Tag: wordpress

How to Speed Up WordPress with 15 Tips (2023)
One of the biggest issues WordPress website owners face is a slow website. When your website is lagging, it can affect placement in search engine ranking pages (SERPs), cause your visitors to leave and never return, and can even affect your conversion rates. In this post, we’ll offer fifteen tips (and some bonus ones) to speed up WordPress.

Let’s get started.

Why Should You Care About WordPress Speed?

The first and most critical thing to remember is that no one likes a slow website. It doesn’t matter how fancy it is; if it doesn’t load in under 3 seconds, most people will bail and never return. A high bounce rate is detrimental because you could miss out on sales, lose potential customers, and even scare off those who frequent your site.

Another downside to a slow website is a poor position in the SERPs. Google uses core web vitals to gauge how well your site is performing. If your site loads slowly, Google will penalize you heavily, pushing your site’s content down in search results. One of the most important metrics to watch is the time to first byte (TTFB), which measures how long it takes to get the user’s browser to the first byte of info from your site’s server.

Lastly, if your site is slow, it could discourage visitors from purchasing, signing up for a newsletter, or even reading a blog post. Generally, a slow site translates into unhappy customers who aren’t willing to give you their time, much less their money.

How to Speed Up WordPress

Throughout this post, we’ll provide you with actionable ways to increase the speed of your site. Before we get to that, though, let’s discuss an important first step to measure how your site is performing so that you can take the necessary steps to correct it.

1. Conduct A Speed Test

The first thing you should do when you notice your website lagging is to perform a speed test to measure its speed and performance. There are a few you can use, including GTmetrix, Pingdom, and Google’s Page Speed Insights.

To demonstrate the process, we’ll walk you through using GTmetrix to run a scan. Copy and paste your website URL into the text field (1) and click test your site (2).

It will take a few minutes for the scan to complete. Once finished, you’ll understand why your site is not performing well. GTmetrix measures things like performance, structure, largest contentful paint, total blocking time, and cumulative layout shift:

Breaking Down the Results

Using the screenshot below, we see we have a couple of issues with our test site. Within the performance tab, we can see that our site is struggling with a higher-than-recommended largest contentful paint score, along with a page index speed of 5.1. This means that it takes 5.1 seconds to load our page, with the largest element taking a whopping 7.8 seconds to fully load. As a general rule, your site should load in less than 3 seconds to keep visitors on your site.

We can gain insight into what is causing our site to load so slowly on the structure tab. As you can see, we have several images that are way too big, causing our page to load slowly. In addition, a few large network payload issues due to javascript files that are hogging resources.

The results you see will vary depending on the needs of your site, but as you can see, GTmetrix will provide you with all of the necessary information so that you can take steps to speed up WordPress.

2. Choose the Right WordPress Hosting Provider

One of the best ways to speed up WordPress is by choosing a fast hosting provider. One of the best, SiteGround, is one of the fastest hosting providers available due to its Google Cloud infrastructure and Nginx webserver. Unlike Apache, which is still utilized on a lot of websites, Ngnix has performance enhancements that make it much faster than its counterpart. Another advantage of SG is its custom PHP and MySQL setup, which makes sites hosted on it blazing fast.

Regardless of the hosting partner you choose, be sure to check what speed-enhancing features they offer before signing up.

3. Optimize Core Web Vitals

As mentioned, you should familiarize yourself with Google’s core web vitals and what each means. These metrics are crucial to your website’s success in search results, so staying on top of these is a must. To help you understand what each does, here’s a simple definition for each:
- Largest Contentful Paint (LCP): The time it takes to load the largest image or text on a page.
- First Input Delay (FID): Measures the time from a user’s first click to when the browser begins to process the response.
- Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS): Measures unexpected layout shifts on the page. When a visible element changes its position from one frame to the next (layout shift).
- First Contentful Paint (FCP): Measures the time needed to load the page once the first element (text, images, videos, etc) loads.
- Interaction to Next Paint (INP): Assesses a page’s overall response to user interactions (clicks, taps, etc.)
- Time to First Byte (TTFB): Calculates the time it takes between the request for a resource and the first byte of information loading.
4. Choose Premium DNS

In addition to hosting, choose a reputable domain name registrar, such as Namecheap, who offers a premium domain name system (DNS). Premium DNS is a paid service offered by DNS providers to enhance the performance, security, and reliability of a website’s domain name resolution process. Basically, DNS translates human-readable domain names (like elegantthemes.com) into IP addresses that computers use to locate servers on the internet.

Premium DNS offers several advantages over free DNS services, such as faster performance, enhanced security, better reliability, DDoS protection, and more customization options. Premium DNS providers often have a more extensive network of servers that are strategically located around the world. This helps reduce the time it takes for a user’s request to be resolved, resulting in quicker loading times.

5. Keep Your Site’s Database Clean

Another way to speed up WordPress is by keeping your site’s database clean. Over time, post revisions, comments, and other orphaned data can build up, bloating your site’s database and adding unnecessary bulk. To ensure a speedy, clutter-free database, consider installing a database optimization plugin, such as WP-Optimize.

WP-Optimize is an all-in-one solution for cleaning your database, compressing images, and minifying clunky CSS and JS files. When you keep your database optimized, you can limit potential errors that may arise, all while holding image and script file size in check. Before optimizing your database, be sure to make a backup first. Failure to do so can result in database errors, which could break the connection between your site’s files and database.

6. Use a CDN

image via VectorMine | Shutterstock.com

If you’re looking for ways to speed up WordPress, incorporating a content delivery network (CDN) is an excellent option. A CDN is a collection of computer servers used to store website files. It typically encompasses servers worldwide, serving your website’s files to visitors based on their location. By delivering files from the closest point to your site’s visitors, your website will load much faster. CDNs work as a failsafe, too. For example, if one server housing your files goes down, another can swoop in and save the day, ensuring your site stays up and running. Depending on your hosting provider, you may already have access to a free CDN. Most reputable ones, like SiteGround, offer a free CDN to their customers as part of a hosting package.

