Tom Rankin is an experienced WordPress content writer, project manager, and course writer with years of service. He covers theme and plugin insights, development, small business facets, marketing, and much more. His work features on most major WordPress blogs, and his client list is a ‘who’s who’ in both web tech and WordPress.
Choosing the right hosting stack informs your server response times, resource availability, and compatibility with other tools. A good setup can help you scale your site, too. Let's take a look at where your hosting fits in when it comes to your WordPress development environment.
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Learn how to use AI for personalized content creation, SEO and customer support. Tom shares how you can get help from AI and LLM in WordPress by using plugins.
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HTMX and WordPress might not seem like a good match, especially when there's a reliance on PHP and React in some places. However, the lightweight JavaScript library lets you create dynamic, interactive web pages without the need for complex front-end frameworks. Whenever you require glitch-free functionality, HTMX could be the answer.
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Hello everyone! Today, we want to welcome you to another original interview (in our series). This time, we’re thrilled to feature Pascal Birchler, a trailblazer in the WordPress community. Pascal has been working on an innovative project – the WordPress Media Experiments plugin – designed to help achieve better image optimization within the Block Editor.
(read more) A Figma to WordPress conversion is a common workflow in many development circles. Figma is an industry-typical tool to help with User Interface (UI) and User Experience (UX) design. WordPress is (of course) the typical way to publish your website. It means figuring out how both of these solutions work together for more efficient project management.
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The WordPress White Screen of Death (WSoD) is arguably one of the most infuriating errors on the platform. Getting no indication of what has happened means you have to put in the work to find a fix. The error is also one that can cause some panic and anxiety. While you have the error, your site will be out of commission. Because of this, you need to work quickly and methodically to put everything right again. Fortunately, that’s where this tutorial comes in.
(read more) Use WooCommerce: In a nutshell, this is how to create an ecommerce website with WordPress. However, this is also a gross oversimplification. There’s lots to consider when it comes to a project like this. In fact, you should think about every action you take – even your preferred choice of ecommerce plugin.
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Google Lighthouse’s ‘Avoid an excessive DOM size’ warning is a performance metric you’ll want to look out for. The Document Object Model (DOM) aspect of this lets scripts access and manipulate the elements of your site. This includes your HTML and CSS. However, a large DOM size can cause performance issues, maintenance problems, and much more. First, let’s help you understand what it means.
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Sometimes, there’s a real need to look for the best Squarespace alternatives. Of course, Squarespace is incredibly popular, especially among YouTubers. However, it’s not a perfect solution for every niche, industry, or use case. This article will look at some of the best Squarespace alternatives and give you the means to compare and contrast them all.
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Stellar Services page design in WordPress uses the same fundamentals and tactics as almost any other website. The idea is to capture a visitor’s attention and give them reason to become a customer. In this respect, the design of your page will follow conventional design practices. However, there are a few specifics that relate to your own page and WordPress that warrant mentioning – especially the plugins you’ll turn to.
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Speed testing is one of the most significant tasks you undertake, as it can tell you just how nippy your site is for end users. A slow site can be a disaster for your user experience (UX). However, the JavaScript and CSS your site loads can have a big impact, so it’s one of the first aspects you’ll look at. Google Lighthouse focuses more on the experience of the user, and its ‘eliminate render blocking resources’ opportunity lets you handle one key element of a fast page speed.
(read more) WordPress Playground could be the answer to a lot of problems. For the longest time, there hasn’t been a solid way to showcase WordPress products such as themes or plugins without complex hosting and demo setups. Also, replicating an error is often a minefield for a support team. WordPress Playground is an in-browser version of the platform that could solve all of these issues.
(read more) The weakest link in any coding project is you. That is, human error is almost always a guarantee, which will rise up in the form of bugs and other issues. You won’t want any of these to make it to your live site, which is why WordPress debugging is a necessary step during your project.
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WordCamp Europe 2023 is so close, we can practically taste the moussaka! Yes, this year’s WCEU is in Athens, Greece on the 8–10th of June. The whole event is gearing up to be one of the best ever, with a high level of attendance post-COVID-19. As such, you’ll find a lot of ways to mingle, connect, and network with every other WordPress attendee.
