Category: Guides

WordPress for Dummies – Setting Up Your First Website

Wordpress for dummies
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Powering up to 35 percent of the web, WordPress is truly a powerful content management system, complete with tools and plugins for designing any website. It’s the go-to option for bloggers and seasoned web developers as well as big-name brands, such as TechCrunch, The New Yorker, Bloomberg Professional, among others.

Even though WordPress is designed to be user-friendly, it can be complex for the uninitiated. You need to know everything from buying your domain to publishing your first post. With a little research and time, you can learn and understand the whole process.

In this post, we’re going to show you how to get started with WordPress. Hopefully, you’ll learn how to set up your website without any hurdles.

Get a Domain Name

You can easily buy a domain name online, thanks to the hundreds of available domain registrars. Some popular registrars include Namecheap, GoDaddy, Domain.com, and Name.com.

When buying a domain, you have first to check the availability of the name. You want to ensure the name is as simple as possible for SEO purposes. Most importantly, your domain name should represent the theme or focus of your blog or website.

For example, our domain name Precisethemes.com reflects what the website is possibly about. Of course, other components, such as taglines and meta descriptions, provide more information about the site.

Find a Web Host

You need a home for your website, and that means finding a good website host. It should be affordable but provides adequate resources for your site or blog.

Picking a good web hosting provider boils down to three crucial factors: security, speed, and support. Web hosting is usually overlooked, yet it’s one of the key factors of a successful website. So, it’s wise to take the time to review different options, including Dedicated, VPS, Shared, and managed-hosting.

Some reputable web hosting providers include HostGator, Bluehost, SiteGround, GoDaddy, Dreamhost, and Hostinger. Bear in mind that most hosting services also sell domain names. Regardless of your choice, it’s advisable to compare different services before picking one.

Install WordPress

Install WordPress

Once you have purchased your hosting plan, you now need to install the WordPress CMS. There are two ways you can do this:

Download and Install

You can visit WordPress.org/download to download the latest version of WordPress to use on your site. Once you have downloaded the package, you’ll need to unzip it.

You can then upload the file’s content to the root directory of your hosting account using an FTP client, such as FileZilla. You can also install it in its own subdirectory on your website. Then, run the installation script by visiting the URL in a browser. That’s it!

One-Click Install

This is the easiest way of installing WordPress on your new site. You’ll need to access your web host’s control panel to complete this process. Locate WordPress and then click install.

There are also automated tools you can use for installation, including APS, Fantastico, Installatron, and Softaculous.

Get Your Theme

Once you have installed WordPress, you’ll need a theme for your website. It’s basically like your site’s clothing. A theme gives your website the look and feel you want. It plays a role in how visitors and search engines perceive your website.

When searching for a WordPress Theme, you have three options:

  • A free theme
  • A premium theme
  • A custom-made theme

While free themes don’t cost you a dime, they have limited design features and customizability. They’re also rarely updated, and this poses a security risk to your website. There have also been cases of free themes with embedded malicious code. However, there are still good, clean free themes.

The best option is usually to get a premium theme that offers a customizable design, complete with an in-built customizer for managing colors, widgets, typography, and more. Some are usually SEO-ready, allowing you to optimize your blog or site for search engines.

You can also consider getting a custom-made WordPress theme, and this will definitely cost you more. With custom options, you get to give your blog a unique design based on your ideas.

Install Your Theme

WordPress Theme

Installing a WordPress theme is quite easy. You need to log in to the WordPress admin portal and then select Appearance on the left menu. Go to Themes and click Add New to upload your downloaded .zip file.

Once you have uploaded the file, simply select it from the available themes, and click . You’ll then need to click Activate to start using it on your blog or website.

Bear in mind that you can also install your theme using FTP. But you’ll still have to finalize the installation through your WP admin portal.

Customize Your Theme

Before customizing your theme, it’s vital to understand the options that are available to you. For example, if you want a specific functionality, you can simply install a plugin. In some cases, using plugins can provide some of the things you need for your site.

You can also use the Customizer to change the fonts, colors, and layout of your site. Some of the themes come with a page builder, which allows you to customize your blog’s design. For a framework theme, edit the child theme to edit your site.

You can also use the theme editor, but it’s not advisable to do so. This is because any changes you make will be lost when the theme has a new update. Also, editing using the theme editor can lead to a broken site if you don’t know much about PHP and CSS.

So, the easiest way is to use the Customizer. While in the admin screen, click on Appearance and then Customize. You can change the customization options as you wish to get the look you want.

Install Essential Plugins

Once you’re done with editing your theme, you’ll need to install the essential plugins. While using plugins to add functionality eliminates unnecessary theme edits, they actually add to your website’s code volume.

This basically means that your site’s speed may slow due to the increased code volume. Therefore, you only need to limit your plugin installations to those that are really essential. Here are the great options to consider:

  • SEO plugins – Yoast SEO and All-In-One SEO
  • Security plugins – Sucuri and WordFence
  • Backup plugins – Updraftplus, VaultPress, and BackupBuddy
  • Caching plugins – WP Rocket, W3 Total Cache, and WP Super Cache

You can choose one for each category highlighted above. However, you’re not limited to these plugins only. There are so many plugins when you go through the WordPress plugin repository. Bear in mind that these plugins have free and premium versions – you get to choose what you want.

There are also other important plugins you will want to consider, such as:

  • Redirection – When you remove or relocate posts, visitors will always get 404 errors when visiting those pages. You can prevent that by using the Redirection plugin to set up 301 redirections manually.
  • Elementor – If you want to create custom pages, Elementor can help you get original designs.
  • Optimole – This plugin is great for optimizing your images. Optimized visual elements help to improve your site speed.
  • Social Snap – For sharing your posts on social media. When used well, social media can grow your blog traffic.

On average, you should have about 20 to 30 plugins. Some experts recommend staying below 20 plugins to avoid slowing your website. You should only install plugins when it’s absolutely necessary.

Secure Your Website

WordPress and web hosting service providers are doing everything to protect the websites and blogs of their users. But you also have a role to play to bolster your site’s security and keep hackers at bay.

Be sure to use strong passwords and user permissions that are unique to your blog. Avoid using your name, birth year, or simple numbers as passwords.

Install security plugins, such as Sucuri or WordFence. Both of these plugins are great, and they also offer premium plans. They help with scanning for malware, blocking unauthorized login attempts, monitoring your traffic, and more.

You should also enable a web application firewall, though your security plugins usually come with a firewall. A website firewall usually blocks malicious traffic before it reaches your website or blog.

Another key addition is the SSL/HTTPS encryption. This protocol encrypts data between your website and browser to prevent malicious actors from stealing the data.

WordPress for Dummies – Final Thoughts

Starting a WordPress blog or site isn’t a difficult process. Of course, there are a few hurdles if you’re for first-timers. Taking the time to learn and understand the crucial steps could make the experience quite seamless.

WordPress is the most popular CMS due to its user-friendly design, large community, and easy access to plugins, themes, and other tools. Plus, there are great WordPress resource sites that provide guides, tips, and tricks for making the most of the CMS.

Whether you want to start a blog, business website, job board, forum, or an ecommerce site, WordPress makes it easy for you to create your desired site. Just be sure to find the right theme for your website or blog.

8-Step Monthly WordPress Maintenance Checklist

Maintaining a WordPress website is a routine task that’s very much underrated. In a frenzy of running a successful website, webmasters forget the importance of keeping their WordPress site maintained and optimized. 

But here’s the thing; without maintaining your WordPress site, you’re going to face maintenance problems and even security flaws that can hinder your processes. 

To counter these technical issues, we will be looking at the eight essential maintenance requirements for a website. Hopefully, when you’re finished with the article, you will better grasp what it takes to maintain a WordPress website.

Note: These eight essential steps are intended to be performed on a weekly basis. However, some tasks, like image optimization, can be performed on a need-to-do basis. 

With this in mind, let’s begin.

The 8-step WordPress Maintenance Checklist

Check and Delete Spam Comments

The first maintenance task on our list is also the easiest. 

