Liquid Web has acquired iThemes!

Liquid Web has announced the acquisition of iThemes in an all cash deal that includes the entire iThemes team moving over to Liquid Web as an independent unit, and iThemes products will be included in various Liquid Web offerings. Liquid Web has acquired iThemes, in an all cash deal that includes the entire iThemes team moving over to Liquid Web as an independent unit. Cory Miller — CEO of iThemes — will be the Business Manager of the new unit, with iThemes COO Matt Danner as the Director of Technology and Operations for iThemes. The entire team of twenty three people is staying on, and will continue to be headquartered in Oklahoma.
This is not the first or last time we’ll see longstanding WordPress companies get rolled into large hosting providers. It’s a trend that is natural in any ecosystem as it matures, and iThemes was a clear and quality candidate for a host to target. Cory said the culture around Liquid Web, including their “heroic support”, but also in the quality he sees of their management team, as a key motivator for them to go work with Liquid Web.
As hosting companies evolve more and more to provide broader services for customers with
Source: https://managewp.org/articles/17029/liquid-web-has-acquired-ithemes

source https://williechiu40.wordpress.com/2018/01/31/liquid-web-has-acquired-ithemes/

Too Many Plugins: Why You Don’t Need That Plugin

Recently I wrote an article about Accessibility For Everyone. I mentioned that one important step is to listen to your site and strongly consider removing plugins that make your site inaccessible. This is one of many reasons you don’t need that plugin. I was raised in the military so we moved every 2-4 years. Part of moving in the military is a weight limit on the items you bring. Depending on where you are moving, it can be prohibitively expensive to go over the weight limit you’re given. I remember every move doing a huge clean out of all the stuff in storage and the yard sales that came with it.
When you’re maintaining a WordPress site you also need to regularly evaluate and limit the number of plugins you add to your site. Over time you’re likely to try a plugin and leave it active, or a simple plugin that used to do just what you needed gets bloated with extra features. You may find that you have a ton of useless baggage on your site if you don’t regularly clean out the junk. How many are too many plugins? Use these points to figure that out.
Performance
Every plugin adds overhead.
This is true of 100% of plugins. Even the “hello dolly”
Source: https://managewp.org/articles/17031/too-many-plugins-why-you-don-t-need-that-plugin

source https://williechiu40.wordpress.com/2018/01/31/too-many-plugins-why-you-dont-need-that-plugin/

The must-have tools for paid search success

Paid search marketers look to technology to provide them with a competitive advantage.

AdWords is host to a range of increasingly sophisticated features, but there are also numerous third-party tools that add extra insight. Below, we review some of the essential tools to achieve PPC success.

The paid search industry is set to develop significantly through 2018, both in its array of options for advertisers and in its level of sophistication as a marketing channel. The pace of innovation is only accelerating, and technology is freeing search specialists to spend more time on strategy, rather than repetitive tasks.

Google continues to add new machine learning algorithms to AdWords that improve the efficacy of paid search efforts, which is undoubtedly a welcome development. This technology ultimately becomes something of an equalizer, however, given that everyone has access to these same tools.

It is at the intersection of people and technology that brands can thrive in PPC marketing. Better training and more enlightened strategy can help get the most out of Google’s AdWords and AdWords Editor, but there are further tools that can add a competitive edge.

The below are technologies that can save time, uncover insights, add scale to data analysis, or a combination of all three.

Keyword research tools

Identifying the right keywords to add to your paid search account is, of course, a fundamental component of a successful campaign.

Google will suggest a number of relevant queries within the Keyword Planner tool, but it does have some inherent limitations. The list of keywords provided within this tool is far from comprehensive and, given the potential rewards on offer, sophisticated marketers would be well advised to look for a third-party solution.

A recent post by Wil Reynolds at Seer Interactive brought to light just how important it is to build an extensive list of target keywords, as consumers are searching in multifaceted ways, across devices and territories. According to Ahrefs, 85% of all searches contain three or more words and although the shorter keywords tend to have higher search volumes, the long tail contains a huge amount of value too.

Add in growing trends like the adoption of voice search and the picture becomes more complex still. In essence, it is necessary to research beyond Google Keyword Planner to uncover these opportunities.

Keywordtool.io takes an initial keyword suggestion as its stimulus and uses this to come up up to 750 suggested queries to target. This is achieved in part through the use of Google Autocomplete to pull in a range of related terms that customers typically search for. A Pro licence for this tool starts at $48 per month.

Ubersuggest is another long-standing keyword tool that search marketers use to find new, sometimes unexpected, opportunities to communicate with customers via search. It groups together suggested keywords based on their lexical similarity and they can be exported to Excel.

This tool also allows marketers to add in negative keywords to increase the relevance of their results.

We have written about the benefits of Google Trends for SEO, but the same logic applies to PPC. Google Trends can be a fantastic resource for paid search, as it allows marketers to identify peaks in demand. This insight can be used to target terms as their popularity rises, allowing brands to attract clicks for a lower cost.

Google Trends has been updated recently and includes a host of new features, so it is worth revisiting for marketers that may not have found it robust enough in its past iterations.

Answer the Public is another great tool for understanding longer, informational queries that relate to a brand’s products or services. It creates a visual representation of the most common questions related to a head term, such as ‘flights to paris’ in the example below:

As the role of paid search evolves into more of a full-funnel channel that covers informational queries as well as transactional terms, tools like this one will prove invaluable. The insights it reveals can be used to tailor ad copy, and the list of questions can be exported and uploaded to AdWords to see if there is a sizeable opportunity to target these questions directly.

For marketers that want to investigate linguistic trends within their keyword set, it’s a great idea to use an Ngram viewer. There are plenty of options available, but this tool is free and effective.

Competitor analysis tools

AdWords Auction Insights is an essential tool for competitor analysis, as it reveals the impression share for different sites across keyword sets, along with average positions and the rate of overlap between rival sites.

This should be viewed as the starting point for competitor analysis, however. There are other technologies that provide a wider range of metrics for this task, including Spyfu and SEMrush.

