ebook - wordpress decoded for businesses

1 WordPress Decoded For Businesses -

Table of Contents

WordPress Decoded For Businesses -‐ From lunartheme.com

About Author 1

Debunk 4 Myths About WordPress Shortcodes 2 Debunk 5 Common Myths About WordPress Updates 9 Why Everybody Loves Visual Composer 12 Revolution Slider Plugin And Amazing Things 16 Debunk 7 Common Myths About WordPress Speed 20 To Do List To Raise WordPress Page Speed Grade 23 Debunking 10 Myths About WordPress Backups 29

List of WordPress Communities You Should Join and Why 33 Must-Follow People From The WordPress Community 37 Differences Between WordPress.com and WordPress.org 38 Navigation & The Unknown Facts of Sticky Menu 43

Rethink Your Responsive Design Strategy 51

A New Method To Walk Into Your Customers’ Shoes 56

2

References 61 Conclusion 62

About Author

W

WordPress Decoded For Businesses -‐ From lunartheme.com

e are a team of young and enthusiastic designers, marketers and

developers who are specialized at creating professional premium

WordPress themes.

This book is not only a practical gift to your customers but also a helpful

handbook to consolidate knowledge of WordPress for yourself.

You will get from this book much more than what you can imagine:

ü  Debunk common myths of building websites with WordPress and WordPress

most popular plugins.

ü  Practical case studies of successful businesses and celebrities’ websites using

WordPress.

ü  Bonus Tips for Design and UX from various well-known authors.

Our mission is to build user–friendly, clean and modern designs in order to

help more and more users improve their livelihood. The best thing is our products are

conceived in innovation. To us, customer is king. We guarantee that we will invest all

of our skills and strengths into products and support.

Our products are currently available on Themeforest.net including Lincoln –

Education Material Design WordPress Theme, Jakiro – Fashion Shop WordPress

Theme, INK – Elegant Magazine Blog WordPress Theme and its PSD version.

Besides, some other products are also upcoming.

3 1

Debunk 4 Myths About WordPress Shortcodes There is a big chance when you write new content for your website that you will

repeatedly use the same code to insert needed functionality in particular pages.

Often you repeat the same HTML and CSS

code on a daily basis and the task becomes tedious

and error-prone.

The way you can avoid this problem is by

using shortcodes. They are a WordPress features,

which allows you to call useful pieces of code

regularly, and in the same time lower the chance

of making errors.

But what do these look like?

Shorcodes are descriptive and inserted into square brackets. One such example is

[adsense] – a shortcode used to visualize a block of ads from Google.

There are, however, some myths in circulation that surround WordPress shortcodes,

and I will attempt to debunk them. These are as follows:

WordPress shortcodes allow you to cut down on repetitive HTML strings and

insert them wherever you require them. For example, you can make a shortcode that

displays a Google AdSense ad or inserts a call to action button.

1. WordPress shortcodes do not save your time

<a class="button" href="http://

www.yahoo.com"><span>Yahoo</span></a>

Examine the following line of code I have made to serve the needs of one of my clients:

If my client wants to use the code, he would have to remember to both wrap the

button in a span tag and assign a class to a link.

Take the time to consider it…

Each time my client needs to add a button, he would have to go through these

two steps and remember them.

4 WordPress Decoded For Businesses -‐ From lunartheme.com 2

This is a very tedious task for a non-technical person and it is best to avoid it.

In order to present my client with a better way of accomplishing the same task, I

made a shortcode, which is both easier to use and makes more sense:

The aforementioned shortcode generates a button with the “Go to Yahoo” code

and links to Yahoo.

2. Creating shortcodes is a difficult and time-consuming task

WordPress allows you to create shortcuts in an easy way. Let us, for example,

discuss how we can implement the [adsense] shortcode into our own code. We should

first define a function for the actual code of Adsense. The code below could be added

to the function.php file of your theme or a plugin file:

function get_adsense($atts) { return '<script type="text/javascript"> </script> <script type="text/javascript" src="http://googlesyndication.com/pagead/show_ads.js"> </script> '; } This pretty straightforward function only serves to return a string of my

Google Adsense code. My shortcode will be replaced with whatever this function

returns. Instead of Google Adsense code, I could have as easily returned the html for

a Facebook widget or anything else with the same function.

After creating a function that outputs what we need, we should hook that to a

shortcode. It is where the WordPress API comes to our aid. Let us examine more

closely how we can do it and explain the mechanism behind it.

[button link="http://yahoo.com"]Go to Yahoo[/button]

The call to set up this particular Adsense shortcode would look like this:

That is all we need to do! The above function’s first parameter is the name of the

shortcode we created (adsense). It instructs WordPress to create the shortcode [adsense]

using the results of our function get_adsense.

It isn’t too bad? Is it? By employing simple shortcodes, WordPress grants us the

option to do so much more, even to add parameters.

Now it is time to use the shortcode. It should be added either in the Visual or

HTML views of a WordPress post or page. That is all that has to be done. You have

easily created your first shortcode.

add_shortcode('adsense', 'get_adsense');

6

3. Shortcodes are hard to edit and don’t make much of a difference.

In just a few words, a shortcode will allow you to have access to whatever kind

of functionality it has. It could range from the very simple task of inserting an icon and

altering the color of a particular text to inserting an image gallery of images that slide

on the page, creating an astonishing experience for the user.

A strong example of how the use of shortcodes can make big difference is when

someone creates page layouts. Nowadays it is very common to stumble upon a full-

width page layout having text paragraphs spanning throughout the page’s entire width

that screams in the face of whoever has just discovered it “I AM JUST ANOTHER

LARGE PIECE OF UNREADABLE CONTENT!”

With good number of decently set layout-type shortcodes, the author could have

sorted the problem easily. In fact, there is no reason for him not to do so. Why not to

narrow the columns a bit with a shortcode? Why not reduce the impact of all that text

by inserting accordions and a few tabs, for example? It is even possible to add a

number of images in a gallery or slider to ensure the page is more appealing to the

reader.

WordPress Decoded For Businesses -‐ From lunartheme.com 4

Actually, it is possible that your current theme already has built in shortcodes. In

order to determine which shortcodes your particular theme has, you need to open your

theme’s documentation and read through it. Some themes even have demos that list all

the shortcodes you can apply using them. Another alternative is to search for a bundled

shortcode plugin, and these can be both free and premium.

If you are interested in creating your own shortcodes, the Shortcode API Codex

of WordPress.org is a good place to start from.

The WordPress shortcodes have a lot of untapped potential. They are very helpful

at allowing WordPress users to insert complex content areas, even though they have no

technical background, with ease. The same is true for those will a lot of technical

knowledge. They find WordPress shortcodes very beneficial for better managing

duplicate content areas. The use of WordPress shortcode makes the management of a

website easier.

4. All shortcodes must be created in advance


Debunk 5 Common Myths About WordPress Updates

WordPress is a CMS which has enjoyed a rapid growth in popularity throughout the

years. However, the system is far from being perfect and we all require different

features from it that don’t come out-of-the-box. That is the reason why we are

constantly on the lookout for new themes and plugins and the updates their new

versions contain.

If you are a WordPress fan, there is a big chance that you have installed a load of themes and plugins to cater for the needs of your website.

WordPress is a constantly evolving project. There are literally tens of thousands

of themes and plugins available on WordPress.org and other websites that offer

premium or not so premium WordPress themes and plugins for sale. Installing these is

only the first step.

Developers are hard at work to improve this CMS and ensure that it is a robust

and reliable platform. A considerable effort is also spent on ensuring the available

themes and plugins are also constantly looked after. In order to prevent potential

problems with the code and prevent the occurrence of bugs and vulnerabilities in

themes and plugins as well as in the system itself, it is of paramount importance that

these are constantly updated.

In this article I outline the most common myths about WordPress updates:

1. “It is not necessary to update WordPress to its most recent version.”

You are mistaken. As I have already mentioned, the latest updates address

critical vulnerabilities in not only the CMS but also the themes and plugins it uses.

Always make sure all of these are updated to their latest version but first ensure

whether, for example, the newest version of a particular plugins works with the

latest WordPress version.

8

2. “An update is a one click process and you don’t need backup before you begin.”


3. “I don’t need an update because I probably won’t need the new features in a plugin or a theme.”

Themes and plugins for WordPress are like all other types of software your

computer uses. From time to time developers introduce new updates that not only

provide new features but fix known problems with bugs.

