…restart reset LS console password – cd /usr/local/lsws/admin/misc navigates to LS directory, then run ./admpass.sh adding new PHP handlers via LS console – first add External App then Script Handlers. copying config from existing ones. Un-common issues (and fixes) Can’t create/transfer new user account because of existing user data, check for cruft left behind by old users/domains /usr/local/cpanel/3rdparty/bin/perl <(curl -s https://raw.githubusercontent.com/CpanelInc/tech-acctinfo/master/acctinfo) domain.com –cruft (replace “domain.com” with your domain)…many places will be listed, check all carefully…you many have many entries under many hostnames, etc. Account transfers stuck on “receiving incremental file list”? Check out this guide….
Search Results for: HP2-I72 test engine - HP2-I72 pass sure vce - HP2-I72 pdf torrent 🍩 Search for ➥ HP2-I72 🡄 and download it for free on ⇛ www.pdfvce.com ⇚ website 🚮HP2-I72 Latest Mock Exam
Protect your EBOOKS with a PDF Stamper plugin (WaterWoo)
…PDF stamper plugins on the market? What are the differences between her PDF stamper plugins and others on the market? (WP PDF Stamper Plugin & WooCommerce PDF Watermark Stamper) Before I even bought Caroline’s plugin, I already knew it was going to be the best option for my use. I was heavily researching into PDF stamper plugins because I was seriously going to develop my own. I’ve been doing membership websites for a long time (selling ebooks and videos) and frustrated that a solid one didn’t already exist. Of course…Caroline’s plugins existed for a while…
The Ultimate WordPress Speed Optimization Guide
…better make sure this feature is working correctly in mobile! 40. Image compression (BEG-INT, MED) Manual JPEG compression – use an image editor (e.g. Photoshop) to decide the exact quality output you want. 60% for jpeg is safe. Can test a few percentage points up or down. Good for large or important images. Manual PNG compress – use image editor and adjust the number of colors. Automatic compression – use a plugin to do it. My favorite image compression plugins (in order) are ShortPixel, LiteSpeed Cache, WP Compress. You can use these for less important…
To WWW or not to WWW
…by its own sub-domain. mail server was “mail.domain.com” FTP server was “ftp.domain.com” print server was “print.domain.com” Johnny’s computer was “johnny.domain.com” main server was “server.domain.com” nameserver was “ns1.domain.com” and “ns2.domain.com” Guess what the web server was called? …yes…”www.domain.com” (the “www” stood for WORLD WIDE WEB) Of course, we could have called it web.domain.com or site.domain.com or whatever else. But like with many things everybody used what was standard. And therefore everybody called their web server “www” because that’s what everybody else did. What the bare domain (domain.com) was reserved for. The naked domain “domain.com”, if I…
LiteSpeed Cache WordPress Plugin – UNOFFICIAL GUIDE
…back to a previous version if the new ones are giving problems. Use latest GitHub commit – click this to try the latest GitHub version. Use latest WordPress release version – click this to use the latest STABLE version of LSC. STEP #3 – Check if LiteSpeed Cache is working Open up your site on a browser (not logged in). Load and reload a few pages. Then view source, scroll to the bottom and see if the LiteSpeed Cache comments show at the bottom. Naturally, the page may be a little slower on initial visit…
Best WordPress Cache Plugins Review - GIANT ROUNDUP
…review notes on each. APACHE (no cache – busy 3.00s/2.10s, simple 1.00s/597ms): Swift Performance Lite (free) – busy 1.04s/890ms, simple 768ms/570ms. Swift Performance (paid) – busy 911ms/900ms, simple 644ms/453ms. WP Rocket (paid) – busy 1.05s/1.02s, simple 659s/426ms. Simple Cache (free) – busy 1.07s/993ms, simple 498ms/458ms. LiteSpeed Cache (free) – busy 982ms/1.02s, simple 569ms/532ms. Breeze (free) – busy 1.35s/1.04s, simple 528ms/496ms. Comet Cache (free)- busy 1.21s/955ms, simple 557ms/460ms. Powered Cache (free) – busy 1.28s/938ms, simple 748ms/680ms. WP Fastest Cache (free) – busy 1.30s/963ms, simple 573ms/527ms. Borlabs Cache (paid) – busy 1.19s/1.04s, simple 919ms/723ms. Yasakani Cache (free) – busy 1.30s/1.07s, simple 851ms/568ms. Swift leads the way easily; incredible free & paid…
How to optimize for Google Pagespeed, Pingdom, and GTmetrix
Learn how to optimize your website for the popular page speed tests! Do you want the fastest site possible? Do you want the best website functionality and SEO? Are you overwhelmed and don’t know what you’re doing? Read on as I go over the most common speed test recommendations and tell you which ones to optimize and how to do it! Want to skip ahead? Optimize for Google Pagespeed Optimize for GTmetrix Optimize Pingdom The truth about speed scores In all honesty… There’s nothing wrong with using speed tests. They work fine and are helpful…to…
How to Crush Your SEO Competition (like a pro)
…Once you’ve scoped out the competition and fully-assessed the mountain you have to climb, it’s time to make an important decision. STEP 3 – deciding on SEO vs PPC This is the moment of truth. You have to decide which method will bring the best results for your (or your client’s) money. At the end of the day, SEO is just a form of paying for leads. And there are many ways to generate leads: SEO – organic search engine ranking PPC – sponsored ads on search engines, website, or social networks AFFILIATES – via…
Swift Performance WordPress Cache Plugin - UNOFFICIAL GUIDE
…– useful for manually adding JS to the head to fix JS-combine issues. Of course, I’d rather not combine JS in the first place! Custom Footer JavaScript – useful for manually adding JS to the footer to fix JS-combine issues. Of course, I’d rather not combine JS in the first place! Optimization > Styles: Merge Styles (enables/disables other options) – just like with JS, I wouldn’t if I were you. It combines all CSS files into one file. There’s a weird balance; it’s safer to use with fewer stylesheets (but less impact), most beneficial with more…
Digital Access Pass (DAP) vs DLGuard Review
…you want to use it with WordPress. DLGuard features (the ones I cared about): Secure Download Link – VERY SECURE with many options to limit the number of downloads by the user or the expiration time to download, etc. This is the real strength of DLGuard, if you want to make absolutely sure that nobody can share your products with their friends, this is it. Sell Products or Memberships – you can sell digital products or memberships. By selling a membership, I mean that you can setup your site so that users will have to…
SEO vs PPC - which is better for getting web traffic
…the helpful data DOES EXIST but requires more technical ability to get to that. For example with SEO…the first thing I do is scope the competition. I type in the desired keywords into Google and see who comes up. Then I check out every single competitor within the top 20 results. And it takes some time but I take a quick look at their websites, then dig into the code, then look at their content organization, their backlinks, social media presence, and use a variety of other helpful SEO tools to give me details about…
301 Redirects to HTTPS (with and without WWW)
…# 301 redirect to www RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www\. RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://www.%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI} [L,R=301] # 301 redirect to https RewriteCond %{HTTPS} off RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI} [L,R=301] # END Redirects Other ways to redirect? Some people complained my examples used too many redirects. In that case, you’re welcome to research on your own and try other methods of redirection. Read below and see which one you like best (beware, they all have their implications): https://simonecarletti.com/blog/2016/08/redirect-domain-http-https-www-apache/ https://www.codexworld.com/redirect-non-www-to-www-http-to-https-using-htaccess-file/ https://www.digitalocean.com/community/questions/redirect-http-https-www-to-https-non-www https://stackoverflow.com/questions/13977851/htaccess-redirect-to-https-www https://serverfault.com/questions/523199/redirect-all-http-and-https-non-www-urls-to-https-www-example-com-via-htaccess NGINX? – try this. And in case you need to do regular 301 redirects for new page or address…
WP Fluent Forms - WordPress plugin review
…did I not see it?) Form showcase – as incredible as your examples are, you should have a showcase page on your website of real-world use cases. This is great for showing off really complex forms. Yes, you should use WP Fluent Forms WP Fluent Forms is the best FREE & PAID WordPress forms plugin! I’ve battled tested it on mine and client sites for nearly 2 years now. The spam-protection alone was well worth the money for me. All the other stuff is just the cherry on top of the cherry. The plugin isn’t…
Linux Server Commands CHEATSHEET (for newb admins)
…/scripts/upcp or /scripts/upcp –-force (if it’s already updated) Reset max deferred email limit – delete `rm /var/cpanel/email_send_limits/max_deferfail_thedomain.com` CyberPanel: Error logs – cat /home/cyberpanel/error-logs.txt (log files on CyberPanel) Cron schedules – /etc/crontab clear out unnecessary cronjobs eating up server resources (backups) Security: CSF firewall – CSF firewall installation and basic commands opening port 1234 – iptables -I INPUT -p tcp –dport 1234 -j ACCEPT closing ports 111 – iptables -I INPUT 1 -m tcp -p tcp –dport 111 -j DROP, iptables -I INPUT 1 -m udp -p udp –dport 111 -j DROP sudo dmesg -n 1 –…
How to Make a UNIQUE Web Design
…CONTENT. The CONTENT is the reason why people come to the site. The CONTENT is the reason why people find value in the site. The CONTENT is the what the DESIGN is framing. The CONTENT is the user experience, even more so than the design! (Don’t believe me…tell me the last fancy website you remembered that had useless content…vs how many sites can you remember that look ugly but you use it everyday!) You wanna know why many website designs out there completely suck? It’s because they start with the design first. They start with…
Website Design Workflow Tips - Avoid Endless Revisions
Don’t get lost in 285123213 revisions before going live! STOP DOING THAT! Websites are living beings. You don’t need to get it perfect on the first try. Every revision only needs to be better than the next. Then once the revision is up, you collect more data and more ideas of what to change. The best time to get ideas is when it’s live and not when it’s in mock-up. When it’s in mock-up phase, the #1 goal is to get it live. Design-to-Development workflow: Create a great mock-up – nudge it around until you…
WPJ Plugins
These are my in-house WordPress plugins for you to use at your own discretion. I’m not responsible for what you do with them. I do not (officially) provide support. You see all of them listed on WP repo. Enjoy! Buy me a beer. FREE PLUGINS Comment Reply Email Commenters receive an email when someone replies to their comment. Download WP Featherlight Disabled Ultra-lightweight jQuery lightbox for images, galleries, and videos. Download Code Click-to-Copy Copies <pre> and <code> tags automatically to clipboard. Download Dashboard Search for MemberPress Search for members right from the WP Dashboard. Saves…
10 Best WordPress SECURITY plugins review
…completely non-WordPress. The first-time setup was quite slow. It advertises quick scanning but was slower than other top plugins. I do like that it advertises not overloading your server. I find it amusing when a malware-scanning plugin itself looks and functions like malware. Even their website feels like malware as well. Something between an unfinished website and an advertisement. Kind of like those parked domains that you visit by accident when misspelling a website URL. Also looks like those damn CNET download pages where you couldn’t tell which download button was real or an ad….
Wordpress Multilingual Guide 2016 - Plugin Review, Language Translation Strategy, and WPML Tips
…isn’t exactly a component of translating but it is often done when you want to share your videos with another audience. You’ll use a translator to make subtitles for your videos so that other people can understand them. What are the technical implications? What is your website structure? Domain vs sub-domain vs directory How do you plan to manage your translated site? Will you have each language on a separate domain (.com, .es, .fr)? or will you have it in a separate sub-domain (es.domain.com, fr.domain.com) or even in a separate directory (domain.com/es, domain.com/fr)? To…
Changing your WordPress site domain name
…Make sure it’s a 301 permanent redirect for anything from old domain to new domain. For redirecting from your webhost (with htaccess): Redirect 301 / https://newurl.com/ <IfModule mod_rewrite.c> RewriteEngine On </IfModule> RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^oldurl\.com$ [OR] RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www\.oldurl\.com$ RewriteRule ^(.*)$ “https\:\/\/newurl\.com\/$1″ [R=301,L] For redirecting from Cloudflare page rule: Create page rule, putting *oldurl.com/* for url match field Pick “Forwarding URL” for setting. Choose “301 – Permanent Redirect” and https://newurl.com/$2 for destination URL. (My example assumes you want the new url without “www”.) STEP 9 – check for errors Check for broken links – there are…
Recovering from a HACKED web server (Linux)
…see many single connections but coming from the same subnet, check 2nd half of this guide. Alternate commands to check connections per IP tail -n 10000 yourweblog.log|cut -f 1 -d ‘ ‘|sort|uniq -c|sort -nr|more and netstat -n|grep :80|cut -c 45-|cut -f 1 -d ‘:’|sort|uniq -c|sort -nr|more. Use these if the previous ones didn’t help. Check for syn connections netstat -n | grep :80 | grep SYN Check logs for failed login attempts cat /var/log/secure (RHEL, Centos, Fedora) or cat /var/log/auth.log (Ubuntu, Debian). Check for WordPress wp-login brute-force attack (current day) grep -s $(date +”%d/%b/%Y:”) /usr/local/apache/domlogs/*…
WordPress Membership Plugins Review 2022
…certain countries, etc). ADVANTAGES OVER OTHERS: Shopping cart – users can buy multiple items at a time. File download logs – can see when and by which IP when items are download. Tons of extensions – all the ones you need and many cool ones I never thought of. See available extensions. EDD is an entirely different kind of plugin. More like download management than membership management. But being that many membership sites sell downloadable content rather than access to hidden posts, EDD might fit your business model better. UPDATED – EDD is now bought…
WP Engine SUCKS! (bad webhosting review)
…almost every blogger out there…their massive affiliate commission ($200 per sale). It does bother me when a company’s frequent referral via word-of-mouth is tainted by high commissions. 8. Slow file download Yeah, I’m serious. I don’t get it. It’s like their drives are slow or maybe some annoying security scanning on each uploaded/downloaded file? Either way, it’s annoying! 9. Flakey backup generation/download I don’t know what the heck is going on and I’m actually baffled a company of this magnitude can’t get backups working right. Sure, they might work if your site is only 100mb….
How long does it take to copy another website?
…a simple…”how big is your logo?” will take you some days to figure out. In many scenarios, you won’t know, and so they’ll send you 3 mock-ups. And then it’ll take you time to show these mock-ups to your family, friends, and business partners for a second opinion. Again…imagine repeating this process a couple hundred times. There’s no way you can get this done WITH quality in 6 months. To develop a site of similar complexity to quidco.com CUSTOMIZED TO YOUR NEEDS will probably take you $20,000 and 1 year (and that’s assuming you have…
IGNORE Query Strings when Caching
…site…just click the link above. Or ok fine, read my very own explanation below. What are query strings? Query strings are usually little strings of text or numbers that come after URL’s. Some examples below (shortened for brevity): https://google.com/search?=wordpress+tips https://yoursite.com/wp-content/theme/style.css?vers=5.3.2 https://yoursite.com/?fbclid=IwAR1R-T-n https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07D9GMYG8/ref=?tag=yourname https://shoestore.com/shoes/?filter_size=5&query_type_size=or Basically, anytime you see a question mark “?” followed by letters or numbers…THAT’S a query string! And what are query strings used for? They’re used to pass information to the web-server for some specific purpose. Example #1 above was to link directly to the Google search results for a set of keywords….
Why Google Pagespeed, Pingdom, and GTmetrix scores don't matter
…when it doesn’t have any perspective on what your site is doing and how it’s different from other sites. It judges all sites to some (arbitrary) standard without accounting for each one’s specific needs. The idea is this…what may be “bad” for one site may actually be “good” or “intended” for another. Examples of common speed test suggestions (and why they’re flawed): Combine CSS/JS to reduce requests – might actually slow down your page load and/or break your website design/function! Compress images more to save space – reduces your image quality and not recommended for…
WPJ Reports for MemberPress (WPJ plugin)
…your Dashboard, go to the sidebar MemberPress menu and click on “WPJ Reports”. Frequently Asked Questions Does this plugin work with newest WP version and also older versions? Yes, this plugin works perfect with the latest version of WordPress! It also works with older versions as well but you should always run the latest WordPress and PHP version for best security and performance. This plugin is used in my critical sites so you can be assured it works perfect. Will this plugin slow down my site? No. Nothing is loaded in the frontend. I’m an…
Webhosting Control Panel Review - UPDATED 2021
…for website owners wanting the high-performance/low-price of VPS. They cater perfectly to tech-savvy webhosting users. They offer many features for managing websites (settings, backup, staging, etc) and all can be done with one simple click. Also, their cloudlike nature and pricing allows you to quickly manage multiple servers if you need. Some of them are more for website owners (who run their own website); others are more for web developers (who build websites for clients). Website owners prefer performance/stability, ease-of-use, support. Developers prefer features, low-cost. The only “drawbacks” of cloud control panels (if you want to…
Best WordPress Hosting Reviews (UPDATED 2024)
…have any concrete opinion of their service yet. BunnyShell – reminds me of RunCloud. I like their polished website. Their vibe feels really professional. 10Web – can’t they get rid of that FOUT issue on their website? It looks so unprofessional. How to Research Webhosts Looking up establish webhosting companies Check out the sites below to see what systems techs are saying about them. www.webhostingtalk.com – lots of webhosting reviews, Q&A www.lowendtalk.com – many sys-admins and webhosting experts, many new company deals Looking up new webhosting companies How do you research a new hosting company? With new…
BEST Gutenberg Pagebuilders for WordPress - UPDATED 2024
…comprehensive Gutenberg pagebuilder on the market. Very active developers and community. (RECOMMENDED – most comprehensive set of blocks and features, strong and matured community) Spectra (FREE, PRO) – many blocks, nice UI, nice global control for spacing and block enabling, awesome template library. A great product all around. Nice support docs and community. Built by the same team behind Astra, one of the most popular WordPress themes ever (despite several controversies in the WP community). Definitely a good option for newbies and pros alike. (CAUTION – comprehensive block library, large community, clean UI and simple…
Design logic behind the WPJohnny custom theme
…pages so that you know right away they are other posts. The idea is simple…people keep clicking on these to explore more content, much like how people browse Youtube. Last is the comments. If you notice, my comments are very simple compared to other sites with lots of colors and info. I do this by not creating so much color distinction between comment comment author, time and date. Other sites do it make the hyperlink aspects more clear but I don’t. My spacing was also perfected from years of doing this on my other sites….
Best WordPress Plugins - UPDATED 2024
…optimizations. SWIFT Performance (FREE / PRO)- Lite version is best free cache plugin, paid version is the fastest full-featured cache plugin out there. LiteSpeed Cache (FREE) – incredible free cache plugin with many features, but only works on LiteSpeed servers. This is actually the best cache plugin if you have thousands of pages or many MANY visits (like millions). FlyingPress (PRO) – amazing premium cache plugin made by infamous speed-expert Gijo Varghese. All the top features but super simple UI. WP Rocket (PRO) – another fast (premium) cache plugin. easy to use, not recommended for…
Ultra-fast server file transfers with WGET
…takes. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ObsTmuUM5yk Steps to using WGET: 1. Make file publicly available on source server Which means placing somewhere within public_html (RHEL/Centos) or www (Debian/Ubuntu). Placing it in a public directory makes it available from frontend url (e.g. https://domain.com/backup.tar.gz). 2. Download file from destination server. From receiving server, navigate to the directory you’d like to download it to. Type wget https://domain.com/backup.tar.gz – to download external file to your current directory. (Of course, your file path and filename may vary.) Wait for it to finish transferring. Should be super quick. 3. Change file ownership to match correct…
How to Move Your WordPress Site from HTTP to HTTPS
…and you are done!!! WOOHOO! (Don’t have htaccess or you’re not on Apache/LiteSpeed? You probably don’t have to worry about this, but do ask your webhost.) WITHOUT www (all visits go to “https://domain.com”): RewriteEngine On RewriteCond %{HTTPS} off RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI} [L,R=301] WITH www (all visits go to “https://www.domain.com”): RewriteEngine On RewriteCond %{HTTPS} off RewriteRule ^ https://%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI} [R=301,L] STEP 6 – Resolve any problems (if needed) Everything should be working. But just in case, here are a few diagnostic steps you can do if the HTTPS doesn’t show green of you don’t get that padlock….
Why You SHOULDN'T Combine CSS & JS (performance reasons)
…yes. There are indeed exceptions but they are few and far between and still I wouldn’t recommend you to do it if you wanted a hassle-free caching experience. Combining CSS/JS from the same theme or plugin makes sense! If you’ve ever had a theme or pagebuilder plugin offer to combine its own CSS or JS. Yes, please enable that. It makes sense. As all CSS and JS coming from one extension is already compatible/harmonious with itself. Not only that but it can combine them natively without requiring extra server processing or mechanism to manage. It’s…
Why I don't use SEO plugins (ever)
…algorithms? – Of course not. See for yourself. What the hell do those SEO plugins do? Most of their functions are not even related to SEO. Just basic website stuff that can affect your traffic and search engine standards but don’t actually help your SEO. You’ll see functions like REDIRECTS, SITEMAP, 404 MONITORS, SOCIAL NETWORK LINKS/IMAGE. Not much else!!! And most of these functions are better handled via other plugins or other services. Or not even necessary at all. You really think a small 15-page website needs a sitemap? Heck even if you had a…
How to MANUALLY Clone or Create a Staging Site
…pick the database plugin you installed from previous step. If using BSR: put “//oldsite.com” in Search for and “//newsite.com” in Replace with. Select all tables, and uncheck “Run as dry run”. Then click Run Search/Replace. If you have page errors, try selecting fewer tables at a time. If using Migrate DB: select Find and Replace. Put “//oldsite.com” in Find and “//newsite.com” in Replace. Delete any other Find/Replace rows and click Export. Congratulations, you are done! You can use these same steps to migrate sites. If migrating, you don’t need to do the last step (#8)….
Mobile menu design RANT
…off your Google Drive. COME ON!!! In all honesty, all designers have to do is actually look at their work in mobile and see how it repaints. One look alone would be able to tell you what needs to be changed. Look at this abomination below: Giant waste of vertical space. Horrible sticky header. Where is the logo contrast?! Those vegetarian “VG” initials could have easily been little tags next to the item name. Or in parenthesis at the end of the item description. Example of poor mobile menu design. Giant waste of space. EWWW!…
What are HTTP headers? (and why they're useful)
…site won’t allow it to compromise your users (installing malware on their home computer, or displaying/redirecting to more bad content). To change response headers…it would be done from altering your web-server (configuration) or website code, depending on the header! Now you know what “headers” are! Now you understand when website guides talk about “cache headers”, “security headers”, “response header” or “request header”…they’re all just referring to HTTP headers. (And obviously…not talking about “HTML headers” which is the top of your website page.) Maybe you’ll also feel a little less stupid when talking to your developer,…
Why use cPanel in 2021
Why I still love using cPanel. Despite all the new panels popping up. And even with cPanel’s massive price hikes. Yes…maybe some of you are shocked to hear this. Since I’m known as a new-school tech enthusiast and always reviewing the latest and greatest. How can it be that Johnny still likes the old-school cPanel?!! My cPanel use case End User, Developer, Server-Admin, Webhosting Business I am all four of these things! Please keep that in mind when you read this post. Because many of you will try arguing with me that such and such…
What's a CDN? (Content Delivery Network) And do you need it?
…(usually “cdn.yourdomain.com” or “yourdomain.cdndomain.com”). With Cloudflare: You change your nameservers settings from you registrar to point to Cloudflare (instead of your webhost). Cloudflare then copies all your DNS records (from your webhost) so everything works seemlessly. Cloudflare then silently loads your static assets (images, JS, CSS, fonts, etc) from nearby servers. All your asset URLs stay the same instead of changing to CDN hostname. (For example: if your images were loading from “https://yoursite.com/image.jpg” before, they will still load from the same URL. Some extra bonuses, since Cloudflare operates at the DNS level, they can protect…
WordPress SPEED OPTIMIZATION Service
…everyone who keeps referring me, thank you. Most new requests will get free advice and referral to someone else. Or if you absolutely want your site to be optimized by me, the quoted price may be 50-100% higher than usual until I get all projects under control. I may also just refund you. *** April 28, 2021 I really cannot handle much more workload. Many of you are not realistic with your budgets. You’re coming to me with completely awful sites and can’t afford what it takes to speed things up. I’m also incredibly annoyed…
Cache warming with Optimus Cache Prime (OCP)
…Test it with /path/to/ocp -v https://yoursite.com/sitemap.xml and see if verbose output is correct. If working, you can set a cron job for it to /path/to/ocp https://yoursite.com/sitemap.xml If you’re curious, try tail -f /var/log/cron to see if it’s runs. I was using CentOS 7, WHM/cPanel. Fabio was on Ubuntu and using something like cd /var/www/ocp/; ./ocp -v=true https://yoursite.com/sitemap.xml but I found it unnecessary that way. FYI: the commands above are only possible for those with SSH access to the server. If you don’t have SSH access, you can still use this script as a cron job. Running…
The BEST WordPress theme (for coders) – Genesis
Genesis framework is my favorite theme for developers and professional sites. Lightweight – not a single wasted line of code Developer-friendly – clean structure, tons of hooks & filters Experienced community – largest theme community of respected developers (not newbies) Mature theme market – clean, professionally-designed child themes (unlike typical generic stuff on Envato market) Many 3rd-party plugins – lots of compatible plugins built just for Genesis Let’s break it down… Already convinced? Download Genesis now. Genesis is the MOST PROFESSIONAL WordPress framework If you didn’t already know, I’m a diehard Genesis user. I absolutely…
How to get FREE STUFF on Amazon
…time I use Facebook now. But if you still don’t see the ads: Try search Facebook for some free product testing groups. Join some. Read about some. That should be enough. So who are these companies? And why are they giving away stuff for free?! Most of them (like damn near all of them, 100% of the ones I deal with) are from China. They make stuff for really cheap and sell on Amazon. The problem is that there are dozens if not hundreds of sellers in every freaken product category. Search for replacement iPhone…
Guide to Security Headers
…request because your HTTP response header told it not to. Don’t allow the browser to use the computer’s microphone or camera. So again…in the event that your website is ever hacked, security headers basically protect your users (and their browsers) from inadvertently compromising themselves or executing malicious scripts/commands. Security headers do NOT protect your website or web-server from being hacked. How security headers are applied (or configured) to your website: Security headers are applied differently depending on your web-server (Apache/LiteSpeed vs NGINX). Basically…Apache/LiteSpeed allows global server-wide configuration as well individual overrides for each site (via…
Genesis Theme Framework Review 2021
… Genesis is the BEST-CODED The code is clean, configurable, and complete! Pick up any other WordPress theme out there and most likely, it’s either: Super clean and lightweight but it isn’t “complete” and requires extra plugins to do basic things. Sometimes needs extra plugins to work with other plugins, hahaha! OR maybe it’s “complete” and has tons of features but it’s bloated as hell. OR maybe it’s clean and complete but it isn’t easily customizable into different layouts and different functions. The list goes on and on. Genesis strikes a nice balance for me….
