Blogger vs WordPress Blog

OWASP, or Open Web Application Security Project is a non-profit dedicated to spreading information on application security. Their goal is to make software security visible so the public can make informed decisions when it comes to security. Every now and then OWASP constructs a list of the top ten most critical application security risks. But, this list isn't just constructed by them. The whole web community is encouraged to contribute. Their most recent list was published in 2013, with a newer version expected to be published later this year.

In a recent webinar, WP Engine's Security Engineer Justin Dailey, and Security Architect Will West talked through this list. Read below for a recap of OWASP's top 10 security risks and what you can do to further harden the security of your WordPress site.

1. Injection

"There's a lot of different kinds of injections, targeted at different kinds of subsystems. The essential thing they let you do is they let you bypass protections and do unintended things and access data you weren't intended to access," said West.

The way you can protect yourself from this is to enforce input type and length, ensure special characters are escaped, validate all input fields and use and input validation whitelist, and avoid dynamic queries or commands.

2. Weak Authentication and Session Management

This is when attacks take advantage of improper authentication or session management practices and can lead to revealing sensitive information like passwords.

This is why user management and authentication is important. You should perform user and role validation on all actions and use secure session cookie flags as well as CSRF tokens with forms.

3. Cross Site Scripting (XSS)

"Cross-site scripting is one of the most entertaining issues to find on a web page. One of the easiest ways for it to pop up is to have a JavaScript alert. It makes it so that someone who isn't supposed to put scripts on a page can't put scripts on a page," said West.

An unwanted script can lead to compromised credentials and sessions, site defacement, or redirection to malicious sites. To mitigate this you should sanitize input, output encodes all user data during upon rendering, and have positive output validation using a correct character set.

4. Insecure Direct Object References

It's scary when your files are exposed. Insecure direct object references lead to unauthorized data access. The most common that most people have heard of is called Local File Inclusion. This is where a secure file shows up on the front end of a web page.

You can ensure access control checks when using direct object references and use reference maps instead of direct references.

5. Security Misconfiguration

If your security configuration is outdated, or not set up properly this can lead to unintended access to data or application functions.

The easiest way to fight against a bad security configuration is a repeatable and testable hardening process and regular updating and patching processes. If you're diligent about security, you are way less likely to be hacked.

6. Sensitive Data Exposure

This is caused by improper encryption of sensitive data like payment credentials or personal information. This can lead to fraud or a company being victim to a PR scandal.

To fix this you should encrypt data and avoid storing sensitive data.

7. Missing Function Level Access Control

"Missing Function Level Access Control is one of my favorites to find because you are using the application and the JavaScript says 'no, you can't do this,' and then you can just go do it if you bypass the JavaScript on the application," said West.

Bypassing this protection allows access to unauthorized functions and data, using explicit grants and deny by default. Also, performing validations on client side and server side will protect you more thoroughly.

8. Cross Site Request Forgery

When this happens, the attack forces a logged in victim's browser to send a forged HTTP request that can include local session information. These requests target sites that do not have proper request validation.

If you want to avoid this, include an unpredictable CSFR token in each HTTP request.

9. Using Components with Known Vulnerabilities

This is pretty self-explanatory and probably the easiest thing to avoid. Hackers can bypass old security measures easily. Simply, keep track of the software versions your application is using and monitor the security of the components through public notifications like mailing lists. Lastly, remember to follow the policies which software components are acceptable. Two common software applications that have been exposed when it comes to WordPress are Tin Thumb and Rev Slider.

10. Unvalidated Redirects and Forwards

If your site gets hacked, the hackers can redirect users visiting your site to malicious sites. Also, it can trick you to think the malicious site is your site. If you can, you should avoid redirects and forwards altogether. If you have to use them, do not include dynamic parameters for the destination.

Final Thoughts

In regards to WP Engine, we supply a variety of platform protections. We conduct periodic security audits and real-time threat detection. WP Engine does automatic backups as well to make it near impossible to lose data. See here for what other WordPress security features we offer.

Source: The 10 Most Critical Application Security Risks

If you are a WordPress blogger using Bluehost hosting, and if you have missed reading my earlier post, click here & read that first.

In my earlier guide, I shared a ton of useful information for WordPress bloggers about:

Why you should use PHP 7 over PHP 5.6.

How to check which version of PHP your site is running on.

How to check if your plugins & WordPress theme are compatible with PHP 7.

This tutorial is going to help you improve your WordPress blog performance on Bluehost hosting by a great extent.

But before you start following this tutorial, you just need to do one thing:

Check if your existing plugins & theme are compatible with PHP 7. You can follow the process mentioned in the earlier tutorial to do that.

Once everything looks OK, let's go ahead & speed up your WordPress blog with PHP 7.

Note: For all new Bluehost WordPress customers, they are adding in PHP 7 by default.

If you are still on PHP 5.6, there's no need to worry as you can either ask Bluehost customer support to upgrade for you, or you can simply follow this tutorial & do it yourself.

Again, if you are running more than one WordPress site on your Bluehost hosting account, make sure your check that all the plugins & themes are compatible on all sites.

Also note: If something goes wrong, you can always downgrade to PHP 5.6 & everything will be fine.

I would also suggest you take a speed test before upgrading to PHP 7 to check the performance improvements.

To get started:

On this page, you have the option to select between various versions of PHP. In my case, it was set to PHP 5.6 by default.

Now select the option that says, "PHP 7.0 [Beta, check site functionality for compatibility after enabling]".

Click on Save Changes.

Within seconds, all files on your server with extension .php will be handled by the PHP 7.0 engine.

If you are using the display PHP version plugin, simply refresh your WordPress dashboard to see the new version of PHP.

Here is the result from my WordPress blog after upgrading to PHP 7.0:

That's it. With a few clicks, your WordPress blog will be running on PHP 7.0, which is way better than PHP 5.6.

Many shared hosting companies are now adding support for PHP 7.0 by default. However, if it's not already set and if you have an option to do it yourself, make sure you get it done.

If your hosting doesn't offer PHP 7.0, Bluehost is a running special promo right now and you can grab Bluehost hosting for a discounted price with the link below.

Get Bluehost hosting @ a discounted price.

Here are a few more tutorials that will help you master using Bluehost hosting:

Do let me know what it was like for you upgrading to PHP 7 on Bluehost hosting. Share your experience in the comments below!

Also, if you found this guide useful, do share it with others on Facebook & Twitter!

Like this:

Like Loading...

Source: How To Update To PHP 7 In Bluehost Web Hosting Using cPanel

At the ripe young age of 32, back in 2009, Uber CEO Travis Kalanick apparently launched a Wordpress blog called Swooshing, and for some reason he's never taken it down. The name is a reference to Red Swoosh, a peer-to-peer file sharing outfit that Kalanick and a partner sold to Akamai Technologies for $18.7 million in 2007. A friend pointed me to the blog, which doesn't contain anything too incendiary but is kind of a funny window into the tech dudebro mindset of a pre-Uber Kalanick who had already, at that point, invested in a dozen startups (including the nascent UberCab, as he notes on his About page).

While I can not confirm beyond a shadow of a doubt that this is all the work of Kalanick and not some clever imposter who back-stamped a bunch of blog posts, it certainly sounds like him. "Yo, this is the Swooshing blog," he writes. "Travis Kalanick runs the show here, and posts every once in awhile about ideas, startups, government corruption and whatever's on his mind."