7. Cache Your WordPress Website’s Files

When it comes to speeding up your WordPress website, adding a caching plugin can definitely help. Every time a user lands on your site, the browser sends a request to your website’s server to view the pages. Depending on how many images, videos, and other elements you have, that can take significant time. When you use a caching plugin, your site’s files are temporarily stored and served to your visitors much faster. Most managed WordPress hosting providers will provide caching with a hosting plan, but for those who don’t have that option, plugins like WP Rocket are an excellent option.

8. Minify CSS, JS, and HTML

When you minify your site’s CSS, javascript, and HTML, you can reduce page loading time, making visitors and Google happy. While it won’t be a drastic difference, when you combine minification with other tips on this post, your site will be screaming fast in no time. Minifying these files removes unnecessary characters in your site’s code, cleaning it up and serving them more quickly when called by the browser. There are several ways to go about it, including online tools, manually (which is not recommended), or by using a plugin. Most speed optimization plugins, such as NitroPack, will do all the hard work for you, ensuring your site loads fast without breaking the code.

9. Enable GZIP Compression

image created with Divi AI| Photoshop AI

Despite having caching and image optimization tools, enabling GZIP compression on your website can further enhance its speed. GZIP, a compression technique, reduces the size of resources like web pages, stylesheets, and JavaScript files by compressing them before transmission. This minimizes data transfer, resulting in quicker loading times. When a browser requests a page, the server checks for GZIP support. If supported, the server compresses files before sending. Upon receipt, the browser decompresses and displays the content. GZIP not only accelerates WordPress but also improves bandwidth efficiency and SEO. Some caching plugins like WP Rocket enable GZIP automatically. Others, like WP-Optimize, offer it but require manual activation.

10. Optimize Images

One of the biggest speed hogs in WordPress is images. If not sized correctly, they can obliterate your TTFB. They can also hurt SEO and your rankings in the SERPs. To avoid this, always ensure that your images are sized correctly. While you can do this manually, sites with hundreds or even thousands of photos require a more practical solution: an image optimization plugin. These plugins work by resizing existing images and automatically resizing the ones you upload. A good option is Ewww Image Optimizer, which resizes images as you upload them, removes embedded metadata, and uses lazy-loading to compress your images. In addition to that, it can convert the images on your site to WebP format, which will drastically reduce image file size.

11. Host Videos Outside of WordPress

image via YoGinta | Shutterstock.com

Videos are great for marketing, are perfect for introducing your brand to the world, and provide interest for your site’s visitors. That said, they will kill your site’s speed. It’s best to host videos outside of WordPress, like on YouTube, Vimeo, or Amazon S3. If you use a theme like Divi, you can embed YouTube and Vimeo links in design elements, but for others, you’ll need a YouTube plugin.

You take the pressure off your web server to do the hard work by embedding videos with a link. YouTube works fine for embedding videos in your site, but if you want to use video backgrounds, you’d be better served using Vimeo. While it does require a paid subscription, it offers tools to strip the branding from your videos, offering a more streamlined experience for your users. If you want a side-by-side comparison of the two, check out our Youtube vs. Vimeo post to help you decide which is best for your situation.

12. Minimize the Use of Plugins

WordPress plugins are a great way to add new functionality to your WordPress site but should be used sparingly. As a general rule, you should only use absolutely necessary plugins. One common mistake new WordPress users make is trying out different plugins, then leaving them installed on their websites. It’s best to only use what is needed, deactivate and delete plugins that aren’t in use, and always run a database cleanup after uninstalling them. That way, you cut down on database bloat, keeping your site running smoothly. In addition, be sure to always keep your plugins updated. Outdated plugins can lead to security vulnerabilities, which can entice hackers to do harm. That said, be sure to update plugins safely to avoid unnecessary downtime.

13. Keep PHP Updated

One of the most overlooked speed-boosting steps you can take for your WordPress site is to update PHP when needed. PHP updates are released periodically, with older versions being discontinued regularly. It’s important to keep PHP updated for several reasons. First, an outdated version of PHP can slow your site down. As updates are released, they usually contain performance-enhancing features to help WordPress process requests more efficiently. Secondly, outdated PHP can be a severe security risk. With hackers and nefarious actors always looking for a way in, having crucial software like PHP updated is a must. Another consideration is the number of PHP workers on your server. If PHP is up to date and you have a resource-heavy website, it might be time to contact your hosting provider and ask how many PHP workers are running and whether you can add more.

14. Stay on Top of Comments

Another overlooked aspect of WordPress is comments. Although comments alone don’t typically affect site speed, when combined with other factors, comments can be a source of sluggishness on your WordPress site. To keep comments in check, consider installing a comment plugin along with routine cleaning to ensure that your site’s database isn’t filled with hundreds (if not thousands) of unnecessary comments. Using a database cleaning plugin along with a comment plugin, such as Akismet, is a great way to moderate comments, engage with your users, and keep the spam out and bloat minimal.

15. Pick the Right Theme

Last but certainly not least, choose a fast WordPress theme, like Divi, to help speed up WordPress. You should keep a few things in mind when looking for a new theme. First of all, is it responsive? A theme that works well on any screen size is a must considering Google adopts a mobile-first mentality regarding search engine rankings. Secondly, opt for a theme that offers performance enhancements through code minification, dynamic framework, and other speed-boosting features.

With Divi, you’ll get all of those things and a lot more. A few features include a dynamic framework that allows loading only what is needed – on the fly. Additionally, Divi’s CSS is dynamic, too. It’s broken into hundred of smaller components, then combined on each page to produce a fast-loading website that only uses what is necessary rather than loading the entire stylesheet. In addition to dynamic CSS, Divi offers Google font caching and asynchronous Javascript and removes unneeded resources, such as emojis. If you’re looking for a WordPress theme that’s efficient and has the design chops to create the site of your dreams, Divi is the way to go.

