Is WordPress Really That Hard?

In case you choose a random WordPress person and ask her why she makes use of WordPress there's a good probability her reply shall be “as a result of it’s straightforward” adopted by one thing about how one can rise up and operating in 5 minutes and “everybody can do it”. I encounter this sentiment on a regular basis and also you’ll even discover me saying these very same issues, however I’m realizing this concept – that WordPress is simple – is turning into a difficulty as a result of it's an sick outlined assertion: What WordPress specialists imply after they say “WordPress is simple” doesn't correspond to what new and potential customers perceive once they hear it.

We have to change the way in which we current WordPress to the individuals.

WordPress just isn't simple. However studying WordPress is.

For example my level let me offer you three examples of conversations I’ve had round WordPress within the final a number of months after which I’ll undergo what issues they unearth, and what we as a group can do about them.

“I spent the final four months constructing my web site and it’s nonetheless not prepared”

On New Yr’s Eve I discovered myself at a celebration with a potential political candidate. He was lamenting the challenges of recruiting new celebration members, the hours spent campaigning, the standard stuff.  Then he went on to speak about his net technique and voiced his frustration: “I spent the final four months constructing my web site and it’s nonetheless not prepared”.

I hear statements like this on a regular basis – from small enterprise homeowners and occasion organizers and neighborhood teams and non-income and just about any particular person or enterprise with a small finances and large desires. They need an internet site, they’ve been informed it's straightforward to construct one, and so they’ve invested a considerable quantity of time making an attempt to make it excellent. However the finish result's dismal and so they realize it. Now they really feel both lied to or like failures or typically each.

“Let me let you know why I hate WordPress”

In December I took a stroll with my developer confederate Mark and we drifted onto the subject most individuals default to when speaking to me: WordPress – and particularly the subject of why he hates it. I can’t quote him phrase for phrase so let me as a substitute summarize his argument as I keep in mind it:

“What WordPress does is make folks suppose they know what they're doing once they don’t. It’s too straightforward to create one thing and the ability you are feeling from having the ability to do stuff you don’t actually perceive convinces you you really know what you’re doing. So that you get folks with the flexibility to do issues on the internet that do not know if what they're doing is true or incorrect. They usually begin doing very harmful issues. They arrange insecure websites.

They write horrible code. They get hacked. After which to high it off they begin promoting their providers!”

“We paid a WordPress developer $200 to construct us a brand new theme and we’re having some points”

Throughout one in all my shopper consultations in 2013 I used to be introduced with what I can truthfully say is the worst WordPress theme I've ever seen. A fast look informed me the one that constructed it had solely a fleeting understanding of XHTML (yep, XHTML) and CSS, was firmly caught within the coding practices of early 2000s, and had zero understanding of WordPress. Bewildered I requested the place they bought this theme from they usually advised me they paid a “WordPress developer” $200 and that they have been “having some points”. After I requested them why they'd rent somebody who solely charged $200 for this type of work I bought the deadpan response “Properly, WordPress is free and it’s really easy anybody can do it so why ought to it price extra?”

WordPress will not be simple

What the three examples above and plenty of others like them present is that we have now a communication drawback in relation to WordPress. Statements like “WordPress is simple” have created three frequent misconceptions, or myths if you'll, about WordPress:

    Some folks assume WordPress allows them to construct an expert grade web site with little to no effort.

    Some individuals consider their capability to publish content material with WordPress makes them internet builders.

    Some folks conclude that based mostly on 1 and a pair of (and since WordPress itself is free), WordPress companies needs to be free or low cost.

I say “some” right here although in actuality these are generally held beliefs.

Anybody working with WordPress on an expert degree may have encountered every of those myths and is aware of they don't seem to be true: (1) Whilst you can construct an expert web site with WordPress, doing so requires quite a lot of work. (2) Having the ability to publish content material utilizing WordPress makes you an internet writer or content material supervisor. An internet developer or designer has the power to construct the applying that makes that publishing doable. (three) Whereas WordPress is free and open supply, the time and ability spent on constructing content material for WordPress has a financial worth in a lot the identical method air is free however with the ability to fly within the air has a financial worth.

Now that these myths have been dispelled, let’s have a look at how we are able to change the way in which we speak about WordPress so we will keep away from these misconceptions transferring ahead.
WordPress is comparatively straightforward.

At the start of this text I stated that I usually use the assertion “WordPress is simple” myself. Which will seem to be a little bit of a contradiction after what you’ve simply learn. It’s not. And right here’s why: WordPress is simple relative to the options. And once I inform folks WordPress is simple I at all times level this out. To publish an internet site or weblog that you just control it's my opinion that WordPress gives the quickest, most safe, and sure, best answer. That doesn't imply WordPress doesn't require effort. It simply means compared to the options WordPress will spare your keyboard from frequent brow impacts.