There are only ten entries in total, written perhaps when Kalanick had some time on his hands in between gigs, beginning in March 2009 (the kickoff entry is titled "Startup Seed Raising Skilzzz") and ending abruptly in July 2010 with an entry all about an alleged female Russian spy who had infiltrated Silicon Valley in which he discusses all the mutual friends they had on Facebook.

In between we get some delightful tidbits like his tips on traveling in Africa. To wit:

No matter what Wikipedia says, the fist bump DID NOT originate in the United States. EVERYBODY in West Africa does the fist bump, from casual gatherings to business functions. ...

Every day in Dakar, at about 5pm the rush hour starts, and it doesn't end until about 8pm. But this is not your typical car-induced traffic jam. Dakar sits along the coast and has its own Pacific Coast Highway. The difference w/ this traffic jam is that during rush hour there are more people along the side of that highway than cars in some stretches. This 20 mile long crowd isn't leisurely walking home from work. They aren't even briskly walking to do their daily grocery shopping. No, this group looks like they just jumped out of a Nike ad in their workout gear and their insanely toned ripped bodies and are all getting in their daily jog in 90-100 degree heat...I'm not sure if researchers include Dakar in their surveys of fittest cities in the world, but I am 100% positive Dakar wins against all comers....

Why doesn't anybody talk about Africa surf? It's all there. For the kitesurfers and windsurfers, there are steady wind havens all over the place....

Now for those of you that don't know, a boo-boo is the traditional African dress for men. It's the ideal African tourist high-margin product... Get really animated when you get your first price and tell them that they're crazy and wave your arms, etc. Next, yell out a low-ball price (at least 1/5 of their ask), and start walking away. At this point you should have at least 20 people chasing you down the street.

Kalanick was also, weirdly, offering free lodging ("couchsurfing") for entrepreneurs coming to town for TechCrunch in 2009, at his SF home, which he called The JamPad.

It is a place where entrepreneurs regularly come to hang out, to rap on ideas, to jam with other entrepreneurs, to play Wii Tennis and Gears of War, and to have fantastic healthy gourmet meals made by the JamPad's in-house chef. Normal open hours for the JamPad are from 10AM to 2AM. We also do BBQ's, grill seshes, art & wine events, networked Armagetron competitions, coding seshes, you name it.

According to a testimonial about the JamPad from friend and Box CEO Aaron Levie, "Travis's full range of sleeping and hygienic amenities offer a winning combo for any sleep-deprived, smelly, starving, delusional, stressed, or money-less guest. If you happen to fit into four or more of those categories, you'll likely be treated to a gourmet breakfast and be waited on by his Live-in Harvard Ph.D girlfriend."

And, in a bit of irony, here are Kalanick's ca. 2010 thoughts on maintaining one's reputation on an internet that was already "becoming too noisy for the crisp signal that we're actually looking to get from it."

Surely, on today's Internet, we're all potential victims of some "wingnut" saying something horrible about us, or some random picture of some indiscretion making it to the Internet and ruining our careers. The problem is that any and all information that ever existed is making it to the Net. Compounding the problem is the existence of the real-time web, its exploding communities of people sharing all of their thoughts and uploading content at will. What we're quickly finding is that in some regards the Internet acts as a cesspool of information where lies and libel can ruin people's reputation.

Oh, such innocent times.

Enjoy more of his musings while they remain live and readable, though there's always the Wayback Machine for after they get taken down.

Previously: Uber Board Member Arianna Huffington Says Travis Kalanick Isn't Going Anywhere, OK?

Source: Read The Thoughts Of A Younger Travis Kalanick On This Eight-Year-Old Wordpress Blog

Dreamy is a clean, multifunctional, highly customizable WordPress theme. It is suitable for creative professionals, agencies, freelancers, illustrators, photographers, and others. A large number of options and add-ins will allow you to understand what a real premium template is like. Thanks to Live Customizer you will be able to change the theme on the spot, now it's easy and convenient.



We've worked over the typography fundamentally and built in support for adobe typekit in order that your favourite fonts were with you. Size, color, font – all this can be changed in our theme. Paragon includes several types of display blog, 4 types of posts, 2 kinds of pages and an unlimited number of portfolios, which can be suitable for any purposes.

It will take the visual Composer a couple of minutes to allow you to create a desired page with the help of the interactive editor . A huge number of shortcodes, which are constantly expanding, will help you with this. You can also use it for multipurpose theme. Knowing your code is not absolutely necessary now.

Built-in auto-update function will help you not to miss important updates. We always listen attentively to your wishes and recommendations, perhaps your idea will be added to this theme. Do not miss your chance to build up your portfolio with Dreamy.

The support for woocommerce as well as new types of posts for portfolios will be added in next updates.

THEME FEATURES

Powerfull Theme Dashboard Only for Our Customers

WordPress Live Customizer Supported

Fully Responsive Design

Visual Composer Compatible (Save $34)

ACF Professional Compatible (Save $18)

Typekit & Google Fonts Supported

Advanced Typography Control

Unlimited Portfolio Layouts

Unique Sortable Portfolio

Contact Form 7

WPML Compatible

Localization Support (.pot file included)

SEO Optimized

Unlimited Page Variations

Unlimited Colors

20+ Delicious Shortcodes for Visual Composer

One-Click Demo Install

One-Click Update Theme

Premium Support 24/7

Social Media Share Supported

Child Theme Supported

5000+ Icons

AJAX "Load More"

Bootstrap 4

Widgets Ready

Responsive Lightbox

Clean and Organized Code

Cross-Browser Compatibility: FireFox, Safari, Chrome, Opera, IE9, IE10

WordPress 4.7.* Fully Tested

Coded with Valid HTML5 & CSS3

Stylus Files Included

Extensive Documentation

Free Updates

… and Much More

IMAGES CREDIT:

Note: All images are for demonstration purposes only and are not included in the download package.

Version 1.0 * Initial Release
Source: Dreamy – Biggest Portfolio WordPress Theme (Portfolio)

Do you want to make a local WordPress site on your computer for free using XAMPP? In this article, we will show you how to install WordPress on Xampp webserver.

Installing WordPress on your computer helps you test out WordPress, test themes/plugins, and learn WordPress development.

Why Install WordPress On Xampp Webserver?

Creating and installing local WordPress sites is a common practice among Pro developers and website owners.  It allows you to test WordPress without creating an actual website on the net.

XAMPP is a completely free, easy to install Apache distribution containing MariaDB, PHP, and Perl.

Local websites on Xampp are entirely visible to you on your computer. You can try different WordPress themes and plugins, test their features, and learn the WordPress basics.

If you already have a WordPress website, then you can create a local copy of your site on your computer to try out new plugin updates before implementing them on your live website.

Important: the Local website will only be visible to you on your data processor.  If you want to make a live WordPress site, then you will need a domain name and WordPress hosting.

Follow the step by step instructions in our how to install WordPress on Xampp Web server and how to start a WordPress blog guide when you are quick to create a live version of your website.

Having supposed that, let's check out how to install WordPress On Xampp webserver locally on Windows, Mac, or Linux.

What is XAMPP?

In order to make a local WordPress site, you will need to install and set up a web server software (Apache), PHP, and MySQL on your own computer.

PHP is a scheduling language and MySQL is a database management software.  Both of them are demanded to run WordPress.  Installing each of this software separately is quite hard for beginners. This is where XAMPP comes in.

