The WordPress admin interface is complex and jam-packed with exciting options, which is great for experienced users. However, most users usually find the admin interface intimidating and often confusing. In such a case, innocent exploration, or a stray click, could quite easily (and quickly) result in a defunct site.
Whether you’re a developer handing over a beautiful site to a client or an admin of a multi-user site, you need to customize and streamline the admin panel to protect the site and enhance the user experience.
This article is a guide to help you simplify and declutter the WordPress admin interface for your clients or site users, while retaining the powerful functionality it is known for.
Let’s get started!
Security Considerations
Pump the breaks. Let’s first address an important issue: security. We know, “boo hoo!” But it’s vital to start with customizations that reinforce the security of your site. Here are a few customizations to make and things to check:
Change the default “admin” username to something less identifiable
Change the login page URL from the default wp-login-php
Create complex passwords
Limit the number of login attempts in a given time period
A good security plugin such as iThemes Security can help you with each of the above. These are just a few vital security considerations to keep in mind.
Back on topic, now let’s get started!
Assign Editor Roles
Editors should be able to edit anything concerning the content but shouldn’t have acces to the settings of the site.
The admin menu panel (on the left hand side of the screen) is usually quite cluttered – filled with plugin menus, tools and settings that are rarely used. So why not remove unnecessary menu items and reduce the chaos by assigning editor roles to anyone that doesn’t need full administrator access?
There are however some important tools and settings that would be hidden by assigning editor roles. For example, users may need to access certain settings, perhaps to a slider plugin, that affects content on the site. In those cases, you need to implement some code or use a role editor plugin to exclusively grant them access to that plugin.
Customize the Dashboard
The Dashboard is another messy area of the WordPress admin interface that could overwhelm even the most advanced users. Even the editor account can still have a cluttered dashboard view. So how can you reduce the noise?
Head to the Screen Options tab at the top of the admin page. There, you can enable and disable various content tools on every screen.
Add Guides or Manuals
Right next to the Screen Options tab is the Help section. The good news is that you can easily modify the Help section to provide custom guidelines that may help users perform necessary tasks and functions.
For example, you can add help text for custom post types and pages. You can do this by adding code or using a plugin (there are several that can help with this, but more on that later).
You should organize the guide in a way that would be most beneficial to all users. Perhaps review the frequently asked questions from users or clients and address those questions in the guide.
WP Admin UI Customize
By far the easiest and best method to simplify your admin interface is to use the “WP Admin UI Customize” plugin. It provides a wide array of essential actions and settings that are accessible through a highly visual interface. You do not need to use any code whatsoever.
Let’s go through some key steps to declutter and simply the interface with this plugin.
General Screen Settings
This is the place to disable notifications for non-admin users. WordPress automatically sends notifications to all users whenever there’s an update available (for WordPress, plugins and themes). Notifications for comments are also sent to users.
These notifications are quite unnecessary and can be confusing. The best thing to do is disable them for any user which is not an administrator.
Customize Dashboard
You can customize the Dashboard even further through the WP Admin UI Customize Dashboard. This custom dashboard is really an extension of the Screen Options. You should use it to disable redundant blocks from the Dashboard.
De-Clutter the Side Menu
We all know that plugin developers love the Side Menu panel. A number of plugins, such as our very own All in One SEO Pack, have custom menus featured in the Side Menu.
The WP Admin UI Customize plugin allows you to fully adjust the Sidebar to your own needs or those of your clients.
To be honest, it is convenient at times to have those custom menus. However, most of the time, it just muddles and confuses backend users. That is because most plugins do not have user access rights properly enabled; but yet they are often displayed to users who do not have access to them. It pointlessly contributes to the clutter in the admin interface.
The good news is that you can easily get rid of those plugins (from the side menu) by simply scrolling through a list and deleting the nonessentials.
Customize the Login Screen
It’s always nice to have a custom feel and experience, particularly within your admin interface. The WP Admin UI Customize plugin further facilitates that by enabling customization of your login screen.
You can customize and add various elements like your logo, colors, font, and more. Play around with it and make it your own.
Wrapping Up
The WordPress admin interface can be quite overwhelming for the average user. In addition, a single accidental click by an unaware user could shut down the site and result in a sometimes expensive restoration. Thus it is vital that you simplify the admin interface to limit its fragility.
You’ll be guaranteed a powerful site without the visible complexity that could ruin it all.
The items listed in this article are key steps to achieving that. But there are many additional things (code, various plugins, customized dashboard themes, etc.) that could be done to further simplify the backend.
What things have you done to simplify your interface and make it more user-friendly for your clients or users? Let us know in the comments!
Are you creating categories on the go while you’re publishing posts? Do you have more than 15 categories on your blog? Are you using tags to bring some order back to your site? If you answered yes to any of those questions, you may be among many WordPress users that are confused about how to use categories and tags effectively, particularly to benefit SEO.
Categories and tags are the two main methods to organize posts in WordPress, but they also serve different purposes. Using them in the correct way will not only help you improve your SEO, but ultimately provide a much better user experience for your readers.
This article will explain the difference between the two and show you how to get the most out of each of them in the hopes of bringing some order back to your site.
What about SEO?
Categories and tags, when used correctly, could improve your SEO in three ways:
The internal links will help search engine crawlers find all your site’s content by following those links. In short, it allows search engines such as Google and Bing to access and index all of your posts and include them in search results.
Your category and tag names, which are the anchor text of the internal links, will give search engines a clue as to what your site is about. This helps you rank your content for those valuable keywords.
Popular posts that generate inbound links will use categories and tags to link to other related posts on your site, effectively boosting your website’s ranking on search engines and getting you that extra link juice.
What are Categories?
Before WordPress version 2.3, categories were the only way to organize your blog posts in WordPress, so you probably used or at least heard of them before. In fact, you can’t even publish a post without assigning a category to it. So what exactly is their purpose again?
Categories are used to group similar topics together – kind of like book chapters. The chapter titles of a book usually give you a pretty solid grasp of what the book is about and how it is structured. If the author or editor of that book were to reorganize or remove chapters, it would change the whole structure, and perhaps the whole story.
You may need to add extra subcategories in time as your site grows larger.
