Google Analytics is a free and powerful go-to solution for monitoring your website and tracking important activity. However, it would be shortsighted to discount the other solutions that exist for collating your data. Keeping tabs on your website traffic is possible with a number of analytics programs, although it’s important that you choose the one that best fits your website’s needs and goals. By understanding how Google Analytics works in comparison to other programs, you can make an educated decision that works best for you. While we are fans of Google Analytics at Pagely, in this article we’ll first explain why you might want to consider alternatives. Then we’ll reveal three reputable alternatives, and discuss which might be a better fit for you. Let’s get started! Why You Should Consider Alternative Analytics Programs eCommerce tracking with Woo & Google Analytics Google Analytics enables you to keep track of how your website is being used, including which sites are referring traffic, and the keywords being used to discover them in searches. The information provided can be segmented into a variety of powerful reports to help understand your visitors’ experiences. It even enables the website owner to track purchases, to gain a stronger understanding of which pages are converting the most revenue. Finally, Google Analytics is completely free, which is a big part of its popularity. Despite all of these powerful features, some may hesitate to use Google Analytics for a few reasons: Using the service means you are handing over your data to Google, where it can be monetized for its own use. While not confirmed, some people believe the data collected from your website can even negatively impact your Google rankings. Major websites will have to sign up for expensive premium services if they generate more than 10 million hits per month. This means you’ll need to consider the budget involved for upgrades. Website traffic data is only useful if you are able to interpret it. Google Analytics’ reports aren’t always intuitive, and can be difficult to understand. This is not optimal for a company needing actionable reports quickly if there isn’t someone familiar with the report structure in house. While there’s no doubt Google Analytics is a powerful free tool for most, it is not always the right fit. Thankfully, there are a number of alternatives for those looking for something else. 3 Alternatives to Google Analytics for Your WordPress Website If you’re interested in switching from Google Analytics to another service, here are three strong options for you. Some are free, while others are premium, yet all offer unique strengths that can benefit you depending on your reasons for switching. Let’s take a look! 1. StatCounter (Free) StatCounter is another free alternative with powerful real-time web analytics. It highlights unusual navigation paths, so you can figure out how to better encourage your visitors to explore your website on pages with low bounce rates. Additionally, it provides customizable hit counters if you’d like to show off your web traffic publicly. Here are a few benefits and features to take note of for StatCounter: Raw data is available, which is great if you like having complete access to all of the data collected. You’ll be able to quickly see which search engines are generating the most traffic. It accounts for visits from users without JavaScript. Visit length is tracked, so you can see how ‘sticky’ your website is. Expanding on our third reason, if a user disables their cookies, each page they visit will consider them a unique visitor. However, StatCounter also uses IP addresses to better interpret this kind of data, to give accurate statistics about unique sessions. Starting with StatCounter is simple: Sign up for the free StatCounter service. Find the provided tracking code in your account. Insert it into the header of your WordPress website. A plugin such as Insert Headers and Footers will make it easy to insert the provided JavaScript code from your WordPress dashboard. Along with the free version, StatCounter also offers premium plans so you can see logs beyond the most recent 500. They also offer the StatCounter Growth Plan, which translates your data into reports to help you make actionable decisions based on the traffic you’re getting. We think StatCounter is great for businesses that need a simple, yet effective reporting tool without investing a lot of money upfront. 3. Kissmetrics (Premium) Unlike StatCounter, Kissmetrics is not a free solution. However, it offers powerful services with a focus on growth hacking. It’s a marketing-driven solution, and includes email campaign services that integrate with on-site visitor tracking for maximum conversions. With Kissmetrics, you’ll be able to create unlimited funnels, track cohorts, perform split testing with retention reports, and much more. Kissmetrics not only integrates with WordPress, but also with many other platforms such as Shopify and LiveChat to help you get the most out of your other services. Kissmetrics offers three umbrella features: Analytics, to track on-site traffic and behavior. Populations, to monitor and track segments of your market. Campaigns, to engage subscribers with automated email marketing. While Kissmetrics monitors your website traffic, it’s more focused on helping you apply the data to grow your business. Kissmetrics provides you with reports based on specific goals you’ve set. You’ll have access to 24/7 email support, and they provide a setup call to make sure you get everything up and running properly. To get started with Kissmetrics, simply follow the prompts provided after selecting the tier you are interested in. They will provide the training you need to integrate it with your WordPress website. Pricing starts at $500 per month, with each tier offering access to similar features but in higher quantities. They also offer custom packages for enterprise clients at request. On the whole, Kissmetrics is a strong contender for businesses with complex data tracking needs, and for those who are ready to start using traffic analytics to fuel their growth marketing efforts. 