Both of them are required and demanded to run WordPress.

Installing each of this software separately is quite hard for beginners. This is where XAMPP comes in.

XAMPP makes it comfortable for you to build WordPress websites locally. It is available for Windows, Mac, and Linux-based computers.

Let's get it started today!

Installing XAMPP On Your Computer

The very First thing, you need to visit the XAMPP official website and click on the download button for your operating arrangement.

XAMPP is the most popular PHP development environment.

The XAMPP open source package has been set up to be incredibly easy to install and to use.

Depending on your operating arrangement, your installation wizard and the application interface may differ from the screenshots here.

For the sake of this article, we will depict you the Windows version of the software.

After downloading XAMPP, you will need to fall into place and run the installer.

When you start installing it, then XAMPP will ask you where you desire to install the software and which packages you'd like to install for your computer.

The default settings will work for most of the users.

Also, Keep clicking on 'Next Button' to finish the setup wizard.

After finishing the wizard, check the 'start the control panel now' option and then click on the finish button to close the installation wizard.

This will open the XAMPP control panel. Go ahead and click on the start button in front of Apache and MySQL.

XAMPP will now start Apache and MySQL services for you. After doing that,  You may watch a Windows Firewall notification, it is important that you click on 'Allow Access' button for both applications to run on your computer.

Once both applications are started their names will be highlighted in Green.

You have successfully installed XAMPP on your data processor means on your computer.

Now you are ready to create a local web site and install WordPress using XAMPP.

The very first step, you will need to download WordPress free version. Visit the WordPress.org website and at the top right side, you see "Download WordPress" button click on the 'Download WordPress' button.

After downloading WordPress, you need to pull up the zip file, and you will see a WordPress folder. You now need to copy this folder somewhere safe.

Side by side, head over to your XAMPP installation folder.

On Windows it would be in C:/Program Files/XAMPP/htdocs or C:\Xampp\htdocs folder. On a Mac, it will be /Applications/XAMPP/htdocs folder.

Paste the WordPress extractable folder you copied earlier inside the htdocs.

We recommend renaming the WordPress folder to the "simple web site or first sample website". This will help you easily identify your local website.

Next, you need to open your preferred web browser and visit localhost/simplewebsite. You will then see a page like the one below:

This page will tell you that WordPress needs a database name, database username, password, and server information.

Let's create a database for your WordPress website.

You'll need to open a new browser tab and visit localhost/phpmyadmin/.

This will launch phpMyAdmin app that comes pre-installed with XAMPP.

It allows you to easily handle your databases using a simpler interface.

You would need to click on Databases, provide a name for your new database, and then click on the create button to keep on.

Now that you have created a database, you can use it for your WordPress website.

Switch back to /localhost/website1/ browser check and click on the 'Let's Go' button.

On the following screen, you will be asked to provide your WordPress database information.

Enter the database name you made earlier.

Your username is 'root' and you should exit the password field blank.

For the database host field, you need to use localhost. See the screenshot below here:

Once you are done with it, click on the 'Submit' button to stay on.

If you are on Windows or Linux, WordPress will now store all these settings in your WordPress configuration file called WP-config. PHP file.

However, if you are on a Mac, then it will show you the contents of the file and will ask you to make/edit it.

You will ask to create this file in your website's root folder.

After creating the config file, paste the text you copied earlier inside it.

Next, you need to save the file and return back to the WordPress installer to proceed.

In the following step, WordPress will ask you to provide information about your website. First, enter the title you want to use for this website.

After all that you need to enter a username and password, and an email address for your WordPress admin account.

Once you have done with all these, and Once you have filled all the required information, click on the 'Install WordPress' button to go on.

WordPress will now run the installation and prompt you to log in once it's served.

You can login to your website admin panel/dashboard by going to /localhost/simplewebsite/WP-admin page and use the same username/password that you entered during installation to log in.

Things to Do After Install WordPress On Xampp Local Web Server

Now that you have created your local WordPress site using XAMPP, you can go on it like you would do on a live WordPress site.

Head over to the Appearance panel to customize your website's appearance or to install a fresh, neat and clean theme. For free WordPress themes, Visit the link. Here are some great, professional looking top selling free themes that you can ever taste.

The next thing you would want to try is WordPress plugins.

Plugins are like apps for your WordPress site and allow you to add cool features like contact form, photograph galleries, eCommerce store, etc.

Need help installing plugins? See our step by step guide on How to Install A WordPress Plugin – Step by Step for Beginners

Need help creating photo galleries? See our step by step guide on How to Create An Image Gallery In WordPress Theme Beginner's Guide

Need help uploading PDF files? See our step by step guide on How to Upload PDF File to Your WordPress Site Posts & Pages

After working on your local WordPress site, you may want to run it to a live server.  Head over to our step by step guide on how to move WordPress from localhost to live site.

We hope this article helped you learn how to install WordPress on Xampp webserver And how to create a local WordPress website using XAMPP machine server.

Welcome to the world of bloggers and writers. I'm wishing you the best of luck!

Don't forget to share this list with your friends.

Best of luck and have a great flight!

Did you find this guide valuable? Please share it with your friends.

Source: How To Install WordPress On Xampp Web Server

How the minimum cost is required and What do you need to make a website with WordPress?. WordPress is free for anyone to download and use. It is an open source software which gives you the freedom to install it on any kind of website.

So if WordPress is free, then where is the cost coming from?

The cost of a WordPress site can be broken down into the following classes:

WordPress Hosting

Domain Name

Design & Development

Plugins and Extensions

To create a self-hosted WordPress site, you need to buy web hosting to store your files on the internet.

Every website on the internet needs WordPress hosting. This is your website's home on the internet. Next, you will need to purchase a domain name.

This will be your website's address on the internet, and this is what your users will type in the browser to reach your WordPress site (example, creativedreamtech.com or google.com).

With WordPress, there are tons of free website templates available that you can use. However, if you want something more advanced / custom, then you can purchase a premium template or have one custom made which will raise the price.

There are 60,000+ free plugins for WordPress in the market. We use plugins to enjoy some extra features.

These are apps and extensions for your sites. Think features like contact form, gallery, etc.

So while you can build a website with just the hosting and domain cost, based on your state of affairs, you may end up paying for additional tools and services.

That's why it's often confusing for people to detect out the real cost of a WordPress website.

Let us walk you through the real cost of Make A Website With WordPress.

Depending on your demands, your cost to start a WordPress website can range from $100 to $500 to $3000, to even as high as $30,000 or more.  It's important to know what type of site you are building, and what you'll need for it because that will directly affect your cost.

But don't worry, we'll prove you how to avoid a financial disaster and make the best decisions.  For the sake of this clause, let's break down WordPress websites into different budget categories:

Make A Website With WordPress (with more features).

Make A Website With WordPress (low budget).

Make A custom Website With WordPress.

Make An eCommerce Website With WordPress.

Now let's consider how much each of these projects cost and how you can avoid spending any more than necessary.

What's the Cost of a Simple WordPress Website (Low Budget)

You can make a fully functional WordPress website for yourself and keep your costs under $100. Here is the cost breakdown of a WordPress website on a low budget. The First thing, you will require a domain name and web hosting.

A domain name typically costs $11.99 / year, and web hosting normally costs $3.99 / month.

Thankfully, Bluehost, an official WordPress recommended hosting provider, has agreed to provide our users a free domain name and over 60% off on web hosting.

