Let me tell you a little story. A story about how keeping off-site backups of my site (and my client sites!) saved my skin. Recently, my host experienced a... cataclysmic failure. It was a complete freak accident that I don't think anyone could have seen coming, but it resulted in almost every website they host going offline. Unfortunately, it took them quite a while to get back online - they went down Friday evening and my server wasn't restored until Tuesday morning. Not only were the websites down, but nobody could access their hosting account at all. No FTP, no cPanel ... Keep Reading
5 Quick Tips to Speed Up WordPress
You can literally never go wrong by making your website faster. It's helpful for your SEO - Google will rank slower websites lower than quick ones, especially on mobile. It's also crucial to making your website user-friendly (and help boost sales!). Now, there are all sorts of tactics you can use to speed up WordPress. But here are some of my tried-and-true absolute favorites. And you can do most of these in less than an hour. Heads up! This post contains affiliate links - some of the plugins or services I've linked to might give me a little "kickback" if you sign up. As always, though, I ... Keep Reading
How to Add Facebook Sharing Images to Your Blog Posts
Facebook is a fantastic tool for so many bloggers and small businesses. Every day people use it connect with potential customers and build relationships. One of the most popular ways to do that is to share content from your website to Facebook. But Facebook sharing has some... frustrations when it comes to the images it pulls from you site. By default, Facebook tries to pull your featured image for to share for your blog posts. Sometimes, that doesn't quite work, and you end up with cutoff text or images. In the past, you could circumvent which image Facebook grabbed from your site by ... Keep Reading
How To: Make It Snow on Your WordPress Website
You would think that, living in Maine, I probably see enough snow. But every single year, I am always delighted and surprised when little fluffy flakes start falling from the sky. Maybe it's the child in me. I also take great delight every December, when my WordPress website decides to start sprinkling little snowflakes across my screen. It's such a silly thing, but it adds a bit of cheer and personality that I find endearing. And if your website isn't already snowing, enabling it is super easy. Let it snow. Obviously, a snowing website doesn't suit everyone's tastes, and isn't ... Keep Reading
Tutorial: Archiving WordPress Posts
There's a lot to be said for archiving WordPress posts instead of deleting them. By creating an archive, you can remove old, out-dated content from your blog, but keep a record of it. You can track your topics over time, go back and recycle older content if it becomes relevant, and guide your readers to the content you want them to see. However, WordPress doesn't have a tool to archive your posts - at least not in the traditional sense. Yes, there are category and date archives. Those don't hide your posts from view, just create new ways to sort your content. In order to properly archive ... Keep Reading
5 Time-Saving WordPress Plugins
I say it all the time - the internet is a tool. But how often do you see ways to actually utilize it to make life easier? To prove my point, I decided to assemble a list of kick-ass WordPress Plugins that help you automate tasks, manage your website, and save yourself hours of work. Best of all? All these plugins have a version that is 100% FREE. So let's dive in and see how you can put your website to work with you. May I present 5 Time Saving WordPress Plugins: Jetpack Great For: Everyone I've talked about Jetpack in the past, but in the years since the plugin has changed ... Keep Reading