Cloudflare settings guide (best performance)
Configure your Cloudflare account for the best website performance (full explanations provided). If you’ve ever wondered what settings to choose or why someone would chance from the default options, this guide will explain it all for you. (QUICK NOTE: all you need is the FREE plan.) Cloudflare settings (video guide) Can watch either the short (quick settings only) or long video (detailed explanation). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r1VaIFRUexg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=caqf3K13l1c QUICK Cloudflare settings guide Leave everything on default and check/change the following settings: DNS – if enabling proxy, do it only for your domain name and WWW record. Can also…
Best Video-Hosting Service for Membership Site (Vimeo, Youtube, Wistia, Amazon S3, etc)
Which video-hosting service should you use to host your videos on your membership site? It comes down to a matter of features, cost, download-protection and of course “personal preference”. I’ll go over the best video-hosting options for your WordPress membership site and break down what I like about each one. 1. Vimeo Hands down my favorite option. Familiar, easy-to-use, tons of features. Pretty much everything you need, all at a convenient price. Video download protection Limit video embeds by domain Uploading features – easy to use, stores original file quality Multiple quality settings depending…
Digital Access Pass (DAP) WordPress Membership Plugin Review - UPDATED 2019
…feels like an old car with a new paint job and lots of “repairs”. IMO, it needs to be rebuilt from scratch but they’ve got too many users to support and too much money being made, so I understand. If you want my professional opinion, do not use it. You and your developers will hate it. If you don’t believe me…just see for yourself. Install DAP alongside any other modern membership plugin and the decision is a no-brainer. 2018 update – they are STILL having security problems. https://www.digitalaccesspass.com/blog/2018/06/important-dap-security-password-update/ Want a real membership plugin? Try MemberPress….
Oxygen Builder ISN'T a pagebuilder (and that's why it's great)
…the site over. Luckily for me, I’m a guy who hates hamburger menus but just thinking for others. Another mobile design stickler of mine is how the search function is designed in mobile. Does a searchbox magically slide down into view? Does a solid background and search line take over the screen? Sadly, there are no prebuilt layouts for this in their design library. A massive oversight for content/ecommerce sites which also aren’t featured at all in their design library. Lack of template overrides options Toted by Sridhar Katakam as “Oxygen’s only one true limitation“,…
Nerd Guide to WordPress Firewall Security
…(stateless) network firewalls that already come with your Linux operating system. Unless you’re a command-line junkie (and I assume you’re not if you’re reading this), you should never have to think about or deal with any of these. Iptables was traditionally built into every Linux server already. Settings were configurable through config file or iptables commands from CLI. But the commands were so complex…for example iptables -A INPUT -p tcp –dport 22 -m conntrack –ctstate NEW,ESTABLISHED -j ACCEPT. Thankfully, there are much friendlier firewall management tools from the command line. CentOS uses firewalld (example command:…
WordPress security plugins SUCK!
…bullshit. Almost all of them are not used anymore. Hackers are always coming up with new hacks to exploit new vulnerabilities! So don’t waste your time with scanners slowing down the server and still not detecting the latest attacks. ARGH, I’m so impatient explaining all this! They slow down your site. How annoying, right? They can’t detect the latest stuff AND they slow down your site? What’s the point anyway?! NOTE: if you get hacked, you’re welcome to run a security plugin just to help repair/remove the most obvious hacked files but you still need…
Why LiteSpeed Cache is the #1 cache plugin for me
…CDN security – protects your site against brute-force attacks, also recaptcha security for repeat offenders. Critical CSS optimization – generates critical CSS. Static content – also has the traditional CDN function which is caching and serving static content like images, CSS, JS, fonts, and other static files. What’s crazy is QUIC.cloud is totally free! Their CDN functionality is free. The LiteSpeed Cache plugin is totally free. Their image compression is totally free. Their CDN-level security protection is free. Generate critical CSS. Use the fastest HTTP/3. Play with LQIP…which nobody else offers! ALL FREE! It’s really…
Best WordPress Themes - UPDATED 2024
…better than free themes, it’s usually the case. It’s no surprise that free themes tend to be simpler with fewer options while paid themes are fancier-looking with more customization options. The free themes don’t usually come with support and are made to help the theme developers market their paid themes. If anything, their feature sets tend to be castrated a bit to encourage you to upgrade. Paid themes have not only more features but also more support. As the years go by, these themes are also more likely to be updated to keep them compatible with…
MainWP vs ManageWP - best WordPress management plugin
…their free plan). So it ultimately comes down to deciding if you’re a FREE or PAID user, and then to compare the features you want. Extensions ManageWP – is a closed-source commercial SaaS…so only they can make extensions. MainWP – is open source software. So tons of extensions available (both official & 3rd party). ManageWP is like Shopify, and MainWP is like WordPress. So basically…you’ll have way more options and flexibility with MainWP. User experience (UX) The more I watch people manage their websites, the more I realize how different I am from everybody else….
BEST PLUGINS for WordPress developers & reviewers
…access without having to deal with passwords. User Switching – to test how things look/function from another user’s POV. Login as User is another alternative. WP Dummy Content Generator – create dummy content to help you simulate a busier site to test the site’s design or performance. It can even create CPT content. Duplicate Posts – quickly duplicate posts with 1-click. (Alternative: NS Cloner copies entire sites on multisite setups.) Multiple Themes – simultaneously activate multiple themes on your site, choosing which themes to activate on which pages. Useful to compare different themes, or different…
What is WordPress (and why you should use it)
WordPress is the most popular website software! It currently powers 1/3rd of all websites (33.6% market share in 2019 and STILL GROWING) and used by all kinds of sites for all kinds of industries. Small obscure blogs use it. Big name brands use it. If you need to make a website, there’s a good chance WordPress is probably the best option for you. Here’s why… 1. WordPress is free Free to use, free to try, free to get started. Free is a great foundation to build something because it lets you experiment without much…
Why Shared Hosting Sucks
…server more vulnerable to hackers. Guess what happens when these neighbors run amuck….the webhosts mitigate this by putting cages on everyone’s account, throttling back their performance. OUTDATED hardware & software For the pennies you pay, you really think that server is gonna have the latest and greatest CPU/memory/hard-drive, software, latest php, latest Apache modules, and convenient 1-click solutions for all your needs? Of course, not! Most shared hosting servers are like 2 iPhone models behind the top guys. Sure, if you’re lucky and just found a company starting out, they’ll be more updated than the…
Noob Guide to Gutenberg
…old posts but it’s a good idea of you want Gutenberg benefits on that specific page (faster speed, ability to use Gutenberg blocks, or simply removing dependence on pagebuilder). 2. Default Gutenberg blocks https://youtu.be/WEpzqQ6yts4 Now, let’s learn how to use the default Gutenberg blocks that come with WordPress. There’s actually about 30 of them or so but I go over only the main ones for you to get started. Let’s play! Text – paragraph, list, heading, quote, classic Media – image, gallery Design – columns, buttons, spacer, more Widgets – custom HTML, latest comments, latest…
WPJ Reports for MemberPress (PRO)
…you, do not buy. Please contact support first with your inquiries before purchasing! FREE version – yes, we already have a free version of this plugin publicly available on the WordPress repository. (download link) SOLO (1-sites) – $195.00 DEV (2-sites) – $295.00 AGENCY (5-sites) – $495.00 LIFETIME (unlimited sites) – $595.00 Purchase Checkout Added to cart Pro features More Data tabs: Sales (free) – product sales info, payments, coupons, revenue, refunds. Churns – churn rate, churn revenue, churn revenue rate. Monthly and annual churn rates, show members and dollars lost. Subscriptions – subscriber sign-ups, active status, payments, sales. Members – member status, payments…
WordPress SEO Tips for 2020
My simple website search engine optimization tips for year 2020. What’s changed? What hasn’t changed? Find out all inside my little guide! What hasn’t changed Most SEO principles remain the same. If you don’t know your basics, go read up on it [somewhere else]. I ain’t got time to explain all that here. The main 3 principles remain the same: Quality content Quality backlinks Be better than your competitors Oddly enough, content quality is often determined by content quantity. And the bigger, spammy-er, generic sites tend to dominate. Sure…Google algorithms keep updating and they somewhat…
MemberPress vs MemberMouse vs DAP - Wordpress Membership Plugins Review (2018)
…working harder to improve the plugin without making it bloated. I LOVE their progress!!! I’ve since contacted their support for help on many things and have yet to be disappointed. Very fast replies and even multiple replies per business day. Their price has even gone up from $99 to $129/year and I’m not surprised. Unofficial MemberPress Facebook group – lots of free help and ideas on here! My affiliate link: www.memberpress.com MemberMouse Review MemberMouse is pretty much considered the industry standard. And 3 years ago, it became the ultimate premium membership plugin for Wordpress…
CloudPanel - server control panel review
…Will add more to this as I get more familiar with CloudPanel. Who should use CloudPanel CloudPanel is best for admins wanting a clean solo-user control panel, and don’t need email or file manager. It’s beautiful, fast, it’s free! What else do you want?! You can’t have end users on here so kiss your low-cost reseller dreams goodbye but it’s fantastic for running a lean clean BS-free NGINX server. Extremely admin-centric. Auto-login for phpMyAdmin (root pass not required). No file manager, email or end-user login. Try CloudPanel (it’s free and installs in only 5 minutes)…
Get WordPress admin access through database
…which you need to create for the new user…they are marked in BOLD. Also, if your database is not using the default WordPress prefix _wp, make sure you also change the prefix of of the database tables wp_users, wp_usermeta, wp_capabilities and wp_user_level to the one your website is using. So if your website is using the table prefix wpstg0_ the new table name for wp_capablities is wpstg0_capabilities. Enter this code below… INSERT INTO `wp_users` (`user_login`, `user_pass`, `user_nicename`, `user_email`, `user_status`) VALUES (‘username’, MD5(‘password123′), ‘John Doe’, ‘something@domain.com‘, ‘0’); INSERT INTO `wp_usermeta` (`umeta_id`, `user_id`, `meta_key`, `meta_value`) VALUES (NULL, (Select max(id) FROM wp_users), ‘wp_capabilities’, ‘a:1:{s:13:”administrator”;s:1:”1″;}’); INSERT…
SEO TIP - Create the Keyword
…to stay several steps ahead of my competition. By the time they catch on to it, my site outranks them easily because I’ve had the keyword on my site for a long time before theirs. But it’s more than just SEO. It’s about really knowing your shit and like I said…REALLY KNOWING YOUR INDUSTRY. It’s just about knowing the latest keywords. It’s about knowing the latest concerns, things that TODAY’S customer cares about, what people are talking about. And if you don’t even know these things…then is your business truly qualified to even succeed? https://www.warriorforum.com/search-engine-optimization/1082472-seo-tip-create-keyword.html…
WordPress Performance Guides and Reviews
…(WordPress marketing tips. SEO, content marketing, social media, PPC.): How to CRUSH Your SEO Competition Difference between Marketing, Advertising, and Branding Never Promote Discounts! (pricing strategy) Pricing Psychology – $95 vs $97 vs $99 vs $100 Good CONVERSION RATE for online sales? Expected conversion rate for membership sign-ups? Do you REALLY need an email list? Is EMAILING still the best marketing? AUTOMATE your Social Media Posting Plugins See all WPJ Plugins. Most are free and listed on WP repo. Comment Reply Email Commenters receive an email when someone replies to their comment. Download WP Featherlight Disabled…
Swift Performance vs WP Rocket - WordPress Cache Plugin Comparison
…“Merge Styles”. Same goes for the people complaining about WP Rocket. If there’s one final thing I can say…since seeing these plugins side-by-side for the past 2 years…I can tell you that I see Swift coming up with more and more new innovative features while Rocket is just now starting to copy features that Swift came up with first. Swift Performance – get free version or buy premium version. WP Rocket – only paid version. User comparisons between Swift & Rocket (I do realize these comparisons are biased and need to compile more images of…
LittleBizzy REVIEW by WPJohnny - Jesse Nickles (fraud / slander alert)
…idea. I never claimed to have a computer engineering degree. My LinkedIn very clearly says a BA in marketing. The education description lists computer engineering, psychology, and marketing…3 topics I took classes in but only bothered to officially major in one. (Psych seemed useless on paper, and computer engineering was stuff I was already self-learning in my job/free-time.) But that’s besides the point, I don’t use my LinkedIn to get hired or get clients. It’s just there for people to understand my educational background. Regarding his claim that my school didn’t have a Business Marketing…
LiteSpeed vs NGINX - performance comparison and history
…figured it out but with the time I spent I can assure you most newbies won’t have been able to. So too bad! Stack configurations – all running the latest version of PHP 7.3, mariaDB, blah blah blah. RunCloud had a months-older PHP 7.3.4 (instead of latest PHP 7.3.8). I used out of the box configurations without trying to tweak or tune anything to their best settings. Whatever they came out of the box with is what they get. Caching configurations compared – OLS, I tested with LS cache on and off. NGINX, I compared…
Dashboard Search for MemberPress (WPJ plugin)
This free plugin can quickly search for MemberPress users using any field (username, email, first name, last name, ID) directly from the WP Dashboard. Plugin Description: This plugin is very simple. Designed to help you quickly search through your users. Originally with the MemberPress plugin, searching for users took several annoying steps: Move your mouse cursor to MemberPress > Members, then click. Move your mouse over to search to type in information. Then move your mouse to the “Field” dropdown, and choose a field. Then click “Go”. As you can see, the process was inefficient/cumbersome….
Jelastic multi-cloud hosting platform review
…providers can also manage both cluster-server and single-server environments from one panel. 5. COMPETE WITH AWS/GCP This is definitely a massive hurdle for many webhosts and datacenters. AWS and GCP, despite high cost-to-performance ratio, are commonly used by many companies because they have so many services integrated. You can get a web server, database server, CDN, external storage, and API after API…all conveniently in one place. Not only that but they have datacenters all over the world and also in uncommon regions. Thanks to Jelastic, any datacenter or webhost can easily compete due to the…
Betrayed feelings about Frost theme
…don’t trust the quality of work, it means I don’t believe he’ll stick around for the long haul…especially if it doesn’t make the money he wants. DEC 24, 2021 update – Frost is acquired (I assume sold) by WPEngine (just like Genesis). WP Engine Acquires Brian Gardner’s Frost, Opens It to the Public -WPTavern. So we’ll never know what the heck Brian was really planning with it but hey, it’s now another free option…so you can’t complain. Let’s play. I always felt Frost wasn’t gonna last long but I didn’t think he’d exit this fast….
The MONSTER GUIDE to WordPress Image Optimization
…website and all its pages are Facebook Opengraph ready. Prepare square images if you want them to look nice for social media. 3. IMAGE COMPRESSION (quality and sizing) Manual compression: Use Photoshop’s Export or Save-to-web feature to manually decide the exact quality and sizing you want. Can also use Lightroom or other photo-editing apps as well. JPEG’s are typically adjusted by quality. PNG’s are typically adjusted by # of colors, and whether or not there’s transparency. You could also use a free online compression tool like on the ShortPixel site or various other sites out…
10 Important METRICS to track with Google Analytics
…to check things if traffic suddenly falls. Maybe your redirects or permalinks broke. Maybe your site was hacked or your server was down. #2 – GEOGRAPHICAL LOCATION (local and global) See where your visitors are geographically located. Useful on both a global level (comparing visits from different countries) vs local (comparing visits from different cities). Lets you know if you’re targeting your users well. Lets you know if your content might be appealing to other visitors around the world that you didn’t think of. #3 – TRAFFIC SOURCE (direct, search engine, referred from…
The BUSINESS BENEFITS of Blogging
…collecting Were you hoping to collect customer emails for marketing purposes? I can’t think of an easier way to do that than by offering FREE valuable information to them on a regular basis. Blog posts are events! And the more shit you have going on, the more they want to stay updated on you! BENEFIT #7 – collaboration opportunities Blogging makes your company a much more accessible figure. People feel like your company has a face and a name. A person who can be reached and connected with. You’re not just some “other competitor”. This…
How to HARDEN a Linux web server
…password authentication. This is widely considered the most secure (and convenient) way to give out server access. You do it using public and private SSH keys. Anyone requesting access will have to provide a public SSH authorization key which is then added to the server and immediately removed afterwards. No root password is passed around. And any public keys accidentally exposed to the public don’t put the server at risk. Don’t forget to disable password authentication when you use SSH keys. (This is also done from /etc/ssh/sshd_config.) Just make sure you have SSH access before…
WPCloudDeploy custom hacks and fixes
…So we hacked the WPCD core plugin code to generate SSL’s for both the non-www and with-www versions of the domain simultaneously. Which IMO should have been standard behavior. Go to includes/core/apps/wordpress-app/scripts/v1/raw/04-manage_https.txt (line 168 of WPCD version 10.8) and… REPLACE: if [ ${WWW} = ‘TRUE’ ]; then certbot certonly –non-interactive –agree-tos -m ${email} –webroot -w ${DOCHM} -d ${domain} -d ${MY_DOMAIN2} else certbot certonly –non-interactive –agree-tos -m ${email} –webroot -w ${DOCHM} -d ${domain} fi WITH: # if [ ${WWW} = ‘TRUE’ ]; then # certbot certonly –non-interactive –agree-tos -m ${email} –webroot -w ${DOCHM} -d ${domain} -d…
Replace BLOATED PAGEBUILDERS with Gutenberg blocks
…LATEST POSTS: Did you pagebuilder show like the 3 latest posts on your home page? You can easily recreate that using Tom’s WP Show Posts plugin. It queries those posts in an efficient way that doesn’t slow down your site. PRICING TABLES: Hehe, you can use GenerateBlocks to do it. I think someone might have released a guide somewhere but I have no doubt you can figure it out with the Grid block in the GB plugin. ANIMATIONS AND HOVER EFFECTS: Is your page design full of animations and random motions for every mouse-over? Please…
Cloudflare DNS/CDN service review - Do you need it? (pros and cons)
…firewall features (security) – if you pay more, they give you extra security like protection against DDOS layer 7 attacks. Most people don’t really need this level of protection. Common questions about Cloudflare services: So all I need is the FREE plan? It’s not worth it to pay more? Exactly, the FREE Cloudflare plan is enough. You can pay more but you probably won’t notice any difference. I’m as much of a speed fanatic as any and I don’t use Cloudflare’s paid plans. How does Cloudflare help speed up websites and servers? It speeds up…
CyberPanel cheatsheet (configs, commands, fixes)
A handy reference page for common CyberPanel commands and configurations. I made a list of the most common configurations and issues that I deal with on CyberPanel servers. If you don’t find what you need here, check on CyberPanel documentation or forums. Install (CentOS): yum update, press “y” when asked sh <(curl https://cyberpanel.net/install.sh || wget -O – https://cyberpanel.net/install.sh) (official link) To update (when new versions are available), sh <(curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/usmannasir/cyberpanel/stable/preUpgrade.sh || wget -O – https://raw.githubusercontent.com/usmannasir/cyberpanel/stable/preUpgrade.sh) (official link, for most recent update instructions and quick fixes if you see errors) Usual configs after installation: after finished,…
cPanel vs Plesk - Webhosting Control Panel Review 2020
…user, you’ll definitely feel like Plesk is organized more sensibly and easier to guess your way around things. Website-centric user panel – this is definitely something that many webhosting clients have come to love and expect in webhosting nowadays. The user control panel is organized by websites rather than by server components. For example, cPanel has separate areas for managing domains, databases, files, PHP settings, SSL, emails, and so forth. Plesk simply has separate areas for each domain/website, and within those areas you can edit all the settings for that specific site. This is considered…
HestiaCP - server control panel review
…a free simple control panel, with options for email hosting and end-user accounts. Is it the fastest thing in the world? Not with the hybrid-setup, probably not. But it’s more than fast enough. It’s lightweight and free! C’mon! The UI is admin-centric and probably won’t be as simple to end-users as it is for admins. Has email features, since most free panels don’t allow that. Allows end-user accounts, many panels are solo-admin only. While organized more for admins, it’s still simple enough for end users. Try HestiaCP (it’s free and installs in only 10 minutes)…
Cloudways is cashing out (acquired by Digital Ocean)
I’d guess Cloudways is cashing out. It’s too big to evolve with the times and I assume not much market share left to conquer. Instead of spending big money to improve, they sell off their current work for big money…and start a new business elsewhere. Digital Ocean picks this one up as a lead generator. Much in the same fashion that WP Engine acquired StudioPress. https://www.cloudways.com/blog/cloudways-joins-digitalocean/ It’s a smart move IMO. Cloudways had to exit at some point as they can’t possibly grow any further and rewriting their whole product (and code base) would probably…
Kinsta vs WP Engine
In case you’re wondering, Kinsta is definitively better than WP Engine! Here’s why… Faster performance Cleaner UI Better support Cheaper Things working smoother (no backups failing and other issues) Yes, they both run off Google Cloud but obviously have different configurations….
Difference between CLOUD vs VPS vs MANAGED Hosting
…for noob users and also don’t have any support for totally non-techie users. Notable Control Panel services: EasyEngine (free) – free and community-supported but then rumored to be abandoned and very recently rumored to be alive again. Formerly very popular until the abandonment rumors came around. Laravel Forge (paid) – no free plans, and not as popular as the other options. RunCloud.io (paid)- considered to have better features, service, and pricing than ServerPilot. Has a functional but limited free plan. Only $10/month for unlimited servers! ServerPilot (paid) – was considered the most popular premium option…
10 BEST Gutenberg block libraries for WordPress
…ever do!) When I first wrote this guide, I had Gutentor (the current #3) as being the best pre-styled Gutenberg blocks library but Qubely is easily miles ahead once you compare them side-by-side. Qubely has the right balance of many helpful widgets but not so many that you have 4 tabs worth (like Gutentor). The prebuilt designs are the most polished of any block library that I see. You can compare both Qubely and Gutentor’s website for yourself and you’ll see that Qubely feels like a better development company and with better design. My affiliate…
Telltale signs of a GOOD DEVELOPER
…and over time represents a mix of clashing visions (and most likely disorganized code). Speaking of name availability, you should search on Google like this “Bill Johnson WordPress”…and see what comes up. Who knows you might see them asking for help on basic things in WordPress.org repo forums. Or complaints from past customers for a company they just abandoned. There’s all kinds of things you can dig up if you look carefully. 4. Company focus Most developers and development companies tend to lean either towards A) DEVELOPMENT focus, or B) MARKETING focus. A development-focused company…
AUTOMATE your Social Media Posting (how to)
…find your Youtube RSS feed url.) Social media feeds – send a weekly email of the latest social media discussions/posts to your subscribers. You can really put whatever you want. So freaken powerful! I no longer manually send out email newsletters. It’s a thing of the past. I still kick myself for not doing this years ago. (What a lousy “tech guy”, I am!) 5. Create Zapier automations for social media This is where the magic happens. If you thought the previous step was life-changing, this one is gonna blow your mind! Example Zaps to…
External Tracker for AffiliateWP
…and AffiliateWP versions? Yes, this plugin works perfect with the latest version of WordPress and AffiliateWP! It probably works with older versions as well but you should always run the latest WordPress and PHP version for best security and performance. This plugin is used in my critical sites so you can be assured it works perfect. Will this plugin slow down my site? No. It’s coded extremely lightweight. It does only the essential function and nothing more. Very lightweight. No heavy PHP processing or database queries. I’m an absolute speed fanatic. What conversions does this…
DNS hosts website preview
Simple list of ways to test a website from different servers. Sick of editing your hosts file? Need to compare 2 versions of your website on different servers? Want to see a website function live from a domain of your choice? Well here are some ways to get the job done. 1. Hosts preview site There are many sites offering this server: skipdns.link hosts.cx (no longer working) In case you ever forget these sites, search “website hosts preview” on Google. 2. GasMask Install an app on your OS X desktop computer, and manage your hosts…
CyberPanel server commands and important directories
A quicklist guide of useful server commands for CyberPanel web server control panel. Installation (on CentOS): yum update, y and [ENTER] key when prompted. Change LS console pass with cd /usr/local/lsws/admin/misc and ./admpass.sh, and follow prompt. Can follow my CyberPanel install guide if needed. Need to upgrade CyberPanel? Follow the latest instructions. Recommended configurations after installation: Go to CP security/firewall page, and open port 7080 for LS console. Get mysql root password with cat /etc/cyberpanel/mysqlPassword (required for logging into phpMyAdmin later). Increase php.ini limits for PHP 7.0 (from CP > PHP > edit PHP configs)….
Stock & Crypto Investing Advice from a NOOB
…Netflix, Amazon, their car manufacturer, etc. Since if you’re a consumer of a brand, you’re more likely to know whether their product is any good and where they stand against competitors. How to research companies? This is a tough one. Because every company is going to do aggressive marketing and PR. Promising you all kinds of things so you’ll invest. They’ll say they’re coming out with the best new electric car. Or that their crypto-projects are gonna release a new game-changing technology soon. …and then they don’t. Maybe they’re late. Or it’s just empty promises….
WP Rocket WordPress Cache Plugin - UNOFFICIAL GUIDE
…FOUT) – don’t combine CSS or optimize CSS delivery! Broken visuals or functions – try not combining CSS or JS. Or you can use my diagnostic steps for excluding problematic CSS/JS below. Contact forms not working – if you can’t get the contact forms to work, the easiest fix is to exclude the page entirely. Another idea is to make sure you exclude the contact form CSS/JS from combining. (I also recommend not to use Contact Form 7.) WSOD or error 500 – it’s unfortunate but not every plugin is compatible with others. You can…
WordPress documentation plugins - fast review
…in their demo. 5. WP Knowledgebase (FREE & PAID) https://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-knowledgebase/ Mehh…also a no for me. The designs seem out of date. The demo docs looks like it was built in 1980. And no surprise, the WP repo plugin hasn’t been updated in a year. At least its website featuring the pro version looks nice, though. It sells itself as being full-featured, but I feel it’s neglected and not keeping up with the other powerhouse knowledge-base plugins. I also didn’t like that the live search was kinda slow on the demo (compared to my BSF Docs)….