Even if the new features and functionalities are not something you are

interested in, you must still be concerned about bugs. These come in a variety of sizes

and shapes. A software bug could prevent users from using a plugin or it could only

affect a certain part of a theme. It is also not unusual for bugs to introduce holes in

security.

No matter how severe these bugs are, they should be dealt with. When a new

software update addressing a bug is being introduced, you as a user should update as

fast as possible to preserve the security of your website.

It isn’t difficult to update a plugin or a theme from the WordPress dashboard, so

what is stopping you from doing so?

4. It is a tedious task to always monitor when new updates are being introduced

When a new WordPress version is made available, you can easily spot it. The

system will prompt you to update by displaying a message on almost any page of your

administration panel.

It is a bit different for themes and plugins, but if these are listen on

WordPress.org, then the system will notify you whether a new version is released. The

only thing you require is to visit the WordPress dashboard’s section for updates. It will

notify you of the number of updates you can apply.

It is quite the opposite. Before you consider updating your WordPress

installation, it is important that you have a complete backup of all your site’s data. This

will allow you to easily restore your website once something goes wrong. There are a

number of tools on the Internet, both free and paid, which will grant you the option to

streamline this process.


If fact, WordPress does not check whether a new version is made available for

all your themes and plugins. It only checks whether that is the case for those listed on

WordPress.org.

If a theme or a plugin hasn’t been uploaded to WordPress.org, the CMS will not

suggest an automatic update through a single click.

In order to be able to update a theme, a plugin, or the WordPress installation

itself, the CMS must be given the right to overwrite files. What that means is that the

files of the WordPress installation must be owned by the user of the web server. The

user must be able to write the files.

5. WordPress automatically updates all my plugins and themes for me and notifies me if there are any updates.

After having said all this, it is not difficult to conclude that updating this

software to its latest version is of paramount importance. Although there is more than

one way to install updates, the automatic one click installation method is the simplest

and best way to apply them. It saves you time and you are less likely to encounter

errors. Lack of time is simply not an excuse not to update WordPress!


WordPress is an astonishing blogging platform, and its popularity is truly deserved.

The problem with it arises when you try to use it for something more that a simple

platform for blogging. This is when things start to get truly complicated and difficult.

However, there is a WordPress plugin that can be of help to you should you wish to

dive deeper into a more advanced territory.

If your knowledge of HTML and CSS is not good enough, what you need is a

plugin that allows you to make changes to your WordPress-based website in as simple

way as possible. That is when a page builder plugin steps in, and out of all page

building software solutions, there is one that clearly stands out from the rest. It is the

Visual Composer plugin for WordPress.

It presents users with a simple to use interface and allows for the creation of posts

and pages almost instantly through the use of a drag and drop interface. No prior

knowledge of HTML, CSS or programming languages is needed.

Current pages are easily copied and reused on a website. Templates can be saved

so that they are available for use later. The multilingual-ready plugin has .mo and .po

files as well as PF, ES, DE, BR, RU and PL added by users.

The skin builder of Visual Composer grants you the option to generate your own

color theme. The responsive layout is also a feature that works equally well will mobile

and regular desktop devices. These is a support for any conceivable post type,

including custom post types.

11

The latest version of Visual Composer comes with 44 content blocks, available

for use right away:

Why Everybody Loves Visual Composer


Visual Composer has an avalanche of available features such as:

ü  Drag and drop intuitive interface – it is both easy and light to use. The generation of

new pages has never been done so easily. No prior programming experience is

assumed and your clients are sure to love the final product.

ü  Backend editor – Are you used to working on backend? The native content

management of Visual Composer on the backend will serve you well with a range of

options and functions.

ü  Frontend editor – It introduces the principle “What you see is what you get”,

streamlining the page creation process with a strong frontend editor. You are given a

glimpse of how your content will look on the frontend of your website without

unnecessary switches and clicks.

ü  Easily extendable – It is possible to create your own Visual Composer plugin for

your theme and even sell it on CodeCanyon. All third party developers are welcomed

to join the party!

ü  Multilingual-ready - .mo and .po files are included to make translation easier.

ü  Object-oriented code – In order to ensure best results for your website, Visual

Composer makes the most out of the best programming practices.

ü  Responsiveness – The content you add will look great on both mobile and desktop

devices. The responsive design feature of the plugin allows you to take control over

the layout of your site, granting you control over defining the size of columns, display

options, and offsets. You can observe how your content is being displayed.

ü  System for templates – Copy the existing pages to reuse them later and save

templates. You can make the most out of WPBakery.com’s predefined layouts to

generate your posts and pages.

ü  Support for custom posts types – Custom post types are also supported. The plugin

works with any post type.

ü  User access support for WordPress – Website administrators determine what

elements can be used by certain user groups.


ü  Dedicated and professional support – support team consisting of high-quality and

dedicated professionals is always available to serve your needs and offer assistance

with whatever difficulties you may be facing.

ü  Free of charge lifetime update – All updates are free of charge and applied

automatically. Visual Composer allows you to stay up-to-date with the plugin’s latest

enhancements and releases.

ü  Options for design – The new design options allow you to control the display of

elements. You are able to set margins, borders, background, and paddings with just

few clicks. The color panel is a great way to enhance your design. The easy creation

of modern designs is easily accomplished.

ü  Support for a range of languages – With Visual Composer you can build multi-

language sites. The plugin is compatible with mqTranslate and qTranslate.

WordPress Decoded For Businesses - From lunartheme.com

13 14

One of the newest features of the plugin is that it is extendable. On the request

of theme authors, this feature has already been made available. You are now able to

use your own set of shortcodes to extend Visual Composer. You only need to define

them in functions.php and the plugin with take care of the rest for you automatically.

WordPress is a great content management system but it isn’t easy for newbies

to create a website that is both attractive and functional when they have no knowledge

of coding and are inexperienced. That is the reason why those who wish to create their

own websites are often relying on specialists to do complicated webpage setups for

them. The answer to this problem is a page builder, and from all those pagebuilders

available on the market, Visual Composer clearly stands out.

It seems that every review of the WordPress plugin Visual Composer is

positive, and many of these, which draw a comparison between the plugin and its

market rivals, conclude that Visual Composer is the superior choice. No one should

claim that the plugin is perfect. Some other plugins with similar functionality have

better interfaces, for example. However, Visual Composer is most probably better than

all of them.

If you are faced with the task of creating complicated webpages, for example

large sales pages having numerous elements, Visual Composer will probably be the

best tool in your inventory. If you use it, you will be able to deal with short codes in

the default editor of WordPress more easily. Even without additional extensions, the

plugin grants you all you need to create a professional website.


Revolution Slider Plugin And Amazing Things The developers behind Revolution Slider are ThemePunch. This plugin serves to add

new functionality to your WordPress website – a slider. Traditionally, a slider adds

image transitions to a banner. The use of Revolution Slider in particular allow us to

add a slider featuring advanced image transitions and at the same time place very

appealing animations on certain slides. When a slider is added to a website, especially

one built for e-commerce purposes, it increases the appeal of a website to visitors and

clients. When used to display content for mobile and tablet devices, the slider is

particularly beneficial.

The interface of the Revolution Slider Plugin allows for an easy use. Coming

with an easy to understand and follow instructions, it comes packed with a lot of

settings. The plugin’s most recent version comes with a substantial improvement to

its interface.

The plugin also allows for few basic

settings, which most people expect from a slider

to have. There are, however, some plugins on

the market that do not feature these basic

settings. With Revolution Slider it is possible to

set features like the placement of the slider, the

width and height of the slider, navigational

interface, image navigation features, etc.

All slides’ default background is customizable and it is possible to

individually edit each created slide. One major highlight of the Revolution Slider is

its ability to add layers to slides, and if you choose so, these can visualize along a

timeline. In this way it is possible to animate both slide transitions and individual

slides when layers are used. A layer can take advantage of an added image, video or

text. Each layer allows the setting of animation transitions from the large number of

provided transitions. It can also have an added link so that the link is present in any

slide of the slider.


Benefits of the Revolution Slider: Ø  Instead of using Flash, the plugin uses

CSS transitions, and in order to ensure faster

performance, it makes use of the Greensock

Animation Platform (GSAP).

Ø  The use of the Revolution Slider allows

for the creation and editing of a number of

sliders but also their import and export to and

from a simple text file.

Ø  The plugin is easy to place on a page.

When a new slider is created, a shortcode is

automatically generated through the slider alias.

The shortcode is a convenient and easy way to

place the slide in a widget or a post. What is

more, it is easy to place a slide on any page of

your website simply by changing the html of

the theme.