=== Bluehost Web Hosting Offers ===

The Next step, you will need to install WordPress on your hosting invoice.

See our step by step guide on how to start a WordPress website/blog for complete instructions. Once you have successfully installed WordPress, you can choose a design for your website using a free template or be using a premium theme.

At that place are thousands of free and professional designed templates available for WordPress that you can install.

See our expert selection of 43 beautiful free WordPress blog themes for some examples.

Once you have chosen a WordPress template, follow the instructions in our step by step guidebook on how to install a WordPress theme.

Next, you may want to add certain features to your website like adding a contact form, a picture gallery, a slider, etc.

Don't worry, there are more than 40,000 WordPress plugins available that will help you manage that.

Plugins are like apps or extensions for your WordPress website.  See our step by step guide on how to set up a WordPress plugin.

Below is our selection of the essentials WordPress plugins that you should install on your site. All of them are available for free download.

Recommended Features:

1- Gravity Forms: Add contact forms to your WordPress website.

Download Free version here: Gravity Forms Directory

2- Nextgen Gallery: Add beautiful image galleries to your website posts & pages.

Download Free version here: NextGEN Gallery – WordPress Gallery Plugin

3- Slider by Soliloquy: Add beautiful image sliders on your WordPress site.

Download free version: Slider by Soliloquy – Responsive Image Slider for WordPress

For Website Optimization:

For better optimization, I recommend you to add some plugins like:

1- Yoast SEO: Improve your WordPress SEO and get more organic traffic from Google, Yahoo and Bing.

Free version: Yoast SEO plugin.

2- WP Super Cache: Improves your website's page speed by adding cache.

3- WP Total Cache: Improves your website's page speed and page insight by adding cache.

4- All in One SEO Pack: Improve your WordPress SEO and get more organic traffic.

5- Google Analytics for WordPress by MonsterInsights: Helps you to track your visitor stats using Google Analytics.

There are much more free WordPress plugins to add different features and extend your WordPress website. See our best WordPress plugins category where we have surveyed hundreds of WordPress plugins.

What's the Actual Cost of a WordPress Website (More Features)?

We always recommend our users to start low and then add more features as their website grow.

This way you will not be paying for anything that you don't actually need.

As you add more features to your website, your website cost will begin to increase.

You can extend to use Bluehost for WordPress hosting to keep the cost low and get a free domain name.

However, since you will be adding more features to your website, it may make sense to take a more powerful hosting configuration like SiteGround's Go Geeks plan.

This will cost you a little more, but it comes with premium features like staging, faster performance, and can manage up to 100,000 visitors per month.

You can also work for a premium WordPress template for your site.

Unlike free WordPress templates, these templates come with additional features and priority support.

See our expert selection of 40 best responsive WordPress themes for some great premium templates that you can utilize.

For more website features you need to use a combination of free + paid plugin add-ons.

Here are some essential recommended premium WordPress plugins and extensions that you'll need as your site develops:

Extra Features:

1- Gravity Forms (PRO): Adds a drag drop form builder to your WordPress website.

2- NEXTGEN Gallery PRO: WordPress image gallery plugin for photography websites.

3- Divi Page Builder: Adds a drag and drop WordPress page builder.

Marketing:

1- OptinMonster – Best Lead Generation Software for Marketers: Converts abandoning website visitors into subscribers.

Security & BackUps: 

1- All in One WP Migration Unlimited Extension: For automatic WordPress backups.

2- WordPress Backup Plugin | BackupBuddy: For WordPress backups.

There are many more premium WordPress plugins and services that you can add and enjoy.  Each paid service or add-on that you add will increase the cost of your WordPress website.

The total cost of the website:

Depending on the premium WordPress plugins and services that you add on your site, it can be anywhere between $500 and $800 per year.

What's the Actual Cost of a Custom WordPress Website?

A custom WordPress site is when you hire a WordPress developer to create a unique pattern and build specific features for it.

Usually, well established, large to medium-sized businesses choose this itinerary.

To support a custom WordPress site, you may also want to go for a managed WordPress hosting provider.

This is a WordPress centric hosting environment, with managed updates, premium support, exacting security, and developer -friendly tools.

In addition to your hosting and domain name, you will also be paying the developer that's building your website.

The cost of a custom website depends on your requirements, budget, and the rates of the developer or agency you engage.

A standard, custom WordPress theme alone can cost you up to $5000. More robust WordPress sites with specific custom features can cost up to $15000 or even more eminent.

We always recommend our users to start humble and then scale their WordPress site as it grows.

In many instances, you don't need all the premium features that you see on many well-established websites in your industry.

Keep in mind that those websites had a head start, and it likely took them time to figure out how to manage costs and turn their business.

You can get going with a budget website using free plugins and template.

Once you start getting visitors, you can consider adding premium features like a premium template, e-mail marketing, paid backup plugin, website firewall and so on.

Same goes for your eCommerce site.

Start with the bare minimum and then as you start selling, you will find out exactly the tools that will assist you and your customers.

Look for best WordPress deals and coupons to take additional discounts whenever you can.

Even for robust WordPress sites, you don't always need to engage a developer.

We hope this article is a perfect fit to answered your questions about how much does it cost to make a WordPress website.

Related Articles:

Source: What Do You Need to Make A Website With WordPress?

Hello,

I have an existing free blog here at wordpress. I am creating a new website. My hosting program is ipage.com and I am using wordpress to build it.I would like to import my existing blog in wordpress to my new website. How to I go about to do this?Also can I still have the blog separate and also on my website?Thank you.

The blog I need help with is treeadryadsdreams.wordpress.com.

Source: Transfering my free wordpress blog to my new website

We are web application developers, our most successful product is WPLMS an eLearning platform for Education sites around the world.

This blog does not rank in our Top E-Learning Blogs yet.

Copy and paste this code into any part of your blog to get a dynamic badge that automatically updates your rank every day.

Source: VibeThemes WordPress EducationThemes

Countless users have already used and loved this powerful plugin, and have rated HD Invoice as the Best WordPress Invoicing Plugin. HD Invoice WP Plugin is easy to use WordPress plugin that allows users to easily create invoices directly in WordPress and avoid the hassle of sending customers to a third party service.

A large number of bloggers, website owners, and business owners are harnessing the versatility and usability of WordPress to grow their business and cater to their customers. To successfully run such blogs there are now an array of different WordPress plugins that allow users to minimize the hassle and make their WordPress website or blog even more powerful.  HD Invoice plugin is hands down the easiest way to have a perfectly made invoice created within seconds, the HD Invoice WP Plugin just requires a few simple steps to be up and running which is one of the ultimate benefits of this particular plugin:

People can simply go to the HD Invoice website (https://hdinvoice.com/) and purchase an HD Invoice download, go to the Plugins section on WordPress, install the plugin, from there the plugin comes with complete instruction for WordPress Invoicing. HD Invoice can connect to PayPal or Stripe allowing users to get their invoice paid directly from their WordPress site.

Speaking about the plugin's superb support, and just how easy it is to use, the HD Invoice spokesperson said, "HD INVOICE was designed and developed from the ground up to be as fast and simple to use as possible. Going from activating the plugin, to sending invoices, to collecting money, takes only minutes. We tried to make HD INVOICE as easy and intuitive as it can be, which in turn creates the smallest learning curve of any invoicing system ever. The simplicity of the plugin, mixed with our renowned support makes HD INVOICE the best invoicing choice for you!"

