Saturday, January 2, 2016
How to Find Best Cheap WordPress Hosting?
Throughout the hosting marketplace, almost all web hosting companies offer solutions and supports to WordPress, the most popular blogging software and content management system. This situation makes it difficult to choose a reliable and affordable hosting service for hosting WordPress websites.
How to Find Your WordPress Login URL
If you’re new to WordPress and wondering “How do I login to my site?!” or you’ve lost the web address for logging into your site, then this is the tutorial for you.
It’s common for new users to have trouble locating their login URL after installing a self-hosted WordPress site for the first time. And if you’re like me and have a terrible memory, you may have forgotten or misplaced your login URL!
So in this article, I’ll show you how to easily find your WordPress login URL – and never lose it again.
Logging in to WordPress
The login page is where you go to access the backend of your website. Once logged in, you can see your dashboard, create new posts and pages, update the theme and add new plugins, as well as make other customizations to your site.
On a typical WordPress site, all you need to do is add /login/ or /admin/ to the end of your site’s URL.
For example:
www.example.com/login/
or
www.example.com/admin/
Both of these URLs will take you to your login page where you can enter your username and password. Once logged in, you will be taken directly to the admin area, or dashboard, of your site.
Logging into a Subdirectory
If your site is installed in a sub-folder, or subdirectory, then you need to add /login/ or /wp-login.php to the end of your site’s URL.
www.example.com/wordpress/login/
or
www.example.com/wordpress/wp-login.php
Logging into a Subdomain
If your WordPress install is on a sub-domain, then you URL will be slightly different:
subdomain.example.com/login/
or
subdomain.example.com/wp-login.php
Directly Accessing the WordPress Admin
Once logged in, you can directly access the admin area of your site using these URLs:
www.example.com/admin/
or
www.example.com/wp-admin/
Both of these URLs check that you are still logged in to your site and redirect to your site’s admin area.
How to Remember Your Login URL
You don’t have to remember your login URL off by heart. The easiest way to ensure you never lose it again is to simply bookmark it in your browser.
To bookmark you login URL:
- Chrome – Go to Bookmarks > Bookmark This Page
- Safari – Go to Books > Add Bookmark
- Firefox – Go to Bookmarks > Bookmark This Page
Once bookmarked, you’ll have a quick and easy direct link to login to your site without having to remember your login address off the top of your head.
We also have a great plugin to help you stayed logged in.
Remember Me Checked sets the login page as checked by default to ensure you stay logged into your site and you don’t have to keep logging in.
Just how long you stay logged in depends on your cookie settings, of course.
Alternatively, you could add a link to your login page to your website, either in the navigation menu, the sidebar or the footer.
To add a link to your menu:
Go to Appearance > Menus. Click on Custom Links and enter your site’s login URL and give the menu item a name (I simply called mine “Login”). Then click Add to Menu and then Save Menu to save your new menu item.
To add a link to your sidebar or footer:
WordPress comes with a default Meta widget that, when used, adds a link to the login page, your site’s RSS feeds, and a link to WordPress.org
Go to Appearance > Widgets and drag and Meta widget to the widget-ready area you want to display the login link.
Customizing Your Login Page
If you are beyond basic WordPress skills and want to personalize your login page, check out How to Completely Customize the WordPress Login Page.
This in-depth tutorial will guide you through how to add a custom background to your site, replace the WordPress logo with your own, customize the look of the login form and remove the lost password link.
We hope you’ve found this article helpful and you’ve managed to log back into your website! For more handy articles like this one, check out the related posts below or head to our blog homepage. And don’t forget to subscribe to our newsletter for more free tutorials!
10 Ways We Improved The WP Engine Platform In 2015
At WP Engine, we’re committed to making your WordPress experience great. One way we do that is by continually improving our platform to better meet your business needs. In 2015, we made several improvements to our platform to provide you a seamless WordPress hosting experience. Here’s a sampling of some of the changes made in 2015.
-
We removed bot traffic from overage calculations
In October, we made updates to our overage policy so you are no longer charged for overages based on bot traffic.
