anthony Burchell are WordPress Core Contributors) we support the community, along with speaking at events (our Technical Support team gave more than 15 talks at WordCamps in 2015 alone!) and attending other events across the globe. Some companies say they contribute to their communities, but for us it's our Fifth Company Value -- "Committed to Give Back" -- so we really mean it, and we invest time and money in it. It's not just lip service.
So if you're in Technical Support or love providing amazing customer service, and it sounds like a breath of fresh air to be treated as an investment, then you should apply now and see whether WP Engine might be your new home.
Do you want to improve accessibility on your WordPress site? Most of the times accessibility gets neglected in our effort to create more beautiful websites. This creates problems and bad user experience for people with disabilities. In this article, we will show you how to improve accessibility on your WordPress site.
What is Accessibility in Web Design in WordPress?
Accessibility is a term used to describe design techniques that make a product accessible to users with disabilities.
In web design, there are some common best practices that are recommended by experts to make websites more accessible. The same best practices can also be used in your own WordPress website.
By making your website more accessible, you can make it easier for many people to use your website without requiring assistance.
The problem is that most people using WordPress don't know much about web design, accessibility, or design standards. Majority of the people just install a theme that looks great and helps them do what they want to do. We at WPBeginner are guilty of this too, but we are working on improving things around our site.
Let's take a look at how you can improve the accessibility of your WordPress site without writing any code.
Improving Accessibility of Your WordPress Site
First thing you need to do is install and activate the WP Accessibility plugin.
Upon activation, you need to go to Settings >> WP Accessibility to configure the plugin.
The first section is to remove the title attribute from tag clouds and archives. The title attribute is considered to be useless by some accessibility experts. Most screen readers usually ignore the title attribute and instead read the anchor text.
In the next section, you can enable the skip link on your website. A skip link allows users to jump directly to the content. This is an extremely useful feature for people using screen readers. Without a skiplink they will have to hear through lots of things like navigation menus before they can reach the content part.
WP Accessibility provides a variety of accessibility settings, under miscellaneous accessibility settings section. You can go through each option and see if you need it on your site.
Some of these options will be checked by default. These options are removing target attribute from links, force search error on empty search submission, and removing tabindex from focusable elements.
WP Accessibility plugin comes with an accessibility toolbar. Enabling it will add a toolbar on your website where users can resize fonts or view your site in high contrast color mode.
Lastly, you will see the color contrast checker tool. Using this tool, you can test the foreground and background color contrast ratio and whether they match the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. You may also want to see our guide on choosing the perfect color scheme for your WordPress site.
You can find out the colors your theme is using in the stylesheet, or you can use Eye Dropper, a color picker extension for Google Chrome.
To learn more about the accessibility features of the plugin, take a look at WP Accessibility Plugins page on WordPress accessibility team website.
If you are running a multi-author website, you certainly know that paying out writers is not exactly the most exciting task of your routine. You usually have to look at each post, compute its value depending on length, visits, ads revenues, and other custom criteria; then you need to sum up all post values from a single author and finally pay him. Repeat for all your writers. What if this waste of time could be eliminated?
The free WordPress plugin Post Pay Counter will get the hassle off of you. It automates every part of payments management and frees time that can be used for more productive matters.
