Wednesday 25 May 2016

5 Reasons to Keep Updating your WordPress Website Regularly


WordPress, as the most well-loved content management system on the internet, lives up to its name because legions of developers contribute to the core and work on updating it and making it better everyday. WordPress pushes out at least 2-3 major version updates (recognizable by all the news made and named after famous jazz musicians), and releases about a dozen or so minor version updates as security and maintenance releases.

Here’s why you should keep pace with this fast paced development and update your WordPress website as regularly as possible:

1. New features

Some of the features that could only be included in a WordPress website thanks to plugins in the platform’s older versions are now actually integrated into the core.

New features and fixes are the main attractions and focus-points of every version update. In WordPress 4.5, features like performance optimized images and inline linking, responsive previews etc. were integrated within the core. Other features like oEmbed support, new text formatting tags and shortcuts, even multisite compatibility were brought to core with updates, while before they would have depended entirely on the mercy of plugin, code snippet, or unimaginable entirely.

Make WordPress core (development forum) is always active and you’ll find it positively littered with feature discussions and even requests/ wishes from users like yourself.

2. Improved UI

WordPress core contributors make it a point to improve upon the existing back end admin dashboard user interface with all major and minor version updates that are undergoing discussions and taking place. Responsive previews aside, WordPress core always comes with sleeker but otherwise unnoticeable interactions in your admin dashboard that let you streamline your workflow and publish your content with any hassle.

3. Theme/Plugin Compatibility

Chances are that a popular, and good theme or plugin will be updated as soon as WordPress core releases an update. Basically, all good theme and plugin developers keep pace with WordPress updates.

This means that most of the best and latest themes and plugins will be unable to work on ‘old enough to be obsolete’ versions of WordPress.

4. Performance

WordPress also deprecates some of the more repetitive or redundant functions and calls, making coding easier for your one of the best WordPress customization company. There are also new functions and script libraries and elements added to the core with the aim to improve performance as well as give your developers more stuff to work with.

5. Security

This is the most important reason why you should update your WordPress website.

Despite the practice of responsible disclosure, hackers do find out the core vulnerabilities of a previous version and try to exploit them. This puts every WordPress website powered by that specific WP version at incredible risk. Also, this happens on all platforms. At least WordPress is prompt with responding to the problem.

Security and maintenance patches are released for every major version update to cover as much extra ground as possible to keep your website secure. Make sure you update your WordPress site as soon as update is available.

EndNote

Core WordPress aside, you should also work to keep your WordPress themes and plugins updated to their latest versions for the exact same reasons mentioned above. It’s one of the 5 commandments of basic WordPress maintenance and makes your site healthier – always a good thing in the long run.

Monday 9 May 2016

Static HTML website or Responsive WordPress Theme: What to Choose?


Nowadays, business owners are creating fully-fledged websites to maximize the sales and productivity of their business. A site gives an ideal way to promote and convey their organizational messages to a large number of people effectively and efficiently.
Although there are several content publishing platforms out there on the web, picking out the best and most reliable option is always a tough job, especially for beginners. People usually get confused between the WordPress sites and Static HTML sites. They always want to know the benefits of using WordPress over a static site.

Obviously, both the methods help you create a beautiful business site, but still there are some basic differences that apart them from each other. With that in mind, we bring you this blog post where we will compare the WordPress with the static or HTML site and find out the best option for you. Today, more and more people are switching their website from, HTML to Wordpress theme and enjoying the hassle free CMS.

WordPress: A Popular Content Management System

WordPress is considered to be the most preferred CMS as it powers more than 75 millions of sites on the internet.

WordPress is an open source content publishing tool written in PHP. It was started back in 2003 as a blogging platform, but now it has evolved as one of the most robust content publishing platforms.

It allows you to create anything from a content-based site to an eCommerce site, without even paying a license fees. It comes with millions and thousands of convincing themes, plugins and extensions to let you build a custom website, without any heavy lifting. You can customize your site from the user-friendly and intuitive admin area. Even, a beginner can create, develop and manage their WordPress site.