Bonus Tips

In addition to the tips above, there are a few other things you can do to speed up WordPress:
- Turn off automatic updates: Although this may seem counterproductive, it’s best to update plugins manually, as leaving auto-update on involves a constant background process which can slow your site down.
- Disable trackbacks and pingbacks: WordPress comes with a feature in settings > discussion that enables trackbacks and pingbacks. While they can be useful, they can also be a speed-sucker. Therefore, it’s recommended to disable them.
- Limit the number of posts on the blog roll page: If site speed is an issue on your blog, consider limiting the number of blog posts you feature on any one page. Remember, your browser has to load every element on a page before delivering it to the browser, so if you have a lot of posts on one page, you could be causing your site to load slowly.
- Enable object caching: A type of server-side caching, object cache involves storing database queries to serve specific data within a server request. When enabled, there will be far fewer requests made, thereby speeding up WordPress.
- Delete unused images: Leaving unused images on your site can cause massive slowdowns. So if you aren’t using them, get rid of them.
- Manage cron jobs: Cron jobs are useful for setting up automatic tasks, but using too many of them can really slow your site down. Try to limit the number you create to keep background processes at a minimum.
- Optimize Google Fonts: Google fonts are great for UX but not so much for page speed. Follow these tips to keep your site running optimally when using Google fonts.
Final Thoughts on Speeding Up WordPress

WordPress is the most popular CMS in the world but left unchecked, it can be slower than molasses. That’s why it’s important to take steps to ensure that it’s running optimally. A slow WordPress site threatens your position in the SERPs and could result in lost revenue. With a good hosting provider like SiteGround and a few strategic plugins like WP Optimize, your site will be screaming fast, have a better chance at ranking well, and will keep visitors on your site, ensuring more conversions and an overall better user experience.

Need more tips? Check out a few of our posts to increase your knowledge of WordPress:
Featured Image via Kapralcev /Â shutterstock.com

The post How to Speed Up WordPress with 15 Tips (2023) appeared first on Elegant Themes Blog.
07.09.2023
Combining Notion and WordPress: A New Way to Manage Content & SEO

In the digital content realm, the right tools are pivotal. Notion excels in planning and teamwork, while WordPress is renowned for user-friendly publishing. By integrating both via Notion WP Sync, we’ve streamlined content creation: plan in Notion, publish on WordPress. This seamless blend requires understanding databases, plugins, and data connections, ensuring a smooth transition from content planning to publishing.

The post “Combining Notion and WordPress: A New Way to Manage Content & SEO” first appeared on WP Mayor.

07.09.2023
This Month in WordPress: August Roundup
The last month of summer was productive for both the WordPress community and Hostinger.

We saw some exciting updates â€“ a new WordPress version, an additional feature in Hostinger AI Assistant, and a sneak peek into an upcoming default theme.

In addition, some crucial security vulnerabilities were fixed, meaning you might need to update some of your plugins.

Without further ado, letâ€™s dive into the WordPress August roundup.

Hostinger AI Assistant Updates

We’ve updated the Hostinger AI Assistant plugin â€“ now, it is even easier to generate content with it. Youâ€™ll notice a new What do you want to make today section in the main interface with three drop-down menus.

These enable you to select the following parameters:
- Content type. Whether for a post or a page, you can select any content type you want, including posts for WooCommerce products.
- Tone of voice. Choose from casual, neutral, or formal tone options to align with your brand.
- Content length. Adjust your post’s length based on your requirements â€“ be it a short product description or an in-depth article.
In addition, weâ€™ve refined the user interface. You can find the Add New with AI button on the post editor and posts sidebar menu for quick access to the AI Assistant.

WordPress Updates

WordPress released its new version and gave us a teaser of the future default theme.

WordPress 6.3 and 6.3.1

The anticipated WordPress 6.3 finally arrived on August 8, aiming to finalize block editor customization improvements. Here are its highlights:
- Patterns. The introduction of synced patterns replaces reusable blocks. You can now create both synced and regular patterns in the block editor without an extra plugin.
- Command palette. Navigate through the Site Editor effortlessly with the new command palette feature. Simply type the task or panel you need and select it.
- Style revision. The new style revisions feature saves your past edits complete with their time stamps, making it easy for you to revert back the edits.
A few weeks later, WordPress 6.3.1 was released to address critical bugs, including issues with the new footnote block.

Be sure to update your WordPress version â€“ doing so is the best way to avoid any security vulnerabilities and enjoy the latest features.

New WordPress Twenty Twenty-Four Default Theme

Alongside 6.3, the development of the new default theme, Twenty Twenty-Four, is underway. The plan is to ship this new theme with the next major release â€“ WordPress 6.4, coming in November.

Unlike its predecessors, Twenty Twenty-Four is developed to suit three use cases â€“ business, portfolio, and blog. This means that the theme will come with more patterns for the home template for all use cases, including project overviews, RSVPs, and landing page-specific patterns.

For a sneak peek of this upcoming theme, visit the WordPress Core blog post.

WordPress Community Summit and WordPress US 2023

Two major WordPress events unfolded in August. The Community Summit took place on August 22-23, and WordCamp US followed soon after, from August 24-26.

During the Community Summit, contributors from around the world gathered to discuss various topics and issues about the WordPress project and community. The summitâ€™s main goal is to strengthen the overall WordPress open-source project and improve the contributors’ workflow and cross-team collaboration.

In total, they discussed 26 topics, ranging from contributor leadership roles in the WordPress project to diversity and inclusion within the teams. Check out the Summit blog for summaries and key points of the event.

WordCamp US took place after the Community Summit, in which we proudly participated as a super admin sponsor.