Ø  The responsive layout feature is a big

asset to the Revolution Slider. It sets the width

and height of the slider dynamically and in

accordance with the screen size of a particular

device. Alternatively, it is possible to set a

custom or fixed layout in accordance with your

personal preferences.

Ø  The layers of the plugin allow for adding

styles and editing them.

Ø  It makes the most out of caption

animations.

Although it is possible to link the

layer to another website, it is not

linkable to a page or post

Ø  When images are places on a

slide, it affects the website’s load

time.

Ø  It is not possible to copy one

slide from another.

Ø  A common layer cannot be

added to all slides of a slider.

Ø  A number of advanced 3D

transitions are not working with

IE9.

16

Disadvantages of Revolution Slider

Ø  Revolution Slider has a

multi-language and multi-site

support.

Ø  Images with alt tags – the

feature grants the option to add

alt tags to the images the slider

uses or the image in the

background.


Although Revolution Slider packs a lot of advanced features and allows for easy

customizations, it also has rivals on the market. One such alternative is LayerSlider.

If you compare the features of these two products, you will notice one

substantial difference. Both LayerSlider and Revolution Slider offer unique interfaces,

granting you the option to generate outstanding image slideshows of a range of

pictures. I would recommend that you try both products in order to determine which

interface is more appealing to you.

At USD 18 the Revolution Slider is a little bit more expensive than LayerSlider,

which costs only USD 17, but such a small difference in price is hardly a deciding

factor.

Another rival of Revolution Slider is Layer Slider. Thanks to its large number of

available options, the plugin allows you to boost the appearance of your website with

beautiful slides. However, just as it is the case with Revolution Slider, Layer Slider also

has a learning curve. You may find it hard to create better than averagely looking slides

in the beginning but this shouldn’t discourage you from trying.

Spend a day to familiarize yourself with the product and create a number of

slides with the Layer Slider for WordPress. It allows you to combine images, videos,

audio, text, effects, and transitions. Once you get used to it, it will allow you to create

slides with ease.

But how to choose one slider over the other? Both of them basically offer the

same features. Both are mobile optimized, multilingual-ready, have a drag and drop

slide builder, are multisite compatible, SEO friendly, use various effects and slide

transitions, and fancy a range of various other options.

Both of them allow you to create great looking slides and no matter which one

you pick, you can’t go wrong. Personally, I prefer Revolution Slider to Layer Slider but

that doesn’t mean that the former is better in any measure. Revolution Slider is just

easier for me to use.

I believe that the main problem here lies in how to find high-quality pictures for

your projects rather than choosing one slider over the other.


If you are looking for a WordPress slider plugin of high-quality, you can choose

one of these two. If you’re undecided, choose the cheaper one.

To conclude, I would like to say that Revolution Slider is a slider plugin of

premium quality, and if you want to use it in your WordPress website, you would have

to pay a few dollars. However, it is a great addition to the slider inventory of

WordPress and you should definitely give this one a try.


Debunk 7 Common Myths About WordPress Speed

There has been a lot of talk during the years about website speed, and it is commonly accepted that the speed of your website reflects on the customer experience, which in turn reflects on your Pagerank and increases or decreases your website’s conversion rate. However, there are a lot of myths in circulation surrounding website speed and in particular the speed of the popular content management system WordPress.

The speed performance of WordPress relies on the following major points.

ü  How streamlined the code of your theme is – Searching on the web for a free

WordPress theme is rarely the best way to discover a fast loading and well-coded

theme.

ü  How fast your hosting provider is – One of the easiest ways to score a big hit here

is to invest in a fast hosting provider.

ü  Installing only trustworthy, well coded, and well documented plugins – Since

every plugin adds functionality to your website, it also makes your website more

complex, which affects its speed.


1. WordPress lacks sufficient speed.

Although it is true that the slow speed of a website is a big disadvantage, to

presume that websites using WordPress are slower than those running under another

CMS is false. One can make WordPress as fast as he needs it to be. If your website

that runs under WordPress is slow, this can be the result of many factors. You could

be either flooding your website with many plugins or you may be using a not so good

and cheap hosting provider. It may also be the case that your site is slow because of

the theme you are using.

Injecting an overwhelming number of rich features into your website through a

single plugin or two can be very detrimental to your site and can result in more harm

than good. It is true that a large number of WordPress plugins will slow your website

but a single plugin of low quality can be even more harmful in this respect. Some

plugins are even coded by hackers who are looking for an unauthorized access into

your website.

Not I will attempt to dispel some of the most common WordPress myths.

These are as follows:

2. If you use fewer plugins, website speed will not be an issue.

3. Inactive plugins are also slowing down your website.

This is quite not so. An inactive plugin has nothing to do with your website’s

speed. It is however worth mentioning that an inactive plugin should also be kept up-

to-date, as an outdated version of a plugin may pose risk to security.

4. Inactive themes slow down your website.

Just as it is the case with inactive plugins, these do not affect the speed of

your website. Make sure they are updated to their most recent version so that they

don’t present a security risk.


6. The number of plugins is the single thing that affects website speed the most.

If fact, it is the quality of plugins and not their quantity that affects the speed of

a website the most. When people claim that using fewer in number plugins will boost

the speed of a website, this is not necessarily 100 per cent true. Usually it is a single

plugin that increases our page load time because it either uses a lot of scripts or its

database requests are not optimized.

If you believe that your site is slow because of a particular plugin, you don’t

need to be a hardcore developer to determine whether that is true. You can just

deactivate all of your plugins from the dashboard of your website and examine

whether this impacts performance. If your website starts to load much faster as a

result, try to activate the plugins one by one in order to discover which one causes the

problem. Once you discover the culprit, it is only a matter of finding a suitable

replacement.

While it is true that the trash takes up more space, it has no effect on the speed

of your website.

Although all of these claims are clearly not true, the CMS has room for

improvement in terms of speed. You can always look for the perfect solution and try a

range of plugins with similar functionalities but affecting your website’s speed

differently. Acquiring paid plugins and premium themes is by far the best method for a

non-technical person to ensure his site is secure, looks great, and runs fast.

7. Keeping a lot of trash or not emptying your trash bin brings your website speed down.

5. Revisions are slowing a WordPress website.

These have no effect on the speed of a website. Both WordPress and MySQL

are clever enough to ignore the number of revisions on the front end of a website.

Revisions only affect the available space in a database.


To Do List To Raise WordPress Page Speed Grade

I almost forgot to mention that your revenue stream can literally disappear due

to slow website speed. According to the websiteoptimizaton.com’s experts, transition

from a page with 10 results loading in 0.4 seconds time to a page listing 30 results and

loading in 0.9 seconds will decrease both ad revenue and traffic by as much as 20 per

cent.

Similar tests conducted at Amazon showed nearly the same results: a load time

increase of 100 ms decreased sales by 1 per cent.

All this makes it clear that people dislike slowly loading websites. Having said

that, it is only logical that we ask ourselves how to improve the speed of our

WordPress websites? If you continue to read this article, I’ll show you tips of what

steps you should take to speed up your website.

I must admit to you that I’m addicted to speed, and no, I’m not talking to you about

any stimulant. I only have website speed in mind. I am not the only one in this kind of

quest though. Google has already announced that website speed is a determining

factor for search engine ranking for them.

The Google Page Speed and

Yahoo! YSlow plugins for Mozilla

Firefox determine the speed of your

website against universally accepted

website performance rules. However,

they don’t give you advices on what to

do with the performance scores provided

by them.

My task is to outline the top recommendations for performance and show you the

way you can take advantage of them to improve your website’s speed.

How i s webs i te page speed

determined?


1. Bring down the number of HTTP requests.

What this means is to limit the number of

files used to display content on your pages.

When your website is visited by someone, the

necessary files are sent to the browser of that

person. These are references to a JavaScript

library, CSS files, and loads of images.

As you may have already guessed for

yourself, each file used to enhance the design of

your website limits its speed. In a similar way,

plugins from the WordPress repository are

known to inject extra CSS code in the head

section of your website and preventing you

from adding the needed styles to your style.css

file manually.

The important point here is to remember

that one should always strive to remove what is

unnecessary. You should always be mindful of

how the plugins you like and use impact the

performance of your website. A particular

plugin may not be worth the extra page-load

time it requires to operate.

2. All images should be optimized and

correctly displayed.

3. It is a good practice to minify

your CSS, HTML and JavaScript

code.