Besides its popularity, some users get confused between the WordPress.org with WordPress.com.
WordPress.org is a self-hosted platform that you can use it for free. Here, you are responsible for your site maintenance, means you have complete control over your site. On the other side, WordPress.com is a hosted platform. It means all the sites are maintained by WordPress.com itself.

Let’s explore the benefits and limitation of using WordPress.

Benefits of WordPress sites

1. Easy to Operate/Update

One of the biggest benefits of using WordPress is its user-friendly functionalities. Yes, you can add, customize, update and delete the content of your site with ease.

You just need to log in your WordPress site and add new pages according to your needs, without any technical guidance or assistance. It includes an intuitive user interface that makes it super easy to add or update web pages in a matter of few minutes.

2. Fully Customizable - Comes with Thousands of Themes and Plugins

WordPress is a powerful platform that offers a ton of stunning themes and plugins (both free and premium) to help you build a purpose-oriented website with ease.

There are loads of beautiful and fully responsive themes to let you create a unique site for your business. These themes offer various customization options that you can use to tweak the design, layouts, font size, color backgrounds, and even structure of the site, without getting your hands dirty in coding.

Similarly, WordPress plugins allow you extend the functionality of your site according to your business needs. It gives you the flexibility to add anything- from social sharing icons to contact forms. You can boost the functionality of your site by installing the most relevant plugin into your WP site.

3. Excellent Community Support

WordPress comes with an extensive and supportive Community. It is supported by millions of users, experienced designers, and developers, who have already developed many WordPress projects.
You can ask your questions on the support forums and they will solve your WordPress related query within 24 hours.

The Downside of WordPress

1. Maintenance is completely in your hands

If you choose WordPress, you need to regularly maintain or update your WordPress, installed themes and plugins. You are completely responsible if something goes wrong with your site.

Note: You can also utilize the managed WordPress hosting who will manage your site on regular basis.

2. Uses lots of Resources

A WordPress installation alone is useless. You need to install a theme and a bunch of few plugins to run a business site effectively. Well, it is not difficult as WordPress offers plenty of themes and plugins. But the use of too many plugins could break down the speed of your site.

In fact, WordPress also uses an extensive number of resources than a static HTML site unless you hire a reliable WordPress hosting service provider.

Static HTML website: A traditional way of building site

HTML is the markup language, which is used to represent web pages. You can find many websites using HTML with different markup and scripting languages to build web pages.

Developing an HTML site is not as easy as you think. You may need to hire a professional web developer who can develop HTML site for you. They build sites using HTML, JavaScript, CSS and other advanced tools and technologies.

HTML pages are static. This means if you want to change or tweak the design of your entire site, you will have to access the file for each page manually, and make the changes accordingly. The entire process is time-consuming and requires a lot of coding skills.

Now, let us look at some benefits and limitation of creating an HTML site for your business.

Benefits of using a static site

1. Run a site with low resources

HTML sites usually don’t require servers with MySQL or PHP installed on them. You can run them on a low-priced server with low resources. However, you can find many good web hosting providers who offer top-notch PHP and MySQL support.

2. Require less maintenance

Once your site gets launched, you don’t need to worry about regular backups and updates. If nothing is updated, you can simply backup your site once and forget about it. You don’t need to perform the same task again and again.

Downside of HTML sites

1. Increases your Costs

Having a static HTML site simply means you need to spend more money on hiring experts who can help you in developing and managing static site. This will increase your overall development cost.

2. There is no updates

If you are novice static site owner and want to upgrade your site, you need to learn the HTML and CSS programming languages. Or else, you need to hire a developer who can develop a site for you. They can add new pages, update old content, and upload videos and images into your site.

Which is the best option? WordPress or HTML

Now we are familiar with the advantages and disadvantages of both the website. Let’s explore the best option for your business site.

If you are sure that you will never want to update or customize your site, then static HTML site is a good option for you.

But if you want a flexible and user-friendly option, then you should go with WordPress. Here, you can create, manage, update and modify the content of your site on your own, without any coding skills. In fact, WordPress is also an ideal platform for those who want to expand their business site to generate more money.

Conclusion

Now it’s completely up to you whether you want to go with HTML site or use WordPress to create user-friendly business sites. You can choose the best option as per your requirements.