Personally, I find the following three keynote sessions very insightful:
- Making Large Language Models (LLMs) Work for You. Simon Willison explains how LLMs work and their use cases. He also provides tips on how to use AI without falling into any pitfalls.
- Future of WordPress. Josepha Haden Chomposy talks about whatâ€™s currently happening in WordPress and how the community can drive the future of WordPress.
- Whatâ€™s Next in Gutenberg. Matt Mullenweg discusses what has been achieved with Gutenberg and the plan for the project. He also addresses a Q&A session with the audience.
Besides these, the whole WordCamp is packed with useful sessions and workshops. All of which you can watch on the WordCamp YouTube channel.

WordPress Vulnerability

Letâ€™s wrap up last monthâ€™s roundup with WordPress vulnerability news. Weâ€™ll highlight some of the high-severity vulnerabilities from the Patchstack database.

However, as thousands of plugins are available, we recommend always keeping them updated. If youâ€™re using Hostinger, be sure to check the WordPress vulnerability scanner on hPanel.

Forminator

A popular form builder plugin with over 400,000 active installations, Forminator was prone to arbitrary file upload that let attackers upload a malicious file to the website as a backdoor.

The vulnerability affected version 1.24.6 and lower. If you use this plugin, update it to at least version 1.25.0.

Gutenberg Blocks by Kadence Blocks Plugin

Gutenberg Blocks by Kadence was vulnerable to arbitrary file upload, similar to Forminator.

However, the vulnerability in the Gutenberg Blocks plugin was rated 10 in CVSS 3.1 and is known to be exploited. As a result, its 300,000+ users should update to version 3.1.11 immediately.

Whatâ€™s Coming In September

Even though WordPress 6.3 was just released, weâ€™ll see the beta version of WordPress 6.4 coming in late September. We can expect to see the new default theme on that version and some of the early features for the Gutenberg phase three â€“ online collaboration.

Stay tuned for Septemberâ€™s roundup!

The post This Month in WordPress: August Roundup appeared first on Hostinger Blog.
07.09.2023
14 Best WordPress Website Design Companies (And How to Choose the Right One)

If youâ€™re setting up a WordPress website, you may need help with its aesthetics. WordPress website design companies can help ensure that your site will look great on all devices and provide a strong user experience (UX). However, there are a lot of options, and you might not be sure which WordPress design agency to […]

Read More…

The post 14 Best WordPress Website Design Companies (And How to Choose the Right One) appeared first on Hostinger Tutorials.

06.09.2023
What is WordPress? Start Here (2023 Beginners Guide)
Whether or not you’re in the website business, chances are high that you’ve heard of WordPress at some point. The reason is simple: it’s the most used platform to build websites. With 43% of the market share, it seems like every other website you come across is built with WordPress. In this post, we’ll explain what WordPress is, its features, the types of sites you can create with it, and its benefits. Let’s dive in.

What is WordPress?

WordPress is a content management system (CMS) that is built using PHP and MySQL. It is open-source, which means everyone can use it. It’s also constantly improving, which makes this a reliable option for building your website.

How it Works

WordPress mainly focuses on the backend of your website. It creates the foundation for you to build the front end of your website. These are the two important things needed to have a functional WordPress backend on your website:

1. WordPress Core

WordPress core consists of the files and code needed for the WordPress installation. Without WordPress core, your website won’t work. These need to be installed before anything else.

2. Database

There needs to be a database supporting your website as well. Luckily, most good hosting providers come with one-click WordPress installs. During this install, they automatically generate a database for your website. If you were to install WordPress on your website manually, you’d need to create the MySQL database as well.

Who Created it

WordPress is owned and operated by Automattic. It was created in 2003 by Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little. WordPress grew mainly because of its open-source nature. Because of the community of developers contributing to WordPress, it grew into the most-used platform for creating websites nowadays.

Who Uses it

As mentioned before, WordPress is open-source. This means anyone can use it and modify it to their convenience. This makes WordPress a go-to for building a wide variety of websites. Generally, WordPress is used mostly by:
- Bloggers
- Small business owners
- Freelancers
- Agencies
Main Features

We’ll get into the advantages of WordPress further down the post, but let’s highlight some key functionality of WordPress. Once WordPress is installed on your website, you’ll get access to the WordPress dashboard. This is what that looks like:

You’ll navigate different parts of your website using the sidebar on the left.

Built-in Page, Post, and Project Custom Post Types

WordPress is very intuitive. It provides you with a streamlined structure you can use for your website. There are some recurring post types that you might need for your website. Pages is one of those. Think of it this way: whatever type of website you create, chances are high that you might need more than 1 page. Some websites have hundreds of pages on them.

The need for multiple pages creates an organized way to create and organize them. That’s why there’s a custom post type assigned for pages. You can add a new page and manage the existing pages in this area. You can perform bulk actions, set parent pages, and more.

The same counts for posts (particularly helpful if you run a blog or blog area on your website), and projects.

Grouping these under a particular custom post type also helps you style them. You can create templates and assign them to a specific post type. Many premium themes, like Divi, provide you with a Theme Builder that allows you to do just that. You get to style every aspect of your website and basically create your own “theme,” in many cases, without needing a single line of code thanks to full site editing.

Themes

WordPress themes allow you to give your website a unique look. There are thousands of free themes that you can install directly through the WordPress dashboard, or you can install a premium theme, such as Divi. There are themes for nearly any type of website, including business, blogging, real estate, directories, and ecommerce websites.
Plugins

WordPress plugins allow you to add extra functionality to your website. Thousands of plugins are available in the WordPress repository or by third-party developers. Each one has a specific focus and depends on what type of site you need, but there are some essential plugins that any WordPress website owner can benefit from. These include plugins for SEO, backing up your website, caching, analytics, and adding social media.