Let’s take an example of a health blog. If you’re running a comprehensive blog, you could select and create your categories based on the main components of health: Exercise, Nutrition, Motivation, etc. You can add sub-categories to each of those if needed (ex. Recipes under Nutrition). But there are a few rules you need to keep in mind:
Categories can only be used for posts, not pages
Every blog post should fit into one category (sometimes a post fits into two categories, but this shouldn’t occur often)
It is best to work with a single category limit for most of your posts
Categories shouldn’t be created for topics that you’re not going to discuss any further in the near future
You should place your categories into hierarchies and add subsequent subcategories as your site develops
You can create categories from the category interface (Posts > Categories). Let’s look at the Add New Category screen:
Name Speaks for itself. Give your categories easily identified, short names that visitors will instantly recognize. The category name should include a relevant keyword.
Slug This is the URL of your category name. It is found in category archives and your post URLs if you’re using custom permalinks. Use dashes to separate words and don’t stuff it with keywords.
Parent You can create a subcategory by assigning a parent to it. Leave it at “None” if it is a top-level category.
Description This is where the category description goes. It is not shown by default, but some WordPress themes may display it.
Although you are able to create as many categories as you like, the less you have the better. Typically, if you have more than a dozen blog categories, your content may not be as focused as you might think.
Google may translate a large number of blog categories to a lack of focus. This will make it much harder for your content to get the ranking which it deserves. That’s why it’s important to think very carefully about each category that you’re adding to your site.
Another reason why you should think carefully about each category you add or assign is that it can be quite challenging to change a post’s category later on, especially when it is part of a post’s URL slug. So to avoid redirecting 404 pages, choose categories wisely to save yourself some trouble in the future.
What are Tags?
Tags are used to provide specific details about your posts and also link related posts on your blog. This is why posts typically have quite a few tags to them (in comparison to categories). Think of tags like a book’s index – an extended list of more specific topics which the book covers. If a topic is in the index, it is mentioned in more than one part of the book; and adding or removing a topic from the index does not change the structure of a book.
So let’s go back to the example of a health blog. Possible tags to feature are fitness, body composition, nutrients, etc. You want to keep the names short and easily identifiable as well.
Remember that tags whilst helpful, are entirely optional. You should only include them if you are certain that they will add value to your site. Here are a few rules to keep in mind:
Try not to use more than five tags in each post. Remember: you want to make it clear and easy for your visitors to find what they are looking for
Don’t create a tag that can only be applied to one post
You shouldn’t repeat tags too often for different categories, as this may make things more complicated
Try not to capitalize your tags, as it is better to use lowercase
Tags are flat, which means that you can’t create a hierarchical structure with sub-tags
Categories and tags are quite straightforward to use once you understand the difference between them and their individual value. They are there to improve your site’s usability (categories more so than tags) and are thus a vital component of SEO. So choose your categories wisely and always link your decision back to your end user.
Hopefully you now have a better understanding of categories, tags and how to use them. For those that want to know even more about the usage of categories and tags: there’s an advanced user guide available at WordPress.org.
Please share your thoughts on the subject. How do you organize your content? Do you have any tips you’d like to share with your fellow WordPress users?
Did you know that with All in One SEO Pack Pro, you can control SEO for categories and tags?
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Fixes for hosts with overly aggressive backend caching
Various performance improvements/Optimizations
Streamlined various options pages… fewer options, more functionality!
Update your sites today to take advantage of these features, improvements and bug fixes. Go to Plugins in your WordPress admin area to update.
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Security is a major concern for WordPress site owners and rightly so: there are over 7.5 million cyber-attacks on WordPress sites every hour. Unsurprisingly, WordPress’ open-source nature and flexibility makes it vulnerable to a host of diverse attacks. But its core is quite secure as the WordPress team is dedicated to conserving the structural integrity of the application. The same, however, cannot be said for all WordPress themes and plugins.
A malware attack was recently discovered by John Castro of Sucuri. The malware places 10-12 lines of code at the top of vulnerable WordPress theme header.php files in order to redirect visitors to malicious sites.
This article will provide details of the attack; as well as tips to secure your site from such attacks in the future.
How the Malware Attack Works
As mentioned earlier, the malware places 10-12 lines of code at the top of the header.php file of an active WordPress theme. The code appears as follows:
The malware redirects visitors to default7 .com (not the final redirect destination) upon their first visit. It then sets the “896diC9OFnqeAcKGN7fW”cookie to track returning visitors for a year, and tests for search engine crawlers. If there are no crawlers, it proceeds to check the user agent header.
The redirects are random for everyone. Furthermore, default7 .com is only just the first redirect destination. Visitors are further redirected to the following domains (depending on the IP address and browser):
test246 .com
test0 .com
distinctfestive .com
ableoccassion .com
What is particularly interesting is the malware’s behavior on Internet Explorer. When the visitor uses Internet Explorer, they are redirected to a site that provides a malicious Flash or Java update.
Another interesting behavior occurs on Facebook. When you share an infected site link on Facebook, you may see the post snippet from another site – one of the five redirect sites. Facebook will still redirect people to the malicious site, even after you remove the malware from your site. This is because the cache is shared. You can reset the cache here.
You may be surprised to hear that this kind of infection is quite common when hackers get access to a WordPress admin interface. With the right credentials, they are able to (quite easily) edit a theme file.
Which Sites Are Infected?
The recent exploit is actually not the only malware threat on infected sites. In a majority of cases, the infected sites had several security vulnerabilities resulting in a number of other infections. Just a minority of sites showed that the infection was only found in the theme’s header.php file.
How to Detect the Malware
The malware code is not without flaws. That is, it often tests for parameters that do not exist, which results in a PHP error. Since some servers have PHP notices turned off, the error is not always displayed; but a Google search of “Notice: Undefined index: 6FoNxbvo73BHOjhxokW3” may reveal the malware code on your server.
Sucuri shared that some Google search results could reveal errors in the theme footer file. That is because the malware previously infected footer.php files and placed a similar redirect code at the top of those files. The attack moved to header.php files and re-infected sites that had the malware code in their footer.php file. Even though the malware has been updated, the redirects send visitors to the exact same pages.
How to Remove Malware
Removing malware is a multi-step process that you may want to consult a WordPress expert on. If you’re not that experienced in security yourself, odds are you’ll only make things worse. Businesses specialized in WordPress such as our very own Semper Fi Web Design team can address all your security concerns.