WordPress Backup Plugins Review (UPDATED 2022)
…etc). Honestly, I don’t recommend this plugin considering there are free ones out there with a cleaner interface and more features. Their free version is too neutered for me! FREE version can backup off-site – I like it if you want a free version that backs up offsite, just beware that it can’t back up non-WP directories though! Many options – has all the premium options like scheduling and exclusions and what not. Granular backups – great if you like to back things up in bits and pieces. But horrible for if you just want a…
Fastest ways to load Google Analytics JS on WordPress
…settings are available. Not all cache plugins handle GA caching. I use Swift Performance Lite. (Here’s the premium version with more features). Just make sure you don’t forget to re-enable GA if you decide to disable caching. METHOD #2 – Using a GA plugin (2nd fastest) Complete Analytics Optimization Suite (CAOS) – nice plugin that saves the latest GA.js file on your server and loads it locally. The file is synchronized with the latest GA from Google servers and updated periodically. You save one request and speed up page load times. Works well, very…
WishList Member - membership plugin review 2020
As requested by readers, here are my thoughts AFTER trying the latest version. I’ve written off this plugin time after time for the past 5 years. It’s become one of those plugins that I don’t even check the latest version before writing it off. Naturally, that kind of automatic dismissal doesn’t sit well with some readers. And so I gave the latest version a try to see if I still felt the same about it. Did I actually deploy it and test with real members for months? No. I only clicked around for a good…
WPCloudDeploy - WordPress hosting plugin review
…MariaDB, latest PHP Multiple caching levels – NGINX page cache, Redis & Memcache object cache SSH root access Email relay Server firewall security Server-sync for High Availability Deploy from popular VPS providers – DigitalOcean, Linode, Vultr, AWS EC2, AWS Lightsail Custom server deployment scripts Site management features: Deploy/remove WordPress sites – just 1 click Disable sites – just 1 click (would be so cool if there was a maintenance-mode option) Caching – enable with just 1 click Local and remote backups Staging and site-cloning – even across different servers Move sites between servers Free SSL…
Use a REAL Email Hosting Service (not your web server!)
PSA – stop using your webhosting service to send/receive emails! Learn how to get quality email hosting. But why do you need it and how does it affect your business? 2 things: email deliverability and spam. Real email hosting resolves the following issues: Outgoing emails sent from your website (WordPress) ending up in your clients/customers “spam box” where they never see it. Outgoing emails not getting sent due to security restrictions (on web-server) or random php failures (on your website). Too much spam coming into your emails. RULE OF EMAIL HOSTING – don’t use your…
Hosting Services Breakdown - domain registrar, web hosting, email hosting, DNS
…(obviously) wouldn’t be worth the effort. Features – they want their own configurations and features. And/or need something better or different from what exists in the market. Sell their own service – doing their own thing to resell it to clients. This can be as simple as combining different 3rd-party services, or as complex as configuring their own clusters for each service. Examples of server cluster configurations: Domain registration – ok, almost nobody builds their own registrar. They will use an existing one. I like Whois.com or Cloudflare (which is a DNS service provider but…
DigitalAccessPass hacked - and changed address (PayPal IPN hack)
…the system and sure enough the new user is there (and granted access), but I got no email from PayPal saying payment received. I go to DAP > Setup > Config > PayPal and sure enough there’s somebody else’s info in the PayPal email ID and token. I would change the info back to mine and things would be quiet for the rest of the day or two and then wake up the morning and the nightmare is repeated. Basically somebody hacked into my website database and changed the PayPal email to his so that…
Should you pick MEMBERSHIP plugin or LMS plugin?
…PROGRESS-TRACKING) Are you simply creating content and then waiting for user comments? And then what do you with the user comments…do you adjust your product or do you simply use that to create more content? Or are you tracking users’ progress? Are you constantly guiding them through a difficult journey? Membership: Simple commenting system or maybe not much feedback required at all. Not much tracking involved to know which content and which specific sections have been viewed. LMS: Classroom-style notes and comments on very specific parts of content. Progress tracking and milestones available for each…
How to Make Subtitles for Your Videos
I’ve been recently involved in tackling international markets for one of my websites. And the task of creating subtitles came up. I went looking around for software and ultimately decided they were too much work. The software loads up your video, then has you typing the text and duration out. Like I said, it’s too much work. So I found another option that’s much faster. Load your video onto youtube (put it in private if you don’t want people to see it) go here and enter in your youtube video address: https://www.serpsite.com/youtube-subtitles-download-tool/ Download the…
How to Run a Successful Membership Site
…quitting in 3 months. Short-term pricing if they’re gonna stay awhile. 4. Designing your “FREEMIUM” experience Every membership site (or business) uses the freemium model. This is true whether you know it or not. Even Ferrari uses the freemium model. And the freemium model is this. Users who don’t pay get a certain level of free product or service. And the users who do pay will get “the good stuff”. Most premium products and businesses out there use the “freemium” model in an interesting way. Let’s take GUCCI for example. Their freemium experience is you…
Redefining WordPress content with Gutenberg
Demystifying the latest WordPress Gutenberg editor and how it’s meant to be used. I’m a total advocate for it. Sure, it might have broken some existing WordPress sites (as new technology always does) but I’m absolutely convinced it was the best thing for WordPress moving forward. Here’s why I love it now and so should you. What is Gutenberg? We have to start here first because this still isn’t clear for many people. For the average person, Gutenberg is the annoying new content editor for WordPress that makes you take extra clicks to make the…
Prioritize your website NEUTRAL color, not primary color
PSA to help people choose better colors for their website design. It all has to do with how you choosing your colors and understanding their ramifications throughout your website. Choose colors correctly and your site looks so damn good and harmonious. Everything fits together so professionally! Choose colors incorrectly and no matter what you do, it just feels so off-balanced (or generic at best). I’m deep in the middle of a client redesign project and can’t help noticing the same design mistakes being made over and over and over…even by so-called web designers/developers! What is…
nSphere.net is a Scam
nSphere contacted me in the Fall last year offering some sort of revenue partnership. They offered to take over a subdomain on my website by building a spammy looking directory on “local.mydomain.com” where they would post regurgitated content from my original site along with ads. They promised to share a certain amount of revenue from the ads while helping to attract search traffic to my site. It sounded like a good deal… …WRONG! At first I had one account manager who seemed really nice and friendly. But then my emails would go unanswered. A week…
How to become a WordPress coder
…devs like this. Other workflow tools: GitHub – get familiar with this. It serves 2 main functions…one is allowing you to push code to a central repository which can then be managed there (track changes) and also contributed to by other team members or contractors. Local by FlyWheel – awesome super simple desktop app for serving WordPress locally off your computer. Also provides an external URL if you want to share with clients. hosts.cx – allow you to (test) point any domain to any IP for testing purposes. 5. Common tasks for beginner WordPress coders….
Blisk - multiple screen development browser
Check out this fun and handy browser for web development. It allows you to view websites on multiple screens (desktop, mobile) simultaneously. As said by ZDNet, “Unless you’re really set in your ways, most developers will immediately switch from Chrome to Blisk at the moment they first lay their eyes on it.” ZDNet’s statement is totally true. I saw the site, downloaded it and fell in love with it right away. Blisk is built on Chromium (the browsing engine between the Google Chrome browser). What makes it special is that it can show a website…
EASY Gutenberg Development Resources
…layouts. You can use these to create your own custom block or even your own custom block plugin (and re-sell/re-brand) for your own usage! https://gutenberghub.com/blocks/ A directory of (nearly) all existing Gutenberg blocks out there. Search by whatever type you need. More convenient than the WordPress repo because that seems to only list the block developer’s name rather than all the block types in it. Bill Erickson https://www.billerickson.net/ Awesome developer from the Genesis community who always makes helpful blogs. Great stuff for developers and non-coders alike. If you want to learn about development for WordPress,…
Enable GZIP for faster page loads!
…there’s a trade-off in processing time vs downloading time. GZIP can compress 100KB of data down to 20KB. So you have to consider what’s faster….the time it takes to compress or the time it takes to download 80KB? On super fast connection, you might just say fine, skip compression and download full size. But on mobile connection, you will always always prefer compressing first and send less data. Anyway, just my 2 cents. Check if your site is GZIP compressed – https://checkgzipcompression.com/ Want better compression than GZIP? (Go with Brotli; I like compression level 4.)…
What are Custom Post Types (and why do they matter?)
…Can show bulleted lists in widgets. Can also show random or related posts at end of other posts. Can also show comments in widgets. TESTIMONIALS – shown on home page using rotating carousel. PRODUCTS – shows on store and category pages by default, but also featured on home page. Shown on other product pages in the “Related Products” area. Now let’s come up with ideas for your fitness trainer site… What if you wanted your site to feature different trainers randomly on the home page? (like those testimonial boxes) Or maybe you just a big…
WPJ Plugins Download
You can download your purchased WPJ plugins here. Click “View Licenses” to get your license key….
NitroPack - cloud caching and CDN service review
…Even after I’ve already visited the pages and pre-warmed its cache, they’re still sticky! The good news is that my client sites do load fast with NitroPack. You can see fast sites like this: https://thriveagency.com/ And then slow sites like this: https://www.ishine-trade.com/ Yes…both are on NitroPack. So whatever the case may be…you know it’s not always a guaranteed miracle. I hate that even the fast one still has sporadic FOUC issues. Just remember that the best way to test speed is right in your own browser and see what’s actually loading. Don’t be surprised when…
ScalaHosting review - traditional shared hosting (custom panel)
…UI might appear “messy” compared to modern panels but it’s easy to use and arguably faster to use (since all features can be reached from the main page)…whereas other panels have more settings screens and tabs to click through. LiteSpeed/OpenLitespeed web server – depending on which options you choose. I love LiteSpeed because of its performance gains and compatibility with my favorite WordPress cache plugin (LiteSpeed Cache). Backups – daily scheduled backups. Free SSL – standard feature. SShield Cyber Security – not sure if this is their WAF or malware scanner or maybe both. But anyway, they have…
Skills you need to manage a (Linux) web server
…Ubuntu. Sure, you can use other Linux distros but most of today’s web server guides are designed for CentOS or Ubuntu. The explanation above should clear up most of your confusion between different Linux distros. If you see guides showing yum and /home/user/public_html, you’ll know that’s probably for CentOS or other RHEL-based Linux. And if you see apt commands or references to /var/www/html, you’ll know that’s probably Ubuntu or other Debian-based Linux. There are still other everyday differences such as their default software. (For example: CentOS default firewall is firewalld and Ubuntu uses ufw.) They…
Don't use WordPress Redirection plugin - use htaccess instead!
…redirected visits but ALL website visits will be faster that way. If you need it for logging 404’s, please don’t do that. That’s a waste of server resources and website speed. You can check your website 404’s in Google Search Console. The Redirection plugin slows down ALL pages on your website, not only the ones getting redirected. So why do so many people use the Redirection plugin if it’s “bad”? Because it’s so easy/simple AND they don’t know how to write redirects in htaccess – Please search Google for the right “htaccess generator” for your…
WooCommerce (WordPress) vs Shopify - Ecommerce Store Comparison (2020)
…of, you can do it in WP/WC…but it does cost money. Shopify (LOW) – Shopify’s starting cost is $29/month. It comes with a website, free themes, and even free extensions. For 98% of stores out there, you can do it all without buying anything else. That’s an incredible deal. And then when you consider that Shopify’s plan comes with a powerful server that loads your site quickly, it’s hard to beat that. With WordPress, you have to pay for your own hosting but at least your hosting will let you host many other sites whereas…
How to Socialize (Network) in Person
…Shy people are going to come up to you because you look more approachable than anyone else in the room. New people will be sent/referred to you by others you already met. Because you share a common hometown, job, hobby, whatever. People bored by their other conversation will gravitate to you because you seem chill. Even if they don’t want to talk to you, they enjoy sitting nearby you. You should think of yourself as a host. Anybody nearby…greet them! Hey, what are you up to? Come on over! Have a drink with us! Come…
Repairing a HACKED WordPress site
…One really good place to check is your website error.log in your website directory. Usually hacked themes or plugins will spit error messages since their code is altered. And if you see many error messages from a specific plugin, then you know it’s likely to be the one that’s hacked. Scan for modified files From your server CLI (if you have access), you can run some linux commands: find /home/user -type f -ctime -7 – searches all files within /home/user directory changed within 7 days or less. (Change to + sign if you want to search for changes…
Best WordPress Cache Plugins 2020
…PRO? Start with FREE. If it does what you need and you like the results, don’t upgrade. Get PRO if you have over 300 pages, the compute API really speeds up the cache prebuild. PRO also comes with many other useful advanced features…but some do need skills to take full advantage. My Swift guides: Swift Performance WordPress Cache Plugin – UNOFFICIAL GUIDE Swift Performance Lite – WordPress Cache Speed Plugin REVIEW Try Swift Performance: WP repository (free) Website (pro) LiteSpeed cache plugin (FREE but you need LiteSpeed server) LiteSpeed is best for ENTERPRISE CACHING Many…
Best Linux distribution for web servers - CentOS vs Ubuntu
…the webhosting market uses it. You only use something else for very specific reasons. Ubuntu is a popular choice for single users. Are you the only one managing this server? Then Ubuntu (based off of Debian) may also be a good pick. Can be considered higher performance and more updated since it uses the latest software but at the same time can be seen as slightly less stable and also more buggy. Personally, I’ve 0nly used Ubuntu for desktop use (it’s very popular there) and never for web-servers although many have and prefer. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1hyLt_nWItQ…
Disable WP-Cron and use real CRON JOB
…functions you might find in a typical WordPress site: Comments automatically emailed to commenters. Backup plugin running every night. Scheduled posts publishing live when it’s time. Widgets updating to show the latest data. How do you think your site “automatically” handles these functions? It does it using the WP-Cron function (which is built into WordPress and runs from the wp-cron.php file). And is triggered every time the website is requested. This means…every time someone (or a crawler) visits your website…your site runs the wp-cron.php file. ….this can be bad for 2 main reasons: If your…
WPJohnny WordPress theme roundup 2023
…but I’d consider them with the most dev features (or most dev-minded approach) than all competitors. Most granular setup for HOOKS & FILTERS features. Has GenerateBlocks – Gutenberg block library and pagebuilder built by same company. Nice site library with few designs but well-polished and modern hip vibe. Solid community with good dev experience and design sense. Been around a long time (longer than anybody else). Very mature product and community. Lacks a drag-and-drop menu builder (in case you really wanted this). All other competitors have it. Get GeneratePress theme or see my GeneratePress review…
Why I HATE Pagebuilders - WordPress Review
…take over the entire process and make everything seamless? And all plugins could be built off the pagebuilder and there would be no more compatibility issues ever. Yeaup, I actually like that idea the more I think of it. Elementor and BeaverBuilder should just become their own CMS. Can be a WP-fork even. Compatibility issues might be a thing if you’re running just a small blog. But what if you have a store, or conversion-tracking, membership functions, forum, and other complicated matters? It’s annoying to imagine that your DESIGN could actually get in the way…
Predicting the death of ALL pagebuilders (except ONE)
…section. Currently, it’s all-or-nothing.) Pagebuilders are basically a smaller CMS hacked onto a larger CMS. They have their own settings. And lots of function conflicts over what should be controlled by a theme or a plugin. Truth be told…pagebuilders act somewhat like both. Developers have long complained they aren’t coded in a WordPress way…and definitely not in an efficient way. Beginners have long complained they aren’t easy to use. But sure…some pagebuilders will be easier than others, and even the worst pagebuilder out there is infinitely more empowering than planting code snippets around your site…
Totally biased review of FlyingPress cache plugin
…because it has a free version that’s really powerful. And hard to take from LiteSpeed because it’s integrated with the server and comes with many developer features (which can also be a drawback for regular users). Best users (or use scenarios) for FlyingPress? Simple sites (to be safe) – not such crazy or uncommon plugin setups. Be cautious if you have WooCommerce. Obviously, this will soon change. Simple cache users – who don’t like the complexity of Swift or LiteSpeed. WP Rocket users – looking for another premium-but-simple cache alternative. Multi-cloud integration – good for…
DNS Basic Info & Troubleshooting
…DNS issue from local network – uncommon but also happens. Maybe your local network (route) or the computer itself has a DNS issue. This is easily detected by testing with another computer on your same network. Maybe your router needs to be reset, or if you were screwing around trying to use another DNS service like Google (then you need to put it back or do it correctly). Or maybe your computer needs a DNS flush, restart, or more complicated DNS service repair steps. Did I miss anything? You tell me! (in the comments below)…
Removing WordPress user registration spam
…now] button. You may have to repeat this several times, as it only deletes 1K accounts on each run. I found this plugin easiest to use if you have many spam users and only very few legitimate ones. If you have many legitimate ones, you’ll need to whitelist a full list of usernames (say, only WooCommerce customers) in “clever developer manner”. 3. Restore legitimate users (if needed). If all important users are still there, then you’re done. If many legitimate users are missing: Download the restore file from the plugin directory /wp-content/plugins/user-spam-remover/userspamremover.restore.sql to your computer….
CyberPanel OpenLiteSpeed high performance web server for WordPress
…CyberPanel Enter the command below and hit ENTER: sh <(curl https://cyberpanel.net/install.sh || wget -O – https://cyberpanel.net/install.sh) NOTE: you can always check the official install page for the exact instructions. When prompted, make sure you pick to install CyberPanel and CyberPanel with OpenLiteSpeed. When prompted to create an admin password, choose whichever option you want. For jsDelivr, I like to choose NO (type n and hit ENTER). For all the object caching options, Memcached/Redis/etc, I choose YES for all (type y and hit ENTER). CyberPanel installs very quickly. Usually within 10 minutes, which is very fast…
How Important Is Your Website Design?
…your website is a simple blog intended to look like an honest one-man-show posting affiliate links for marijuana periphernalia, that’s going to have a very different design requirement than one intended to sell wedding photography. Design = communication, not flash. Therefore…Amazon, Reddit, Facebook, and whatever other sites the commenters mentioned are actually VERY WELL DESIGNED. It’s too bad most clients and low-level freelance designers are wasting their time copying the latest design trends instead of actually understanding what design really is. True quality design more closely follows timeless UI/UX principles, not latest graphic design trends….
Why You Should (almost) NEVER Use Lazy Load
I hate hate hate lazy load. Why? Because it hurts UX (user experience) at the benefit of maybe tricking page speed tests. It’s basically a cheap way of trying to speed up your page speed score by loading fewer items in the beginning. Problem is to the human eye, it makes things load slower! Sure…there’s the logic that items farther down on the site shouldn’t be loaded if the user hasn’t scroll there. True…but do you really have control over which items are lazyloaded and are you so sure their delayed load won’t affect user…
How to migrate ANY type of website (to new webhost)
All websites can be easily migrated to another webhost or webserver. I see people freaking out all the time when they’re forced to migrate non-WordPress sites. They don’t know how to do manual migrations (without easy plugins). But trust me, it’s easy! STEP #1 – copy the files Copy from old server to new server. It’s helpful if you compress the files into an archive first. STEP #2 – copy the database Export from phpmyadmin. If it’s too big, use the compression option. If it’s still too big, export only a few tables at a…
Is Building an Email List still THE BEST WAY?
…lose a big discount on an amazing product/service?” Did Google beg you to use their search engine and email service? Did Facebook spam you or beg you to use their social media platform? Did Whole Foods waste their time trying to convince you they are the absolute best grocery store ever? So sure…keep using the email list but keep your eye on the main prize…the MAIN task. Which is being so amazing that people beat a path to your door. I’m at a place where I don’t have to do any of it, and oh…
Are static CMS sites a good alternative to WordPress?
…you realize you need a developer to anything custom. Not free – many people love WordPress for its massive amount of free options. Free themes, plugins, and even the core CMS itself is free. Not so with static sites, you’ll find many things that would normally come free in WordPress will cost you. Even the core CMS itself can cost you a monthly fee. My final say on static sites Most people considering static sites over WordPress are concerned about performance and security. Both of which WordPress does VERY WELL with. WordPress can manage…
Apache performance tip - switch to MPM Event!
…MPM Event first. You can switch over to it easy. A few command line entries or also a simple switch in EasyApache if you have WHM/cPanel (show in the image above). If you have problems, then try Worker and that last is Prefork. Some people noticed faster performance with Prefork or Worker. It can depend on the type of website you have, CPU, ram use, etc. But generally with a high performance server looking to serve many visitors fast, I always recommend MPM Event. Other reading for you: https://httpd.apache.org/docs/current/mpm.html https://httpd.apache.org/docs/current/mod/ https://www.liquidweb.com/kb/apache-mpms-explained/ https://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?t=1674888 https://serverfault.com/questions/310937/setting-up-apache-to-use-multiple-cores https://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.4/misc/perf-tuning.html https://forums.cpanel.net/threads/why-does-mpm-prefork-faster-than-any-other-mpm.596455/…
Affiliate Area
…own links. (Obviously) You cannot put my brand product name and keywords on the page in a manner that manipulates search engine rankings. You cannot give false discounts or rebates/moneyback (basically paying out from your own commission). See the full WPJohnny Affiliate Terms & Conditions. Log into your account Username Password Remember Me Lost your password? Register a new affiliate account Your Name Username Account Email Payment Email Website URL How will you promote us? Password Confirm Password Agree to our Affiliate Terms & Conditions Log into your account Username Password Remember Me Lost your password?…
RunCloud hosting panel 2020 review
RunCloud is still the #1 cloud panel for developers, and now even faster! A quick breakdown of what I like about the latest RunCloud (with RunCloud Hub caching) and how it stacks up against other cloud panels like GridPane and Cloudways. RunCloud has always been one of my favorite panels. It’s one of the best designed, very intuitive, performance is good, and the pricing is very reasonable (CHEAP). But I don’t recommend it for everyone. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JpAN4q1Z3SM RunCloud PROS Great UI As I’ve said it has a great UI. But for doing what, exactly? It’s got…
The WordPress Open-Source Conundrum
…things for free and never willing to pay for them. And they’re so accustomed to many things on the internet being free already. But what takes it a painful step further (for developers), is when users have such high expectations of their free open-source code. You’ll see many users lambasting free themes, plugins, heck even WordPress itself because it couldn’t do what they wanted. Sure, some of the criticism can be fair but maybe out of context. Perhaps the user is just so completely un-tech savvy and it’s truly his or her own user error….
Logos are not PICTURES, they are FEELINGS
…Oh and don’t get me started on those silly $50 logo design sites. Hahaha…all of them are exactly that. The same cheesy combinations of text and images. Oh and sometimes it’s not only one image but TWO images. Like a horse AND a house. Or a light AND a carrot. Or some lame word with the “O” turned into a basketball or the dot of the “i” turned into heart or a flower. Etc and etc. ^—– [BOOOOOORRRRRIIINNNGGGGG!!!] And please don’t get me wrong either. Those combo-images are pretty cool. I do think they’re clever…
Comment Reply Email (WPJ Plugin)
Just released Comment Reply Email…another free WPJ plugin! Plugin Description: Commenters can receive email notifications of replies to their comments. This simple plugin automatically sends a notification email to commenters when someone replies to their comment. This feature can be enabled automatically by the site admin, or through an opt-in/opt-out checkbox below comment section on frontend. It’s best to use it with an email-sending plugin like WP Mail SMTP, and with SMTP or transactional email service like SendGrid or Mailgun. Sending from your server via PHPmailer can cause deliverability issues (email notfications caught in spam)….
STUPID WEB UI - using icons instead of text labels
…came from. If I had to guess, it came from mobile apps. With limited screen space, you’re tempted to use cute little icons instead. Instead of “search”, you have a search glass icon. Instead of “cart”, you have a shopping cart icon. And those icons are fine because they’re so ubiquitous. There’s absolutely no confusion what they mean and what they do. They’re also almost always found in the same place on every website. This isn’t the only reason why designers use icons in place of text, but I’m too lazy to cover the other…
The BEST WordPress theme (for non-coders) - GeneratePress
I think I’m ready to crown GeneratePress as the best theme framework for WordPress (ESPECIALLY for non-coders). And I do think even the diehard coders would like it as well! lightweight (with essential features built-in!) easy to use and customize for non-coders (no pagebuilder needed, friendly community) easy to work with for developers (logical structure, comprehensive hooks and filters) also compares favorably to my favorite theme, Genesis Let’s break it down… GeneratePress is a GREAT WordPress theme. The “lightweight” hype around GeneratePress If you haven’t already heard, most of the hype around GeneratePress is that…
WP Compress vs ShortPixel - WordPress Image Compression Comparison
WP Compress challenges the current WordPress image compression king (ShortPixel) with never-before-seen features and shockingly size-efficient algorithm! And here, we have yet another image compression plugin review! I wasn’t expecting it, but WP Compress really stood out. Let’s get straight to the details: what I like, don’t like. And why WP Compress should definitely be on your radar! Compared against ShortPixel (the current WordPress image compression king) I’ve tried them nearly all the image compression services out there…see my review on Best WordPress Image Compression Plugins. Up until now ShortPixel was the best image compression…
Linux Admin - Server Management
…delete, SSH access (pass, keys, console) Performance-testing Locations of important files & and stack-specific settings: website directories server config files (ssh, apache, niginx, ols, php, mysql) log files (access, error, cron, etc) cron etc Configuring services SSH config web server config (global vs vhost) mysql server config Monitoring services & software Provider UI – overview of all servers, notifications Server dashboard – UI & top, htop Monitoring software install – Monix, etc 3rd-party monitor services – Monitoring resources & processes top Management tasks Run Linux updates (OS/kernel & software)..proactive maintenance Monitoring server loads & DDOS…
WordPress MySQL database import errors (and fixes)
…create new ones, but you can’t delete if you don’t see them in there! So the answer is to delete them from the system and mysql registry. (NOTE: I had this issue when transferring entire accounts from server to another, but the transfer never completed.) First step is to get into mysql shell in terminal entering this command mysql -u root -p (mysql root pass available using cat /root/.my.cnf), then show databases using SHOW DATABASES; If you see the databases here, you can try to drop them using SHOW DATABASES; but I’m quite sure it…
How to Market a New Blog
Having quality content and at least 2 dozen articles is a good start. 50 is much better. And then if you’re in a broad category, do social media so it can go viral. If you’re in a niche, do SEO and target search engine traffic….