Spam comments are a scourge of the internet. If they’re not regulated, they can cause serious harm to a website. 

If you’re using WordPress, you don’t have to worry about spam comments with even spammier links appearing on your web pages. Akismet, the anti-spam WordPress plugin, comes built-in with every WordPress installation.

Now, you’re covered from getting spam directly on your WordPress pages. All you have to do now is moderate only to allow relevant comments to pass through. 

Just visit the comments moderation section on your WordPress website to see which comment is relevant and which is not. We would advise you to approve the relevant ones first up and then bulk-delete the spam comments. 

It’s not a maintenance task per se, but it’s an administrative task that helps keep your notifications tab clean. Also, it adds value to your content when you allow relevant comments. 

Optimize Your WordPress Database

Your WordPress database is an essential part of your website. It’s got everything from content to comments, user settings, and more. For one reason or another, many webmasters aren’t too focused on this important aspect. 

If you’ve been running a WordPress website for a while now, there is a high-probability that your backend contains a lot of junk data. It should be a cause for concern since when deregulated, such data can go and increase the size of your WordPress backups.

When you optimize your WordPress database, you’re keeping all the necessary files and deleting unnecessary files. Make sure to keep your database clean. 

Run Performance Tests

The significant step towards WordPress maintenance is optimizing the performance of your WordPress website. While necessary, WordPress users do it first up and then ignore this crucial step.

Performance optimization matters a lot. You need a website that loads fast and effectively. If you don’t fulfill these requirements, you can see a decline in your list of customers because Google prefers websites optimized for performance.

Henceforth, auditing your website for performance is a regular maintenance task that you need to look at.

To start with, visit GTMetrix, and Google PageSpeed Insights to see the performance of your website and then improve upon the suggestions provided by these tools. 

In addition to this, keep auditing your website for improvements and modifications. Focusing on every aspect of your website helps to make it more optimized for performance. 

We like WPRocket for this as it’s a great all-in-one performance and speed optimization tool.

Optimize Images on Your WordPress Site

Following up on the previous step, let’s talk about the importance of image optimization in-depth. 

Suppose you write one of the best content pieces you’ve ever written. You publish the content, but you don’t optimize your images. What will happen? Your web pages will load slower, and seeing how modern viewers don’t want to see a loading screen, failure to optimize can lead to performance issues and reduced viewership. 

Large-size images consume too many resources and make the size of a web page larger. With such a large page query, your server takes more time to load resources. That time is reduced to a considerable degree if you’re using optimized images in your content. 

Yes, while you can use various WordPress plugins to optimize images, not everyone in your team would be careful enough to use optimized images. If you’re a prominent publication, you should keep your readers informed on the importance of image optimization. 

So, apart from optimizing the images you upload in the future, you should look at your already published images’ file sizes.

Perform a Thorough Content and SEO Audit

When optimizing your website, don’t limit yourself to just the elements on your website. It would help if you also focused on optimizing the content displayed on your website per SEO.

Here’s what you can do. 

First of all, visit your Google Search Console and see which keywords you’re getting the most traffic from. If you haven’t set up search console just yet, it’s highly recommended that you should. 

Analyzing the keywords is an essential aspect of your content optimization task. It helps you locate keywords that you are already ranking for. With those keywords in mind, you can alter your present and future content around those particular keywords. 

The next thing that we need to do is to use Google Analytics. It’s one of the handiest free tools in the market and helps you see what kind of content is viewed more in some regions than others. By analyzing that data, we can see what sort of content is more popular. If you’re running an eCommerce website, it can help you analyze customers to improve your conversion rates.

On WordPress, you can optimize your content for SEO using a plugin like Yoast SEO. Using the plugin, you can add keywords, and the plugin shows the number of times the keyword is being used in the content. 

Besides these activities, you can add more value to your content by writing informative content while also adding images, infographics, and embedded videos. Value-laden content can prove very beneficial in improving your readership. 

Find and Fix Broken Links

As your website operations grow, you will encounter external links that don’t direct to the linked website. The website might have gone down, or they might have shut down. Whatever the case, your website has broken links that, if visited, can lead to an increase in bounce rates. 

Broken link maintenance is the first step towards improving the website experience. To make sure your users get the best experience, you need to redirect them to high-quality and live websites. 

Backup Your Website

Most modern websites are dynamic in that they publish content frequently. Because of these constant updates, it becomes essential for them to have a backup they can revert to when things go south. 

When you keep a backup of your site, you are essentially making sure that you have a working copy of your website in case your website goes down, gets hacked, or something breaks. If you’re not backing up your website at the moment, then we would suggest you start creating backups. 

Besides being a crucial part of maintenance, backups are an essential aspect of WordPress security. 

On WordPress, you have several options for creating backups. You can upload a copy of your WordPress site to the cloud-ready to be used if something goes wrong. If you’re not looking to opt for a cloud solution for backups, then what you can do is create a backup using a WordPress plugin. 

If your website is performing well, then you need to be vigilant. Don’t relax, thinking that crashes and downtimes would never arrive. They’re inevitable. But the silver lining is that when you have everything prepared, you will be well on your way to keep your site maintained. 

Update Themes and Plugins

The final step towards keeping your website maintained is to keep your plugins and themes up-to-date. 

On WordPress, choosing WordPress themes and plugin and updating them is very easy. The CMS notifies you whenever an update is available. We would advise you to update your plugins and themes at the moment, and an update is available.

Whenever WordPress theme and plugin developers roll out an update to their products, they release products that are free from bugs and vulnerabilities. This update helps make WordPress a lot more secure at the end of the day. 

Conclusion: 

To review, WordPress maintenance is an ongoing task that you must perform diligently to keep your website operations smooth and error-free. 

While there are plenty of other, more technical maintenance tasks, we feel that these eight steps would be sufficient to help you start.

We hope you enjoyed reading this article! 

What else is on your WordPress maintenance list? Drop a comment in below to share what you do to keep your website at peak performance.

How to Edit WordPress Themes without Coding

Last modified on January 12th, 2021 at 12:58 PM

Your website’s design affects the visitor’s experience. Poor choice of colors and layout can frustrate visitors, forcing them to abandon your site. While some themes come with compelling designs, you might need to edit certain elements to improve the overall design.

But editing a WordPress theme without adequate knowledge of CSS, HTML, and PHP can result in more damage than good. It’s possible to lose your content and settings, which took hours or even days to configure. It can also cost you to fix a broken site.

Fortunately, there’s a way to do it without coding. WordPress plugin repository offers lots of tools and plugins you can use to customize your theme without coding. You can also use the Customizer to improve your theme’s layout and appearance.

Keep on reading to learn more!

The Customizer

The Customizer is a tool provided by WordPress to allow you to make changes easily to your theme without touching the code. Additionally, the tool provides a live preview of your changes before publishing them.

Using the tool, you can change your site’s title and taglines, create custom menus, add widgets, change Homepage settings, and other functions.

There are two ways to access the Customizer:

Option 1: From your WordPress dashboard, go to Appearance, and then click on Customize. This will open the Customizer interface with a preview of your theme. On the left side of your screen, you’ll see the menu options, which you can change.

Option 2: When viewing your site while logged in, click on Customize at the top of the screen. This is usually in the admin bar. This will also open the Customizer interface.

There is a large proportion of WordPress themes that support the Customizer. So, this won’t be a difficult thing to do if you want to edit your theme. You can use it to:

  • Configure your website identity and design
  • Manage and configure menus
  • Change website colors
  • Change single post settings
  • Modify your background image

Apart from the desktop mode, the Customizer also supports tablet and mobile views. You can switch between the three options to see how your theme looks like on different devices.

NOTE: Alternatively, there are themes known as frameworks, which are designed to be significantly customized and extended. Framework themes come free or paid – it depends on what you want and the features the theme offers.

Frameworks are commonly described as the foundation of WordPress themes. They usually come with the core code, which covers the basic design elements and features. This provides the starting point for designing and creating your theme.

