Web Development – NooTheme https://nootheme.com NooTheme Tue, 17 Apr 2018 19:51:59 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.3.1 https://nootheme.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/favicon.png Web Development – NooTheme https://nootheme.com 32 32 8 Best WordPress Timetable Plugins https://nootheme.com/8-best-wordpress-timetable-plugins/ Mon, 29 Aug 2016 08:18:53 +0000 https://nootheme.com/?p=1007895 Today we would like to list out the best premium WordPress Timetable/ Schedule Plugins that are available on CodeCanyon. These plugins can be used to schedule and list the upcoming events or classes through a widget or a shortcode. Each plugin provides a different set of options, but the core functionality is pretty much the same. Scroll down for more details!

  1. Noo Timetable

wordpress timetable plugin

NOO Timetable is a super flexible schedule plugin for WordPress, with fully responsive interface and fascinating UI. It is absolutely suitable for fitness, yoga, dance classes, medical departments, any kind of event calendars and so on.

NOO Timetable helps you easily create a timetable with custom data just in a few minutes. All classes/events will be shown visually in both weekly and monthly timetable and filtered by category as well. NOO Timetable is packed with tons of marvelous features which make it the ideal choice for your class/event schedule. Up-to-date Flat Styling, Fully Responsive, Super Flexible, Multiple View Options, Event Filters, Event Navigation, iCal file Exporting, Event Pop-ups, 2 Preset post types: Class & Event and many more are included in this plugin.

wordpress timetable plugin

 

  1. Event Scheduler

wordpress timetable plugin

Event Scheduler for WordPress is an effective plugin which will help you to create impressive schedules for your events of any kind in minutes. Is is suitable for music festivals, conferences, conventions, meetings, trainings, exhibitions etc. It has beautiful and clean layout that could be easily customized.

wordpress timetable plugin

 

  1. Events Schedule

wordpress timetable plugin

Simple but versatile WordPress plugin, for an elegant display of your classes or events. You can choose one of the five timetable styles, each with different design and features.

Build your schedule in minutes, with basic WordPress knowledge, and add it in your page with our custom Visual Composer element or through an auto-generated simple shortcode.

wordpress timetable plugin

 

  1. Timetable

wordpress timetable plugin

Timetable is fully responsive and features a clean and modern flat interface. Create timetables with events in 3 different scales using a live editor in the backend. Color events individually, per column or per timetable. Click on events to open a custom link, or a responsive event popupusing a nice animation. Show a full description in the event popup, as well as an image or YouTube video. Show simultaneous events in a column side-by-side. Give events a background image. You can even create advanced filters to easily filter through events.

wordpress timetable plugin

 

  1. Timetable Responsive Schedule

wordpress timetable plugin

Timetable Responsive Schedule For WordPress is a powerful and easy-to-use schedule plugin for WordPress. It will help you to create a timetable view of your events in minutes. It is perfect for gym classes, school or kindergarten classes, medical departments, nightclubs, lesson plans, meal plans etc. It comes with Events Manager, Event Occurrences Shortcode, Timetable Shortcode Generator and Upcoming Events Widget.

wordpress timetable plugin

  1. Timetable for WordPress

wordpress timetable plugin

Timetable for music festivals, seminars, business events and even sport events! Built for WordPress on jquery and php, this timetable is the ultimate, unique solution for an attractive and easy way to show visitors your events. The data can be updated using an easy admin panel while the php makes sure that everything will be search engine optimized. The timetable can be printed by your visitors and turns into a comprehensive list. Skins make it easy to adjust this timetable to any existing website.

wordpress timetable plugin

 

  1. Stachethemes Event Calendar

wordpress timetable plugin

Stachethemes Event Calendar is a Premium WordPress plugin that allows you to create detailed events for your website users and visitors.

With this calendar you can include all kind of information about your event like introduction section with detailed information including photo gallery, event schedule, guest list, location map and directions, weather forecast, merchandise and comments sections.

wordpress timetable plugin

  1. Tiva Events Calendar

wordpress timetable plugin

Tiva Events Calendar For WordPress is plugin which help you to manage and display all events on calendar. With many styles and options, you can customize your calendar easily. There are 2 layout for your choice : full layout and compact layout. You can also set initial view as calendar or event list.

wordpress timetable plugin

 

 

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The Most Popular WordPress Caching Plugins https://nootheme.com/the-most-popular-wordpress-caching-plugins/ https://nootheme.com/the-most-popular-wordpress-caching-plugins/#respond Wed, 21 Oct 2015 03:52:00 +0000 http://www.nootheme.com/?p=6138 We live in the world that man’s thirst for speed. Everything is fast, faster, fastest. So although you satisfy with your blog, you still want to continuously speed up your blog/website. Say hi to caching – the magic world for speeding up website. There are some great plugins available for WordPress on the market and in this topic I will list the five most popular ones.

