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.

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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.

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Why it is Essential for User to buy a Premium WordPress Theme

In Envato’s Power Elite Wall of Fame, every single spot is taken by a WordPress developer. Considering that WordPress-centric products can be covered in 2 subsidiaries (out of total 7), that’s saying a lot.
 

WordPress is open source through and through, but that doesn’t mean that any ‘related’ products are free too. It’s an undisputed fact that premium WordPress products sell like hot cakes. There’s nothing shady about it. It’s just one of the few ways to earn money through open source technologies nowadays. There are entire empires built similarly on WordPress.
 

The Question you’re asking as a user, of course, is why should you buy a premium WordPress theme (like all the other people spending their money to line developers’ pockets) when you can get a perfectly fine one for free.
 

Bet I can answer that and change your mind about usefulness of premium WordPress themes in four points.
 

Advantages:
 

• Design:
 

Looks do matter. Come on, be realistic – you are vying for attention on a medium that is literally chock full to the gills with endless entertainments/information/et al. You think boring, lifeless designs are going to cut it? No.

I am, by no means demeaning the free themes, but the designs of a premium WordPress theme are unmatched not only in stunning looks but also highly customizable options that can be easily worked by non-coding users.

• Support:
 

Anyone who has ever faced a technical problem during WordPress setup and lost 5 years of their life worrying over it will agree that professional support is the best thing ever.
Although the community is great and you can get answers, the unspoken implication is eventually. With premium themes, you don’t have to ask for help from anyone and wait till a Good Samaritan comes along to lend you a hand.


• Updates:
 

Premium WordPress themes are almost always updated in sync with major (and even minor) WordPress core updates. That’s why the WP Core development team releases the ‘Release Candidates’ before the main event – so users whose entire sites are running on premium themes and plugins could be spared if they have responsible developers who will update the theme functions and more in conjunction.
The new features are just icing on the cake.


• Unique Features unavailable as plugins:
 

The best description for this point is an example. The theme JobListing (available at themeforest.net) is a directory/board theme for WordPress, and the kind of features it has are unique to it.
 

While plugins give you functionalities, premium themes often have unique features which only work for theme users. This creates less compatibility issues, smoother performance, singularly amazing WordPress theme customization options, and as a bonus, makes your competition green with envy.

EndNote
 

The competition keeps the field of premium WordPress themes almost crackling with endless variety. Developers know that to sell better, their themes have to BE better. The most a free WordPress theme signifies is free time on a developer’s hand or a random experiment.
 

It’s obvious now, isn’t it?

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Top Benefits of Opting for WordPress Development

There’s no shortage of articles across the internet which supposedly tell you what to stand to gain from custom WordPress development.

This post isn’t like them. 

Instead of raving on about the ‘SEO benefits’ and ‘responsive design’ and ‘cross-platform compatibility’, which, let’s face it, are standards features you can get from thousands of good themes and plugins, this post will seek to come straight to the point.

What exactly do you as a business/agency owner stand to gain from bespoke WordPress solutions?

What “Custom WordPress Development” means:

To clear some notions; WordPress development usually includes one or both of the following:

• Custom Theme Development

Editing/rewriting the code of your existing theme or creating a custom theme from scratch

• Custom Plugin Development

Installing/implementing existing plugins (free or premium), editing the code in those plugins so for error-free performance, and creating a custom plugin from scratch

WordPress customization is for creating a website that you want, without errors and issues. That translates to remodeling the look, feel, and functionalities.

There are additional services your WordPress development company could provide. None of them would include “conversion rate optimization”, “competition assessment”, “better content” etc. Those are nothing but meaningless rehashing of your business goals which a development company will have nothing to do with anyway.

WordPress customization: A Metaphor

So instead of buying a suit from, say, Walmart, you are getting a ‘tailor-made’ suit created specifically for your ‘measurements’.

Here’s where it gets interesting: You are the one who has to create a strategy for online success; the development company only implements it on your website. Basically: The developers will lead the horse to water, but you’ll have to make it drink.

Benefit of WordPress Development:

You get exactly what you pay for; nothing more, nothing less.

Although WordPress can be customized with themes and plugins, a vast majority of them are created to appeal to a broad range of users for simple commercial viability. Let me give you an example:

Example: Suppose you want to integrate the live chat feature on your website, and for the same ends you find a plugin you like. You will then need to see if it has:

• Required features: Less means it’s not of use to you, More means it’s needlessly complicated
• Payment Plans that don’t put a strain on your pocket
• Team-player: Only after you have bought, installed, and run the plugin will you know if it’s even compatible with the rest of your site

You bypass all those considerations with a custom solution: Same functionality, components with those features that you specify and need, and it’s made to be compatible with your WordPress setup.