4. Clicky (Premium) Clicky is a popular premium data tracking tool, and is well known for being one of the more user-friendly data tracking solutions available. They offer real-time services, along with up-to-the-minute data analysis, and you’ll find accurate, detailed reports with plenty of customizable filters. You can also download mobile apps on iOS and Android phones. Here are a few of the advanced features you can get with Clicky: Heatmaps, which show you how users are clicking around your website. Segmentation, to understand how different types of visitors use your website. Goal tracking, for keeping up with conversion rates. Engagement reports, with a rundown on how much your visitors interact with the site. Additionally, Clicky offers maximum security to help prevent inflated or incorrect numbers on account of spam visits. They advertise themselves as having the best referrer filter on the market, to provide you with the highest accuracy. To install Clicky on your site, you’ll need to follow these steps: First, register an account with Clicky. Locate your Clicky Site ID, your site key, and your admin key. Install the Clicky Analytics WordPress plugin on your site. Insert the correct data into the plugin. Save your changes! There is a stripped down, free version available — limited to 3,000 daily views and installation on one website — which may be suitable for small websites with up to 90,000 monthly page views. However, you’ll quickly need to upgrade as soon as your site gains traction. Paid accounts start at $9.99 per month, which opens up your tracking to ten sites and up to 900,000 monthly page views. Clicky is appropriate for those wanting real-time data and in-depth analysis, without needing to spend hundreds per month on a service. Conclusion Analytics helps you gain an understanding of your website traffic, and Google Analytics is a popular free tool for measuring this. However, analytics is not a one-size-fits-all situation, and there are many other reputable options your company can consider. Our three strong alternatives to Google Analytics for your WordPress website include: StatCounter: Good for companies that needs basic analytics and simple, yet effective reporting. Kissmetrics: Most suitable for a company ready to invest deeply into cohesive online marketing between website analytics, customer data, and autoresponder campaigns. Clicky: Another premium analytics program, best for businesses who need in-depth traffic analysis without spending hundreds per month. Sticking with GA? Learn how to build effective Google Analytics dashboards. What questions do you have about choosing an analytics program? Ask away in the comments section below!
It’s not always ideal, but occasionally you’ll need to completely reset WordPress to its original state. Before blindly jumping to use a plugin, it’s important that you understand exactly what it means to reset WordPress. Understanding the ins and outs of a WordPress installation (and what needs to be reset!) will help ensure that you’re making smart decisions in your development process. Sometimes your chosen reset plugin doesn’t work as expected and you’ll need to clean up manually, for example. Being able to do this ensures that you’ll be able to quickly rectify the situation. If you use Managed WordPress Hosting don’t forget to speak to your host first. In this article, you’ll learn about when and why you might want to reset WordPress. Then, we’ll walk you through the necessary steps for manually resetting a WordPress website. Let’s get started! Why You May Need to Reset WordPress To reset WordPress means to put all its files and databases back to the original installation state. It is effectively taking an existing WordPress website and installing it from scratch using what’s already there. There are a few reasons you may need to fully or partially reset your WordPress website, such as: Rebuilding or repurpose the website. Restoring the site from a backup. Cleaning out a test installation. Resetting a WordPress website is essentially uninstalling existing settings and reinstalling the original defaults. This is possible to do by deleting everything and starting over. However, you may find yourself in a situation where you need to do a partial reset, so it’s handy to understand the breakdown of steps so you can pick and choose what you need. For example, you may want to reset the database but keep all your downloaded plugins intact. Similarly, you can accomplish a lot of manual tasks using plugins like Reset WP or even WP-CLI. We find it’s always a good idea to understand the fundamentals even when using these tools. It’s similar to learning how long division works before using the calculator — you’ll better understand what you’re doing even if you eventually automate the process. Knowing how to check your work can save a lot of time and hassle if something goes wrong. Now, you’ll learn what it takes to reset your WordPress website without a plugin. How to Reset Your WordPress Website Without a Plugin Resetting your WordPress website will involve having direct access to your files and database. This means you’ll need a few tools and logins to get started: Your File Transfer Protocol (FTP) username and password. FTP software, such as FileZilla. Database access, such as through phpMyAdmin or within cPanel. If you’re not completely sure you want to lose all of your content and settings forever, you may also want to take a complete backup of your website, using a plugin such as UpdraftPlus. Be sure to save the backup somewhere off of the server, because you’ll be deleting everything. Now, all you need to do is follow these steps. Let’s get started! Step 1: Delete the Database The first step is to delete your database. This is important because it’s where all of your settings and content lives. Without this step, you’ll be stuck with everything you already have, which isn’t conducive to starting afresh. Deleting the database will completely remove your content and settings from WordPress. We cannot stress enough that you need to be absolutely certain you are ready to lose all of your data before moving forward. First, log into cPanel. From here, you should be able to find your list of MySQL databases under the Databases > MySQL Databases section: On this page, you should find