Dynamic Menus

You can also create dynamic menus for your website, which is useful for learning management systems and membership sites where you want to restrict content at the user level. These can include menu items for logging in and out, ecommerce menu links, and more.

Media Library

WordPress comes with a media gallery where you can add images, audio and video files, pdfs, and more to use within your website. You can also edit media files and add metadata for titles, captions, alt tags, and more through the media gallery. If you want added functionality for your files, you can install one of these media gallery plugins.

WordPress.org vs. WordPress.com

When talking about WordPress, we usually refer to WordPress.org (unless specified otherwise). While these two come from the same source, they have some notable differences. We have a separate post that goes into detail on what the differences and similarities are.

But in short, WordPress.com is entirely separate from WordPress.org. It is a hosting plan provided by the creators of WordPress.org, Automattic, and is a suitable solution for bloggers starting small. WordPress.com is much more limited than WordPress.org, with many more rules for ad placement, themes, plugins, and more.

WordPress.org, however, refers to the WordPress open-source software you can install on any website you build, no matter what hosting provider you choose. You also own your website and its data, and you can easily transfer it to another host if you want to. It’s the most-used content management system (CMS) in the world and is highly customizable.

What Kind of Websites Can You Build With WordPress?

Whether you’re a beginner or not, you can build a wide range of websites using WordPress. Let’s go through some of the most popular options WordPress is used for.

Business

Those embarking on a new business venture or needing a good platform to build on will love WordPress. As mentioned previously, it’s open source, so there are a ton of plugins and themes, like Divi, to help you stand out from the crowd. In addition to that, it’s SEO-friendly, has great support, and is mobile-friendly. Because of this, Google loves it. Using an SEO plugin like Rank Math, you can easily add keywords, metadata, and schema to help your business rank higher in the search engine ranking pages (SERPs).

Ecommerce

WordPress is the way to go to sell products on your website. Thanks to plugins like WooCommerce, you can easily add physical or virtual products. Plugins, such as Dokan, will allow you to create a complete marketplace that enables users to create their own stores within your site. There are also ecommerce or WooCommerce-specific themes, like OceanWP that come with WooCommerce and a payment gateway pre-installed so you can get your site up in a few minutes.

Blogs

When WordPress was introduced in the early 2000s, it was primarily a blogging platform. Therefore, it’s an excellent platform for communicating your message. You can write and publish posts within minutes and easily share them on your social media platforms for greater exposure. Although there are other blogging platforms, such as Blogger and Medium, no other platform is as customizable.

Portfolios

Using WordPress to showcase your work is a great choice if you’re a photographer, graphic designer, or web developer. Out of the box, WP allows you to embed videos, image galleries, and other media, so creating a portfolio website is a breeze. You can use a generic WordPress theme to feature your work or a portfolio theme, such as Bridge, to give the world a glimpse into your creative body of work.

Learning Management Systems (LMS)

In addition to more broad-spectrum websites, WordPress can create the most elaborate learning management systems. With LMS plugins such as LifterLMS or Learndash, you can create courses, quizzes, and lessons, add a paywall, and sell access to your content.

Alternatively, you can create an LMS using Divi, using one of our layout packs, and the Restrict Content Pro plugin.

Membership Sites

WordPress is a great choice if you’re looking to build a membership website. Through a membership plugin such as MemberPress, you can create membership levels, assign content to those levels, and make money.

Forums

Forums are excellent for building an online community of like-minded individuals. Using WordPress and a forum plugin like CM Answers, you can easily bring your forum to life in a few steps. CM Answer’s PayPal and Stripe integration allows you to monetize your forum, providing a good way to earn extra income.

Why You Should Use WordPress

There are many reasons why WordPress is the most popular tool to build a website. Let’s go through some of the most important ones.

Free

First of all, WordPress is free. It’s open-source, so you won’t have to pay a dime for it. To create a website that matches all your criteria, however, you’ll likely need to buy premium products that go with your WordPress website.

So, yes, WordPress is free, but depending on your customization needs, there are hidden costs like themes and plugins. And let’s not forget hosting. Any website you want to share with the World Wide Web must be hosted somewhere. Some free hosting options exist, but you’ll most likely want something more fitting. If you’re looking for a suitable host, make sure to check out our top recommendations when it comes to WordPress hosting.

Extensive Customization Options (themes, plugins, etc)

As previously mentioned, WordPress comes with nearly unlimited customization options. WordPress is the most customizable CMS on the market, using themes, plugins, custom CSS, and HTML. Whether you’re a beginner or a seasoned web developer, you can use WP to build the website of your dreams.

Easy to Use

Another benefit of WP is its ease of use. For new users, there is a learning curve. That said, it doesn’t take long to learn WordPress. Once you get the hang of creating posts and pages, you’ll be amazed at how easy it is to build a website.

Extensive documentation (WordPress Blogs, Tutorials, etc)

While the platform does have a slight learning curve, there are countless tutorials and blogs out there (like ours) to help you along the way. This is especially true for our own theme, Divi, which has an extensive documentation library with more than 90 easy-to-follow tutorials that will help you become a WordPress guru in no time.

SEO Friendly

One of the reasons WP is so popular is because of its SEO-friendly nature. Out of the box, it comes with features that make Google happy. For example, WP alerts Google whenever you upload new content to your website. Because of this, WP websites are more likely to get a bump in the SERPs faster than a static HTML site would. Combining WP’s built-in features with a quality SEO plugin like AIOSEO allows you to add keywords, metadata, and rich snippets. You can also add a good SEO tool to track your keywords, analyze rankings, and look for opportunities to improve your search engine rankings.

Speed

WP is pretty speedy out of the box. That said, it will need some help if you use video, images, or other media content. Thankfully, there are excellent speed optimization plugins, such as WP Rocket, that will make your website a speed demon. Another way to ensure your site’s performance is by choosing a fast WordPress host.