You can add new elements and features as you wish to get the theme you want. Good examples of frameworks, include WPZoom, Beans, and Genesis. Bear in mind that there are also themes that are built upon these frameworks.

Use Plugins

You can also use plugins to edit your theme. There are different plugins and tools that are effective in customizing the appearance of your site. They offer user-friendly interfaces, with drag-and-drop features. Good examples are page builders, and we are going to cover some of them here.

1. YellowPencil

YellowPencil- Edit WordPress themes without coding

YellowPencil is a CSS style editor plugin, which allows you to customize your website in real-time. You can edit colors, fonts, font sizes, positions, and other style properties.

It offers a free version with limited features, or you can opt for the Regular (paid) plan for your website/domain. You can use it to customize any theme and plugin without coding, allowing you to take full control over the design of your site.

2. Beaver Themer for Beaver Builder

Beaver Themer - Edit WordPress

If you have the Beaver Builder, you can take its functionality even further with the Beaver Themer. This add-on lets you bridge the gap between your theme and pages.

You can use the Beaver Themer to build your blog layouts, footers, headers, and more within the builder. The tool offers different features, such as theme templates, theme parts, field connections, and post grids.

However, buying the Beaver Builder and adding the Themer might be somewhat costly for beginners. The standard plan is available at $99 without the Themer. You’ll need the pro license, which is priced at $199, as of November 2020.

The good thing is that you can use it on unlimited sites.

3. Elementor

Elementor - Edit WordPress Themes without Coding

This is one of the most popular WordPress website builders, with a community of over 5 million users. Elementor offers different features, including Editor, Design, Theme Builder, among others.

With the theme builder, you can create your own blog page, header, footer, 404 pages, and blog post. It offers a drag-and-drop editor that makes it easy for you to design your WordPress theme.

The tool lets you improve areas of your site that are mostly used by visitors. It has every widget you’ll need to edit your theme. Elementor offers both free and paid plans.

4. Divi Builder

Divi Builder - Edit WordPress Themes without Coding.

Divi is an all-in-one theme that comes with a website builder. You can choose to use it as your WordPress theme. Or, you can use its website building platform to edit any WordPress theme.

It offers different features, including custom CSS control, drag & drop building, inline text editing among others. You can use the building platform to manage your entire website design thanks to its global styles and elements.

The platform offers modules for everything, such as forms, testimonials, galleries, blogs, sliders, call-to-actions, forms, and more. Divi Builder is somewhat costly. The basic version requires you to part ways with $89 every year.

5. Ultimate Tweaker

Ultimate Tweaker - Edit WordPress Themes without Coding

At a reasonable price of $16 on CodeCanyon, Ultimate Tweaker offers another option for editing your WordPress themes without coding. This tool enables you to make over 200 tweaks.

You can change everything from your login page to your comments section. The drag & drop feature lets you move menu elements to any place you want, while custom icons allow you to upload any image and set your desired colors.

6. Microthemer WordPress CSS Editor

Microthemer - Edit WordPress themes without coding

Microthemer is a powerful visual editor that enables you to customize the CSS styling of your theme. Whether it’s the fonts or the layouts, this tool is great for both coders and non-coders. It also works well with page builders, such as Oxygen, Beaver Builder, and Elementor.

You can customize any CSS styling of your page, including the footers, menus, sidebars, headers, and plugin content. Its intuitive visual editor lets you preview every change in real-time while editing.

With over 100 CSS style options, Microthemer gives you access to box-shadow, rounded corners, gradients, animation, flexbox, and other styles. You can also work with web design essentials, such as background images and typography, to get the look you want for your theme.

You can install the Microthemer Lite, which is free on WordPress.org. Or, you can get the premium version from Themeover.com

7. Headway Themes

Headway Themes - Edit WordPress Themes without Coding

This is a WordPress front-end page builder that allows you to create any layout for your blog or website. Whether you’re a hobbyist, designer, or freelancer, this tool is designed to meet the needs of every user.

Headway’s visual editor lets you make changes to your theme fast while giving you a real-time preview of every change you’re making. You also use the available templates to inspire your design or try something new for your theme.

You can also use it to enable responsive designs, allowing your theme to adapt to smaller devices as needed. Headway Themes is a premium builder with two package options. The basic plan costs $89, and it supports up to three sites.

8. Visual Composer Website Builder

Another great tool is the Visual Composer website builder. This builder is free, but you can always get the premium version if you want more features. However, the free option doesn’t include the Theme Builder – you’ll definitely need a paid plan.

It has a user-friendly drag and drop editor that lets you use blocks, extensions, and elements in your layout. All the templates and elements are mobile ready and responsive, allowing you to make your theme mobile-friendly from the start.

Visual Composer works with any WordPress theme, enabling you to edit the layout of your pages, posts, or even create custom posts. You can edit your theme as often without losing your designed layouts.

Final Thoughts

With WordPress, getting your desired theme design isn’t a difficult thing, even if you don’t have any coding skills. WordPress has a large community of different users, including enthusiasts, programmers, web designers. developers and coders.

So, whatever idea you have, there’s probably a tool or plugin that will help you actualize the idea. Plus, there are forums where you can get help when you get stuck. Most of these tools offer drag & drop features with previews to allow you to edit your theme seamlessly.

You can still get a theme that requires little to no edits after installation. There are lots of great themes with clean and unique designs. Take the time to compare different themes to find one that suits your design and idea. Be sure to consider key factors, such as SEO, mobile-friendliness, compatibility, and support.

WordPress Theme Detectors: 7 Ways to Determine What Theme A Site Is Using

WordPress theme detector

When building your WordPress website, it’s important to make it look aesthetically appealing. After all, it’s natural for visitors to judge you based on the look of your site.

With thousands of free and paid WordPress themes, how do you go about choosing the best one?

The truth is, that can be challenging at times, and most people end up browsing other websites to get ideas and inspiration.

While on your theme-finding mission, you come across this website with a pleasing design. Sadly, there are no references to the theme’s name or developer anywhere on the site. So, you’re left wondering “what theme is that?” and fortunately that’s also where WordPress theme detectors come in handy.

WordPress Theme Detectors: 7 Methods To Figure Out “What Theme Is That?”

Fortunately, there’s always a way of finding out the theme a particular website is using. This includes using a WordPress theme detector, checking the source code, and looking in the stylesheet.

Here is are the specific tools and ways you can use:

Method 1: WPThemeDetector.com

WPThemeDetector, or WPTD, is an online tool you can use to figure out the theme a website is using. You need to copy the URL or domain of the site you found online, paste it to WPTD, and hit the “Enter” button.

WPTD will analyze the website and provide plenty of information about the theme and plugins the site is using. This tool is free and it only takes a few seconds to check a site and provide its information.

Method 2: Gochyu Theme Detector – What Theme Is That?

Gochyu Theme Detector is also another great tool for detecting WP website themes. Simply copy and paste the target website’s URL to the tool and click “Detect” or tap “Enter” on to your keyboard.

It also takes a few seconds to serve the information on the website. Gochyu works effectively for both WordPress.org and WordPress.com websites. It also helps in finding plugins on website.

This WordPress theme detector is also available on Google Web Store as a browser extension.

Method 3: ScanWP.net

Another tool you can use is ScanWP. Just copy and paste the website’s URL to the tool, and click “Detect”. Within seconds, the tool presents plenty of information, including the theme’s name, version, price, screenshot, and tags.

It also provides links where you can buy the theme and the vendor’s name. You’ll also see the different plugins the website is using, and it’s available as a browser extension on Google Web Store.

Method 4: IsItWP.com

IsItWP is also a popular tool for checking the theme and plugins of a WordPress website. Just copy and paste the site’s URL to the tool and click the “Analyze Website” button.

It will show you the theme’s name and whether it exists in their database. If not, you can always search online to determine if it’s available for download or find the vendor.

Method 5: Manually Inspect the Page Source

In some cases, website owners change or remove theme names, and this makes it difficult for a WordPress theme detector to know the theme a site is using. In this case, you can easily find out the theme manually.