a list of your existing databases. Some hosts name their databases differently but typically include the prefix wp somewhere within the database name. Identify your WordPress database, and copy and paste the name into a text file somewhere safe. Then, you can delete it by clicking the Delete button from the Actions column. This will completely wipe out your old WordPress database. Step 2: Create a New Database While you’ve just deleted the old database, it’s vital to set up a new one. Without a database, your WordPress website will not be able to load and you will not be able to access the dashboard to create any new content. Once your old database is gone, it’s time to create a new one and set it up for WordPress. You should still be within the cPanel database page, so find the Create a New Database section. Here, you’ll complete the database name so it matches the old one: After clicking Create Database, the page should refresh and you’ll see the name pop up again under the Current Databases area. Next, find the Add a User to a Database section. You’ll need to add the old user with its permissions to the newly created database. Select the matching database and username in the drop-down menus and click Add User. If you can’t find the old user, you may need to create it manually. This is easily possible under the Add a New User section. If possible, use the same username and password as the old database user. You can usually find these in your website’s wp-config.php file. In your FTP program, navigate to your website’s public_html folder. From here you should see the WordPress root files. Right click on wp-config.php and choose View/Edit within your FTP program: You don’t need to edit anything once you’re looking at the file. Instead, find the credentials for your old database user under MySQL Settings in the file. Once you have these credentials, you can use them to recreate the correct user in MySQL. Don’t forget to follow the prior directions and add the user to the database once you’ve created it! Step 3: Remove Unnecessary Files With a clean database, you are now left with all the plugins, themes, and uploads you added to the old website. It’s important that you remove these, or you’ll have tons of unnecessary bloat on your new website. This isn’t preferable on a fresh site. Now that your database is cleared up, you’ll want to turn your attention to your WordPress files. Most WordPress files remain the same between installations. What you’ll want to address are unique additions, such as plugins, themes, and media. These all exist within the wp-content folder. You can delete these via FTP. Log in using your favorite FTP application, and navigate to your WordPress’ root directory under public_html. Find the wp-content folder and navigate inside. At this point, you should see plugins, themes, and uploads folders. You may also see a few others. Select every folder except for themes and delete them all. Next, navigate inside the themes folder. Choose the theme you’d like to keep, such as WordPress’ Twenty Seventeen. Select every theme folder except for your chosen theme, and remove them from the server. At this point, you have now wiped out all unique elements related to your WordPress website. The database is completely empty, and all unique files have been removed. All that’s left is to reinstall WordPress from scratch! Step 4: Run the WordPress Installation Script At this point, everything in your WordPress site is sanitized and cleaned out. Unfortunately, if you leave it at this stage, you’ll not have a functional website — you need to rerun the WordPress installation script. Finally, you’re ready to revert WordPress back to its default settings. You can load up the installation script by adding /wp-admin/install.php to the end of your domain name. You’ll need to pick out a few settings, such as language and your new login information: Without this process, your database is completely blank. If you don’t run this script, WordPress will be unable to function. Once you’ve filled in the entire form, you can click Install WordPress. You’ll be greeted with a welcome message: Simply click Log In and you’ll be on your way with a new WordPress website! This will regain your access to the site, and you’ll be working with a completely clean slate. Resetting WordPress Resetting your WordPress website may not be the most thrilling task, but it is a good skill to have in your repertoire for fixing broken websites and cleaning up unnecessary files. Even if you use a plugin, it gives you the power to understand what is going on underneath the hood when resetting everything from scratch. In this article, you learned how to do this manually in four steps: Delete the WordPress database. Create a new database. Remove unnecessary files. Run the WordPress installation script. What questions do you have about resetting WordPress? Let us know in the comments section below!
Choosing the right platform for a large-scale company can make or break the success of your website. The wrong choice can cost you time, resources, and sales when it doesn’t perform as expected. WordPress is an enterprise-ready platform, as evidenced by its WordPress.com multisite installation supporting more than 21.3 billion visits every month. This includes major sites such as TED, CNN, and the National Football League! You can benefit from WordPress while maintaining ownership and control by using the self-hosted version at WordPress.org. This enables you to choose from powerful theme frameworks such as StudioPress’ Genesis, and a number of Genesis child themes. In this article, we’ll introduce you to the power of WordPress with the Genesis framework. Then we’ll walk you through four steps to build an effective website for your business. Let’s get started! Introducing WordPress and the Genesis Framework WordPress is currently the most popular CMS, driving nearly 29% of all websites on the internet. The robust platform can scale to nearly any size, as Automattic’s commercial service handles 21.3 billion monthly visits without breaking a sweat. WordPress also, of course, comes with worldwide community for support and learning, as well as offering incredible flexibility with thousands of free