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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Are You Struggling To Manage Your HTML Site? Migrate To WordPress Now!

Earlier, before the invention of WordPress, a popular and flexible Content Management System, websites were developed by compiling static HTML pages together wherein they all had the similar layout, but different content.

But the traditional method of developing a website was not up to the mark. In fact, there were times when styles and scripts were coded with the HTML framework, and this gave way to issues such as slow loading of the site as millions and thousands of same code will be loaded for each and every page.

Therefore, most of the companies (who have HTML websites) are switching their sites to WordPress.
The popularity of WordPress is not hidden from us and through this blog post, we will find out the reasons why people should migrate their traditional HTML site to Wordpress.

1. Develop Websites without Any Coding

WordPress is the easy-to-use content management system that let web user (with least web development knowledge) to develop their own website. It means you can design and develop a website, without generating a single line of code. You can easily add posts and pages, update content; embed images and videos without any technical assistance. Isn’t it cool?

2. Open to Search Engines

WordPress is much better for SEO motive as you will find many SEO plugins for your site which will help you get higher rank in search engines like Google and Bing. And if we compare WordPress with static HTML websites, then you can discover that WordPress is packed with numerous SEO features and functions that will help you increase your online reputation.

WordPress also offers various SEO plugins that will allow you optimize your site for search engines.
Now get higher ranking in Google by developing a site over WordPress.

3. Cost-effective

WordPress allows you to post, publish and update a new content in a website with ease. You can do all the managing work by your own, without hiring any professional web designer and developer –this saves both time and money.

But if you want to convert your existing HTML site into WordPress, then you need to hire a reliable WordPress development company that can offer you HTML to WordPress conversion services at affordable price.

4. Safe and Secure

WordPress offers a strong community support that means hundreds of professional designers and developers develop the system from the documentation to the coding itself. So we can say that WordPress websites are secure enough. In fact, it regularly releases new versions that come with advanced security fixes.

Plus, it offers tons of security plugins that will protect your site from hackers and other malicious activities.

5. It Offers Great Flexibility

Want to integrate social media, or want to add contact forms, registration forms or any other functionality into your site, use WordPress plugins. WordPress offers millions of useful plugins that will help you extend the functionality of your site, without any coding.

To an addition, it also comes with tons of beautiful and attractive themes that will give a fresh, crisp and appealing look to your site. You can change the design of your site in few minutes.

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Wordpress Errors: A How to Guide to Detect and Fix Them

WordPress is a complete content management system providing a unique platform for your blogging websites. But it has got some inherent issues which might generate errors. These errors might create a panic in you but the essential thing is that they are not singular in nature. Probably there are innumerable numbers of user who already has faced the issue that is bugging you and a proper solution to tackle that particular issue has already been developed and tested.

At WPBeginner, we have articulated different tutorials to solve several WordPress errors. The following article briefly illustrates 14 most commonly faced WordPress errors and how to fix them.
Important: We strongly recommend you to have a scheduled backup system like BackupBuddy. This will automatically keep a backup of your WordPress site. Or else, you can also create Backup manually. We advise you to kindly contact with your WordPress hosting company, in case you fail to resolve any issue. 

1. Fix the Syntax Error in WordPress: While trying to add code snippets into WordPress and missing something accidentally or entering code having incorrect syntax will generate this error.

Parse error - syntax error, unexpected $end in /public_html/site1/wp-content/themes/my-theme/functions.php on line xxx

2. Fix the Internal Server Error in WordPress: “Internal Server Error” or “500 Internal Server Error” is another very common error that users may find in WordPress. This problem is a little bit trickier because the server cannot identify the root cause of the error and the user will have to figure it out. 

3. Fix the Error Establishing a Database Connection in WordPress: This error clearly states that the website is unable to link to the database. This error is usually generated due to incorrect entering or modification of database credentials. This error is a serious one, as it can even corrupt your entire database. 

4. Fix the WordPress White Screen of Death: White Screen of Death is the whitening of the entire website or certain parts of it is truly a puzzling error that you may face. Without any clue of how and where to resolve this issue, it can become very frustrating for a user. Generally it occurs when a script exhausts PHP memory limit or due to a configuration of the server.

5. Fix WordPress Posts Returning 404 Error: When a user visits a particular post on their site it returns an error message “404-page not found” but he can access all the other sections including the admin part. This is the classic symptom of this problem and generally arises due to errors in the permalink settings of WordPress.

6. Fix the Sidebar below Content Error in WordPress: Sidebar appearing below the content is a major issue that is faced by the WordPress beginners. Disproportionate width in CSS or improper breaking of the theme layout due to accidentally forget to close an HTML div tag or add an extra closing div, while adding code snippets.

7. Fix White Text and Missing Buttons in WordPress Visual Editor: Due to JAVA Script not functioning in the user’s admin area and missing or corrupt TinyMCE files, buttons from the WordPress visual editor disappears or white spaces comes in place of that. Sometimes the error is caused by plugin failures or the clash of plugins related to the TinyMCE files.

8. Repair WordPress Memory Exhausted Error: This error is related to the PHP memory and is often indicated by the White Screen of Death or displayed messages like

Fatal error: Allowed memory size of 33554432 bytes exhausted (tried to allocate 2348617 bytes) in /home/username/public_html/site1/wp-includes/plugin.php on line xxx

This error happens due to exhaustion of allocated memory owing to the scripts and plugins.