But for now, let’s take a look at what you can do in general to protect your site from such attacks.
How to Keep Your WordPress Site Secure
Protect Your WordPress Admin Interface
Your WordPress admin panel is a goldmine for criminals. Therefore, you need to restrict access to it as much as possible: only those who need to access it should be able to. In any case, you should restrict everybody’s ability to make changes to your header.php file.
As we’ve seen with this recent redirect attack, hackers with admin credentials to your site can directly and easily make changes to your theme’s header.php file. You can effortlessly disable a user’s ability to edit PHP files in your admin interface by adjusting your wp-config.php file. Simply copy and paste the following code in your wp-config.php file:
Other tips for keeping your admin interface secure:
Use strong passwords
Change all passwords periodically
Limit the number of login attempts
Check to make sure that no fake admin accounts have been created
Do not use “admin” as your admin username
Enable two-factor authentication
Update WordPress, Themes and Plugins to Latest Versions
It is critical to update WordPress and all of your themes and plugins to their latest versions. In addition to improved functionality, most updates are provided to address security concerns and vulnerabilities, so update to the latest versions as soon as they are available.
Make Sure Your Computer(s) Is Free of Viruses and Malware
Any precautionary measures you take to protect your site from malware would all be null and void if your computer contains any viruses or malware. That’s because a hacker could access your site’s login details from your computer and swiftly proceed to infect the site. Therefore, it’s important to install a good antivirus program on all computers you use to log into your WordPress site.
Most of us love WordPress for its flexibility, among many other reasons. Indeed, it is the most popular open-source Content Management System (CMS) out there. However, the reasons we love it so much are the very reasons that make it vulnerable to cyber-attacks. It’s important to be aware of that and take the necessary steps to protect your site.
If you haven’t noticed, SEO has changed over the past months. Search engines constantly update their algorithms which often makes it difficult to keep track of the latest best practices. We’ll help you get started on implementing an effective strategy and getting your site to the top.
Whether you’re setting up a new site or optimizing a current one, this checklist contains everything you need to know.
Let’s start with three vital changes that have dramatically affected SEO in 2016.
Mobile Dominates
Mobile has become more important than desktop: over 50 percent of all Google searches queries are now performed on mobile devices. This means that we’ll have to prioritize mobile from now on when it comes to SEO and web development. It’s of the utmost importance that your website is responsive –scaling content and built with mobile users in mind.
Social Matters More
Social media content is becoming an equal to website content at a fast rate. Search engines are now indexing and ranking social media pages, so it is inevitable that website content and social content will hold the similar weight in rankings in the near future. This means that businesses should claim their social pages, become more active on their relevant social networks and engage their audience.
Video Conquers The Web
Video is now key to any branding or marketing strategy; perhaps because it is more engaging and immersive than any other form of content. This is the time to start taking advantage of video and reach your audience in creative ways.
Now let’s look at our SEO checklist.
SEO 101: The Basics
Design a Responsive Site
As I mentioned earlier, mobile dominates. More than half of all Google searches are now performer on mobile. Your site not only needs to be mobile-friendly, but responsive on all devices. Ideally you create your site with mobile users in mind first and desktop users second.
Go with Google Analytics
Statistics are at the core of SEO. They provide important insights into your audience and traffic: site visitor behavior, where your prospects are coming from, how they’re finding your site, etc. – metrics that enable you to hone and optimize your efforts accurately.
Setting up Google Analytics is fairly straightforward with All in One SEO Pack: just sign up and add a tracking code to your website. You’ll find all detailed instructions on how to get started right here.
Check Your Page Speed
It’s important that you’re website’s pages load fast. The ideal load time is less than 2 seconds, because most users tend to leave your page if it takes any longer than 4 seconds to load.
Checking your site’s speed can easily be done using Pingdom or Google’s PageSpeed Insights tool. These tools analyze your site within seconds, telling you what’s wrong and what you can do to fix or improve it. A score above 80 (out of 100) is considered great for both mobile and desktop.
Within seconds, PageSpeed Insight tells you what to do to improve your site’s speed.
Install a WordPress SEO Plugin
An SEO plugin will help you with on-page SEO like titles, meta descriptions, XML sitemap, social meta, etc.
Our All in One SEO Pack is one of the most popular plugins with over 30 million downloads and over 5 million users. You can find documentation and beginners guides to help you get the most from this powerful SEO tool over in our Documentation section.
Add Your Website to Google Search Console & Bing Webmaster Tools
Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools help you analyze and monitor various search traffic factors like security concerns, search queries, broken links and many more. In conjunction with setting up those accounts, you should also create and submit an XML sitemap to Google and Bing.
Sitemaps provide search engines with a list of pages that are accessible to them. High-value or high-performance pages should be at the top. Luckily for you, All in One SEO Pack makes sure you don’t have to do this yourself.
It’s highly recommended – in fact, necessary – to do a full site audit after setting up Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools. Go through every section to ensure that nothing is broken or needs to be fine-tuned.
Run an SEO Audit
Last but not least, get an SEO audit performed on your website by a professional. We provide such a service and details can be found on our website.
On-Page SEO
A lot of people ask us if keywords are still relevant.
They are, but not as you might think of keywords. Google has switched their emphasis from looking at basic “keywords” in your content to long tail terms. Their analysis of the way we use search engines showed that we don’t search by entering a string of keywords, we search by asking Google a question (entering a search term). Google realized back in 2013 that they had to change the way they return search results, so now, they don’t look at keywords in content, but instead they read and understand your content.
Depending on your niche, it can be quite hard to figure out which long tail terms you should actually focus on. Luckily, there are a few effective methods you can use and combine to get a list of relevant terms for your site. Keep in mind that writing quality informative content is much more important than paragraphs of poorly written text stuffed with keywords nobody bothers to read.
Develop Your Buyer Personas
Buyer personas will help you accurately define your audience; and consequently create a marketing strategy that targets them. To build one, think about the problems your ideal customer is facing; their needs; and their online and offline behavior.
Generate a list of trending topics and keywords. It also has a tool that compares keywords and checks the performance of keywords in different locations.
You can also just browse related searches and suggestions in Google – they can be found towards the bottom of the search results page.