Every WP site has a style.css file, which contains the theme’s header. The header usually shows the theme’s name, version, author, URI, and more. It also has the CSS styles that theme uses. Here are the steps you can use (Our target site here is Realwaystoearnmoneyonline.com):

Step 1: Visit the target site and right-click anywhere on the website. A menu should pop up, and then select “View Page Source.” This will open the source code of the page you’re viewing.

Step 2: Find the CSS file and open it. It’s usually a clickable link on most sites. At this point, you can still find the theme. Press “CTRL+F” or “Command+F” and search “themes.” Identify the URL that looks like this:

Http://www.example.come/wp-content/themes/[Theme name appears here]/

The theme’s name usually comes after “/themes/” in the URL. If this doesn’t work for you, you can continue below.

Tap “CTRL+F” or “Command+F” to find stylesheet. It’s usually <style> and <link> tagged.

Step 3: Once you clicked the link, it should open the CSS file in a new window. Look at the top of the file, and you’ll be able to see the theme name, URL, vendor, version, and more in the header block.

In some cases, a webmaster could be using a child theme to customize their sites. If you follow the steps above and you find that a site is using a child theme, locate ‘Template” in the header block.

The “Template’s” parameter is usually the name of the parent theme. You can then search the theme online to find the vendor.

Method 6: Don’t Forget the Footer

In some cases, the website owner might not have removed the theme’s name from the footer. Just visit the homepage of the site, and scroll all the way down.

If you’re lucky, you can find the theme’s name or its vendor near or in the “Powered by….” details.

Method 7: Email the Site Owner

If all the above options fail to work for you, you can easily reach out to the site owner to inquire about the theme they’re using. Most are usually kind enough to respond. The email can be something like:

Hi there, I hope you’re doing well. I’ve been searching for and comparing WordPress themes to find the best option for my new website. I came across your website, and I fell in love with your theme. It’s simple, clean, and beautiful. Would you mind telling me the name of the theme you’re using? I’m looking forward to getting your response. Thanks!

Check the “Contact Us” page of the site for their email. If not available, you can fill the “Contact Us” form and wait for their response.

Bonus Tips: Choosing the Right WordPress Theme

When looking for a theme, there are several things you need to consider. A theme might look good on a site you found online because it’s customized. So, other than just the look, there are plenty of details that make a theme good, including:

1. Navigation

Website navigation is vital as it helps visitors explore your website quickly or locate what they want. The theme must provide a user-friendly navigation or it should allow you to customize it.

Some themes are available in different designs, allowing you to pick one with a navigation menu that suits your preferences. It should also support both header and footer navigations, and possibly offer different styles, such as floating menus.

2. Header

There are themes that don’t support the website’s name and tagline when used together as an image. Some people might want to use the blog’s name and tagline in the header when they don’t have a logo.

Right-click the theme’s header to determine whether the site’s name is part of the image. If the name is part of the image, you’ll need to create yours, too. Be sure to match the size of the existing image to the one you’ll create to ensure a proper fit.

In some cases, you might need to edit the theme’s code to get the size and look you want for your website.

3. Customizer

Ensure the theme you want offers a customizer. This feature is important because it allows you to design the theme to suit your preferences. Unless you’re buying a custom theme, the themes available online can be purchased by anyone.

This means your site is likely to look like several other websites online. A sense of originality and uniqueness is vital to your brand’s image. So, using a customizer lets you change the theme’s layout, color scheme, and much more.

4. Widget Support

The truth is, not many themes will come with all the features you want. Luckily, there are WordPress widgets that allow you to extend the functionality of your theme. For that reason, a theme must be widget-ready.

Be sure to get a theme that offers widget support, especially when you want to place ads on your site or add content to your footer or sidebars. Some themes will show you how to do this. In most cases, visit the WordPress Administration Screen, then go to Theme Customizer or Appearance > Widgets.

5. Color Scheme

While it’s possible to change the color scheme of a theme, you might want to retain the one the theme has. If this is the case for you, be sure to ensure the color scheme suits your design preferences.

Some themes also require a background image. You’ll need to get or create one that suits the theme’s color. Otherwise, if you want to make color changes, you’ll need some basic knowledge of CSS and HTML or get someone to do it for you.

In most cases, you’ll need to change the color scheme to suit your brand’s color if you’re a business.

Final Thoughts

Finding the right WordPress themes for your new website is important. Bear in mind that your website represents your brand online, so its design and appearance speak volumes about you. You need a theme that offers seamless designs and intuitive features.

The thousands of options available makes it daunting, especially for beginners, to find a perfect theme. The good thing is that you can borrow ideas from other WordPress sites.

If one has a theme that’s eye-catching, you can always found out what theme the site is using. The 7 popular WordPress theme detectors and methods we described here can help do just that.

Even after finding the theme online, take the time to go through its documentation to know its features and other design elements. Even if it doesn’t meet your requirements fully, you can always customize it. Otherwise, we hope this post helps you find the ideal theme for your website or blog.

How to Choose the Right WordPress Theme

When it comes to how to choose the right WordPress theme for your next site a handful of decisions factor in. To best ensure that your goals are aligned with the style, support, and capabilities of the WordPress themes you’re looking at we’ve developed a framework for how to go through this process.

Armed with this framework the process of choosing the right WordPress theme for your site will be clear, easy to follow, and will leave you with a great base for your next website.

Why A WordPress Theme is an Important Decision

Self-hosted WordPress is a fantastic tool for building out almost any kind of website. Whether it’s a personal blog, a podcast site, an e-commerce store, or a company site you have complete control over the types of things you can do with WordPress.

And because of a concept called “Separation of Concerns” WordPress has very smartly split out the look, feel, and design of your site (i.e. the Theme) from the functional aspect of your site (i.e. WordPress core and its Plugins).

With this in mind it’s easy to see how you could readily change the theme on your website quickly, and maybe without too much thought.  But beware that changing your WordPress theme too often can leave website visitors confused, cause them to lose confidence in your brand, and potentially have some negative traffic implications.

Best to make a decision about your website theme once, and stick with it.

Sure you can look at changing themes every year or two, but that’s at the most. Don’t go changing themes every week or month. It’s just too much work for you as a site owner, and could potentially complicate other things within your site.

With that in mind, the question becomes how to choose the right WordPress theme for your site, right? Well, let’s find out.

The Difference Between Free and Paid WordPress Themes

One important distinction to make before proceeding with the decision matrix we use for choosing the right WordPress theme is to talk about the difference between free WordPress themes and Paid or Premium WordPress themes.

As the names imply part of this difference is cost.  Free themes are in fact free, and are all available directly from the WordPress.org repository, and right inside your WordPress dashboard.

Free themes can be extremely handy for putting together a site, and if you’re knowledgeable in how WordPress works (or want to learn) then you can definitely get by with using a free WordPress theme for most all sites.

However, if you can afford to spend ~$50 on a paid, premium theme it often times shortcuts that learning curve and development time. Premium themes usually have all the features and customizability that you might need to put together exactly the site that you’re looking for.

6 Things to Think About When Choosing A WordPress Theme

To narrow down what could otherwise be an overwhelming set of decisions let’s focus on a handful (ok, 6 in total) points to consider before choosing a WordPress theme for your next site:

Does it look good

When it comes to themes, looks are important.  Does the theme you’re selecting offer the overall look, feel, style, and personality that you want to convey in your new website?

When choosing a WordPress theme getting one that overall has the “right look” for your new brand is massively important.

Often we find that using a minimalist theme makes this easier than one that has heavy and opinionated styling choices.  Minimalist themes usually have a lower likelihood of conflicting with what you want your brand to say.

Is it responsive

We’re all on the go these days, and mobile web consumption has now outpaced desktop. So it’s essential that your site looks (and performs) well on mobile.

Are all aspects of your site easily accessible on mobile devices? Do new visitors to your site see the information you want to convey quickly and without having to look around for it?

Does your site look great not just on your mobile device but many different screen sizes and orientations?

There are a few tools to use to check what your site will look like on a variety of mobile devices but we like to use Browserstack for this.

Does it support the main functionality of your site’s purpose?

