Faster WordPress Site With Cloudways and WPMU DEV Plugins

12 November,2016 SEO Tips, Wordpress No Comment Author: Marie

I Made My WordPress Site 1311% Faster With Cloudways and WPMU DEV Plugins..

I received a 1311% speed hike by installing on my server Cloudways controlled cloud hosting in association with Hummingbird & Smush Pro plugins. Ever since Hummingbird was introduced we have compiled so many new ideas. Take a peek at the project page to discover every latest feature. Look out for Hummingbird.

You were fed into thinking that optimizing your portal for speed is vital. Ultimately 40% of persons won’t spare 3 seconds for the loading of your front page, whereas Google sets a time of 2 seconds for loading of your site, but you should actually go for 500ms for the maximum SERP ranking.

However, really attaining quick page speeds is extremely deceptive and time taking. I ponder, what the thing a render blocking resource is? (Certainly, that’s a pompous question, but do you recollect the time when you first encountered it on Google PageSpeed Insights?)

Hence, on being asked to evaluate Cloudways’ administered hosting service, I was doubtful. The reality is, I dislike writing reviews on item I don’t prefer, I simply can’t perform such a task, therefore I informed Cloudways that if anything didn’t convince me I would let it be known to them. However, they presented me with a test account somehow…. and to my surprise…and let truth prevail, I was unbelievably thrilled when I viewed the pace at which my demo website functioned speedily after adding our Hummingbird & Smush Pro plugins to the lot.

Hence, let’s take the challenge. This is how I kick started my portal 1311% quicker employing cloud hosting with Cloudways and also our Hummingbird and WP Smush Pro plugins,- and how my web pages loaded at the bat of an eyelid (within 300 to 400 milliseconds) Continue reading

Best Tips on Building a WordPress Website with SEO

14 January,2016 SEO Tips, Wordpress No Comment Author: Marie

In this post, we will be talking about the most efficient, easiest and the most useful tips in creating a WordPress website with SEO.

WordPress is a versatile and easy to use platform. It is already search engine enhanced, however, it is important to understand that there is no such thing as CMS or search engine friendly website.

Eventhough WordPress is a search engine optimized platform, the SEO or Search Engine Optimization work needs to be done to make it more efficient and obtain the best results. We can always choose to switch to WordPress, but this is not an automatic guarantee that our website will move to the top of the search engine results. We need to take help from the SEO guide to make our website’s position in the search engines better.

It sometimes becomes hard for the business owners and the entrepreneurs who have a very little technical knowledge or information about the SEO, to differentiate between ‘search engine friendly’ and search engine optimized’ process. The business also tends to spend a lot of money in the CMS as they believe it to be inclusive of all their SEO needs.

However, WordPress provides a practical platform to start your website. You can incorporate the most effective marketing materials in your website if you are using WordPress and that too with a very little expenditure of cash. This is possible only if you have the skills to manage and get to know the features of WordPress, however, you can learn all of these very easily by studying about it.

Installing an SEO Plug-in is merely the starting point, most of the time, you’ll still need help from a search engine optimization consultant or SEO consultant. To, be precise SEO is a procedure which remains constant, it will be your task to incorporate it with the materials you want to initiate in your promotion.

There is no such thing as a WordPress plug-in that includes all the SEO components.

Search comprehension, understanding of the procedures to enhance the SEO process step by step in your promotion should be the major concern. The SEO professional must be careful to save you from some costly errors which might occur during the process. The professional must be there for you for a long time, whether an employee or a consultant from an agency, he/she must be able to help you in executing the best strategies to get the best results.

You might feel the need of adding some fast- moving pictures in your website. However, flashing submissions are a big no as they can induce convulsions. But again, if you need to add something that quickly flashes on the screen, please make sure that you also give the reader an option to stop it and replay it as many times the user wants to.

These are some quick tips that would help you build a good WordPress website.

(Source)

WordPress BbPress Features

10 June,2015 Wordpress No Comment Author: Marie

BbPress is a WordPress plugin that acts as a forum application. Forums allow focused discussions among users. A Forum application can be used to manage forums in blogs and CMS sites. BbPress is an easy to learn WordPress plugin that powers up forums. It was developed by WordPress developers.

BbPress helps you transform a CMS into an effective forum. It gives all the standard features of a forum. It is easy to configure and install. It has many features that make it the most popular forum application. It is also very easy to maintain the forums using bbPress.