This means that all images should be made as small as possible, without sacrificing much quality. Many images, depending on the format they use, carry a heavy load of metadata that can dramatically increase a file’s size.

A lot of designers do not

compress the images they use in

their designs before uploading

them to a host, and an image-

intensive design can have a

drastic impact on the overall site

performance.

Another mistake inexperienced

webmasters make is when they

upload to their website an image

far larger than their design

r e q u i r e s . U n f o r t u n a t e l y ,

WordPress allows this and many

website owners upload huge

graphics taken directly from their

digital cameras to their sites.

With freely available applications

such as Image Optimizer and

Picnik, there is no place for an

excuse not to optimize and resize

photos. Both your server and your

visitors will be thankful to you if

you use them.


4. Use a CDN or Content

Delivery Network.

Before sending your files to the server,

compress them at the server level. If you have to

throw a piece of paper across a distance so that it

goes as far as it can, would you not squeeze and

crumple it as much as you can? The same applies

here – we must allow our webserver to use

compression on our files before they are served

to our visitors. This is easily accomplished

through a few lines of code added to

our .htaccess file:

5. Compress components and Gzip.

#Begin gzip and deflate <IfModule mod_deflate.c> AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/html text/css application/x-javascript text/plain text/xml image/x-icon </IfModule>

Before serving the code

to your visitors, it is a good

practice to remove all white

spaces from it. All the tabs,

spaces and structured code on

your website has the purpose of

making the code readable. Both

browsers and servers care little

of what the code looks like.

They are only concerned

whether i t validates and

executes without errors. If you

want your files to perform

better on the server, you should

remove the white spaces before

uploading them.

Since it isn’t always a

good idea to dispose of white

spaces from often edited files, it

is practical to use plugins like

W3 Total Cache and WP-

Minify to only handle this at

runtime and leave the files you

edit unaffected.

A C D N c a n

turbocharge the performance

of your server and lighten the

load on it.

The high-performance network of servers

called CDN is able to replicate your websites’

static assets and serve them from the closest POP

to your visitors.

It may be hard for you to grasp this but the

good news is that we are not required to have an

understanding of the mechanics governing

Content Delivery Networks to use their potential

and power. What you have is a group of servers

that distribute the static assets of your website to

your visitors all over the world.

CDNs are considered one of the most

effective ways to boost the speed with which our

websites load.


7. The stylesheet should be put at the top.

All references to stylesheets should be

included in your document’s head section.

8. The place for scripts is at the bottom. All files that relate to functionality can load after the content has loaded. As we a mindful of how we serve the content to our visitors in the fastest possible way and the steps that users will take subsequently, it is a good practice to prioritize in the following way: ü  The content should be served to visitors as fast as it is possible. ü  Unstyled content should not load in the browser, and all CSS should load in the <head> section of a page.

ü  The files that handle interaction, certain external API calls, tabbed widgets and so on should load last.

6. The <link> method should always be chosen over the @import method. When your stylesheets are included, make

sure you link to the files instead of relying on the

@import reference. The reason for this is the

fact that IE deals with them differently. The

browser in question loads them as a reference at

the bottom of the document.

Although the aforementioned code may

look intimidating, actually it is not that much

complex. We just check to see whether the

Apache mod_deflate module is there and if it is

so, choose to serve plain files, favicons, CSS,

HTML and JavaScript using the gzip compression

method.

You should note that it asks for the

mod_deflate module and the Apache webserver.

In order for the gzip compression with NGINX to

be enabled, you should ensure that a couple extra

lines of code are included into the appropriate

directive. These are:

server { gzip on; gzip_types text/html text/css application/x-javascript text/plain text/xml image/x-icon; }

Unstyled content should

never be displayed to visitors.

F i l e s t h a t c o n t r o l t h e

appearance of our website

should load first so that they

affect all HTML while it is

loading


9. Use catching. With catching, we are asking the browser to

always rely on particular files for a certain time

period. When a visitor requires the files once again,

the browser loads them from its local cache and

doesn’t request them from the browser again.

To run a website without catching is the

same as going over to the nearby store to fill up a

glass of water each time you feel thirsty. It is

shortsighted and impractical to say the least

because it takes so much more time and work.

The directive dubbed ExpiresByType is in

use to let browsers know what types of files to

cache and for how long to use them to display

content. The following example informs the

browsers of your visitors to cache images, favicons,

CSS, HTML and JavaScript for a period of 3600

seconds:

These load one very

optimized graphic for your

design with the aim to improve

on performance.

In essence, a CSS sprite

represents an image that is

made up of other images. Your

design uses such sprites as a

map that lists the locations of

all the images on a particular

sprite. When all the coordinates

are known, some smart CSS is

employed to point to the

necessary sections of the sprite

when the browser loads your

design.

10. Consider using CSS sprites.

<IfModule mod_expires.c>

ExpiresActive On

ExpiresByType text/html M3600

ExpiresByType text/css M3600

ExpiresByType application/x-

javascript M3600

ExpiresByType image/bmp M3600

ExpiresByType image/gif M3600

ExpiresByType image/x-icon M3600

ExpiresByType image/jpeg M3600

</IfModule>

I should have pointed out that

t h e c o d e a b o v e i s f o r

your .htaccess file. In NGINX,

the same setting will look this

way:

location ~* \.(jpg|png|gif|jpeg|css|js)$ { expires 1h; }


The topic of sprites is an extensive one

and there are a range of resources on the web

that explain the mechanics behind CSS sprites

and how we can create such sprites for our

projects. An example of a utility that helps

generate a sprite and the associated with it code

is SpriteMe.

Should you decide to implement some of

these techniques, you will witness a dramatic

and immediate improvement in the performance

of your website.

While it is good to know how

things like HTTP requests and

database calls work, we don’t

need to grasp these concepts in

detail in order to use them to our

advantage in our websites.


Debunking 10 Myths About WordPress Backups

Here we will try to dispel the most common myths surrounding WordPress

backups.

It is critical for everyone to be able to backup and restore his/her website

when the need arises. Do you remember how much time and effort you invested in

developing your website? Why not try to protect it then? Let us attempt to debunk the

myths around WordPress backups:

Backing up your WordPress installation is something you should not take lightly.

However, not everyone pays enough attention to it. Unfortunately, some individuals

have fallen for the common backup myths surrounding WordPress and have relied on

false information, endangering their websites in the process.

No, it isn’t. A backup of the database, irrespective of whether it is a complete

backup or a simple WordPress export from the dashboard, only contains the content of

your website. You will have secured the posts and pages on your website, but nothing

more.

1. “WordPress creates an automatic backup of my website.”

That is quite not so. WordPress doesn’t has the functionality to automatically

backup your site’s data. It doesn’t come out-of-the-box.

It does, however, has an export feature that allows you to export an XML file

that has your pages, posts, custom fields, comments, tags and categories. However, it

is not an automatic feature and you have to do the task yourself. Besides, it doesn’t

come with any kind of restore for you and it doesn’t grant you everything you would

require to completely backup and restore your website.

2. “A backup of the website’s database is good enough.”


These are common words people say just before a disaster strikes them. You

tend to believe you will never need a backup until your entire website goes down for a

variety of reasons. Then you learn that you should always be prepared.

3. “I’m sure my webhosting provider will restore my site for me.”

It could be the case. Many hosting providers will offer to backup your website,

but you wouldn’t want to rely solely on them to bring your website back online. While

it is helpful to rely on their support, they are not a backup solution on which you can

count on 100%.

You are not really in control of how your hosting provider maintains your

backups. How you access such backups is entirely up to them. Do you ask yourself in

what way you can restore such a backup? What if it is the case that you need such a

backup after having problems with your hosting provider? Such a problem could have

affected the backup you were relying on. It could even be the case that they are quite

too busy with problems of their own and have no time to examine your website. What

would you do then?

A backup on your host is a good last ditch resort. However, you should not rely

on it as the only backup your WordPress website needs.

4. “I will not need a backup ever!”

5. “I’m not as clumsy and stupid as I need to be to break my website.”

The process will not backup your media, design, plugins, settings, themes, or the

customizations of your website. It will simply preserve your content, but you will

require a lot more to ensure you can safely “resurrect” your website. A complete

backup of your WordPress website will include everything mentioned above.

Such an arrogance can often be your downfall. Even if we assume you are a

person with technical background who will not kill his only WordPress site, it does

not matter.


An interesting claim. And how old is the backup in question? How much has

the content on your website changed since you first made it? Since you are regularly

updating your website, you need backups on regular basis.