If you’re building a podcast website then the set of tools you’ll need will be very different from an ecommerce store or a corporate website. So with that in mind list out the top 3 things that you want visitors to be able to do on your site.

Do they need to be able to make a purchase?  Listen to a podcast or watch a video? Contribute to a forum or community?  Or just read your blog posts with a great, clean experience?

Once you’ve thought about those key “must have” items then it will make choosing a WordPress theme for your site much easier.

Does it support page builders?

As great as many premium WordPress themes are these days the fact is that you likely will want to pair your next theme with some kind of page builder. We have used them all and really like Elementor for a variety of reasons.

But whichever page builder you choose you’ll need to consult the theme documentation to see whether the theme you’re considering is compatible with page builders.

What are the Technical Support differences between paid and free?

Hopefully, the theme you choose has great support documentation and getting the theme set up on your site is really easy.  But, if it’s not then you’ll want to consult the setup docs to help you get started.

If the theme you’re looking at doesn’t have extensive documentation on how to set up the theme, customize it, and change settings within WordPress then stop your search right there and start looking elsewhere.

Ratings and Reviews in WordPress.org

The social proof and accountability that comes from the WordPress community is excellent.  And when choosing a WordPress theme for your site you should take advantage of this social accountability in the form of ratings and reviews if you’re looking for a free theme on WordPress.org.

Look for a theme that has been updated in the last few months, is compatible with the latest major version of WordPress, and where the theme author has replied (and closed out) any open support threads.

Summary

When you’re starting a new site and trying to figure out how to choose the right WordPress theme for your new project follow the 6 decision points laid out above. With these parameters, you’ll be sure to pick a winning theme for your next project.

Sucuri vs. Wordfence: Choosing the Best Plugin for WordPress Security

Running a WordPress business site or a successful blog demands plenty of resources. For that reason, it can be quite disheartening when you have to lose your site just in one attack. There are about 90,000 attacks on WordPress sites every minute, so there’s no room for taking chances with your website security.

https://pixabay.com/photos/wordpress-hand-logo-589121/

While total risk elimination is quite impractical, there are steps you can take to reduce risks and secure your site. This including:

  • Getting secure hosting
  • Hiding WordPress version
  • Preventing hotlinking
  • Hardening wp-config.php
  • Using strong passwords and clever usernames
  • Enabling two-factor authentication

You can complete these tasks manually, or you can install a security plugin that takes care of most of the manual tasks. With WordPress, Sucuri and Wordfence are the two most popular plugins you can install to secure your site. They come with handy features for monitoring and preventing attacks.

In this post, we’ll compare Sucuri vs. Wordfence to help you pick the right plugin for your site.

Sucuri Overview

Sucuri is one of the leading website security companies worldwide. It provides tools for cleaning and protecting websites, including the Sucuri WordPress plugin. The plugin is free, but there is a premium version if you want more features.

Features

Sucuri plugin offers a variety of features, including:

1. WordPress Hardening

This feature adds a set of rules to your website’s .htaccess file to protect areas that could potentially become venues for attacks. It also verifies secure configurations of your site.

2. Email Alerts

Whenever there are suspicious activities on your website, you’ll receive email alerts, allowing you to take the necessary action. This function is activated by default, and you can customize it as needed.

3. Malware Scanning

The plugin has a website scanning engine that scans your site for malicious content, out-of-date plugins and add-ons, and website errors. The SiteCheck remote scanners are usually updated to detect and remove new malware.

4. Core Integrity Check

Sucuri also comes with tools that scan your site’s core files, such as CSS, PHP, JavaScript, and other default files. This helps to detect and eliminate threats hidden in WP core files.

5. Post-Hack

Should your site get compromised, the plugin provides measures to address the issue and ensure your website’s safety.

6. Sucuri Firewall Integration

For advanced protection of your website, you can connect the plugin with the Sucuri Firewall. This is a premium feature, and it’s not included in the plugin as a tool but as an integration option.

Installation and Activation

You can simply download the Sucuri Security plugin from the WordPress repository and install it. Alternatively, it’s possible to install it via your WordPress plugin dashboard. Simply search for it and click the “Install” button.

You will then need to activate it to connect your WordPress account to Sucuri’s server. This is important because it will allow you to access the plugin’s logs, even if a hacker deletes them from your site.

Simply access your Sucuri plugin interface via your WP dashboard and click “Generate API Key.” Once the key is generated, the plugin is connected to a remote API service that stores your audit logs, which are accessible whenever you want.

Wordfence Overview

Wordfence was also solely developed to protect websites from malware and malicious attacks. This plugin includes a malware scanner and an endpoint firewall. It also has other powerful features to keep your website safe and prevent data leaks.

Features

Several compelling features make Wordfence an excellent plugin for your site. Here are its features:

1. Wordfence Firewall

The plugin features a Web Application Firewall (WAF) that detects and blocks malicious traffic. The firewall runs at the endpoint to ensure deep integration with your site.

2. Wordfence Security Scanner

This tool scans your plugins, themes, and core files for malicious redirects, code injections, backdoors, SEO spam, and bad URLs. It also checks the integrity of your core files to ensure they’re not altered.

3. Country Blocking

If you notice plenty of malicious traffic from a particular country, this feature allows you to block the country. This means visitors from the block country won’t be able to access your website.

4. Two-Factor Authentification

Having a strong password is always not enough. That’s why this plugin supports two-factor authentication, which allows you to stop brute attacks permanently.

5. Advanced Manual Blocking

It’s also possible to block individual people, robots, and networks from your site. This is an excellent alternative to blocking a country.

6. Leaked Password Protection

When your password information is stolen in data breaches, you can still protect your site thanks to the leaked password protection feature. It allows you to block logins for users with known compromised passwords.

7. File Repair

The file repair feature makes it easy to recover from a hack. The plugin has a source code verification function that reviews the plugin, theme, and code files to detect changes and repair them.

Installation and Activation

All you need to do is go to the plugins section and click “Add New” at the top of the page. This should open the repository for available plugins, and then search “Wordfence Security” to get the plugin.

Locate the plugin in the search results and click the “Install Now” button just adjacent to it. Once you have installed the plugin, you’ll access its dashboard, which allows you to enable or disable different features.

Which Is the Best Option?

Now that you understand the two security plugins, which one would you opt for? While both Sucuri and Wordfence offer comprehensive protection against data theft, brute force attacks, and malware infection, several elements will make you pick one option over the other.

You want a plugin that’s easy to use and requires little maintenance to protect your site. Here are the factors worth considering when comparing Sucuri vs. Wordfence:

Ease of Use

Website security is a complicated field, but end-user products need to be user-friendly and straightforward.

Upon installing Wordfence, you’ll get a popup that prompts you to provide an email address for security notifications. You’ll also need to agree to the terms of service. After that, an onboarding wizard will take you through all the key features of the plugin.

The basic setup of the Wordfence security plugin is simple. However, the interface is a bit cluttered for new users, but it gets easier as you use it.

Sucuri, on the other hand, has no prompts upon installing it. It runs a quick scan after you install it, and then provides notifications on any existing issue. The plugin’s firewall doesn’t run on your server, so no technical maintenance on your end.

The plugin has an excellent interface, but you’ll still need to learn how to navigate it to locate what you want. Updating nameservers on your domain registrar can be a techy task, but popular registrars can help you with this.

Website Application Firewall

Both Wordfence and Sucuri plugins have website application firewalls, but how do they compare?

Wordfence’s firewall detects and blocks malicious traffic. However, it runs on your server, and this might make it less efficient compared to a cloud-based firewall. The firewall is on the basic mode by default, but you can manually set it up in the extended mode.

In basic mode, the firewall can be slow in blocking attacks. So, it’s advisable to have it in extended mode.

Sucuri’s firewall is cloud-based, meaning it blocks malicious traffic before it reaches your server. You’ll need to change your domain name’s DNS settings to reroute your traffic through Sucuri’s servers, allowing you to use the firewall.

Sucuri has no basic or extended mode, and the firewall starts working once the setup is complete.