The explanation for the myths above is the understanding of the phrase “straightforward” as “no effort”. It is a rare thing that has its roots in commercials and it's inflicting main complications for the DIY tradition WordPress is part of. While you see a industrial selling one thing as “straightforward”, what they're truly saying is “simply click on right here and magic occurs!” That is not often if ever true, but it surely’s a pleasant an comfy phantasm we have now educated ourselves to imagine. The unlucky pitfall of WordPress is that it actually is simple to arrange and begin utilizing so the phantasm is carried into the appliance itself.

I'd argue that WordPress’ ease of use is it’s most harmful function. If individuals have been reasonable and accepted that simply because they'd a straightforward time setting it up doesn’t imply they're instantly specialists we wouldn’t have an issue. However in actuality individuals do make that leap of judgement – from the flexibility to set it as much as perceiving themselves as specialists – and that’s not good for them or for anybody else.

WordPress is simple to study

What's nice about WordPress, and one of many essential causes I take advantage of it and am such a vocal proponent for this CMS, is that WordPress is simple to study. WordPress is sensible to folks in a method few different on-line publishing purposes does. That’s what set it aside when it launched greater than 10 years in the past, that’s what made it rise to the recognition and energy it has as we speak, and that’s why most present and new CMSes are emulating the WordPress consumer expertise.

WordPress is a good platform to start out your journey in internet publishing, internet design, and internet growth, as a result of it takes away the fundamental hurdles that used to face in your method. You aren't ranging from scratch. You get going instantly, and you'll experiment and tinker and study at your personal tempo and by yourself phrases. With WordPress the educational course of is much less daunting and due to its semantic templating language and strict adherence to net requirements you don’t should be a coding genius to grasp the way it works below the hood.

I teach entrance finish net growth at lynda.com and Emily Carr College of Artwork and Design and I exploit WordPress because the baseline for all my programs as a result of in my view it offers the perfect platform and place to begin for anybody eager to work on or with internet applied sciences.

WordPress is straightforward as soon as you recognize it

My final level has two sides to it: On the upside, WordPress is simple as soon as you realize it due to all of the issues listed above and due to its logical and person pushed improvement construction. As soon as and perceive WordPress and its total philosophy, new options and updates make intuitive sense. When new components are added to WordPress they often fall into the identical general method as earlier ones and thus fall naturally into your course of. And since WordPress is open supply the individuals who develop the appliance are the individuals who use it so new options are typically issues the group need and want.

On the draw back, WordPress is simple to make use of as soon as you recognize it and it may be tough to keep in mind that a) once you started utilizing WordPress it was a lot easier than it's at present, and b) you suppose it’s straightforward since you already know how you can use it.

After I started utilizing WordPress a few years in the past it was a easy running a blog utility with few choices. And I grew with the applying. Right now WordPress is a posh CMS and new customers are sometimes overwhelmed by this complexity. We who've been utilizing WordPress for a very long time have to keep in mind that simply because we all know the way it works and assume it’s intuitive doesn’t imply it truly is intuitive. Our tacit data can simply cloud our judgement and make us confuse our personal acquired understanding for intuitive understanding. And when that occurs we turn into poor lecturers and even worse builders.

WordPress is just not simple. However it may be when you study it. And if you do, assist new customers onto the identical path.

Constructing a WordPress Enterprise

I’ve been working with net growth for the final 10 years and I’ve acquired a variety of laborious realized classes and effectively hidden ideas and tips alongside the best way. As this new yr begins I’ve determined it’s time to pay it ahead. This text is the primary of a sequence that can cowl completely different matters and insights about constructing and working a WordPress enterprise. The sequence is not going to be a how-to step-by-step information however somewhat a sequence of stand-alone articles and probably movies discussing frequent achievements and challenges that face a burgeoning WordPress enterprise proprietor.

I might love your enter and requests on this matter so in case you are on the lookout for info on a selected matter hit me up within the feedback under and I’ll do my finest to reply your request. And as at all times you possibly can comply with my ever rising sequence of programs on lynda.com the place I'll push out a complete slew of latest WordPress and internet design / growth associated programs.

Know More About the History of WordPress

Usually beginners begin to use WordPress these days, many people see an extremely well-known content material supervision system which is running 22% coming from all websites. Lots of people get stunned whenever we actually tell them in which WordPress can be no cost and open origin. On this page, you should look back again in the heritage connected with WordPress showing people how the idea developed overtime.

The actual story connected with WordPress explains to us all how open origin residential areas do the job to make anything consequently valuable with out reducing software package flexibility. WordPress project can be transported by way of area connected with focused programmers, people, and proponents.