This plugin is not only simple and powerful it is also incredibly quick, the installation, as well as customer invoice creation process, usually takes less than a few minutes. HD Invoice is available in different packages designed to cater to the needs of different types of users. The company is currently running a special limited time introductory offer – the first 500 customers will be grandfathered in at 50% off. This is a golden opportunity for a user to get the best package with the best value for an incredible 50% off.

About:

HD Invoice is the easiest way to create and send invoices to clients. WordPress invoice plugin, send invoices from WordPress and create invoices.

For more information, please visit: https://hdinvoice.com/

Media ContactCompany Name: Harmonic DesignEmail: Send EmailCity: TorontoState: ONCountry: CanadaWebsite: https://hdinvoice.com

Source: HD Invoice Rated As The Best WordPress Invoicing Plugin.

http://getfithappyhealthy.com/ and http://thisisusliving.com/ are not hosted by WordPress.COM and are not on our servers.

You are posting to the wrong support forum.

WordPress.COM and WordPress.ORG are completely separate and have different username accounts, logins, features, run different versions of some themes with the same names, and have separate support documentation and separate support forums. Read the differences here http://en.support.wordpress.com/com-vs-org/

This is wordpress.COM support. We provide support only for wordpress.COM hosted sites. Our support docs do not apply to(1) local installs of wordpress.ORG software on your own server or(2) wordpress.ORG software installs on paid hosting, and we do not provide support for them at wordpress.COM.(3) sites linked to wordpress.COM accounts with the Jetpack plugin so they display on the My Sites wordpress.com account page.

The wordpress.ORG login link is here https://login.wordpress.org/ If you do not have an account yet then click Create an account https://login.wordpress.org/register/ and if you have lost an account password click Lost password? https://login.wordpress.org/lostpassword/

Some Jetpack solutions are here http://jetpack.com/support/

Others are in the Jetpack support forum at WordPress.orghttp://wordpress.org/support/plugin/jetpack

However, if help cannot be found at either one then they can file a Jetpack support ticket here > http://en.support.wordpress.com/contact/?jetpack=needs-service

WordPress.org support docs are at https://codex.wordpress.org/Main_Page

See also https://apps.wordpress.org/support/ for app support.

Source: moving my blog

workwellcareer.com is hosted by SiteGroundworkwell2livewell.com is hosted by Tucows.com Co

Those sites are not on our wordpress.COM servers we cannot help you with them.

WordPress.COM and WordPress.ORG are completely separate and have different username accounts, logins, features, run different versions of some themes with the same names, and have separate support documentation and separate support forums. Read the differences here http://en.support.wordpress.com/com-vs-org/

This is wordpress.COM support. We provide support only for wordpress.COM hosted sites. Our support docs do not apply to(1) local installs of wordpress.ORG software on your own server or(2) wordpress.ORG software installs on paid hosting, and we do not provide support for them at wordpress.COM.(3) sites linked to wordpress.COM accounts with the Jetpack plugin so they display on the My Sites wordpress.com account page.

That support is provided at https://wordpress.ORG/support. The wordpress.ORG login link is here https://login.wordpress.org/ If you do not have an account yet then click Create an account https://login.wordpress.org/register/ and if you have lost an account password click Lost password? https://login.wordpress.org/lostpassword/

Some Jetpack solutions are here http://jetpack.com/support/

Others are in the Jetpack support forum at WordPress.orghttp://wordpress.org/support/plugin/jetpack

However, if help cannot be found at either one then they can file a Jetpack support ticket here > http://en.support.wordpress.com/contact/?jetpack=needs-service

WordPress.org support docs are at https://codex.wordpress.org/Main_PageSee also https://apps.wordpress.org/support/ for app support.

Source: I Changed my URL and Lost my Website

If you're a regular reader of news sites or magazines, you'll notice that they sometimes use something called "callouts" or a "blockquotes" to highlight key text.

These are a great way of breaking up long chunks of text and drawing the reader's attention to key points and interesting quotes. They're used a lot in interviews and will generally include the most interesting or controversial thing the interviewee said.

You may have also noticed that our new blog redesign includes new callout designs like this one, thanks to the talented WPMU DEV design and front-end team!

You can also use them for text that isn't part of the main content, such as a call to action or advert. They'll draw the reader's eye and help you to increase the number of people who read all the way through a page or click onto another page you want to direct them to.

In this post, I'll show you how to write a plugin that provides you with a shortcode for a simple callout.  The shortcode has one attribute, which is alignment, so you can choose whether to center your callouts or align them to the left or right so that the text wraps around them.

What You'll Need

To follow this post you'll need the following:

A code editor,

A development site you can test your work on, and

Access to your wp-content folder in WordPress.

I'm using a test site on my local machine to which I've added the dummy data provided by WordPress for testing – you can find this at the theme unit testing pages. But you could just type in your own dummy content, use real content or copy in some lorem ipsum text.

Note: I've uploaded the full code for this post to GitHub so you can check yours against it as you go along.

Setting up the Plugin

The first thing you'll need to do is create your plugin. In your wp-content/plugins folder, create a new folder called wpmu-pretty-callouts. Inside that folder create two blank files: the main plugin file, called wpmu-pretty-callouts.php, and a stylesheet, called style.css.

Now open the PHP file you just created. Start by adding commented out text at the top that tells WordPress what this is:

This tells WordPress that this is a plugin and provides users with some information about it. You can edit yours to add your name and URI instead of mine.

Adding the Shortcode Function

Now let's add the function that creates the shortcode. Start by creating this empty function:

This sets up your function and attaches it to the add_shortcode hook so it'll run when that fires.

Now let's populate the function. Firstly, we'll set up our attribute for alignment. Inside the function, add this:

This sets up the align attribute which users can use to add left, right or center alignment. By default, this has a null value.

Below that, still inside your function, add the code to output the shortcode's contents in your site:

This uses the ob_start() and ob_get_clean() functions to ensure that your content is output in the right place. Between these is code which adds the contents of the shortcode, wrapped in an aside element with a class of pretty-callout plus the attribute added as a class if it's set. This means you can use this attribute for styling later on.

Note: For more on creating shortcode plugins, see our full guide to plugin creation.

Your full funciton will now look like this:

Now save your file and activate the plugin.

Let's test how it works. Open a post in your site (or create a new one) and add some text. Above one of your paragraphs of text, add your shortcode.

Here's mine:

[pretty-callout]This is a pretty callout. It looks great when you add a lot of text to it. Yay! Love it.[/pretty-callout]

Now save your post and take a look at it on your site. You'll find that the text is added but it doesn't really stand out yet:

We need to add some styling. Let's do that.

Adding a Stylesheet

The first thing to do is register the stylesheet you already created in your plugin folder. Go back to your main plugin file and add this function:

This registers the stylesheet in your plugin and enqueues it correctly so WordPress can use it.

Let's add some basic styling to the stylesheet. Open your style.css file in your plugin and add this:

This adds some styling for our .pretty-callout class, without any alignment added. Now let's take a look at how the callout looks in our site:

That's looking better: the text is in italics, it's larger than the rest of the content, and it's got margins to make it stand out. Now let's try adding styling for that align attribute.

Add this to your stylesheet:

This adds floats for the left and right aligned versions of the callout, as well as margins for those and for a centered version, which will be narrower than the default. This is more useful when you're working with a full-width design.