Sucuri is the best here.

Monitoring and Notifications

Both security plugins monitor your site and alert you when there’s an issue that needs your attention. They display the alerts on your dashboard, and you can also receive them in your email inbox.

These plugins allow you to set your email alert preferences. This lets you receive notifications of critical alerts only. Regarding monitoring and notifications, both plugins offer almost the same features.

So, here they tie.

Malware Scanning

Sucuri and Wordfence have built-in scanners that monitor your site for altered fields, malware, and malicious code.

Wordefence’s scanner is customizable to suit your hosting plan. The free version of the plugin comes with an automatic scan schedule for your site. While you can set up different modes for the scanner, most options are in the premium version.

On the other hand, Sucuri’s scanner uses SiteCheck API to check your website against different APIs. It scans your core files to ensure there’s no modification, and you can customize its settings depending on your security concerns.

Sucuri is not WordPress-specific, so it’s good at detecting different types of malware.

Sucuri wins here.

Website Cleanup

Cleaning up a hacked site is not easy; fortunately, these two WordPress security plugins can help.

Unfortunately, WordFence’s site cleanup tool is a premium tool. So, you’ll need the premium version of the plugin to access the tool. Once you have it, the tool scans your website and cleans up all the infections and malware in affected files. You also get a report on the hack.

Sucuri’s cleanup tool also comes with the paid plans. If you’re on a paid plan, you’ll need to open a ticket to get the cleanup from the company’s support staff. They’ll clean up all backdoor access files, injected codes, and malware infections.

Here is a tie.

Final Thoughts

So, what’s the best plugin in Sucuri vs. Wordfence?

Overall, both plugins are great at securing your website. They both have free versions for users with basic needs, but you can always upgrade to a premium version when your needs grow.

However, if you have an ecommerce website or running a mission-critical website, the Sucuri website security plugin seems to be the best option. Wordfence is great if you want a free option.

Whatever option you go for, always consider your security needs first. Keep in mind that it’s also your hosting provider’s responsibility to ensure your site’s security.

Bluehost vs Dreamhost Compared: Which Is The Best Hosting For WordPress

If you’re building out a website chances are you’re looking at website hosting providers and have heard of two popular choices: Bluehost and Dreamhost. But how to make an informed decision when examining Bluehost vs Dreamhost? First a bit of background on web hosting in general.

Background on web hosting

No website can exist on the internet without web hosting.

Each of your favorite websites, online platforms, blogs, web apps, and anything that resides on the internet is hosted on a server.

A web host server is a physical space where your website lives and where all your data is stored. If you are planning to build a website, you will need a web host.

This is where web hosting companies come in. They provide and manage these servers in secure facilities around the world, and you pay to rent server space where your website will live and your files will be stored.

Picking a world-class web hosting company is vital to the success of your website. Fortunately, among the options available to you, Bluehost and Dreamhost stand out.

When looking at Bluehost vs Dreamhost it’s important to remember that these two web hosting companies have built up a solid reputation over their many years of existence and crucially, they are officially endorsed by WordPress.

However, there are a few differences in the hosting package offered by both companies, and it is best to compare them. This will help you arrive at an educated conclusion on which of the two offers the best package for your needs.

How Will We Compare The Web Hosts?

To successfully compare the options available to you, you need to have a set of criteria to be used to judge each option.

Below are seven of the most important criteria you should use to evaluate your web host:

Multiple Hosting Plans

We are sure you have big plans for your website, and as your business and web traffic expands, you will need your website to grow in size. This will require greater server space and the hosting plan that meets your needs today will be insufficient tomorrow.

This is why you need a web host that offers multiple hosting plans. As your website grows, you will be able to move up to a more robust hosting plan that can cater to the needs of your website.

There are many types of hosting plans, and each offers unique advantages that make it suitable for websites with peculiar needs.

If your website runs on the WordPress Content Management System, and you are a small business with a small website – then, managed WordPress hosting is the best option for you. In this hosting plan, your servers are managed by WordPress experts, and they are 100% optimized for seamless integration with WordPress.

Fortunately, both Bluehost and Dreamhost offer managed WordPress hosting. Managed WordPress hosting on Dreamhost starts at $16.95 per month, and on Bluehost, it starts at $19.95 per month.

managed WordPress hosting plans on Dreamhost

Source: Dreamhost

Source: Bluehost

Other hosting plans include shared hosting which is best for new websites, Virtual Private Server (VPS) hosting which is ideal for rapidly growing websites, dedicated hosting that gives you complete control over your website’s servers and is perfect for popular brands with huge amounts of web traffic, and cloud hosting which is relatively new and you only have to pay for the exact quantity of server space and resources you use. 

Pricing

You can’t avoid web hosting costs if you want to own and control your website, but the value of the hosting plan must match the price. Web hosting shouldn’t be expensive, and if you are just starting with a simple website, a Dreamhost shared hosting plan starts at $2.59 per month and Bluehost’s at $2.75 per month.

Features

What you are paying for is not limited to server space, your web host must also provide you with a range of features that will help carry out your website management tasks.

There are some features every good web host should provide and they are:

  • Free Domain name
  • Free SSL certificate
  • Generous bandwidth limit or unmetered bandwidth
  • User-friendly control panel
  • One-click installation of WordPress
  • Site builder
  • Generous SSD storage
  • Email and eCommerce features

Customer Support

If your website has issues, you want those problems fixed as quickly as possible. A web host that provides 24/7 customer support will always be available to offer the technical assistance you need.

Go through review sites and read up on customer reviews to be sure that the company’s customer support is reliable. Also, a web host should provide online tutorials and other resources that will help you get started.

Ease of use and platform intuitiveness

We are not all technically adept and it is likely you know nothing about code, so your web host must provide a user interface that is easy to use and intuitive.

The onboarding experience and the design of the control panel should be such that you can get your website up and running in little time.

Uptime Guarantee

The reason you are paying your web host is to ensure your website is always online and accessible to your visitor. Any downtime will negatively affect your business and lose you money.

A good web host must offer a minimum 99% uptime, and you must do your due diligence to ensure your web host has 24hour power supply, good internet, and world-class facilities.

Security

We live in an age where news of attacks by malicious hackers and data breaches are commonplace. A successful hack can be devastating to your online presence and lead to loss of sensitive data. You must prioritize security when choosing your web host.

A good web host that invests adequately in security will offer hardened firewalls, backup mechanisms, SSL certificates, and adopt up-to-date cybersecurity measures.

Bluehost vs Dreamhost – A Comparison

Multiple Hosting Plans And Pricing

Bluehost

Bluehost offers a range of hosting plans including shared hosting, VPS hosting, and reseller hosting. Reseller hosting does not apply to you since it is used by other small hosting companies that buy server space from big hosting companies like Bluehost and resell them to other third parties.

Bluehost shared hosting plan starts from $2.75 with one free domain, a free SSL certificate, and unmetered bandwidth.

Bluehost shared hosting

Source: Bluehost

Bluehost’s VPS hosting plan starts from $18.99 per month with 2GB RAM, 1 IP address, and 30GB SSD storage. This can go up to 8GB RAM and 120GM SSD storage at $59.99 per month.

Bluehost VPS plans

Source: Bluehost

Bluehost’s dedicated hosting plan starts from $79.99 per month with 500GB storage, 5 TB bandwidth, and 4 GB Ram. This can go up to $119.99 per month with 1TB storage and 16GB RAM.

Source: Bluehost

Dreamhost

Dreamhost offers shared hosting, VPS hosting, and cloud hosting. Dreamhost’s shared hosting plan starts at $2.59 per month and can go up to $4.95 per month. At both rates, you will get a free domain, free SSL certificate, free website builder, free WordPress migration (automated), and one-click WordPress install.

Dreamhost shared hosting plans

Source: Dreamhost

Dreamhost’s VPS hosting starts at $15 per month with 1GB RAM, 30 GB SSD storage, and unlimited websites. It can go up to $120 per month for 240GB SSD and 8 GB RAM.