  1. W3 total cache

wordpress caching plugins

W3 total cache is fantastic plugin was designed to improve user experience and page speed. It got the love of over 1 million WordPress users. With this plugin you easy Web Performance Optimization (WPO) using caching: browser, page, object, database, minify and content delivery network support. It allows fminifies all of your .js and .css files to a minimum size. And many web hosting provider recommended it like as P age.ly, Synthesis, DreamHost, MediaTemple, Go Daddy, Host Gator and countless more.

wordpress caching plugins

  1. WP Rocket

wp-rocket

Caching creates an ultra-fast load time, essential for improving Search Engine Optimization and increasing conversions. When you turn on WP Rocket, page caching is immediately activated. Because our crawler simulates a visit to preload the cache, the indexing of your website by search engines is instantly improved.

wordpress caching plugins

  1. Hyper cache

wordpress caching plugins

Hyper Cache is simply superb especially if your blog is hosted resource starved shared hosting. Combine Hyper cache with autoptimize and your website flies like a rocket. It is working flawlessly with wordpress 4.3.1. The last part is important, as the elements of caching and optimization tend to get very technical very fast.

wordpress caching plugins

  1. WP Fastest Cache

wordpress caching plugins

The WP Fastest Cache was designed with simplicity in mind for those millions of non-technical WordPress blog owners. This plugin creates static HTML files from your dynamic WordPress blog and helps system not to render page again and again. The plugin is quickly setup and easily to use cache clearing options that any admin can use.

wordpress caching plugins

  1. Autoptimize

wordpress caching plugins

The Autopimize is the one and really good Plugin. The plugin speeds up your website and helps you save bandwidth by aggregating and minimizing JS, CSS and HTML. There are advanced options available to enable you to tailor Autoptimize to each and every site’s specific need. It is very impressed if you combined with WP Supercache, Autoptimize, it will reduce page load times of websites to less than 3 seconds.

wordpress caching plugins

6. Cache Enabler

wordpress-cache-enabler-plugin

The Cache Enabler plugin creates static HTML files and stores them on the servers disk. The web server will deliver the static HTML file and avoids the resource intensive backend processes (core, plugins and database). This WordPress cache engine will improve the performance of your website.

wordpress caching plugins

Conclusion

Not all hosts play well with all plugins. Some testing is still necessary on your part, to make sure your site is as fast as it can be

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Infographic: 12 Must Have Plugins for WordPress https://nootheme.com/infographic-12-must-have-plugins-for-wordpress/ https://nootheme.com/infographic-12-must-have-plugins-for-wordpress/#respond Thu, 15 Oct 2015 01:17:35 +0000 http://www.nootheme.com/?p=6117 There are many reasons webmasters should adopt WordPress as their content management system. Having access to thousands of plugins available for this platform is a pretty good reason. Plugins can enhance your site’s functionality and enhance your visitors experience on it. We have already listed The WordPress Plugins You Need To Start Your BlogTherefore, we have put together the below infographic to help webmasters download the most essential plugins for their sites as fast as possible.

must have plugins for wordpress

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[Tutorial] 12 Most Useful Tricks for Custom Post Types in WordPress https://nootheme.com/tutorial-12-most-useful-tricks-for-custom-post-types-in-wordpress/ https://nootheme.com/tutorial-12-most-useful-tricks-for-custom-post-types-in-wordpress/#respond Thu, 08 Oct 2015 03:14:45 +0000 http://www.nootheme.com/?p=6090 WordPress allows you to create your own custom content types. These content types are called custom post types. You can use them to add custom content like products, reviews, recipes, etc. In this article, we will share the 12 most useful WordPress custom post types tutorials.

  1. When Do You Need A Custom Post Type

Before you start creating custom post types or taxonomies on your WordPress site, it’s important to evaluate your needs. A lot of times you can achieve the same results with the default WordPress posts and pages.

With the help of built-in categories and tags, you can sort your content in many different ways. With pages you can set up a hierarchical layout of content with parent-child relationship.

If you are unclear, then refer to this guide about when do you need a custom post type or taxonomy in WordPress.

  1. Adding Icon for Custom Post Types

When you create a custom post type, WordPress uses the default post icon if no icon is provided. You can add your own icons to custom post types. These icons are displayed in your WordPress admin bar.

WordPress uses font icons in the admin area to ensure they look beautiful on all devices and screen sizes. The easiest way to add a font icon to your custom post type is by using the CPT Custom Icon plugin. Simply install and activate the plugin and visit the plugin’s settings page to add an icon.

custom post types tutorial

Another method is to add the icon while you are creating your Custom Post Type with CPT UI plugin.

3. Creating a Custom Post Types Archive Page

Adding custom post types in WordPress has become very easy thanks to the CPT UI plugin. However, many beginners have trouble displaying their custom post types on their websites.

To add custom post type archive page, first you need to make sure that archives are enabled for your custom post type. In most cases, they are but if not then you will need to enable them. CPT UI plugin has a checkbox under advanced options to enable archives.

custom post types tutorial

Now if you are using pretty permalinks, then you can access custom post type archives page by visiting a URL like this:

http://www.example.com/products/

Replace example.com with your own domain name and products with your custom post type name. If you cannot see your custom post type, then visit Settings » Permalinks and click on the save changes button. This will update your permalink structure, and you should now be able to see your custom post type archive page.

You can also add a menu item to your custom post type in navigation menus. Simply go to Appearance » Menus and click on the ‘Custom Link’ tab. Next, add your custom post type name and URL.

custom post types tutorial

4. RSS Feeds for Custom Post Types

WordPress comes with a built-in RSS generator for all content types, taxonomies, authors, and date based archives. It uses a proper URL structure that queries the database and generates the RSS feed you want to see.