WordPress Hosting Options

Choosing the right hosting is one of the most important decisions you’ll make for your website. With the right hosting, your website will be fast, secure, and stable. Without one, you risk losing visitors due to slow loading times. Not only that, you expose yourself to malware, bots, hackers, and downtime.

What is WordPress Hosting?

WordPress hosting is a type of hosting that is optimized for WordPress. Generally, WP hosts use specific technology geared towards WP websites, which includes the necessary security, speed, and performance requirements. Most quality hosts include one-click WP installs, backups, free site migration, caching, and security features such as a web application firewall (WAF), DDoS protection, and malware detection.

Types of WordPress Hosting

Several types of hosting are available for WordPress, including shared, managed, cloud, and VPS. Small informational sites may be able to get away with shared hosting, but for those looking to build their business over time, it’s a good idea to choose a host that can grow with you, like SiteGround or Cloudways.

Top 3 Hosts

There are dozens of hosts available for WP, but we highly recommend a few.

SiteGround

SiteGround is our go-to for hosting. It’s optimized for WordPress, is based on Google Cloud, and has speed enhancements like caching, a free CDN, and custom PHP to improve page loading speed. You can’t go wrong with an affordable starting price of $14.99 monthly and features such as free migration, SSL, and business email. They also offer advanced security features, including daily backups, malware and DDoS protection, and a web application firewall.

Pricing: Starting at $14.99 per month.

Get SiteGround

Pressable

Founded by the same people who created WordPress, Pressable is the ultimate solution for managed hosting. They offer a 100% uptime guarantee, so you’ll never have to worry about your site going offline. Additional features include a proprietary CDN to enhance site speed and an automatic server failover that switches your site to a new server at the first sign of trouble. There’s also 24/7 support, daily performance monitoring, free backups, staging and SSL, and hack recovery assistance should you need it.

Pricing: Starting at $25 per month.

Get Pressable

Cloudways

The last host on this list is well-suited for site owners who plan to grow their business over time. Based on a modular pricing structure, Cloudways allows you to choose your server’s location, the amount of ram and bandwidth you need, as well as storage. The interface does take some getting used to, but we have extensive tutorials to help you along the way. Even though it’s considered managed hosting, more advanced users will appreciate being able to configure their server settings themselves.

Pricing: Starting at $12 per month.

Get Cloudways

Resources for Building a WordPress Website

By now, it is probably clear that WordPress is a community effort. Many users use WordPress daily, and countless WordPress creators try to help those users build the website they need. Let’s look at some of the best WordPress themes and plugins you should check out if you’re new to WordPress.

Best WordPress Themes

Just like there are different types of websites, different themes fulfill the needs. Generally, you get the option between two types of themes:
1. A theme specific to your niche
2. A multi-purpose theme
Especially the latter option is popular nowadays and usually goes hand in hand with a visual builder like Divi.

Depending on what type of theme you’re looking for, you can browse through our different posts with recommendations. Some of the most popular theme types are mentioned here:
Best WordPress Plugins

Every WordPress website has at least one plugin installed on it! But preferably, you’ll at least go for security and SEO plugins. There are other optional WordPress plugins, such as a YouTube plugin.

You can view all the top recommended plugin posts here. Make sure you pick out the plugins you need. In this case, more isn’t better. You want to prioritize the speed of your website, so carefully curating the plugins you decide to use on your website is a must!

Final Thoughts

We hope this post has helped you understand what WordPress is. One thing is for sure: WordPress is here to stay, and with its easy learning curve, understanding at least the basics is a must. You can build any website you imagine with WordPress, and it’s open source! If you have any questions or suggestions, feel free to comment in the comment section below!

Featured Image via Kris_Anfalova / Shutterstock.com

The post What is WordPress? Start Here (2023 Beginners Guide) appeared first on Elegant Themes Blog.
06.09.2023
WP Engine Managed WordPress Hosting Review

Explore our in-depth WP Engine review to uncover the advantages of choosing this top-tier managed WordPress hosting solution. From unparalleled speed and robust security to 24/7 expert support, WP Engine stands out as a premier choice for WordPress websites. Dive into real-time performance data, exclusive features, and see why WP Engine is a game-changer in the hosting world.

The post “WP Engine Managed WordPress Hosting Review” first appeared on WP Mayor.

06.09.2023
Mastering Event Management: Synchronizing Notion and WordPress for Enhanced Community Engagement

Streamline your vendor sign-ups for local events using Notion WP Sync and Advanced Custom Fields. This comprehensive guide provides a step-by-step tutorial on setting up these tools on your WordPress site, creating a custom vendor sign-up form, and managing your vendor data directly from Notion. Transform your event management process with this powerful integration.”

The post “Mastering Event Management: Synchronizing Notion and WordPress for Enhanced Community Engagement” first appeared on WP Mayor.

04.09.2023
How to Add Live Chat to Your WordPress Website in 2023
Adding live chat functionality to your WordPress website is easy and quite beneficial. Live chat has evolved considerably in recent years by incorporating powerful communication and automation features similar to popular AI chatbots. Whether you’re looking to boost sales conversions or integrate AI into your customer service process, using a live chat plugin or software on your WordPress site can be crucial to success. In this guide, we’ll show you the benefits of live chat, walk through how to add live chat to your website and look at the options available with live chat and WordPress.

Benefits of Using a WordPress Live Chat Feature on Your Website

Many rewards come with using live chat functionality on your website. Here are a few examples of what they can allow you to do:

Interact With Your Customers in Real-time – As the name implies, live chat takes place in real-time. Therefore, you can meet the needs of customers and visitors to your website as they come to your site. Your storefront may have set hours, and your phone line limited hours, but you can serve your customers at any time when they interact with your live chat.

Provide High-Quality 24/7 Support to Visitors to Your Website – If someone lands on your website after hours, your live chat can still service them. You can give your customers the help they need without getting out of bed through AI and automated responses.