Dreamhost VPS plans

Source: Dreamhost

Unlike Bluehost, Dreamhost offers cloud hosting and a basic package costs $0.0075 per hour for 80 GB SSD storage and free bandwidth.

Dreamhost cloud hosting packages

Source: Dreamhost

Verdict: Dreamhost wins this one.

Features

Bluehost

Both platforms offer feature-packed hosting plans, and every hosting package offered by Bluehost includes the following features:

  • cPanel web hosting control panel
  • Unlimited websites (excluding the basic shared plan)
  • Unlimited SSD storage (excluding the basic shared plan)
  • Unmetered bandwidth
  • Free SSL certificate
  • Free domain name
  • One-click installation of WordPress
  • Website builder
  • 99% uptime
  • 24/7 customer support

Dreamhost

Dreamhost also offers a host of impressive features in its hosting plans, including:

  • Custom Dreamhost control panel
  • Unlimited websites (excluding basic shared plan)
  • Unlimited emails (excluding basic shared plan)
  • WordPress pre-installed
  • Free automated WordPress migrations
  • Free domain name
  • Free SSL certificate
  • Website builder
  • 100% uptime
  • 24/7 customer support

Verdict: Tie.

Customer Support

Bluehost

Both web hosting companies offer 24/7 customer support and a wealth of tutorials and resources to help you out. Bluehost customer support includes phone, live chat, text messaging, and email.

Bluehost also offers video tutorials and a text-based online knowledge base to help you get started.

Dreamhost

Dreamhost’s 24/7 customer support includes a ticket support system, live chat for people who paid a “call back” fee, and email. Dreamhost provides an online resource page to help you read solutions to any problems you may encounter.

Verdict: Tie.

Ease Of Use And Platform Intuitiveness

BlueHost

Bluehost provides you with the cPanel web host control panel, which is the gold standard in the industry. The control panel is user friendly, and it has an easily navigable interface that lets you control your website’s files, features, and databases.

Bluehost cpanel

Source: Kickstart Commerce

Dreamhost

Creating a Dreamhost account will only take a few minutes and the web host provides you with a Start Up Wizard that will guide you through setting up your website. However, unlike Bluehost, Dreamhost uses its own custom control panel, which is not as feature-packed and user-friendly as the cPanel platform.

Source: Blogging.com

Verdict: Bluehost wins this one.

Security

Bluehost

Bluehost houses its servers in highly secure facilities along with backup generators to ensure uninterrupted power supply. The web host provides daily malware scans with SiteLock security, but backups are only kept for 30days and the company is not responsible for any failed backups.

Dreamhost

Dreamhost also uses secure facilities for its servers with CCTV monitoring and armed guards. The web host uses StopTheHacker for top-of-the-line cybersecurity features and hardened firewalls. Malware scans are done daily.

Verdict: Dreamhost wins this one.

Who Is The Winner?

When looking at a comparison of Bluehost vs Dreamhost, the winner is Dreamhost.  However, what matters most is that you choose the web host that offers the perfect combination of features and pricing plans that meets the needs of your website and is within your budget.

12 Essential WordPress Tools Every Site Needs

Last modified on September 22nd, 2020 at 12:33 PM

When starting up a new WordPress site there are just certain things that you NEED.  Notice I didn’t say “want” like it’d be a thing that’s nice to have. Because if you take your site’s performance, and potential, seriously you can’t stand to do without these 10 plugins, themes, and tools for your site.

This goes for existing sites too. If you’ve had a WordPress site for some time but want to spruce things up a bit and get your site firing on all cylinders then make sure you’ve got all of these tools running on your site ASAP.

Fair warning, this list is opinionated. We’re not giving you multiple options for every category of plugin or tool you might need, but giving you The Best options out there, from our experience helping build hundreds of sites over 5+ years. So let’s dive in.

Good, Fast, and Reliable Hosting

This seems obvious, but so many of new site owners miss the mark here. There are tons of options out there when it comes to WordPress hosting, and many providers make strong promises, but in our experience just a few deliver really excellent service and value.

Here there are two clear winners in our book.  One that is a bit less expensive and is great for those just getting started, and one for power users who have significant traffic to their site.

If you’re just getting started or don’t have a lot of traffic going to your site we love Siteground hosting.  In fact that’s what this site is hosted on. They have plans starting from $5/month, which also makes them one of the most affordable options in the managed WordPress hosting business.

One of the things we love about Siteground is the value you get.  There are loads of bells and whistles included in even their cheapest hosting plans, making this the clear choice for those just getting started.

If you’re running a site that has significant traffic, or you want just that bit extra power behind your site then the next move up in the managed WordPress hosting realm is Kinsta.  A relatively new player on the market Kinsta has the benefit of having built a fantastic platform using all the most modern web technologies.

Powered by Google Cloud Platform, Kinsta offers enterprise level WordPress hosting at an affordable price. They have plans for single sites starting at $30/month, which include automatic backups, done-for-you site migrations, managed site setup to optimize speed, and incredible customer service that are available 24/7.

Caching Plugin

As your site gets more pages, images, and other resources it is a good idea to put some of those more static resources (i.e. things that don’t change very often) in a cache layer so that your site loads faster.  Caching is just a way of storing some of your website files and assets in a place that makes them available more quickly to visitors, and search engines.

In fact speaking of search engines even as recently as 2020 Google has said that site speed plays a significant role in the ranking of sites.  So, if you’re writing content and want your site to rank for key terms it’s best to get a caching plugin on your site to speed it up.

The clear winner in this category is WP-Rocket. WP-Rocket is a one-click, set it and forget it kind of tool. Upload, activate and turn on their caching plugin and you’re all set.

SEO Plugin

We mentioned search engines like Google ranking your site higher if your site is fast. There are also things you can do to the actual structure of your site and the content on it to make your WordPress site more likely to get ranked highly by Google.

And when it comes to SEO plugins for WordPress there’s a clear winner: Yoast SEO – this tool has both free and paid options (the free is good enough for most all sites in our opinion) and this gives you all the tools you need to more clearly describe what your site and its content is about to search engines like Google.

Content marketing, or just organic rankings of your site in general, is still one of (if not THE) best way to grow a brand online. If you’re not paying attention to SEO today’s the day to start.

Security Plugin

One of the downsides of WordPress, and the fact that they run nearly 1/3 of the entire internet, is that it’s a popular target for hackers and those who wish to exploit weaknesses in websites.  Add on top of that the fact that with the 3rd party theme and plugin ecosystem around WordPress there are just a lot of opportunities for hackers to affect our sites.

But because of that a few very powerful tools have been developed to monitor your site and keep it clean from malicious code, attacks, and minimize the chances of your site being affected by those who wish to do it harm.

And here again there is a clear winner: Sucuri. Sucuri has free and paid options, and even the free option is extremely powerful both in monitoring your site, and keeping unwanted people from exploiting your WordPress site.

We use Sucuri on this site, and absolutely love it. In fact it’s saved our site more than a few times…so it’s well worth the small yearly cost we pay for it.

Backup Service

Even if you’re on a higher end managed WordPress hosting service, like Kinsta, having a backup service that keeps a recent copy of your site is a great idea.

If you ever want to work on your site locally on your computer, or, heaven forbid, you need to restore a previous version of your site because of an attack, you’ll be very thankful you set up an automated backup service for your WordPress site.

And UpdraftPlus makes this almost too easy. They have a free version that is excellent, and a paid version if you want a few more features like automatic Dropbox or Google Drive integration to store your backup files in a separate place from the rest of your WordPress site resources.

That one dark day when your site goes down and you need to restore it from a backup you’ll be thanking your lucky stars you took these next few minutes to set up automated backups.  They’re like a get out of jail free card for your site.

Their backup WordPress plugin has a free version and a premium, paid version.

Email Optin Provider

No matter what kind of site you’re running there is one single best way to communicate with your site visitors, fans, audience, and customers: email.

I know, I know, you say “It’s 2020, shouldn’t I be on TikTok or even Instagram?”.  Maybe…but that’s not all.  Social media is a great way to start a relationship with your audience and customers, but talk to any savvy marketer and they say that hands down the best way to connect deeply with your site visitors and they go straight to email.