Go back to your post and edit the shortcode, to add one of the attributes. I'm going to add right alignment:

[pretty-callout align="right"]This is a pretty callout. It looks great when you add a lot of text to it. Yay! Love it.[/pretty-callout]

Now update your post and take a look at it in your site:

That looks even better! Now if you want to tweak your stylesheet you can, maybe varying the font or the text size. Alternatively, in your plugin file you could wrap the output text in a H3 tag or similar, to apply the styling given to H3 elements in your theme. The choice is yours!

Pretty Callouts Make Your Text More Appealing and are Easy to Implement

I hope you agree with me that this technique lets you add text that looks appealing and makes your posts easier for your visitors to read. I wouldn't advise using callouts too much – add them sparingly for maximum impact. And now that you've built your own plugin to add pretty callouts, you can activate this on all of your sites and use it wherever you need to. Have fun!

Source: How to Create and Style Callout Boxes in WordPress

Sorry but you are in the wrong place.These forums are only for blogs/sites hosted by WordPress.com

WordPress.COM and WordPress.ORG are completely separate and different http://support.wordpress.com/com-vs-org/

And you should ask in the WordPress.org forums.http://wordpress.org/support/

If you don't have a username on the ORG forums, you'll need to register one there.

Cheers.

Source: Updated the blog and it deleted my entire site.

re: wordpress.com blog subscriptions

All that's required to follow any blog hosted by wordpress.COM is exactly what you were required to provide to register here, and that is a valid email address that the published posts can be sent to.

Here subscribers control their own subscriptions and frequency of receipt of posts from sites they subscribe to. We cannot act on their behalf.

You can set up email subscriptions here > Appearance > Widgets > Follow Blog Widget by using this guide > http://en.support.wordpress.com/widgets/follow-blog-widget/

Widgets can be configured to appear only on certain pages (or be hidden on certain pages) by clicking on the Visibility button.https://en.support.wordpress.com/widgets/#widget-visibility

We have a subscription shortcode which you can make use of. The help page on it is right here: http://en.support.wordpress.com/blog-subscription-shortcode/ You can also include the subscription shortcode at the end of every post you publish.

Staff have recently added the mailchimp widget for subscriptions and here is the link to the guide you must use https://en.support.wordpress.com/mailchimp

Additional information:You can create a Subscribe page http://en.support.wordpress.com/pages/ add and customize a contact form with multiple fields, change the email address where you'll be notified, and mark feedbacks as spam from your dashboard on that page. http://en.support.wordpress.com/contact-form/

Read more at https://en.support.wordpress.com/?s=following

See these support docs too:Sharing https://en.support.wordpress.com/sharing/Publicize https://en.support.wordpress.com/publicize/

Translate Your Sitehttps://en.support.wordpress.com/translate-your-site/

Google Translate Widgethttps://en.support.wordpress.com/internationalization/google-translate-widget/

You can use tag search to locate other WordPress.com hosted blogs on this subject https://wordpress.com/tag/writing or this example https://wordpress.com/tag/poetry and when you comment on related posts on other sites you may receive some reciprocal visits or not.

Are you looking for feedback on your blog? This could range from the design of the site to the actual content of a post. You can get feedback from our Community Pool:https://dailypost.wordpress.com/category/community-pool/

Also, if you just want to connect with other bloggers, get inspired, build your brand, and get inside tips from the folks who bring you WordPress.com, take a look at our Blogging University here:https://dailypost.wordpress.com/blogging-university/

Source: BLOG FORMATTING

re: purchasing WordPress.COM upgrades

WordPress.com provides free blogs and hosts them free of charge. There are no bandwidth charges. All WordPress.com blogs come with 3000 megabytes (~3 GBs) of space for storing uploaded files and images. Free features are listed here https://en.wordpress.com/features/

We have 4 different plans: free, personal, premium and business. All hosting is free regardless of which plan you choose. You can view all wordpress.com plan features here https://wordpress.com/pricing/ Add a plan for each of your sites here: http://store.wordpress.com/plans/.

Details:There are no trial upgrades, no monthly payment plans and no bulk deal upgrades.

We are billed annually and we must pay for all upgrades in full at the time of purchase after selecting a plan.

Also note that purchase orders are not accepted.

Each upgrade bundle applies to a single blog only and is for a single year only when it is due to be renewed. (The only exceptions are one time upgrades for premium themes and guided transfers.)

WordPress.com does not accept domain transfers but mapping an existing domain is possible. http://support.wordpress.com/domain-mapping/map-existing-domain/ The domain or mapping of any existing domain URL is included in the pricing for a personal upgrade, a premium and a business upgrade. The WordPress.COM upgrade for mapping a domain must be renewed annually.

WordPress.com does not provide an email service for blogs on their sub domains or on custom domains. Please see these support docshttps://en.support.wordpress.com/add-email/https://en.support.wordpress.com/email-forwarding/

How domain mapping worksWhat domain mapping does is providing a seamless redirect to the very same content under the new domain URL when a person clicks the old URL .wordpress.com to the original content. It can take up to 72 hours for domain propagation to take place throughout the internet but it doesn't usually take that long. https://en.support.wordpress.com/domains/

The Business upgrade which is the only plan that includes Google analytics also includes access to all premium themes. However, note that there is no e-commerce capability under any plan here https://en.forums.wordpress.com/topic/small-business-website-1?replies=2#post-2804631.Before you upgradeMake sure you read the comparison very closely do you know exactly what the restrictions and limitations on WordPress.COM blogging are: http://en.support.wordpress.com/com-vs-org/

Also read Important Notes Before Upgrading http://en.support.wordpress.com/domains/#important-notes-before-upgrading

How to upgradeYou must be logged in as Admin http://en.support.wordpress.com/user-roles/#administrator under the exact same username account that registered the blog to access the blog's dashboard, select a plan and purchase upgrades at > Dashboard> Store > My Upgradeshttps://en.support.wordpress.com/my-upgrades/

Your billing history will be at Dashboard > Store > Billing Historyhttps://en.support.wordpress.com/billing-history/

Your only options for payment are found here Payment Methods http://en.support.wordpress.com/payment/

refunds and cancelling upgradesWordPress.com provides a 30-day refund on all upgrades except Domain Registrations, Domain Renewals, and Guided Transfers. The refund period for Domain Registrations and Renewals is 48 hours.

Note: It takes from 1 - 2 weeks for the refund to be received.

You have to be logged in as Admin http://en.support.wordpress.com/user-roles/#administrator under the exact same username account that registered the blog to access the blog's dashboard, cancel any upgrades, claim a refund for any qualified upgrades, and disable auto-renew. Dashboard > Store > My Upgrades. You can also disable auto-renew there. http://en.support.wordpress.com/my-upgrades/#canceling-upgrades

If you have any unanswered questions type modlook into the sidebar tags on this thread for a Staff follow-up. How do I get a Moderator/Staff reply for my question? https://en.support.wordpress.com/getting-help-in-the-forums/#how-do-i-get-a-moderatorstaff-reply-for-my-question Also subscribe to this thread so you are notified when they respond and be patient while waiting. To subscribe look in the sidebar of this thread, find the subscribe to topics link and click it.

Source: Move externally hosted wordpress blog to WordPress.com (Business Plan)

Since I moved our blog from HTTP protocol to HTTPS, there are plenty of questions I have received from various users to share the steps to secure your site with HTTPS. After receiving so many requests, I have decided to build a simple, complete tutorial to move WordPress site from HTTP to HTTPS.