To learn more about bot traffic, check out our guide to understanding the bot invasion.
-
We made it easier to secure your site with SSL
Not only is it imperative to have an SSL certificate to help your site in search rankings, but it also builds trust in those visiting your site. Setting up SSL with your WordPress site is now easier than ever and can be done through your user portal. In addition, SSL is now available to customers on our Personal plan.
To learn more, download our free SSL white paper.
-
GeoIP helps you go global
At the start of 2015, we launched WP Engine GeoIP. This powerful technology allows you to personalize and serve dynamic web content to visitors based on their location, enabling you to only show what’s relevant in a visitor’s specific geography.
For more on GeoIP, check out our free ebook.
-
We gave the user portal a facelift
Based on customer feedback, we made a few changes to the WP Engine user portal, including a refined look, simplified features, and improved install navigation.
-
WP Engine Search entered Alpha stage
This year we launched the Alpha project for WP Engine Search. Powered by Elasticsearch, this technology offers a speedy and accurate search experience, along with a full text search engine, among other benefits.
-
Site backups got better
We made significant improvements to how site backups work, including adding strong encryption, an uploads directory, and more.
-
Migrate your site to our platform in minutes
Migrating your WordPress site to the WP Engine platform is now even easier thanks to the WP Engine Automated Migration plugin. This solution eliminates the time and complexity often required to migrate a WordPress site from one platform to another.
-
Updating WordPress is a breeze with One-Click WordPress Core Upgrades
With One-Click WordPress Core Upgrades, you can easily update your WordPress site to the latest version of WordPress with the click of a button rather than having to contact support about it, or waiting for WP Engine to upgrade your site for you. You can also see which version of WordPress your site is running, as well as defer the upgrade to the next version if you’d like.
-
PHP 7 testing is available in Mercury Vagrant
You can now test PHP 7 in Mercury Vagrant (HGV) 1.5 to compare its speed against HHVM. The latest version of HGV also includes a toggle feature that allows you to test and compare PHP 7, PHP 5, and HHVM. (See here for a speed comparison we did between the three.)
-
Upgrade Deferral is an option with WordPress Core Upgrades
You can now request to defer a WordPress Core Upgrade for up to 60 days, rather than having your site update automatically. This is beneficial should you need more time to prepare your site prior to upgrading the WordPress core.
What changes would you like to see take place in 2016? Leave a comment with your top feature requests in the section below.
Thanks for reading and have a wonderful 2016!
The post 10 Ways We Improved The WP Engine Platform In 2015 appeared first on WP Engine.
How to Show Parent Comment in WordPress Comments
WordPress comments allow you to reply to others in a form of nested-replies also known as threaded comments. The problem is that moderation of replies is not very intuitive. Recently one of our readers asked us if there was a way to add parent comments to the comments on the moderation screen. In this article, we will show you how to easily show parent comment in WordPress comments.
The Comment Moderation Problem
WordPress allows users to reply to comments by clicking on the reply button below a comment. See our guide on how to style WordPress comments layout.
When a user replies to a comment, it appears with a link to the parent comment in the admin area.
During comment moderation, you may want to see the parent comment to understand the context of a reply.
When you click on the link to the parent comment, it opens the post in a new tab and takes you to the parent comment. This is a little distracting and takes more time than necessary.
Having said that, let’s see how you can see a parent comment with a child comment in WordPress admin area.
Show Parent Comment With Child Comment in WordPress
First thing you need to do is install and activate the Show Parent Comment plugin. It works out of the box, and there are no settings for you to configure.
Simply go to the comments page in the admin area. You will notice parent comment highlighted and quoted above child comments.
This allows you to quickly understand the context of a comment. You can then add your own reply or simply approve or delete a comment.
That’s all, we hope this article helped you show parent comment in WordPress comments page. You may also want to see our guide on 11 ways to get more comments on your WordPress blog.
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 post How to Show Parent Comment in WordPress Comments appeared first on WPBeginner.