Spyfu’s AdWords History provides a very helpful view of competitor strategies over time. This reveals what their ad strategies have been, but also how frequently they are changed. As such, it is a helpful blend of qualitative and quantitative research that shows not just how brands are positioning their offering, but also how much they have been willing to pay to get it in front of their audience.

A basic licence for Spyfu starts at $33 per month.

SEMrush is a great tool for competitor analysis, both for paid search and its organic counterpart. This software shows the keywords that a domain ranks against for paid search and calculates the estimated traffic the site has received as a result.

The Product Listing Ads features are particularly useful, as they provide insight into a competitor’s best-performing ads and their core areas of focus for Google Shopping.

It is also easy to compare desktop data to mobile data through SEMrush, a feature that has become increasingly powerful as the shift towards mobile traffic continues.

A licence for SEMrush starts at $99.95 per month.

Used in tandem with AdWords Auction Insights, these tools create a fuller picture of competitor activities.

Landing page optimization tools

It is essential to optimize the full search experience, from ad copy and keyword targeting, right through to conversion. It is therefore the responsibility of PPC managers to ensure that the on-site experience matches up to the consumer’s expectations.

A variety of tools can help achieve this aim, requiring minimal changes to a page’s source code to run split tests on landing page content and layout. In fact, most of these require no coding skills and allow PPC marketers to make changes that affect only their channel’s customers. The main site experience remains untouched, but paid search visitors will see a tailored landing page based on their intent.

Unbounce has over 100 responsive templates and the dynamic keyword insertion feature is incredibly useful. The latter adapts the content on a page based on the ad a user clicked, helping to tie together the user journey based on user expectations.

Brand monitoring tools

Branded keywords should be a consistent revenue driver for any company. Although there is no room to be complacent, even when people are already searching for your brand’s name, these queries tend to provide a sustainable and cost-effective source of PPC traffic.

Unless, of course, the competition tries to steal some of that traffic. Google does have some legislation to protect brands, but this has proved insufficient to stop companies bidding on their rivals’ brand terms. When this does occur, it also drives up the cost-per-click for branded keywords.

Brandverity provides some further protection for advertisers through automated alerts that are triggered when a competitor encroaches on their branded terms.

This coverage includes Shopping ads, mobile apps, and global search engines.

Custom AdWords scripts

Although not a specific tool, it is worth mentioning the additional benefits that custom scripts can bring to AdWords performance. These scripts provide extra functionality for everything from more flexible bidding schedules, to stock price-based bid adjustments and third-party data integrations.

This fantastic list from Koozai is a comprehensive resource, as is this one from Free Adwords Scripts. PPC agency Brainlabs also provides a useful list of scripts on their website that is typically updated with a new addition every few months.

Using the tools listed above can add an extra dimension to PPC campaigns and lead to the essential competitive edge that drives growth. As the industry continues to evolve at a rapid rate, these tools should prove more valuable than ever.

source https://searchenginewatch.com/2018/01/31/the-must-have-tools-for-paid-search-success/

Why do I need to pay for maintenance of my business website?

A lot of small business owners think that building a business website is the end of our story together. However the Internet is not the field of dreams, and software is constantly evolving. So we get the question a lot when offering our small business bundle to a new client, Why do we even need business website maintenance? Business Website Security
One of the most important things you can do for your business is to have an identity, and to hold onto that identity without letting someone else tarnish it. That isn’t a website or Internet thing, that is just business reputation. You want to make sure that your are appealing to your clients with your image and that image does not change unless you need it to. The problem is that the Internet is unfortunately a place where many hackers and other things (like bots) thrive, and they don’t care about your brand identity.
Part of any good website maintenance plan whether through us or someone like WP Site Care is that security of your site is top priority. While hacks occur from time to time, it is about making sure it is not easy to hack into your business website, and that when it does happen, it is fixed as soon as possible.
Source: https://managewp.org/articles/17024/why-do-i-need-to-pay-for-maintenance-of-my-business-website

source https://williechiu40.wordpress.com/2018/01/31/why-do-i-need-to-pay-for-maintenance-of-my-business-website/

How GIFs Increase A Plugin’s Conversion Rate on The WP.org Repo

Plugin marketing pages are the most valuable resource for getting your plugin into the hands of your users. Regardless of which type of business model you follow, the quality of your marketing page is the difference between success and failure. To build a winning marketing page that will drive installs, writing good copy is not enough. You need to take this further and optimize your marketing page with elements that leave an impression and drive conversions. How Animated GIFs Increase Conversion Rate
Let’s start by reflecting on how a GIF animation can be the hook that makes your audience convert.
Grab Users Attention And Engage Them
We live in the age of information. Everything is one click away, and the internet is full of content, popping up to grab our attention. People are increasingly “bombarded” with more and more stimuli, while their attention span has been dwindling. So if you want to get people hooked, you need to give people something visually remarkable. GIFs, for example, can get people focused and quickly turn their initial curiosity into genuine interest.
People may ignore certain images and not bother to hit play on videos, but GIFs are impossible to
Source: https://managewp.org/articles/17025/how-gifs-increase-a-plugin-s-conversion-rate-on-the-wp-org-repo

source https://williechiu40.wordpress.com/2018/01/31/how-gifs-increase-a-plugins-conversion-rate-on-the-wp-org-repo/

How to Send Email in WordPress using the Gmail SMTP Server

Are you having trouble sending emails from your WordPress site? One easy way to solve this is by sending WordPress emails using the Gmail SMTP server. In this article, we will show you how to send emails from your WordPress site using the Gmail SMTP server.

Why and When You Need Gmail SMTP Server for WordPress Emails

Your WordPress site sends emails to notify you of new user registration, lost password reset, automatic updates, and even notifications from your contact forms.

By default, WordPress uses the PHP mail function to send out email notifications. However, this function does not work as expected due to a number of reasons.

Most WordPress hosting companies restrict usage of this function to prevent abuse and spam.

Spam filters on popular email service providers check incoming emails to monitor if they are sent from authentic mail servers. Default WordPress emails fail this check and sometimes may not even make it to the spam folder.

SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) is the industry standard for sending emails. Unlike PHP mail function, SMTP uses proper authentication which increases email deliverability.

Gmail provides SMTP service that you can use to send out emails from your WordPress site. If you just want to send WordPress notification emails to yourself and few users on your site, then Gmail SMTP servers are the best option.

However, if you are planning on sending newsletter emails using WordPress, then you should use a mass emailing service provider, like MailGun or SendGrid.

Free vs Paid Gmail SMTP Service for WordPress

You can use your free Gmail account to send out WordPress emails. However, for better deliverability, we recommend using paid Google Apps for Work with Gmail.

With Google Apps for Work, you get your own professional branded email address such as (name@yoursite.com).

Google Apps require you to add MX records to your domain name which means that your emails will appear to be coming from your own domain name boosting authenticity and ensuring better deliverability.

We use Google Apps for Work for WPBeginner and can honestly say it’s the best.

How to Send WordPress Emails Using Gmail SMTP Server

If you decided to use Google Apps for Work, then you first need to set up your domain to work with Google Apps. We have a step by step tutorial on how to setup a professional email address with Google Apps and Gmail.

Rest of the instructions are the same whether you are using paid or free Gmail account.

First thing you need to do is install and activate the WP Mail SMTP plugin. For more details, see our step by step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, you need to visit Settings » WP Mail SMTP page to configure the plugin settings.

First you need to make sure that you use your Gmail email address in the ‘From Email’ field. Next, you need to provide the sender name.

WP Mail SMTP plugin offers two ways to connect your WordPress site to the Gmail servers.

The first method uses OAuth Authentication. This is a more secure method to send emails using Gmail servers.

The second method is by entering Gmail SMTP settings manually. This method is not recommended because it is less secure.

That being said, let’s set up WordPress to use Gmail SMTP for sending emails.

Method 1: Setting up Gmail to Send WordPress Emails using OAuth Protocol

This method is recommended for all users. It is more secure and once you set it up, you’ll never have to do that again.

You need to start by selecting Gmail as your mailer and set the return path to be the same as sender.

Next, you will see the option to enter your Client ID, Client Secret, and a URL in ‘Authorized redirect URI’ field.

Let’s set up these fields.

Creating an App and Generate API Keys for Gmail

Visit the Google Developers Console website and create a new project.

If you don’t see the blue button to create a project, then you can also click on select a project drop down and create a new project.

You’ll be asked to provide a name for your project. Give it a memorable name, so that you can easily recognize it in the future.

After that, click on the create button to continue.

Developer console will now create your project and take you to its dashboard. Google offer developers access to many of their APIs and services. You need to enable the APIs that you will be needing for this project.

Click on Enable APIs and services button to continue.

This will bring you to the APIs library page. Next, you need to type Gmail in the search box to quickly find the Gmail API and click to select it.

You will now see an overview of the API and what it can do. Simply click on the ‘Enable’ button to continue.

Now that your API is enabled, the next step is to create credentials that you can use in your WP Mail SMTP plugin settings.

Click on the create credentials button to continue.

On the next screen, you will need to select ‘Web browser JavaScript’ in ‘Where you’ll be calling the API from’ field. After that click on the ‘User Data’ option.

To continue, click on the ‘What credentials do I need?’ button.

You will now be asked to provide a name for your OAuth client name. You can enter ‘WP Mail SMTP’ here.

Under JavaScript origins field, you need to add your website’s domain name. Next, you need to copy and paste the authorized redirect URL from WP Mail SMTP plugin settings.

After that click on the ‘Create client ID’ button to continue.

Next, you need to enter a name for OAuth consent screen. You can put the plugin’s name here.

After entering the details, click on the continue button and the developer console will show your client ID. You can copy and paste this in the WP Mail SMTP plugin’s settings page. However, you will still need to add your client secret key.

Go ahead and click on the Done button to move on.

You will now be taken to your project’s credentials page. You will see your recently created credentials listed there. You need to click on the edit icon next to your credentials to continue.

This will bring you to the edit credentials page where you will be able to see your client secret key. You need to copy and paste the key in your plugin’s settings page.

Return back to plugin’s settings page in your WordPress admin area. Now that you have both client ID and client secret keys, you need to click on the save settings button to continue.

The plugin will now store your settings and reload the page. After that you need to scroll down to the bottom of the settings page and click on the ‘Allow plugin to send emails using your Google account’ button.

This will take you to your account on Google, and you will be asked to give the website permission to send emails on your behalf.

Click on Allow button to give permissions.

After that, you will be redirected back to your website where you will see a success message.

Method 2: Setting up Gmail SMTP as SMTP Sender

This method allows you to manually connect to Gmail’s SMTP servers to send your WordPress emails.

First, you need to visit Settings » WP Mail SMTP page to configure the plugin settings.

You need to start by providing the Gmail address you want to use in the From email field, and your name in the name field.

Next, you need to select ‘Other SMTP’ as your mailer and check the box next to return path.

After that, scroll down to the Other SMTP section to configure more settings.

Here is the exact configuration you need to add in the plugin settings:

• SMTP Host: smtp.gmail.com
• SMTP Port: 465
• Encryption: Use SSL encryption
• Authentication: Turn on authentication
• Username: Your complete Gmail address, e.g. john.smith@yourdomain.com or john.smith@gmail.com
• Password: Password of your Gmail account

Once you are done, click on the save changes button to store your settings.

That’s all, you have successfully setup WP Mail SMTP to use Gmail SMTP servers.

Testing Your WP Mail SMTP Settings

WP Mail SMTP plugin allows you to test your email settings, so you can make sure that everything is working properly.

You need to visit Settings » WP Mail SMTP page and click on the ‘Email Test’ tab. Simply provide an email address that you can access in the send to field and click on the send email button.

You will see a success message. You can now check your inbox to see a message with the subject line ‘WP Mail SMTP: Test Email to…’.

That’s all, you have successfully setup your WordPress site to send emails using Gmail SMTP servers.

Troubleshooting Gmail SMTP Not Working Issues

We have seen users encounter few issues when using Gmail SMTP with certain shared hosting configurations.