Titles, Descriptions, Headings, Permalink Structures and Images
Create Unique Title Tags
You should write unique title tags for your posts and pages. Here are a few essential tips when writing title tags:
Limit the title tag length to 60-65 characters. Search engines like Google won’t display more characters in the snippet and will cut your phrase off
Add your company name at the end of every title tag to raise brand awareness
Place the relevant keyword at the beginning of the title tag as this could increase your SEO score
Our All in One SEO Pack plugin will help you with your titles.
Write Engaging and Succinct Meta Descriptions
Write a succinct and engaging meta description for every page or post. You should:
Limit the meta description to a maximum of 160 characters
Include a call-to-action, i.e. “read more” or “call [phone number]”
Make sure each description is unique
Meta descriptions do not affect the score of a certain webpage, so you shouldn’t focus on stuffing them with relevant keywords. Engaging, well written meta descriptions however have been proven to increase the click through rate and are key to attracting visitors to your site.
This is how an ideal Google Snippet should look like.
In fact, combined with title tags, meta descriptions are the billboard for your site. Google’s final word on meta descriptions has always been to use quality descriptions. As with title tags, All in One SEO Pack will help you with you descriptions.
Make Use of Heading Tags
Heading tags give search engines an idea of what your page is about. There should be one H1 heading which should be your page or post title. Headings should be used (H2, H3, H4…) appropriately across your content to break up content. Headings also allow you to define the structure of your text and add more detail to the appearance and layout of your content.
Use Keywords in Your Permalink Structure
It is highly recommended to use your keywords, particularly high value ones, in your page URLs. Try to use them whenever possible as they are a ranking factor for search engines. Where possible, your URLs should closely match your page structure and page titles.
Alt Tag Your Images
Always include your keywords in image Alt tags and titles; and use at least one (featured) image in every post. Alt tags are displayed when the image cannot be loaded on the user’s device and are very much appreciated by Google and the like.
Always Create Qualitative Content
You should never create content for the sake of creating content. All your content should serve a specific purpose, usually to help answer a prospect’s questions or address their concerns. Here are a few rules to creating quality content:
Content should be over 500 words (it can be lower if necessary)
Speak directly to the reader – use a conversational tone of voice
Do not overstuff your content with keywords, Google may penalize you
Provide accurate titles and descriptions
Use images and videos to increase visitor engagement
Use Internal and External Links
Direct readers to other relevant content through internal and external links. They will not only be appreciated by your visitors, but also add some extra SEO juice to your page and help search engines crawl and index related content on your site.
Keep Your Site Structure Simple
KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid) applies to everything that deals with SEO and user experience on your site. In fact, SEO is all about user experience. In that vein, KISS also applies to your site’s structure.
Make sure that all key content is easily accessible in as few clicks as possible, preferably under three clicks from your homepage. If that’s not possible, you may want to rethink your site’s navigation.
Off-Page SEO
Quality, relevant backlinks tell search engines that your site is reputable and shows you are an expert in your field. Below we’ll describe some creative methods to get some quality backlinks.
Analyze Your Competitor’s Backlinks
It’s important to know where your competitors are getting their links from, so you can acquire links from those places as well. You can find competitor backlinks via SEMrush or Moz.
Next, create a list of your competitor’s most valuable links. This list will help you organize and develop an effective link acquisition strategy.
Finally, reach out to the owners or editors of those sites and ask them for backlinks if it could be beneficial for the both of you. There’s no point in requesting backlinks from, for example, a site on American history if your site is about great hamburger restaurants. Website owners need to be able to offer their users value as well.
Find Key Influencers in Your Niche
Influencers have contributed to the success of many big brands. Google Search and social media (particularly Twitter and Instagram) can identify relevant key influencers in your niche. Engage them and aim to cultivate valuable relationships.
These, for example, are top 5 influencers for SEO.
Consider using Klout – it’s a great platform to identify and engage with key influencers in your industry.
Find Non-Linked Content About Your Business
You write great content and have great products or services. So chances are someone has written content about your business. Search for it, then contact the site owners or publishers and kindly ask them to link the content back to your site. Chances are they will be more than happy to comply.
Review Existing Backlinks
Go through your existing backlinks to see if they are relevant and link to the right pages and content. If they’re not linked correctly, you can reach out to the author and have them update the link or use a redirection plugin if they are linking to a non-existent page. Also check to see if they are using the appropriate anchor text. If not, kindly request that they change it to something more suitable.
Believe it or not, you can remove backlinks that are irrelevant and harmful to your site. Simply ask Google to remove it from your SEO search assessment. That essentially means that you’re asking Google to not include it when calculating your PageRank. Here’s how to go about disavowing backlinks.
Join the Conversation
Participate in relevant forums and discussion boards to develop your authority. Provide useful and informed responses to relevant questions (on topics in your niche). You can always direct users to your site to find more comprehensive and thorough answers.
Quora is a great forum for the above. You can answer questions and link back to your site.
Finally, use social media and enable your visitors to share your content easily on their social networks. Respond to people who contact you via social media.
Social SEO
Go Where Your Customers Are
Where are your prospects socializing online? Identify those networks, create profiles and build strong followings on those channels.
Nowadays it’s essential to claim your social business pages on social media networks like Facebook and Twitter as it is expected that social content will become as valuable as regular site content.
Monitor the Social Conversation
Keep your ears tuned to the social conversation. You should know when people are looking up or discussing your company, products, services or anything else that pertains to your business. There are several social media monitoring tools you can use, such as Hootsuite, Buffer and many more. Hootsuite and Buffer also help with scheduling and managing social media posts.
As mentioned earlier, identify your key influencers on social networks. Engage with them and cultivate mutually beneficial relationships. You’d be surprised at the power of a direct message (to the right influencer) in getting your content distributed over a wider network and to new audiences.
Conclusion
This checklist should help you to greatly improve your SEO if your site performance is below expectations. Although this list mostly covers the technical aspects of SEO, always keep in mind that delivering quality content to your customers is key to excellent SEO. And spamming links to generate backlinks isn’t the way to go.
Stay tuned to our blog for more helpful tips to help you with your SEO and social media marketing.
Changing WordPress themes can be quite exciting and nerve-wracking at the same time. Whether it is time to change design or add new features and functions, you, as a WordPress site owner, can switch themes anytime you need or wish to. However, multiple adjustments are needed (depending on the complexity of your site) to customize a theme to your liking. For that reason, a switch could be instantaneous or could take days or weeks..However short or long, changing themes requires a great deal of caution.