You need to ensure your backups are automatic and consistently scheduled. It is

not difficult for the last backup you made last month to become the backup of your last

year. What would you do then?

6. “Hackers care little about my website.”

It doesn’t really matter how unnoticeable your website is. Hackers will always

try to tamper with it one way or another, and they may be trying even now.

If you still don’t believe me. Give the free iThemes Security plugin a try. Install

it and begin to observe the logs. Hackers will try to log into your website by means of

cracked and stolen passwords, and robots will hunt for malicious code.

The reality is much more sober than you might think.

7. “I already made a backup and I will be ok.”

8. “Backing up a website is a complex and hard task. I’m better off without it.”

Do you really believe so? You definitely haven’t given the WordPress backup

plugins a try. Most of them are automatic and offer schedules for your backups. You can

be safe and secure with your website in minutes.

You should check your backups periodically and ensure that everything is in

order. After all, backing up with WordPress isn’t that hard.

9. “A single backup of my website locally is enough

Someone else could bring your website down, an update could go wrong, or a problem

could be the work of a hacker. You need to ensure that your website is protected not

only from your own mistakes but also from the interference of others.


It may be the case you believe you will never allow your website to experience

such failures or that you’re lucky enough for such problems to concern you. Even if it is

so, a complete WP backup could be very helpful in your everyday chores when:

ü  You delete an image accidentally. Single files can be easily restored.

ü  The restore feature of many WP plugins allows for an easy transfer of an entire

website. Website developers often use such plugins to create websites in their local

development environment before these are uploaded on a live host.

ü  Certain plugins can scan for malware and even perform repairs to your database.

Often it is more than backing up.

Not quite so. Using a single location for backing up your website is never enough.

When you put all your eggs into a single basket, you are only waiting for a disaster to

strike.

If you use your computer for a storage location for your backup, it could get

stolen, crash, or be affected by natural disasters.

Your best choice is to have a number of both local and off-site locations for

backup. WordPress plugins often offer such an option.

10. “You only need a backup in case of catastrophic failures.”

9. “A single backup of my website locally is enough


List of WordPress Communities You Should Join and Why

The task of finding a solution to your problem is quite a daunting one. It is especially

true when what we are dealing with are problems associated with web design, web

development and programming. While it is known that the largest WordPress community is the one at

WordPress.org, you are sometimes required to rely on other helpful sources of

information, which may make your task more difficult and miserable as a result.

I’m an active blogger and I constantly use search engines to discover new

sources of information on the topics I’m interested in. Normally I end up joining

communities that can provide answers to my question as I always try new things,

playing with my WordPress installation, introducing changes to it and testing whether

things work better as a result.

I usually have questions around styling issues, new database queries or

optimization issues around my websites’ speed and performance. Sometimes a deeper

understanding of the WordPress CMS and expert technical knowledge are needed for a

particular problem.

I’ve invested time and effort to compile a list of WordPress communities, which I

believe are very helpful and instrumental in providing answers to my problems. I hope

these communities will be helpful for you too.

Before I list the communities I want to outline a number of things for you so that

you are aware of the common standards these communities share. These will improve

your chances to receive help, connect with people with similar interests, and increase

your reputation.

ü  Respect the opinions of others

ü  Conduct your own research prior to submitting your enquiry

ü  Share insights and valuable content

ü  Address people by their names

ü  Compliment others and honor them when their answers are helpful

ü  Try to be yourself


WordPress Development Stack Exchange

The WordPress Development Stack Exchange is one of the best communities for

WordPress enthusiasts to enroll in. If you aim to acquire technical and intellectual

answers, this community will help you a lot if you present yourself as а person seeking

genuine help.

The community itself is located at http://wordpress.stackexchange.com/ and

these are my tips for interacting with it:

ü  Research whether there isn’t a similar topic to yours and that your problem is

not already resolved in it.

ü  Make sure your question is in a proper format and that it is not difficult for the

audience to understand what you ask about.

ü  Give thanks to those whose answers you deem helpful.

ü  Avoid getting into conflict by telling someone he is not right in his statements.

ü  Be loyal as a member of the community.

The community is not only about finding answers to your enquiries. You will

find that it is also a great place for establishing new contacts with developers and

webmasters, most of which maintain their own WordPress websites.

WordPress Reddit

It is not much different from Stack Exchange, except that it is a board for

discussions. Although it is friendlier to WordPress beginners, you will still have to

observe the rules on the sidebar to ensure you comply with the community’s rules.

Presently it has 16,000 users, and this particular subreddit allows you to stay up-

to-date with the latest WordPress features and releases. For the most part the members

are developers, while the rest are experienced users who have been with the CMS for a

long time already. You should ask for help whenever you need it. That is behind the idea

o f R e d d i t a f t e r a l l . Yo u c a n t a k e p a r t i n t h i s c o m m u n i t y a t

http://www.reddit.com/r/Wordpress/

I will not attempt to lecture you on how to go on with each of those steps. Just

ensure that you have these points in mind when you expect to be respected in return.


Advanced WordPress

AdvancedWP is one of those communities that are not yet saturated and haunted

by spammers. AdvancedWP is a community of experts, enthusiastic WordPress users,

and helpful individuals who are always on the lookout to learn and innovate.

You will need a Facebook account to join this particular community, and you will

have to acquire the permission of an administrator. The process helps reduce the number

of people who attempt to join the community in order to spam the discussion board,

mostly with unrelated advertisement. Among the community’s members are people like

Chris Coyier and Yoast, who also enter in discussions and help improve their value for

a l l . T h e d i r e c t l i n k t o t h e c o m m u n i t y i s :

https://www.facebook.com/groups/advancedwp/.

Quora

Quora is a community in a question-answer format. Its reach is much wider than

that of WordPress. It also stands as one of the largest communities, which currently

boosts around 62,000 followers. It is important to note that most followers are only

subscribers though.

An important thing to have in mind for Quora is that you are almost ensured of

receiving the answer to your enquiry. You are also presented with the opportunity to

post questions or ask experts to help with a problem by inviting them to a discussion.

Quora is a perfect place for asking WordPress-related question on a given topic or other

issues troubling you.

You should also try to report and avoid spam whenever you stumble upon it. It is

one of the matters the community is yet to deal with. You can learn more about the

community or decide whether to enroll in it at http://www.quora.com/WordPress.

As a conclusion, I would like to point out that these communities have been in

existence for years and it has taken them a considerable amount of time to develop.


Having said that, it is logical that they are a source of great wealth for those

who are in need of them. It may seem difficult for some to become better introduced to

how these work in the first couple of weeks after registering, but it should not

discourage them from trying.

These are some of the best, if not the best, WordPress communities in existence,

and if you want to promote something WordPress-related or you look for contacting

WordPress professionals, these are definitely places you should visit.


Must-Follow People From The WordPress Community

Having said that, I have come up with the idea to generate a list of influential

and well-known people from the WordPress community. The following is my list of

bloggers and developers who use the WordPress content management system to share

their knowledge of its different aspects. They can be very instrumental in enhancing

our understanding of WordPress one way or another.

WordPress is a content management system that boosts the largest community

worldwide and is enjoying constant growth and improvement. Whether you design or

develop with WordPress, if you need to be more successful in the community and grow

stronger in it, you will need its support. It will allow you to learn faster and grow your

business more successfully. Personally, I have been involved in the WordPress open

source community for several years already and I have gained invaluable knowledge

from a range of people. It will be a great mistake not to connect with other individuals

and learn from the wealth of their experience and expertise.

Morten Rand-Hendriksen

The number one choice from this list and

my personal best is Morten Rand-

Hendriksen. He is a well-known WordPress

theme developer and blogger as well as staff

author at Lynda.com. His personal site is

located at http://mor10.com . He is easily

approachable on both his website and on

wordpress.org where he answers questions

related on the WordPress theme he

maintains, called My Simone.


Chris Lema

Chris Lema is another famous name from the

community of WordPress. On his very helpful

and informative blog he shares knowledge and

insights with all those interested in the CMS.

Additionally to the excellent content Chris

conveys through his blog posts, he is also a

prominent speaker at the WordCamp events

and has a wealth of courses and e-books he is

ready to share with anyone.

The blog of Chris is full of useful information

for all entrepreneurs and blog owners. His blog

is located at http://leavingworkbehind.com.