Saturday, December 26, 2015
How to Add a Shortcodes User Interface in WordPress with Shortcake
If you are developing a WordPress site for a client, then it’s likely that you will have shortcodes for your clients to use. The problem is that many beginners don’t know how to add shortcodes and if there are complex parameters involved, then it’s even more difficult. Shortcake provides a solution by adding a user interface for shortcodes. In this article, we will show you how to add a user interface for shortcodes in WordPress with Shortcake.
What is Shortcake?
WordPress offers an easier way to add executeable code inside posts and pages by using shortcodes. Many WordPress themes and plugins allow users to add additional functionality using shortcodes. However, sometimes these shortcodes can become complicated when a user needs to enter parameters for customization.
For example, in a typical WordPress theme if there is a shortcode to enter a button, then the user will probably need to add atleast two to five parameters. Like this:
[themebutton url=”http://example.com” title=”Download Now” color=”purple” target=”newwindow”]
Shortcake is a WordPress plugin and a proposed future WordPress feature. It aims to solve this problem by providing a user interface to enter these values. This will make shortcodes a lot easier to use.
Getting Started
This tutorial is aimed for users who are new to WordPress development. Beginner level users who like to tweak their WordPress themes would also find this tutorial helpful.
Having said that, let’s get started.
First thing you need to do is install and activate the Shortcake (Shortcode UI) plugin.
You will now need a shortcode that accepts a few parameters of user input. If you need a little refresher, here is how to add a shortcode in WordPress.
For the sake of this tutorial we will be using a simple shortcode that allows users to insert a button into their WordPress posts or pages. Here is the sample code for our shortcode, and you can use this by adding it to your theme’s functions file or in a site-specific plugin.
add_shortcode( 'cta-button', 'cta_button_shortcode' );
function cta_button_shortcode( $atts ) {
extract( shortcode_atts(
array(
'title' => 'Title',
'url' => ''
),
$atts
));
return '';
}
You will also need to add some CSS to style your button. You can use this CSS in your theme’s stylesheet.
.cta-button {
padding: 10px;
font-size: 18px;
border: 1px solid #FFF;
border-radius: 7px;
color: #FFF;
background-color: #50A7EC;
}
This is how a user will use the shortcode in their posts and pages:
[cta-button title="Download Now" url="http://example.com"]
Now that we have a shortcode that accepts parameters, let’s create a UI for it.
Registering Your Shortcode User Interface with Shortcake
Shortcake API allows you to register your shortcode’s user interface. You will need to describe what attributes your shortcode accepts, input field types, and which post types will show the shortcode UI.
Here is a sample code snippet we will use to register our shortcode’s UI. We have tried to explain each step with inline comments. You can paste this in your theme’s functions file or in a site-specific plugin.
shortcode_ui_register_for_shortcode( /** Your shortcode handle */ 'cta-button', /** Your Shortcode label and icon */ array( /** Label for your shortcode user interface. This part is required. */ 'label' => 'Add Button', /** Icon or an image attachment for shortcode. Optional. src or dashicons-$icon. */ 'listItemImage' => 'dashicons-lightbulb', /** Shortcode Attributes */ 'attrs' => array( /** * Each attribute that accepts user input will have its own array defined like this * Our shortcode accepts two parameters or attributes, title and URL * Lets first define the UI for title field. */ array( /** This label will appear in user interface */ 'label' => 'Title', /** This is the actual attr used in the code used for shortcode */ 'attr' => 'title', /** Define input type. Supported types are text, checkbox, textarea, radio, select, email, url, number, and date. */ 'type' => 'text', /** Add a helpful description for users 'description' => 'Please enter the button text', ), /** Now we will define UI for the URL field */ array( 'label' => 'URL', 'attr' => 'url', 'type' => 'text', 'description' => 'Full URL', ), ), ), /** You can select which post types will show shortcode UI */ 'post_type' => array( 'post', 'page' ), ) );
That’s all, you can now see the shortcode user interface in action by editing a post. Simply click on the Add Media button above a post editor. This will bring up the media uploader where you will notice a new item ‘Insert Post Element’ in the left hand column. Clicking on it will show you a button to insert your code.