Why are MANAGED VPS Servers so Slow?
…“But how do you know?!” Ha! I know it is because I manage a dozen web clients every week and get to see every webhosting service out there. I routinely come across really awful slow websites only to find out they aren’t on shared hosting plans but MANAGED VPS hosting plans! Looking at their panel, I can see outdated versions of php, GZIP/Brotli compression not enabled, no object caching (Memcache/Redis) installed…you wonder if there was ever a human tech overlooking the server build. (I move them to a new webhost and sure enough, the problems…
Rocket Laywer SCAM / FRAUD - unauthorized credit card charges
…you’ve signed up for Rocket Laywer!) Good luck trying to cancel from their website. When you log in, there’s no charges shown anywhere or any place to cancel. I had to complain on their Facebook profile page and threaten to leave negative reviews everywhere. That’s when one of their people contacted me and refunded my money. They’ve been doing this for a while, too. See all their complaints from other sites: PissedConsumer.com Their official Facebook page Complaints at Consumer Affairs BiggerPockets BBB BestCompany.com – HA! TrustPilot – don’t be fooled by the good ones, pay…
The most elegant WordPress theme - Artisan Themes review
…– lots of culture, flavor, and spice. Everything about South Americans has passion. The language, the music. There’s energy in everything that they do. Look at the violet/yellow color palette on the free Pepper theme website… https://pepperwptheme.com/ Does that look American to you? – hell no, too much flavor. Americans are usually doing the nostalgic, cinematography, hipster look. Is it European? – hmmm, maybe the structure and cleanliness but still too much flavor to be European for me. European design usually has lots of WHITE Bauhaus influences with colors used as accents only. I didn’t…
BEST WordPress Cache Plugins 2022
…it! (now stop asking me this question over and over) WP Performance – cache plugin review Recommended settings (coming soon when I’m not lazy) 2. Swift Performance (FREE & PAID) https://wordpress.org/plugins/swift-performance-lite/ Tons of caching features and low cost! Swift FREE is the most full-featured free cache plugin out there (along with LiteSpeed Cache). Tons of features, a bit complicated for newbies and risky since they enable stuff that break or slow down their site. I feel Swift has somewhat become 2022’s W3TC (of course, not literally). Their UI could use another overhaul to make it appear…
WordPress vs STATIC CMS
…free options and plugin options. Fewer developers who know how to work with it. 3. WordPress is LOWER COST WordPress has tons of free options and free help already. If you need to hire a developer, there are many developers all over the world. If you use a static CMS, fewer options are available and fewer developers who can work with it. 4. WordPress is really NOT that slow or insecure Don’t want a slow/insecure WordPress site? Then use high quality themes and plugins from respected development teams. Don’t weigh down your site with cheap…
Google AMP Sucks for WordPress
…load, faster content digestion…all equals better rankings more traffic – better rankings equals better traffic better user experience – I’m not sure how this works, unless your site is so terribly designed and coded that using AMP is somehow considered an upgrade?! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hF4qKmrrgEs REALITY? easily broken site – one little weird design or coding mistake and your site falls apart limited compatibility – only works on mostly static blog sites. All other sites aren’t compatible because their fancy effects or features stop working on AMP. limited SEO/traffic benefit IMO – here’s the funny thing, blog…
What is "Managed Hosting" and where did it come from?
…guides that never seemed to fit the very latest software…web-server software updates VERY QUICKLY, mind you…it’s the only way to stay ahead of new technology and new hacks coming out every week. Even if they managed to get their server running, they were still completely helpless if anything ever broke or they never knew how to really fine-tune their server settings to fit their application needs. At best their servers were running and their websites were loading faster but not as well as they could be. This market situation paved way for growth in 2…
Cwicly - WordPress Gutenberg pagebuilder review
What makes this WordPress pagebuilder different from all the other ones? What’s the UI & workflow like? What features does it have? Is it worthy of taking market share from the competition? What’s the pricing? I run this recently-released Gutenberg sitebuilder through my gauntlet of skepticism. https://youtu.be/SMA6KutiRyg Who is Cwicly? Their CEO is Louis-Alexander Désiré. I tried to do some research and couldn’t find him anywhere. No public history in WordPress commercial development or any WordPress development. No company page in LinkedIn. I don’t know who he is or what he’s done. I also don’t…
Should You Trust a Small Webhosting Company?
…large hosting companies have tons of servers with only a few “skilled” staff. They might have as few as (ONE) level-3 tech for anywhere from 1-10k clients. Do you really think your server will be tuned for the latest and greatest software and performance tweaks? Nope, when a company deals with high volume…it needs to optimize for maximum compatibility. This means running older software that allows outdated websites to run. This also means not updating the server as much and almost not even maintaining the server besides a few restarts every year. And most of…
How to get BEST PRICING on a Apple MacBook Pro
…about 10-15% cheaper than retail AND comes with some freebie (like Beats by Dre headphones). In my case, the configuration I wanted (2019 15″ Macbook pro with 512gb SSD storage upgrade & 32GB ram upgrade) was about $3200 + tax for full retail. The discount price brought it down to about $2950 + tax and includes free Beats by Dre headphones. STEP #2 – figure out the “common configuration” This is my own made up term. Basically, you have to figure out the most common spec configuration that people buy the most. Usually it is…
WPJ Webhosting Listing
…about it, get curious enough to test and list you on my own. METHOD #2 – you pay for my time to do an independent review. You give me a free testing account and I post when I am ready. If you want to go this route, please fill out the form below and enter payment. DISCLAIMER: I do not guarantee favorable reviews! Everything I write will be 100% brutally honest. If there’s any chance that your service might let me down, this is your last chance to turn around. I mean it! Webhosting Review…
Fix "Better Search Replace" plugin "Max Page Size Error
…setting anymore (it doesn’t work), the only way to fix is to increase your PHP memory limit as high as you can. How high you have to go depends on how heavy your website is. For some, 512MB is enough. For others, you may need more. It helps if you have server access. What if you don’t have server access to raise your PHP memory limit high enough? Try doing only one table at a time. (This should have be your immediate attempt anyway.) Or try using the “Search & Replace” plugin by Inpsyde GmbH…
AVOID - Astra theme and Brainstorm Force plugins (are bloated)
…their “fastest/lightest WordPress theme” claims. But as I’ve said before, there’s a huge difference between FAST vs EMPTY. There are many themes out there that are fast but you can’t do anything with them. Almost no features…so minimal to the point that you have to install plugins for simple functionality which then negates their minimal footprint to begin with. Believe it or not…Astra hits the mark here as well. Their base theme is very lightweight and quite extensible. So what’s the problem then? My problem is the Astra theme isn’t developer-friendly. They’ve copied some pseudo…
Dealing with Pushback against PAID Memberships
…grown to a point that you can no longer sustain it. Some free resources will always be available but you also have paid services in place for those who need extra support. If you had some formerly free services that are now paid, simply explain that you cannot help everyone over the internet for free. Thank them graciously for their feedback and point them to your competitors or other places where they can find free information. It might also help to do some qualifying here. Explain the type of users you are most able to…
How to Buy a Leather Jacket in Italy
…If the salesman is too high pressure OR you feel the pressure even when they’re not being high pressure, leave. If they’re relying on pressure or entertainment to make the sale. Leave. If they do the stupid trick where they hold a lighter under the jacket. If they ask you where you’re from and then claim to have a family member in your city town or nearby, LEAVE. If they ask what your hobbies are and then say, “OH HEY, the other salesguy does that too!” LEAVE. If they force you to try on a…
WPJ-Certified Speed Specialists
Here are a list of people who completed my WP speed optimization courses (I assume) with great enthusiasm. But does this cartoon seal guarantee any level of quality? No, because I didn’t check their work personally. But it does guarantee they cared enough about speed to seek me out, join WP speed communities on Facebook and at least attempt self-growth. This curiosity in and of itself is worth something. Marc Hindley https://canarydwarf.co.uk https://fastestwp.uk Adrien de Montalembert https://ecomturbo.net Mehmet Koçali https://www.focalhaus.com Paka Monette https://shakapaka.com/ Ryan McCain https://norzer.me Jimmy Lam https://acres-media.com https://digitiv.co.uk/ Christian Coulson https://blogstalgia.com/ Steven Orechow…
Thoughts on Google Web Vitals (web.dev)
…it. But for my personal workflow, it’s a useless tool. Here’s why… 1. Misleading or inaccurate metrics. Look at the report for my site. Time to interactive is 4 seconds? And largest contentful paint is nearly 5 seconds? That’s just wrong. And I get why. It’s because Web Vitals, as with any other speed testing tool, can’t accurately measure for every possible type of web application. WordPress loads differently, Joomla loads differently, Shopify loads differently, every CMS is different. Imagine testing different kinds of cars. Maybe in one model, a certain type of sound is…
BEST WordPress Cache Plugins 2021
…(FREE) https://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-performance/ If you don’t know what you’re doing, start here. Very easy to use. Safe to play with caching and won’t break your site. Please don’t try to enable every feature. Works well for all types of sites. Recommended settings (coming soon) 2. Swift Performance (FREE & PAID) https://wordpress.org/plugins/swift-performance-lite/ FREE free is the best free cache plugin out there (along with LiteSpeed Cache). Tons of features, a bit complicated for newbies and risky since they enable stuff that break or slow down their site. PAID version has even more incredible features. Works great. I…
How to Optimize/Compress Your Website Images
Three ways to optimize/compress your images to improve WordPress load time: Open up Photoshop, export to Save-for-web, JPEG 50%. Save your image in the highest quality possible, go to ShortPixel’s online compress tool, and simply upload there. Download an image compression plugin that does it automatically from WordPress. I like ShortPixel but there are many others. They vary between free, paid, or freemium models. Again, I like ShortPixel. A few notes about picking the right format: Photographic images and product images should always be in JPEG format. Avoid PNG format if you can since it’s…
EASY WordPress Security Tips WITHOUT Slowing Performance
…regular malware scan – this will affect performance, only use as necessary! Firewall – you don’t need a plugin for this, simple edit your htaccess! DB password – don’t use the same password for your database as you would for WP-admin or email accounts. 5. Use a CDN Using any CDN, like CloudFlare (free) is especially fantastic for preventing DDOS and attacks. Their servers block bots and bad traffic from ever hitting your server so that you’ll never have to process any of that. It’s a great way to secure your site and improve performance…
How to Use Public DNS Service (Google, Cloudflare, etc)
…certain sites or IP ranges. They’re also useful for “privacy” reasons when you don’t want your local ISP to track you. But then again, your traffic would be routed through Google or Cloudflare DNS proxies and certainly they could theoretically sell your info as well. In case you care…I trust Cloudflare over Google. Anyway, making the change is really easy on your computer. Let’s get to it! How to do it on Mac OS X https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=McTn2SA0H7U If using Cloudflare, put “1.1.1.1” instead. How to do it on Windows/PC https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T0VJCRyvPBs If using Cloudflare, put “1.1.1.1” instead….
Migration tactics for LARGE WordPress sites
…– either through phpmyadmin, or use a backup plugin to get it from WordPress backend FTP/SFTP access – or use a backup plugin to get the files from WordPress backend SSH or command-line access – really helpful if you want the fastest way to send files, but some webhosts don’t allow it 2. DNS preparation I assume you want to migrate with as little downtime as possible. If so, go to your DNS settings and decrease the TTL for your domain and “www” DNS records down to the lowest setting possible. 2-5 minutes would be…
How to Write Your Web Design Proposal
…developer]. We’re a high-end design shop specializing in web designs for small businesses. We love creating exciting brands that stand out in today’s cluttered internet. We see that you’re in [this] niche and want you to know we’re very familiar with it. We’ve done something similar and familiar with what it takes to stand out, attract customers, and convert visitors to buyers. Please see a list of our past work below: website1.com website2.com website3.com website4.com website5.com Thanks for reading my proposal and let me know if you have any questions. Regards, Billy the web-designer expert…
How to Backup Your WordPress Site (using BackWPup plugin and Amazon AWS S3)
…used is still only $1-2/month), compared to $10/month for 2TB with Google Drive. Not only that but Google Drive can be really annoying and limit/block you when you’re trying to download several files at once. Amazon AWS is more technical and less user-friendly but so much cheaper and more reliable! Yes, although full backups already include the database, I still recommend doing separate database backups in case you realize later that your full backups never ran or didn’t backup properly. (It happens!) I generally don’t recommend DAILY full backups for websites unless your site is…
Always use a CHILD THEME
…is if your theme has an update…it might overwrite your settings, style.css modifications, and functions.php hacks. So THIS is why everyone tells you use a child theme. How to activate a child theme Thankfully, it ain’t that hard. Go to your theme website and download their sample child theme. (For example, here’s the GeneratePress blank child theme). Go to your theme settings and “Export settings” to a file. If your theme doesn’t have an option to export settings, skip this part. Install and activate your child theme. Then re-import your theme settings into the child…
Why MARKET RESEARCH for new products is stupid
Why I think doing market research for new products is…the dumbest thing ever. All those surveys, polls, asking around to friends/colleagues. All silly. If I ever see a company doing it, they have officially decreased the chances me of ever taking them seriously. Here’s why… 1. The best “research” comes from experience. Comes from working in the industry. Dealing with operations, vendors, clients, and coworkers day in and day out. Doing things (and having done them in many ways) for many years is what gives you the most valuable experience. Could it be that an…
10 TRUTHS about running a webhosting business
…if it’s not technical issues, it’s something else. Someone will have a billing problem. Credit card doesn’t work, or they paid with the wrong method or to the wrong account and now want a refund. Or you have people clogging your support channels with unrelated requests. 6. Marketing pressure Regardless if you’re an aggressively marketed brand or a lowkey under-the-radar brand, your company will still be subject to your competitor’s extraordinary claims regardless. Your competitors will be constantly pitching their service as offering all the latest features. And if you are LUCKY, your clients will…
About Johnny
…maybe go to the gym or out dancing. Come home, answer some comments, go to sleep. …typical day when traveling: Go out to town. See some stuff, take pictures, eat stuff, come home exhausted. Check my email and answer comments on my sites. Other sites I like that may or may not fit my ultra-biased opinions on tech matters: https://haydenjames.io/ https://pagepipe.com/ https://wpspeedmatters.com/ Butterick’s Practical Typography http://webtypography.net https://ma.ttias.be/ Other hobbies (boxing & tango): I’m also a boxer and boxing trainer. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R00HWKt3icY I’m also a semi-professional tango dancer; also teach and compete. Got 3rd in USA 2015….
GeneratePress vs Genesis - WordPress Theme Review
…any look you want…of course, the limit is your skill level! (Read my full GeneratePress review.) + FREE & PREMIUM + Fast + Incredible support and community of newbies + Well-updated with the latest trends GeneratePress vs Genesis – which is better for you? Genesis is still the #1 pick for me but GeneratePress is awesome as well. Both are my favorites but they have a different vibe. Super solid professional (Genesis) vs really well-crafted community theme (GeneratePress). I think you should pick the one with the community you like better. Genesis community is full…
How to STAY IN SHAPE as a Tech Worker
…my life. Stop following the wannabe coaches. People who love telling others what to do and getting paid for it. Real coaches don’t have fancy systems. They look at you and make up a plan right there on the spot. Everything customized for you. Careful of sports coaches. Beware of gimmicky checklists and numbers and shit. If you’re feeling good and doing good, that’s enough. You’re a person trying to get in shape…not a competitor trying to break records. Sports coaches are great for making you passionate about a sport or improving technique…I don’t necessarily…
Linux Admin Courses
…things you can (or have to) do. So I laid out commands in a manner that’s easy to learn, easy to understand, and easy to remember. The ultimate goal is to get you comfortable swimming in the command line in the shortest time possible! I assume you’re not here because you’re a GUI-hating Linux g33k. You’re here because you want quick actionable real-world skills that can change your life as a web developer. Possibly even open new doors for your business managing your own servers. The other side benefit too is you learn how to…
Clean up wp_options table (autoloaded data)
…my sleeve: Click on edit and look at the data inside. Sometimes they give you a clue what it’s used for. Search the option name in Google in quotations. It might also help if you type the word “WordPress” or “plugin” or “theme” before it. You can also try using step #3 above, but search only the first prefix of the option name. For example, if the full name is “wds_service_results” then you can do step #3 but replace “jetpack” with “wds_”. Sometimes, you’ll find the other option names with more helpful data to track…
Escaping the Content Network MONETIZATION TRAP
…extensive knowledge to help other people build their brands online. All those skills of how to create content, growing traffic, and brand marketing…feel useful again. ROUTE #2 – direct advertisers Reaching out directly to companies pays off. You’ve made contact with the big companies that want to reach exactly your reader demographic. They shower you with big money, free products, and brand exposure that a content site could only dream of. In return…they ask for your soul. Your site now looks like a grocery store magazine full of ads and no longer the independent column…
Swift Performance Lite - WordPress Cache Speed Plugin REVIEW
…many of the smaller names. If you really really have to know (W3TC, Super Cache, Fastest Cache, Hyper Cache, Simple Cache, Comet Cache, FOCUS Cache, etc.) and also a million other non-cache related plugins that minify/combine/concatenate/defer/re-organize asset delivery. I initially installed Swift Performance Lite on my shared hosting server and then stopped setting it up because it wanted my email address (to spam me, of course!). I made a complaint on a FB group and the owner (god bless him) assured me the emails were few and far between and that the free plugin was…
BEST Wordpress SEO Plugins 2018
…free plugin trying to gain market share. Even today, many people claim All in One SEO is better and faster, and that’s good enough for me. https://wordpress.org/plugins/all-in-one-seo-pack/ Pro version: https://semperplugins.com?ap_id=treeflips 3. YOAST SEO The de facto standard! YOAST has grown through the years and now matured into this giant commercial behemoth of an SEO plugin. It’s prettiness and millions of features won over it’s public support and current mainstream position of being the #1 WordPress SEO plugin. Just about all levels of users, amateur and pros alike, will look to install YOAST as their preferred SEO plugin…
BAD IDEA - Translate website content for increased traffic
…in the same way that you are. Otherwise, you’ll have compatible language but not truly compatible interest and nobody will care to read it! Trying to choose languages randomly just because you think it’s an easier way to get traffic (or make money), and not factoring in their cultural compatibility with your topic is a great way to waste lots of time. More so than the language itself, you have to absolutely make sure that your content is relevant to them! 6. Strengthening your presence in other languages doesn’t help your main language I think…
How to Make Money With a Blog
…Don’t start writing anything yet, just come up with the titles for now 4. Research all the most commonly used keywords in your niche use Google Trends, Adwords Tools, Youtube Keyword (all free) if you don’t know how to do keyword research, look it up 5. Start writing your 10 or 20 super-informative posts! put the keywords into the title and body content (don’t over-do it!) release each post as you finish share casually on other websites, community pages, etc (the links better be so damn good that it goes viral without you having to…
Best WordPress Image Compression Plugins - UPDATED 2021
…First choice – ShortPixel (PAID, but free for 100/month) Better compression rates, offers WebP format, offers GLOSSY format (high quality compression for photographers), good pricing. This is my default go-to if you need serious compression. Try their (free) compression test. Get ShortPixel Second choice – WP Compress (PAID) Excellent ratio, super small file sizes, and very sharp. If anything, sometimes even sharper than the original. Get WP Compress Third choice – LiteSpeed Cache plugin (FREE) Super awesome free service. Can do unlimited images but your available quota starts small and increases slowly with each (batch)…
Astra vs OceanWP vs Generatepress - Best FREE WordPress Theme Review
…out of the 3. The main developer (Tom/CANADA) is a one-man show who does everything and anything for his theme. You can tell he’s really passionate about it and has done well to make this one of the most complete WordPress theme/frameworks out there. If you ever want a theme that you can grow into forever, and has a knowledgeable community to draw advice from, you can stop looking at everything else and get GeneratePress. The free version works great and the premium version is so reasonably-priced (something like $40 for unlimited websites). GeneratePress WordPress…
How to Hire Remote Employees
QUESTION: How do I find a low-cost, reliable, AND trustworthy remote employee? There are numerous methods. Some business owners will try to find a remote staffing agency that vets all their employees. Others will try to hire directly via freelance sites like UpWork. Others prefer to search from word-of-mouth asking other friends in online communities. I’ve used all three with varying results. And have found the ultimate method that I use today. ENGLISH-SPEAKING remote employees, also known as VA (virtual assistant) or “remote contractors”, can be found in South America, Asia (especially Philipines), and Eastern…
Cloudways Managed Hosting Review (2019)
…stack is generally good performance, although not the fastest VPS. (Apache with Nginx/Varnish as reverse proxy, pre-configured VCL and custom setup for maximum speed. Also perfect with their proprietary Breeze Cache plugin.) Most people coming from shared hosting will appreciate the speed boost. Apache & NGINX is not my favorite – but it works well and htaccess-compatible. It’s a great solution for people coming from shared hosting. Other hosts may be faster but harder to configure if you’re coming from typical shared hosting with cPanel. Lighter websites will feel like Cloudways is fast. Heavier sites…
Speeding up WordPress (wp-admin) backend
…you have more things. Databases take longer when you start looking for very complicated data that’s buried or organized in complex and/or inefficient ways. Knowing this…let’s see how we can optimize these dynamic backend requests to speed up your WP-admin experience. 1. Audit your plugins Anytime someone comes to me for help with a slow backend, they are immediately “guilty until proven innocent” to me. Check all your plugins and see which ones are contributing to this god awful slow-ass backend load. “But how?!” Like this… Deactivate some non-essential ones to see if it runs…
Neve review - fun cloud theme for WordPress
A new cloud theme for WordPress…built by an A-grade development company. And now compared against the big 4 (GeneratePress, Kadence, Blocksy, Astra). It’s my honor to present Neve to you for several reasons. One is because I’ve followed their work for a long time. But another is because I got to see my feedback come to fruition in this theme. Neve was a theme I used for the past 2.5 years and just now finally reviewing on my site. Why? Because it didn’t do anything too unique from my existing theme-stack (GeneratePress, Kadence, Blocksy). I…
CWICLY's demise - a lesson in specialization
…existing users more things to critique instead of be happy about. It gave the plugin more exposure to unfitting users instead of more reasons to sign up. But most of all, the business model wasn’t right in the first place. I can’t say it was wrong, as you only see things in hindsight, but for sure it wasn’t the right one. They lacked a free plugin version in the official WP repo. Losing out on lots of free exposure. They went the AppSumo route, which for me is shooting yourself in the foot before a…
Stylus browser extension - custom style other websites
…easiest if you watch my video. Use examples for Stylus I’m not a hardcore Stylus user by any means. But be creative and I’m sure you’ll come up with many ideas that could make browsing your everyday sites so much easier! 1. Text CSS for readability. Change font sizes. Change content widths. 2. Spacing and layout for skim-ability. Increase margin/padding spacing. Changing row item count. Color 3. Hide ads from sites, stores, search engines. Google search Forums Amazon Websites 4. Facebook masonry layout Check out Sridhar’s guide: Masonry layout for Facebook I use it myself…
Minify strategies for HTML, CSS, JS
…that shouldn’t need to be written but people keep asking me whyyyyyyyyy.) The BENEFIT of minifying files Smaller files transfer faster than larger files! If you don’t know, minification makes website files smaller by removing unnecessary characters like line-breaks, spaces, comments, and other things. It can reduce your HTML, CSS, or JS file sizes by a good 20% without affecting it’s function in any way. It’s known as one of the easiest no-brainer tactics for optimizing your site speed. And as we all know…smaller files send faster. That’s especially nice if you have visitors on…
Fastest Social Sharing plugins for WordPress
…style them, animation timing. The fonts, the icon fonts being loaded. So much crap! UGH! It makes me so exhausted just thinking about it. And what else do you expect? They’re designed and marketed towards newbies who fall for flashy gimmicks. “Features” and “ease-of-use” are pretty much the perfect combination for a bloated plugin. REASON #2 – lack advanced features What advanced features you ask? How about being able to count (and combine) older versions of the URL with the new one…for example, combining the counts for your old HTTP urls with your recent HTTPS…
Breakdance - WordPress sitebuilder review
…I’m not sure sure I’d say the advantage is Bricks. But if $$$ is all you’re counting, Breakdance price for FREE version is better and Brick’s price for PAID version is more attractive. Vibe – I freaken love Brick’s vibe. Its 1-man developer Thomas Ehrig comes across as a really awesome friendly community super hero to me. Kinda like Tom Usborne’s equivalent (GeneratePress) against Brian Gardner (Genesis). Breakdance on the other hand, I’m sorry but they’re gonna be seen as dishonest for long lonnnnnnnnng time. Community – Bricks has the bigger and more active 3rd-party…
The magic of custom Gutenberg blocks
What are custom Gutenberg blocks and why are they so powerful today? And more importantly, how can you use them? Make no mistake. They are the future of WordPress (and probably the future of CMS). And I promise you, you WILL love them once you see what that they can do. If you’re one of those people resisting the WordPress Gutenberg editor with every fiber of your being…you don’t have to do that anymore! What’s a Gutenberg block? If you haven’t already tried the latest WordPress editor, it adds content in the form of blocks….
Why I don't recommend FREE membership plugins
I don’t care what your reason is. FREE membership plugins are a bad idea and here’s why. Inevitable software lock-in If only I got a nickel for every time someone told me they wanted a free membership plugin just to see if their business idea would work and then they’d upgrade to a paid plugin later. Except only…you lose (in the long-run) regardless if your business succeeds or not. If your business succeeds, you pay a lot of money in the long run to convert to a real membership plugin. Not only is it oh…
Awesome Motive isn't awesome
…AM couldn’t be any further from. As much involved as AM is in the open-source WordPress space, I feel they couldn’t possibly be any further from these core principles. They aren’t innovating shit. That’s something more commonly done by lone programmers or business owners with a unique problem they have to solve on their own…for their OWN needs. AM isn’t a lone programmer or business owner, they’re just a copycat business ripping off competitor ideas or buying out companies outright. (A more successful version of WPMU DEV, a notorious “me too” conglomerate in WordPress history.)…
Apache vs NGINX Comparison - use either but NOT BOTH!