Some of the main features of bbPress are explained below.

User permissions

User permissions are important for any forum. BbPress presents a solid permission system. It helps you limit the usage of your sites as per your wish. You can place restrictions on certain users and limit their usage.

BbPress makes use of WordPress’s default permissions system. The five roles predefined by bbPress are:

Keymaster – The admin role; has all rights.
Moderator – Moderator has all the rights of admin except the delete forum right.
Participant – The default user role.
Spectator- Read only rights
Blocked-Users who are blocked access to the forum.

How to Improve the Security of Your WordPress Blog

30 March,2015 Wordpress No Comment Author: Marie

WordPress is one of the famous blogging platforms. It is used by approximately 61% of the CMS systems worldwide. Securing it is a big challenge. There are hundreds of hackers every day trying to break into popular sites such as WordPress. Here in this article you will see a few tips to protect your WordPress blog.

Secure your login

First and foremost, keep your credentials secure. Your login details should be complex to guess. They have to be protected. Do not use common words based on your usual routines or personal details. Choose complex passwords with combinations of special characters and numbers. Weak passwords are an easy entry.

Host using secure protocols

Choose to host your site on a secure platform. This will need security protocols like HTTPS to be used to access your site. But this is more secure than normal hosting. A lot of hosting service providers offer this for an extra premium. But the cost is worth the damage. Secure hosting prevents malicious entries. It secures your site by allowing only credential users.

Kick out viruses and malware

Get your systems free from malware. Malware or Spyware are malicious programs that peep into your system directories. They cause damage and are prone to viruses. Install your systems with proper anti-virus or malware programs to secure them. Eliminate the systems if they are virus prone. This avoids viruses being transmitted across your site.

Use your user name

The simplest way to secure your site is to have your user name to access. WordPress provides admin access. Admin access provides complete rights to the users. Have an email or a username to gain entry. This will prevent brute-force attacks. Have a quick check on the install scripts that use admin as username. Rewrite them to have your user name as an access name. And also remember to secure the access with a strong password.

Authenticate it 2 ways

Another way that web sites use is to provide a 2 way authentication mechanism. This means the access to the site is in two levels. First level involves an entry and the second level provides the access. Both the levels need to be authenticated. Even if one fails, the access will be denied. Adopt your WordPress site to have a 2 way security mechanism. This is very important if you access the site from multiple devices such as phones, tablets and computers. This may take a while to gain entry. But adding one more level to the security is safer.

Add a firewall

Make infra changes. This will include the addition of firewall or hosting your site on a secure VLAN, etc. These are specialized security mechanisms available to protect your WordPress site. A firewall will deny access when originated from unknown or untrusted IP addresses. The firewall also prevents certain malware programs to gain access.

Limit login attempts

Many users limit their login attempts to prevent denial of service attacks. Hackers generally try and login multiple times to bring down the system. When continuous login attempts are made, the system is busy entertaining the authentication and stops from responding to other requests. Thus, an easy way to secure is to limit the login attempts to your site. This will ensure that access is allowed with a certain number of retries. Also, it is good to limit the simultaneous logins for your site. This would mean limiting the number of devices you can login from at the same instant. These limits ensure that your WordPress site is accessed from a trusted device and by your trusted user.

Always update to latest version

WordPress updates multiple versions for their sites. Always ensure you are running your site on the latest version. This will secure the system with the latest security updates. The plugins that have been an integral part of the ecosystems also need updates. By updating to the latest versions, you will ensure your site is free from outdated plugins. This will make your site not vulnerable.

Plan backup for contents

Always plan a backup for your contents. With the latest trends in internet blogging, you may not predict the hacking patterns. It is a good practice to back up the contents. This will take care of any accidental damages to your site. Accidental damages would also include physical damages. Plan a periodic backup. So any loss due to damages will be a small delta. And that may not cause a big loss of your site. It also helps to get your site back up quickly after an attack.

Hide your user directory

Limit the users from browsing your user directories. This is one of the most powerful features of WordPress. So limit these features to show the users the directories they need. Do not provide universal access to the directories. Hide your name as part of the URL from the users. This puts your site to a major risk as the attackers can gain access to your user directory.

Keep it simple

Keep it simple. The simpler your site is, the easier it is to manage. Tracking and monitoring any accesses and attacks become easier. Also, it is easy to have a periodic snapshot of activities on your site. This dashboard will help you analyze the patterns of access and take actions accordingly.

