WordPress: Tips & Tricks

Jon BishopKurt Eng

Oct 25th, 2013

Agenda

• Plugins

• How to select and test

• Review of some basic and advanced plugins

• Themes

• How to choose and properly edit themes

• How to find quality themes

• SEO – on-site preparation and how to

• Security – how to protect your site from Spam, robot attacks

• Backup and Recovery – updates, how to implement your own process

Live DEMO time!

Themes

Where to find themes

• Reputable resources

• Free vs. premium

How to test themes

• Theme Preview

• Theme Customizer

Editing Themes

• WordPress File Editor

• Child Themes

Child Themes• Inherit the functionality of a parent theme

• Typically override:

• Styling (colors, fonts, margin/padding)

• Addition or removal of functionality

• Templates

• A good way to modify third party themes without hacking the original code

• Provide several “flavors” of a parent theme

• Video of Jonathan May’s presentation: http://youtu.be/t8npHrg-teI

Example

• A typical theme:

wp-content/- themes/

- twentyeleven/ - index.php - style.css (etc…)

- twentyeleven-child/ - style.css - functions.php - custom-template.php - images/

Child Theme Files

• style.css

‣ Replaces parent theme’s style.css stylesheet

‣ You must manually import the parent theme’s stylesheet

• functions.php

‣ Loaded automatically, in addition to the parent theme’s functions.php, and loaded right before it!

How To (style.css)

/*Theme Name: Twenty Eleven ChildTheme URI: http: //example.com/Description: Child theme for the Twenty Eleven theme Author: Your name hereAuthor URI: http: //example.com/about/Template: twentyelevenVersion: 0.1.0*/

@import url("../twentyeleven/style.css");

h1 {font-size:24px;}

#header {margin-bottom:10px;}

How To (functions.php)

<?php

function my_name() { echo ‘James!’;}

add_action('wp_head', ’my_name');

How To (templates)

• Any template file with the same name

‣ Overrides parent theme’s template file

• New template files

‣ Made available to website when using child theme

• More specific template files

‣ category.php in place of more generic archives.php

PluginsBe skeptical of any plugin that does not live on WordPress.org

Plugin Support

• Plugins on WordPress.org rely more on community support and the good graces of the plugin author

• Most premium plugins offer support as a core part of their business model

How To Find Good Plugins

• Check plugin ratings and reviews

Security

• Upgrade WordPress core, plugins, and themes!

• Password strength across all entry points (Hosting control panel, FTP, WordPress admin)

• Don’t use default username “admin”

• Download code directly wordpress.org

• Public WiFi caution: your traffic is probably not secure

• Disable unused/unneeded features (e.g., remote publishing)

• File permissions (FTP)

AkismetBuilt-in spam remover created by Automattic

● Requires registration of plugin

● Works extremely well with WordPress

○ There may be some hiccups with forums or other plugins

● Works only as good as you use it

○ Emptying spam folder sends data to Automattic

WordfenceFree or premium plugin for security

• Repairs files

• Scans site for bad links/URLs

• Scans for malware

• Built-in firewall

• Manage IPs and crawlers

Updates/Upgrades• Upgrade often, but maybe not too often

• Don’t wait for minor updates that fix critical bugs or security issues

• Wait a bit longer on major releases (3.0, 3.2, 3.3)

• Follow the WordPress Development Blog: http://wordpress.org/news

• WordPress, themes & plugins are open-source & community developed: embrace but be cautious

• Keep plugins & themes updated, too

• Be careful & mindful of what files you’ve changed (ideally, don’t change any “core” files in themes, plugins or WordPress itself)

• Before upgrading, backup your site & check plugin compatibility

ManageWP• Access all of your WordPress sites from one dashboard

• With one click, all of your plugins and themes will be updated

• Uptime Monitoring

• SEO Analysis

• Automated Backup Scheduling

• Mass Migrations

• Bulk Posting

https://managewp.com

Backups• Automated backups provided by your hosting provider (but

don’t back up to the same server your site is hosted!)

• Remember: A WordPress site lives in two separate worlds simultaneously

• Files in a folder you can see via FTP (especially /wp-content)

• Data in tables in a database server (you can see and manipulate using 3rd party tools, often provided by your hosting provider)

• Secure your backups!

More Tips: http://codex.wordpress.org/Hardening_WordPress

Architecture of WordPress

WordPress

• Posts & Pages

• Comments

• Links

• Options/Settings

• Taxonomy

• Users

• WordPress core

• Themes

• Plugins

• File Uploads

Important for Backups!

Architecture of WordPress

wp-content/

themes/twentyten/mytheme1/plugins/akismet/wp_e-commerce/uploads/2010/

11/photo1.jpgphoto2.jpg

VaultPress• Monitor Backup Activity in Realtime

• Restore Backups Automatically

• Download a Backup

• Scan Your Site Daily

• Review & Fix

SEO

“WordPress takes care of 80-90% of (the mechanics of) Search Engine Optimization (SEO)” - Matt Cutts

• Beyond the benefits provided by a stock WordPress install…

• Theme used & author’s ability to write semantic HTML

• Additional meta data you supply using an SEO plugin

• How you write and organize your content (HTML, taxonomy, etc.)

• Permalinks w/ a good link structure (the default works wonders)

• Google Webmaster Tools (monitor your site’s ranking performance)

WordPress SEO

• Manage Page Titles

• Internal Links

• Sitemaps

• Canonical Links

• Robots.txt

Caching

• What is it?

• Practice of storing data in a way so that future accesses are much faster.

• Types

• Server-side: Expensive, repeated operations like large database queries are performed once, saved in a cache, and served from cache (until data changes or cache expires)

• Client-side (browser): Images, CSS, JavaScript assets are saved locally on the visitor’s computer until a specific expiration date or until assets change

W3 Total Cache

• Server & client side caching tools for WordPress

• Recommended by notable hosts MediaTemple, HostGator, etc.

• Used by smashingmagazine.com, mashable.com, etc.

• Promises at least 10x performance increase

• Reduce web server load

• Up to 80% bandwidth reduction ($$$!)

• Comes from Boston!

HostGator

• Cheaper hosting with unlimited storage, bandwidth and domains

• Great if you plan on starting more than 1 WordPress site

• Plenty of support for the server and you don’t need to have WordPress on it (self-install)

• Lots of software, room to experiment!

Use code WordCampBoston for 25% discount

WP-Engine

• WordPress only hosting

• Cheap, integrated, automatic backups and updates

• Set it and forget it!

• Secure, fast and reliable

Use code WPMeetupBoston2013 at http://j.mp/boswpshop for 1 month free

Thank You

Jon BishopTwitter:

@jondbishophttp://johbishop.co

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Kurt EngTwitter: @kurtenghttp://kurteng.com