WordPress is one of the best CMS platforms in terms of flexibility. It is a platform that allows web designers and developers more than enough room to be creative. In fact, some of the best-designed websites today are actually powered by WordPress. The CMS platform can be used to construct anything from a personal blog to a complex community portal.
However, good design alone is not enough. While it is important for a website to be visually pleasing, the real king of the site is its content. The content must be displayed in a way that allows visitors to garner the most value from it, and do so in a pleasant way.
Traffic is only the beginning. The real metric to optimize for is user engagement. Users who find value and a pleasant user experience are more likely to engage with your content. So, how can you optimize your WordPress site for user engagement? There are a few tips you can use right out of the box, and we are going to review them in this article.
Know Your Audience
The biggest challenge, and the most important first step, is getting to know the audience. What works for a particular audience group may not work for the others. You can define your target audience depending on the content you want to convey. Once you have a target audience, spend some time getting to know them on a deeper level.
You now have plenty of tools to use when it comes to getting to know your audience. You can analyze your existing traffic with the help of Google Analytics. You can use tools like Brand24 to see conversations around your website or your brand. You can also utilize tools like Moz to help you figure out what users are searching for the most.
The more you know the audience, the better you will be at fine-tuning both your content and the user experience of your site. As mentioned before, different target users expect different things from a WordPress site, and the only way you can give users what they want is by getting to know them really well.
Make It Personal
Everyone can write good content, but only a few can write in a personalized way. That personalization – the extra elements you add to your content to make it really yours – is what will separate your site from the rest. It is also the element that ignites user engagement the most; visitors will feel more personally connected when you treat them in a personalized way.
Telling personal stories, producing content from a personalized point of view, and adding other touches to the content makes all the difference. For example, you can connect with users who are looking for information on online universities and pursuing a degree online by speaking from experience.
In fact, your whole journey of completing an online engineering management program from a reputable university like Kettering University Online can become a series of content that really engages the audience. They will look forward to the next part of your journey as you pursue a master’s degree in engineering management online.
Aim for Performance
User experience is an equally important part of boosting user engagement, and the first task you need to tackle when trying to improve your site’s UX is improving its performance. You want the site to load quickly and prioritize content that is seen as valuable from a user’s standpoint.
Aiming for performance is a necessity rather than an option. Users are more likely to switch to another website if yours isn’t loading quickly enough. Fortunately, you now have more resources to help you optimize your site. Google PageSpeed, for example, can help analyze your website and recommend new ways to improve it.
Site performance is also about finding balance between loading time and visual elements. Thanks to tools like JPEGOptim, you now have the option to create a truly stunning site visually, all while keeping your site’s performance top notch. You can even use CSS and CSS-based animations to substitute visual files and scripts.
Use Internal Linking
It is also worth noting that UX can be reviewed from the time users spend on your site. The longer they browse your site, the higher your user engagement will be. Using internal linking, you can help users navigate your site and get to the content they value the most quickly.
A good example is the Related Posts that WordPress normally display at the bottom of the page. By fine-tuning the way related posts are displayed, you can increase the user’s interest to browse more articles. Rather than relying on WordPress’s search for tags and categories, for instance, you can program the related posts section to display posts based on a user’s interests.
Another great way to utilize internal linking is recommending other articles inside a post that users read. This is now seen as the better way to go – compared to waiting until users finish the entire article before displaying related posts – because user attention span is relatively shorter nowadays.
Improve Search
How well visitors interact with your site depends on how quickly they can get to the content they want. Using conventional search tools that only search for specific keywords rather than relevant information is also a thing of the past. Today, you can use plugins like Better Search or Search by Algolia to further optimize your search tool.
When users can find the content that they are looking for quickly, they are more likely to share that content. At the same time, users are more compelled to leave comments and interact with the content further when the entire user experience, up to the point where they consume the content, has been pleasant.
Now that you have the tips and tricks we covered in this article in mind, optimizing your site for better user engagement will not be difficult. Start making tweaks and review your analytics after each one. Evaluate the results to see how your users react to the changes you make, and continue making adjustments accordingly.
E-Commerce accounts for about 11.9% of all the retail sales worldwide of which fashion e-commerce is valued at a cap of $481.2 billion in 2018 which is expected to skyrocket to $712.9 billion in 2022, but businesses involved in e-commerce still require a platform to showcase their products to sellers.
Unavailability of such platforms has made it difficult for sellers to reach out to their customers due to the operating cost, generation of targeted traffic, retaining customers, customer satisfaction & feedback. Attracting customers to the website and ensuring customers return to use the services again as well as charging of extra cost by websites to the seller in the event of increased traffic which cuts into their profits.