Clicking on the thumbnail containing the lightbulb icon and your shortcake label will show you the shortcode UI.
Adding Shortcode With Multiple Inputs
In the first example, we used a very basic shortcode. Now lets make it a little more complicated and a lot more useful. Let’s add a shortcode that allows users to choose a button color.
First we will add the shortcode. It is nearly the same shortcode, except that it now excepts user input for color.
add_shortcode( 'mybutton', 'my_button_shortcode' );
function my_button_shortcode( $atts ) {
extract( shortcode_atts(
array(
'color' => 'blue',
'title' => 'Title',
'url' => ''
),
$atts
));
return '';
}
Since our shortcode will be showing buttons in different colors so we will need to update our CSS too. You can use this CSS in your theme’s stylesheet.
.mybutton {
padding: 10px;
font-size: 18px;
border: 1px solid #FFF;
border-radius: 7px;
color: #FFF;
}
.blue-button {
background-color: #50A7EC;
}
.orange-button {
background-color:#FF7B00;
}
.green-button {
background-color:#29B577;
}
This is how the buttons will look like:
Now that our shortcode is ready, the next step is to register shortcode UI. We will be using essentially the same code, except that this time we have another parameter for color and we are offering users to select from blue, orange, or green buttons.
shortcode_ui_register_for_shortcode(
/** Your shortcode handle */
'mybutton',
/** Your Shortcode label and icon */
array(
/** Label for your shortcode user interface. This part is required. */
'label' => 'Add a colorful button',
/** Icon or an image attachment for shortcode. Optional. src or dashicons-$icon. */
'listItemImage' => 'dashicons-flag',
/** Shortcode Attributes */
'attrs' => array(
/**
* Each attribute that accepts user input will have its own array defined like this
* Our shortcode accepts two parameters or attributes, title and URL
* Lets first define the UI for title field.
*/
array(
/** This label will appear in user interface */
'label' => 'Title',
/** This is the actual attr used in the code used for shortcode */
'attr' => 'title',
/** Define input type. Supported types are text, checkbox, textarea, radio, select, email, url, number, and date. */
'type' => 'text',
/** Add a helpful description for users */
'description' => 'Please enter the button text',
),
/** Now we will define UI for the URL field */
array(
'label' => 'URL',
'attr' => 'url',
'type' => 'text',
'description' => 'Full URL',
),
/** Finally we will define the UI for Color Selection */
array(
'label' => 'Color',
'attr' => 'color',
/** We will use select field instead of text */
'type' => 'select',
'options' => array(
'blue' => 'Blue',
'orange' => 'Orange',
'green' => 'Green',
),
),
),
/** You can select which post types will show shortcode UI */
'post_type' => array( 'post', 'page' ),
)
);
That’s all, you can now edit a post or page and click on the Add Media button. You will notice your newly added shortcode under ‘Insert Post Elements’.
Clicking on your newly created shortcode will bring up the shortcode UI, where you can simply enter the values.
You can download the code used in this tutorial as a plugin.
We have included the CSS, so you can use it to study or use it to add your own call to action buttons in WordPress using an easier user interface. Feel free to modify the source and play with it.
We hope this article helped you learn how to add a user interface for shortcodes in WordPress with Shortcake. You may also want to take a look at these 7 essential tips for using shortcodes in WordPress.
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 post How to Add a Shortcodes User Interface in WordPress with Shortcake appeared first on WPBeginner.
How to Prep Your Website for 2016
As 2015 draws to a close, now is the time to take stock in your site and see what works, what doesn’t, and what can be changed for the better.
Sure, you can put it off until January 1st, but wouldn’t it be a better idea to start the new year with a plan already in place? It’s likely just psychological, but knowing what I intend to do for the next year can make all the difference in terms of how I approach my business when sitting down to work.
All website owners should go over the following list before the ball drops on new year’s eve, but WordPress site owners especially can benefit from the steps laid out here.
1. Consider a Site Overhaul
It’s almost a new year—could it be time for a new look, too? I know it sounds drastic, but now is the perfect time to evaluate the look of your site and think about whether or not it’s working for you. Checking out your analytics can give you some sense of this, at least in terms of whether or not specific design elements are working like your calls-to-action and graphics.