Scalability, performance, SEO-benefits, and everything else are just icing on the cake. You shouldn’t have to be reminded of those. WordPress packs these ‘features’, it’s only fair that your solutions pack these too without you having to ask for them.

Endnote

To adapt a website to your needs, not the other way around: Custom WordPress Development solves problems that are specific to you.

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Keeping up with the Community: WordPress 4.5 Beta 2

After a whole armada of patches released with WordPress 4.5 Beta 1 just last week, the team of developers working tirelessly on core has already come up with new patches and fixes.

In an attempt to ease the non-coders and beginners into our awesome community, here is a brief overview of major fixes and patches in the latest 4.5 Beta 2 release:

1. strip_meta() fatal error on resize in ImageMagick

There was a fatal error when users uploaded images and resized it via ImageMagick (RCIG plugin: aka, responsive images). This occurred due to incomplete meta stripping during resize.

The patch (33642) resolves this error by changing default quality from 90 to 82. Further patches added new thumbnail and image resize functions. The patch also removes all image profiles except ICC, ICM, and EXIF set as image property. 

2. “Horizontal Rule” in WYSIWYG editor (TinyMCE)

New inline patterns are being added to core. The Horizontal Rule <hr> patch is for TinyMCE text editor in WordPress.

The purpose, for those unfamiliar with this HTML tag, is to create a line break that separates content. The Horizontal rule (<hr>) has been tested on iPhone, Mac, and Chrome and behaving well.

3. “Paste as Text” notice is now dismiss-able (TinyMCE)

Another patch added to 4.5 Beta 2 makes the oft annoying “Paste as Text” warning modal permanently dismiss-able after second time. This should improve editorial workflow.

The development on this feature is now closed. It is now set to be released with WordPress 4.5.

4. Selective Refresh support enabled in core themes

This customization feature gives users the ability to preview titles and taglines while a core theme (like Twenty Eleven) is in use.

Users can now shift + click to focus on control areas and test the PHP filters which will be applicable once you publish.

All said, there are a little over 100 changes and fixes that have been made within the week since last beta release.

Endnote

The version is still under development, so it’s not meant for live or production websites.

You can do your part as a budding WordPress developer by downloading the nightly builds, downloading the beta zip, testing it yourself, and suggesting (or maybe even making) improvements.

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Basic Security Tips for WordPress Beginners

 

Welcome to WordPress.

You are now a part of a sprawling community of WordPress users, developers, and geeks. And your website is one of 16 million others currently powered by WordPress.

You already know about user-friendliness, the vast variety, and utter control you get to exercise over your WordPress website. But it’s not all fun and games until you learn how to keep it safe.

WordPress is as secure as you make it. So let’s harden your defenses against common attacks.

1. Back Ups

These are necessary for maintenance, security, and just general peace of mind.

A backup is your safety net in times when a) your website crashes, b) you lock yourself out, and c) you get hacked.

All you need to do is install a trustworthy backup plugin and use it to create scheduled backups of your website. Try one like Backup Buddy (premium, has good auto restore features), BackUpWordPress (free), WordPress Backup to Dropbox (mostly free, great for creating and storing site wide + database backups on cloud), and SaaS like VaultPress, UpdraftPlus, et al.

Tip: Create a backup schedule that coincides with your general maintenance schedule. Essentially, anytime you upgrade something on your website, your backup should save it. 

2. Download from Trusted sources only

Most WordPress websites are open to attack through theme and plugin vulnerabilities.

Make sure you download absolutely nothing from sources that reek of malicious activity: typically websites offering premium goods for free are major culprits. A few bucks saved now will come back to give you grief later.

Trusted sources like the official WordPress repositories (for themes and plugins) are safe, along with large marketplaces like Envato (ThemeForest and CodeCanyon), iThemes, StudioPress, etc.

Tip: Exercise the same caution before hiring a custom WordPress development services provider.

3. Strong Passwords and Admin username

It may sound harsh, but if you’re too lazy to change the default username and couldn’t be bothered to use a strong password, you deserve to get hacked. At this point you’re practically inviting attackers.

Long, strong passwords are your first line of defense against ‘standard’ brute force attacks. The length and complexity exponentially increases the time it would take to crack your password. Mix up random letters in upper and lower cases with numbers and characters.