There will be a requirement in terms of functionalities & rendering of a virtual store. Following are the criteria while choosing a platform for fashion e-commerce site: -
Use of High-Quality images with the ability to zoom in & out, search algorithms, filter criteria is a part of visual merchandising which cannot be compromised.
Social Integration is a must for a fashion shopper to flaunt their fashion sense on social channels like Facebook, Twitter &, etc.
An appropriate theme will be required to make it appealing to the customers.
The Platform should be SEO Friendly for online visibility placing the website on the top of search ranking.
A store catalog would be required to showcase a large number of products to the customers.
Inventory management would be required to take account of all the items sold, items at hand or the items that need to be ordered & stocked at the e-commerce platform.
Customization is important to establish a fashion e-commerce site as brand-centric & the ability to access these sites using tablets, mobile phone &, etc.
A novice accessing the platform should be provided with graphical illustration to operate the store’s functionalities.
The Platform should provide security to the customer's sensitive data such as Credit & debit card number, address, pin &, etc. to avoid any theft by hackers
What better platform than WordPress, also known for its blogging platform that can bridge that gap between the fashion e-commerce website & a seller due to the following features that WordPress offers: -
It does not cost a penny while operating WordPress as an e-commerce platform regardless of the traffic that is anticipated nor does it charge any extra cost even when the traffic increases.
A Search engine like Google is known to rank websites lower on the search results if these websites cannot be accessed using mobiles that’s where WordPress provides access on tablets & smartphones to these sites.
WordPress is SEO friendly making popular search engines like google, bing &, etc. to rank these websites higher than those who don't use WordPress due to the CMS framework
Customized themes for websites are provided by WordPress themes that are obtained from third parties in which the addition & extension of certain features make the website function.
WordPress is adaptable to the ever-changing cyberspace work area due to its flexibility to accommodate various extensions & plugins making it preferable for businesses.
Use of WordPress by Big-Brand companies like Nasa, Mashable, Mozilla, Wall Street Journal &, etc. makes it famous for business website solution.
.
Conclusion
WordPress is a powerful content management system used by industry leaders like Vogue, Bata, In-style news adding to its reputation in the global cyberspace market. If you aren't using WordPress already, these reasons should be more than enough to make you switch to WordPress should you decide to run a fashion E-commerce business in the coming future.
About The Author
Merry waran is a Marketing Manager at AIS Technolabs which is Web design and Development Company, helping global businesses to grow by Custom WordPress Development Services. I would love to share thoughts on Social Media Marketing Services and Game Design Development etc.
WordPress has been the best blogging content management system around the globe. Since it is easy to customize, WordPress has become a favorite of bloggers and web designers. At the same time, it is getting more attention from hackers and spammers. Securing your WordPress blog is the most crucial thing because if your website gets infected with malware, your search engine rankings will also be affected.
Here are some simple ways that can be used to secure your WordPress blog.
1. Update your website with Latest Versions
Updating your WordPress website with latest versions helps in enhancing the security of your website. When you login with your WordPress account, you are notified with a message on your Dashboard that a latest version is available. Follow the instructions to upgrade the software. If you are sticking to an old version then it is time to get it upgraded now or else you will be inviting hackers to your site.
2. Set a Strong and Unique Password
Simple is not always better when it comes to setting a WordPress password ? especially if it?s easy for cyber criminals to crack it. The next question is how to protect your password. First of all, you should set a strong and unique password. Always use a combination of upper case and lowercase letters, digits and special characters in your password. For example ?K@20&13h? is a strong password. Having set such passwords will make it difficult for potential hackers to guess.
Another important thing is never share your password with anyone. Also, avoid logging in to your WordPress admin account at public places like cyber caf?, institutions etc. Keep changing your password at least once in three months.
3. Remove Default Admin Users
An admin account is a default user account that WordPress installation creates. Many people forget to change their username from the WordPress default of ?admin.? If you don?t remove this user, you are making way for hackers to guess the administrative user name for your WordPress blog. All they have to do is crack your password and access your account.
You should change default username of admin account and give yourself the role of an admininstrator so you have the access to make any necessary changes on your website. Next you have to delete ?admin? account form your WordPress installation.
4. Implement Captcha Code for Login Screen
If you really want to make accessing your wordPress account even harder, add a captcha code on your WordPress login screen. By using captcha code, it will be difficult for hackers to login using scripted methods. You can install Captcha Code WordPress plugin for this purpose.