For example, to see the RSS feed of your custom post type ‘movies’ you will add this URL:

http://www.example.com/feed/?post_type=movies

5. Adding Custom Post Types to Your Main RSS Feed

By default, WordPress only includes your blog posts in your site’s main RSS feed. This means that your custom post type content is not visible to your main RSS feed subscribers.

You can easily include your custom post types into your main RSS feed by adding the following code to your theme’s functions.php file or a site-specific WordPress plugin.

1 function myfeed_request($qv) {
2     if (isset($qv[‘feed’]) && !isset($qv[‘post_type’]))
3         $qv[‘post_type’] = array(‘post’, ‘books’, ‘movies’);
4     return $qv;
5 }
6 add_filter(‘request’, ‘myfeed_request’);

Replace books and movies with your own custom post types.

6. Search Form for Custom Post Types

custom post types tutorial

The default WordPress search feature is very limited. Specially if you are using custom post types on your WordPress site. You can add a custom Google Search form to your WordPress site, but even that form doesn’t allow users to select search parameters.

Another solution is to use a plugin like SearchWP which allows you to create advanced search forms and is capable of searching through all custom post types, taxonomies, and custom fields.

If you would rather prefer to build your own custom search form, then here is what you need to do. First add your custom post types hidden fields in the search form by adding this code in searchform.php file of your child theme.

1 <input type=”hidden” name=”post_type[]” value=”articles” />
2 <input type=”hidden” name=”post_type[]” value=”post” />
3 <input type=”hidden” name=”post_type[]” value=”videos” />
4 <input type=”hidden” name=”post_type[]” value=”books” />

This code simply adds hidden fields for your custom post types, replace value with your own custom post types. The next step is to tell WordPress what to do with these fields. Add this code before the loop in your theme’s search.php file:

01 <form role=”search” method=”get” id=”searchform” action=”<?php echo home_url( ‘/’ ); ?>”>
02 <input type=”text” name=”s” id=”s” <?php if(is_search()) { ?>

value=”<?php the_search_query(); ?>” <?php } else { ?>value=”Enter keywords &hellip;”onfocus=”if(this.value==this.defaultValue)this.value=”;

“onblur=”if(this.value==”)this.value=this.defaultValue;”<?php } ?> /><br />

03
04 <?php $query_types = get_query_var(‘post_type’); ?>
05
06 <input type=”checkbox” name=”post_type[]” value=”articles” <?php if (in_array(‘articles’, $query_types)) { echo’checked=”checked”‘; } ?> /><label>Articles</label>
07 <input type=”checkbox” name=”post_type[]” value=”post” <?php if(in_array(‘post’, $query_types)) { echo ‘checked=”checked”‘; } ?> /><label>Blog</label>
08 <input type=”checkbox” name=”post_type[]” value=”books” <?phpif (in_array(‘books’, $query_types)) { echo’checked=”checked”‘; } ?> /><label>Books</label>
09 <input type=”checkbox” name=”post_type[]” value=”videos” <?phpif (in_array(‘videos’, $query_types)) { echo’checked=”checked”‘; } ?> /><label>Videos</label>
10
11 <input type=”submit” id=”searchsubmit” value=”Search” />
12 </form>

7. Adding Sticky Posts for Custom Post Types

Sticky posts is a feature in WordPress which allows you to add featured posts. By default it only works for blog posts.

You can enable it for your custom post types as well by installing and activating the Sticky Custom Post Types plugin. Upon activation, go to Settings » Reading and scroll down to the section Sticky Custom Post Types.

Next, you need to choose the custom post types where you want Stick This option to be enabled.

8. Disable Disqus on Custom Post Types

If you are using Disqus commenting system in WordPress, then you will notice that your Disqus comment box will start appearing on all your custom post types. If you do not want users to comment on these custom post types, then you will need to manually disable Disqus for selective post types. Simply add this code snippet into your theme’s functions.php file or a site-specific plugin.

1 add_filter( ‘comments_template’ , ‘wpb_block_disqus’, 1 );
2 function wpb_block_disqus($file) {
3 if ( ‘custom_post_type_name’ == get_post_type() )
4 remove_filter(‘comments_template’, ‘dsq_comments_template’);
5 return $file;
6
7 }

Don’t forget to replace custom_post_type_name with your own custom post type name.

9. Adding User Submitted Content in Custom Post Types

Sometimes you may want to allow users to submit content for custom post types on your site. For example, movie reviews, recipes, etc.

One way to do this is by giving users access to your WordPress admin area and assigning them author user role. But if you don’t want that, then there is another way.

You will need Gravity Forms plugin for that. It enables you to add a public content submission form that your website visitors can use.

After installing Gravity Forms, you will need to install and activate Gravity Forms + Custom Post Types plugin as well.

Now create a new form, and you will notice that there will be an option to map each field to your custom post types. For more detailed instructions see our tutorial on how to add user submitted content for custom post types in WordPress.

10. Switch or Convert Custom Post Types

You may come across situations where you will have to merge or convert custom post types. You may also want to move items from one post type to another.

Simply install and activate the Post Type Switcher plugin. Upon activation, go toPosts » All Posts. If it is a custom post type, then go to the screen that shows all items in that post type.