First, let us see the advantages of HTTPS over HTTP.

Trust – Your data is secure on our site

SEO – Google uses HTTPS as a ranking single for SEO

Speed – With HTTPS/2 support from host, site loading speed has increased

Well, there many be many more advantages, but above three are key advantages, which has made me to switch to HTTPS.

Now let us see quickly various steps about how to move from HTTP to HTTPS.

Note: During this process, you may be logged out from your WordPress Admin, do not worry, just log back in again. 

Note: If you are using a CDN, you may want to reach out to your CDN partner to know additional steps required to change from HTTP to HTTPS.

Step 0: Backup Everything

I can't stress on this subject. Please backup everything before you make a single change in your system. Though, this tutorial is from my experience, you must do be capable to restore your site before you proceed with the following steps.

Step 1: SSL Certificate

I have requested my host to install FREE Let's Encrypt certificate for my domain. It was installed very quickly in five minutes of time and enabled HTTPS protocol for my website.

Trust me, this is the only step where you have to depend on your host doing anything. You can buy expensive SSL certificates, but FREE Let's Encrypt certificate is indeed a great enough.

Step 2: Change Links

Change all the links in blog for your domain from HTTP to HTTPS. I have used a plugin: Better Search Replace to do so. However, you can do it by either directly updating the database or going through every single link manually. This is a very important task and I suggest you depend on trust solutions. If you miss any link to update, you may eventually see warning related to mixed content.

Step 3: Change WordPress Address and Site Address

I hardly see people talking about this particular setting online. It is very important that we change our WordPress Address and Site Address in WordPress's General Settings.

Step 4: Change .htaccess and add 301 Redirect

This is a very critical step and that is why it is last. Find .htaccess file inside the root of your domain and add following redirect.

RewriteEngine On RewriteCond %{HTTPS} off RewriteRule (.*) https://%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI} [R=301,L]

Above redirect will force HTTPS with 301 redirect which is good for your SEO.

Done!

You are done. Yeah! It is indeed that easy to change your site from HTTP to HTTPS. Once you do this, there are a few follow up steps you must follow to make sure your website remains searchable and available. It took me around total of 15 minutes of time to complete this entire task flawlessly.

Follow Up Steps

Add your HTTPS site to Google Webmaster Tools

Change the reference in Google Analytics Profile

Change any hard-coded links in robot.txt

Let Me Help You

If you need further help. Do let me know and I will be happy to help. You can either leave a comment here or reach out to me via hire me.

Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com)

Source: WordPress – How to Move from HTTP to HTTPS – The Simple Complete Tutorial

We're only a few months into 2017, but already, it seems that 'fake news' could be the phrase of the year. It started out as a catchphrase on Trump's campaign trail, but it's now morphed into a snap criticism of pretty much any kind of content. If someone finds your business blog to be lacking in authenticity, it could be flagged as fake news, along with some of the web's least ethical publishers.

Fake news outperformed real news during the US presidential election. And we're all potentially susceptible. Researchers at Stanford's Graduate School of Education found that young people are surprisingly bad at picking out truth from lies.

That's why Facebook is introducing tools that allow content to be flagged as 'fake' by users. This content is then passed on to humans for review, and content that is deemed inaccurate will be marked prominently with a banner in users' timelines. There are also browser plugins that do the same thing. But fake news spreads because of the kneejerk reaction to share it, and it's going to take time before social media users change their habits.

For bloggers, this means accuracy and authenticity will be more important than ever, lest they be caught up in the fake news debacle. Fortunately, it's relatively easy to elevate the quality of your content and make it distinct from fake news websites.

How is Fake News Defined?

Fake news articles are defined as 'non-satirical news stories', or good, old-fashioned hoaxes. Websites publish fake stories to generate large amounts of traffic, then earn money from the adverts embedded around them.

Fake news publishers are not alone in publishing stories for clicks. But during a time of heightened political tensions — such as a presidential election — fake news can also influence public opinion. One prominent example is Underground News Report, which has a long disclaimer paragraph in its footer. But to read the crucial part about its 'satirical' content, you'll need to scroll past dozens of fake news stories about the Clintons, Trumps, and Obamas.

Worryingly, the longer the phrase 'fake news' is in use, the broader the definition seems to get. Trump has been quoted as saying that any poll that isn't in his favour is fake news, and the phrase also been used as a badge of shame when journalists make a mistake in an otherwise factual report. It's a messy situation, and one that businesses would do well to steer clear of.

Authenticity is Key in Blogging

Thankfully, there has been a marked improvement in the quality of content on the web over the last 5 years. In our experience, businesses are prepared to pay more for content than they used to, and they engage professional writers rather than paying for cheap content spinners that wreck your rankings.

But if journalists are struggling with credibility, this should be a warning sign to bloggers as well. There is another step change coming. And businesses that think that a blog is 'just a blog' are going to fall foul of it.

Recommended for You

Webcast, March 28th: Beyond the Landing Page

There's nothing wrong with posting 500 words a week to market your products or services, but you need to invest some effort into those articles and really hammer out an authentic narrative. In an age of increased scrutiny and a need for better accuracy, this is an area that businesses need to work on urgently.

If you don't have the resources to produce this kind of content in-house, you must outsource blog writing duties to an experienced writer; someone that is committed to fact-checking and producing high-quality content. This frees up your internal staff to do the jobs they really want to be doing.

Readers are increasingly demanding better blog posts anyway, so it's a win-win for everyone when this happens.

5 Simple Ways to Improve Accuracy and Authenticity

Fake news can be amusing, but it can also cause genuine harm. In some cases, fake news is actually propaganda. Now, more than ever, it's important to put a little more effort into your content.

1. Increase the length of your blog posts

It's quite easy to waffle for 500 words and throw the result up as a blog post. This is what many fake news websites do. They know that it's easy to fabricate breaking news stories, because people who read them want to be the first to share the post with their friends. These posts are also very short and easy to skim-read. As such, those fake posts go viral very quickly, which is why they are so profitable for the writers.

But it's incredibly difficult to write 1,000+ words of fake content fast. And most fake news websites aren't interested in producing anything like that kind of length. They just fire out short blogs as quickly as possible. This is a really key way to set yourself apart.

From today, aim to double the word count of the blogs you're publishing so that you can explore topics in greater depth, and make your content look distinct from a typical fake news blog site. Yes: that means doubling your investment in blogging. But read on to find out how you can easily double its value, too.

2. Choose the Right Content Types

Do you know the difference between news posts and pillar content? Is your blog evergreen, or going stale within hours?

Choosing the right content types can help you to get more from your investment in blogging. A mixture of pillar and evergreen content, with some news and reviews, helps to cover all bases.

Additionally, we find that a thorough, data-driven blog post or ebook might cost two or three times the amount of a throwaway blog post. But it will far more traffic over time than a cheap, basic post, and is a much better use of your budget. For example, a post that I wrote here in 2011 is still the most popular post on the Red Robot website, and it draws at least twice the amount of traffic of the next most popular piece.

3. Keep Popular Posts Current and Accurate

If you want your old blog posts to pay dividends for years, you need to spend time revising them. A highly successful evergreen post can be thwarted by broken links, outdated research, or new strategies that supersede old advice.

Optimise your old blog posts to maintain their accuracy and give your whole blog added credibility.