Take the following steps to fix the Gmail SMTP issue:

1. Login to your cPanel account and create an email account that matches your Google apps email address. This might seem strange because you’re not using your server for emails. This step basically tricks your server into believing that you’re sending the email through the server.
2. In your cPanel account, go to the MX Records and change the MX routing from automatic to remote. It might be a little tricky to find since each host now has custom cPanel interface. You need to look for a small link next to MX that says Email Routing: Remote Mail Exchanger.
3. After that log back into your WordPress site and send a test email.

We hope this article helped you learn how to send email in WordPress using the Gmail SMTP server. You may also want to see our list of the 5 best contact form plugins for WordPress.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

The post How to Send Email in WordPress using the Gmail SMTP Server appeared first on WPBeginner.

source http://www.wpbeginner.com/plugins/how-to-send-email-in-wordpress-using-the-gmail-smtp-server/

5 Signs that you need to upgrade your hosting provider

Just like a baby outgrows the clothes, a digital business outgrow its hosting plan as it grows up… However, unlike the baby, when it comes to digital business, deciding when the current hosting is no longer an adequate solution is difficult to guess. This is often the case when the business has progressed beyond the initial stages.
To help such businesses, I have compiled the following list that indicates when the business needs new hosting. I recommend that business owners and managers should keep an eye out for these indicators and consider switching to a new hosting solution ASAP.
Your Website is Crawling at a Snail’s Pace
A slow website is a revenue killer. Think of all the visitors that could have converted, but is bouncing away because of the slow speed. Google also hates slow websites and actually places such websites very low in SERP.
Businesses often start with low cost shared hosting plans in order to save initial business costs.As the traffic increases, shared hosting solutions start to slow down the website because of uneven allocation of resources. is essential and one reason for it being slow is the current hosting plan. In such cases, the businesses should
Source: https://managewp.org/articles/17022/5-signs-that-you-need-to-upgrade-your-hosting-provider

source https://williechiu40.wordpress.com/2018/01/31/5-signs-that-you-need-to-upgrade-your-hosting-provider/

The future of visual search and what it means for SEO companies

The human brain has evolved to instantly recognize images.

Visual identification is a natural ability made possible through a wonder of nerves, neurons, and synapses. We can look at a picture, and in 13 milliseconds or less, know exactly what we’re seeing.

But creating technology that can understand images as quickly and effectively as the human mind is a huge undertaking.

Visual search therefore requires machine learning tools that can quickly process images, but these tools must also be able to identify specific objects within the image, then generate visually similar results.

Yet thanks to the vast resources at the disposal of companies like Google, visual search is finally becoming viable. How, then, will SEO evolve as visual search develops?

Here’s a more interesting question: how soon until SEO companies have to master visual search optimization?

Visual search isn’t likely to replace text-based search engines altogether. For now, visual search is most useful in the world of sales and retail. However, the future of visual search could still disrupt the SEO industry as we know it.

What is visual search?

If you have more than partial vision, you’re able to look across a room and identify objects as you see them. For instance, at your desk you can identify your monitor, your keyboard, your pens, and the sandwich you forgot to put in the fridge.

Your mind is able to identify these objects based on visual cues alone. Visual search does the same thing, but with a given image on a computer. However, it’s important to note that visual search is not the same as image search.

Image search is when a user inputs a word into a search engine and the search engine spits out related images. Even then, the search engine isn’t recognizing images, just the structured data associated with the image files.

Visual search uses an image as a query instead of text (reverse image search is a form of visual search). It identifies objects within the image and then searches for images related to those objects. For instance, based on an image of a desk, you’d be able to use visual search to shop for a desk identical or similar to the one in the image.

While this sounds incredible, the technology surrounding visual search is still limited at best. This is because machine learning must recreate the mind’s image processing before it can effectively produce a viable visual search application. It isn’t enough for the machine to identify an image. It must also be able to recognize a variety of colors, shapes, sizes, and patterns the way the human mind does.

The technology surrounding visual search is still limited at best

However, it’s difficult to recreate image processing in a machine when we barely understand our own image processing system. It’s for this reason that visual search programming is progressing so slowly.

Visual search as it stands: Where we are

Today’s engineers have been using machine learning technology to jumpstart the neural networks of visual search engines for improved image processing. One of the most recent examples of these developments is Google Lens.

Google Lens is an app that allows your smartphone to work as a visual search engine. Announced at Google’s 2017 I/O conference, the app works by analyzing the pictures that you take and giving you information about that image.

For instance, by taking a photo of an Abbey Road album your phone can tell you more about the Beatles and when the album came out. By taking a photo of an ice cream shop your phone can tell you its name, deliver reviews, and tell you if your friends have been there.

All of this information stems from Google’s vast stores of data, algorithms, and knowledge graphs, which are then incorporated into the the neural networks of the Lens product. However, the complexity of visual search involves more than just an understanding of the neural networks.

The mind’s image processing touches on more than just identification. It also draws conclusions that are incredibly complex. And it’s this complexity, known as the “black box problem”, that engineers struggle to recreate in visual search engines.

Rather than waiting explicitly on scientists to understand the human mind, DeepMind — a Google-owned company — has been taking steps toward programming the visual search engine based on cognitive psychology rather than relying solely on neural networks.

However, Google isn’t the only company with developing visual search technology. Pinterest launched its own Lens product in March 2017 to provide features such as Shop the Look and Pincodes. Those using Pinterest can take a photo of a person or place through the app and then have the photo analyzed for clothing or homeware options for shopping. 

What makes Pinterest Lens and Google Lens different is that Pinterest offers more versatile options for users. Google is a search engine for users to gather information. Pinterest is a website and app for shopping, recipes, design ideas, and recreational searching.

Unlike Google, which has to operate on multiple fronts, Pinterest is able to focus solely on the development of its visual search engine. As a result, Pinterest could very well become the leading contender in visual search technology.

Nevertheless, other retailers are beginning to catch on and pick up the pace with their own technology. The fashion retailer ASOS also released a visual search tool on its website in August 2017.