9. Locked Out of WordPress Admin: Locked out of the WordPress Admin(wp-admin) can be a very serious problem as it indicates that either you are entering wrong password or some code/plugin in trying to make changes in the admin section. It can also indicate that your WordPress site has been hacked.

10. Fix WordPress Login Page Refreshing and Redirecting Issue: If you are attempting to enter into the WordPress dashboard by login into the website but, you are repeatedly being redirected back to the login page.

It generally happens due to incorrect values of the site and home URL. Find the solution of this problem here.

11. Fix Image Upload Issue in WordPress: Major symptoms of this problem are sudden disappearance of all the images from the website and being replaced by breaking image thumbnails. All the files in the media library appear to be broken and uploading of any new image will result in an error. Different factors are responsible and a particular solution must be found out.

12. Fix Common Image Issues on WordPress: Familiarizing yourself with how WordPress handles media files can be a tricky problem itself. Aligning images, resize and cropping images, or displaying them in different formats can be very confusing and difficult for a novice. It should be kept in mind that this is not an error but just a matter of practice.

13. Fix “Are You Sure You Want to Do This” Error in WordPress: Nonce is special security attributes used for specific URLs only related to admin based operations. But sometimes a plugin or a theme due to some failure may start to use Nonce inappropriately, which results in the User sees the message as an apparent error.

14. Fix Briefly Unavailable for Scheduled Maintenance Error in WordPress: This error is generally caused by interrupting or unfinished updates in WordPress. During the updating process your website goes into a maintenance mode and if sudden interruption occurs it remains in that mode. This causes a lockdown situation where both admin and users are restricted to operate the website.

For all of the above problems and errors, you should Hire WordPress Developer or contact any WordPress Development company. WPGeeks Ltd. offers such services for their clients, which not only include customization and custom development but also PSD to WordPress Theme conversion and Reliable HTML to WordPress Conversion services.

We are publishing this post with a hope that it will definitely help you to solve some of the critical issues that you may face while using WordPress. It will be our pleasure to know from you about more issues that is beyond the context of this article. We will definitely try our level best to cover it and provide a solution.

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12 Awesome Tools = WordPress - Spam Comments

WordPress being a weblog and not necessarily an eCommerce tool, a fabulous CMS but still has a threat to spam because of its huge installed base. But thankfully with advent of technologies and with time, several ways have come up to combat this problem in WordPress. In this article, we discuss below some of the best tips and tools to overcome this spam problem in WordPress.

• Don’t follow Comment Links

Bloggers put plugins in the comment area which has nofollow attribute for the author links, hoping these links to encourage more users to leave comments or feedback. This results to a large number of spam comments. It’s always a bad idea to use plugins that share link via comments. The quality of the blog comes into threat due to such mistakes.

• Use Cookies

Install Cookies for Comments plugins. This plugin sends users a stylesheet or image files whenever they access a page with comment form. This technique works as most spams are automated scripts and they don’t download any image or stylesheet. Cookies protect our sites from such spams in comment form and identify them as legit users.

• Activate Akismet

Akismet is one of the most valuable plugin for WordPress and is pre installed. Only activation is necessary using an API key. Without this, spam control in WordPress is almost impossible. Only drawback is that it is too sensitive and sometimes good comments can also be filtered as spam, but no worry. That’s recoverable.

• Add CAPTCHA Verification

Using CAPTCHA plugin is a very common tactics nowadays. One can also enable RECAPTCHA challenge on comment form. RECAPTCHA shows an image containing characters can be alpha numeric and the user needs them to type to prove them that they are human. Only drawback of captcha is that it does nothing to prevent sites from manually submitted spam comments.

• Use Honeypot

Honeypot technology is an effective method to trick spam bots. What one needs to do is to install and activate Spam Fighter. Upon activation, this will result in creating a hidden form in your comments area which is only visible to bots. Since spam bots are usually programmed to fill all fields in a form. If you are still struggling to understand such tools then you can Hire WordPress Developer from WPGeeks who will get things done for you.

• Comment Form should not contain Website URL field

URL field in comment form attracts spammers as easy mode of spamming. These comments usually contain a line of total irrelevance like any alpha numeric name etc. Removing the URL field from comment form will discourage such nuisance on website.

• Disable HTML

Disable HTML in comments to discourage links in comments. Use Peter’s Literal comments plugin by installing and activating it. Doing so will pass all HTML through WordPress filters.

• Disable Comments on Media attachment

Turn off comments on media attachments. WordPress automatically creates image attachment pages where users can see an image and leave a comment. If images are linked to the attachment page, then after some time, one will have lots of image attachment pages with comments enabled to them.

• Disable Trackbacks

A big portion of spam comment is trackbacks. One would find it in the default article settings under Discussion Settings. One can disable trackback on entire blog or on some post.

• Use Less annoying Captcha

Users find Captcha annoying and frustrating. Better use a simple maths problem, like addition etc to prove user as human. Install and activate Maths Quiz plugin.  The plugin allows one to choose whether you want a simple plain text quiz or an image based maths quiz.

• Switch off Comments

The Discussion Settings contain another section called Default article settings. If the checkbox “Allow people to post comments on new articles“ is unchecked, comments on your WordPress site can’t be made. As such no spam can attack.

• Turn off Comment on old Posts

WordPress enables you to set the comment closure deadline. Check the box next to the option “Automatically close comments on article older than“ under other comments settings and old posts comments can be turned off to save them from comment spams.

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