…of caching needs ram. The fastest type (static page caching) needs only fast disk space which is perfect for the SSD-era that we live in now. Apache has htaccess compatibility – this is nice for folks migrating over from shared hosting and not yet comfortable with NGINX commands and don’t have a sys-admin around to help them. Apache can be easily replaced by LiteSpeed – LiteSpeed works faster while using less resources (like NGINX), has built-in caching mechanism, and also htaccess compatible. Apache uses more resources than NGINX – but it’s only a bit more,…
RunCloud cloud-based VPS webhosting control panel 2019 review
A quick run-through of RunCloud’s cloud-panel service. See what things I liked about it, what things I didn’t. And of course, there’s a beautiful video included for you to appreciate their comprehensive UI. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JpAN4q1Z3SM About RunCloud RunCloud (started by a small Malaysian company) is my current favorite cloud control panel. It’s fast, stable, and has a really mature interface. The pricing is very fair (cheap) and the product feels truly refined all around. You can have a pure-NGINX stack (better performance IMO), or a hybrid Apache+NGINX stack (for Apache/.htaccess compatibility). Their performance is above average…
MemberPress WordPress Membership Plugin Review - UPDATED 2021
…have way too many features you don’t need, while still missing some key ones that you do need! This not only makes the setup process cumbersome, but also still does not future-proof your membership site, and they may even cost more. At the current cost of MemberPress being $129/year, unless you’re only looking to make $500 or less per year, MemberPress should be your first option. You can also see why others think so, too. Looking to try MemberPress? Please use my affiliate link – www.memberpress.com Really happy to see comments from happy MemberPress users like these:…
Should you offer FREE CONSULTATIONS on your website?
Here’s the chat script from a friend asking me this…. FRIEND Hey! have you ever done a free consultation on your website? debating on if I should put that or not on my new website as a call to action i have people signing up for my newsletter. basically so I can get their email. but I have noticed a lot of people offer free consultation. this way they can talk to you, find out your needs and get your email. I am debating on that. it won’t be me talking to them lol, but…
Genesis vs Thesis - Theme Framework Review 2017
…configure. Customizing anything felt like a “hack” that required a backup because you were afraid your site would never work again. And so I tried the latest Thesis 2.x and was really disappointed. I still finished having my site built on it and appreciated what it COULD do but I knew for sure my next site sure as hell wasn’t going to be built on Thesis. Enter Genesis. This was suggested by the coder who did a Thesis 2 site for me. He told me Genesis had caught up and was now the standard. After…
NGINX vs OpenLiteSpeed (OLS) honest speed comparison 2022
…to release a free open-source version called OpenLiteSpeed (2013). Which takes us to today’s webhosting landscape: Many traditional hosts still offering Apache. Newer modern hosts offering NGINX. Boutique hosts (both traditional & modern) offering LiteSpeed. Ultra-modern trendy hosts offering NGINX & OpenLiteSpeed (OLS). NGINX vs OpenLiteSpeed (OLS) So now we realize where the battle is really at. It’s free open-source OpenLiteSpeed taking on the powerhouse free open-source NGINX. Questions the noobs asks: Is OLS really faster than NGINX? – that’s what my post will answer. Is OLS newer/cooler than NGINX? – yes, it is. Is…
Kadence WordPress theme review
Is the hype behind Kadence themes justified? Are they the next great theme? Or just a copycat? How is their code quality? How are the features? How are their designs? I share what I feel about Kadence Themes. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=43DByg5EItk Kadence WordPress theme gets a THUMBS-UP from me Kadence is American-made. I like that it’s made in the US. I feel US coding is a safer bet than some of the coders in other countries that take on too many projects and chasing every random WordPress business idea. Kadence is coded well enough. The Kadence theme…
SOLUTION - Is your server IP blocked in any countries?
…is usually the toughest firewall to get through. You can also check other websites that specifically check from certain countries. Some allow you to search from IP, others by domain, and others allow searching by both. Did you see your IP being blocked from certain countries? If so, move on. If not, it’s probably your website that is being specifically blocked! 2. Changing your server IP There are several methods to get around this. Shared hosting – if you’re on shared hosting, your only bet is to enable Cloudflare so that your website is being…
WP Featherlight Disabled (WPJ plugin)
…Featherlight since the lightbox CSS/JS is not loaded automatically. Manual activation – to enable lightbox functionality, simply click the checkbox in your post settings. Retains WP Featherlight features – has all the same features and filters as the original WP Featherlight plugin (up to version 1.3.3) Support: The plugin is free for your personal/commercial use, but do buy me a beer if you like it. Enjoy! 🙂 I’m not responsible for what you do with it. If you have issues, you can ask for support on the WP.org repo. Download WP Featherlight Disabled: WordPress.org repo GitHub repo…
GeneratePress vs Astra vs Kadence (2020 comparison)
Quick comparison review of these 3 popular freemium WordPress themes as of 2020. I’m getting tired of being asked which of them I’d rather use and why. So this guide is to explain once and for all. I compare their pros and cons, and what unique things they have the others don’t. Which theme would Johnny choose?!! GeneratePress: My favorite of these 3. Most mature – been around much longer than the others. Biggest user base – more support, tips, and integrations available. Caters well to both regular users and coders. (The other 2 don’t…
Best Microphones for Online Streaming or Podcasting
…never sound as good as a solid XLR mic with $200 preamp. With that said, USB mics keep getting better and better. Every year, I feel more pros are willing to settle for convenient USB setups. Make sure your condenser mic either comes with a pop filter, or you buy a compatible one for it! OPTION A – Blue Yeti: Blue Yeti Nano – $99 (compact) Blue Yeti – $129 (standard) Blue Yeti X – $169 Blue Yeti Pro – $249 This so-called “World’s #1 USB Microphone” is what most people have. Easy to setup,…
What are ACTIONS, HOOKS, and FILTERS in WordPress?
…contact form. Purge website cache when content is updated. Run website backup when the time strikes midnight. As you can see, nearly anything that a user can do can be a trigger. And nearly anything can be the action. Other creative examples below that you (or a plugin) can add to your website: SMS sent to your phone when your admin account logs in. Comments are closed any time a post reaches 100 comments. Dates are hidden from byline once blog posts reach a certain period. Showing pop-up when user closes the window. …lol, this…
Spark Mail vs Mailspring (OS X email client review)
My personal review of the 2 best free email clients for OS X. I’ve used Mailspring for nearly 2 years. And Spark for a few months. Spark is the easy winner for me. You can stop reading this guide, stop wasting your life, and just get Spark right now. What? Still don’t believe me?! Fine, then continue wasting your life and read more… NOTE: I’m only comparing their free versions! Similarities between Spark Mail & Mailspring Both are free, full-featured email clients. Both are easy to use, have clean minimal interface. Both feel lightweight and…
MaxMind fraud prevention review (WHMCS + minFraud)
…go viral suddenly. So anyway, I logged into my billing software to take a look and sure enough…they were ALL fraudulent orders. See for yourself… screenshot of fraud orders All the obvious telltale signs were there: fake-looking names (John John) fake-looking scammer emails (23323xx@gmail.com) fake-looking information in the “Company” field When you click into each order info for more detail, you realize how much more fake it looks. The addresses don’t match up to the city and post code. Why do fraudulent sign-ups exist? Hackers make fraudulent webhosting orders for spam purposes. It’s usually hackers…
How to Choose a Good WordPress Theme
…i.e. inexperienced crowd). The only popularity I care about is if the theme is popular with true WordPress experts and developers. 5. Great customer support It’s not that this isn’t important but its that this feature is marketed to newbies and non-coders who think “great customer support” means the company will tell you how to do everything with your theme. I think a theme company should spend their time actively developing the theme to make bug fixes, increase compatibility with plugins, and finally…add features if necessary. What I don’t like to see is a theme…
WHY your new business isn't making money
It all comes down to 3 simple reasons…(which are built upon many more complicated reasons). But let’s keep it simple, shall we? 1. You started the business before having customers. It sounds like backwards talk, but I’m serious. This is probably the most common idiot mistake #1. People starting new businesses before having the customers for them. Do you want a guaranteed successful launch? Then don’t start your business until you have the customers! Don’t put any money down for the logo. Don’t build the website. Don’t get the loan. “But how do I get customers…
History of web servers (and transition from Apache to NGINX/LiteSpeed)
…really cared to compare NGINX and LiteSpeed. They were different enough not to overlap in preferred use cases: LiteSpeed was a commercial product (costs money), compatible with Apache/htaccess. Great for shared webhosting scenarios where newbie users relied on Apache-friendly control panels and Apache configurations (htaccess), or large high-traffic websites supported by experienced Apache admins/engineers. NGINX was a free product, simple to install and run. Great for quick command line deployment for small sites, or large high-traffic websites supported by experienced NGINX admins/engineers. Apache still not dead Meanwhile, the old champion is still trucking along…
Marketer's Delight - WordPress conversion theme
Are you looking for an aggressive conversion theme for WordPress? That looks like a landing page with lots of 1-on-1 sales copy? That’s designed to focus on copywriting quality and CTA? That’s ultra-lightweight? To replace an old Thesis site? For those wanting the usual image-heavy pagebuilder designs, please skip this! What’s a conversion theme? I’m sure there are other possible names for these: landing page theme sales copywriting theme digital coach theme ebook marketing theme They’re largely from that 2000’s era of website design used by digital coaches and ebook-sellers; plainly designed single-column websites with…
Linux Basics - Intro to CLI
Welcome to the Linux command line interface (CLI). Course not finished recording. Once finished, price will be $300. – SEP 21, 2023 updates…course updates coming very VERY soon. Managing websites basic server tasks from Linux CLI. This course is a (fun) shortcut course to the most common Linux commands and tasks. I teach you only the commands you’ll actually be using on a daily basis. No boring explanations of Linux philosophy and GUI-shaming. Just a straight-to-the-point tutorial to make you comfortable in CLI and learn how to look up Linux commands (if needed). It’s not…
How to Network (Meet People) Online - Entrepreneurs
Stay active in some communities (websites, forums, Facebook, Slack, etc). Ask for lots of help or chime in with insightful answers. As time passes, you’ll get clients you can’t handle and pass them onto the people you met online. And they might do likewise for you. Be friendly and chatty on here and you can’t help but make a few buddies online after a little while….
SpinupWP - WordPress server panel review
…me very long to review these companies. I’ve probably tried over 100 webhosting companies by now. Competitors The major competitors in this market are: Cloudways, RunCloud, GridPane, and a bunch of other similar copycat ones I don’t bother mentioning. I’ll do a full review comparing them together later on. Marketing SpinupWP’s marketing is pretty good. The design and copy makes you feel anybody can start running their own little web server and all issues will be resolved. They position their product as the perfect answer to MANAGED (SHARED) HOSTING and UNMANAGED VPS HOSTING. There are…
How to Find a (Good) Translator
…am I so adamant about asking your friend? It’s because you have a personal relationship with your friend and they are more likely to be honest with you. Common problems with professional translators: They don’t know certain industry terms and they don’t bother to ask your or research themselves, they just translate it literally. They don’t maintain your tone or gender. You might be an young man but the translation has the tone of an old woman. They alter your writing because they don’t like how you say something. And you might lose some of…
Don't use CSS frameworks with your custom WordPress theme
…and all kinds of junk. Here, see for yourself: Click this link, it’s a demo product page “showcasing” the Bootstrap CSS framework. Check out the CSS loaded on that page. That bootstrap Now copy-paste that URL over to the UnusedCSS site. Run it and see what you get. That’s right…78% waste on their main stylesheet. You can even test my site (https://wpjohnny.com) and see what you get. It should only be 50% unused styles (actually less if minified) and keep in mind my stylesheet is much smaller to begin with…so my waste is only like…
Elastic Hosting for WordPress - PROS & CONS
…future technology may evolve towards. Serve larger clients (with more complex needs) Being able to easily scale instances up or down allows providers to handle much larger websites and web applications. No more restrictions within the limits of defined resources. Clients are now free to grow as big and as erratically as they need. The cloud host will instantly react to their traffic loads. And of course, having bigger clients means bigger paydays. Decreased management Hosting businesses can now offer more complex solutions without increasing workflow complexity. Their devs aren’t slaving hours away to fragile…
Not a fan of Pinegrow for creating WordPress themes
…me. All the design work is done on your local computer and not connected to your website. So you can’t see how it looks with your content. Sure, you can copy over some text and images to make it “realistic”, and there’s also a nice PREVIEW function that lets you see the page in your browser. But it’s not the same. Due to this issue, I just don’t see it working well for many users. I think most people trying to do custom designs are people who already have existing sites and now looking for…
HappyFiles media management plugin review
A quick review of this awesome little media management plugin. I loved it the moment I saw it, and enjoyed it so much more once I installed it. It’s one of those clever little plugins that I think would be useful for many sites. Especially ones with tons of images and need better ways of organizing them. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=efdMd_dOgDY What does HappyFiles do? Basically, HappyFiles allows you to manage WordPress media library in a better way. You can create your own category system instead of using the default WordPress year/month. You can tag and place your…
5 Ways to Grow Your WordPress Blog Traffic
…want to be engaged? Knowing the answers to these questions greatly sets the tone for where and how to engage the audience. You have to set the terms for communication. It’s like how your friends come to know the best way to reach you. “Does Johnny like to be called or texted? Or messaged on Facebook? Does he like important things emailed or faxed?” I’m getting lazy so I won’t spell out every detail of each medium but here are some ideas: WEBSITE – great for commenting, quick and easy. Absolute control of your branding…
Should You Build a Forum?
I used to do that with every website thinking I would somehow magically capitalize on site traffic but it never turned out that way. It turns out I missed one simple detail: ONLY BUILD ONE FORUM! That’s like the golden rule of starting a forum. I got it from reading this: https://www.affiliatebible.com/general-seo/building-a-profitable-forum.php awesome guide for building a forum! The key question you should ask yourself is: Can I build a profitable forum? Forums take time and money to run so if you’re not going to be profitable, it’s quite difficult to have a…
Restrict Content Pro - WordPress membership plugin review 2020
My raving review of the Restrict Content Pro membership plugin. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nlqqlBT4_Zg What I like about RCP Made by Pippin What an awesome guy. If you’ve been around the WordPress development community, you’ll know he is one of the most legit (AND KIND-HEARTED) developers out there. I’ve personally asked him for help for bbPress styling and other junk so many times, I’m just embarrassed to admit. But I’ll never forget. Oh and he’s also among the most respected WP developers, too. Back then, he was more of a one-man show. And now it’s a whole agency….
Is Cloudflare Argo routing-service worth the cost?
Cloudflare’s Argo feature claims: Speed up average network latency by 35%. Decrease connection errors by 27%. Let’s see how much of a difference that even makes! About network latency and connection errors Network latency is just the DNS part of your pageload time. It’s only a sliver of the actual pageload process. Usually there are multiple steps, the DNS connection, the SSL handshake, the WAIT for the request, then the DOWNLOAD. I wasn’t so exact but it’s pretty much that. So this Argo stuff only speeds up one tiny aspect of your page load. Connection…
Blocksy WordPress theme review
My positive first look at this new theme by 2 Romanian developers (Sergio Radu & Andrei Glingeanu). Yes, it’s built well. Yes, you can use it. Yes, I think the built-in features are cool. Here are the exact things I liked: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eM72sObCvfE 1. Quality code Because if you guys know me, you know I won’t even look at it if it’s coded like crap. Blocksy seems clean, no bloat. All template files and partial files are methodically-placed. Very respectful to WordPress coding standards and common theming logic. Thank you! 2. Just the right amount of…
Why is Gutenberg being pushed now (when it's not perfect)
Why is technology being forced upon us when it’s still buggy and not yet fully supported? It’s how I’d sum up all the ranting done about the latest WordPress Gutenberg block editor. Gutenberg sucks! It’s buggy! Too hard to use! Doesn’t work! Can’t do fancy things like my pagebuilder! Yes, I’ve heard it all. And despite all the technology advancements we’ve had in the past decades, it seems people (once again) forget how technology works. The chicken-and-egg analogy What comes first? The chicken or the egg? Or in tech-speak, what comes first…the format or its…
Affiliate Royale to AffiliateWP (migration script)
This (free) simple php script migrates your affiliate data from Affiliate Royale to AffiliateWP. I developed it since I was unhappy with the neglected Affiliate Royale plugin that came with MemberPress and wanted to migrate to something with more features like AffiliateWP. Credits to Yin for pulling out his hair over this. If you want to see what is migrated, you can read through the plugin. It’s not too long. 😉 Download it here: Affiliate Royale to AffiliateWP migration script (GitHub) Instructions: It’s very easy to use…check the readme.txt…
Code Click-to-Copy (WPJ Plugin)
…it’s about time somebody made a plugin to save us all a little time from having to highlight and copy-paste bits of text back and forth. It’s especially time-saving when trying to copy large globs of code that scroll off-screen or trying to manage on your mobile phone. The plugin is free for your personal/commercial use, but do buy me a beer if you like it. Enjoy! 🙂 I’m not responsible for what you do with it. If you have issues, you can ask for support on the WP.org repo. Download Code Click-to-Copy: WordPress.org repo…
MANAGED WordPress Hosting - PROS and CONS
Managed WordPress hosting seem to be all the rage nowadays but are they the best webhosting option for you?! Let’s compare their advantages and disadvantages against other popular webhosting options like: Shared hosting Managed control panel VPS hosting Dedicated server PROS of Managed WordPress Hosting WordPress-specific – friendly UI and support specifically catered to WordPress. This is refreshing compared to those old-school cluttered webhosting panels full of options you never use. Good performance – much faster pageload speeds for frontend users and also backend admins. Many of them come with server-side caching already enabled…
Couchsurfing B-Corp Is a Good Thing
…this? Why didn’t Casey do that?”, Casey made the best decision to benefit the corporation as well as the community. He didn’t need to ask the CS community because he had the support of some of the world’s smartest and most experienced. And yes, they’re going to make a shit-ton of money. We [Americans] still live in a world where things cost money and those who have more will live more comfortably than those who don’t. Having money doesn’t necessarily mean your quality of life is better. You might be just as stressed out and…
Why Websites Should Be Designed like VIDEO GAMES
…Your website needs to REWARD users. Like a slot machine. Like Facebook with it’s notifications, likes, emails saying “somebody liked replied on your post/comment”. Like Amazon which acts like you won at life every time you make a purchase on their site. (Getting an email saying your package is shipped feels like “winning”, doesn’t it?) Like Google rewarding your search in endless ways. (Articles, videos, bullets, images, or more keywords for more goodies!) Does your website make users feel like they’re WINNING? Is the home page filled with joy and toys? Does browsing and searching…
Github cheatsheet
Because I’m tired of relearning how to use Github and looking up long boring videos full of commands I’ll never use. This simple cheatsheat is pretty much all I ever do for git commands. Pulling/cloning a GitHub repo to your local computer: Can do it from VScode terminal or with OS terminal. Make sure you’ve navigated to the right directory you want to work in! git init – initializes Git session. git clone git@github.com:your-repo-ssh-address.git – clones that repo to your local environment. Push or update to GitHub repo: git add . will automatically search for…
Core Web Vitals - score optimization tips
…The ones that can’t will require a developer to hack things for you. 4. Image optimization Let’s go in order of how to do this, ok? Don’t use so many images. You can create visual effects using just CSS or clever use of color. Without having so many images, you don’t have to worry about optimizing them to the right format, size, compression, and lazy load. Use the right image format. Please don’t use PNG when you should have JPG. Image compression can be whatever the page scores recommend. Compress more if you want to…
Redis vs Memcache vs APCu - object cache comparisons
…APCu is faster than both Redis/memcache but can be unstable or total memory-hog. My advice is to try all of them and test your site for yourself. Afterwards, simply delete the ones you don’t need. You can install these modules easily…just make sure you use a version that’s supported by whatever application you’re using. The big three in the world of object-caching: Redis – fast but might not be supported everywhere. Possibly the fastest/best option if you can get it to work. Memcache – the old (but very stable standard). Most people who haven’t played…
Cache plugins suck!
…work. Try changing them to something else, and unchecking all non-essential features. (Btw, if you were the one blindly checking every feature, then it’s YOUR fault!) “Cache plugins didn’t speed up my site!” Are you sure the configurations are correct? Do you have any experience setting up cache plugins? If not, did you follow an updated guide? If so, are you sure the website and web-server used in the guide closely matches yours? Are you sure you’re using a reputable cache plugin? “Cache plugins create all kinds of problems!” Did you something stop working right?…
FREE Web Hosting Control Panel Review
This guide was intended to help beginner/non-experts find a good control panel for managing their websites and web servers. About myself…I’m extremely tech-savvy and know my way around many web technologies. Of the few things that I don’t do, programming and operating from the command line is one of them. When it comes to finding the best web hosting control panel, I care about one thing only: CAN YOU DO IT WITHOUT BOTHERING YOUR SERVER GUY? Most control panels are not good enough. Either you’ll have to bother your server guy, or you’ll have to…
Why WordPress SUCKS (and how it could be better)
…they understand what it is. The old-school “open source CMS” doesn’t cut it anymore. Maybe we need a techy and non-techy version. I would suggest the non-techy one to be something like: WordPress is a website platform, that can be used from any webhost, that allows you to build websites with custom design and functionality. It’s popular for being easy to use, secure, and also used by many other large websites. While WordPress and many of it’s 3rd-party themes and plugins are free, you can also find many premium applications to extend your limitless possibilities….
How to Start a WordPress Website in 30 Minutes
Setting up your own WordPress is easy! Follow these steps: Get webhosting – best webhosting for wordpress Set up WordPress – easy cPanel method (automatic), or the 5-minute method (manual) Choose a WordPress theme – best WP themes, how to choose WP themes Install WordPress plugins – best WordPress plugins, or search the repository Put up content – check out my blogging guides Ready for the next step? (more guides coming soon) Customize your themes Choose a backup plugin Speed up your website using Swift cache plugin monetizing your site (ads, affiliates, info products, tangible…
The Best Copywriting is probably NATURAL
In this day and age, you definitely want natural-sounding copy on your website and other company-branded marketing materials. Sounding too professional might not be the best way to go about it. I totally agree with the original post in this link and enjoyed how he explained it. Here it is: https://www.warriorforum.com/copywriting-forum/874692-youre-trying-too-damn-hard.html…
How to Stand Out Among other Web Designers
…way Trying to make a cool brand and cool website. I used to think this really mattered. I’d spend time making a nice website and trying to put up previous client sites in a portfolio page, and then write tidbits about the whole process. What a load of junk. Most clients really don’t care. Most clients I’ve met sized me up in person or in Facebook message, asked me to email them a price and maybe 2-3 links of other sites I’ve done. And they hired me simply because I seemed like a nice trustworthy…
How to pick a good MEMBERSHIP platform
…and easier to work with since you can style them however you want without having to battle with default styles. The more established your business, the more you’ll want a developer-grade membership plugin with limitless flexibility. It’s the only way IMO to create a truly unique user experience. Want to try my favorite membership plugin? It’s MemberPress! Super easy to use, really flexible (for both non-technical users as well as developers), cheaply priced IMO, and with tons of features. Read my MemberPress review. You can check it out using my affiliate link – www.memberpress.com…
Checking your WordPress site for BROTLI or GZIP compression
There are 2 methods: either do it from the NETWORK tab in your browser’s developer tools, or use one of the free compression check services out there. (Video explanation inside.) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHmu983e-Lc…
The FASTEST Lightweight WordPress Themes Review - UPDATED 2019
Why do we want a lightweight theme? Besides getting rid of unnecessary visual clutter, they help your website load super fast which is especially important in today’s ADD society and especially important in today’s rising mobile-browsing trend. Fortunately, this trend has forced all themes today to be written with cleaner and lighter code. NOTE: I’ve tried over 100 themes from well-known established companies to unknown developers (also had to support them via clients). Ultimately, I would say a theme isn’t useful in the long run without a big community to support it. You’re bound to…
GiveWP fundraising plugin review
…allow.) Fees – other platforms might charge more or come with hidden fees for specific use cases and functions. More design control – maybe you prefer a more customized layout. I don’t think it’s a big deal. But can definitely see why someone looking for a ton of funds for a premium product might care about this. More platform control – running the fundraising right off your own website gives you more control overall. Not only for design but also specific functionality or better integration with other website things you have. GiveWP features and strengths…
How to Run a 99Designs Contest
…10 years and find the service to be just as fantastic today as it was before. It’s a great market to find talented designers from other countries for relatively low cost AND get great concept ideas for your domain name. It’s not only a great way to do branding design but also to get free market research and understand how others perceive your brand name. Within several projects, I was able to create A-level designs at much lower rates. Here are the tips to make your design contest worthwhile for all parties! 1. Preparing…
WPJ 2020 review - uncharted territory
…build tools that don’t need documenation! It’ll never be 100% possible but you can get really damn close. Microphone. Finally found a really nice microphone setup for my Youtube videos. Hahaha! Future ideas in testing WPJ site design adjustments – already tested 100+ revisions. It’s so much to think about…adjusting for what my future site will be and how it caters to users. Created free theme (in beta) – not sure it ever launches given how busy we are…but enjoying lots of testing with no pressure Teasing the idea of our own control panel once…
Comments Sticky Moderate (WPJ plugin)
DOWNLOAD LINK WordPress.org (repo) FUNCTION Move moderation options above comment to speed up manual approval. DESCRIPTION By having the moderation options bar on top of each comment, you can leave your mouse in one place and keep clicking. It allows you to manually prune your comments quicker and (hopefully) save false positives. FEATURES Moderation options on top instead of below the comment. Now you can leave the mouse in one place and keep clicking “Delete”….
Local-load Google webfonts in DIVI (in just 5 minutes)
…page templates). Inspect different using your browser developer tools. Or use this handy FOUNT tool. Remember…keep track of every font, font size, and whether or not you use italics in that size. Step #2 – upload the fonts to your child theme directory. Download the fonts from Google Webfont Helper. You only need the modern formats, WOFF & WOFF2. They cover over 98% of users already. Upload the fonts to a “fonts” directory inside your child theme directory. Put that path into the custom prefix box so it outputs the styles with the right url…
SIMPLE FIX - Windows 10 Creators Fall Update 1709 Failed to Install Error Code 0xC1900101 0xc1900107 0xc1900208 0x30018
…WINDOWS UPDATE SERVICE (from services.msc) Clean boot (disabling non-Microsoft items from starting up with Windows) Disabling Windows Defender & Windows Firewall Deleting the “SoftwareDistribution” folder Downloading and running the Windows Upgrade Assistant tool Downloading and running the Windows Update Troubleshooter tool Downloading and running the Windows Media Creation tool Updated my bios as well as motherboard chipset drivers. Anyway, you get the point. I’ve tried everything and no matter what, the update would fail in the same spot (at 45%) every time. Thankfully, it recovered successfully. Here’s the thing that worked for me: Run the…
Should you use Critical CSS?