plugins. Since WordPress is such a huge mover and shaker, many plugin and theme makers have created businesses around premium products. One major and long-standing developer is StudioPress, with its leading theme framework, Genesis: In a nutshell, theme frameworks offer a base set of features and functionality that developers can build on to offer their own ‘child’ themes. Because of this, using a framework can save serious time and money when developing a new website. Genesis is arguably the most popular theme framework, and caters to many child themes for practically any niche. It offers many options for designing your site (accessible through the Customizer), mobile responsiveness, customizable headers and page templates, and much more. Of course, each child theme will have its own unique features and capabilities. In short, Genesis is the right choice for big businesses that need to get an efficient, powerful website up and running quickly. There is room for growth and custom development, while covering all the basics you’ll need to hit the ground running. How to Build an Effective Business Website Using the Genesis Framework (In 4 Steps) We’ve boiled the process down into four steps. What’s more, while you could do this yourself, it’s likely much more efficient to hand this off to your development team. Also, while we won’t go into choosing a domain name throughout these steps, if you don’t already have one, you’ll need to take a look at your options beforehand. Step 1: Choose the Right WordPress Hosting As you’ll be using a self-hosted version of WordPress, the first step is to pick out the right hosting. We find that managed hosting is the best bang for your buck when it comes to large business websites, as your host will look after some of the ‘under the hood’ aspects of your website to help keep it running smoothly. There are a few features you’ll need to look for when choosing a quality host, such as WordPress-optimized features (including automated updates and backups), scalability through services such as Amazon Web Services, built-in redundancy for high performance, and much more besides. What’s more, there are a variety of hosting companies to choose from, so it’s a good idea to do your research. Of course, we’d be remiss not to mention Pagely as a stellar option. We provide all of the necessary features to run a successful business website, and our client list speaks for itself! Step 2: Download and Install the Genesis Framework Next up is installing the Genesis Framework. Fortunately, this will follow the same process as purchasing and installing any other premium theme (although there is one quirk we’ll get to later). In summary, you’ll want to carry out the following steps: Navigate to the dedicated Genesis page on the StudioPress website. Click the Buy Genesis Framework button, and run through the checkout procedure. Download the Genesis Framework from your account panel. You’ll then get a ZIP file that can be uploaded as normal to your WordPress website. However, you won’t want to activate anything until you’ve installed a suitable child theme. Step 3: Select and Install the Right Genesis Theme As we discussed, Genesis requires you to use a dedicated child theme, but it has a slight difference compared to other WordPress child themes. In this instance, Genesis child themes provide you with a complete design and layout, rather than an empty shell to work from. They’re also hardly ever updated, so you’re free to customize them directly. Any updates are handled by the framework itself — another benefit. While StudioPress provide a selection of child themes covering all manner of niches, there are plenty of other developers of Genesis child themes. Your main concerns should be choosing a theme that fits your needs and goals, and also offers the features and functionality you need on your website. Overall, the choice is subjective and completely your decision. As for installing the child theme, you’ll need to carry out exactly the same steps as you did for the Genesis Framework, although this time you’ll want to activate the child theme only. Once you’re finished, it’s time to work on the design! Step 4: Pass Your Website Over to Your Development and Marketing Teams At this point, you’ll have a website with a working version of Genesis and your chosen child theme. Next is handing it off to your development and marketing teams, and you’ll want to ensure they have all of the information they need to begin work. First, provide them with the documentation for both the framework itself, and the specific theme you’ve chosen. The team will need to put together basic content and graphic assets to finalize the branding and messaging of your site. This may involve both teams working together for any final customizations to the design. You’ll also need a long-term content marketing strategy in place. To do this, you will need: A well-defined target audience specifically for your website. Keyword research revolving around the pain points of your audience, as they relate to your products and services. Ongoing, regular published content targeted to these keywords. The design of the website and its content will play a huge role in how you are able to convert the traffic you earn over time. The marketing, sales, and development teams will need to work closely together to identify which design elements can improve the user experience and ultimately convert them to customers. Conclusion It’s important to choose the correct platform when setting up a website for your business. With the correct foundations, you can then hand over a solid website to your development and marketing teams to begin its design and promotion. In this article, we’ve introduced you to WordPress using the Genesis Framework, then look at how to create a business website in four steps. Let’s recap: Choose the right WordPress hosting. Download and install the Genesis Framework. Select and install a suitable Genesis child theme. Begin your website’s development and marketing. What questions do you have about getting started with the Genesis framework? Let us know in the comments section below!