Select the items or posts that you want to move, then click on quick edit link. You will notice a new drop down menu allowing you to change post type for that item.

custom post types tutorial

11. Using Custom Post Types as Taxonomies

Yes, you read that correctly, and you are probably thinking why use CPTs as taxonomies? Why not just create custom taxonomies? Let’s say that you have a custom post type for books and another custom post type for authors. Now you may want to associate authors with the books they have written. You can create a custom taxonomy for authors, but then you will have an authors taxonomy and a post type which only adds to the confusion.

Simply install and activate the CPT-onomies plugin. It allows you to build relationships between post types by using custom post types as taxonomy.

Using this plugin, the next time you add a book you can select the author as CPT-onomy and show all the books written by that author.

12. Custom Meta Boxes for Post Types

Custom meta boxes allow you to add custom fields into WordPress post editor screen. This way you can create additional input fields for your post types. The easiest way to create custom meta fields in WordPress is by using the Advanced Custom Fields plugin.

After installing the plugin, simply click on Custom Fields in WordPress admin bar and then click on Add New. Follow on screen instructions to create a group of custom fields you want to add to your custom post type.

custom post types tutorial

This is how the custom fields panel will appear on the post edit screen for your post type:

custom post types tutorial

You can display data entered into your custom fields by modifying your theme templates. For example, we would use <?php the_field(‘imdb_url’); ?>template tag to display IMDB URL custom field.

You can also use shortcode like [acf field=”{$imdb_url}”] in your post types to display custom field data.

That’s all we hope this article helped you learn some cool tricks for custom post types in WordPress. You may also want to take a look at these best tips and guides for WordPress.

Source: wpbeginner.com

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15 Most Common Mistakes WordPress Beginners Make https://nootheme.com/15-most-common-mistakes-wordpress-beginners-make/ https://nootheme.com/15-most-common-mistakes-wordpress-beginners-make/#respond Thu, 24 Sep 2015 03:32:50 +0000 http://www.nootheme.com/?p=6037 We all make mistakes, because none of us is perfect. Whether it’s real life or WordPress, mistakes happen everywhere. To commit a mistake is not a crime, however, not learning from it and not trying to repeat it again definitely is. Everyone learn from their mistakes, but it’s much better to learn from the others’ mistakes.

In the case of WordPress, the primary focus of a novice is to set everything up and get things running as soon as possible. In this hurry, there are quite a few things that are ignored which may lead to numerous security vulnerabilities and affect your blog/site in the long run. In this article, we’ve outlined 15 of the most common WordPress mistakes that almost every one of us makes in the beginning.

Hopefully, everyone will use this guide to avoid the same blunders and make their WordPress site better, faster and more secure and of course a success.

#1. Choosing the wrong platform

Free WordPress.com or self hosted WordPress.org? Most of the WordPress beginners often get confused between these two, and it’s one of the most common mistakes, which is seen among beginners. While you’re going to start out as a beginner, it’s extremely crucial to know what’s the difference between them and which one can be the right choice for your new WordPress blog.

As both of them have their own pros and cons, it’s a big challenge for you to decide which option is perfect for you. WordPress.com (run by the folks at Automattic) is most suitable for bloggers, photographers, and artists – almost everyone. On the other hand, WordPress.org is made for those who like to have total control over their websites. Whatever option you choose, be careful.

#2. Forgetting to change the default admin username

When you install WordPress, it automatically creates the username “admin” with administrator privileges. It’s the username that is obviously predictable to hackers. Using the “admin” username, they can easily perform a brute force attack to crack your login and take control over your site.

As WordPress gives you the option to change the username during installation, it doesn’t make sense to stick with the default one. Therefore, while installing WordPress, make sure to change your default WordPress admin username to a different username. Also, use a combination of numbers, letters and special characters in your username and password.

#3. Using an inappropriate or defective theme

Choosing the perfect theme is a crucial thing that decides the future your WordPress blog. You wouldn’t believe that the structure of your design plays a vital role in search engine rankling. There are three things you should keep in mind while picking a theme – the ease of use for you, a reasonable price, and a reputed company.

If you’re looking for a free WordPress theme, then there is no better option than WordPress Themes Directory. But if you’re interested in purchasing a commercial theme, we recommend you to give a try to any one of these trusted theme providers: Elegant Themes, StudioPress, Headway Themes, Themify, or Nootheme.

#4. Staying with the default tagline “just another blog”

A tagline is a one-line description about what your site is. By default, WordPress adds “Just Another Blog” tagline to every WordPress install. Most of the WordPress newbies forget to remove/change it and get it indexed by Google, which is not a good practice.

Hence, it’s advisable to choose a unique and witty tagline that has some relation with your blog niche or content. You can change the default tagline by going to Settings >> General in your WordPress dashboard. Also, don’t forget to delete the sample page that ships with WordPress install.

#5. Using the default favicon

The Favicon is considered as the identity card of your website. It’s a little icon associated with your site, typically displayed in the browser’s address bar or next to the site name in a list of bookmarks. Mostly WordPress newbies ignore their favicons, so their blogs/sites usually have favicons displayed by WordPress as default, or provided by their Theme Company or Web Hosting Provider.