5. Limit login attempts to your website
Hackers can easily guess your login password by making several attempts to login using different username and password combinations repeatedly. They could try this method hundred times if not thousands consuming your resources and putting your website at risk. To prevent that from happening, you can install a free WordPress plugin called Limit Login Attempts. This plugin records the internet address of every failed WordPress login attempt. After a specified number of failed attempts are reached, this plugin will disable the login function for all requests from that IP address.
6. Hide your plugins folder
Most of the hackers use plugins to access your blog. They can easily get the list of plugins that you are using for your blog with the aid of http://yourwebsite.com/wp-content/plugins/. To fix this problem you should upload a blank index.html file to the plugin directory.
7. Perform a regular scan
You can use the wp-security-scan plugin to do a regular scan of your blog setting for any security loopholes. The same plugin can also be used to change your database prefix from wp_ to a custom prefix.
8. Backup your WordPress Database
No matter how secure your blog is, you still need to backup your database. WordPress has made the backup process easy with both free and paid plugins. According to Wil Thomas, bloggers should always make backups of all their WordPress site documents. You can use the wp-database backup plugin to backup your database every day.
9. Use Copyscape
Use copyscape to find out where your content has been copied. Simply enter your website URL and Copyscape tool will detect online plagiarism. This way you can easily enhance your blog security and ensure that your content is not plagiarized.
As a blogger it is important to follow the above tips and stay alert while on the internet. Using the protective ways enlisted here will make you the smart one out there and help you to secure your blog from hackers and spammers.
Author Bio.:- Priya is a Technical SEO at Hopinfirst, a leadingmobile app development company which provide best ios app development and Android app development Services.
Monetizing your blog is something that a lot of people are looking to do, but everyone is capable of achieving. Before we get started taking a look at how you can go about making your blog profitable, it is important to note that this won?t be an overnight process. Your blog is much like a small business in that it will take time to build up a based on regular users and regular income streams. However, there are ways to get started and we are going to look at those now.
Digital Marketing
First of all, as mentioned above the process of making money through your blog requires building up a readership. One of the best ways to do that is by utilizing digital marketing tools to attract people. We are going to look at methods that require little financial input from you, but there are alternative options that you might want to look into that can help you if you want to speculate to accumulate.
SEO
Search engine optimization (SEO) is something that all websites should be making the most of and is the practice of making your site have greater visibility online, particularly in organic search results. Organic in this case means unpaid listings on the result pages of Google and co. Some SEO plans can be incredibly intricate, but to get you started we are going to look at just the basics.
One of these methods is by making the most of keywords. These are the words and phrases that search engines will look for on your website or blog when someone searches terms related to your content. You can use free keyword planner tools to help you understand what you need to include on your site. One word of advice is to avoid using too many keywords because this can be seen as spamming by the ?crawlers? search engines send out and thus be counterproductive.
Photo by pixelcreatures from Pixabay
Making Money
Turning your blog into a profit making website is going to be tricky, but so long as you persevere then there are plenty of opportunities open to you. It is possible to turn a humble blog into a website that hires staff and generates significant income, but that won?t be the dream for everyone starting out on this journey.
It?s a little bit like if you are someone interested in investments. The average personal trader is going to make small investments and gradually build up a portfolio. However, a larger business is going to want to use algorithmic trading to make much larger trades and bigger profit margins. In the same way, someone who just likes to blog about film as a hobby can make a small amount of money that will be a bonus, whereas others will be interested in taking their passion and turning it into a business with greater income that allows them to grow.
So consider investing small in your blog to start off with before building yourself up to the demands of trading your words for high sums.
A diverse range of WordPress themes are on offer and they include both free and premium categories. Whatever be the type or class of the theme, it should be tested throughout to ensure that no bugs are present. The most popular and the most intelligent process to get a bug-free WordPress theme is to simulate a development environment that helps to nip most of the bugs in their buds. Other than that, there are several other ways in which one can achieve a bug-free WordPress theme. To better understand the procedures and their application areas, it is immensely important to classify the entire development of the WordPress theme into distinct phases. It will help in focussing upon the components more discreetly and also will help to avoid confusion. These phases are as follows
Initial Setting up of the theme
Core Development Phase
Testing and monitoring the final product
Initial Set Up
The initial setting up can be devised and designed in such a way that it reduces the chances of error or bugs to the lowest possible level. Following are some of the things that can be done to ensure that this phase is compact
#1. Use a network (WordPress Multisite)
Developing a network installation might pose some methodological challenges but it is still useful to do so as to insure from the very beginning that the themes work well.