Increase Conversions and Add Leads to Your Sales Funnel – Many live chat plugins allow you to add forms and collect information about customers who use the chat. To nurture later, you can retarget and add these customers’ information to your CRM, mailing list, or sales funnel.

Powerful AI Features for Various Automated Solutions – With the advancement of AI, some live chat solutions provide much deeper functionality and can help you create automated human-like conversations for a better customer experience.

I’m sure you get to experience other benefits of live chat first-hand once you add it to your site. On that note, let’s get to it!

How to Add Live Chat to Your WordPress Website

Now that we’ve seen some of the benefits of live chat let’s look at how we can bring this feature to your WordPress website.

1. Choose a Live Chat Platform

If you’re unsure which platform to use, check out our list of the best live chat plugins. There, you’ll find several plugins that could meet your specific needs. We’ll use the Tidio platform for this walkthrough, as it has a good mixture of features, support, and positive reviews.

2. Create a Tidio account

We must create an account before we add our Tidio live chat to our website. Visit Tidio and create your account by entering your email, website, and password.

Once you have created and verified your account, you’ll see the Tidio dashboard.

Now, we’ll move to our WordPress site to install and connect our Tidio account to our website.

3. Install Tidio Plugin

To install the Tidio plugin, hover over the Plugins menu item. Then, click Add New. Search Tidio in the plugin search field. Click Install Now next to the Tidio card.

Afterward, click Activate to complete the installation of the plugin.

Now that our plugin is installed, we can connect our website to our Tidio account.

Notice we have a new menu item just for accessing our Tidio settings.

4. Add API to WordPress website.

From your WordPress menu, click Tidio. Then, click on the Login link under the signup form.

Enter your Tidio account credentials and click Login.

Once logged into your account, you can start your chat widget’s customization process.

5. Create a New Chat Widget

To begin, you’ll need to create a new project in Tidio. Click on the Create One text link and give your new project a name.

After creating and naming your new project, you’ll have the opportunity to customize your chat widget.

You can assign a name to your chat agent and choose a solid or gradient color scheme. Additionally, you can set your chat language and upload a custom avatar to your chat widget.

6. Adjust Chat Settings

Now, click on the blue Continue button. You’ll now be faced with a short questionnaire. This will help Tidio know how to personalize your experience as you maneuver through the platform.

Select the focus, add the number of agents, select your industry, and finally, the number of inquiries your site gets. Next, you’ll want to set up your welcome message. You can customize your message to say something that is on brand with your website by clicking the Customize this message text link.

After setting your welcome message, click on the blue Install Widget button.

You’ll be redirected to your WordPress website once you click the Install Widget button.

7. Test Live Chat Widget

As with WordPress, testing the new feature you’ve added to your website is a good practice. To do this, navigate to your homepageÂ and see if the Tidio chat widget appears on your homepage.

Try sending yourself a message to see what that process looks like for your guests.

Now that we know our chat is installed and working on our WordPress website let’s look at some advanced settings and features we can implement with Tidio.

Additional Settings and Personalizations

With your new live chat installed, responding to visitors on your site is very simple. As you log in to your Tidio dashboard, you’ll see the mailbox icon in the top right. This is where you can see visitors on your site in real-time and respond to their messages. You can also see your chats on social networks should you connect them to your Tidio account.

Personalize Templates from the Tidio Chat Template Library

Tidio comes packed with templates that you can use to increase sales, generate leads, and solve your customers’ problems via live chat. To access these templates, click on the robot icon from the left-hand menu. Here, you can customize your automated responses for a smoother WordPress live chat experience for your customers.

Canned Responses and Notifications

You can access more complex features and settings of Tidio by clicking the gear icon at the bottom of the left-hand menu. Your frequently asked questions can be answered with custom canned responses. Under the General heading, click on the Canned Responses menu link. This is where you can edit and add new preset answers to your customers frequently asked questions. Here, you can refine your live chat process by having a library of premade responses that can solve your users’ questions on the fly.

Notifications can also be customized when using Tidio. You can choose how you’d like to be notified when a visitor lands on your website (email or web notification), and you can also determine what actions trigger notifications and the web notification sound.

Build an AI-Powered Chatbot

AI chatbots can help make customer service a breeze, andÂ Tidio is on the front lines of adding AI to the WordPress live chat sphere. With a Tidio+ plan, you can implement their AI chatbot Lyro, which can help you create innovative chat experiences for visitors to your website.

Establish Your Visual Branding

Further customization options for your widget are also available within Tidio’s advanced settings. Change your widget’s screen position, appearance, and more. Additionally, you can add custom branding to your widget, like your brand’s colors and logo, to mesh your chat widget with your WordPress website’s theme.

Set Your Live Chat’s Hours of Operation

While your live chat allows for 24/7 contact with your customers, you may want to set hours of operation for your chat widget. Tidio enables you to customize your operating hours individually for each day of the week. Additionally, you can customize your away message or attach a lead form that appears when a visitor encounters your site after hours.

That’s it. Now, your site is equipped with live chat!

Other Live Chat Options for Your WordPress Website

Tidio is a solid WordPress live chat plugin. However, you may need a different set of features that it may not cover. Here are some other WordPress live chat plugins and solutions that may be a better fit for your needs:
- HubSpot: The ultimate marketing platform, Hubspot has live chat functionality that is heavily integrated with other parts of its feature-rich CRM solution.
- JivoChat: An all-in-one business messenger plugin that brings together live chat, phone, email, and social media chatting platforms. Additionally, you can make and receive phone calls through its live chat widget.
- LiveChat: With integrations to eCommerce solutions like Shopify, WooCommerce, and BigCommerce, if you are running an eCommerce storefront, this is your live chat solution.Â
- Live Chat by Formilla: File sharing, real-time monitoring, and multilingual capabilities are just a few features that you can find with this live chat plugin.
- tawk.to Live Chat: Managing multiple websites, agents, and chats is where this chat plugin shines. Use your computer or mobile devices to stay connected to your website visitors.
- Chatra: Live chat, chatbots, email & social messaging can all be handled effectively with Chatra, a popular live chat solution that works with WordPress and as a standalone platform.Â
For more, check out the best live chat software options out there.