To look more professional, you really need to change your favicon right now if you haven’t already. You can either make a favicon by yourself, or create one using one of the free favicon generators available around the web. Once you’ve generated your favicon, you need to upload it in the images section of your theme in order to replace the default one.

#6. Complicated categories & tags

One of the best features of WordPress is the capability to categorize content with tags. Taking advantage of this great feature, most of the people create too many categories and tags, as they think this will make ease for users but in fact, it isn’t so. Instead, doing so can affect your site in a negative manner.

Too much and complex categories not only make your site ugly and difficult to navigate, but also influence users to leave your website and affect everything from SEO to load time of your site. So, try to limit tags and categories in order to stay hold your visitors for a long time on your website.

#7. Using the default permalink structure

A permalink is a permanent static hyperlink to a specific blog post in your WordPress blog. You would probably have noticed that WordPress default permalink structure is something like www.yoursite.com/?p=123. Not only does this look awkward, but also bad for SEO and users.

A user and search-engine friendly permalink structure doesn’t only help you get ranked higher in search engines, but also shows your professionalism to your readers. After you’ve installed WordPress, never forget to make changes to your permalinks structure, by going under Settings » Permalinks. To get the most out of your SEO efforts, use appropriate keywords in your permalink structure.

#8. Not having a contact form

Another common mistake made by many beginners is not adding a contact form on their blogs. Instead, they create a contact page and simply mention their email there. That’s not the right way to get your audience in touch with you, as after a few months you’ll notice that your inbox is getting flooded with insane amount of SPAM.

The best solution to this problem and way to allow your audiences directly interact with you is adding a simple contact form to your site. For this purpose, you can install Contact Form 7 or Gravity Forms plug-in. We recommend you to try Gravity Forms plug-in, because it allows you to create any type of form using a simple drag-drop interface.

#9. Forgetting to install a caching plug-in

A lot of beginners ignore to install a caching plug-in, as they don’t know that website speed plays a major role in getting higher rankings on Google. In order to make sure that your site can sustain a lot of traffic at once without crashing, you should use a caching plug-in and Content Delivery Network (CDN) as well.

Caching is used to increase efficiency, prevent downtime, and decrease load time of your site, whenever it gets huge loads of traffic. There are two best free plug-ins that you can use to speed up our WordPress blog: W3 Total Cache and WP Super Cache.

#10. Forgetting to create backup

One of the big mistakes that we all usually make is not creating a backup of our WordPress site. We realize the importance of WordPress backups, only when we lose our years of hard work within a few seconds, and then need a backup to restore things back to normal at that time. Therefore, it’s highly recommended to have a manual/automatic backup of your WordPress site, especially when you’re going to perform an update.

Having a proper backup of your WordPress site is a must, as crashes may happen any time. As nothing is 100% foolproof in the world of technology, make sure you’re prepared to avoid that painful situation – loss of your valuable data. If you’re using WordPress.com platform, you can easily backup your blog by going to Tools, and then “Export” in dashboard. For self-hosted WordPress.org, you can use phpMyAdmin tool, or an online service such as VaultPress, or a backup plug-in such as BackupBuddy and BackWPup.

#11. Ignoring WordPress updates

WordPress has got updated more than 20 times, since it’s launched. WordPress core developers and contributors are constantly working to improve its speed, efficiency and user-interface. Whenever a vulnerability or bug is found, it gets a new update. Ignoring a WordPress update can result into a security vulnerability and make hackers’ lives easier as well.

Many people think that their WordPress site may break while performing an update, but that’s just a myth. If your theme and plug-ins are coded in a proper way, then your site will never break. Never forget, a newer version is created for a genuine reason. Therefore, you should never ignore a WordPress update.

#12. Not using Google Analytics

Would you like to drive a car that doesn’t have headlights? Absolutely not! Then why would you run your blog without using an analytics program like Google Analytics. As WordPress dashboard is not enough to get detailed insights about your site, you should use one of the best web analytics services: Google Analytics.

Google Analytics offers you a wide range of free services that you can use to monitor your website traffic, keep track of visitor’s behavior on your site and know about the keywords that can generate more traffic to your site. Apart from this, we also recommend you to sign-up with Google Webmaster Tools to keep track of your website health.

#13. Making life difficult for mobile users

Nowadays, everyone moves between multiple devices, like smart-phones, tablets, laptops, PCs or TV, to browse or purchase something via internet. As people are rapidly adopting multi-screen devices, it has become a must to make your website either fully responsive or mobile-friendly.

If you still haven’t adopted this trend, you have two options. First, you can use a Responsive WordPress theme that automatically adapts to whatever the screen size or device is. Second, you can make your site mobile-compatible by using a mobile plug-in like WPtouch or WPTap. The choice is yours!

#14. Ignoring gravatar & Google authorship markup

Have you heard of Gravatar? No! Well, a Gravatar (Globally Recognized Avatar) is a small picture that represents you throughout the World Wide Web. It appears next to your name when you comment on a blog post or discuss in a forum. We suggest you to start using it right away to get identified and build a brand around web.

Just like Gravatar, Google Authorship Markup lends credibility and maximizes exposure. Setting up Google Authorship Markup is a quite simple one-time process, which will show up your photo next to the Meta description in Google’s search results. Get started with it as soon as possible.