Despite strong branding being at the heart of your company’s marketing, there are many ways it can get lost on your website. Featured images are one such example, and neglecting to set them up properly means a branding opportunity missed. Featured images are visual representations of the posts and pages on your WordPress website. These images can be used within themes, and also tend to be chosen by social media sites when displaying your posts. However, without setting a specific featured image on every page, your WordPress website will simply show nothing in its place — unless you enable a default featured image. In this article, we will first explain the importance and power of featured images for branding. Then, we will offer you three options to enable default featured images on your website. Let’s get started! Why Using a Default Featured Image in WordPress Is Beneficial Featured images, originally known as post thumbnails, are used as the primary images for WordPress posts and pages. They’re often integrated into themes, and are typically the first and largest images shown when posts are shared on social media. How a featured image gets used varies depends on the WordPress theme, plugins, and any custom coding implemented. It’s important to understand that featured images must be specifically enabled on a website. By default, they’re only set manually. Once enabled, it is entirely up to the configuration of the theme how they gets displayed to visitors — if at all! Additionally, plugins (such as Yoast SEO) can use them inside of widget areas, or even in meta data for use in social media sharing previews. In short, featured images reinforce your branding by showing up throughout your WordPress website, as well as anywhere the link happens to be shared. However, if you don’t set one, your visitors and readers will see nothing. Setting a default featured image for all of your WordPress posts and pages means no opportunity is missed to show off your company. Fortunately, while default featured images are not provided in WordPress out of the box, it is possible to work around that limitation. Let’s look at a few of your options. How to Enable Default Featured Images in WordPress (3 Options) Setting up default images may be as simple as installing a WordPress plugin, but you can also hand your developers a few lines of code to create the same effect. Keep in mind that adding default featured images is only the first step. You’ll need to also follow up with your web design team to ensure they are fully optimized within your WordPress theme. Option 1: Use a Dedicated Plugin Quick Featured Images is a robust plugin for managing your entire featured images library at once. This solution enables you to set, replace, and delete featured images in bulk, on top of letting you set default images for future posts. After installing and activating the plugin, navigate to Featured Images > Preset Featured Images in your WordPress dashboard. From here, you’ll be brought to the Preset Featured Images page. While there are a myriad of options here, you won’t need to access most of them now. Simply check the second option to automatically set images to the first image in a post, or the third option to choose a specific default featured image. If you chose the latter option, it’s important to choose Post Type under the Taxonomy drop-down, and Post under the Value drop-down. Next, you can update your existing posts to assign them featured images. Head to the Featured Images > Set, replace, remove page, which brings up another set of options. Again, there are many customizable elements, but we’re focusing on the first radio button. Leave this set to the default Set the selected image as new featured image option, choose a suitable image, then click Next. On the next screen, scroll to the Process Options section, check the Consider only posts without any featured image option, then click Next once again: Finally, you’ll need to review your new default featured images: Once you’re happy, click Confirm Changes. Now, all of your posts and pages should have a default featured image. It’s a simple process, but there are also manual options for setting default featured images. Let’s take a look at two options tailor-made for your development team. Option 2: Manually Set a Fallback Image It’s possible to manually set a preset fallback image within the code of your theme, rather than using a plugin. This is the simplest way to set featured images, although it is also the most limited version. Your developers will need to add this snippet of code to your theme’s files wherever you’d like your image to display. It’s worth noting that this method wouldn’t let a plugin such as Yoast SEO automatically refer to it for social media, as it’s not stored anywhere within the WordPress database. Here is the code snippet you can send to your developers: <?php if ( has_post_thumbnail() ) { the_post_thumbnail(); } else { ?> <img src="<?php bloginfo('template_directory'); ?>/images/preset-featured-image.jpg" alt="<?php the_title(); ?>" /> <?php } ?> The image (of course) will need to be added to your theme. Then, you’ll need to ensure the developers modify the specific image file name to match the chosen featured image file within the theme. Option 3: Use the First Image of the Post Finally, you can make the preset image within the theme a bit more dynamic. This would mean first checking the post for an image (using that as the featured image if it exists), before displaying a default featured image as a last resort. This will involve asking your developers to script a function in the functions.php file of your theme. Here is a quick example of a function that works for us: // Check for the first image in a post function pagely_main_image() { $files = get_children( 'post_parent='.get_the_ID().'&post_type=attachment &post_mime_type=image&order=desc' ); if( $files ) : $keys = array_reverse( array_keys( $files ) ); $j=0; $num = $keys[$j]; $image=wp_get_attachment_image( $num, 'large', true ); $imagepieces = explode( '"', $image ); $imagepath = $imagepieces[1]; $main=wp_get_attachment_url( $num ); $template=get_template_directory(); $the_title=get_the_title(); print "<img src='$main' alt='$the_title' class='frame' />"; endif; } This function simply sorts through the content of your post to check for images. If one exists, it sets that as the featured image. You’ll use this function in place of the static image HTML in the previous method. Here’s what that might look like: <?php if ( has_post_thumbnail() ) { the_post_thumbnail(); } else { pagely_main_image(); } ?