Now’s the time to investigate those themes you bookmarked throughout the year and thought “maybe…but not now” about. Open them up, read reviews, and check out the demos. Would a new theme serve your site in an important way? Would it greatly enhance its function?
But you don’t necessarily need to think as big as a new theme, either. You can also invest in a new plugin that affects design like a custom widget or a different header image. You might want to change up your logo a bit or redesign your newsletter signup form.
Another good idea is to come up with a branded style for each of your blog posts. You can use this same style of image on every post and across social media. Coming up with a template for this now can save you time in the new year and ensures your business is presented in a seamless and professional way across all channels.
Whatever you choose to do, know that even the smallest change can make a lasting impact on how your site is perceived by visitors and prospects.
Here are a few posts with tons of great theme ideas for giving your site a refresh:
- 21 Stunning WordPress Themes for Telling Stories
- The Best 100 Free WordPress Themes Ever
- Something for Everyone: 28 of the Best WordPress Themes Ever
2. Analyze Your Top Performing Posts & Pages (And Copy Them)
This one’s a bit subjective, but it’s important just the same. Before the new year starts, take this opportunity to go over the pages and posts that have performed the best according to your site’s analytics and figure out what makes them so effective. Is there something on these pages that helps drive conversions? Is the copy particularly great? Is there a graphic that’s compelling visitors to click?
Go over these pages in detail and figure out what elements you can apply to your other posts and pages, as well as any new posts you write in the new year. It doesn’t have to be all that complicated, either. Maybe your best performing content all have a bold featured image. Maybe your long reads perform the best. Whatever it is these pages have in common, try to mirror that aspect on future content to make every new post your best post.
In case you’re aren’t sure, here’s a guide for installing Google Analytics:
3. Analyze Your Most Important Content (And Fix It)
Certain pages on your site are always going to receive a certain amount of traffic just for what content they’re expected to present. A few good examples include your About page, Contact page, and any landing pages you may have. These pages are all designed to do something specific, so it’s your job to evaluate them on occasion to make sure they’re accomplishing what you want/need them to do.
Your analysis should start with the simple things like checking all of the links to make sure they’re working, checking that images look good and that the copy reads well. You should also evaluate these pages to see if they could be working harder for you. Could your CTA use a reboot? Try out a new form style or get new copy written. Could your “Buy Now” buttons use a facelift? Consider a new UI kit. You get the idea.
You don’t have to spend a ton of time on this but revisiting your most important pages periodically helps to ensure you’re getting the most out of your content. Here’s a few posts about content analysis and building better content in general, all year long:
- Creating Beautiful and Effective Landing Pages with WordPress
- 17 Simple Marketing Tips and Tools to Boost Your WordPress Business
4. Implement A/B Testing on Your Best Content
You know those top performing pages we identified a bit ago? Now’s the time to take a look at them again and identify the ways in which you can improve them. While you can just randomly make changes and hope something increases their effectiveness, a much better approach is to use A/B testing.
Setting up A/B tests on your top performing pages ensures you’re squeezing every last drop of goodness out of them. I mean, you’ve identified that these pages are effective. So, why not make them work even better?
We’ve talked a lot about A/B testing here in the past, so there’s no need to rehash the details. Here are a few posts that cover the topic in depth so you can get started with setting up your own tests ASAP:
- 11 Best Tools for A/B Split Testing in WordPress
- How to Improve the Effectiveness of Your WordPress Post Titles
- Stop Guessing and Start Testing Your Content for a Successful WordPress Site
- Using Heat Maps to See Exactly Where Visitors Are Clicking On Your WordPress Site
5. Update Your 404 Page
If you haven’t already, now is definitely the time to work on customizing your site’s 404 page. A fun design can make a big different here, but something cutesy won’t cut it if it doesn’t actually direct wayward visitors back along the path to the appropriate page. Input your site’s URL incorrectly a few times to see what comes up. If you have suggested searches on your 404 page (which you should) ensure these links are relevant to the content you were trying to view.