#15. Ignoring image optimization

One of the worst mistakes we all make is often forgetting to optimize images, while publishing an article. Specially, beginners don’t care at all about it. If you want to make your WordPress site load faster, then make image optimization your first priority.

Using HD images can have a tremendous impact on your site speed, while optimized images can improve the overall performance of your site in a dramatic way. So don’t forget to optimize images before uploading them to your WordPress site.

Source: jeffbullas.com

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Improve Your WordPress Security With These 10 Tips https://nootheme.com/improve-your-wordpress-security-with-these-10-tips/ https://nootheme.com/improve-your-wordpress-security-with-these-10-tips/#respond Fri, 18 Sep 2015 07:56:07 +0000 http://www.nootheme.com/?p=5995 We know from experience that having your site hacked is not fun. That’s why, here at NooTheme, we take security very seriously.

In line with our serious approach to security, our products are carefully optimized to be as secure as possible. There are, however, still a handful of potential security risks, when running a website, that we have no control over. You, the website owner, need to pay attention to these potential security risks, in order to keep your website safe.

With that in mind, here are 10 things you can do to improve your WordPress security.

  1. Use secure hosting

wordpress security tips

Not all web hosting providers are created equal and, in fact, hosting vulnerabilities account for a huge percentage of WordPress sites being hacked.

When choosing a web hosting provider, don’t simply go for the cheapest you can find. Do your research, and make sure you use a well-established company with a good track-record for strong security measures.

It’s always worth paying a bit extra for the peace of mind you get from knowing your site is in safe hands.

  1. Update all the things

wordpress security tips

Every new release of WordPress contains patches and fixes that address real or potential vulnerabilities. If you don’t keep your website updated with the latest version of WordPress, you could be leaving yourself open to attacks.

Many hackers will intentionally target older versions of WordPress with known security issues, so keep an eye on your Dashboard notification area and don’t ignore those ‘Please update now’ messages.

The same applies to themes and plugins. Make sure you update to the latest versions as they are released. If you keep everything up-to-date your site is much less likely to get hacked.

  1. Strengthen up those passwords

wordpress security tips

According to this a recent survey result, around 8% of hacked WordPress websites are down to weak passwords.

If your WordPress administrator password is anything like ‘letmein’, ‘abc123’, or ‘password’ (all way more common than you might think!), you need to change it to something secure as soon as possible.

If you’re feeling lazy, you can also use a password manager like LastPass to remember all your passwords for you. If you use this method, make sure your master password is nice and strong.

  1. Never use “admin” as your username

wordpress security tips

Earlier this year, there was a spate of brute-force attacks launched at WordPress websites across the web, consisting of repeated login attempts using the username ‘admin’, combined with a bunch of common passwords.

If you use “admin” as your username, and your password isn’t strong enough (see #3), then your site is very vulnerable to a malicious attack. It’s strongly recommended that you change your username to something less obvious.

Until version 3.0, installing WordPress automatically created a user with “admin” as the username. This was updated in version 3.0 so you can now choose your own username. Many people still use “admin” as it’s become the standard, and it’s easy to remember. Some web hosts also use auto-install scripts that still set up an ‘admin’ username by default.

Fixing this is simply a case of creating a new administrator account for yourself using a different username, logging in as that new user and deleting the original “admin” account.

If you have posts published by the “admin” account, when you delete it, you can assign all the existing posts to your new user account.

  1. Hide your username from the author archive URL

wordpress security tips
Another way an attacker can potentially gain access to your username is via the author archive pages on your site.

By default WordPress displays your username in the URL of your author archive page. e.g. if your username is joebloggs, your author archive page would be something like http://yoursite.com/author/joebloggs

This is less than ideal, for the same reasons explained above for the “admin” username, so it’s a good idea to hide this by changing the user_nicename entry in your database, as described here

  1. Limit login attempts

wordpress security tips

In the case of a hacker or a bot attempting a brute-force attack to crack your password, it can be useful to limit the number of failed login attempts from a single IP address.

Limit Login Attempts does just that, allowing you to specify how many retries will be allowed, and how long an IP will be locked out for after too many failed login attempts.

There are ways around this, as some attackers will use a large number of different IP addresses, but it’s still worth doing as an additional precaution.

  1. Disable file editing via the dashboard

In a default WordPress installation, you can navigate to Appearance > Editor and edit any of your theme files right in the dashboard.

The trouble is, if a hacker managed to gain access to your admin panel, they could also edit your files that way, and execute whatever code they wanted to.

So it’s a good idea to disable this method of file editing, by adding the following to your wp-config.php file:

 

define( ‘DISALLOW_FILE_EDIT’, true );

    8. Try to avoid free themes

wordpress security tips

We’re confident in the quality and security of our free themes. As a general rule though, it’s better to avoid using free themes, if possible, especially if they aren’t built by a reputable developer.

The main reason for this is that free themes can often contain things like base64 encoding, which may be used to sneakily insert spam links into your site, or other malicious code that can cause all sorts of problems, where 8 out of 10 sites reviewed offered free themes containing base64 code.

If you really need to use a free theme, you should only use those developed by trusted theme companies, or those available on the official WordPress.org theme repository.

Note: The same logic applies to plugins. Only use plugins that are listed on WordPress.org, or built by a well-established developer.