A WordPress site is a concoction of a theme, various plugins, content and possibly some custom edits. As such, it is important that you be very careful when changing your theme – a single erroneous step may result in a broken site, which could then result in a long, and sometimes costly, site restoration process.
You need to take some measured steps outlined in this article to avoid common and costly mistakes.
Right, let’s get to it.
Make a Checklist
Before you activate your new and carefully selected theme, or make any customizations and updates to an existing site, you should take a very close look at your current theme. You need to take note of what is built in to the theme and what is enabled by plugins, widgets and customizations.
Let’s say your new theme has similar features built in, it may not enable them automatically or carry over any customizations you made to specific features in your old theme. What if your old theme uses custom page templates in contrast to your new one? You need to consider and make note of all the differences.
Here are a few things to check and make note of:
Page and post templates/layouts
Images (background, logo, favicons etc)
Site structure
Sliders
Plugins
Widgets
SEO
Social media
Email opt-in forms
Contact forms
Shortcodes
Ads
Snippets
In short? All customizations.
Your notes should be as detailed as possible. In fact, take screenshots of your widgets and any tools that facilitate the design and structural elements of your site. This will help you get the features you want from your old site onto your new one.
Backup Your WordPress Site
You should create a backup of your site whenever you make any changes to it. There are various plugins available but we use and recommend BackupBuddy by iThemes.
If there’s a problem with your theme change, you can easily and quickly restore your site from your backup.
Put Your WordPress Site in Maintenance Mode
It can take as little as a few minutes to a few days to change your theme, depending on the intricacy of your site. It is highly recommended that you put your site in maintenance mode so your users know what you are up to and that your site isn’t broken while you’re working on it.
It is not as difficult as you think. In fact, you can easily put your site in maintenance mode without a plugin.
Log into your WordPress site and head over to the Appearance tab. Click on the Editor. Look for the Theme Functions (functions.php) file (to the left). Open it and scroll to the very bottom of the file. Copy and paste the following code into the file:
Restructure Your Navigation (If Needed) and Test It
Perhaps you would like to make some changes to your navigation structure. Changing themes is the perfect opportunity to do so. A new navigation structure may also work better with your new theme. Whatever the reason, you should carefully map it out and test it. You should also let your visitors know about it once your site goes live.
Your Header and Background Images
Do you have unique background or header images in your old theme that you’d like to carry over to the new theme? Check to see that your new theme can accommodate it.
You should also check that your logo and favicon also match your new theme.
There are thousands of WordPress themes out there to choose from. The possibilities are endless!
Copy Your Headers and Footers Code
If you’ve customized your headers and footers with code (for your logo, banners, etc.), copy the code to paste into your new theme’s header and footer files.
Custom CSS and Functions
It is critical that you check for custom CSS (color and font preferences) you may have made, and want to add to your new theme. There are various places your CSS can be changed, depending on your theme. For example, you can find it in your theme editor, a custom CSS plugin, a child theme or the customize tab under Appearance.
You should also check your functions.php file for any functions you may have added. You may not need them for your new theme (as it may already have that particular functionality built-in) but you should definitely check and make note of them.
SEO
You should check that your SEO is set and working in your new theme. If you are using our All in One SEO Pack plugin then your SEO is theme independent. If you are not using All in One SEO Pack then we strongly recommend you do. We have a SEO Data Importer which may help you migrate from another SEO plugin or theme.
You should also check your page speed since that is a big part of SEO. You can test your new site speed on Pingdom or with PageSpeed Insights.
Custom Sidebars and Widgets
Sidebars or Widget Areas are arguably the most customized elements on WordPress sites. They are easy to modify and deliver a lot of features. For example, they enable you to input text, images, links, ads and other content anywhere on your site. So if you’ve edited your sidebar.php file, you may want to save the code to install into your new theme.
The beauty of WordPress widgets is that they allow you to add both static and active content to widget-enabled areas of your theme. So you should check the widget structure of your new theme to see if you’d need to rearrange any widget-enabled content.
If your new theme has a different widget structure from your current theme, you should save your widgets in the inactive widget section before you change your theme. The reason you need to do this is because your widgets may disappear (unlikely, but possible) if your new theme doesn’t allow certain widgets — perhaps because the new theme doesn’t support the functionality a specific widget delivers. So to be on the safe side, move all widgets you want to keep to the inactive widgets section.
Another thing to remember is that widgets that are installed with a theme won’t be available in another theme from a different developer.
Test Your Site
It is vital to test your new site before going live. Test everything: from links, widgets, sidebars, navigation, images, ads, contact forms etc. – essentially everything in the notes you made. And when you change and optimize anything, test it again.
Assuming you’ve picked a fully responsive theme – which is actually a must in 2016 – you should test your site across all devices. Ensure that everything is working as it should be on various devices and browsers.
Other things to test:
All pages and posts
Comments section
Contact and opt-in forms
RSS feed
Search box
Site speed
You should also check your bounce rate on Google Analytics before and after you change themes. Some themes are more user friendly than others; so if your bounce rate has increased with the new theme, you should definitely look into improving user experience. You may also need to add or remove certain features and functionality.
Even with thorough testing, your site may have some unexpected issues. You can kindly ask your site visitors to alert you of any issues they come across while using your new site. Try to address the issues as soon as you can.
General Tips
Here are a few general tips to change themes or to make any big changes to your site:
Do not test themes on your live site. You should put it in maintenance mode first (as demonstrated earlier) or work in a development workspace and then execute the necessary changes.
Go over your checklist to make sure that everything has been completed.
Go through and make sure all plugins work and that they work well with your new theme.
Let your users know of any changes and improvements – involve them in the process.
Get feedback on the user experience and design of your new site so you can tweak it to perfection.
The ability to easily change themes to improve your site design or add much-needed functionality, whenever you want, is truly one of the many beauties of WordPress. But changing themes is much more complicated than just clicking that “activate” button.
Viewing sites on mobile can be quite exasperating. Users often deal with slow load times, difficult navigation and low ease of use. According to Google, 40% of users leave websites that take longer than 3 seconds to load, and an average mobile page takes 8 seconds to load. Yikes! Well, Google is trying to change that.
