Author: Ethan Clevenger
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Better WordPress Transients
WordPress’s built-in transient system gets the job done, but it has a few drawbacks. Depending on how long it takes to refresh your transient and the volume of traffic you get, it may or may not be a problem. Here’s a quick overview of where WordPress falls short, and how you can fix it. How…
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WordPress cURL Error 28 and Your DNS Resolver
Hey! This article is for advanced users managing their own server. If you have shared hosting or another managed service, talk to your provider to fix this. That’s what you pay them for! I recently had an issue where a Digital Ocean droplet hosting a WordPress site was experiencing cURL error 28. This error is…
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Keeping Your Website’s Images Accessible
There are many ways to add images to your website, and some ways are better than others. Images on your website have both SEO and accessibility considerations. Can a screen reader read your image and communicate any important information it contains? Does a search engine know what this is an image of, and if it…
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How Can I Protect My Financial Information Online?
For as long as consumers have been able to make purchases online, there’s been concern over how to keep payment information safe. Buyers are concerned about things like credit card numbers being skimmed across the web. Fortunately, much of that responsibility falls onto web developers, and consumers only need to be aware of a few tips to…
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The Nuclear Option: Setting Up WordPress Backups with Dropbox and UpdraftPlus
This blog post is actually from my wicked-awesome WordPress for Small Business Owners course. If you dig it, you should sign up for the whole thing. It’s totally free! Take the Free Course! It’s pretty hard to break a WordPress site. But just in case, one of the first things you should do with a…
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Stop Jetpack from Slowing Down Your WordPress Site
When you install Automattic’s Jetpack plugin, it comes with a ton of features enabled by default. While it has a lot of great features, you probably don’t need all of them. I recently installed it for a client in order to use WooCommerce Services and USPS shipping calculation. I got the shipping information just like…
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My Dog Remus, His Poop, and User Experience
One of the biggest reasons I moved into the apartment I live in now is that it accommodated large dogs (doggos or puppers, if you prefer) like mine. Many places here in Eugene may claim to be dog-friendly, but only up until forty or fifty pounds. They aren’t prepared for my 85 pound black lab,…
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Fix My Slow Website! Part 3: Plugins
This is part 3 in my series on fixing slow websites. Be sure to check out parts 1 and 2! First off, if you’re following this series as a non-WordPress developer, you might skip out on this particular entry, as it’s very WordPress-oriented. Might I suggest finding something else on the blog? Most WordPress sites…
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Adding a Gravity Forms PayPal Continue URL
Just Get the Plugin Gravity Forms is my go-to plugin for any form-related tasks on WordPress. It does everything. Well, almost everything. Recently, I leveraged it to create an online signup form for Camas Swale Farm’s community-supported agriculture (CSA) program. If you aren’t familiar with CSAs, it’s a way for people to buy into a local farm. Their…
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Fix My Slow Website! Part 2: Optimizing Images
This is part 2 in my series on slow websites, what causes them, and how to fix them. Read part 1 here. Big images are all the rage in web right now. Seems like you can’t turn around without finding high-res hero images and videos. And there’s nothing wrong with these. They generally look great and,…
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Fix My Slow Website! Part 1: Why is my Website Slow?
This is part 1 in my series on slow websites, what causes them, and how to fix them If you ever review a job board for web developers, you’ll see many variations on “my WordPress site is slow, what do I do?” I have got 6 websites. The load speed is very slow. Looking for…
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Capitalize on SEO and appear genuine in 2017: The 2017 Edelman Trust Barometer
Every year, Edelman does a survey of people across the world to determine how much the average person trusts government, business, media and non-governmental organizations (NGOs). 2016 started strong, with respondents showing higher trust levels than at any time since the 2008 recession. However, after a rocky 2016, trust levels have dropped across the board.…