WordPress begun considering that the progress of an existing writing a blog software package b2/cafelog was ceased by his or her primary programmers. Inside 2003, a couple people connected with b2/cafelog, Shiny Mullenweg and Robert Tiny, decided to make a fresh podium along with b2/cafelog.

These people most likely didn’t realize actually gonna take up a voyage that might at some point profit an incredible number of people in the world, develop a large number of careers, and a complete industry connected with programmers, designers, copy writers, blog writers, and world-wide-web publishers might help to make his or her existing from it.

On Might 28, 2003, Shiny reported this accessibility to the initial variation connected with WordPress. It absolutely was properly acquired with the area. It absolutely was based on b2 Cafelog along with considerable advancements. The very first variation connected with WordPress bundled the latest administrative user interface, fresh themes, and made XHTML 1. 1 compliant themes.

Inside Might 2004, variation 1. 2 connected with WordPress was included with Plugin Buildings which in turn permitted people and programmers to supply this performance connected with WordPress by publishing their very own jacks and expressing these people along with rest of the area. While WordPress was launching alone on the area, anything fully reverse was taking place from the writing a blog industry at that time.

Industry chief throughout writing a blog instruments industry at that time was Portable Variety. These people reported fresh licensing words that had been not really popular with a lot of his or her people. That triggered people searching for a fresh writing a blog podium. WordPress 1. 2, offered alone for dedicated project giving people an adult, steady, uncomplicated and versatile podium along with attributes in which rivaled his or her little-known rivals. The actual adaption rate connected with WordPress skyrocketed with this particular generate.

Throughout the number of people, WordPress started off recovering using the guide and curiosity with the area. Inside February 2005, WordPress 1. 5 was included with Pages, remark moderation instruments, fresh default topic Kubrick, and a brand spanking new Design Method.

Inside 12 2005, WordPress 2. 0 was launched which has a fresh administrative dashboard. That fresh administrative location was a whole change with the supervision projection screens throughout WordPress. It used JavaScript and DHTML to make a much better user interface in which people did not should heap a website to do many basic duties. Users had been today in a position to put types and tags to help threads with out making submit publisher or even erase responses with out reloading this responses display screen.

But Administrative URINARY INCONTINENCE hasn't been the only real considerable improvement with this generate. It absolutely was the initial generate in which was included with Akismet anti-spam plugin pre-installed. Furthermore, it was included with a WordPress database copy plugin, wp-db-backup, that is and then decreased throughout 2007. An additional 1st due to this generate was this advantages of an capabilities. php document from the Design Method.
Automattic, the corporation created by WordPress co-founder Shiny Mullenweg, filed trademark subscription for WordPress and WordPress brand throughout 2006.

Inside 2008, a web page design company called Happy Cog became a member of this WordPress project to help pattern the latest WordPress administrative user interface. A user friendliness review was done to create this administrative URINARY INCONTINENCE. Along with distinct produces over summer and winter many fresh attributes for instance shortcodes, one-click improvements, and built-in plugin installation had been put into WordPress.

This year, Automattic, the corporation created by WordPress co-founder Shiny Mullenweg, transferred this control connected with WordPress trademark and brand on the WordPress Footing. I thought this was a large instant throughout WordPress heritage, since it guaranteed in which WordPress will probably carry on and grow, which is not really determined by a firm or even a gaggle of programmers to remain this project.

WordPress 3. 0 was launched with Summer 17, 2010. It absolutely was a serious actions in direction of WordPress because CMS. That generate launched many attributes for instance custom submit kinds, much better custom taxonomies, custom backdrops, header, selections, contextual guide with administrative projection screens, etc. WordPress MU project was joined straight into WordPress primary to build Multisite communities.

Inside 2012, topic customizer, topic previews, and fresh press manager had been launched. These attributes greatly aided fresh people throughout producing photograph galleries and previewing subjects ahead of many people change to a fresh topic.

Inside 2013, WordPress 3. 7 was included with the brand new computerized improvements attribute in which permitted WordPress to help instantly replace ones site’s software package for minimal produces. The actual computerized improvements attribute can be akin to exactly what Yahoo and google Opera browser really does. Many people didn’t like the attribute, consequently many of us authored a course on how to help disable computerized improvements.
By means of now WordPress got currently started to be typically the most popular CMS on the globe.

Identical year WordPress 3. 8 was launched which in turn launched MP6, the brand new WordPress administrative user interface. That fresh user interface was reactive and was geared to deliver a greater consumer knowledge to help people, with just about any device or even display screen dimension.

Furthermore, it was included with Something like 20 Twenty, which in turn started off this traditions of an fresh default topic per year.