Google recently launched Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) which loads web pages that implement it four times faster; and those web pages use eight times less data than pages that aren’t AMP-enabled. You may have already experienced a few AMP-enabled pages – Google has started highlighting them in mobile search results. When you click on an AMP article, it loads instantly.
The instantaneous loading speed on AMP pages is quite exciting. But the biggest question on every marketer and SEO’s mind is how AMP affects mobile search rankings. Google has yet to specify to what extent it will affect rankings. John Mueller, Webmaster Trends Analyst for Google, has stated that AMP is not yet a ranking factor. However, seeing that load time and page speed are currently primary ranking factors, we can reasonably assume that AMP may be featured in Google’s mobile update later this month.
This article will give you a better understanding of what AMP is, how it could affect SEO and how to implement it on your WordPress blog.
What Is AMP?
AMP is defined by the AMP Project as “an open source initiative that embodies the vision that publishers can create mobile optimized content once and have it load instantly everywhere.”
The aim of AMP is to improve mobile user experience across the board by limiting or removing altogether any content (videos, graphics, animations, etc.) that decrease page loading time. AMP uses HTML (HTML extended with custom AMP properties), JS (delivers the speed) and Google Cache (caches AMP-enabled content for quick delivery) to help businesses build practically weightless webpages.
We’ve seen fast loading content pages with the likes of Facebook Instant Articles and Apple News. AMP is a direct response to those platforms with the major difference being that AMP is open source, so anyone can use it. AMP-enabled content is currently available in Google Search, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Medium and Nuzzle. More platforms are likely to join quite soon.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=shTZXNztl9c
You can find a demo of AMP here. To test it out yourself, go to g.co/ampdemo and run a search on a mobile device. You’ll immediately see the benefits of AMP for content sites.
One major thing you may notice when users share a link to an AMP page (that they access via Google search), is that the link points to Google.com, not your site. This is a major change to how Google works. It is keeping content on its servers and keeping your users on Google, as opposed to traditionally pointing users away from Google directly to your site.
Fear not, even though the page points to Google, there is a way for you to track analytics for AMP content via Google Analytics.
A common misconception is that AMP is an alternative to responsive web design. That isn’t correct. Even if you have AMP enabled pages, mobile users that head directly to your website will experience your mobile site; and not every page on your website should be AMP enabled. AMP is technically only feasible for blog pages.
Who Benefits from AMP
Though AMP’s benefits are widely appealing and necessary for a majority of websites, not everyone will be implementing it. Websites with only product and service pages would lose a lot of design elements that make them technically and visually functional if they enable AMP on those pages.
The real beneficiaries of AMP are publishers, big and small. If you operate a blog, you’d want to enable AMP.
Is AMP Really That Fast?
Yes, it is faster than both desktop and mobile pages.
Ghostery provided a visual representation on a New York Times article to show us how much faster AMP really is. They compared the number of JavaScript tags in the desktop vs. mobile vs. AMP article. They found over 100 JavaScript tags on the desktop NYT article page, 60 on the mobile version of the page and 21 on the AMP version.
Desktop
Mobile
Google AMP
With much fewer, almost nonexistent JavaScript elements to load, AMP pages are considerably faster than mobile pages.
Google claims that AMP pages load 85% faster than mobile pages. It is no wonder major publishers are enabling it.
AMP SEO Benefits
AMP is not yet a ranking factor but there are numerous benefits of optimizing for it. Since AMP results are prominently featured in the news carousel, not optimizing for it would mean missing out on valuable clicks, impressions and engagement. If you’re not in the top spot, you may be lethally damaging your SEO.
Let’s say that you want to rank for a particular keyword and AMP-enable your blog. Well, your blog posts may end up in the news carousel, which would mean that you’re technically ranking higher than your competitors. You could see a significant boost in impressions, valuable clicks and perhaps sales.
How to Enable AMP on Your Website
Head over to the AMP Project page and go through Google’s tutorial. The tutorial provides everything you need to know to get AMP enabled for your site. And it’s much easier than you would think.
We would all like our web pages with rich multimedia content and smart ads to load much faster than they currently are. It would in fact be great if they could load instantaneously. And it would be even better if that code could be used across various platforms and devices to instantaneously load content everywhere. All of that is a possibility now with Google AMP.
Although the implications for mobile SEO aren’t yet clear, we can reasonably speculate that AMP will be addressed in a later Google’s mobile update.
Your website is a goldmine for cyber criminals. They are fast, invisible and always on the prowl for sensitive customer account details or to simply destroy. If you’re a WordPress site owner, you are no doubt aware of the vulnerabilities WordPress sites have experienced in recent years. The good news is that Automattic recently took a much anticipated security step by adding HTTPS encryption to all custom WordPress.com domains (more than 1 million WordPress sites).
You are probably familiar with web encryption as one of the most effective ways to keep data secure. Indeed, encryption is a hot topic right now. Apple recently made headlines after refusing to comply with a court order to assist the FBI to unlock the iPhone used by the San Bernardino shooter. Apple stated that it would need to write new software that would essentially be a master key to opening any iPhone. The main argument was that if the FBI could unlock that iPhone, they could unlock many others, putting everyone’s privacy and personal safety at risk.
For those reasons, among many others, web security should always be at the top of your mind in running your business. But what exactly is HTTPS and how is it beneficial to your business? Can HTTPS alone sufficiently protect your WordPress site? This article will answer those questions in the quest to help you bolster your site security.
What Exactly Is HTTPS?
HTTPS stands for Hyper Text Transport Protocol Secure – the secure connection protocol for HTTP. When you connect to HTTPS, you are using Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) or Transport Layer Security (TLS) protocols to protect communications between your computer and a remote server. Both protocols use encryption to keep cyber criminals from intercepting communications.
The information you send across the web passes from computer to computer before it arrives at the end server. That means that all computers the information passes through could read the sensitive information: from usernames and passwords to credit card information and social security numbers. SSL or TSL encrypts the sensitive information through its journey to the intended recipient, so that only they can understand it.
How Is HTTPS Beneficial to Your Website?
HTTPS encryption is very important for both site security and SEO.
HTTPS keeps your business communications with your online customers safe and secure. When it is enabled, any information between the server and a client cannot be diverted, modified, or stolen. This kind of security is essential for any site that has a login and/or payment system – basically any ecommerce business. It not only protects your data but allows web visitors to view your site as credible. In that sense, HTTPS is essential for all businesses and new websites.