The use of visual search in retail helps reduce what’s been called the Discovery Problem. The Discovery Problem is when shoppers have so many options to choose from on a retailer’s website that they simply stop shopping. Visual search reduces the number of choices and helps shoppers find what they want more effectively.

The future of visual search: Where we’ll go from here

It’s safe to assume that the future of visual search engines will be retail-dominated. For now, it’s easier to search for information with words.

Users don’t need to take a photo of an Abbey Road album to learn more about the Beatles when they can use just as many keystrokes to type ‘Abbey Road’ into a search engine. However, users do need to take a photo of a specific pair of sneakers to convey to a search engine exactly what they’re looking to buy.

Searching for a pair of red shoes using Pinterest Lens

As a result, visual search engines are convenient, but they’re not ultimately necessary for every industry to succeed. Services, for instance, may be more likely to rely on textual search engines, whereas sales may be more likely to rely on visual search engines.

That being said, with 69% of young consumers showing an interest in making purchases based on visual-oriented searches alone, the future of visual search engines is most likely to be a shopper’s paradise in the right retailer’s hands.

What visual search means for SEO

Search engines are already capable of indexing images and videos and ranking them accordingly. Video SEO and image SEO have been around for years, ever since video and image content became popular with websites like YouTube and Facebook.

Yet despite this surge in video and image content, SEO still meets the needs of those looking to rank higher on search engines. Factors such as creating SEO-friendly alt text, image sitemaps, SEO-friendly image titles, and original image content can put your website’s images a step above the competition.

However, the see-snap-buy behavior of visual search can make image SEO more of a challenge. This is because the user no longer has to type, but can instead take a photo of a product and then search for the product on a retailer’s website.

Currently, SEO has been functioning alongside visual search via alt-tagging, image optimization, schema markup, and metadata. Schema markup and metadata are especially important for SEO in visual search. This is because, with such minimal text used in the future of visual search, this data may be one of the only sources of textual information for search engines to crawl.

Meticulously cataloging images with microdata may be tedious, but the enhanced description that microdata provides when paired with an optimized image should help that image rank higher in visual search.

Metadata is just as important. In both text-based searches and visual-based searches, metadata strengthens the marketer’s ability to drive online traffic to their website and products. Metadata hides in the HTML of both web pages and images, but it’s what search engines use to find relevant information.

Marking up your images with relevant metadata is essential for image SEO

For this reason, to optimize for image search, it’s essential to use metadata for your website’s images and not just the website itself.

Both microdata and metadata will continue to play an important role in the SEO industry even as visual search engines develop and revolutionize the online experience. However, additional existing SEO techniques will need to advance and improve to adapt to the future of visual search.

The future of SEO and visual search

To assume visual search engines are unlikely to change the future of the SEO industry is to be short-sighted. Yet it’s just as unlikely that text-based search will be made obsolete and replaced by a world of visual-based technology.

However, just because text-based search engines won’t be going anywhere doesn’t mean they won’t be made to share the spotlight. As visual search engines develop and improve, they’ll likely become just as popular and used as text-based engines. It’s for this reason that existing SEO techniques will need to be fine-tuned for the industry to remain up-to-date and relevant.

But how can SEO stay relevant as see-snap-buy behavior becomes not just something used on retail websites, but in most places online? As mentioned before, SEO companies can still utilize image-based SEO techniques to keep up with visual search engines.

Like text-based search engines, visual search relies on algorithms to match content for online users. The SEO industry can use this to its advantage and focus on structured data and optimization to make images easier to process for visual applications.

Additional techniques can help impove image indexing by visual search engines. Some of these techniques include:

• Setting up image badges to run through structured data tests
• Creating alternative attributes for images with target keywords
• Submitting images to image sitemaps
• Optimizing images for mobile use

Visual search engines are bound to revolutionize the retail industry and the way we use technology. However, text-based search engines will continue to have an established place in industries that are better suited to them.

The future of SEO is undoubtedly set for rapid change. The only question is which existing strategies will be reinforced in the visual search revolution and which will be outdated.

source https://searchenginewatch.com/2018/01/31/the-future-of-visual-search-and-what-it-means-for-seo-companies/

Bizarro Devs – a weekly newsletter with curated WordPress stories

Finally we have a reason to believe in deep learning technology. Any technology that multiplies the Nic Cage canon is a force for good. Meanwhile AI is cracking the impossible code and machine learning is helping us keep track of our fellow citizens. I guess what I want to say is React is a really good thing to have.
Electric sheep – technology
Source: https://managewp.org/articles/17023/bizarro-devs-a-weekly-newsletter-with-curated-wordpress-stories

source https://williechiu40.wordpress.com/2018/01/31/bizarro-devs-a-weekly-newsletter-with-curated-wordpress-stories/

Why Not To Create A WordPress Contact Form Without A Plugin

It’s not uncommon for me to be asked why you shouldn’t just write your own form, without a plugin using PHP and JavaScript code to add a form to your WordPress site. This is one of the things that happens since I create a WordPress form builder plugin for a living, all totally normal. Also, it’s a totally reasonable question and I’m a nerd, so let’s do this. Technically speaking, to process a form you need an HTML form — something you can write in your page template and an endpoint to process the form request and WordPress provides a lot of options for creating custom endpoints on a site. Here is a nice long article I wrote about four of those options.
But don’t. Making a WordPress contact form without a plugin is, most of the time, not worth it.
Look — I’m the guy who makes a form builder plugin so I have a bit of an interest in people using a WordPress form builder. But, I also spent the last few years obsessing over a web form that creates other web forms. This is something I’ve thought a lot about. Probably thought too much about.
Faster to Prototype & Faster to Finished Product
A form, no matter how you build it, is
Source: https://managewp.org/articles/17020/why-not-to-create-a-wordpress-contact-form-without-a-plugin

source https://williechiu40.wordpress.com/2018/01/30/why-not-to-create-a-wordpress-contact-form-without-a-plugin/

