Essential Tools for Testing Cross-Browser Compatibility on Your WordPress Site

If you’re not testing how your site looks and performs on different browsers, you really have no idea whether visitors to your site are viewing it as you intended. Add to that, testing on multiple browsers on different operating systems and different devices is also a must. After all, Google Chrome on OS X isn’t quite like Google Chrome on Windows or Google Chrome on an iPhone 6S.

Source: Essential Tools for Testing Cross-Browser Compatibility on Your WordPress Site

Using Gulp to Speed Up WordPress Development

Build tools let developers focus on efficient development rather than the nitty-gritty details that take away half your life but don’t add much to the project on their own. One such build tool is Gulp. Gulp optimizes your theme’s images, concatenate your JS files, and processes your Sass/LESS code automatically. In this article, I’ll show you how to get started and how you can use Gulp to speed up your development process. What is Gulp? Gulp is a JavaScript-based build tool that uses Node to automate mundane tasks. The basic idea is to create triggers that perform a specific action.

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WordPress Development for Beginners: Getting Started

Interested in learning PHP and building your own themes and plugins for WordPress? Or just being able to code your own killer customizations for your websites? Learning WordPress development might seem like a daunting thing to do but it all comes down to getting started. So we’ve put together this free series to help you start the New Year right. Over five weeks, you’ll learn PHP and start coding your own themes and plugins from scratch.

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Understanding the WordPress File and Directory Structure

While it’s entirely possible to interact with your WordPress website only through the dashboard, understanding how your install is structured, and which files perform which functions, is crucial in order to attain a higher degree of control over your site. At the very least, this understanding will enable you to troubleshoot any errors that might arise much more easily.

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Add Facebook Like Reactions to Your WordPress Website

By now everyone is familiar with Facebook’s new reaction system, and while it’s not without its downsides (we still don’t have a dislike button, albeit for understandable reasons), we have to admit it’s pretty engaging. In fact, wouldn’t it be great if you were able to set up such a system on your own WordPress website?

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A Tactful Guide to Offering WordPress Website Redesign Services

If you work in WordPress development, it’s your business to know good site design – how to identify it as well as how to create it. And because you’re the expert, it’s also your job to sell the idea of a site redesign to a potential client.

Source: A Tactful Guide to Offering WordPress Website Redesign Services

4 Powerful Ways to Improve WordPress Search So It Doesn’t Suck

The search function built in to WordPress core has come a long way over the past few years. However, if you have a large, complex site you still probably aren’t very satisfied with the results it produces. Fortunately, there are lots of ways to improve it.

Source: 4 Powerful Ways to Improve WordPress Search So It Doesn’t Suck

How to Scan Your WordPress Site and Patch Security Vulnerabilities

There are well over 7.5 million attacks on WordPress sites every hour so the probability of your site being attacked is almost guaranteed. Simply scanning your site for vulnerabilities, however, can help you keep nasty hackers at bay. Scanning your site will tell you how your site is vulnerable to attack so you can then take specific actions to patch any holes in your security.

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The Ultimate Guide to WordPress Permalinks

Pretty permalinks are the default setting for URLs on WordPress sites, but what exactly makes them pretty? And if you’re new to WordPress, you might be wondering what is a permalink? Permalinks, or permanent links, are URLs to individual pages and posts, as well as category and tag archives, on your website. They never change and are a permanent web address used to link to your content. Well-organized permalinks are important in both attracting users to your site, making it easy for visitors and search engines to navigate and refer to your content.

Source: The Ultimate Guide to WordPress Permalinks

Best Practices for Managing Your WordPress Site: The Ultimate Guide

I speak to a lot of people who think that creating a website is all you need to do to have a presence on the Internet. They think that simply having a site out there, preferably one built on WordPress and using a great theme and some plugins to make it even better, will help them to reach a huge online audience and connect with more people or make more sales.

Source: Best Practices for Managing Your WordPress Site: The Ultimate Guide