The 404page plugin is a good choice for customizing what visitors see when they type in the incorrect URL. And you can add a custom search to this page with the Relevanssi plugin.
We’ve talked about 404 pages here in the past, particularly regarding how to remove broken links and the branding opportunity they provide:
- How to Fix (Or Remove) Broken Links on Your WordPress Website
- Why WordPress is the Ultimate Platform for the Self-Employed
6. Develop a Content Plan for Q1 of 2016
Whether you consistently follow an editorial calendar or you just wing it, right now is the time to start getting organized and implementing a sustainable content plan for 2016. You don’t have to plan out the whole year—a month or two at a time will suffice—but having more than just a scattered list of post ideas somewhere will truly help you to build a more effective content strategy overall.
Instead of being stressed out constantly at the prospect of creating new content and all that entails (writing the post, scheduling it, creating graphics, scheduling social media posts, etc) you can go about the process much more methodically. Plus, if you know what your weeks and months will look like ahead of time, it’s a lot easier to place your focus on creating quality content. Instead of writing posts to fulfill a deadline obligation, you can create posts that really speak to your intended audience and do a lot more toward converting your readers into subscribers and/or customers.
Here are a few posts on managing content:
- 10 Plugins to Make Managing WordPress Content Easier
- How to Run a Successful WordPress Blog (And the Tools to Help You Do It)
- The Secrets to Writing WordPress Posts That Convert
- 10 Ways to Set Up Hidden Premium Content in WordPress
7. Review Previous Posts & Pages and Update for SEO Changes
Search engine optimization is an ever-changing animal. And you have to stay on top of those changes if you want to see your site rank and perform well. While this can feel daunting (especially if you put off this sort of maintenance) it doesn’t have to be if you address it now. Before the new year begins, take a look at the most recent SEO best practices and compare how your site measures up. The most recent was a refresh of Panda, by the way, which wasn’t an update but still affected 2-5% of search queries. And remember, a plugin can be helpful here for managing on-page SEO. Something like All-in-One SEO Pack can make it so you never forget a meta description again.
For more insights, check out these previous posts on search engine optimization:
- 20 SEO Experts You Should Be Following To Stay On Top
- Tracking Your Ranking in WordPress Just Got Awesome
8. Evaluate Your Lead Capture Strategy
If you’re not already capturing leads on your site, now is the time to start. Don’t let another potential lead “leak” from your site ever again by implementing a lead capture strategy that works. To get started, you’ll need to get set up with a subscription service like MailChimp or AWeber. Then, add a signup form to your site. There are many plugin-enabled widgets that make this possible.
If you’ve already got these details covered, consider creating a landing page to drive conversions for a specific component of your site. Want to offer a free downloadable ebook to increase your subscriber base? Make a dedicated landing page for this very purpose. Want to do a marketing push for a specific product you sell? Make a sales page that entices visitors into clicking “Buy.”
You can even add pop-ups, slide-ins, overlays, sticky bars, and welcome mats to your site to give visitors more opportunities to sign up. Though you probably shouldn’t use all of these solutions. Because that would be intrusive. And a little weird.
A few recent posts we’ve done that can help you get going with lead capture strategy include:
- The Best WordPress Pop-Up Plugins to Help You Get More Subscribers
- 10 Beautiful WordPress Landing Pages (And the Plugins They Were Built With)
9. Review Your Maintenance, Security, and Backup Plans
Another thing you need to take a look at before the year is over is your maintenance, security, and backup plans. If you don’t have a regular maintenance schedule for your site(s) implement one now. You can schedule automatic plugin, theme, and core file updates if you want but if you’re afraid an update will break your site, it’s a much better idea to go about this manually. Still, you’ll want to add it to your to-do list each month. Checking to see if there are updates at least once a week is wise.
Likewise, you should also review your security and backup plans to make sure everything’s in working order. Is your site’s security plugin working? Are you receiving proper notifications? And perhaps, more importantly, are you acting on said notifications when the need arises?