…websites are built in a very modular way. The theme is designed or chosen in 2016, further customized in 2017. There’s maybe 15-30 plugins; each one designed by different developers, that also come with their own separate CSS. Guess what all this code spaghetti means? It means because all these little parts are coded at different times and by different developers, they add their own CSS and with many overlapping CSS. For example, your theme comes with button-styling which then gets over-ridden by the pagebuilder button styling and then again later over-ridden by the newsletter…
Flywheel WordPress hosting review - IT SUCKS
…ask support to do it. I’m sorry but that’s a really dumb limitation especially in this age of virtual technology and available site isolation. Flywheel is ok if you have one tiny site and that’s it. Otherwise, get another webhost! Oh yeah…and I almost forgot. Their CDN is lame. They don’t have enough mirror servers. I had a client on the USA east coast download assets from their CDN server on the west coast. That’s so lame! What’s the point of CDN then?! I’m starting to get second thoughts about their UI as well. Yes,…
WPMU DEV sucks - don't use their plugins
…plugins cheaper and that’s it. Hey, if you like the cute superhero branding and low pricing, give WPMU DEV a try. But if you want serious plugins developed by people who actually care and passionate about providing solutions…try out a real development company. How recent is this review? I know many of you reading this might be reasonbly skeptical. Maybe you think I haven’t tried the absolute latest new-and-improved versions of WPMU. (And you’re right.) But my clients and other developers I know have. And the complaint is still a lot of the same. Bloated…
Typography is king (in web design)
…most important areas, and slightly smaller to signify subtitles. The subtitle version can vary from the bigger title version, usually in the form of ALL CAPS and/or with extra letter-spacing or even tighter letter-spacing. Or yes, you could use different font-weight as well…either thicker or thinner. You could also use an accent color for your title or subtitle font, but be careful to keep it clean! I won’t explain the personality of different fonts here, it’s too much work. But you can find great examples on Typewolf.com. Explain your site hierarchy through font sizing and…
FINDING SUPPORT for any theme or plugin
…I can’t use it anymore. Please don’t make me go back to [insert competitor name].” 3. Find the Facebook group Maybe the theme/plugin has a community Facebook group. Join it and ask for help. Sometimes they may not have one for their smaller plugins…so you have to join their overall brand community. I suppose you could also join broader Facebook groups that cover or have many users of your theme/plugin. 4. Pay someone else Sometimes on support forums and Facebook groups, you still won’t get support….BUT, you can see replies of other users and it’s…
Difference between STATIC vs DYNAMIC website - also what is HTML, CSS, PHP, MYSQL
Explaining some basic website development terminology and how they work with one another. I’ll cover the terms as well as a brief explanation of how websites evolved old static HTML/CSS to include dynamic PHP & MYSQL databases. The evolution of STATIC websites (html, css) to DYNAMIC websites (php, mysql, css) When the internet was first started, everything was pretty much static HTML. You would do everything in plain HTML…the content, the styling, everything. The data was written right there in the HTML code and loaded very quickly. You had 1 HTML file for every…
BEST and WORST reasons to learn server-admin
…it because you don’t use it enough. Linux commands are certainly that way. So you’re blowing at least 1-2 years to become proficient and comfortable. You learn the commands, learn the command options, learn the locations of key files/directories. And then what? If you’re not poking inside that server and running those commands constantly every week, you’ll forget every single one of them. And have to relearn them each time. I’m in and out of a couple dozen servers every week (for years) and I still have to look up commands from time to time….
RSS output hacks - exclude categories, add spacing
…’rss2_ns’, function() { echo ‘xmlns:yoursite=”http://yoursite.com/ns/yoursite#”‘; }); /** * Show post categories/tags in feeds with a single string space separated, and no comma. * * Disable Categories from showing in feed output. */ add_action(‘rss2_item’, function() { // $categories = get_the_category(); $tags = get_the_tags(); $the_list = ”; $cat_names = array(); // if ( ! empty( $categories ) ) { // foreach ( (array) $categories as $category ) { // $cat_names[] = sanitize_term_field( ‘name’, $category->name, $category->term_id, ‘category’, ‘rss’ ); // } // } if ( ! empty( $tags ) ) { foreach ( (array) $tags as $tag )…
Custom LOG OUT link without WP-nonce confirmation
…child theme). The fix Paste this snippet into your functions.php but replace yourdomain.com. And now you can create your own users logout link anywhere you like! add_action(‘check_admin_referer’, ‘logout_without_confirm’, 10, 2); function logout_without_confirm($action, $result) { /** * Allow logout without confirmation */ if ($action == “log-out” && !isset($_GET[‘_wpnonce’])) { $redirect_to = isset($_REQUEST[‘redirect_to’]) ? $_REQUEST[‘redirect_to’] : ‘https://yourdomain.com‘; $location = str_replace(‘&’, ‘&’, wp_logout_url($redirect_to)); header(“Location: $location”); die; } } What about other fixes? Long story short, I wrote this guide because the other fixes didn’t work. If you have other solutions to share, let me know in the comments….
The Most Difficult WordPress Speed Optimization Clients
These clients will NEVER reach their dream website speeds for these reasons: 1. LOW BUDGET They have a $200 budget, using tons of crappy bloated plugins running off a crappy $5 shared hosting plan. But they want their site to be as fast as their competitor’s site…which was professionally built for $5-10k, has a custom theme, and much faster webhosting plan. 2. NO COMPROMISE They tell me they “absolutely need results!” but when I tell them exactly what’s causing the biggest slowdowns. They come back with “but I can’t get rid of that…can’t we do…
How to Create a Successful Blog
…only comes from the publisher. In web 2.0, any random person could generate content or add to the content. Blogging is a form of web 2.0 since any user can blog but also other users can leave comments which in turn contributes to the original content. My point is…reply to your reader’s comments. Talk to them. Agree with them. Disagree with them. Thank them for sharing. Ask them questions. Encourage them to share more. Use their comments, or your replies to their comments, as material for new blog posts. Just like you like your material…
WHY to always use a Transactional Email Service
Tired of your system emails getting caught in the spam folder or never arriving at all? Examples of transactional emails: New user welcome email Login/password reset email Order confirmation Comment or forum replies Or any WordPress system notification, really If you’ve ever had problems with them getting delivered (and even if you don’t), you probably need a transactional email service! The problem with emails Many people with WordPress sites don’t set up any email plugins or use a transactional email service. They simply use the built-in phpmailer function with WordPress. Others may even use an…
Getting the most out of your graphic designer
…million revisions. 2. Choosing lookalikes A common request from designers is to ask you for examples of what you like. What other designs and sites you like out there. Most clients screw this part up in 2 ways: They send over multiple examples of the same exact generic look – and they get a generic look in return that doesn’t have any unique personality. They send over a wide range of examples – but aren’t clear which aspects they like and don’t like about each. So they get a design that indeed has elements from…
DIY Mattress review and buying guide
…actually just a combination of different layers to help support you (and the layers itself) in various ways throughout your sleep. But of course the industry makes it as confusing as possible to make you overpay for it. As the saying goes, “Knowledge is power.”…which of course means that whatever you don’t know/understand, you will pay dearly for that! Mattress layers from top-to-bottom: COMFORT layer/s – usually soft foam, wool, or other padding and textures to give you nice feeling against your body surface. SUPPORT layer/s – usually medium foam, softer coils, or combination of…
MXroute email hosting review
…worked, was reliable, and backed by someone who cares. The only question was…could MXroute really deliver? It wasn’t like they promised the world. Jarland definitely didn’t (to say the least). But even still…what he promised seemed like 2 dreamlands away from the current email landscape. I mean, even Gmail gets hit with spam. How the heck does Jarland’s spam-blocking algorithm compete with a billion dollar company? Every admin already knew how he was gonna do it, too. It’s not a hard business model to reverse engineer in your head. MXroute was probably going to lease…
Social Media Marketing on LinkedIn (tips and tricks)
…about LinkedIn. There’s no stigma or weirdness about adding complete strangers. Just go crazy and add away. Of course, you’ll probably get better results adding all the people you know first and then working your way through the strangers that you have mutual connections with. 3. Post on your personal profile LinkedIn gives you various options: Personal profile – the default profile that you get when signing up. Company page – this is like Facebook pages, that you can create for your company. Showcase page – used to showcase smaller subsections or specific products/services for…
GridPane vs RunCloud - Managed Hosting Panel Review UPDATED 2020
…which all managed hosting panels are judged today. Everyone else is compared to them, maybe different in features or in the stack or in the pricing. They’ve got a great team and again, I love their community vibes. GridPane – company background An American grassroots hosting company that I first noticed on Facebook Groups for hosting experts. It’s inspired by Webinoly, one of the many performant community-driven stacks available, but wrapped in a dead-easy-to-use UI. Its pricing, features, and UI were very much comparable to other existing options on the market if not better. Upon…
Tony Hawk - first man to land the 900
Watch this warrior succeed when he’s been down 10 times and out of energy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4QGnppJ-ys…
There's An Expression In All of Us
These photos really spoke to me. There’s a winner, an expression, an entrepreneur…a great personality within all of us: https://www.dancersamongus.com/photos/Towson-MD-Rachel-Bell…
Your Calling VS Your Ego
Great article. Learn the difference: https://www.inc.com/shelley-prevost/5-ways-to-distinguish-your-calling-from-your-ego.html…
Helpful links for new copywriters
I saw this link posted on WarriorForum and loved it. So many great resources in here. Read this if you really want to get your feet wet in copywriting. https://www.warriorforum.com/copywriting-forum/729604-1000th-post-quick-links-new-copywriters.html…
How to Write an Interesting Story
…storytelling because they don’t pick an interesting part of the story. They focus on the part of the story that’s all too familiar, all too predictable. Or they pick the part of the story that is more the most incredible and accomplishing but isn’t interesting at all. And lastly, they fail to really inject emotion into it. Learn how to connect emotionally with your readers and you will have made one of the most powerful connections possible. Here is one of my favorite explanations of all time on how to tell a captivating story: https://www.copyblogger.com/start-with-a-story/…
Self-Discipline - understanding the true rewards
A beautifully written article on the benefits and rewards of self-discipline! https://www.raptitude.com/2013/10/the-elegant-secret-to-self-discipline/…
Block XML-RPC protocol in WordPress
…Block WordPress xmlrpc.php requests <Files xmlrpc.php> order deny,allow deny from all allow from 123.123.123.123 </Files> Quick note…if you need to leave it on for certain IP, you can whitelist your IP and also Jetpack IP’s (if you use it). Nginx servers can paste the following code into the functions.php (submitted by Regev): // Disables XML-RPC add_filter( ‘xmlrpc_enabled’, ‘__return_false’ ); function disable_x_pingback( $headers ) { unset( $headers[‘X-Pingback’] ); return $headers; } add_filter( ‘wp_headers’, ‘disable_x_pingback’ ); add_filter( ‘xmlrpc_methods’, function( $methods ) { unset( $methods[‘pingback.ping’] ); return $methods; } ); Reference link to learn more about XML-RPC: https://www.wpbeginner.com/plugins/how-to-disable-xml-rpc-in-wordpress/…
Amazon-AWS/Google-GCP vs Traditional VPS (Linode, Digital Ocean, Vultr)
Curious to know if you should go with the big name Google/Amazon or traditional providers (Linode, DO, Vultr) for your VPS? I’ll break it down for you. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2iXIPxzS5s Which is better? If what you need is a high-performance/low-cost VPS… Stick with the traditional VPS providers (Linode, DO, Vultr). They offer better performance at lower cost. Presumably, it comes from their long datacenter experience. If what you need is simple integration with other cloud services (storage, remote database, etc)… Go with the big name cloud services (Google, Amazon, or even Azure/Alibaba). The tighter integrations with all…
Plesk (Obsidian) Control Panel Review 2020
Are you curious how the new Plesk Obsidian version works? I’ll tell you! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EAe6fZrjnEM Watch this video to see the new UI. You can compare to the older Plesk Onyx. I’m a WHM/cPanel guy but still use Plesk for some clients. It works great. User-friendly for non-admins. Mature, stable, has many helpful extensions. Easy enough to figure out how to do most webhosting functions without having to read documentation. In the few moments that I had issues, Plesk documentation was simple enough to understand and/or Plesk support was extremely helpful to resolve the issue immediately….
How to customize WordPress admin CSS
…without actually installing a plugin. Instead, you’re hooking the function into your theme functions.php file. Copy the code below into your theme functions.php file. Take note of the theme directory and CSS file being called. Change/rename it to match your theme. Then go create the the admin CSS and put your desired styles in there. /* Admin CSS styles */ function adminStylesCss() { $url = get_option(‘siteurl’); $url = $url . ‘/wp-content/themes/yourtheme/css/wp-admin.css’; echo ‘<!– Admin CSS styles –> <link rel=”stylesheet” type=”text/css” href=”‘ . $url . ‘” /> <!– /end Admin CSS styles –>’; } add_action(‘admin_head’, ‘adminStylesCss’);…
Block WordPress comment spam (easily) via blacklist
Easy way to block your most repetitive WordPress comment spam using the default spam blacklist function. Here’s how you do it… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2C9BN_3PR8 Go to your Comments page and look for all the most repetitive spam comments. The ones that comment the same phrases or string of text. Then go to Settings > Discussion and scroll to the Comment Blocklist box. Paste those phrases in here, putting different ones on its own line. Why is this the best way to block spam? REASON #1 – It’s not annoying. Doesn’t harass users with captcha, math questions, checkboxes,…
Exporting databases using WP-CLI
…A directory path for a site on Ubuntu server might be more like /var/www/domain.com/html. 3. Export DB using WP-CLI command (to user home directory) wp db export dbname.sql –allow-root The command above is if you’re using “root” user. For non-root users, you can leave out the –allow-root at the end. You can choose whatever exported filename you want. It doesn’t have to match the database name. You can also specify an exact directory if you prefer. Put an absolute directory path like /somewhere/somewhere/dbname.sql. Can also specify a different exported DB name. 4. Navigate to home…
Get Rid of Jetpack Plugin - Why and How
…don’t trust Jetpack. Honestly, I just don’t trust many things from Automattic, Matt Mullenweg, and their other associates. I’ll let you guys research for yourself. Secretly, I think they’re steering WordPress more and more away from actual open source mentality and into a commercialized direction. They are gonna cash out on this thing as best as they can. I don’t have any problems with capitalism or commercialism so much; but I do have strong feelings about transparency. The way they’re promoting this is manipulative—monopolizing their position as the actual WordPress creators, stifling healthy market competition,…
Putting social share buttons at TOP vs BOTTOM of posts
…What most sites do (top, bottom, everywhere) Most sites are annoying and spammy as heck. They place social share buttons everywhere; sometimes even with a sliding button rack that follows you along the page when you scroll down. As if readers are more likely to share because a convenient share button was placed there. That might work for a Facebook post but not for a real website in my opinion. C’mon now…we both know that isn’t true. When was the last time you shared anything from a website? And when was the last time you…
Attracting TALENTED Developers to Your Project
…better C) will pick one based on price or some arbitrary comparison. They’re a waste of time for me. I don’t want a client so unsure of themselves that they need to ask 100 questions to know who to hire. When I hire great developers, I can do it in just 3-5 questions easily. It’s best if you’re already familiar with the developer’s work before you contact them. 4. Be flexible Talented developers set the terms, not you. Call them divas if you want but get this straight…they don’t need you, you need THEM. If…
How do you collect customer emails?
It isn’t creative but perhaps a bit non-conformity. I hate leveraging freebies as a way of getting the email. You stake the entire value of your newsletter on the freebie and many people would rather just search up the topic of your freebie than give their email address away. My thing is this: write amazing blogs that people never want to miss out on. Put out fresh insightful stuff that stands above the same’ol same’ol and people will drop their email without you having to promise anything in return. Obviously, it takes a while to…
WordPress Redirection Tips - HTaccess vs Plugins
…need one of those solutions, and preferably in that order. 1 is ideal if you have VPS and direct server access since it’s the fastest. 2 is for most people on a shared hosting account with htaccess. 3 is the slowest and only recommended if you don’t have access to 1&2, ORRRR you want to track stats. If you DO want to track stats, my advice is: Make sure it’s really worth it to you because redirect plugins that track stats will slow down your web page load a lot (even on VPS server). You…
Plugin Script/Asset Organizer Review
A quick rundown of the asset organizer plugins I’ve tried for WordPress. I’ve had a ton of sites that were loading slow because of unnecessary plugins loading on certain pages. Normally, this wouldn’t matter so much as you can always cache the page but in these instances, the pages weren’t cacheable. I wanted to prevent them from loading to speed up the site so I went around trying different plugins. Here are my quick rundowns on: WP Gonzales (paid) Plugin Organizer (free) Plugin Load Filter (free) Plugin Logic (free) WP Asset CleanUp (free) WordPress Assets…
Which WordPress "experts" should you trust?
…also written by some inexperienced people. It seems no one can tell the difference between an honest expert… and a shady, lying, sack of affiliate-crap selling conman. I’ll help you sniff out the difference. Affiliate Marketer vs Product Advisor vs Web Developer These are the 3 most common influencer roles among WordPress review sites today. I’ll go over their distinct traits, values, and how they operate. Affiliate Marketers Affiliate marketer STRENGTHS & TRAITS: They follow trends and the latest “cool” things on the market. Detailed comparisons like “this product can do this” and “that product…
Ignore Tai Lopez and other MAKE-MONEY Scams
…rather wish to have the item than to have the money you paid for it. No buyer’s remorse whatsoever. THAT’S what value looks like. You know what value doesn’t look like? When you have a crappy business built on marketing promises that you have to lie to new unsuspecting customers to get the first sale. And after that first sale, they never come back. 3. Create a repeat-customer business. Yeaup, real businesses are built on REPEAT customers who keep coming back. They buy again and again, they tell their friends, they bring you business without…
Stop Trying to Monetize off Google Ads
It’s 2018 and I’m still surprised to see how many people are relying on this outdated tactic of generating income. I still have clients today with heavy ad networks being punished yet again by the latest Google algorithm. Many of them have lost either 30-60% of traffic or the same amount in ad revenue. I feel bad for them and told them to move on and more money can be made elsewhere, even off ads again if they insist. Google Adense was the thing maybe 10 years ago. Then totally died around 6 years ago….
Expected conversion rate for membership sign-ups?
How many sign-ups should you expect for your membership program? Memberships are all the rage lately. It used to be a complicated ordeal to create one but now there’s a hundred plugins/services out there catering to this latest money-making trend. The problem is that many people are spending thousands of dollars to create their membership program only to get sad when they don’t get as many sign-ups as they thought they would have. Is it really failure? Or just unrealistic expectations of membership sign-up rates? Here’s a realistic sign-up conversion rate for memberships: Targeted lists:…
The FASTEST Way to Learn SEO
…nice for people to tell me what to do. Knowledge is good. But it’s best to know what works right from the beginning, so you can make money while you learn about other possible methods. Lesson 1 – identifying hot keywords in your industry (keyword strategy) Lesson 2 – organizing your website design and coding for search engines and visitors Lesson 3 – creating and optimizing content (on-page optimization) Lesson 4 – backlinks, sharing, and social media presence (off-page optimization) Lesson 5 – analyzing your rankings and comparing your progress to competitor sites AND DONE!…
NitroPack cloud-caching service review - UPDATED 2022
…So why is NitroPack so popular? To be honest…it’s because it does a good job. It very easily speeds up sites with very minimal effort (or technical skill required), and produces better page scores on GTmetrix, Core Web Vitals, etc. It’s really one-click touch and go. You don’t have to read instructions or Google search for guides online for “best cache configurations” and read dozens of arguing comments back and forth about which optimizations methods are necessary or not. You could be a bonehead monkey, click one button, and immediately show off to your client…
Affiliate Terms & Conditions
To be an WPJohnny affiliate, you must agree to the terms below: WPJohnny reserves the right to withhold earned commissions at any time for any reason. I don’t plan to cheat anyone but will withhold commission if I suspect your referrals were earned in some shady manner or otherwise exploiting a loophole not covered below. You cannot purchase from your own affiliate links. If the purchase seems too close in personal relation to you, the commission will be void. You cannot compete with “WPJohnny” keywords, product names, or other phrases associated with WPJohnny on search…
RunCloud BEATS Cloudways & GridPane - 2022 review
These companies used to be kinda the same…but now they’re not. 3 years ago, they were all similarish stack, performance, and pricing. Some differences in UI, business model, vibe and service level…but still mostly targeting the same customer base. Now they’re vastly different companies with totally different product positioning. Here are some old reviews for comparison (if you’re curious). Cloudways vs RunCloud – Managed WordPress Hosting Comparison (UPDATED 2020) GridPane vs RunCloud – Managed Hosting Panel Review UPDATED 2020 RunCloud hosting panel 2020 review Let’s see what’s changed… 1. RunCloud (is the winner) RunCloud is the winner. There I said…
FlyingPress cache plugin - UNOFFICIAL GUIDE - UPDATED 2022
…don’t know how good/aggressive this is. I never tried it. In case it isn’t obvious. You can tell Gijo’s cache plugin is a combination of the top cache plugins out there….the features and settings layout is very obviously a combination of LiteSpeed Cache, Swift, and WP Rocket. Basically, the 3 best cache plugins out there. And his plugin very tastefully cherrypicks all the best features and discards the superfluous ones. I applaud him for that cuz it seems nowadays everyone wants to stuff their plugin full of features to justify charging more for it! Best…
Is it worth blogging on 3rd-party platforms? (Medium, Tumblr, etc)
…website where you can control the environment. REASON #2 – the pay always drops You can trust me on this. It’s like that with any platform. Adsense, Youtube, everywhere. The pay rates ALWAYS drop. They bring on some new investors or they sell their company and the pay always always ALWAYS drops. 6 years ago, I made $600/month on Youtube with only 2k subscribers. Now I have over 100 times that but I make even less! That’s just the nature of the beast. They offer high pay to grow their platform and attract new writers….
CloudPages managed WordPress hosting - INITIAL REVIEW
…because there’s so much experience and bugs you don’t have to deal with. Frontend site looks like Cloudways Similar logo. Similar website design (look at hero layout with graphical wireframe illustration). Similar wide-font. Lots of similar things. Backend area looks like RunCloud Similar UI layout RunCloud but spacing more like Digital Ocean (kinda big and child-like). So if you like RunCloud and Digital Ocean, then you’ll love CloudPanel UI. Performance is good On par with other top-speed cloud panels. If you’re coming from crappy shared hosting, you’ll think CloudPages is a warp-speed spaceship! If you’re…
Builderius - initial thoughts and respect
…be done by code. I imagine it ultimately comes down to the 2 all-or-nothing use cases: OPTION #1 – use Builderius everywhere and go crazy hardcoding your entire WordPress site as if it were your own hacky CMS. OPTION #2 – use Builderius very selectively on pages where you want something custom but didn’t want to install Oxygen or a whole pagebuilder just for one page. Ready to try Builderius? Get (free) Builderius now… While I won’t be using it, I think Builderius is truly awesome and worth a look for any diehard coder. You…
How to Get an IM Mentor - help us help you
…into your idea…and thus be spending more time executing on it than even you are doing. And to do that for free (without any commitment cost in time/money from your part)…not good for any mentor. 3. The very mentors who are excited to help you for free….will be excited because they see that you’re already well on your way to success and their reward is that they get to be a part of it. So if you want to motivate people to work with you, you have to give them something to be excited…
Should You Offer Refunds (Policy) on Digital Products or Services?
…refund policy increases sales by 5%: WITH refund policy – 1000 sales and 10 refunds/chargebacks per month WITHOUT refund policy – 1050 sales and 35 refunds/chargebacks per month Yeaup! I’m dead serious. The increase in sales feels like it goes completely to the serial refunders. Now you might think it’s still worth the extra profit but here’s why I tell you it isn’t (at least not for me): You want your business to be as hassle-free and passive as possible. Having 35 refunds/chargebacks a month is so time-consuming and frustrating. Some of them send an…
DISRUPTING a WordPress plugin market
…users. Plugins that with tons of utility and features. Plugins with emerging niches that show trending growth. STEP #2 – Build a free plugin with essential features. It’s simple as that. Pick the most essential features that everybody wants…even better if you can put the features that other plugins charge for…and make it for free! Your plugin will now have only essential features, built from scratch for the purpose of the current era. Whereas other plugins are bloated and full of features from a previous era that aren’t as valuable today. Your plugin will theoretically…
WP Performance - cache plugin review
…cache the site accurately and in order of most important to least important pages. It’s also less likely to eat up too many resources preloading internal CPT urls like how other cache plugins typically do it. CSS/JS optimization – it can minify and combine and disable. The UI is so awesome! It allows you to easily exclude specific assets from combination, and also choosing which pages to disable certain assets. HTML optimizations – minify, remove comments/attributes/quotes. MEDIA optimization – lazy load for images & videos. Also simple settings to exclude images from lazy load by…
VPS vs DEDICATED (bare metal) - Which server should you choose?
…modules or particular configurations are not allowed because they use too much resources or are “insecure” on shared hosting environments. With your own server, you are free to configure it exactly as you please. DEDICATED (bare metal) server + Cheap at the high end (compared to VPS) + Super fast TTFB (on a fast-enough machine) + Lots of bandwidth + Can have multiple IP’s – Expensive at the low end (compared to VPS) – More prone to hardware issues (compared to VPS) I have to list dedicated servers first because they came first. All…
How do you land the big web development clients?
…costs you $10k, but makes you $50k! Your competitors website is so amazing, so yours must be better! Here are 10 ways a new website can help your business… All you need to do is provide a pleasant experience… Hi, my name is Johnny and our team is really talented. We do fantastic work and have lots of happy clients. Check out some of our past work. Then show them something REALLY REALLY SEXY! DONE! PS: this post was inspired by a great question somebody asked in the Make Money With Web Design FB group….