Joost de Valk aka Yoast

His free WordPress for SEO plugin is

considered to be the supreme choice for both

your clients’ and your own projects by many

people. Yoast and his team also maintain a

blog that covers many interesting areas that

may concern you from social media and

usability to conversion rate optimization and

keeping you well-informed about the most

recent WordPress developments that can

allow your business to expand. The blog of

Y o a s t i s a c c e s s i b l e v i a

https://yoast.com/cat/wordpress/.


Joyce Grace

As a WordPress developer and online

marketer, Joyce has a wealth of experience

in SEO. She maintains one of the largest

WordPress blogs in existence and is ready to

share her experience and knowledge with

the community. One can get in touch with

her at http://www.joycegrace.ca/

Carrie Dils

She is another excellent Lynda.com staff author

and freelance consultant. She focuses her efforts

on WordPress theme development and has vast

experience on the Genesis framework along with

several video courses on the subject. You can

count on her to provide you with a wealth of

materials, including tutorials, development tips

and great design advices. She is approachable via

her website at http://www.carriedils.com/.

Davesh Sharma

He maintains a range of prominent sites using

WordPress, among them WP Kube – a website

with many useful articles concerning the content

management system. If you strive to learn the

latest about the themes and plugins development

at WordPress, you should definitely follow his

reviews and news as he covers many subject of

interest to the community. The url of his blog is

http://www.wpkube.com/ 38 WordPress Decoded For Businesses -‐ From lunartheme.com 36

Kristi Hines

Are you looking for tips to market your

business? If the answer is “yes”, then you should

definitely follow the blog of Kristi as a website

full of information you are interested in. She has

tops of articles on strategies concerning

marketing. Kristi has also contributed to a range

of blog pages with high-profile. Her blog is

located at: http://kristihines.com/.

Pippin Williamson

The prominent entrepreneur Pippin has

successfully used the eco-system of

WordPress to carve out a living. One of

h i s a n d h i s f r i e n d s ’ p l u g i n ,

EasyDigitalDownloads, has gained quite a

popularity and fame. The website of

Pippin does not only serve as his creator’s

plugins homepage but it is also a valuable

resource for the latest reviews and news

on WordPress products.



Are you thinking about using WordPress to start your own business? Many people

already use WordPress.com as their platform of choice for their blogs, but

WordPress.com can also become the home of your online business. They have all the

features and tools you may ever require to spearhead your professional presence on the

web. Should you have any enquiries, they also provide the needed support.

Whenever someone decides on establishing an online presence for his business, he

should focus on creating a standard website instead of a blog. Although WordPress.com

is a great blogging platform, it can easily adapt to serve your needs for a website. If you

want to create a website with them, you should take some important steps. These are as

follows:

Building Your Business Website on WordPress.com or WordPress.org?

Use pages instead of posts.

Generate a static page to serve as your homepage.

The two distinguishable content

types at WordPress.com are posts and

pages. The post type is the supreme

choice for bloggers. If you, on the other

hand, want to establish your online

presence through a website, the page

content type grants you the option to

generate static content. Quite often new

users of the CMS create an About post,

not realizing that what they should have

done instead is to create an About page. In

order for someone to generate the

necessary structure for a website, he

should publish pages containing important

information – services, hours, their

location, etc.

By default , your website at

WordPress.com displays a chronological

order of your most recent posts. When

you create a website, you would probably

wish to use a welcome page as your home

page so that your potential clients can

learn more about your business.

Setting up a static front page can be

as easy as selecting the desire page

through the Reading Settings of your

WordPress dashboard.

You should consider adding a blog page too.

It may look like a blog is unnecessary for

a new business website.

41

However, you can always set a

Blog or News page separately from the

home page of your site to display the most

recent, fresh and easily updated content.

But what about the business themes

on WordPress.com? How can small

business owners choose which theme to

use for their website?

For the users of the WordPress.com

Business upgrade, the best place to look

for themes is the Theme Showcase. There

users can choose any number of premium

themes for their websites. However, if a

user has acquired his theme from another

theme repository, it would not be possible

to use this theme for a WordPress.com

Business website.

Although WordPress.com Business

is a costly upgrade for some budgets at a

price of USD 299 per year, there are some

tips that may be of help to you.

First of all, nearly all of the

features and upgrades the WordPress.com

Business upgrade offers can be purchased

separately, with the only exception being

the unlimited premium themes and live

chat.

If this upgrade is too costly for you,

you can always start with a free theme

featuring a customizable widget area and a

header.

Secondly, apart from using a

custom widget and header, you can also

make the most out of services for photo

editing like PicMonkey to create a

unique header. You can also improve the

appearance of your website through the

use of Image Widgets in your sidebar.

The idea here is to apply customization

without the need to purchase the Custom

Design upgrade.

And thirdly, the custom domain is

also a necessary upgrade. It ensures your

website looks more professional and you

can keep it by renewing it. Owners of

businesses invest great amount of effort

in their company, which means you

should ensure you have registered and

secured the right domain.

But should a business owner choose

WordPress.com over WordPress.org and

what differentiated the two?

WordPress.org is the place where

you can download the installation files of

the CMS, which is an open source system

that powers 23 per cent of the Internet at

present. The website also offers you tons

of plugins and themes at no cost at all.

What is more, WordPress.org contains the

most thorough documentation of the

CMS, has the strongest community

support

WordPress Decoded For Businesses - From lunartheme.com 41 42

and is the source of the latest WordPress

news. It allows developers to actively

contribute to the development of the core

code of the CMS, its accessibility and

translation.

I n c o n t r a s t t o Wo r d P r e s s . o r g ,

WordPress.com is a commercial website

where you are limited with the amount of

customizations you can make if you want

to host a free site. Otherwise, you will be

required to pay a fee each year to remove

restrictions, although the website uses the

same software freely available at

WordPress.org.

Another difference for Business owners,

and not only, is that the WordPress.com is a

hosted service. This means that you don’t

need to look for a reliable web hosting

service or worry about installing the CMS.

All this is included in the service.

I n c o n t r a s t t o Wo r d P r e s s . o r g ,

WordPress.com is a commercial website

where you are limited with the amount of

customizations you can make if you want

to host a free site. Otherwise, you will be

required to pay a fee each year to remove

restrictions, although the website uses the

same software freely available at

WordPress.org.

There are several considerations to take

into account before you make your choice

on one of them. These are limitations and

freedoms, cost , development and

maintenance.

But how should business owners choose

WordPress.com over WordPress.org

and vice versa?

Another difference for Business

owners, and not only, is that the

WordPress.com is a hosted service. This

means that you don’t need to look for a

reliable web hosting service or worry

about installing the CMS. All this is

included in the service.

Comparison of costs

Even though WordPress is a free

CMS, hosting a WordPress website is

not. In order to host such a site, you

need a domain and hosting, and if you

decide on WordPress.org, you can

purchase a pretty cheap host from

BlueHost or Go Daddy. You will also

need to register a domain, which

usually costs no more than USD 10 per

year.

Once you have your website set

up, you will need to decide which

themes and plugins to use.

WordPress Decoded For Businesses - From lunartheme.com 42 43

As mentioned earlier, WordPress.org

has tons of freely available themes and

plugins. Although they are not so advanced

as some themes and plugins used by

business websites and online stores, they

are a good first start. Premium themes and

plugins can be bought later from websites

like ThemeForest.

WordPress.com, on the other hand,

comes with upgrades and plans. The basic

plan is free but only includes basic

customization, shows adds, grants only

3GB of space and doesn’t allow video

storage, eCommerce or the use of premium

themes. The premium and business plans

cost USD 99 and USD 299 respectively,

allow advanced customizations, more

space, and many more features.

If you aim for the most inexpensive

so lu t ion , the f ree bas ic p lan of

WordPress.com is the one for you.

However, you will be limited to their free

themes and will not be able to use a custom

domain name.

WordPress.com’s plans can be very

expensive for a business owner, though.

You can use any number of free

and premium plugins and themes, use

cPanel or FTP to add, remove and edit

files, play with server settings to boost

performance, and fully control your

content without displaying any adds.

WordPress.com, on the other hand,

comes with certain limitations. This is in

the business model of WordPress.com,

which provides the convenience of a

r e a d i l y a v a i l a b l e Wo r d P r e s s

environment. Because they maintain the

CMS, you don’t have to deal with code

or have thoughts about security and any

such related issues. You have the choice

of whether to pay for certain upgrades in

order to activate a different theme or

remove adds.

If your first concern is the full

control over your website, you should go

with WordPress.org.

Limitations and freedoms

And if you need to make a lot of

customizations at the lowest cost

possible, you should stick with

WordPress.org.

If you install WordPress on your own

web server, you are not limited to what

you can do with the CMS.

