When setting up a new website, it can be tempting to sign up for multiple services through one provider in order to save money and for the convenience of having everything in one place. While in theory, this is a logical idea, we’ll explain why it may not be the wisest decision to bundle your […]
A common mistake we’ve seen new and seasoned WordPress website owners make is sharing their administrator account information (username and password) with others. Although this may be the quickest way to provide someone with access to your account, it is not the best way to do so. Here are 3 reasons not to share your […]
The start of a new year is a great time to evaluate your WordPress website, looking for ways to improve it. A website is never finished; it can always be improved. Let's start evaluating your site! Get Access Run Site Evaluators Run these site evaluators: The first two evaluators also evaluate SEO, which is a […]
One of the most common questions about WordPress is, "is it secure?" Many get the impression that it's not, mostly from reading scare-tactic headlines. Let's look at the facts, and answer the question, "is WordPress secure?" Perception WordPress attracts more hacking attempts than other platforms because of its popularity. It powers about 23% of all websites, and […]
Are you making mistakes with your small business website? Business websites exist to sell, directly or indirectly. Small businesses often lose sight of that, and make mistakes with the content, design, marketing, and technical aspects of their sites. Learn how to fix these mistakes so your site delivers business results. I gave this presentation, Website […]
Note: The No Longer in Directory plugin was, ironically, removed from the WordPress plugin directory in 2018. There's no direct replacement. The Vendi Abandoned Plugin Check plugin will show on your Plugins screen the number of days since a plugin was last updated, which is useful for detecting abandoned plugins. For plugins that aren't in […]
I gave this presentation, Website Mistakes Small Businesses Make, and How to Fix Them, at WordCamp Grand Rapids 2014. I’ve seen many small businesses make website mistakes that hurt their results. My presentation was about how to fix these mistakes so your site delivers business results. Below are the video, slides, and detailed notes. Not optimizing to sell How […]
"What website mistakes do small businesses make?" This was one of the many questions asked at the Small Business Tech Panel at the Warehaüs, a coworking space in Holland, Michigan in March 2014. Here's an expanded version of the answer I gave. The items (in no particular order) are as follows: Not optimized for sales Business websites exist to […]
We talked about WordPress Performance Optimization at the April 2014 meetup of WordPress Grand Rapids, a group I help organize. Since the meetup, I've spoken with a few clients and prospects whose WordPress sites were loading slowly, so I thought it'd be helpful to post here too. The speed of websites has become more important than ever. I talked about it […]
"What does a small business website need?" This was one of the many questions asked at the Small Business Tech Panel at the Warehaüs, a coworking space in Holland, Michigan in March 2014. Here's an expanded version of the answer I gave. The items (in no particular order) are as follows: Effective content (text, images, video) Too […]
Imsanity is my favorite plugin for resizing and compressing images that are uploaded to WordPress. It's better to resize and compress on your computer prior to uploading, but many people don't know how, or simply won't do it. So, I install Imsanity to do the job for them. What Can Imsanity Do? Resize JPG, PNG, GIF. […]
Here's a guide to using the BackupBuddy plugin to back up a WordPress site to Amazon S3. The video only shows how to do the Amazon S3 initial configuration and user configuration, and adding Amazon S3 as a remote destination in BackupBuddy. The text below the video provides more details about configuring BackupBuddy in general. […]