  1. Keep a backup

wordpress security tips

I can’t overemphasize the importance of making regular backups of your website. This is something that many people put off until it’s too late.

Even with the best security measures at your disposal, you never know when something unexpected could happen that might leave your site open to an attack.

If that happens you want to make sure all of your content is safely backed up, so that you can easily restore your site to its former glory.

The WordPress Codex tells you exactly how to backup your site, and if that seems like too much hard work, you can use a plugin such as WordPress Backup to Dropbox to schedule regular automatic backups.

  1. Use security plugins

wordpress security tips

As well as all of the measures above, there are tons of plugins you can use to tighten your site’s security and reduce the likelihood of being hacked.

Here are a handful of popular options:

http://wordpress.org/plugins/better-wp-security/ – offers a wide range of security features.

http://wordpress.org/plugins/bulletproof-security/ – protects your site via .htaccess.

http://wordpress.org/plugins/all-in-one-wp-security-and-firewall/ – adds a firewall to your site.

http://wordpress.org/plugins/sucuri-scanner/ – scans your site for malware etc.

http://wordpress.org/plugins/wordfence/ – full-featured security plugin.

http://wordpress.org/plugins/websitedefender-wordpress-security/ – comprehensive security tool.

http://wordpress.org/plugins/exploit-scanner/ – searches your database for any suspicious code.

Further resources

To learn more about hardening your website’s security, please check out these two resources:

http://codex.wordpress.org/Hardening_WordPress

http://wp.tutsplus.com/tutorials/11-quick-tips-securing-your-wordpress-site

We also recommend Sucuri.net if you are unsure about this topic. Sucuri can help monitor your site, alert you of suspicious activity and even help clean up your site in the case of a malware attack.

Don’t panic!

This may all sound pretty intimidating, especially if you’re a beginner. I’d like to point out that it’s not intended to scare anyone, it’s just important to discuss the topic of security regularly, as we want to make sure you stay one step ahead of the hackers!

You don’t have to do everything on this list (although it certainly wouldn’t hurt). Even if you just remove the ‘admin’ username and start using stronger passwords, your site will be that little bit safer.

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Infographic: WordPress.com VS WordPress.org https://nootheme.com/infographic-wordpress-com-vs-wordpress-org/ https://nootheme.com/infographic-wordpress-com-vs-wordpress-org/#respond Wed, 16 Sep 2015 01:35:57 +0000 http://www.nootheme.com/?p=5989 Have you ever wondered what the differences between WordPress.com and WordPress.org are? Are they familiar?

In this infographic we will show you some main differences between them.

wordpress.com vs wordpress.org

 

Do you find this infographic helpful? Don’t hesitate to leave a comment below to let us know what you think.

Find yourself some WordPress.com themes at our gallery on Themeforest!

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The WordPress Plugins You Need To Start Your Blog https://nootheme.com/the-wordpress-plugins-you-need-to-start-your-blog/ https://nootheme.com/the-wordpress-plugins-you-need-to-start-your-blog/#respond Fri, 04 Sep 2015 02:13:22 +0000 http://www.nootheme.com/?p=5929 When you’re first starting on WordPress, one of the most exciting yet intimidating things is learning about plugins – what they do, which work, which don’t, and which ones you absolutely need.

Plugins are powerful. They are the heart of what makes WordPress so awesome. Let’s jump in to which WordPress plugins you need as soon as you start your blog.

 

AKISMET

wordpress plugins

Akismet blocks spam comments. Think you won’t get any spam comments? To date, my personal blog has received over 355,000 spam comments. Nearly all were blocked by Akismet. Occasionally one or two slip through but they’re easy to spot and can be quickly deleted manually.

 

WORDFENCE

wordpress plugins

Someone will try to hack into your blog at some point. It will happen. Wordfence allows you to set parameters about how many tries someone gets before they get locked out. It sends you a notification email when someone attempts to log in using an incorrect login id or exceeds the number of attempts.

 

WP OPTIMIZE

wordpress plugins

WP Optimize helps make your blog the best it can be. It removes extra versions saved of each blog posts. It removes metadata from comments, trashed comments, spam comments, and gives you the ability to remove trackbacks and pingbacks. It cleans up your database and keeps things running clean and smooth.

 

WORDPRESS SEO BY YOAST

wordpress plugins

This is the most popular SEO plugin out there. Sure you don’t always need SEO, but most of the time, you probably do. Yoast makes it easy to optimize your posts for search engines by putting a form right at the bottom of your post draft.

After I’ve written a post, I scroll down beyond the editing area to the WordPress SEO by Yoast section. I fill out the focus keyword, SEO title, and meta description.

Here is what mine looks like for this post:

wordpress plugins

Before I click publish, I make sure the SEO Check has a little green light by it, indicating that my post is ready to go.

wordpress plugins

It’s easy peasy and super important.

 

SIMPLE SOCIAL ICONS

wordpress plugins

Blogs are social places that thrive with interaction. Social media is a great supplement to an active blog community. Simple Social Icons makes it easy for your blog readers to find you elsewhere on the internet.

 

UPDRAFT PLUS

wordpress plugins

When you have a self-hosted blog, you are the only one responsible for making sure that you have backups in place in the event that anything goes wrong. Updraft Plus saves the backups to your server but also allows you to store additional copies elsewhere, like Google Drive or Dropbox.