Google has also highlighted the importance of HTTPS encryption. In 2014, Google announced that it would start using HTTPS as a ranking signal. That’s right: Google is ranking sites with HTTPS encryption higher than those without it. That announcement pushed a lot of websites across the globe to obtain HTTPS.
Is HTTPS Encryption Enough to Keep Your Site Secure?
No. Although it helps protect your sensitive data, securing your websites is much more complex than HTTPS. The bottom line is that it does not protect your site, network or server from getting hacked. It also does not prevent hackers from abusing software vulnerabilities that may be present in WordPress. In fact, in general, we’ve seen quite a few major attacks on SSL and TSL protocols: Poodle, Heartbleed, Shellshock, LogJam to mention a few.
So what are your options? What can do you to fortify your site?
What More Can You Do to Protect Your Site?
Security is highly important and as such, there are quite a few things you need to do and stay on top of. We’ll go into this in more detail in another post. For now, here are a few things you need to do to fortify your WordPress site.
Know What the Threat Is
Stay on top of hacking threats. You need to know what is happening, what is possible, in order to protect your site against potential threats. Set up news alerts or follow hacking news sites. The information you receive will give you the ability to take precautionary measures.
Update, Update, Update
Update software as soon as an update is available. The reason behind a lot of updates is to protect against a security vulnerability, so delaying an update greatly exposes you to a potential attack. Hackers are constantly on the lookout for vulnerabilities. If you don’t move quickly to patch vulnerabilities, chances are you’ll become easy prey.
Secure Your Admin Dashboard
Access to information in the admin dashboard of your website is every hacker’s dream. Set usernames and passwords that cannot be easily guessed; greatly limit the number of login attempts within a specific time period; don’t send account details over email etc. Your admin panel is a treasure-trove so keep it secured at all times.
Keep Your Network Secure
An insecure network provides fairly easy access to your site servers. Take some precautionary measures such as frequently changing passwords, expiring logins after a certain period of inactivity, setting strong passwords, and scanning malware on each and every device that connects to your network.
Back-Up Everything
Back-up everything, both on-site and off-site. Set up automatic backups several times a day, to various locations, so you don’t lose everything when the worst-case scenario happens.
HTTPS encryption is great for security, SEO and credibility. You most likely were quite overjoyed when Automattic made the announcement that all custom domains would automatically switch to HTTPS encryption. But that does not mean you’re in the clear when it comes to site security.
There is a whole lot more that needs to be done to keep any website safe from advanced, constantly evolving and persistent cyber threats. Some of the tips mentioned in this article will help to reinforce your site security; and keep your mind at ease to tackle the more fun business operations.
Google is updating it’s algorithms all the time. This means that the software and coding that determines where sites rank is always changing, and so are the rules. For many years, for instance, it was possible to rank a website higher in a search by simply including a keyword over and over again in a website. Through regular updates, however, Google’s algorithm began noticing when websites were simply entering the keyword purely for the sake of rankings.
Now, the algorithm is based on the quality of the content and the on-page SEO (Search Engine Optimization), and there are a number of rules that must be followed in order to rank well. It’s for this reason that our WordPress SEO plugin, All in One SEO Pack, is so popular – we are providing website owners and companies all over the world with the expertise and resources they need to work according to Google’s rules. Furthermore, we are able to adapt our services and provide resources in accordance with Google’s algorithm updates.
But what is the latest Google update? Well, at the beginning of 2016, Google rolled out a major core ranking algorithm update which was publicized on Twitter and well-known SEO sites.
What was interesting about this latest update is that Google typically doesn’t confirm when a core algorithm update happens. Not only that, but it was expected that Google would update to Penguin 4.0 in March 2016. This update is yet to be seen.
What is Penguin and Why is it Important?
The Penguin update was launched in April 2012 and was designed to more effectively stop spammy sites from appearing in search results. Specifically, sites that used bought links, or which obtained backlinks through link networks, were targeted by this update.
Ever since, Google has been updating Penguin to stop websites that don’t deserve to rank high from being easily accessed in search results. And, whenever Penguin is updated, sites that have not been updated to get rid of bad links or spam will be taken down in rankings. When sites do in fact take action, then rankings may be regained.
What is Expected in the Next Penguin Update?
So when the next Penguin update does in fact come, what should we expect? Well so far, many online commentators are expecting semantic search to play a part.
Semantic search is all about understanding the relationship between concepts, content and media online. Instead of an algorithm simply relying on data like anchor text and meta tags, semantic search could possibly have a more detailed understanding of what relates two pieces of content, and what stops content from being related.
Semantic search was first introduced to the world with the Knowledge Graph back in 2012. The technology was then expanded upon in Hummingbird in 2013. Most recently, Google has been working on an artificial intelligence system called RankBrain which embraces semantic search.
What Does the Recent Core Algorithm Update Mean?
The core algorithm update didn’t come with a name. It was announced by Google but it was not given an official title despite introducing a number of important changes.
First off, it’s important to remember that this update is not related to Penguin or Panda. The Panda system is in fact part of the core algorithm, but these changes don’t affect that. What has been changed, however, is how Google ranks the quality of content on websites.
Specifically, Google is now even more focused on ranking sites better if their content is more recent, more detailed and accompanied by videos and images. This means that content that is rich in keywords but which is not recent, researched, detailed or accompanied by media may not be easily found. While some might have thought that this would result in academic content being left at the bottom of search rankings, the fact that the algorithm update specifically looks for detailed and referenced content means that this won’t happen.
The update has also seen some strange surges in ranking, which many online commentators have been unable to explain. This could relate to the aforementioned semantic search system which is expected to properly roll out in the next Penguin update.
What’s So Important About Video?
Arguably the most important change that came with the core algorithm update was the video and media section. Content that includes video will now rank better, as long as it meets all other criteria set out by Google. But what’s the big deal?
First of all, video is a great way of communicating ideas to your customers, readers and subscribers. It’s great for your website and helps keep people on your website. Now though, it’s also an essential tool for proper SEO management.
First off, the title and description of your video helps Google to understand your site, your brand and your message. You can also index your video on your site making it easier for Google to find. Furthermore, the amount of likes, shares and views that video receives on your website adds to your ‘credibility’. The more interaction with your website, the higher up the search rankings you will go as Google’s algorithm considers the high quality nature of your website.