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WordCamp Europe (WCEU) is upon us again, which means our WordCamp glossary of terms will help you navigate all the conversations if you’re a ‘newbie.’ Europe’s most prominent WordPress gathering is in Athens, Greece on 8–10th of June. As such, you don’t have long to learn all the ‘lingo.’
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In the world of online business, staying in touch with your customers and site visitors is key to achieving growth. Luckily, if you’re a WordPress user, you have access to a range of email marketing plugins for WordPress that can let you spin up an effective campaign all within your website.
(read more) Measuring your site’s performance has often been a hit or miss job. This is because the available tools didn’t give us a proper insight into the experience of the user relative to that site performance. However, Google Lighthouse fixes a lot of these drawbacks, and makes it so you can fit it into your development workflow. One of the ‘opportunities’ within Lighthouse is to defer offscreen images in WordPress. The good news is this is simple to achieve.
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A Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack is one of the best ways to take down a site fast. For a site owner, it’s devastating. For the attack, it can be a ‘cheap’ computational way to cause chaos to an unsuspecting site. We’d bet that you don’t want to be the malicious user in this case, so we’re going to teach you how to stop a DDoS attack.
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There is no shortage of languages to develop software and websites. HTML vs JavaScript is a common comparison because both offer easy to understand syntax, and have accessibility for beginner coders. In this post, we'll look at HTML vs JavaScript in relation to their pros and cons, where and how you'll use each language during development, and much more.
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You can learn how to install WordPress on localhost using a few different ways depending on your preferences, skill level, and desired workflow. In this post, we'll show you a few methods to get the job done. The instructions will cover Windows, macOS, and even Linux. This means regardless of your operating system (OS) you'll be able to follow along.
(read more) While it would be nice to flip open a laptop and begin to code, you have to think a lot about what language to use. This is true for both beginner and professional developers alike. For some projects, you won’t have this choice. However, if you have more freedom, you’ll want to compare Python vs Java. Both have power under the hood and intuitive syntax.
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For many indie creators, Gumroad represents a near-perfect platform. You have a captive audience and can set up an online marketplace with minimum fuss. However, a recent pricing change might be enticing you to seek out cheaper options - including WordPress. In this tutorial, we'll teach you how to switch from Gumroad to WordPress in four steps.
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Wix is a popular website builder and can be a fantastic option to create a website, but it isn't the only option around. In fact, there are some aspects of Wix that many won't find so welcoming. As such, you're probably interested in exploring some Wix alternatives, so that you can compare them, and make the switch. Well, that's exactly what we're going to give you, so keep reading.
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Choosing a website builder for your next project can be a tough decision, even once you whittle down the options to a handful. Weebly is often one of the top contenders, due to its straightforward usability, reasonable pricing, and ecommerce integrations. However, it’s just as important to compare what this platform offers in relation to the likes of WordPress, Squarespace, and Wix. Our Weebly review will shed as much light as possible on what the builder does well, and where it can improve.
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Programming and development has a lot of unique facets. Even so, one commonality is that every coder has personal choices when it comes to their setup. For example, there are fans and flames for all manner of coding editors, and this can stretch to the look within each editor.
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This post will compare Weebly vs WordPress in a few areas, and at the end, sum up which one you might want to opt for. First, let’s look at what types of site each platform can help you create.
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Not sure how to change your WordPress theme without causing issues on your site? While the basic process of changing your theme only involves a few button clicks, you’ll want to put in some extra steps to ensure a seamless changeover when it comes to key details such as menus, custom CSS, custom templates, and more.
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Considering using WordPress.com to make your website? Our hands-on WordPress.com review will help you decide whether or not it’s the best solution for your needs. We’ll also help you understand WordPress.com’s place in the website builder space.
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Choice is one aspect of WordPress that won’t cause you concern. The entire theme and plugin ecosystem is ripe with quality products at differing prices. However, it wasn’t always this way. In our Avada theme review, we’re going to look at the latest version of one of the first great WordPress themes and see if it still stands up to modern scrutiny.
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