We recently switched credit card payment processing companies – WP Dispensary

WP Dispensary is an open source project at it’s core, and within the spirit of the open source community that it’s been built on, I would like to openly talk about some of the recent changes on the WPD website. On January 4th, I was contacted by Stripe, the credit card processing company that WP Dispensary was using at the time.
The email let me know that as of January 18th the account would no longer be supported:
“While we hate to give you anything less than a great experience, it does seem that your business is in violation of the Stripe Services Agreement, section A.7.b (“Prohibited Businesses and Activities”). Specifically, we are unable to accept payments for marijuana dispensaries and related businesses as mentioned here: https://stripe.com/prohibited-businesses.
These regulations are firm, so we sadly have no flexibility with them. That said, we understand that there may be some work involved with moving your business away from Stripe, and we’re happy to help out with this process by giving you 14 days to switch to a new provider.”
After some discussion, I found out it was because WP Dispensary is a “marijuana related” business,
Source: https://managewp.org/articles/17011/we-recently-switched-credit-card-payment-processing-companies-wp-dispensary

source https://williechiu40.wordpress.com/2018/01/30/we-recently-switched-credit-card-payment-processing-companies-wp-dispensary/

Behind the Scenes of Our Plugin Rebranding and Site Redesign

Boom. Things look different around here. A little bit anyway. For the better part of a year, we’ve been working on an updated look for our site which turned into some updated looks for our plugins which might have turned into something else if we didn’t just set a deadline for ourselves
We always enjoy reading about the insider details of how other shops choose to do these internal things so we thought we’d return the favor by sharing more of what we’ve done & why. We even got our designer to share about their process.
So what’s different?
If this is your first time at our site, first off – welcome (and also you should totally subscribe to the blog for more awesome free content for devs – scroll to the bottom of this post to do so /end obligatory marketing ask) and second – let’s show you what things used to look like.
The Look
Here’s an image of what our homepage looked like at the beginning of last year:
Here’s what it looks like now:
Here’s what our WP Migrate DB Pro sales page used to look like:
Here’s what it looks like now:
Ditto WP Offload S3:
Now:
As much as we might personally advocate that of
Source: https://managewp.org/articles/17021/behind-the-scenes-of-our-plugin-rebranding-and-site-redesign

source https://williechiu40.wordpress.com/2018/01/30/behind-the-scenes-of-our-plugin-rebranding-and-site-redesign/

WooCommerce Hooks Guide: Full List and Examples – Premmerce Blog

WooCommerce Hooks are undoubtedly important and placing them correctly help to extend the functionality of a store without making changes to the core code of the store’s theme. This blog post will highlight the full list of WooCommerce hooks, describe the main areas of their use and provide some examples of hook placement. In the article we’ll give the full list of WooCommerce Hooks and will describe the main areas of their use, we’ll also give the examples of areas for Hooks placing so that it’ll be easier to use them in future.
At first some general facts about WooCommerce Hooks. They are designed like another WordPress Hooks and used for setting markup for all pages resulting in faster use of Actions and Filters on them.
As it was mentioned above hooks enable the creation of independent plugins and extensions and don’t modify the main code of WordPress, WooCommerce and other plugins thus eliminating any negative effects on software stability and updatability.
All in all, WooCommerce is marked by hooks very well and lets to expand store’s opportunities easily. Read on and learn more about the areas currently marked by the hooks.
WooCommerce Global
Source: https://managewp.org/articles/17017/woocommerce-hooks-guide-full-list-and-examples-premmerce-blog

source https://williechiu40.wordpress.com/2018/01/30/woocommerce-hooks-guide-full-list-and-examples-premmerce-blog/

How to find the perfect domain strategy for international SEO

As you look to expand the reach of your business to customers in different countries, your website setup and the content you have in place will need to change and evolve.

Before you even begin thinking about content localization and local keywords for each market, the technical setup of your website needs to be considered. The first step of this process is domain strategy.

What domain you use when targeting local markets can impact how your site performs. There are a number of options for your domain structure:

• Country code top-level domains (ccTLDs)
• Subfolders or subdirectories
• Subdomain

There are pros and cons for each of these. In this article, I’ll examine each of the different options, their benefits and drawbacks, and consider how you can find the best domain strategy for your individual situation.

Country code top-level domains (ccTLDs)

ccTLDs (or Country Code top-level domains) are specific to a country: for example, .de for Germany or .fr for France.

Pros of ccTLDs

• Automatically associated with the country they cover (.de to Germany)
• Clear to visitors that this site is meant for them
• Obvious in the search results the site is targeted to a specific country
• In many countries, customers prefer a locally based website
• In some markets, local ccTLDs perform better in the rankings.

Cons of ccTLDs

• Increased costs of domain registration (if you are in 32 countries you need 32 ccTLDs)
• Starting from scratch with no domain history or links when you launch into a new market
• You can’t as easily set up language specific websites – so a German-language website on a .de domain will look like a German-focused website, not one which can also serve customers in German-speaking Switzerland, or Austria
• Your website will have lots of external links on it if you have a language selection dropdown on all pages. This can lead to your backlink profile being dominated by links from your own sites – that means any amazing backlinks you’ve managed to create won’t be as powerful as if your own links weren’t present (a drop in the ocean, you might say)
• SEO work on one site won’t benefit all sites, as they are all separate websites.

Subfolders or subdirectories

Subfolders (also known as subdirectories) for specific languages or countries can be added to any domain (www.yourdomain.com/de), but for this to work effectively, the site needs to be on a top-level domain such as a .com, and not a local ccTLD.

Pros of subfolders

• SEO performed on one part of the domain will benefit all the country folders as it’s one site
• There is also the added inheritance of the authority of your original website so you aren’t starting from scratch when you go into a new market
• Links between countries are seen as internal links, not external ones, which helps your backlink profile as it will be made up predominantly of links from other people’s sites and not mainly from your own site
• No extra domain hosting costs.