#2. Custom Table Prefix
Apart from equipping the WordPress theme with an extra level of security, what the custom table prefix also does well is that it makes sure that one is not required to hard code database queries. Every coder involved in this processes are so aware of default prefixes such as wp_ that these prefixes can also be looked upon or considered as a de-facto mini password for the database.
#3. Make the debugging information active
What this simply means is an instruction that ?don?t leave your variables undefined?. Keeping these types of undefined variables spread all around might not act as an immediate challenge but will definitely crop up ass problems for future development.
#4. Disable WordPress script concatenation
Handle this feature well and keep an eye on whether your scripts are pulled in separately or not.
#5. Advanced query analysis
The save queries command needs to be set constant so that WordPress saves all the queries performed in a variable and they can be further accessed by printing them whenever it is required.
The setting up phase will have a very less probability of being prone to bugs if the above instructions are followed carefully, and apart from the above one can also follow the following two features so that the phase is complete in terms of checking.
Core Development & Final Testing Phase
This is the phase that a coder enjoys the most and at the same time bears the highest possible risk for errors and bugs to creep in. But all that can be tackled efficiently, if one follows some basic operating principles from the very beginning of the phase, and these principles are as follows:
#6. Don?t keep things pending
Not only starters, but seasoned coders as well often concentrate more on the bigger picture and take a bird?s eye view to the content intricacies. For a WordPress theme coder, undoubtedly the development of the form is of prior importance, but that should not lead to overlooking staff that are vital for successful running of the theme. Therefore coders who are affected by the touch-up syndrome, which means doing the bigger things first and then covering up for the smaller components, should be more careful about doing things as per a well chalked out road map, that incorporates every milestone inside it in a chronology of time rather than ranking it in its relative importance.
#7. Follow a modular approach
It?s very important that an object oriented PHP or the generic philosophy of an object oriented language is used from the beginning. Following this approach will give birth to simple patterns that can act as a back-end for a widget which ensures that the data is saved properly and with the provision of front end code to be added that can work anywhere anytime.
The Modular approach can also be successfully used in writing codes. These code writing mechanisms make the codes clean, easy to trace and maintain in a systematic way.
#8. Using the appropriate tools
This is again a very important thing to consider as the proper choice of tools can always lead to a faster progress, these tools are like Less, Code kit, Snippets, Thumbnail Regeneration, Template hierarchy, Browser development tools and other WordPress knowledge tools.
#9. Testing and follow up
WordPress itself comes with an application called WordPress theme check that is an extremely useful tool to make it sure that the themes developed are as per specifications. It can be applied successfully for following up on parameters like legacy functions, incorrect text domains, hidden files and other required functions and attributes.
Apart from the above checking the following can be applied as and when required
#10. Using Cloud app and Fluffy app
These are so useful to comfortably upload files and to play around with the screenshots. To do the same preparation and playing around with screenshots fluffy app can be used if you are working on the windows.
Bonus Tip ? Keeping a Bug Management workflow in place
Preparing a bug management work flow might seem difficult but can be effectively used as tools of bug management are available all around. You just need to select the proper one.
Apart from all that has been said above it is also important that a version control methodology is put in place with proper documentation of processes followed. Generating the maximum possible viewership for testing and allocation of ample time always prove to be useful as far as testing the final theme is concerned.
Author Bio. :- Priya is a Technical SEO at Hopinfirst, a Real Estate app development company, having a team of best app developers who delivers best Real Estate app solutions mainly on Android and iOS platform. She regularly contributes his knowledge on the blogging sites.
WordPress is one of the largest blogging platforms. It is accessed by a variety of people from different niches. And is hence a home to knowledge and talent worldwide. Losing information from a WordPress site is like losing out a lot, at one go! Backups are hence very important. It is advisable to have a backup for your WordPress to help you restore all the information. WordPress contains files and a database. While backing up, we are supposed to back up both. There are two ways to restore your backup file. One is to use an automatic WordPress backup plugin while the other is to create a backup manually. You can create a backup of the database by yourself. And you can download your WordPress files through FTP. Since changes are made in WordPress every now and then, restoring is a big task, if performed manually. Your server or site can be hacked or might stop functioning at any time. The only thing that saves you from the trouble that follows, is a backup! There are several ways to backup your WordPress. This article highlights some of the very commonly used methods:
BackupBuddy is packed with real-time backup solutions in its own Stash Service. It also provides site migration and remote storage. By BackUpBuddy, one can schedule and create partial or full backups in the following way:
Download Backupbuddy i.e importbuddy.php. Install it like any other WordPress plugins. Configure Backupbuddy by creating a password for it. And then, providing an email address where all error notifications can be sent. Download a copy of your backup from BackupBuddy ? Backups and choose "Complete Backups" Once you have both importbuddy.php and backup file with you, use FTP to connect to your website. Import both the files to your site's root folder. Once both files are uploaded, visit importbuddy.php in your web browser. Enter the password that you created during configuration. Your backup file will then be unzipped and a success message will be shown on the screen.
