Although FTP backups are considered a more hands on and manual way of backing up your WordPress site, compared to the All-In-One WP Migration export and import, it is a relatively easy way of duplicating your WordPress database and files to another location. Page 3 WordPress User Manual for Beginners 1. Introduction to WordPress WordPress has come a long way from the beginning, when users had to know how to write code, upload files etc if they wanted to run their own websites. If they wanted to use a different theme, they’d have to use expensive and difficult to learn.
I get a lot of emails asking for advice on which plugins to use or which hosting provider to go with. With the huge array of web hosting companies out there, I know how confusing it can be to select one that's reliable. And looking for good, reliable plugins can be even more difficult, with over 54,000 just in the official Plugin Directory alone!
To help make at least some of your choices a little easier, I thought I’d share with you some of the more common plugins, tools and services that I use on a regular basis, both on my own sites and when I'm building client sites.
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Hosting
One of the most important things you can do for your site, is to run it on decent hosting. Your website hosting needs to be reliable as well as have great support. This site is running on the seriously powerful Managed VPS Hosting from Conetix. Conetix delivers one of Australia's best web hosting platforms.
Theme Shops
There are a lot of really badly coded themes out there (unfortunately). When buying your new theme, make sure it's from a reliable theme shop. A theme shop that takes care when developing themes and codes them using WordPress best practices.
Page Builders
It's easy to create fantastic looking layouts now with a variety of powerful, drag ‘n drop Page Builders, and when it comes to choose which one to use, these three are the top contenders.
Security
Don’t wait until your site is hacked or compromised, use a good, reliable security plugin to mitigate the chance of it happening.
Caching
If you care about your site speed, you should be running a caching plugin. A caching plugin helps speed up the delivery of your pages to your visitors browser.
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Email Campaigns
If you're selling a product or service, there's a very good chance you'll be wanting to send out some sort of regular newsletter or email campaign to your customers & clients. The best way to do this is to use a service that specialises in sending bulk email campaigns. Not only is there a greater chance your email will reach its intended target, but they also provide lots of useful tools for setting up your email campaigns, collecting statistics & targeting customers.
Contact Forms
If you're creating a website, you'll most likely need some sort of contact form, or even a subscriber form, and these are some of the most popular forms plugins around. I personally use Gravity Forms on all my sites.
Sliders
Who doesn't love a good image slider. They need to be flexible and easy to use.
eCommerce
If you’re looking to sell products on your website, you can’t go past WooCommerce. If your products are purely digital, check out the awesome Easy Digital Downloads.
SEO
WordPress is pretty good for SEO, straight out of the box. These popular plugins will make it just that bit more flexible.
Backup
I shouldn’t need to tell you how important it is to make sure your site is backed up, regularly!
Internationalisation
If you want to truly connect with the rest of the world, you should be thinking about making your site multilingual. Supporting multiple languages on your site opens up so many more opportunities.
Online Training
Wordpress Manuals
Sometimes reading a manual isn't enough or you might find that you learn better watching videos. No matter what your preference, you should never stop learning.
Miscellaneous
Wordpress Manual Install
Although I’ve listed these under Miscellaneous, these plugins and resources are just as useful as the ones I’ve mentioned above. In fact, these are some of the ones I use the most when building client sites!