 

BJ LAZY LOAD

wordpress plugins

This is a fantastic plugin to reduce page load time, particularly if your blog is photo heavy. BJ Lazy Load allows your site to load all visible images, while the remaining images are not loaded until the reader scrolls and the photos get closer to being visible in the browsing window.

 

SUBSCRIBE TO COMMENTS RELOADED

wordpress plugins

My preferred method of replying to comments is to go directly to my post and view replies, clicking on “reply” to write a public reply to each commenter. When you reply to comments this way (vs. via email), the commenter does not get a notification that you have done so. Subscribe to Comments Reloaded fixes that issue and allows readers to subscribe to follow-up comments, ensuring that they are notified of your reply.

 

Do you have any other suggestions for plugins that are absolute must-haves? I’d love to hear about them!

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Top 15 Reasons Why You Should Use WordPress https://nootheme.com/top-15-reasons-why-you-should-use-wordpress/ https://nootheme.com/top-15-reasons-why-you-should-use-wordpress/#respond Tue, 25 Aug 2015 02:02:27 +0000 http://www.nootheme.com/?p=5867 For anyone who hasn’t known about WordPress, it is an Open Source project you can use to create your own website or blog with awesome interface and many splendid features that millions of users all over the world choose to use every day.

In this article, we will show you Top 15 main reasons why WordPress is always Internet user’s favorite web software for over ten years.

  1. Simplicity: Simplicity makes it possible for you to get online and get publishing, quickly. Nothing should get in the way of you getting your website up and your content out there. WordPress is built to make that happen.
  2. Flexibility: With WordPress, you can create any type of website you want: a personal blog or website, a photoblog, a business website, a professional portfolio, a government website, a magazine or news website, an online community, even a network of websites. You can make your website beautiful with themes, and extend it with plugins.
  3. Publish with Ease: If you’ve ever created a document, you’re already a whizz at creating content with WordPress. You can create Posts and Pages, format them easily, insert media, and with the click of a button your content is live and on the web.
  4. Publishing Tools: WordPress makes it easy for you to manage your content. Create drafts, schedule publication, and look at your post revisions. Make your content public or private, and secure posts and pages with a password.
  5. User Management: Not everyone requires the same access to your website. Administrators manage the site, editors work with content, authors and contributors write that content, and subscribers have a profile that they can manage. This lets you have a variety of contributors to your website, and let others simply be part of your community.
  6. Media Management: They say a picture says a thousand words, which is why it’s important for you to be able to quickly and easily upload images and media to WordPress. Drag and drop your media into the uploader to add it to your website. Add alt text, captions, and titles, and insert images and galleries into your content. We’ve even added a few image editing tools you can have fun with.
    wordpress user

    “Millions of people use WordPress every day”

  7. Full Standards Compliance: Every piece of WordPress generated code is in full compliance with the standards set by the W3C. This means that your website will work in today’s browser, while maintaining forward compatibility with the next generation of browser. Your website is a beautiful thing, now and in the future.
  8. Easy Theme System: Upload your own theme with the click of a button. It only takes a few seconds for you to give your website a complete makeover.
  9. Extend with Plugins: WordPress comes packed full of features for every user, for every other feature there’s a plugin directory with thousands of plugins. Add complex galleries, social networking, forums, social media widgets, spam protection, calendars, fine-tune controls for search engine optimization, and forms.
  10. Built-in Comments Your blog is your home, and comments provide a space for your friends and followers to engage with your content. WordPress’s comment tools give you everything you need to be a forum for discussion and to moderate that discussion.
  11. Search Engine Optimized When the head of Google’s web spam team says that WordPress is a great choice, taking care of 80–90% of the mechanics of search engine optimization for you, you know you’re on to a good thing. For more fine-grained SEO control, there are plenty of SEO plugins to take care of that for you.
  12. Multilingual WordPress is available in more than 70 languages. If you or the person you’re building the website for would prefer to use WordPress in a language other than English, that’s easy to do.
  13. Easy Installation and Upgrades WordPress has always been easy to install and upgrade. Plenty of web hosts offer one-click WordPress installers that let you install WordPress with, well, just one click!
  14. Own Your Data Hosted services come and go. If you’ve ever used a service that disappeared, you know how traumatic that can be. If you’ve ever seen adverts appear on your website, you’ve probably been pretty annoyed. Using WordPress means no one has access to your content. Own your data, all of it — your website, your content, your data.
  15. Freedom WordPress is licensed under the GPL which was created to protect your freedoms. You are free to use WordPress in any way you choose: install it, use it, modify it, distribute it. Software freedom is the foundation that WordPress is built on.

Have all these above reasons been persuadable enough for you to use WordPress ? We hope that after reading this article, you will have a more comprehensive look about WordPress and understand why millions of people choose to use it every day.

Moreover, WordPress also allows users to customize themes and plugins, so you can make your blog/website to be exactly the way you want. On internet nowadays, there are tons of amazing WordPress themes from many different sources, but we – Nootheme provide themes and plugins which towards distinct purposes: for business, shop, blog or restaurant, ect… Visit Nootheme, take a look at our WordPress products and we will fulfill your expectation.

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