> Once again, it’s important to instruct your developers to use this snippet wherever the featured image should appear on your site. This could include posts, pages, archives, or even your on-site search results templates. Conclusion Featured images are a powerful way to reinforce your branding, both within your theme and when posts are shared on social media. Setting up default featured images ensures this branding opportunity is never missed! In this article, we’ve introduced you to featured images in WordPress. Then, we gave you three ways to add default featured images to your website: Use a dedicated plugin. Manually set a fallback image. Default to the first image in a post. What questions do you have about setting default featured images in WordPress? Let us know in the comments section below!
WordPress developers come in all shapes and sizes, and not all learned to code in the same way. Even with years of experience behind you, there still may be awesome resources you’re not taking advantage of. It’s easy to miss when a new tool becomes available — there are so many that it can be overwhelming at times! To combat this, it can be helpful to see what others are using to build their WordPress projects. We’ve done just that, and want to share with you the resources we’ve found. In this article we feature more than 20 free tools that every WordPress developer should know about, separated into five different categories. Let’s get cracking! Code Frameworks for a Strong Foundation Code frameworks give you a head start by providing you with a strong codebase to work from. There is a small learning curve for each to learn its unique functions and features, but over time, they will ensure you are producing high-quality projects without needing to continuously reinvent the wheel. Roots Roots is a multi-tool package for serious developers. Its aim is to provide tools for designing robust WordPress projects, from server setup to theme development. Here are the three tools: Trellis: a LEMP WordPress server stack. Bedrock: a WordPress project boilerplate. Sage: a WordPress starter theme. Be sure to check out each project and its documentation to see which apply to you! You could start small by developing a theme with Sage. Underscores Underscores is a popular starter theme brought to you by Automattic itself on Github. As a starter theme, you are expected to hack Underscores and turn it into your own custom theme. In other words, don’t use it as a parent theme! It comes packed with: HTML5 templates Code snippets Template tags Tweaks for a better development experience Sample CSS layouts You can learn more about the project from the developers themselves. WordPress Plugin Boilerplate The WordPress Plugin Boilerplate offers a standardized, organized, and object-oriented foundation for high-quality WordPress plugins. It is essentially a ‘starter plugin’, designed for you to take and make your own. It features: Code organization Code snippets Setup for public and administrative hooks Well-written comments to guide you through the process Whether you’re working an existing plugin or coding something new, we highly recommend checking out the Plugin Boilerplate as the foundation for your next plugin project. uilang The uilang.js project is a minimal, UI-focused programming language for web designers. It offers a simple way for designers to incorporate various dynamic effects without relying on large libraries such as jQuery or requiring you to learn complex JavaScript. You can use it to quickly build: Notification banners Animated switches Navigation popovers Tabs Accordions …and more! There are plenty of code examples right on the homepage for you to try. Resources and Tools for Rapid Design and Development Building a new project doesn’t need to mean working from scratch, which can significantly slow down your timeline. You don’t need to design all your own icons, pay hundreds of dollars for fonts, or rely on complex email threads to manage your team. Instead, use these tools to help you along the way. FontAwesome FontAwesome brings the power of custom typography and iconography to your site, allowing you to use their entire library of icons within your website. Their icons include: Web application icons Accessibility icons Hand icons Transportation icons Gender icons File type icons Spinner icons Of course, they are always updating and improving the icon sets. Follow these steps to get started. Google Fonts Google Fonts is a free library of beautiful fonts you can embed and use on your website. It is simple and easy to use, and works on virtually any site you might be building. Benefits include: A large library of non-commercial fonts Quick installation No need to host fonts yourself You can get started with Google Fonts on your WordPress site using our guide. Slack Slack is one of the most popular ways of chatting within teams. You can integrate many tools to help keep the process streamlined. Here are just a few examples of what Slack can offer you: Monitor code updates with Git Keep track of bug fixes in Trac Organize teams into channels These are just a few ways you can use Slack to ease communication and speed up production. The options are practically limitless! Trello Trello is a free organizational tool that can be used for simple project management, enabling you to collaborate in real time with other members of your team. Here are just a few of the things you can do: Organize projects into boards Use columns to track progress Use cards to manage individual tasks You can see how others are using Trello to manage projects to get inspired. Tools and Code Snippets for Local Development Being a developer means dealing with code, naturally. However, there are many free resources to help you set up your local development environment, and even reduce the amount of time spent actually writing code. Why do extra work when it’s already done for you, right? From industry standard code editors to