This brings up the need to have an easy, and effective, way of gathering website visitors’ email addresses.  An email optin service, like OptinMonster, is a fantastic tool in your website quiver.  With this you’ll be able to present a variety of offers for your website visitors that allow them to enter their email address in return for something from you. This could be a coupon code, a free course, a downloadable template, or anything else that is of value to your specific target audience.

Email Marketing Service

Now that we’ve established that email marketing is The Best Way to deeply connect with your audience and share updates with them, and that a tool like Optinmonster is a great way to gather those email addresses, it’s time to send some emails.

Here again the choice is easy: Mailchimp.

Mailchimp is one of the original players in the email marketing industry, and they’ve done nothing but get better over time. Today Mailchimp is recognized as a powerhouse both for those just getting started with email, and those power users who want a LOT out of a tool.  Mailchimp has a generous free plan, and as you get more subscribers their plans scale very fairly with the amount of subscribers you have on the platform.

Page Builder

Even using a beautiful and flexible theme like those here at Precise Themes, you often times want a way to customize some pages on the site. The ability to quickly add beautiful looking elements to your site, without learning how to code or decipher what a theme is doing is a huge advantage.  And here is where Elementor shines.

Elementor is a page builder, which means it works alongside your WordPress them to give you additional flexibility and customization to any post or page on your site.  Whether you heavily design your site (almost entirely) with Elementor or just add a bit of splash to certain pages, this tool gives you the tools you need to add great looking, and high converting assets to your WordPress site.

SEO Research Tool

We almost didn’t include this in our list of essential tools that every WordPress site needs, but we’ve seen such enormous success in the growth of this site and others like it that we had to include it.

Furthering the discussion of content marketing and SEO you need a tool to help you create a plan for crafting interesting, in demand, and easy to rank for pieces of content on your site.  This is typically referred to as “keyword research”, or just generally creating a “content calendar”.

Using a keyword research tool to map out what articles you can write blog posts about that get traffic, have high “intent” (meaning that people that are searching for those terms are actually looking to take some kind of action on your site like buy your product), and aren’t super difficult to rank for is one of the most overlooked aspects of a high performing blog.

And there is absolutely no better tool at this than Ahrefs.

Ahrefs is an all-in-one SEO research, tracking, and data tool for your website. It is where we do all of the research about our competitors, areas we can write about that you as our readers are interested in, and track our organic keyword rankings.

If you’re doing any kind of blogging or content marketing then this tool is a MUST in your marketing arsenal.

Mail Sending

How often do you check your Spam folder? And even then how likely are you to pull emails out of there and actually read/reply/engage with them?  Not very often if you’re anything like me.

Having emails from your WordPress site (like comment notifications, password resets, user invites, etc.) is paramount if you’re using the built in functionality inside WordPress. And I have to say this is one place where almost all shared hosting falls short. They just aren’t “made for” sending email, and as a result email tools like Gmail often flag their sending IP address as Spam.

The workaround for this is using a tool like WP Mail SMTP allows you to easily set up the emails that are sent directly from your WordPress site to go through a dedicated email service, like your own Gmail account.  This is a huge win for deliverability and your audience being able to interact with your site via email notifications

Tracking and Analytics

There is perhaps no better free tool out there for site owners than Google Analytics. The ability to easily track how many visitors your site gets, which are your best performing pages, and loads of other data just wouldn’t be popular without an analytics tool like Google Analytics. And the best part is it’s entirely FREE.

In order to install Google Analytics on your site, you can use a tool like Monster Insights, or if you have other tracking and analytics scripts you’ll want to use on your site it’s worth using a general purpose tool like Insert Headers and Footers.

Forms Plugin

If you have a site then you need a way for people to send you questions, feedback, or share something with you in an organized way. The solution for this is sometimes just an email address, but often times you want to structure things a little more and place a form on your site for visitors to fill out.

The most common use of a form for many of us is a Contact Form. Here you’ll have fields like Name, Email Address, and a Message text box for visitors to send you information.

And a fantastic tool for this is Gravity Forms.  We’ve been using Gravity Forms for years now and it’s both extremely simple to use, but also very powerful when you use some of their add-on modules like Zapier, Stripe, and Trello integrations to extend the native functionality of this forms plugin.

Conclusion

In this article, we’ve listed 12 of the most popular tools we like (and use on this site) for most all WordPress sites. But there are loads of other great tools out there. What tools do you use on every WordPress site you spin up? Drop a comment in below and tell us all about it.

Disclosure – This post contains some affiliate links which means we earn a small commission at no extra cost to you if you purchase something after clicking a link here. Thanks for the support!

The Most Effective And Least Effective Backlinks In SEO

Last modified on September 17th, 2020 at 9:30 AM

There are many types of backlinks when it comes to search engine optimization. Not all of them are created equal. Below are the most effective types of backlinks in SEO, as well as ones that are not effective and should be avoided.

1. Editorial Backlinks: The Best & The Most Effective

Without a doubt, the most effective and best backlinks for SEO is editorial backlinks. Editorial backlinks come in many forms, such as a high quality and highly regarded site citing your site as source for the information on their site. Another example of an editorial link to your site is when a website cites your website as the creator of a photo or info-graphic.

Precise Themes
Precise Themes

Editorial backlinks can easily improve your website’s rank. All you need is a handful of high quality editorial backlinks to notice a difference very quickly.

2. Forum Links: The Worst & Least Effective

Forum backlinking is thought of as being a spamming technique, when the sole purpose is to post your content over and over again. For example, a lot of people will visit a single forum and go from post to post leaving a link back to their own content. This is considered spam.

A few years ago, website owners would jump from forum to forum leaving comments and a link back to their sites within those comments. A lot of times, the comments were short and provided little to no value. What’s even worse is sometimes the links were left on irrelevant forums. The bottom line is you want to stay far away from forums, unless you plan on actually providing high quality comments and follow the rules of the forum.

3. Guest Post Bio Links: Good & Effective

Guest post blogging links aren’t always allowed. Some blogs don’t let you post to their site and link back to your own site. However, many blogs allow their guest bloggers to include a link back to their own website via their author bio box. Of course a link inside the post’s body would be preferred, but a link in the bio can do wonders in regards to SEO.

Here’s a tip, find 3-4 quality blogs that are looking for guest bloggers and that allow links within author bios. Ask if you can guest blog 2-3 times in a span of a few weeks. If you do this, your own site’s rankings should drastically improve.

4. Directory Links: Not The Best & Not That Effective

There are a ton of article directories out there. A lot of them are low-quality and allow any old links to be submitted. You want to avoid those ones and try your best to stick to the directories that have a solid reputation and that are considered to be authoritative.

Do note there is nothing wrong with submitting your URL to a few article directories. If you do it every now and then, you shouldn’t have anything to worry about. It’s when you do it all the time, that’s when your site might draw negative attention from Google and other search engines.

5. Newsworthy Press Release Links: Great Backlinks And Can Be Very Effective

Press releases are great for two reasons, with one being you can build up a massive number of backlinks, while spreading the word about the topic you are writing about. Ideally, you want to write a press release when you actually have something newsworthy to share or something very interesting you want people to know about your brand.

After you create your press release, you want to alert media outlets. If they think your press release is newsworthy, then they will distribute it for you. Also, there are third-party companies that can distribute your press release for you and they will contact you when media outlets have picked it up.

6. Paid Links: Horrible And Won’t Work In The Long Run

Paid links are among the worse of the worse backlinks in SEO. These types of links are usually part of link-wheels. These are sites that claim they can get you hundreds of backlinks within a short period of time, all for a low fee. Go ahead and pay for them if your goal is to ruin your site’s rankings because Google has already taken a stance against paid links.

Those are the best and worst backlinks in SEO. You want to choose your backlinking strategy wisely because if you don’t, then your site’s rankings can suffer greatly. If you want to improve your rankings, then stick with a good backlink strategy and try to get links back to your site from some of the above sources.