If one of your videos go viral, then the benefits will multiply. With thousands, possibly millions, of views and likes, Google will quickly push your website up the rankings for searches relating to the content on your website. From the meta tags and data to good old fashioned keywords, Google will be able to display your material to users searching for related content.
Not only that, but your video can help improve your visibility through video-specific search engines. YouTube is obviously the most obvious example, but there are video search options on Yahoo, Bing and Google.
What Will Be Next?
The Penguin update is definitely coming, but right now we simply can’t say how soon it will be. It was widely expected to have been released in late 2015 or early 2016, so no matter what Google might say, we can’t predict when we’ll see it. It’s possible that the delay is a result of major changes, or the implementation of their new artificial intelligence software.
It is practically impossible for us to accurately predict what Google is planning, which is why it’s so important to focus instead on how to improve your SEO right now. Here at Semper Plugins, we have all the tools and resources you need to embrace all the current algorithm rules from Google, and how to make the most out of your website and content.
Be sure to take a look at our hugely popular All in One SEO Pack, and remember that we offer unbeatable support from SEO experts!
WordPress is always improving and introducing new features that make it easier to publish great content for your visitors. The latest release of WordPress, version 4.5 Coleman, named in honor of the famous jazz saxophonist Coleman Hawkins, is now available for all users to download. The update adds new features to the WordPress dashboard and improves usability, creating a more efficient experience whether you’re building a website or creating new content.
So what’s changed? Well, the WordPress team have improved usability, incorporated a host of new features and made it possible to customize user experience more than ever. Let’s take a look at this update and how all of the new features work.
Usability
Selective refresh
There is now a framework in WordPress that allows you to preview changes in real time. The Customizer (Appearance > Customize) has been changed to allow previews to load far more quickly. Previously, the Customizer relied on reloading the entire preview, which was time consuming. Now, only the parts of the page that you change are reloaded, allowing you to quickly see what changes as you edit code and other settings.
Using a postMessage transport that relies on JavaScript, changes are now seen instantly without any server-side communication!
Script loader improved
New support has been added for script header and footer dependencies. The new ‘wp_add_inlinescript()’ allows for extra code to be added to registered scripts. WordPress 4.5 no longer generates wp-admin.min.css and wp-admin-rtl.min.css files, which are often in excess of 235KB. The new load-styles.php combines the two and results in the system relying only on four dashboard.css files which make up just 72kb.
Embed template improvements
Embed templates have now been split into parts and can actually be overridden directly by themes that have been implemented by the users. These settings can be amended through the template hierarchy, making it possible to change the way themes interact with embed settings.
Smart image resizing
Smart image resizing is arguably one of the best new features introduced to WordPress. Generated images on your website can now load automatically around 50% faster than ever before. The best part? The image quality is exactly the same.
This is achieved by increasing the amount of compression that is applied to medium sizes. File sizes are notably decreased while maintaining image quality. This is beneficial also for sites that use ImageMagick, whereby unnecessary metadata has also been reduced.
Editing
Inline Linking
Inline linking was a hugely anticipated feature released in WordPress 4.5. Before the feature was implemented, users added hyperlinks in the visual editor by highlighting the desired text and launching a popup that required you to paste in a URL and add link text.
A new inline modal has been introduced in WordPress 4.5 that allows for easier link creation. A small inline modal will appear underneath the text that you highlight.
If you need extra settings, there is a gear icon in the inline modal which gives you access to advanced options. This new inline linking is designed to save time and make the editing experience far more fluid.
The change came as a result of WordPress user, Ella Iseulde Van Dorp, who became known for working on a ticket that encouraged WordPress to create a system that made the visual editor more like Google Docs. The Google system handles links much in the same way as the new inline linking system, putting WordPress on par with other online platforms.
New formatting shortcuts
In a further move designed to make content creation a more fluid and simple experience, the WordPress team have introduced new formatting shortcuts that allow you to change the way your content appears with simple input shortcuts.
One such shortcut includes creating a horizontal line across your page by simply adding three dashes. This is something that has been available on Microsoft Word and Google Docs for many years.
To see a full list of shortcuts in your new WordPress visual editor, simply head over to the help icon. The keyboard shortcuts page shows you a quite extensive list of text shortcuts that are available, including ‘>’ for Blockquote, ‘##’ for Heading 2, ‘###’ for Heading 3 and so much more. Keyboard shortcuts have also been added, including Alt+F8 that brings up an inline toolbar when text, an image or link is selected.
Customization
Custom logos
WordPress 4.5 now allows people to add their own custom logo to their website, as long as their chosen theme has declared support for this. This new feature is an addition to the Custom Background and Custom Header features that already allow users to customize their themes with ease.
The new logo feature allows you to not only upload and use your own logo, but you can crop logo images to the perfect size. This new feature works in the same way as the custom header option – a feature that is widely used by experienced and amateur WordPress users alike.
Using the new custom logos is easier than ever. If you have WordPress 4.5 installed, you’ll be able to head over to ‘Appearance’ in your dashboard, and then click ‘Customize’ and ‘Site Identity’. Here you’ll be given the option to upload your own custom logo in the part of the menu that was once home to the Header Logo settings. It’s super simple and a highly anticipated new feature.
Live responsive previews
Finally, it’s easier than ever to preview what your site looks like on phones, tablets and regular computers. The live responsive preview feature is found in the Customizer panel and can also be accessed whenever you search for a new theme.
When choosing your themes, it’s easier than ever to see what your website could look like on every platform. This will no doubt be a welcome addition to WordPress for people who are starting off on the platform and choosing what they want their website to look like.
Depending on your browser, too, you will be able to see how responsive and mobile-specific themes appear as well. For instance, by turning on ‘responsive preview’ in the Firefox browser, you’ll be able to easily see how a website changes when it responds to the screen size. This is a particularly welcome feature for people who prefer to have a website that adapts according to the size of the screen.
How to Update
Want to update to WordPress 4.5 Coleman system? It’s easy! Simply head over to your WordPress dashboard and look for the update message. These messages are sent out automatically by WordPress, informing you how to download and install the new update. Simply click the link in the message. This is the easiest way to update, though it can also be installed manually.