Cons of subfolders

• In the search results, it’s not as obvious that the country subfolder is specifically for users in that country (/de/ could be a page about your German products rather than a page specifically aimed at German users)
• No automatic association in search to the target country
• Risk of internal cannibalization – different international landing pages wind up competing with each other in search results, and it can be difficult to get the right landing page to rank in the relevant country’s search
• Be wary of automatic optimization settings in your CMS – the last thing you want is your beautifully translated website for the Italian market to have a default title tag and meta description on every page which is in English.

Subdomains

Subdomains add the country content to the beginning of the domain (de.yourdomain.com). Some CMS tools or proxies default to this behavior, so it’s been a popular technique for many international websites.

Again, this solution only works when the parent website is a .com domain.

Pros of subdomains

• Default for some CMS tools
• Has some connection to the current SEO authority of the main website, which can aid performance when launching in a new country

Cons

• Links to subdomains from the language drop-down are seen as external links, however, the level of this is less than when you have unique ccTLDs for each country
• No automatic association in the search engines with the country you’re targeting
• Users are less likely to associate your domain with their country, as the language specification is at the beginning of the domain
• Again, risk of internal cannibalization: Google will typically only feature one subdomain from the same site in the SERPs, meaning that your subdomains wind up competing with one another for the same search terms.

So which domain strategy works best?

All we’ve seen from the above is that there are pros and cons for all the available domain strategies, and no real clear winner for which works best.

IP serving is not the solution

From an SEO point of view, we need to avoid IP serving (serving different content to the user depending on their IP address) wherever possible. All the search engines need to be able to find and index all of your content, but have IP ranges which come from specific countries.

Google, for example, comes from the US, meaning that it will be automatically redirected to your US content. This can present issues with the indexation and visibility of your local websites in the search results.

Making informed decisions

The best way for your business to decide which domain strategy is right for your websites is to review a number of different elements. Here are some key ones to start off with:

Technology review

This is a good kick-off point; there’s no point in looking at all the options, doing your research and deciding on a domain strategy, only to find that your CMS doesn’t support the approach you’ve chosen.

There are a number of considerations here:

• Are there limitations to the options supported by your CMS?
• Are there extra costs associated with any of the domain strategies?
• Does the CMS support cross-domain content publication and hreflang tags no matter which domain strategy you choose?

Top level marketing strategy

Another one which is well worth checking before doing anything else. If your business has a logo which contains the domain, or a set of brand guidelines which involve talking about the company as YourBrand.com, then you may find that any recommendation to move to a ccTLD for specific markets might not be accepted.

Check in with the decision makers on that before you begin roll-out of research into domain strategy (and save yourself time!)

Competitor research and ranking review

Look at the marketplace for the country you are interested in, and also at the domain strategies which work for the companies who are performing well in the search results. This should include search competitors and publishers on a similar topic, not just your known named competitor.

Budgetary considerations

Are you a small business with limited marketing budgets, but looking to expand into 19 markets? If so, a ccTLD approach could eat into your budgets.

You might find that there is no one-size-fits-all solution, and in some markets, it might be better to have a ccTLD whilst in all of the other countries you are focused on a .com domain. At this point, your own marketing needs to kick in.

If you are comfortable having multiple domain marketing strategies, then do so; if you aren’t, then consider putting all sites on the same strategy. Just remember, it’s unlikely that your international customers will care that one site is on a ccTLD and another is on a .com!

Final considerations: Language

One final thing to consider when choosing domains for an international audience is the words used in the domain.

Although your domain is often your company name or something comprising this, one thing to consider for international audiences is whether this name, your domain, or the way words are combined in your domain, could look odd to audiences who speak a different language.

The worst-case scenario is that your domain looks like a swear word or insult in a different language. So, before you commit to a particular domain, check with local people living in that market that you won’t be accidentally calling their mother a hamster.

source https://searchenginewatch.com/2018/01/30/how-to-find-the-perfect-domain-strategy-for-international-seo/

How we do automated quality assurance on more than 100 theme demos

Theme quality is something that’s not negotiable here at CSSIgniter. For over five years now we carry the promise of new theme releases month to month for our customers and we focus all of our efforts in maintaining the high quality standard we’ve set for them ever since we began this awesome endeavour. Five years in now and except for quality we’ve now found ourselves to also have to deal with another (a bit spookier) word: quantity. At the moment of this writing, our theme catalogue lists 89 premium and free WordPress themes, not counting the ones on Themeforest or our premium plugins or awesome Elementor landing pages. Counting everything, we’re racking up about 150 (!) WordPress theme, plugin, and landing page products all with their own user demos and marketing pages.
Our theme and plugin demos are really important to us. They are quite literally the storefront of our business and the first point of friction that any of our users will have with our products. Anyone in the website development business can tell you how a website is a bit of a living organism that needs serious maintenance; browsers come and go, specifications change, external content on the
Source: https://managewp.org/articles/17015/how-we-do-automated-quality-assurance-on-more-than-100-theme-demos

source https://williechiu40.wordpress.com/2018/01/30/how-we-do-automated-quality-assurance-on-more-than-100-theme-demos/

Inside Google’s new Search Console: What’s new, what’s the same, and what’s still to come?

Earlier this month, Google rolled out the beta version of its new and improved Search Console to all verified users.

Google has been testing the new Search Console for some months now, with a select number of users given early access to the beta. We’ve had sneak peeks at the slick, clean interface, and heard about some of the notable additions, such as the much-vaunted 16 months of historical search data now available to SEOs.

The new Search Console is still in beta, and Google says that it will continue to port features from the old Search Console to the new over the course of the coming year. Webmasters and SEOs will be able to use both versions of Search Console side-by-side until the transition is complete.

So now that the new Search Console is finally here, what shiny new features does it boast, what is more or less the same, and what functionality are we still awaiting with bated breath? Let’s take a look.

What’s new

Search performance report

The most powerful new functionality in the revamped Search Console centers around the Search Analytics section, now known as Search Performance.

As with the old Search Analytics report, you can overlay total clicks, total impressions, average CTR and average position data on top of each other with a simple click. But where webmasters have previously forced to choose between filtering by search type, query, page, country, and device, with only one option available to select at once, now you can filter by multiple variables at a time.