(ii) Use VaultPress
VaultPress is a part of the JetPack plugin that offers one-click restore. It is very easy to use and also comes with real-time backup. It offers cloud backup for 30 days too. To use VaultPress: Log in to your WordPress account. Go to Add Plugins >> VaultPress. Click on install. Once installed, register your site with it. After registration, VaultPress begins it first backup automatically. When you want to restore the backup, you just have to log in to VaultPress and click on restore. You can select all the files, plugins you want to restore. Once that is done, click on Prepare Backup. After that is ready, you have to confirm the restore by clicking on "Restore Now" Restoring your backup is hence only a few clicks away with VaultPress!
(iii) Use All-In-One WP Migrator:
All-In-One WP Migrator is not a backup plugin but a migration plugin. It is an easily restorable migration plugin which also helps in partial and full backups. The reason why this is a great plugin for backup is that the export here is at the user's convenience. Once you have logged in, backed up and exported your files, restoring them is pretty easy. Here's how you can do it: Go to All-In-One WP Migration menu and select import. On the import page, select the location where you want to restore your backup. Choose a backup file you want to restore and start the import process. A dialogue box warning you of overwriting your site with backup data appears on the screen. Choose "Proceed" Once you have clicked on Proceed, your backup will be restored.
The amount of time taken depends on the size of your backup always.
2. Backup your files using cpanel:
Your site must have a manually created backup of WordPress database using cpanel. This backup should be done using cpanel hosting for WordPress. If you have it done already, the process is very simple.
You need to log into your Cpanel account. Under files section, click on backup. Under backup, choose "Restore a MySQL database backup" Click on choose file and select the backup file. Click upload after that. Restoration is complete after that.
3. Backup using FTP for WordPress files:
Delete all existing WordPress files and directories. Download WordPress and extract it to your hard disk. Launch FTP client and launch all WordPress files to your server. After uploading WordPress files, upload a wp-config.php file from your backup. Edit the wp-config.php file and enter your database information. Save and upload it to your website. Upload all other files from backup. Install all the plugins that you had used earlier for your WordPress. Install the theme that you had used. If you had a customized WordPress builder themes, you can also restore it from backup files. Adjust Permalinks settings to match your site properly. Following which, your website is successfully restored.
Whether you are blogging about top wedding dresses for lesbian brides or sharing your favorite place to visit, chances of losing data always remain. And that is why you need to keep a check on your blog every now and then. You can definitely restore your backup and set up WordPress all over again using the methods stated above. But is that it? Would restoring your data end your work? Never indeed! You must also focus on making your site more secured once the restoration process in over. Change your passwords after backups. Use better security for the website. And also, schedule regular backups. Backing up data regularly for your WordPress is one great habit that you can inculcate.
Author Bio:-
MARY JONES is the co-founder & editor-in-chief at TopMyGrades which focuses on Content Marketing Strategy for clients from the Education industry in the US, Canada & UK. Mary has conducted a series of webinars for AssignmentEssayHelp. She has extensive content editing experience and has worked with MSNBC, NewsCred & Scripted. She has also authored blogs on Lifehack.org, Wn.com, Medium.com, Minds.com and many more digital publications.
We use cookies to improve your experience on our site. By using our site, you consent to cookies.
Cookie Preferences
Manage your cookie preferences below:
Essential cookies enable basic functions and are necessary for the proper function of the website.
Name
Description
Duration
Cookie Preferences
This cookie is used to store the user's cookie consent preferences.
30 days
These cookies are needed for adding comments on this website.
Name
Description
Duration
comment_author
Used to track the user across multiple sessions.
Session
comment_author_email
Used to track the user across multiple sessions.
Session
comment_author_url
Used to track the user across multiple sessions.
Session
Google reCAPTCHA helps protect websites from spam and abuse by verifying user interactions through challenges.
Name
Description
Duration
_GRECAPTCHA
Google reCAPTCHA sets a necessary cookie (_GRECAPTCHA) when executed for the purpose of providing its risk analysis.
179 days
Statistics cookies collect information anonymously. This information helps us understand how visitors use our website.
Jetpack's built-in visitor analytics. It records page views, referring sites, search terms, and outbound link clicks, and also carries the shared visitor-tracking library used by Jetpack Instant Search and WooCommerce Analytics.