Also change the default username (“admin”, are you kidding me?) to something less obvious.

Tip: Set up a new account and assign admin role to that, and delete the previous “admin” username account. It’s one of the simplest ways.

4. Security Plugins

Oh, now we’re talking.

Security plugins are your website’s personal anti-virus systems, in that they will whet your website and exterminate any malicious bits left behind by potential attackers. This is essential: WordFence (The best and largely free plugin with exhaustive features for site security, login, two factor authentication, etc.)

There are more options (like Login Lockdown, iThemes Security, etc.) but WordFence has enough features to do all their jobs on its own.

Tip: Feature packed plugins fulfill more requirements, and make it easy to keep your plugin-count under tight control. This is good for both security and performance.

5. Update Consistently

Most good Plugins and themes, and the WordPress core itself, roll out updates on a regular basis. Your job is to update to the latest version.

You may have noticed that within a few weeks of every major platform update (last one was 4.4 Clifford), you will get minor version release notices (last one was 4.4.2). These are fixes for security vulnerabilities.  Themes and plugins also keep pace with the updates for error-free performance and more tightly-knit security.

So update. Consistently.

Endnote

Once you have set up a routine for maintenance and security, you can progress to advanced tactics to harden WordPress by checking out even more security tips and this complete checklist.

It’s a war out there. Do your part by keeping your wits around you, and be safe.

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Everything You Need to Know While Picking a Responsive WordPress Theme

The rapid use of different mobile devices for browsing internet influences web designers and webmasters to create mobile-friendly websites. With the use of a responsive WordPress theme, you can design or optimize your business website for different mobile devices and viewports. These themes are cross-browser compatible and offers lots of customization options to improve the usability of your site.
 

However, with such an extensive range of options, it becomes quite challenging to make an intelligent decision on what to consider while picking a good responsive theme – free or premium.
 

To make your work simpler, we bring you some of the useful tips you need to consider while picking out the most suitable and powerful responsive theme for your site.

1. Decide what resolutions are supported and obviously how
 

If you are new into the web design world, let me tell you that responsive designs utilize Media Queries to reformat the design of a site when the screen resolution is under a particular number of pixels. For instance, a site’s design might restructure for the mobile device when it encounters the screen size is 480x or below.
 

You can make a use of Resizer tool in your browser to automatically put your PC browser window to test common device sizes. With this tool, you can test the desired responsive theme before making any final call.

2. Consider the content hierarchy
 

If your site’s content doesn’t fit at mobile screen sizes, then you can simply drop it out from your site. For instance, widgets and sidebars of a website are usually hidden at smaller screen sizes and they won’t appear on a scrollable page.
 

It might be okay for your purposes, but identifying what is hidden, and what is re-designed as your window size becomes smaller.
 

However, with the use of good responsive theme, you will easily handle your sidebars and also create flexible widget areas for your site. With content reformatted for smaller screens, you need to consider the content hierarchy to make sure that the order in which it arrives is suitable for how you propose to showcase your site rather then moving down the content on the scrolling page.
 

3. Know how menus are managed
 

The width of your navigation area can be affected by several items and the length of your navigation labels. In fact, it can affect the look of your navigation bar on different devices. If you can’t handle your navigation bar, then your nav might split in odd places on small mobile devices.
 

But you can choose the best responsive theme that uses the compelling navigation system. When the desktop version uses a traditional link bar, then this changes to a tappable menu while reformats for small screen devices.
 

You can also make a use of custom WordPress theme development at HireWPGeeks to ensure a more accessible and usable design for your site.

4. Advertisement on your website
 

Some of the ads serving systems do not optimize the ad content for different devices. And this creates conflicting issues with a responsive design. In fact, ads are dealt with JS tags and iFrames, and it can cause formatting issues badly.
 

If you want to serve ads, try to work out on a strategy of how you will either turn on/off advertisement at multiple sizes, or you can also provide alternative ads only for mobile visitors.

5. Video handling
 

Videos play a vital role in encouraging potential visitors towards your site. But it can create issues with the responsive design because of the nature of embedding. If you want to optimize the size of your videos for multiple devices, then you need to employ the special HTML markup correctly.
 

Note: if you don’t find a video in the theme’s demo, you can ask the author for any provisions made in your responsive theme to handle video content.

Conclusion
 

These are some of the useful tips that will help you create a mobile-friendly design for your website.

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