How to Choose the Right Webhosting Company

8 March,2015 Wordpress No Comment Author: Marie

Hosting your business or personal website has become easier nowadays. Many companies provide lucrative offers and discounts to host your web site. The web hosting companies play a pivotal role for your website to get highlighted. This helps your website to have more traffic. It increases your revenue as the numbers of visitors grow. But the challenge lies in choosing the right hosting company. There are many factors you will have to consider before signing up your domain with the provider. This article will provide you with the factors that will help you in choosing the right webhosting company.

Image/dreamweavertutorial.co.uk

Find your hosting purpose

Firstly, you need to know the purpose of hosting your website. Is it for business? Is it for your personal presence on the internet? How much traffic you expect towards the site? Is there any special software required? Is there any storage space required? You need to know the needs before you host the website. This will help you in choosing the right hosting provider as per your needs.

Ask for availability & hosting options

Once you know your needs, you will need to see how much of an uptime is required for your site. Business sites require a 100% uptime. Personal sites need not require the same availability. The availability of your site helps in determining of the infrastructure. It could be a server grade high end platform. Or a simple desktop based hosting as per the availability required. The pricing also varies according to the infrastructure.

The infrastructure plays a great part. It helps to minimize cost, maximize traffic as per the needs. You also need to know if your site can be shared, dedicated or be based on the cloud. Blogging sites and personal sites are usually shared. Sites for business are usually hosted using dedicated servers or VPS hosting. You will have to determine if the provider has options to upgrade your hosting services.

Go for multiple domains

When you choose to host your site, look for multiple hosting domains from the hosting service provider. Multiple domains help you leverage the internet. It helps you in a better way by rolling out location based services, localized reach. Having multiple domains for a single host account is cost effective than having multiple accounts for multiple domains. This also reduces the confusion and complexity. It helps maintaining various host accounts at a later stage.

Combo with advanced features

Do not just finalize your hosting provider for basic features offered. Check for advanced features such as automation of your websites, auto installers, FTP access, http security, SSL certificates and SEO friendly hosting. Hosting is not all about space and domain. It should help you in reaching your business out to a wider audience with added comforts.

Read renewal, refund & suspension policy

Look out for renewal and refund on the pricing policies from the service provider. Usually renewals should be cheaper. There should be a provision to change your hosting type with the addition or removing of features as per your needs. Needs change with the type and so is your website. Choose your hosting provider who allows this. Go for easy renewal or refunds without hassles in case your hosting needs are not met.

One most important thing to check along with renewals is the terms and conditions towards account suspension. Some hosting services suspend your hosting accounts. Reasons include use of more CPU power, hosting space, etc. If your need is to have your web site up and running smoothly, you need to ensure the suspension of accounts is not enforced so strongly and for silly reasons. Read the terms and conditions carefully before signing up for services.

Integrate site with Emails

Email is an important thing. Check for offers on integrated email services along with the web hosting services. In usual cases, web hosting account should have email accounts. Clients can reach out to you using the email account using the hosted domain name. Ask your hosting company about the additional charges for the emails if any. Most of the service providers provide atleast one email account along with hosting accounts.

Look for backup, support and customer care

It is important to ensure that your site contents are backed up and statistics are available for your website. Choose your provider who has a periodic backup of the site contents. Look for redundancy policies and infrastructure for your critical business needs. The provider should also have an incident reporting and management system to raise concerns regarding maintenance of your web site. Check for the maintenance intervals and the down time offered by your hosting provider. Choose the provider offering shorter downtimes. The provider should have a scheduled maintenance periods and notifications sent to you. This will help you keep your clients informed about the maintenance periods.

Check for the support provided and availability of 24/7 customer care from the provider. This is vital to get your website running anytime.

Check for the subscription period

Check for the subscription period. Some of the companies charge per month and some by yearly subscriptions. It is easy to start with a small time frame to host your site. Move towards a larger timeframe slowly as you get comfortable with the hosting service provider. Also check for the option of changing your subscription periods after you have signed off with the hosting company.

Consider all these factors before choosing a right web hosting company.

7 of the Best WordPress Plugins for 2015

1 March,2015 Wordpress No Comment Author: Marie

If you are looking for the best WordPress plugins for your website this 2015, you may want to check out this list. These WordPress plugins were proficiently handpicked by the experts.