WP Interview - Daan van den Bergh (of WoOSH.DEV)
…placement and pick an Ad Publishing Platform that keeps performance in mind. With my Speed Optimization clients, I’ve seen platforms that made ~500 requests, only to display 3 advertisements. And well, rule no. 1 in Internet Marketing is: a slow website kills conversion. No, I will not be releasing a Stealth Mode for Adsense, as it’s impossible, irresponsible and nowhere near that precious thin line. 😉 That’s all I got! Kind regards, Daan van den Bergh Follow Daan’s work: Pro WordPress Speed Optimization services (starting at € 99,-): https://woosh.dev Free WordPress Optimization Tips & Tricks: https://daan.dev Follow me on Twitter: @Dan0sz…
Where to get a great logo
…a nice brand story. After client chooses one concept, refine it with a couple adjustments. (Or come up with more concepts if the client hates them all.) Prepare the logo for use in different formats (rectangle spacing, square spacing, tiny spacing). Also contrasting light on dark, and dark on light. Also swapping colors if need be. Provide color sheet and style guide (only ultra-professional companies do this). As you can see, a totally comprehensive job like this will take a lot of time. And you must know that your designer will have to come up…
How to COPY-PASTE Gutenberg blocks
…#3 – EditorsKit https://wordpress.org/plugins/block-options/ Once again, Jeffrey Carandang (phpbits) to the rescue with another super handy plugin to deal with day-to-day WordPress issues. He’s made dozens of handy ones before and he’s an awesome guy. https://twitter.com/editorskit/status/1177159579232129024 All you gotta do is install the EditorsKit plugin and then you can COPY/PASTE to your heart’s content! You can also “Export as JSON” and then drag-and-drop onto another site (that also has EditorsKit installed). I personally hate installing new plugins so I don’t like going this route but I’m sure many people would love not only this simple…
WordPress Migration Plugins Review (UPDATED 2018)
…really like it! Getting around the 500mb size limit – easy, simply exclude the “wp-content” from your export (that greatly keeps the size down), and then just compress and extract yourself using cPanel’s File Manager. Tips – if your database fails to import, exclude that as well and import it manually. Check out All-in-One WP Migration 2. Migrate Guru – the fastest way to migrate a site! Duplicator used to be my favorite until this one came along. It’s so easy to use! It really is the fastest way to move a site and…
Is SEO worth it anymore?
…times harder than PPC but yes, it’s worth it. I mean, who wouldn’t want all those free hits? Certain keywords can cost you $1/click with PPC but with SEO, it’s totally free. Everyone complaining about Google being hard to predict or having algorithms that don’t support the little guys doesn’t know what they’re doing. Yes, it’s true in SOME cases, but not all. Many of my websites have not been altered for years and they still rank well. The bottom line is, if you’re going to game the system instead of doing truely organic SEO,…
HostArmada review - old school shared hosting (with a twist)
My personal review of this interesting NEW-SCHOOL take on an OLD-SCHOOL style webhosting. They gave me a free account like a hundred years ago. I looked at their site and was like….yeah, whatever. And then time passed and since they really persisted (and had a different vibe in their emails then most companies), I decided to give them a shot. They service seemed cheesy at first glance, but then I actually grew to like them. Here’s why… 1st thoughts of HostArmada Their website design feels like a modern generic version between Cloudways and Kinsta. It’s…
Where to buy cPanel licenses
So I went around looking for places to buy cPanel licenses last night. I found different rates and different options: BuycPanel.com – popular cPanel reseller. Nice site filled with many options and allows you to pay for a monthly license (instead of paying the yearly price). They will even install cPanel on your server for you free of charge! Directly from cPanel themselves – it’s the most costly option because they make you pay upfront for a yearly license. I also didn’t see any options for add-ons (Litespeed, Softaculous, etc). cpaneldirect.net – another popular site…
UNDERSCORE vs HYPHEN (in text strings)
Today’s tech PSA so clients don’t make me want to jump out the window. There are many explanations about whether to UNDERSCORES “_” vs HYPHENS “-” in your day to day technical tasks. SEO consultants say hyphens are better because it clearly separates words in search engines. (e.g. fancy-cars is read as “fancy cars”, and fancy_cars is read as “fancycars”) Python programmers say underscores are better (something_1.py vs something-1.py) because the hyphen means something else in Python. UI experts say hyphens look better because your eyes are constantly pulled to the bottom of the string….
Appreciation post for WP Migrate DB
If you ain’t using this, you ain’t a pro! It’s super useful for managing databases and large site migrations. I really enjoy it so much. The more often you’re working with complicated or super large websites, the more likely WP Migrate DB was the tool you never knew you needed. https://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-migrate-db/ What can WP Migrate DB do? Find and replace data. (Like Better Search Replace, but without that annoying page size limit.) Exporting the database (conveniently from WP backend instead of logging into phpMyAdmin). Import databases. Basically…a bunch of stuff, and I don’t even use…
Stop word-stuffing your blogs for SEO
I get it. I know why you’re doing it. Somebody told you more words = higher SEO rankings. And ughhh…it’s true. Having more words really does establish you more as the “authority” on search engines. And to some degree by visitors as well. They see a giant post and automatically assume “Ooooh, this is super long, must be comprehensive…let’s save it!” But for me, it’s freaken annoying. And makes for poor UX. So what do we do about it? If you care about SEO Then just keep what you’re doing. Google’s algorithms are still vulnerable…
SEO vs Facebook Ads
I like the idea of both. FB ads are a great way to snipe out your target demographic with laser precision quickly and even relatively cheaply if you know what you’re doing. SEO is a great way to get anybody and everyone over the long term. I used to be only about SEO since I’ve used it well enough to get half a million hits/month on my site from search…I wouldn’t be able to afford (nor do I want to) pay even $0.01 for any those hits. But to duplicate that level of success each…
How to get early access to Cloudflare QUIC?
Want early access to Cloudflare QUIC protocol? Go to the Network tab, then click “Join the Waitlist”. Why is this exciting? It’s because QUIC protocol was previously not available with Cloudflare…and if you wanted it, you had to disable Cloudflare’s performance/security features. That’s it! Want to learn more about QUIC protocol? (Search it on Google!)…
Adventures with Amazon managed databases (Lightsail, RDS, Aurora)
…houses down the street? Walking is probably faster in that case. Even if you’re a super slow walker. If you’ve got that many queries and really long complex ones, and millions of traffic…ok, you might start to see performance gains otherwise, it’s not worth the hassle for common folk. Some things I noticed: Lightsail DB – kinda slow. It’s supposedly built on RDS but it feels slower than RDS, that’s for sure. It’s very easy to set up and cheap. RDS – faster and with tons of options. Can upsize or downsize. There’s performance monitoring,…
Sendy self-hosted email software review
…to send emails than MailChimp. Drawbacks to Sendy Sendy might not have certain features that you want. And Sendy might not look as fancy and polished as your paid email service. However…I’m wiling to bet its simplicity might even be an advantage…perfect for users who want a simpler email service and never use all those fancy segmentation or automation features. So before going through the hassle of converting to Sendy, you need to make sure it has all the essential features you need. Sendy features: Visit their page and make sure! https://sendy.co/ Email list –…
Which is the fastest WordPress theme?
…it was “most customizable theme”. And I’ve checked out over a dozen others. Either because friends/fans suggested them to me. Or because their developer sent me a copy directly hoping I would review them on my blog. Some of them are actually pretty good and look promising but here’s the thing they’re missing…no community. I can’t recommend a theme that doesn’t have a community. It’s been like this since CMS’s have been around. The #1 support for any theme will always be the community. Back then, I used to scour the forums and then have…
LiveCanvas HTML/CSS pagebuilder for WordPress - REVIEW
…for you to build upon. Again…that’s perfect for me…but I’m sure many people accustomed to the slick finished Elementor/DIVI designs will think LiveCanvas is “inferior”. It really depends where you’re coming from. If you’re a noob with no sense of design logic…I think you’re better off with a finished theme or DIVI/Elementor to give you nice design inspirations. LiveCanvas is more for developers that already have finished graphic designs from their clients and now just have to code them into WordPress. My suggestions to improve LiveCanvas. 1. The plugin should have a simple checkbox to…
HOW and HOW NOT to write a copycat blog
…go to heaven or hell. Content Jesus does. Do some Google searches for topics you want to be associated with, pull up the top 5 results, and rehash their writing. Simple as that. Also do a similar-ish version of their post title. STEP 3 – have a professional looking website Way too many people jack up this part. Their content is good enough to rank on Google, and visitors come, and what do they see?! A silly ass generic-looking site with (super obvious) stock theme installed. Please. If you’re gonna be a copycat do it…
Greenshift - Gutenberg pagebuilder blocks (with animation)
…their biased comparison page, showing how they have faster page scores than everybody else. They didn’t even show what the pages looked like. It’s not a very good or very fair comparison. And looks shady to do comparisons this way. Faceless company Their about page doesn’t feature any face or personal name. Feels very unprofessional and perhaps not trustworthy. Is this a new-and-shy developer? Or perhaps someone not proud of their work to claim it? What problem are we really solving? My biggest issue, and this is really only just for me personally, is that…
Fixing WordPress post edit errors - "not a valid JSON response"
Can’t save changes to your post? I got the fixes for you these error messages: “Updating failed. Error message. The response is not a valid JSON response.” or “Looks like something’s gone wrong. Wait a couple seconds.” Try these troubleshooting steps: 1. Check website address: Go to Dashboard > Settings > General Make sure the WordPress Address (URL) and Site Address (URL) are the same. 2. Check HTTPS status: Make sure you have SSL certificates generated and that you don’t have mixed content issues. 3. Save permalinks: Go to Dashboard > Settings > Permalinks. Hit…
Bill Waterson - a life worth living
https://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2013/05/20/bill-watterson-1990-kenyon-speech/ I absolutely love these words and so proud to have aligned my life along these values. Forever working harder, and happier. 🙂…
LTD suspicions - deal or desperation?
…yourself…. Why is this company making more on LTD than on recurring subscriptions? Why are their recurring subscriptions so low? Is there something wrong/undesirable with their service? The only way to protect yourself from these is to have used the service for at least 3-6 months so you know for sure it’s the right one for you. Another thing to watch for is if it seems the company is pushing really hard to sell LTD’s. As if they need those sales! 5. The company doesn’t really make any money on recurring subscriptions. Why would any…
WPJohnny WordPress theme roundup 2021
…fast lean Gutenberg block code. Very fun to use and could totally be a gamechanger. Many other features as well such as cloud templating and sharing designs across different sites and with community. Still lacking in starter templates and many things still being improved. I would probably not use this on a super complicated site for now. But do give it a try. 6. Neve Has many similar features that you see in Blocksy and Kadence. But backed by a big company with lots of support resources. If you’re too shy to ask for help…
Thesis Theme Review
It’s a great theme and I’m very happy with it. I’m using it on a very large site and enjoy it very much. FYI, I’m using Thesis Theme version 1.8.2. I compare some of the well-known pros and cons of ThesisTheme. PROS of Thesis Theme: SEO – this is Thesis’s main strength. It’s not 100% perfectly written but it’s solid. You won’t need the All-In-One SEO plugin if you have Thesis installed. There are many options to give you complete control of your website’s SEO. Customization – sure, any theme can be customized if…
GoDaddy Managed WordPress Hosting SUCKS
…for sure. I saw a client on php 5. If you don’t mind your website taking more seconds to load, then by all means use them. But at least we can agree PROBLEM #2 – php 5 SERIOUSLY?! This is 2018. They’re selling managed WordPress hosting with php5?! It would be like buying a new car that didn’t come with air conditioning. PROBLEM #3 – slow file transfer They use SFTP, sounds like a cool security thing, right? WRONG! SFTP is slow as heck. 1gb of files took me several hours on a FIOS connection….
LiteSpeed Cache vs Varnish Cache
…even discussions about whether or not NGINX is even any faster with Varnish. I also like that LiteSpeed cache functions directly from the web server core whereas Varnish has to be added as a separate layer to your stack. That’s one more proxy, one more channel of communication to process in both directions, on more layer of complexity. I still like Varnish Don’t get me wrong, I still like Varnish for its hacky open-source vibe and well aware of the many more companies using it over LiteSpeed. It’s fun to use…free, quick to setup, and…
Affinity design software review
Quick thoughts on the Affinity software and how it compares to Adobe! If you’re a graphics designer and haven’t heard of Affinity before, you’re totally missing out. Their software looks and functions like Adobe, also compatible with its file formats, and much cheaper! Affinity made waves as a super cheap Adobe-clone. I don’t think that’s how they wanted to portray themselves. Their website verbiage describes themselves as passionate software-makers for creative artists. But what the design world knows them as…is Adobe-compatible designer software that’s affordable. But for a long time, that didn’t matter since Photoshop…
How to Set a Sales Meeting
If it matters, I would suggest to make sure that it feels more like a free consultation rather than a sales pitch. Everyone always seems too busy unless you’re there to help them or do something for them. Instead of asking for “Just 15 minutes of your time”, it could be more like, “Let’s talk more about your business on Monday!” It’s important to let them know that you’re just there to give free tips and suggestions for their business. Things they can do on their own (small businesses love to hear this) and that…
GeneratePress vs Astra (WordPress theme comparison)
…has done more than just GeneratePress. He’s built some really awesome plugins that are available free to the community. Check them out: GenerateBlocks, Social Icons, Simple CSS, Grid Columns, WP Show Posts. Incredible work. And please keep in mind that I’m a diehard Genesis guy and yet still won over by GeneratePress. Those 2 themes are similar but completely different in user demographic and community culture. “But isn’t GeneratePress made by only one guy, while Astra is backed by a whole team?“ Honestly, I feel like I trust it even more for being made by…
The ETHICS of WordPress GPL
…free-version ripoff of paid Genesis. And while Blocksy may not be a blatant ripoff of another existing theme, there’s no doubt that it borrows upon innovations made from previous themes. But is copying bad? And how much of it should be allowed? The GPL debate all over again The nature of open-source protects innovation by allowing it to be freely copied at will (whether for personal or commercial use). The General Public License (GPL) is an open-source license and applies to WordPress core and any 3rd-party theme or plugin operating in the WordPress eco-system. It’s…
AVADA vs DIVI vs X Theme - Premium Wordpress Theme Framework 2016 Review
…REAL LIFE UPDATE (9/9/16): AVADA is major bloat. I’m going back to Genesis or Thesis. It’s great to use AVADA if you need inspiration. But to have a clean well-designed website that runs fast…use a cleaner framework that doesn’t focus on trying to be everything. Remember that you only design your website once and then a few minor tweaks later. Most of your website will be running and loading, rather than designing. At the end of the day, as attractive as it may be try not to choose a framework built for design rather than…
Writing Tips for First-Time Bloggers
…pressure. You don’t need to worry about Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, etc. People ask me, “but how will I get traffic if I don’t use those?” And to me it’s like…”how will you get followers if your site doesn’t offer anything of value”. So please go focus on offering value (which is blogging). Unless you want to focus on creating Instagram pictures…which is a different kind of blogging value. 9. Choose a simple website theme. I see people wasting so much time trying to decide how their blogging website should look. And it’s stupid because your…
How to FINISH your web design project (without delay)
I’ve had yet the umpteenth client the other day with an all too familiar issue: OMG, HELP! My web designer quit! And honestly, this madness is equally stressful on both the client as well as the designer. The designer just wants to get paid. And the client just wants their website finished. Sounds so simple and yet so difficult. Here’s how you fix that… The art of finishing a site Break the site into 3 phases. Manageable chunks each with a focused goal and NO DISTRACTIONS. If it has to be said: the goal…
WPML Speed Optimization Tips
…multi-lingual admins). All the internal php string text names that only show in the code, delete that. Delete delete delete. Your WPML site may start to run pretty fast once you get down to 500 strings. Don’t BE LAZY. Keep deleting. Scrutinize every string until you get under 100. By then, you may be shocked to find your site runs just as fast as when it was brand new. Last tip: MAKE SURE YOU followed step #1…or else all the strings you deleted will come right back. 3. Have a clean-coded theme WPML kinda re-processes…
GADWP Plugin is now GAinWP (SCREW ExactMetrics)
If you’ve been a former user of the classic Google Analytics Dashboard for WordPress (GADWP) plugin, there are now 2 community forks in its place! This is a public service announcement. For those who don’t know….the beloved GADWP plugin was recently taken over by and disgustingly commercialized by ExactMetrics (it’s new name), which turned it into an expensively-priced plugin. What used to be such a great simple little plugin to show Google Analytics stats from your Dashboard and had nearly a perfect 5-star rating suddenly tanked to 2 stars overnight due to hundreds of 1-star…
WordPress Speed Optimization Courses
…Easily digested for quick learning. New lessons and topics will be added to over time, as decided by me and/or requested by members. You’ll receive email updates when lessons are updated or added. Anyone finishing all 3 courses will be given a WPJ Certification and listing on the WPJ-Certified Speed Specialists page. Print it out, show your children, or post on your website. (I also reserve the right to de-list you from that page for any reason.) UPDATES: ADVANCED course is now released! Comments now activated on all lessons, so you can ask questions or…
Best WordPress Pagebuilders Review - UPDATED 2022
…You should avoid the theme it comes with as well. King Composer – hardly no one uses it and really bad. Site Origin – CAN be lean but I think it’s not popular among devs. Thrive Architect – not coded well compared to the rest of the market, slow! WPBakery – one of the worst! Visual Composer – basically a better version of WPBakery but still massively bloated. I hate the giant autoload entries in database. Fusion Builder – comes with those super bloated themes like Avada. Get rid of this and the whole theme!…
Best CDN Providers for WordPress - Speed Review 2020
…cheap, fast and works! DNS is not as fast as CloudFlare, IMO. I have many clients on this. All are very responsive. Beluga – I haven’t tried yet. CDN.net – never tried, but heard about awful/shady billing practices. CloudFlare – many say they aren’t a true CDN but they perform with similar results…also free and super fast, fastest DNS times out there. I’ve heard many complaints from folks I respect but I can’t help but wonder if all their 500 errors might just be their server. (If CloudFlare’s DNS is reliable in your target areas,…
Contact
Contact form ONLY for official business and paid WPJ plugins. Do not ask me for free help! Free WordPress help – post in my WPJohnny Facebook group. Free WPJ plugin help – post in the WP plugin repo. Speed optimization – I only do speed consultation & courses now. I’m super busy, expensive, and don’t like difficult clients. Please try other experts & speed specialists. Partnership requests – offer to pay me money upfront (like my clients are), or I have no time for you. I didn’t create this site to be an affiliate marketer….
Do you need a dedicated IP for webhosting? (debunking myths)
…and how they relate in the world of computer networks. What is an IP? An IP is a like a computer network version of a phone number. Each IP points to a computer, or actually a “server” in the world of webhosting. So imagine that if one computer was to make a connection request to another computer, it would make the request using it’s IP. Think like someone making a phone call to another person using their phone number. What’s a domain name? A domain name is like a human-friendly address that point to an…
Choosing a (good) domain registrar
What makes a good domain registrar? I like Whois.com, Cloudflare, and maybe GoDaddy for difficult foreign TLDs (that require proxy service). All I care about it: Good UI – easy-to-use interface that isn’t bombarding me with web and email hosting ads! (Hahaha) Domain selection – provides many TLDs. This way you don’t have to register at multiple registrars. Can get them all conveniently in the same place. Free privacy – this is especially important if you have busy sites/domains. Without the privacy options, your emails and home mailbox will be bombarded with spam. Provides proxy…
Best (FREE & PAID) Remote Desktop Software
…great if your computers/IP are flagged by Team Viewer for commercial use. But why not the others? (Ammy, GoToMyPC, Microsoft Remote Desktop) Yes, I’m aware there are many others but they come with either of these shortcomings making them unsuitable for me: Don’t allow unattended access – you need to have someone at both computers to initiate connections. Don’t work for both PC & Mac – I have both so I need compatibility with both. If you only have one, your life will be easier. Doesn’t have file transfer – I really need this. So…
What's a Good Word Count for Blog Posts?
…really hard for you. I absolutely love writing and find myself having to break off my writing into separate blog posts because that’s how carried away I am with it. But sure, for SEO purposes and nothing else….1k words is a good start. 2-3k if you want to get on the verge of substantial content and epic posts. My 10-40k blog posts tend to make more money. There’s no limit to HOW MUCH you can write. But sure, as for doing the minimum possible….1k is probably the current trend. I meant every word of it….
Bricks WordPress theme and pagebuilder review
…nowhere to escape. Try to change away any part of it and your site breaks or the design looks neutered. Their stupid theme-and-pagebuilder combo never quite worked together, but also never worked apart. *face palm* What are the advantages of a theme/pagebuilder combo? Theoretically…having a 2-in-1 theme and pagebuilder combo is great because they’re closely related with many overlapping functions and will have less conflict than if you were to have a separate theme and pagebuilder plugin. If you’ve used Elementor before with different themes, you might remember having to wrestle back and forth figuring…
SiteGround Webhosting Review - UPDATED 2020
…but have raised their prices to the point of being unattractive. AUG 2020 UPDATE – new stack, new support limits SiteGround has a brand new stack and moved to a major cloud distribution network instead of (what I assume) running their own datacenters. They say it makes everything 40% faster but I haven’t personally seen that to be the case. There are also complaints online about people saying it’s slower than before. Hmmm. One thing for sure, I’m in direct contact with a higher-up at SiteGround who wanted me to review their new stack. And…
Custom Post Types (CPT) vs custom Gutenberg blocks
…– reviews, recipes Different types of content organization – portfolios, directories Sure, there are more scenarios that don’t come to mind right now but this guide is too long already! How CPT’s and custom Gutenberg blocks are DIFFERENT They’re different in how they’re used, and the type of customization they offer. Gutenberg blocks are content blocks, and used from within your content editor. Basically, any space where you can can edit content with the Gutenberg editor. CPT’s are related to content taxonomy. They are for creating an entirely new category of content, and usually with…
WebP image format in 2020 - is it global yet?
My short answer: no, WebP ain’t ready for primetime yet. It’s not used everywhere, not compatible with every device. And if you stick that image in that format, you risk a small percentage of people/devices not being able to see it. The benefits are what…15-20% space savings? But in reality, that’s zero space savings because best practices require you to still have jpeg/png fallbacks in case the visitor isn’t WebP-compatible yet. This means webp would double your media storage use. Do you think you’re saving on speed? Because the answer is NO on that as…
Pagebuilders are always a LONGTERM mistake
…and releases new features every year…..half-baked features that are rarely tested thoroughly. These companies are motivated by profit more than anything else, ya know. And what happens next? Things break! What else? 3. Pagebuilders are difficult to remove You might be in love with Elementor/DIVI now but I promise you the fling ends inevitably. Those days of wonderment exploring fancy effects and widgets will soon be replaced by buyers remorse and impatient waiting for things to load. Even simple text changes will feel like half-day errands. You’ll say to yourself, “Oh no problem. I’ll just…
Akamai's Linode acquisition - initial thoughts
Thoughts right off the top of my head surrounding this surprise news. In hindsight, I could have totally seen this coming. All the right pieces were in play. Every hint and cue was there but I didn’t suspect it because of my blind faith in Linode. But push that personal bias aside and what do you see? A company going stagnant compared to its competition. A company promising to expand service coverage but moving slowly (or not really moving at all). A company hinting at new products and services (for years) but never delivering. A…
AffiliateWP plugin review
…is the best by far. Best code, cleanest looking, tons of features and integrations. Great support and ongoing development. Don’t worry, I made sure I liked the plugin by testing with the single-site $99/year license and then paid the difference to upgrade to lifetime after 5 months. One of the best decisions ever. Try AffiliateWP today (affiliate link) I like AffiliateWP so much I built 2 addons for it: A (free) migration script to go from Affiliate Royale to AffiliateWP. A (paid) addon to track conversions and visits from an external site. Details coming soon….
Are you selling price DISCOUNTS or INCREASES?
How you answer this makes me judge you as an amateur or a pro. I come from a long marketing background, and absolutely will make fun of you in private. I guarantee it! What happens when you DECREASE PRICE? Here’s what price decreases communicate: Your product isn’t worth a higher price. Your product isn’t as good as other products at the higher price. You might decrease price again later. You really want sales/users. Quite simply, decreasing your price communicates a lower value. And you know what really sucks? The value decrease doesn’t affect only your…
BEST WordPress SEO plugins 2021
…2. All-in-One SEO I loved what this plugin used to be…before Syed Balkhi touched it. AIO SEO is now acquired under his umbrella companies and everything he touches loses its soul. I’m sure it’s worth it but no thanks. https://wordpress.org/plugins/all-in-one-seo-pack/ 3. All the others Here goes more stuff I don’t use personally, and only deal with occasionally on client sites. SEOPress – seems like a nice brand. I haven’t tried it much. I did hear some people complaining about it making a mess out of the database and lots of unnecessary entries in there (even…
Are plugin acquisitions bad for WordPress users?
…dev yourself, help contribute to the project…yes, for free! Ideas for once a plugin gets sold: FORK – if you’re a dev (and the plugin is simple enough), fork it. SUPPORT COMPETITORS – even if the plugin is absolutely essential to you, switch over to a smaller competitor and beg them to implement your most critical features. Once they do, work your ass off to promote them. It’s the only way to prevent plugin monopolies. Who else got ideas? Cuz we sure need them in a time like this. (Drop them in the comments below.)…
Linode - VPS Hosting Review - Updated 2017
I’m incredibly happy with Linode VPS Hosting for the past 5 years. I honestly don’t even like telling people about them because I don’t want this company to grow, get bought out, or decrease their quality of service like GoDaddy or any of the EIG hosting companies. Linode has 0% downtime or constant upgrade/migration issues and what not. It has been one of the best decisions of my life. But they’re not just great on their own but also compared against others like Digital Ocean, Dreamhost, Lightsail, OVH, Ramnode, Scaleway, etc. Please go see for…
Popup Domination or Not?
I’ve been an internet marketer for some time and pretty much torn between using Pop-up Dominator or not. Many websites have used it with great success and boosted their email newsletter sign-ups tremendously but still, I resist. PROS of website pop-ups it actually works builds your email list very quickly can help you increase profits CONS of website pop-ups annoying My verdict? I’m not going to annoy my customers. I think my content is good enough for them to come back and eventually buy my products after investing themselves in my site over time. I…
Do you REALLY need an email list? (INTERNET MARKETING)
…#1 most financially rewarding thing for me. What’s BETTER than the email list is to build an amazing website (usually something to do with passion) that is essential to people’s lives. Something that they will check EVERY SINGLE DAY, the same way you would with your email. People were checking emails, Facebook, Youtube, and MY SITE. And I made so much money this way because instead of having to design my site around collecting emails, I could design more around having useful content and then selling my stuff. The visitors were constantly coming back so…
Don't use Adsense - You're LOSING Money!