quick snippet generators, the following tools and resources will help you become the best developer you can be. XAMPP, MAMP, and WAMP XAMPP, MAMP, and WAMP are all local development tools to help you get your computer up and running as a local server. Which application is better for your needs depends on your personal preference. All of them allow you to: Set up localhost with Apache on your computer Install and run MySQL How to get started will depend on which operating system you use. Check each project’s page for specific instructions. Atom and Sublime Both Atom and Sublime are free text-editors developed especially for programmers. You can use additional plugins and packages to help you as you work. Both tools: Are free to use Offer powerful editors Offer additional tools You can get started with Atom using this tutorial. WP CLI The WP CLI is a command line program for developing with WordPress. If you’re new to using the command line there is a small learning curve, but once you’re up and running, it can save you a lot of time. From the command line, you can do things like: Download and install WordPress Manage plugins and themes Search and replace text in the database That’s just the tip of the iceberg! You can learn more about WP CLI here. GenerateWP GenerateWP can make your life easier by enabling you to quickly generate code for regular requirements, including: Custom post types Custom taxonomies Shortcodes Post statuses A few of their tools are behind a premium wall, but you can still use plenty at no cost. In-Code WordPress Functions WordPress itself comes with quite a few helpers and easy to implement tricks that standardize the coding experience and create consistent output. You can enable debugging tools and use other great helpers while you work: Set the WP_DEBUG constant to true for debugging messages Use standard global paths like WP_PLUGIN_DIR Use dbDelta() for custom database management There are many of these, so check out this tutorial for a more complete rundown (with code examples). WordPress Plugins for Debugging (And More) Once you’re ready to begin working within WordPress, there are quite a number of plugins that will help you along the way. These are particularly useful because they have access to the WordPress infrastructure and can give you very specific feedback on your project as you go. Theme Check If you’re developing themes, Theme Check is an invaluable plugin. Simply put, it helps you to ensure that your theme will pass the latest WordPress.org theme review standards. Theme Check will: Check for deprecated functions Search for standard WordPress styles Ensure you’re using any required settings If you’re not submitting to the WordPress theme directory, you may not consider this tool necessary. However, it still offers plenty of useful feedback — even for the casual theme developer. Give it a spin to see how your custom themes stack up. Theme Inspector Theme Inspector is an amazing resource when you’re working with custom themes. It adds a dropdown to the admin bar where you can get all kinds of information about the current view, including: Content type Post ID Post Type True conditions File loaded This tool is particularly helpful when creating child themes or trying to modify a more complex theme. Please note it has not been updated for a nearly half a year and has a small user base, but it’s fully operational, and we think it’s well worth checking out. Log Deprecated Notices This plugin logs the usage of deprecated files, functions, and function arguments, which is very helpful when you’re developing a WordPress site with a lot of custom functionality. Here’s a few of the things you can do with Log Deprecated Notices: View all deprecated files in your plugins and themes Get recommendations for what to use instead See whether you’re using functions incorrectly You can also see how your current WordPress installation checks out, and replace weak plugins or themes that aren’t up to date on standards. User Switching User Switching enables administrators to see what a WordPress website looks like from the user’s point of view. This is great just for simply putting yourself in the users’ shoes, but also invaluable for testing out features and access based on user permissions. This plugin is particularly helpful when you’re developing a user-centric site. With it, you can be sure that users get the experience you expect. Query Monitor Query Monitor enables you to keep track of all queries being run on your WordPress site, including: AJAX calls REST API requests Redirects Narrow output by plugin or theme This kind of debugging is particularly useful for discovering bottlenecks in your code, speeding up your site, and fixing otherwise ‘invisible’ issues. Duplicator Duplicator isn’t necessarily for debugging, but is an invaluable tool for transporting your site from one place to the next. With it you can: Make a whole copy of your site Import any copy of your site somewhere else You can use Duplicator for backups, or for moving your site between local development, staging, and deployment. Browser Tools for Design Testing Most popular browsers come with built-in tools that enable you to inspect the front end code of any given site. This can be very useful for writing CSS selectors, finding broken HTML elements, and other things that would usually be difficult to find in a sea of code. DevTools: Chrome and Firefox The DevTools packages for Chrome and Firefox are very similar. They both enable you to: Manipulate the DOM in real time Find and view all loaded scripts View how long elements take to load Furthermore, each browser has its own unique third-party plugins that extend these DevTools even further. If you use either Chrome or Firefox, get started by right-clicking anywhere on this page and choosing Inspect or Inspect Element from the dropdown menu. Conclusion As you can see, there are a great number of free tools that can help you build spectacular WordPress projects from start to finish. It can be useful to review what’s available every so often to ensure you’re not missing something that could make your work day run a little smoother. In this post, we covered tools to get you through every aspect of the WordPress workflow, including: Code frameworks for a solid foundation Resources for rapid design and development Coding helpers in your local environment WordPress plugins for debugging Built-in browser tools for design testing Did we miss any WordPress development tools you find invaluable? Let us know what you use in the comments section below!