WordPress SEO by Yoast

WordPress SEO by Yoast is not your ordinary SEO plugin. According to the experts, it is your complete website optimization tool package. It lets you do a lot of thing like adding up appropriate titles and effective descriptions to the articles.

At the same time, this plugin also allows users to do page analysis,insert open graph Meta data, publish xml sitemap, and more. It is also easy to install and to setup.

Out of the box, this plugin is already a reliable platform. Do some tweaks and improvements, and it will definitely give you more that you can ask for. The good thing about this plugin is that it requires you to select a focus keyword for your articles, and it then makes sure that the focus keyword is used everywhere.

Backup Buddy

According to SEO experts, one of the easiest to use, user-friendly WordPress backup plugin is the Backup Buddy. Its features include a quick setup for automatic backup scheduling for yoursite. This means that it gives you the option to use the cloud to store backups so that you can sleep worry-free with the knowledge that every single content you have is effectively backed up.

W3 Total Cache

If you are very much concerned about your website’s speed in search engine rankings, then you need a very reliable WordPress plugin like W3 Total Cache. This plugin is guaranteed to help in optimizing your WordPress website for speed and for performance. It also give you the ability to effortlessly setup browser and page caching, compress the pages so that downloading is easier, and also to setup content delivery system for static files. This plugin is also the only WPO (WordPress performance Optimization) framework that was designed specifically to boost page speed and user experience

W3 Total Cache plugin improves your site’s user experience by boosting server performance, decreasing download times and by providing transparent CDN or content delivery network integration.

Gravity Forms

If you are just starting on managing your WordPress website and you want a plugin that you can easily use, then Gravity Forms is what you need. This plugin is said to be the most beginner- friendly and developer-friendly WordPress plugin. It is very useful in adding virtually any type of online form intoyour WordPresssite. This plugin also comes with add-ons that are powerful enough to let you make online survey, web directory, user-submitted posts, orroughlyanything that requires user input.

With Gravity Forms, you can create and publish your WordPress forms almost instantly. No hard work, just fast and simple form-building. You can easily choose your fields, effortlessly organize your options and smoothly embed the forms on your site with the use of built-in tools.

OptinMonster

One of the best lead generation WordPress plugins in the market today is the OptinMonster. This plugin allows users to build stunning optin forms and beautiful pop-ups for their WordPress websites. Additionally, it converts users into regular subscribers. It also comes fully-packed with great features like analytics, split testing, page-level targeting, and exit intent technology.

Edit Flow

Another great WordPress plugin is the Edit Flow. This WordPress plugin provides an effective editorial workflow organizational structure for WordPress sites. It also allows users to do extra tasks like, see their editorial calendar, organize authors, leave editorial remarks, allocate posts and many more. It has special features like; Calendar, Custom Status, Editorial Comment, Editorial Metadata, Notifications, Story Budget and User Groups.

Soliloquy

Wordpress Plug-in Soliloquy

When it comes to responsiveness, one of the most recommended WordPress plugins is the Soliloquy.Some slider plugins usually slows downthe websites and that can really hurt SEO ranking. On the other hand, this particular plugin is considered as one of the fastest slider plugins as it loads sliders at roaring fast speeds. This plugin also comes fully packed with special features and it even has afree version that can be instantly utilized for trial use. When you use this plugin, you have the ability to enjoy a hassle-free WordPress website management as it is especially designed in such a way that it is highly focused on usability, reliability and efficiency. It is created in a way that it fuses functionality and simplicity into one powerful and useful slider engine.

There are, of course several other WordPress plugins that are available today. If you really want to have an easy to set up website that is also easy to manage, you can truly rely on one of the WordPress plugins that are mentioned here. After all, these plugins are chosen by the experts. This means that there is no doubt that they are all efficient, powerful, easy to use, and can guarantee high search engine rankings and increase of potential subscribers.

Why Should You Use CDN for your WordPress Blog

22 February,2015 Wordpress No Comment Author: Marie

We have discussed in our previous post that one of the important factors that make a good website, is the website speed. We have pointed out the fact that website visitors like websites with good loading speed and only feel frustration over the slow-loading ones. A slow loading website is likely to lose visitors over a fast-loading one. Do you now see how important a website loading speed is?

