If you’ve started building your own theme, or maybe even creating a child theme to customize another theme, then you’ll have learned all about template files and the theme template hierarchy. But what about the theme functions.php file? The functions file is where you put all of the functionality your theme needs that doesn’t relate just to one template, so it isn’t code that outputs just one type of content or content in just one place in the page such as the sidebar or footer.

Source: The Ultimate Guide to the WordPress functions.php File

A few years ago, I played a big part in building a client website that’s still successful enough today but has become frustratingly slow. The database is full of clutter and there are some pages that take as long as 26 seconds to load due to the number of images and other requests it makes to the server. We decided it was high time to do something about this and recently rebuilt the site, applying tried and tested speed techniques, which lowered the loading time to around 2 seconds on more complex pages and just 800ms on simple pages.

Source: The Ultimate Mega Guide to Speeding Up WordPress

If you think your site is safe because it doesn’t have any content worthwhile to hackers, think again, because the vast majority of security breaches aren’t aimed at stealing your data or defacing your site. Hackers generally want to use your server as an email relay for spam, or to setup a temporary web server, usually to serve illegal files. If you’re hacked, get ready to shell out money for soaring server costs.

Source: How to Tweak wp-config.php to Protect Your WordPress Site 

The WordPress core software is updated regularly and with each new release come new features and security fixes that are designed to ensure your site is as secure as possible and performing at its best. Share on Facebook Tweet it Share on Google+ Sign up for more WordPress wisdom

Source: The Ultimate Guide to Updating WordPress and Multisite