So, as in the screenshot above, you can compare total impression data with average CTR from web searches for “search engine” from the United States over the past three months, if that’s something that takes your fancy.

You unfortunately can’t layer multiple comparisons on top of each other – so if you want to compare desktop and mobile data side-by-side, you can’t also compare data from the U.S. and the U.K. at the same time – but the new options still allow SEOs and webmasters to get highly specific with performance data for their website.

And, of course, website owners now have access to much wider date ranges for their historical search data, making it easier to analyze longer-term trends and perform year-over-year comparisons. Google notes that, “Over the years, users have been consistent in asking us for more data in Search Analytics” than the three months that website owners were previously limited to.

Well, with the new Search Console, Google has exceeded all expectations, more than quadrupling the maximum date range that webmasters have access to. Now, you can choose between three-month, six-month and 12-month date ranges, or opt for the “Full duration”, which is a whopping 16 months.

Index coverage report

The Index Coverage section of Google’s new Search Console is a combination of the old Index Status and Crawl Errors reports. It allows site owners to see how well Google is indexing their website, as well as identify and fix errors where there are any.

You can view data by pages with errors, valid pages with warnings, valid pages that have been indexed, and excluded pages, and also overlay impression data on top. The table underneath then gives more detail as to the types of issues detected, allowing webmasters to click through and inspect the affected URLs.

Another fantastically useful feature that’s new with the revamped Search Console is the ability to request Google update its index after you’ve resolved an issue.

If you’ve gone in and fixed a HTTP 500 error, for example, rather than waiting for Google to recrawl your site and discover the fix, you can proactively request that Google update its index. According to Google’s Webmaster Central blog, it will “then crawl and reprocess the affected URLs with a higher priority, helping your site to get back on track faster than ever.”

Search enhancements: Accelerated Mobile Pages and Job Postings

Google’s updated AMP status report also allows website owners to validate newly-fixed AMP URLs. In the old version of Search Console, Google would provide a list of AMP URLs with errors and recommend a fix, but there wasn’t any way to request that Google reprocess the amended URLs.

Now, you can request that Search Console validate a fix across multiple pages, and Google will again process those with a higher priority.

Google’s blog post introducing the new Search Console grouped AMP under the heading of “Search Enhancements” together with another new report: job postings. Webmasters with job listings on their site can mark them up with Job Posting structured data to be eligible for Google Jobs – Google’s relatively new foray into the world of job listings that was announced at last year’s Google I/O.

As with AMP, the Job Posting report in Search Console will display stats around your job listing results and pinpoint any indexing issues, allowing you to fix and validate them.

Image: Search Engine Land

What’s the same

Nothing in the revamped Search Console is exactly the same as the old version, but as I’ve mentioned, there are some rough equivalents.

The new Search Performance report features much of the same data as the old Search Analytics report, and the Index Coverage report includes data that appears in the Index Status and Crawl Errors sections of the old Search Console.

The sitemap submission process is also much the same in the new Search Console, though the handy “Test” button which allowed webmasters to check their sitemap before submission is missing in the new version.

The old Search Console allows webmasters to test their sitemap before submission

Sitemaps also work in conjunction with the Index Coverage report: when site owners submit a sitemap file, they can use the sitemap filter over the Index Coverage data to focus on an exact list of URLs.

What’s still to come

A lot of data from the old Search Console has still to make its way over to the new, so we can expect plenty of future updates to Search Console over the coming year. Some notable reports and features that have yet to be added to the new Search Console include:

Structured Data, Rich Cards, and Data Highlighter

Judging by Google’s continued emphasis on rich results and structured data markup, these reports are certain to come to Search Console, though maybe not in exactly the same form as before.

Given that Google has just begun introducing native support of some content types to Google Assistant, it’s possible that the new Search Console will feature additional functionality for integrating with Assistant, perhaps in the form of assessing whether your content is correctly optimized for inclusion in the new Actions Directory.

Google might also find a way to incorporate its new Rich Results Testing Tool directly within Search Console, helping webmasters and SEOs find and fix errors that prevent rich results from displaying.

Internal links and links to your site

One important piece of SEO functionality currently missing from the new Search Console is data on links: both internal links, and links leading back to your site.

In the old Search Console, these are useful reports allowing webmasters to see exactly who is linking to their domain and which pages are the most linked-to – important for monitoring the progress of link-building campaigns as well as backlinks in general.

Similarly, the Internal Links section allows you to assess and improve the level of internal linking within your own site. You can search for individual pages to see where they are linked to across your site, and reverse sort to find out which pages need more internal linking.

Hopefully this will soon be introduced to the new Search Console so that webmasters can benefit from new and improved link reports and data.

International targeting

This report allows webmasters to target an audience based on language and country – a crucial section for international SEO. Webmasters who operate in multiple geographies will be particularly keen to find out what this looks like when it appears in the new Search Console.

Mobile usability

Given Google’s increasing emphasis on a mobile-first approach to website-building, I’m confident that we can expect some souped-up features in the mobile usability report when it appears in the new Search Console.

The Search Console mobile usability report currently assesses how well your site is optimized for mobile usage, and highlights issues such as Flash usage, small font size, touch elements (e.g. buttons) placed too close together, and the use of interstitial pop-ups. With page speed confirmed to be an official ranking factor on mobile from July, I think we can near enough guarantee that speed will be one of the assessments included in the new mobile usability report (or whatever Google decides to call it) when it rolls out.

I think it’s reasonable to predict some sort of tie-in to the mobile-first index, as well. While it’s already possible to compare mobile and desktop search data in Search Performance, Google may well build some additional functionality into the mobile usability report which allows webmasters to detect and correct issues that prevent them from ranking well on mobile.

The current report already detects mobile usability issues on individual pages, so it wouldn’t even be much of a leap to apply that to the mobile-first index, giving website owners more tools to improve their site’s usability on mobile.

What are your thoughts on the revamped Search Console? Which reports are you most excited to see in the new version? Share your views in the comments!

source https://searchenginewatch.com/2018/01/30/inside-googles-new-search-console-whats-new-whats-the-same-and-whats-still-to-come/