There are many ways to do that can help you make your site load faster, and in this post we will talk about CDN, something that will help you a lot in speeding up your website loading speed.

What is CDN?

CDN or Content Delivery Networks is a network of servers (usually located in various parts of the world) that cache the static content from websites such as images, videos, audio clips, css, and javascript files.

How it works?

When a user requests your site, the server closest in proximity to that user will deliver the static content. This ensures the shortest distance for the data to travel, therefore providing the fastest site experience for the user.

Source: technatter.com

Why Should You Use CDN?

The number one reason for using a CDN is to improve your user’s experience in terms of speed, and as we have discussed in one of our posts, speed matters a lot. This can lead your visitors and prospect customers not to come back to your website anymore because it loads very slowly.

A CDN is best used for those websites that get visitors from different parts of the world. Just for example, if Simpliolabs.com is hosted in North America, GTmetrix (free tool that analyzes your page’s speed performance) test might report fast based on the default test location. However, if a good number of users are coming from Asia, their speed will not be as fast.

CDN would allow users from Asia to download the static content from a closer source or server. CDN not only ensures faster experience to your users but it as well, prevents site crasher when the traffic on your site surges.

Another positive outcome of using CDN is the lessening of bounce rate. This simply means that when readers all over the world try to access you blog, there is a very high chance that they will be able to see your blog. If there is a higher chance for viewers to see your blogs, that is tantamount to more page views. Finally, if there are more page views, then your blog will be more popular due to the added hits.

Every blogger’s goal is to achieve popularity status. With the help of CDN, it can be achieved. Since it lessens the chances of viewers of not reaching the site and it also increases the viewing speed, then the result is increase in page views. The increase in page views will amount to higher ranking with search engines. When this happens, the blog will experience a very positive cycle – more page views means higher search engine ranking and higher search engine ranking means more page views.

When higher search engine ranking is achieved by a website or a blogger, then the blog will become global. This means that anyone from any part of the world with internet access can and may view your site. What’s exciting about this is since your scope is broad; you have higher chances of not only earning more, but also inspiring more people. If you want to achieve such status, it is better to avail of a CDN that has wider coverage. For you to know which CDN to get, you must check the countries where you get the most hits.

Not only does the use of CDN potentially increase your chances of earning more and inspiring more, it also decreases your expenses. When you use CDN, it makes loading faster and running the server faster too. Due to this, you do not need to continuously upgrade your computer’s hardware for example RAM or hard drive or improving your CPU in general. If you were to weigh spending for CDN or spending for computer parts, it is cheaper to go for the former than the latter.

In Summary

There is no negative effect in availing a CDN for your WordPress blog. Using a CDN increases your chances of getting more views, which then increases your chances of getting higher search engine rankings, which ultimately increases your chances of owning a global WordPress account. Again, it is important to know where your hits are coming from so you can use the best CDN option for your website. Also, know the all the potentials that a CDN may bring to your website so that you can optimize its services. Do not only use a CDN to speed up your page. Use it to optimize your viewer’s experience so that you may leave a mark to every viewer in the world.

Effective WordPress Plugins that Facilitate Design

21 August,2013 Wordpress No Comment Author: Nir Appelton

A web designer, regardless of their competence and natural intuitiveness, will rely on a number of effectively designed WordPress plugins to ensure they achieve the required functionality to obtain the best results possible. A website run on WordPress allows a designer to streamline their work process to a far greater extent than other designers can. However, the plugins must be researched and well chosen in order to achieve real functionality. The reason for this is that there are a large number of them to choose from, each with its own driven and exact purpose. This article will highlight some of the more popular plugins and detail their created purpose.

The Approaching Progress of WordPress 3.6

29 July,2013 Wordpress No Comment Author: Nir Appelton

The release of WordPress 3.6 is imminent and restlessly anticipated. The blogging tool and content management system plug in can boast that over eighteen million downloads of its 3.5 version have employed and enjoyed by grateful users all over the world.

BlogSimplio Labs Blog

Faster WordPress Site With Cloudways and WPMU DEV Plugins

Best Tips on Building a WordPress Website with SEO

WordPress BbPress Features

How to Improve the Security of Your WordPress Blog

How to Choose the Right Webhosting Company

7 of the Best WordPress Plugins for 2015

Why Should You Use CDN for your WordPress Blog

Effective WordPress Plugins that Facilitate Design

The Approaching Progress of WordPress 3.6

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