B A N A N A S Pretty much sums up the last year – It’s been bananas. Never ending Pandemic, New Brands, Growth, Working towards compliance, New Product Launches, and more. This September 2021 is a very special month for us. Pagely, and by extension the entire multi-billion dollar Managed WordPress Hosting channel, is 12yrs old! Quick Flashback: In Early 2009 I opened up my IDE and started looking at some code we wrote in 2006 for a website builder based on WordPress. I added a few features to it, picked a new leet domain name, and in September 2009 – Launched Page.ly – The world’s first Managed WordPress hosting company. All the WordPress hosting buzzwords you know and love: Automatic Backups Automatic Updates Blazingly Fast Secure like Fort Knox 1 Click Staging Caching All. Of. It. Started. Here. Yes of course it is true we did not actually create everything under the sun, however the early work we did in the space is the parent to every Managed WordPress product offering available, regardless of the company selling it. Except billing for Pageviews, eff that noise – we don’t want any part of that. Team Retreat in 2015 Always Forward As Pagely begins it’s 13th year we have a strong wind at our back once again. I’m sure in some companies, especially investor fueled ones, growth is always fast and up while profitability is tied up in ropes and cinder blocks, then thrown off the end of the pier. In our company we’ve had our periods of growth insanity and just normal one foot in front of the other measured progress to increased profitability and high NPS scores. 2018 through most of 2020 was a bit of an odd timeframe for us when looking back – we invested heavily into the development of NorthStack and gained deep technical learnings. These lessons were then applied to Pagely as the decision was made to pause the NorthStack product while we felt out how the world was going to react to a fast spreading novel Coronavirus. Team Retreat Early 2020 As we came up to a major revenue milestone in 2020 we turned our focus inward to reevaluate our processes and to create new ones, address team makeup, and revisited our mission and values. We took the time to prepare for what was coming and to lay the foundational groundwork for our future goals. Less manic startup energy – more “we’re a real business now” mentality. We hired into newly created roles in team management, finance, enterprise sales, and compliance. Sally and I handed off more and more of the day-to-day responsibilities to our skilled team so we could take stock of where we are, and where we needed to go. Then we all worked together to formulate the plan to get us there. Allison’s (SupportOps Manager) dogs: Winne and Lola (“Karen”). The last year has been all about executing on that plan. We added 30% to our headcount – while improving and expanding our benefit offerings. We’ve engaged the services of an auditing firm and will shortly achieve SOC 2 – Type 2 compliance certification. Our brand glow up – which is the culmination of months of work by our Dir of Marketing Dave Amirault, and the creative team at Struck – will be launching momentarily. We’ve delivered on many of the requested features to our Enterprise clientele such as Single Sign On (SSO) to our services, and expanded support models and enhanced SLA’s. Back of the napkin math tells me our employees significantly increased their usage of PTO – after much encouragement and prodding from myself and their team leads. We launched Mercury just a few weeks back, which is a major win for our bottom line and our customers’ site performance. 20-30% faster network speeds on every request at cheaper data rates. Truly a win-win. These and many more items that are part of our strategic plan have resulted in a steadily growing sales pipeline and a pronounced upward shift in our momentum heading into 2022. Did I mention we are hiring? Get your tech jobs here. Times have changed. The important stuff has not. Jeff Matson’s doggo – Henry 2021 was also an emotional roller-coaster as we all bared witness to the, at times, abject selfish nature of people — and — the grit, empathy, and kindness of others. Sally and I have personally seen all of this up close and personal this year, a story we may share at another time. Each day though we took heart that by and large, the world is good and things tend to work out in the end. Keep the good people in your life close, and hug your kids every day. It costs you nothing to be kind. We lean on our core values as we make decisions and plan for the future. We also relied on them heavily in the past as we navigated the ups and downs of the pandemic. Sally has always said that if we do the right thing, success will follow. Doing the right thing by the people in our lives, our companies, and our communities is typically a selfless act with no expectation of return. At times though, the universe does surprise you with a healthy payback of goodwill, tenfold. There are lot’s of new faces at Pagely, as we said goodbye to others. It seems everyone has collectively reevaluated how they wish to invest their work time. Many leaned into the stability of good careers, others felt it was time to explore new options. At each coming and going I’m thankful to see new faces embrace our vision and values and old friends take a little part of the Pagely magic with them as they move forward to a new adventure. We are just as committed today as we were yesterday, and every day prior to becoming the best version of Pagely we can be. Branding work in 2021 Looking forward is as exciting today as it has been at each one of our 11 prior birthdays. I want to personally thank the team here at Pagely, and all of our customers and the fans we have in the WordPress community for being part of our journey thus far. Happy Birthday to Us. This coming year is going be the most interesting chapter in our story yet. I guarantee it.