Before publishing this information, i am today utilizing WordPress 3. 9 that is produced with April 04, 2014. That generate devoted to strengthening this WordPress visual submit publisher. Graphics can now always be ripped and decreased straight into submit publisher. Users can now change graphics proper inside the publisher and pay attention to his or her gallery previews inside the publisher. WordPress 3. 9 additionally launched are living widget previews, music playlists, and many other innovations.

How to Restore a WordPress Site From cPanel Backup

It's really frustrating for your website to be hijacked or even defaced. That's why it's very important to have an available backup every now and then. You will never now when will hackers attack you or you yourself make a undo-able mistake.

Don't worry, you don't have to worry anymore. If you have the latest cPanel interface you can backup your WordPress website in just a clicks and less effort.

In this tutorial, it's not just your website files that you can restore but you can also restore your emails and databases.

Kindly watch this video i made to explain it better. It's not that hard :)



Hope you have successfully restored your website.  See my  post on how to Tighten your website security in order for you to avoid being hacked.

Easy Website Backup Using cPanel - Home Directory, Database and Emails

 

Why Backup your website?

Hurrayy! Your website is now launched! I bet you're going top make a bunch of blog posts or maybe edit some content, Delete some plugins or change configurations. But what if you accidentally deleted something you need? What now? Website backups are an essential part of owning a website. Having Backup files can be very useful in case something bad happens to your website like a malware attack or you accidentally deleted a page or a file - Having a website backup can save you a lot of time and minimize your stress.

How to Backup your Wordpress site.

I know that here a lots and lots of FREE backup plugins in wordpress.org that you can download. There are also good premium backup plugins that you can find in codecanyon.

I think there's a better backup solution for you! I suggest you create a backup yourself through cPanel or a cpanel backup. It will only take you a few clicks and a couple of steps.

Here is a quick video on how to backup your site using cPanel:


I recommend you do a database backup weekly and your files monthly.

I you're having problems or need a guide in backing up your webstie. Feel free tocomment below and i'll try to help.

How to Reduce and Make Your Images SEO Optimized - Wordpress

Optimizing/Compressing your web images before uploading will help a lot in your site speed and SEO.

Don't worry too much about your image quality, There are lot of plugins or applications out there that can optimize your images without losing its quality.

I would recommend WP SMUSH plugin. This free version plugin lets you compress images up to 1MB in size, Now that's a lot! You can upgrade to Pro version if you are optimizing images bigger than 1MB. Pro version covers up to 5MB.

So how does this plugin work? WP SMUSH works by removing meta data from your images, Compresses JPG, PNGand GIFS, again without losing its quality. WP smash can compress images that are already in your media library.

Isn't that great? You won't have to re-upload your images. You just have to sit and wait while it does its job. It also automatically optimize the images that you upload in the future.

Now we're done with optimzing image size that will boost up your site speed.

Let's go with the SEO side of the images.

I would recommend installing SEO Friendly Images. The title itself is self explanatory.



What it does is that it edits all your images and sets them with proper ALT and TITLE. This plugin will save you a lot of time.

Why do we have to add ALT and TITLE with images anyway? The ALT attribute describes your images to search engines like google, while TITLE automatically appears in the tooltip when a user hovers over an image.

I can say there are lot's of alternative plugin outhere but this two are the best. You can't jsut go and install bunch of plugins in your site. Having a lot of plugins in your site would not only take a lot of resources but also reduce your site loading time.

Tighten Your Wordpress Website Security

Well, The most important thing to your website is web security. No one is safe to those hackers and even the biggest companies that own websites gets hacked. These past few years, almost 30,000 websites has been hacked by these malicious hackers and that's not a funny thing at all. Recently, My website was hacked and it took most of my time trying to patch things up.

After searching and removing all of the malicious codes, My hosting told me that once your website got hacked, the hacker will always find a way to deface your website again. Meaning there will be always a open backdoor. Obviously I don't want this to happen to anyone that's why i want to share my experience and knowledge on how to tighten your web security.

First thing i would recommend that you install Wordfence and Brute-Force Firewall plugins to your WordPress website.

How to install Wordfence and Brute-Force Firewall:

1. Go to Plugins > Add new
2. Search for Wordfence and Brute-Force Firewall
3. Activate and install



Some tips:

1. Get a high quality secured hosting. Don't get tempted to those cheap web hostings out there. It's also important to you must understand how websites gets hacked.

2. Don't use weak passwords such as 123qweasd, abcde etc. There are lots of password generators in the web.

3. Keep your computer clean. Don't just install random programs in your computer, it might be embedded with spyware or malwares. Install good anti virus programs and anti malware programs.

4. Keep your themes and plugins updated. This will make the hackers have difficulties in guessing the structure of the theme or plugins. Also, to close all open loops in the code.

I usually do a monthly maintenance on my site, I suggest you do to.

With these precautions, hackers will have a hard time installing or putting malicious code into your website. Keep safe everyone