This can also help you to squeeze longevity out of posts that would otherwise wither and die.

4. Back Up Claims With Real Sources

It's important to back up claims in a blog with recognised, credible sources. Ideally, every claim should be linked. Look for research within the last year, and link to the primary source.

This is journalism 101, but bloggers are different animals. They sometimes link to sources that are disreputable, and this can contribute towards your site being included in a bad virtual neighbourhood.

So whenever your writer makes a claim, there should be a source, along with a natural link to that source. Hopefully, it goes without saying that the link should not go to a fake news website.

5. Always Name the Author

Clients still ask us whether blogs should be posted under a real name, a pen name, or the name of someone at their company.

Without exception, we recommend using someone's real name (and you can use our writer's name if they produced the content for you). Naming a real person helps to create authenticity and create a narrative. It also gives you the opportunity to add a byline for the author, which is one of the best ways to fend off accusations of hoax news.

Avoid posting blogs under your generic WordPress username (such as 'admin' or 'xyzseocompany'). Not only does this look unprofessional, but exposing an admin username on a blog can increase the risk of a brute force hack.

Is Trust the New Click?

We live in an age of unprecedented access to information. In 2015, around 2 million blog posts were being uploaded to the internet every day. As long as there is money to be made from fake news, it will be published and consumed, because posts that go viral quickly tend to rise to the top of the pile.

Michael Kuntz, writing for NiemebLab, says that "trust is the new click". Authenticity is important, and as Facebook and other platforms start to fish for fake news, you need to avoid being caught up in the net. The better your content, and the better your authority on a subject, the better chance you have of building trust with your readers.

Source: Could Your Blog Be Flagged as Fake News?

To click or not to click, that is the question.

It is both interesting and frightening how such a simple decision can, in a high enough volume, have an existential impact on the blogger that is trying to earn some money off of his work.

There is a common misconception that great content drives traffic just by "being there". While that may hold true for high authority sites and blogs that already have built up a stable base of regular readers, new and upcoming bloggers have another thing coming.

If you are planning to make a WordPress website or if you are already using WordPress, then you are in luck. This platform has been with us for quite some time now. That allowed it to develop a wide array of useful plugins. One of them is Yoast. You've probably all heard of it and chances are you are already using it.

The question is, are you using it to its full potential? The only way to be sure is to click and see for yourself.

Here are several tricks you can start employing right away to increase the click-through rates of your articles.

Title Optimization

Let's be honest, from the moment you skimmed upon this topic you knew we would eventually end up here.

If you mess this part up, incoming tips will not count for much. Contents of your <title> tag have a major impact on both CTR and ranking in search results. That should be reason enough to make sure your headline writing skills are on point.

Here is where the Yoast gives you a helping hand.

Click on the Edit snippet button in the Snippet preview and start writing your title. You will notice that the line below it changes color according to your title length. Aim for green.

This may seem like a minor point at first but you need to consider that title length can, in fact, have an impact on CTR.

Outbrain, a content discovery platform, crawled trough 150 000 article headlines and one of their findings was that the titles consisting of 8 words received 21% higher click-through rate than average.  That is a percentage that shouldn't be discarded lightly.

If you need further help with your title optimization there is one more plugin worth mentioning. It is called YoRocket. It actually works great with Yoast and is pretty easy to use.

You just write the title and let the plugin improve upon it. It also allows you to split test multiple titles to see which one attracts the most clicks. The only downside is that you will have to part ways with $40/month.

If you really struggle with your titles, this may be an option worth checking out.

Meta Description Optimization

The description is an ideal place to entice people to click on your post. It's an additional opportunity to grab attention. Use it wisely.

You don't have to take my word for it, here is what Neil Patel wrote in one of his posts:

It should provide a clear, well-written and interest-piquing description for your headline and for the content itself. Think of it as writing subtle ad copy, you want to pique interest and arouse the desire for clicks.

To add Meta description you have to go back to Edit snippet button. The length of your description should be around 150 characters. Don't worry, you don't have to count every word. Yoast does that for you. Just follow the bar below the description box. When it turns green, it means your word count has hit the sweet spot.

If you don't use Yoast or if you didn't bother to make a personalized description, you will probably have the so-called „automated description". WordPress will use the first sentence of your post as a description. And this is rarely what you want if you want to maximize your rankings and click trough rates.

If you ever came across a snippet featuring a description that doesn't make any sense, well, now you know the reason behind it.

Adding Publishing Dates

Let's say you are searching for the policy on medical marijuana use in your state. You find 3 relevant articles in the first 4 results. Then you notice that one of them doesn't have a publishing date, one is from 2014 and the last one is from December 2016.

There's a pretty good chance you're first going to click on the latter one.

Of course, not every subject is as time sensitive as this one but people do have an innate desire to look at the newest information available to them.

Adding publishing dates to your articles is really simple. Go to the Yoast settings and click on Titles & Meta's. After that, navigate to the Post Types tab and select Show under the Date in Snippet Preview.

If you encounter any trouble, refer to the pictures below.

When you select the Show button, don't forget to scroll all the way down to the end of the page and Save changes!

Before we move on, there is one important thing left to discuss here.

If you are not careful, adding the publishing date for your articles can be a double-edged sword. It should have a positive impact on your recently published articles and time sensitive topics but it can actually have a negative impact on your older articles.

To combat this problem, you can reset publishing dates by simply updating the article. You can do that for every article you ever published but don't abuse it. I would recommend doing it mostly on the ones where you can actually add new content and for the posts that are time sensitive since they are going to see the most benefits from it.

Bulk Editing Snippets

You may think to yourself by now

This is all great and dandy but I don't have time to go back to every post I published to make these changes.

Don't worry, Yoast has got your back.

To edit snippets in a bulk go to Yoast, select Tools and click on the Bulk editor.

Now, you should be able to see all of your posts in a list. What is so convenient about this bulk editor is that it allows you to edit your titles and meta descriptions in one window. It also has a number of filtering and sorting options so you will be able to quickly navigate to any of your posts when you get the hang of it.

If you plan to apply some of these changes to multiple posts, this will save you an enormous amount of time.

The only drawback of this approach is that you don't have that „length bar line" so you need to pay proper attention to the length of your titles and descriptions.

Featured Snippet

Before we wrap this up I'd like to mention featured snippets.

This isn't directly connected to Yoast but since we focused so much on the snippet in this article it would be a shame not to mention it.

You have all probably came across it at some point during your googling efforts. It looks something like this.

Whose page is chosen and what part of your post/page shows up is decided entirely by Google.The neat thing is, is that all answers from the first page results are eligible to be featured in this snippet.

Here is a further read if you want to found out how to please the Big G and increase your chances of being selected.

Don't forget…

There is no magic button that can skyrocket the number of your page visitors. If there was one, everyone would be using it and we would quickly end up where we started.

Always have in mind that the snippets are the only information on which a reader evaluates his „clicking" options. Taking that into account, you should always make it as appealing as possible.

In the end, the only way to make money is to have visitors. And it would be a shame to lose them by skipping these simple tweaks that can be easily incorporated in your article posting routine.

Coty Lance is a webmaster with 10+ years of experience in setting up and running successful websites. As the editor of Hosting Manual, he is helping out both new and seasoned webmasters. Being a WordPress advocate, he advised thousands of people how to jumpstart their online journey.

Source: 5 Simple Yoast Tips For WordPress Users To Increase Their CTR