Finally, are you backing up your site regularly? Does your backup plan include restoration features? Now’s the time to evaluate what you’ve been doing (or haven’t been doing) and come up with a plan for the future. Not to worry, I won’t leave you hanging. We have plenty of posts on these subjects to help you set up and follow maintenance, security, and backup protocols.
- The Complete Guide to WordPress Plugin Maintenance
- 10 Tips For Keeping a Squeaky Clean WordPress (And Multisite!) Database
- 12 Ways to Secure Your WordPress Site You’ve Probably Overlooked
- WordPress Security: Tried and True Tips to Secure WordPress
- How to Backup Your WordPress Website (And Multisite) Using Snapshot
- 11 Best Free Quality Backup Plugins for Protecting Your WordPress Site
10. Learn JavaScript, Deeply
I’d hope you’ve watched (or, at least, read the highlights) from WordPress co-founder Matt Mullenweg’s State of the Word 2015 by now. But one thing everyone has been talking about without end is the homework assignment he gave developers at the end of his address: learn JavaScript.
And it makes sense. With REST API now a part of WordPress Core and the reveal of the WordPress desktop app Calypso, it comes as no real surprise that JavaScript will become a major part of WordPress in its future iterations. That’s why 2016 is the time to learn it. And right now is the time to plan how you’re going to accomplish that.
There are plenty of online courses out there for learning JavaScript, but before you shell out cash, make sure you check out some of the resources we’ve collected here:
- 13 Killer JavaScript Resources to Get Up to Speed for WordPress
- Adding Scripts and Styles to WordPress the Right Way With Enqueueing
- Using AJAX With PHP on Your WordPress Site Without a Plugin
11. Brush Up on Best Practices
When you’re caught up in the daily grind of developing and building websites, it’s easy to forget the fundamentals. That’s why it’s a good idea to take a bit of time at the end of each year to brush up on the basics. Dive into the WordPress Codex and re-read parts that are a bit fuzzy. Do a few tutorials you come across in your blog reading as practice. This is a good way to remind yourself of the “right way” to build sites.
Shortcuts are great and all, but not if they come at the expense of your site’s functionality, speed, or security. Here are a few useful guides to get started:
- The Essential Guide to Launching a Killer WordPress Website: Part 1 – Structure
- The Essential Guide to Launching a Killer WordPress Website: Part 2 – Design and Functionality
- The Ultimate Mega Guide to Speeding Up WordPress
- Best Practices For Managing Your WordPress Site: The Ultimate Guide
12. Create Goals for 2016
This is sort of generic advice but it’s important to note. Creating goals can make all the difference in terms of how focused you are. I mean, if you don’t have goals, you’re just going to be sort of floating along, right? You might succeed, but..at what exactly? If you don’t have goals, you won’t know the metrics to use to figure out if you’re successful or not.
So, spend some time right now jotting down what you want to accomplish with your WordPress site in 2016. Increase unique visitors? Increase subscribers? Increase sales? All of the above? Whatever it is you want to accomplish, no matter how big, write it down.
Your next step is to break down this big, seemingly impossible goal into smaller steps. And each of these steps should be assigned a deadline. Make them difficult but realistic. Taking the time to do this will give you a leg up on the competition and ensure you have a clear path forward into the new year.
How will you prepare for 2016? Will you follow the advice outlined here or do you plan on just winging it into the new year? Or, do you have a different idea of preparation altogether? Tell us about your ideas and plans for the New Year in the comments below.
Hosting for Travel Blogs
Those who know me well are aware of my passion for traveling and digital nomadism. During my travels I've met tons of people who already have a travel blog or plan on starting one to document their world travels.
Of course, WordPress is the platform I recommend. Travel bloggers are usually not tech geeks so they need something simple and straightforward to set up. They prefer concentrating on the photography and travel stories that they wish to share with all the world.
With the choice of WordPress sorted, the next question I'm usually asked is what hosting to use. I don't hesitate in giving an answer to this question either, it's always "Sign up with SiteGround". They're my favorite host for many reasons, but the number one reason is definitely their amazing customer support.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)