Adsense is the WORST WAY to monetize your website. I’ve used Adsense for years (and still do on my less-developed websites) and also sell my own products. Adsense is by far the WORST OPTION in terms of monetizing a website. Of all the banner ads you could place on your site, Adsense might be the highest paying one but overall, banner ads are an ineffective way to make money. The same traffic that makes $200 off adsense could have easily brought you $3,000-5,000 in product sales. I’m dead serious. Think about it….Google’s Adsense commissions are…
ShortPixel is the BEST Image Compression Plugin for WordPress
…easy backup/restore of originals. And last but not least, it’s the best one of all the image compression tools I’ve tried. It consistently gets better quality at smaller size. Other tools may be ok with gradients but poor with sharp details (or vice versa), or ok with big images but poor with small (or vice versa)…but ShortPixel is great across the board. I’m aware of new image compression plugins showing up on the market everyday to monetize on the trend but ShortPixel is still the best for me. Try ShortPixel for free! – ShortPixel website…
Other WordPress Experts
…in admin community. WordPress developers: Sridhar Katakam – runs a massive membership tutorial site for Genesis, also another one for Oxygen pagebuilder. Awesome guy but probably too busy to do side projects. Christoph Herr – another awesome WordPress/Genesis developer. I used to use him for our “code laundry” but he’s probably too busy now. Seekmid – plugin developer who loves doing complex computations. Yin – one of our internal developers. Travis Smith – A-level developer and former WP theme/plugin repo team. $150/hr. Web designers: Swoon & Creative – nice gal who’s done work for some…
The Lazy Man's guide to SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING
…everyday Share on LinkedIn if you’re a B2B company or like rapid-fire engagements with other social media people. Post photos on Instagram or Pinterest if you’re a visual-oriented brand (products, fashion, custom-stuff) Put videos up on Youtube Respond to comments Go to actual events, meet people, take pictures of people and things…then post up your videos/photos and tag all the things and people in them UGHHHH, too much work! And nobody got time for that! So follow my advice and do it this way. 1. Create only necessary social media accounts Website blog – not…
Open-Source vs Proprietary (closed-source)
Which is better? The free-for-all community driven software or mature enterprise-grade production-ready commercial software? Those supporting open-source software claim it has the obvious advantage of being free but more importantly, is developed by more community experts with more contributing hands. It’s likely to grow and fork faster into more exciting projects. Those support proprietary software claim it’s more mature, secure, has more consistent support, and far more likely to stick around when there’s money in it to pay for top-level developers. IMO, the answer is both. Having both open-source and proprietary around forces both of…
Private consultation
You can look up answers to all technical questions free of charge on Google. You can also use my WPJohnny Facebook Group for free community help. But if you’re really that shy then fine, you can consult with me privately. $200/hr or $100/half-hour. Private Consultation Δ Name: Email: Desired day/time of consultation: Payment method: Credit/Debit Card PayPal Payment amount (USD): Confirm…
VPS.net Hosting Sucks! - Bad Review
Here goes my bad review of VPS.net (owned by UK2 group). I use to be a shared hosting customer of ANhosting.com for several years — which I still am. They offered good service and good support which was far better than Dreamhost. ANhosting was my savior when one of my websites got popular and I matured to VPS. Who better to trust than the company that offered me the best shared hosting I could find? And so I opened an account at VPS.net. I went with their un-managed VPS hosting (which was surprisingly affordable), purchasing…
Easy Headline Formula
Learn the basics…and then break all the rules. https://blog.crazyegg.com/2015/06/05/10-fill-in-blank-headlines/…
MacSales battery replacements review (not good)
I bought a Macbook Air battery replacment here at https://eshop.macsales.com and it didn’t work very well at all. Just take it from me and don’t waste your time. Try sticking with Apple-brand replacement batteries only. Two main issues: I had longer charge for about 1-2 months. After that, the battery life was just as bad as the one I replaced. I secretly wonder if Apple products are programmed to decrease battery life at some point. I lost the ability to see how long it would take to charge. Side note: My iPhone 6s which had…
Tesla guides and reviews
I bought a new Teslas months ago and very happy with it. Thought I would share all my research and findings all on a new little site just for Tesla stuff. There will be guides, reviews, DIY hack projects, and all kinds of things related only to Teslas. https://jtesla.com…
External Tracker for AffiliateWP (WPJ plugin)
…quick settings and that’s it. That’s it! You can now enjoy the extra affiliate stats. 🙂 Technical Details: You don’t have to read this but it’s useful if you’re curious of what to expect. MAIN site – with AffiliateWP and External Tracker for AffiliateWP installed. EXTERNAL site – with only External Tracker for Affiliate installed. Now go to the AffiliateWP Visits page (https://yourmainsite.com/wp-admin/admin.php?page=affiliate-wp-affiliates)…and there you will see visits to your external site showing up in the “Landing Page” column, and on the right side which ones converted or not. Buy External Tracker for AffiliateWP: BUY…
Do you really need a fast website for SEO?
IN SHORT: no, you don’t. IMO webpage load times and server performance doesn’t help SEO anywhere near what people think it does. There’s some kind of notion going around that super fast sites rank higher on Google and that’s not true. Tons of top-ranked sites are slow as heck. Google penalizes you for being very slow, they don’t reward you for being fast. They also don’t penalize you for being a little slower than your competitors. HOWEVER….your site speed will affect your user experience and that certainly affects Google rankings somewhat. If your site is…
The End of Facebook?
…family from one central location. It was nice to have access to contact everyone via chat, messaging, email, and sharing information quickly to one another. And then I saw that I didn’t need all those friends. In fact, I could probably live with just 100 of them. You know, the top 100 that actually comment and look at my stuff and interact with me IN REAL LIFE. As helpful as Facebook may be in mass communication among your many friends (and acquaintances), I’m not so sure it brings true meaning into my life. The fact…
Top reason most newbies fail at online marketing?
#1 reason would be not having a mentor or teacher. Internet marketing is a tough skill. Trying to learn how to be a successful IM on your own is like trying to be a successful piano player on your own. GOOD LUCK. It’s damn near impossible without structured guidance. Sure, there are always exceptions…but not everyone is born Beethoven. Mentors aren’t just there to teach you. They also serve as a (successful) role model. Because otherwise…you’d (likely) be imitating people who aren’t even very good….
How to Find Writing Consistency and Motivation for Blogging
I’ve written probably 300-400 pieces (about 20% of them 10,000-40,000 words) in the past 10 years with thousands of social shares across them. I’ve got some tough answers but I’ve found them to be most true. The first part is you have to like writing. If it’s not fun to you, if it sounds like work…there really isn’t much strategy to help you want to do it. It’s like trying to make a game out of eating something you hate. Sure, you can try mixing it into other foods and what not but you’ll never…
Can you compete in a busy niche?
…being first. Either trend-setter or trend-perfecter, right? To some degree, every niche you enter will always be a saturated niche. This is because every business has to somehow cater or make themselves relatable to existing customer needs. Suppose you were the first company to make flying cars. Sure, you could target all people want flying cars…but you might also target car owners, airline customers, adventure-seekers. See? No matter how small your niche may be, you’ll have to battle it out with bigger niches to really sustain yourself anyway. But that’s another topic for another time….
VPS REVIEW - Digital Ocean vs Linode vs Vultr
In my personal opinion, Linode is better than Vultr…and Vultr is better than Digital Ocean. I’ve used Linode in 3 continents for over 10 years. Used Vultr in 2 continents for several years. I haven’t done exact fair-comparison testing but through just firing up servers for clients using the same stack and “feeling it” (however you trust my feel for it, haha)….I feel Linode is better. When I run a quick hdparm, Linode is definitely faster. It goes in order of this Linode > Vultr > Digital Ocean. I think DO is the biggest “hype”…
Should you load Google Analytics in HEADER or FOOTER?
…to put GA scripts in the header? Sure, there are some. The main one being that having the Analytics script load sooner will ensure that your users are tracked more accurately. The idea is that you don’t want to miss out on what user actions are happening before the script is loaded. There’s also the argument that loading the GA script later may increase your bounce rates because it’ll seem like your users are leaving your site faster. For the most part, I think all the excuses are bunk. It should only be a 100-200ms…
RO Water Filter (Reverse Osmosis) Reviews and Setup Tips
…you don’t have to drill the sink. Not sure if they still have this option. Puronics – bad, terrible…I’m also not a fan of proprietary system. Costco – crappy RO system. Crappy….leaking right out of the box. Biocera – for best alkaline filters, but overpriced. Home Master – terrible. Local brands – it’s usually your local plumber or small company rebranding generic stuff under their name. Some can also be good (but you won’t know and there’s no Amazon reviews). The system is probably alright if you trust the company behind it to service it….
PREMIUM PRICING sells to all customers
…is. Both you and I know that things are just that way. High price commands high value, and also high demand. I’m just speaking generally here, ok? Your price sets the tone for your brands respect and positioning among other brands. Keep it high. Remind people how high it is. Have them remind and complain to others how high it is. That’s probably the best thing you can do for your brand’s pricing. Now just do me one favor: make sure your product or service is actually worth that high price. Because if it isn’t,…
My opinion on WordPress webserver script-stacks
…people. Not only end clients but also work partners or contractors. What are you gonna do when shit breaks and you’re not available? Do you have 2 or 3 other people with full SSH access that are familiar with Linux commands? What if you need to make an FTP account real quick? What if the database got corrupted? What if you lost file/user permissions? What if your server gets hacked? What if something is eating up a ton of resources and you’re not sure which site it is? I’m fully aware they come with a…
Don't sell your product on FLEA MARKETS (AppSumo)
…make so much more in the end. And and annnnnnnnddd….your brand actually carries respect. The bottom line is: Big brands like Apple don’t launch their new products at the flea market. And neither should you. Small brands are either IN a community or build their community first before launching. They don’t need a cardboard sign under the freeway to promote. Oh and FYI…if I see your product on there, I will 100% assume you ain’t doing well. That you don’t have money to develop the product thoroughly, let alone stay in business. And won’t even…
The new Safari is NOT faster than Chrome
False advertising on Apple’s part. I bought a new Macbook with the M1 chip. And while the chip is impressively fast, runs cool and quiet…the Safari browser is definitely not faster on it. I clicked around on several sites and the difference is noticeable enough for me. Chrome isn’t just faster for browsing speed, the actual application itself feels lighter than Safari. Maybe it’s the lighter frame UI design or my own mind wanting to believe whatever I want. But I certainly feel Safari is “heavier” somehow. Sure, I guess you could argue Chrome uses…
Mounting Linode storage volumes
…my demo one). mkdir “/mnt/demo25-blockstorage” – you can skip this step if you’re mounting the space to an existing directory. (Which IMO is more likely to be the case.) Otherwise, create the exact directory where you want it to be mounted. mount “/dev/disk/by-id/scsi-0Linode_Volume_hoon25-backupstorage” “/mnt/demo25-blockstorage” – but type exactly the path you want mounted (whether an existing one, or the one you specified above). Edit your /etc/fstab file, and add this to the bottom: /dev/disk/by-id/scsi-0Linode_Volume_hoon25-backupstorage /mnt/demo25-blockstorage ext4 defaults,noatime,nofail 2 – but again, make sure you type exactly the path you want mounted. That’s it! Easy peezy!…
WP Admin Dashboard - UI design fantasies
…gray. I don’t want them to remove the gray, just make it feel less gray. Many elements could just be cleaner. Fewer border lines so we don’t have an inception of divs/tables. Clean up that intro dashboard. Make it useful. 2. More organized No doubt about it. WordPress needs to have better organization, not only for finding things but also to teach users how WordPress works. That side menu gets especially confusing when you add more plugins. Sure, I know where to look for things because I’ve used WordPress for forever. But new or casual…
Selling Ebooks vs Videos (the better info-product moneymaker?)
Some people haven’t decided between the two as a source of income. Here are some comparisons you can make for ebooks vs videos: VIDEOS + cheaper faster to make + can seem more valuable and personal to prospective buyers + can be edited to make a highlight reel – require costly cameras, videos, lighting equipment to look professional – harder to send to your customer whether online or offline (files are big, hosting space, transfer rates, etc) EBOOKS + doesn’t require special tools to make (just a computer) + can be distributed through many…
How to Get People to BUY From You
…help them, you need to start helping them in the first place. The first thing is you should be doing is helping people. Teaching, sharing, contributing, HELPING! If all you’re trying to do is sell, sell, sell, don’t be surprised if they don’t buy. Your website should be helping them 90% of the time. And why? Well…because if you’re like most people, you have no credibility and no authority on the subject. And so that’s why you have to spend so much time helping people. It’s the easiest and fastest way to build credibility. Whatever…
What was your first breakthrough in making money online?
The first breakthrough is creating an online presence where you don’t have to spend all your efforts getting regular traffic (creating content, advertising, self-promotion). It can be on a website (SEO), social media (VIRAL CONTENT), or Youtube (SUBSCRIBERS). For me the best way is to have such great content that it sells itself and gets shared on its own. Once you get regular traffic, you can stop spending time trying to get people onto your site and start spending time creating products for them to buy. The other benefit is that a site that is…
99designs Graphics Design Contest Review
…the market for existing professional graphic designers. I can see and do agree with both sides of the debate. As of today, the prices have corrected closer to market rate. Gone are the days of getting an entire website designed for only $500. I would say the prices are still pretty cheap. Most countries around the world have a lower cost of living, so they can afford to do higher quality work at a lesser rate than designers in expensive Western countries. With all the desktop/mobile variations, and demands for better/cleaner logos…the level of contest…
Avoid Dropdown/Hamburger Menus (Bad Web Design UI)
…you can probably decrease the number of links you have on your site. Most sites have 10 options when 4 would have done just fine. Instead of: Home / Services / Testimonials / About / Contact Try: Services / About / Contact What about HOME and TESTIMONIALS, you wonder? Easy…just use your logo as the “home” button and sprinkle the testimonials throughout the homepage, services page, and even about page! Seriously, dropdown menus are usually a reflection of poor UI and lack of design clarity. And the common habit is to try and sneak in…
UNIXy Varnish review for NGINX or LiteSpeed Web Servers
…they have on their website. Slow to answer a sales email – seriously? I guess they don’t want my money. Bad reviews – read online and you’ll see plenty of complaints. Slow service for existing as well as new customers. They are not a good company to entrust your production servers to! (Probably) not faster than LiteSpeed & LScache – seriously, the amount of constant progress on LiteSpeed cache is incredible. If you want serious caching, go with LiteSpeed or even native NGINX cache. You really don’t have to deal with Varnish complexity any more….
SiteGround vs A2 - Webhosting Review 2020
A2 and SG are comparable, more or less. Generally, SG a little stronger but then has annoying CPU usage restrictions (they complain when you use too much). A2 got better pricing and performance isn’t bad either. SG is probably better in customer service. For those that care, SiteGround FEELS like the better webhosting service. Website and overall UI looks better. Price is higher. Service seems faster. Customer support seems friendlier/better. A2 isn’t completely inferior: It has lower pricing. It seems to let you have more visitors. It also seems that people who leave SG, do…
Is WordPress insecure? (no, it isn't!)
…go by the average person’s definition of “security”, nothing is secure and the best website is one that nobody knows about, has very little features, and therefore not as often a target for hackers. But if you go by the experienced developer’s definition of “security”, then WordPress is incredibly secure because everybody uses it and therefore it’s well-maintained by not only the core organization but also the community. “Security” is about function The only reason why any software could ever be a hack target is because it can do many things and store all kinds…
Hosting Multiple Sites in ONE Webhosting Account, is it INSECURE? (NO, it's not)
…website management, taking proper security measures and keeping your software/extensions updated! Getting a separate hosting account is like getting your own apartment because you don’t trust your roommates to lock the front door. Hmmm…I’m paranoid and STILL want separate accounts, how do I that? Lucky for you, there are many options today: You still have the old “shared account” style of hosting on cPanel and other control panels. Yes, some developers and users still like to chastise this as being “SO INSECURE AND TERRIBLE”. I think most people complaining don’t manage that many sites at…
"PLANS" vs "PRICING" - verbiage comparison
…Can seem more personal, more premium. Seems more like you’re paying for ongoing service, rather than just for a one-time product. Can only be used for services, not products. Duh! “PRICING”: Seems more transparent, straight to the point. Easier for the eye to see (like in website menus). Great for industry-savvy clients who know what they’re doing and just need to see prices and don’t need gimmicky fluff explanations. Probably more common when you have many products/services and or they have modular options that can be switched around. Which one do you use? The alternatives:…
Content Control plugin - for user content restriction
…permission to view the content Redirect users who do not have permission to view the content to login page (redirects back to page/post after login), website homepage or custom URL Display certain content on a page/post to logged in users only Display certain content on a page/post to specific user roles Display certain content on a page/post to logged out users Apply custom CSS classes to on page content restriction shortcodes Control the visibility of each sidebar/footer widget by selecting who can view each widget (everyone, logged out users, logged in users, specific user roles)….
How to NOT get destroyed by Google algorithm updates
…your pages have Amazon links…then yeah, you’re just asking for the ban-hammer! Let’s try 50/50? How about some philosophical pieces or anything other than the same old review and aff links template? 2. Stop writing ME-TOO content Write some original shit off the top of your head, using an original title. Don’t do the keyword research thing. Or at least don’t do it for all your content. Don’t worry. Google is smart enough to read “human speak” and still show your site in related searches. I understand this is damn near impossible for some of…
How to Find an Affordable Programmer
Finding a good coder can take a ton of time and money. The problem is not so much about getting the job done but finding a good coder. For the first job you ever post…always offer based on a fixed price. Over time after you’ve tried out many different coders. Just come back to the same one….and pay him his hourly rate…but have him give you an estimate number of hours beforehand. That way he feels free to get compensated for doing a quality job but he suffers if he ends up going over his…
Hire Me
…coolest designers on our team. You know those super-fancy million-dollar designs? We can do it. 😉 Web development – DISCLAIMER: we are pricey! Guaranteed, we will cost you more than other companies. You can check out my full services page (coming soon). My tech skills: web development & online marketing traditional marketing/branding, ad campaigns SEO, PPC (Google Adwords, Facebook ads) Social media marketing (Facebook, Twitter, Youtube) design UI/UX direction content marketing, SEO, copywriting web server management & speed optimization WordPress design, development, maintenance, and [speed optimization] E-commerce (WooCommerce/Shopify) Amazon Affiliates, Ebay network Newsletter management (Mailchimp,…
How Do You Stay Motivated?
…stood out more than most other things I’ve tried. Believe me, the excitement of making money online wears off once you actually start making it. For those who wonder: but who gets tired of making money? Well, some people are really in it to pile up a bunch of money. But others, like myself, just want free time or freedom to travel and work remotely, quit our jobs and that sort of stuff. And once you have enough money to stop working and travel…you’re going to start scheming how you can do even less! It’s…
The EASIEST WAY to Find Clients as a Freelancer
Jump on forums and start helping a bunch of people for free (the harder the task, the better), and at some point someone will hire you to handle their project for them.
WordPress Backup Plugin Review - BackupWordPress vs Updraft
I made a long explanation about it a long time ago but can’t remember everything I said. Basically, BackupWordpress has all the features I need for free and doesn’t nag me at all like UpDraft. Off the top of my head, Updraft: Doesn’t back up the entire root directory unless you pay for premium (so it misses my secret directories or files that I or clients may have placed in unconventional locations). Many unsuspecting clients use it not realizing this until it’s too late. Leaves orphan data in database when you uninstall it (probably trying…
Genesis vs Astra - WordPress Theme Review 2019
Sick of hearing misguided information from newbies who don’t have much experience with both. I use both Genesis and Astra. Genesis is clearly miles ahead, way more senior developers and higher level community on it. It’s not even a fair comparison. Astra is like a kitchen table with the option to add your own chairs. Genesis is the entire house (but without furniture). Genesis code is more complete and with better logic. On completeness alone, it will be faster as you wouldn’t have to add extra plugins (code) like you do with Astra. Not only…
Easiest image gallery plugin for WordPress
…try my forked WP Featherlight Disabled plugin. It’s kind of funny but it’s been a while since I’ve done any image galleries but needed one the other day. After wasting time reading silly reviews of bloated image gallery plugins (trying to do fancy tiling effects, and every which option for animations and navigations), I resorted asking one of my Slack groups. The top 2 answers: Just use Gutenberg Image gallery with WP Featherlight – oh yes, it really works! Beautifully simple and easy. Bloat-free. Use MEOW Gallery plugin – if you need more advanced features….
Mailchimp vs Mailerlite - email newsletter service review
…They started doing a things that alienated their userbase. One was that they felt they weren’t allow enough complex features, so they started adding all kinds of conversion tracking features and all that to compete with the likes of more full-featured email services (ActiveCampaign, ConvertKit). And the other was that they raised their prices. Both of these made their once-perfect service now feeling too complicated and also too expensive for the new small businesses. Not only that but Mailchimp emails were starting not to deliver as well as they used to. They were often getting…
Email Pop-up Plugin Review
…Has a free plan but can get pricey after that. Also on Shopify as well. I feel some people love their professional vibe. Others complain it feels generic and can’t be customized as much. What about the other plugins? I feel some are focused on an easy integration with your email service. Others more on customized pop-up design/location. Others on customized triggering/actions. You should decide what you need most. My personal advice Don’t use Thrive Leads no matter what – it’s slow, bloated, and only a matter of time before you (or your developer or…
Clone database in phpMyAdmin (easy way)
This is the fastest hassle-free way to clone your database in phpMyAdmin. Log into your webhosting and phpMyAdmin. Click on the database you want to clone. Click on the Operations tab. (Usually something like “username_wp”.) Scroll down to Copy Database to text field, and enter in the new database name. (You only have to put the last part of the name, not the username prefix in front of it. I also like to put “dev” at the end of it to know what it’s a clone of. So I might put in “wpdev” to end…
MailOptin Email Lead - WordPress plugin review
…actually really useful to get a glance at who’s signing up. Normally, you wouldn’t be able to see this unless you logged into your email marketing account. 8. A/B Split Testing This is a really hot feature right now and I don’t take it lightly. You can easily enable the split-testing feature on any campaign which then creates a duplicate of it with which you can variate some things. You can create as many splits as we you want. Then compare success rates between them and choose your winner. It’s a lot of fun and…
Responding to potential clients saying "your price is too high"
I give them free tips and point them to competitors with lower rates. Or let them know what things I can chop out to give a lower price. Don’t even waste your time. Don’t bother trying to justify value, ROI, benefits, blah blah blah. If they don’t see your value now, they certainly won’t see it later when you raise your rates and offer even better service. After all my years of running a business, I know not to waste any time convincing people on my price. I’m doing exciting things. I’m passionate about my…
Reduce Macbook fan noise
…coming from the back) but they still picked up the sounds…how annoying! The fan control app is great but I wouldn’t completely shut the fans off. I think you can still run them around 4k rpm and have some critical cooling during CPU-intensive tasks like recording. And they won’t be audible at that rate. If you don’t want to spend any money, the fan control app alone should be able to do it for you. Buying a quality dynamic microphone would be great to have better audio quality but will cost more and maybe some…
LiteSpeed (Enterprise) vs OpenLiteSpeed
LSWS vs OLS. Which LiteSpeed web server version should you get? Ugh…stop asking me this question, people! If you’re broke…get OpenLiteSpeed because it’s FREE, FAST, compatible with LiteSpeed cache plugin and htaccess, and has crawler (pre-caching) capability. Otherwise…spend money and get LiteSpeed Enterprise. It has extra features like WP-admin brute force protection, ESI-caching functionality to cache logged-in users or dynamic pages. Note about .htaccess: although OLS is compatible with htaccess, you have to restart PHP on every change (not a big deal). But LS enterprise will read updates right away; no restart required. Is there…
Getting rid of WordPress form spam
Are you tired of spam submission in your WordPress contact forms? This is the easiest way to do it…just use Fluent Forms plugin (FREE or PAID). I keep seeing annoying ideas on Facebook groups. Mostly from people using built-in pagebuilder (Elementor) forms functions, or other inferior form plugins. And they try to solve their form spam issues with even more convoluted ideas like: install another plugin for spam protection hacky recaptcha integrations custom urls paid services (I don’t know what they do exactly) honeypot using security plugins WAF blocking (lol) …and on, and on, and…
The origin of WordPress plugin bloat
Where does it really come from? Why are commercial themes and plugins so bloated?! Full of crap (you mostly don’t use) that slows down your site. Why can’t they just stick to essential functions? The more I custom-develop plugins, the more I start to realize the sad truth. It comes from the commercial plugin business model. It’s because of how plugins make money. They’re forced to create value to customers and compete against other plugins. And so we know what that means. It means you’re gonna have a crap ton of unnecessary features added into…
HARDCODING your (pagebuilder) header and footer
Some pro tips when manually-coding your bloated custom pagebuilder header and footer. This post was inspired by the work I did last night for a client site. He was sick of his pagebuilder slowing down his site speed and wanted to move away from it. The very first obvious step for me was getting rid of the Elementor custom themebuilder function used to override his theme header & footer. Once that’s gone, the pagebuilder and theme are truly decoupled and you’re free to switch out the theme first or pagebuilder first (your choice). For those…
Open-Source FILE MANAGER script comparison
My comparison of different (free) file manager scripts out there. Useful if you want a “file manager” feature for your sites or web server (and your webhosting stack doesn’t have one). Or if you’re like me and building your own webhosting panel. I was just shopping around different scripts and these were what I found. Hope it helps ya! Things I cared about: Clean UI – minimal, don’t wanna see lines all over and waste of vertical space. Easy to navigate. Shows useful info – file/folder sizes, permissions, ownership. Full featured – especially archiving! It…
Linux Configs - Software Installs & Configurations
Walk-though and recommended configurations. None of these are confirmed at the moment (but feel free to suggest ideas). Just outlining some ideas for the 3rd course. Course not finished recording. Once finished, price will be $300. Control panels cPanel CyberPanel DirectAdmin Plesk Software packages GZIP, Brotli CSF Nano f2B Redis Memcache Monitoring installs Monix New Relic WordPress CLI GitHub Sendy, Mautic…