43 WordPress Decoded For Businesses - From lunartheme.com 44

Development and maintenance

Being fully in control of your

website is a big responsibility. It asks for

both regular maintenance and updates.

Security and vulnerability are also issues

you will have to take into account.

Additionally, should you experience

problems with your server, you will be

required to contact your hosting provider.

Unless you hire someone to take care of the

website for you, maintaining it may not be

easy.

On the other hand, the professionals

at WordPress.com will take over the

responsibil i ty of development and

maintenance for you.

You will rest assured that plugins

won’t break after you upgrade your

WordPress installation or that your

website will go down because your host

is experiencing problems.

If you don’t want to deal with

technical issues and don’t have the skill

to maintain your website, you should

sign up with WordPress.com.

In contrast, if your skills permit it

and you have the necessary time, then go

with WordPress.org.



Navigation & The Unknown Facts of Sticky Menu

The navigation bar of a website is similar to a level directory in a library. For

example, if there is no menu bar you will be disoriented virtually and will not know

how to find your destination. So, navigation of web design plays a important role in

creating convenience for users and their returns to the website.

However, to create a effective navigation, besides the menu bar, other elements

of navigation is also very important. A designer will need to notice to words, symbols,

pictograms and icons. With your knowledge about the linguist, you can analyze the

meaning of sentences, words and letters in different context; especially; terms of

morphology, syntax and phonology, or raise the questions why words are used.

Furthermore, symbols, pictograms and icons are useful elements to enhance the

effectiveness of textual expressions. You should have a set of icons and labels and

testing different interaction for one specific icon. Make sure that, with the appropriate

icons, website users will find things they need quickly, which means that you need to

pay attention to the perception of website users.

For example, let’s think about this question: Do you see the floppy disk exist in

this 21st century? Yet, how anyone can recognize that it is the symbol of file saving in

Words? If you use the floppy disk icon for Next button, what can happen? Make sure

that you don’t colorize the word “green” in red. Don’t make users think.

Another thing that will bring effective navigation to users is type of menu you

select. From my standpoints, I make suggestion to use sticky menus. You want to why

we should use it, please see the below section.

The elements of navigation

Sticky Menu

Actually, the recent trend that designers love a lot in designing main menu is

the use of sticky navigation which allows the navigation of a website to remain in the

same position as the user scrolls up and down the screen.

45 46


Therefore, the user can quickly access the navigation no matter where they are in the

site. Sticky Navigation is generally useful despite this, it is not always easy to use or

access. And sometimes it can be extremely annoying. With my experiences, I see that

sticky menus has both pros and cons.

The advantages of sticky navigation bars is evident. They make navigation time

of users far shorter. Because when the user scrolls down the page navigation bar will not

disappear, users don’t have to scroll back to the top of the website to access the

navigation menu. It’s proved that the sticky menu has allowed users to search quickly

and easily.

Have you known about the optimal speed of fixed navigation? So amazing that a

recent usability study suggests that fixed navigation bars can reduce browsing time by

up to 22% (by Hyrum Denney). If only stop at this figure, you will see that it is

meaningless, but 22% will suddenly becomes a mass of time when you consider the

average internet using time daily on social networking.

A recent usability study suggests that fixed navigation bars can reduce

browsing time by up to 22%

Great Usability

Pros

46 47


Quick and easy flow through a website is extremely important. It not only

makes users comfortable when using but also never need to worry about confusion or

disappearance of navigation. You can see obviously at the form of everyone’s favorite

social media: Facebook and Twitter. That is also a form of sticky menu. Coming here,

make sure that you also imagine convenience and efficiency of the fixed navigation

bars.

100% of the surveyed users preferred sticky navigation without realizing it

(retrieved from Hyrum Denney, Smashing Magazine).

According to the survey, to choose between two interfaces, one with fixed

navigation bars and one without, 34 out of 40 users preferred the latter. Only 6 users

replied that they had no preference. Actually, sticky navigation works to great effect.

The fact that the trend is becoming more and more popular, and I believe that you will

have a strong support to sticky navigation. However, with my experiences sticky

menus is not totally useful. They still have some disadvantages.

Besides the great benefits of the sticky menus, some users, sometimes, still find

it distracting; especially; when a website has a clear website structure, or a lack of

content to move through, a fixed navigation bar can often be seen as the unnecessary.

Beyond simple space constraints, a fixed navigation can be made the problem

with mobile format though the problem isn’t universal. Another problem is that a

complicated design can also increase page load times, which is always a major cause

of concern.

Cons

47 48


In conclusion, regards from 2 minor cons listed above, the benefits of sticky

menu is undeniable, it’s just the matter of using it smartly. So, I still make a suggestion

that you should use the sticky navigation because it not only creates conveniences for

users but also does it increase effectiveness of interaction between website users and

website.

Some fantastic examples of navigation menu in Web Design

Jakiro – Fashion Shop WordPress Theme

The Music Bed

48 49


Prollective

49 50

Eagle - Creative Business Website Template


All of us, WordPress users are familiar with the concept of Responsive Design.

Undoubtedly, it is considered as a prevalent trend in Web Design now and in the future.

In the below articles, we will mention the practices of responsive design, its

shortcoming and how to optimize responsive design for performance.

Responsive web design, originally defined by Ethan Marcotte in A List Apart,

meets the growing needs of users using different devices. A responsive design simply

means a website that has been constructed so that all of the content, images and

structure of the site is rearranged logically on any device. Therefore, Responsive

Design has been regarded as a new trend, a new way of thinking about design. The

chart below is the most tangible evidence for the trend of using mobile device

compared to using PC.

50

Rethink Your Responsive Design Strategy

What are responsive design and its trend?

What is shortcoming of responsive designs?

50 51

WordPress Decoded For Businesses - From lunartheme.com 51

We can’t deny the role of responsive design in web section. However, it also

brings some problems for WordPress users. Continue reading to understand two

most common issues: loading time and text arrangement in website and their

solutions.

1. Loading time

According to a study from marketingland.com, 69% of 155 prominent

responsive websites including Starbucks.com, Engadget.com took four seconds or

more to load on a Smartphone.

S o u r c e :

h t tp : / /marke t ing land .com/s tudy- load- t ime-69-mobi le - s i t e s -deemed-

unacceptable-81126.

Meanwhile, according to a study mentioned in book “Getting the New Baseline in

Web Design Right”, composed by Smashing Magazine, 64% Smartphone users

expect websites to load in 4 seconds or less. So how to enable responsive web design

as well as enhance users experience in a meantime? This is major concern of all

WordPress designers, especially manager and coders. 2. Mobile-specific content management

52

WordPress Decoded For Businesses - From lunartheme.com0 52

Content organization to fit all devices type is also hard to solve problem.

Displaying website content is troublesome story because of different behavior patterns

between Smartphones 'users and Desktop users. Mobile users are typically busy and

need access to quick, reference information. Desktop users have more time to read in-

depth on a topic and casually browse. Building different yet proper device-based

contents can greatly improve your website’s user experience.

Moreover, to reach global consumers, content should be used by users’ native

language. To be more precise, on the one hand, different languages require different

lengths. So content gradually becomes the first resolved issue.

How to optimize responsive design?

As far as I'm concerned, there are 2 most efficient ways to optimize responsive

web design up to now

1. Reducing image Dimension

Image is considered as the primary element leading to website weight when

studying 155 responsive websites.

It can be seen that images take over a half of website load time in all websites.

So this article will present an attractive way for high-resolution images optimization:

RESS. RESS stands for Responsive design with server-side components based on

Lukew model. The biggest effect RESS brings in is reducing image payload.

52 53


To implement RESS, you will use huge variables – a component that has

device class optimized implementations for it on the server to give the page template

in different sizes. The key point to distinguish a server-side solution RESS from a

client-side solution like Responsive Image using Java Scripts is that the overall

layout of any page containing this variables is covered by flexible grids and media

queries but optimizing what we send to any given device is taken care of on the

server.

For example, according to Lukew, for image optimization solution, he shows

using a server side component by adding a variable {{>userimage}} in theme and

creating it in different sizes:

userimage.html which contains <img class="biguserimage" height="300" width="300" alt="{{username}}" src="{{biguserimage}}"> and mobile_userimage.html which contains <img class="userimage" width="50" height="50" alt="{{username}}" src="{{userimage}}">

Besides, RESS helps optimize unexpected JavaScript & CSS files for each

mobile device. RESS will make your website performance better. Ok, I guess that you

are breathing out strongly and thank god for giving us WordPress, which is already

integrated with RESS. Calm down, it’s just not enough. Let’s move to the second

point.