Conclusion

Live chat adds a powerful interactive feature to your WordPress website. Giving your customers a way to connect with you anytime is a great way to nurture client relationships and increase conversions. With the power of AI, the options are endless in the many ways you can customize your WordPress live chat process. Tidio is a great option to power live chat on your WordPress website. From AI to customizable automated messages, easy widget styling, and email marketing tools, Tidio is a solid choice to bring live chat to your WordPress website. Live chat functionality has come a long way. Now, you have a large selection of live chat tools that you can bring to your website. Have you added live chat to your website? What platform did you use? Let us know in the comments section below!

The post How to Add Live Chat to Your WordPress Website in 2023 appeared first on Elegant Themes Blog.
31.08.2023
Is WordPress a CMS? Hereâ€™s What You Need to Know

Is WordPress a CMS? The short answer is yes, WordPress is a CMS. However, the long answer is that there’s more to it than that. In this in-depth write-up, we’ll get into the nittty-gritty details and share some interesting facts about WordPress that you might find useful.

The post Is WordPress a CMS? Here’s What You Need to Know appeared first on Themeisle Blog.

31.08.2023
How to create a video website
There are many reasons why you may want to create a dedicated website for your videos. Perhaps youâ€™re selling a course that you want to put behind a paywall. Maybe youâ€™ve created a video series or podcast that requires its own branded home. Or maybe you just want to create an immersive environment for users to consume your video content, without the typical distractions of YouTube.

Whatever your goal, you can take two approaches to achieve this. You either use the automatically generated pages from a video hosting service or e-learning platform, or you build a dedicated website then embed your videos across it.

Using a video hosting service or e-learning platform

If you donâ€™t want the hassle of maintaining a website, this is the way to go. By using a video hosting service or e-learning platform, you can easily store your videos. These services are also useful if you want out-of-the-box monetization options for a video course.

Vimeo Showcases & Collections

Vimeo offers two ways of building out a quick video website:
1. Showcases allow you to put together an elevated playlist, which is ideal for a short series. Plus, you get to create a nice looking webpage to accompany it.
2. Collections are designed to support Vimeo OTT. This is a subscription service for those looking to monetize a library of video in a simple way. Itâ€™s priced at $1 per subscriber per month.
Sprout video

Sprout video offers a lightweight CMS that can be used to create a video website with multiple pages – and applied sitewide to a custom domain of your choice. Itâ€™s a great choice if you want a simple plug-and-play solution, and you have a fairly large library of video content that you want to categorise by topic.

If you have some CSS and HTML skills, you can customize Sprout videoâ€™s CMS somewhat. However, at that point you may be better off building a custom solution with WordPress.

Example video site from Sprout Video

Wistia Channels

Wistia Channels is a great solution if you have serialized video content that youâ€™re publishing regularly, like a podcast. Channels allows you to combine audio and video, and create a branded landing page that looks a bit like a video streaming service. Plus, it includes unique pages for each video.

You can run Wistia Channels on a standard Wistia account subdomain URL. But you can also embed it into any page on an existing website, if you use a simple JavaScript embed code – thereby straddling the options of video hosting service vs. own website.

An example of Wistia Channels in action

Kajabi

For video courses and courses that include videos alongside written content in particular, Kajabi is a great solution. It allows you to build a quick video website that you can easily monetize. Kajabi has a very simple WYSIWYG CMS that doesnâ€™t require any web development skills to use. Plus, it can be integrated with an existing website.

Example video site created with Kajabi

Creating a video website

If youâ€™d like to do something more custom, or integrate your videos as part of a bigger web experience, you could consider creating a website with a more traditional CMS before embedding your videos. The advantage of this is not only in being able to build something precisely to your design and structure specifications, but also in having a web property capable of driving traffic from organic search and organic video sources.

WordPress is the ideal base technology

In the vast majority of cases, the best CMS for creating a video portfolio, series or course website will be WordPress. With thousands of video gallery plugins and integrations with all the major video hosting platforms, WordPress gives you all the options you need for a custom video website. Plus, itâ€™s very simple and requires little technical know-how. You can very simply include videos from almost every platform in any page you created with the Gutenberg editor. Meaning: video can be part of the fabric of your WordPress site out of the box.

And if you use WordPress, you can also use the Yoast Video SEO plugin! The video SEO plugin ensures that your videos are indexed in Google, so you can drive more traffic to your website through video search.

Yoast Video SEO plugin

Options for integrating videos in WordPress

If you want to integrate your videos more elaborately within your chosen page types, there are a lot of great options out there.

LearnDash

LearnDash is a great plugin for a course-type video execution. It allows you to include videos from any source, like YouTube or Wistia, then create user playback triggers for course progression.

Wistia Channels

As with the standalone solution, Wistia Channels works really well as a way of creating a video gallery within any other page or page type. It creates unique URLs for every video within the gallery. These URLS are indexable by Google, which is great for your SEO.

All-in-one video gallery

This plugin is a bit like a mini CMS within a CMS. It allows you to build a fairly feature-rich video gallery experience within a WordPress website, bringing in videos from YouTube and elsewhere. All-in-one video gallery is a reasonable solution if you want a simple and traditional catalogue of your videos within a single page.

Example of All-in-one video gallery

In conclusion: building a video website is fairly straightforward and shouldnâ€™t feel intimidating. Whatever your needs, there are great options out there.

Read more: How to stop videos negatively impacting Core Web Vitals »

The post How to create a video website appeared first on Yoast.
30.08.2023