2. Better designing your content for all different screen sizes.

It is said that your breakpoints in responsive website is based on better

designing content, not device screen widths. While the old approach is checking

screen sizes of popular handsets and applying the majority rules to responsive

design, the practical method is needed because the mobile screens are becoming

more & more varied and unpredictable. Each year, there are millions of handsets

with new screen ratio produced. Instead of adjusting a design to fit the portable

device you should find out solution to the content width challenge.

53 54


Choosing number of characters and words is that answer. According to a book

“The Elements of Typography Style” by Robert Bringhurst, “anything from 45 to 75

characters is widely regarded as a satisfactory length of line for a single-column page

set in a serried text face in a text size”. Moreover, according to Jossef Muller –

Brockmann writing in the book “Grid in Graphic Design/Raster Systeme Fur Die

Visuele Gestaltung”, it is said that an easy-to-use column needs 10 words in line. So a

new idea drawn from two above authors: the ideal design is growing the width of the

main content from either 75 characters or 10 words. Sure!

However, the tricky point is in choosing font and font size because of different

languages cause to different length of line.

Let’s start to design from small screen to ever bigger screen! Based on

the theory of Oliver Reichenstein, font size depends on the distance between our eyes

and the device we use and as we tend to hold mobile phones closer to our head than

laptops, the font size will become smaller whenever the measure is smaller than 45

characters. A single column is enough in smaller devices. For bigger screens or ever,

you can only add columns or some media queries and then to adjust the layout, either

to make website better and to show more information such as navigation, images or

some relevant content. He creates a responsive font size-based website because

according to him, everything is based on font size and the layout does not break when

the font size of the browser is increased. Briliant, is it?

So, there are some good ideas for optimizing responsive design from top-notch

people. In my opinion, the most important thing belongs to experience of designers.

So what do you think? Rethinking your responsive design strategy today and give us

your ideas about our blog post. Don’t forget to support our new

free and premium responsive WordPress themes.

54 55


One of the most important factors that bring success to user experience is to fully and

profoundly understand your users. Not only do you want to know who they are, but you

want to dive deeper into understanding their motivations, mentality, and behavior. This

deals with tailoring or customizing your products to fit the specific needs of a certain

group of customers.

Responsive web design, originally defined by Ethan Marcotte in A List Apart,

meets the growing needs of users using different devices. A responsive design simply

means a website that has been constructed so that all of the content, images and

structure of the site is rearranged logically on any device. Therefore, Responsive

Design has been regarded as a new trend, a new way of thinking about design. The

chart below is the most tangible evidence for the trend of using mobile device

compared to using PC.

55

A New Method To Walk Into Your Customers’ Shoes

Step 1: Draw Your Matrix

In this case, it would be best if you choose a 3 x 3 grid to start brainstorming,

mostly because it provides enough variation without being too detailed – therefore

helping you avoid over-analyzing the situation.

Earlier on, people tend to use the “personas” method to approach to the

customers and identify their needs. It brings many benefits to the sellers, however

customers are of different types, and this method certainly is not the most effective

tool to cover it all. After some research, I’ve known about another method to explore

our assumptions about users, so-called “the matrix technique”.

The method was discovered when I was under the process of building our

Lincoln – multi-purpose theme and ran into a lecture of Mr. David Rollert, a designer

with extensive experience. In his lecture, Davis showed a wide range of user

experience tools, including a way to model groups of users, which I especially found

interesting. The brainstorming process is well structured and divided into the following

steps:

55 56


The next step is to determine how many of categories of our users can exist in the

system. Let's talk about the example of a multi-purpose theme, which normally has a

bunch of functions and lots of features that can meet various needs of the customers.

The question is, for the potential customers of this theme, can we come up with what

kinds of attribute behavioral? In this step, try to think in terms of “opposing” attributes.

You might end up with a list looking like this and the corresponding user stories:

Step 2: Identify Important Axes

56 57


ü  explorative

“I want a new way to experience, I want to check out the latest features.”

ü  competitive

“I have to create a website which stands out among the competitors.”

ü  frequent

“I update my website a lot, several times a week to everyday.”

ü  occasional

“I update my website once a week or less, just for posting information or presenting

new product(s).”

Your axes might then look like this:

explorative ↔ competitive

frequent ↔ occasional

Depending on the project you are working on, you may or may not know

something about the users you are talking about.

As you go through this exercise, keep in mind what you know about your

users and what are assumptions only. From the list above, choose the axes that most

interest you or that you think are worth exploring. Choosing might be difficult for

beginners in this method; in which case, the best thing to do is to dive in and see

what happens. If it doesn’t work or if ideas stuck at some points, change your axes

and keep going.

Now this is the tricky part: Ask a question! I generally like, “What would these

users want to do?” Or, even more simply, “What do they want?” The latter question

would cover what users want to know and what they would want to do. You could

also ask questions like, “How would they feel when using the theme?” as a kind of

emphatic exercise. As you think up questions, keep a list handy. You’ll need it later. In

this example, let’s stick with “What can they do?” Or, from a user’s perspectives

“What can I do with this theme?”

Step 3: Identify Key Questions

57 58


Try your best to fill in the matrix. If you already gathered some insights from

research, then make sure to mark the ones you know for sure, as opposed to things you

believe to be true but have nothing to confirm it.

Gradually, by the time you finished the first matrix, you’ll have a fairly good

idea of what information you already know about your users and what further research

might be required.

Step 4: Fill It Up

58 59

This step is particularly important, as thanks to that, you can know what it takes

to meet your customers needs. For example, for PI-the latest multi-purpose theme of

lunartheme, the developers have strictly followed the method and the above matrix,

and included some awesome features that are suitable for some groups of customers,

e.g. for the ones whose first priority is homepage interface and effectivity, the theme

has included mega menu in the navigation bar, which make it easier to do homepage

surfing.

59

Once you are done with the first matrix, set that aside, and draw another blank

grid.

You can do one of two things:

ü  Change one of your axes to something different, but stick to the same question;

or

ü  Pick another question from your list, e.g. “What do these users need from us?’

Start filling in the matrix again from the top. Remember, this is a brainstorming

process. Putting down ideas that you can refine later is more important, so try to move

rapidly through each iteration.

When you have done as much as you can with this iteration of the matrix, do

the dance again: pick another question, or switch another axis. It’s best when your

team collectively chooses which questions and spectrums to think about. Rinse and

repeat. You’ll likely find that you can generate a lot of matrices in the space of just an

hour, even if it may be a slow start at first.

Remember that no study or methodology is perfect or all-encompassing. Many

people cross over from one group to another. However you can still have an effective

research by analyzing the habits and lifestyles of several existing customers with

whom you are familiar. Consider which category/axe they fit into and try to fill in their

features in the matrix. At the same time, have a friend or family member read this

article and then attempt to identify which category you fit into. After finishing the

brainstorming process, we have to move on to analyzing and studying key insights,

which I would present in the next article. Make sure to subscribe to lunartheme to get

updated.

Step 5: Iterate


59

60

References 1. Navigation & Interaction (2013), retrieved from http://www.smashingmagazine.com/

2. Rethink UX (2013), retrieved from http://www.smashingmagazine.com/

3. Responsive Web Design (2013), retrieved from http://www.smashingmagazine.com/

4 . M a r c o t t e , R e s p o n s i v e We b D e s i g n ( 2 0 1 0 ) , r e t r i e v e d f r o m

http://alistapart.com/author/emarcotte


Conclusion

This eBook is for all those who love learning, discovering interesting things

about WordPress. We have created the eBook with passion in WordPress, desire to

share knowledge what we get through experiences to spread out to all people who

have the same passion anywhere. So, this eBook is a special gift for you with the

greatest articles of various well-unknown authors in the WordPress community.

With the spirit of constant learning and creativity, we always create the best

products for our users, so there is no reason to stop stepping forward. Let’s grab the

eBook and find inspiration for yourself. We ensure that it will not make you

disappointed.

By the way, if you want to get more in-depth information about WordPress

themes, let’s visit my website to get the high-quality products such as

Lincoln, Jakiro, Iink, etc.

If you like this eBook, let’s share it with your friends and follow us on social

media, including Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn to update the latest

information or leave your contact on any social media or send to email:

[email protected]. You can also visit or website for more useful information

and themes’ details.

We are always beside you to support you any time.


ebook - wordpress decoded for businesses

Documents