As the WordPress ecosystem continues to grow and change, it’s brimming with innovative tools that are transforming the web. 

If you’re looking for a great way to dive into this evolving world of WordPress, look no further than DE{CODE} 2024, WP Engine’s flagship virtual developer conference. 

Now returning for its fifth year, DE{CODE} 2024 is scheduled for March 19 in the U.S. and APAC and March 21 in EMEA. You can find more details and register for this year’s event, for free, here. 

As in years past, event sessions will provide actionable insights into the next generation of WordPress, elevating development workflows, embracing technologies like AI, and the latest product innovations from WP Engine. 

Last year, DE{CODE} set a new record with more than 10,000 viewers tuning in from more than 138 different countries. Join WP Engine this year to experience the largest WordPress developer event, including live networking, and more!

SIGN UP FOR DE{CODE] 2024 TODAY!

What DE{CODE} Delivers

DE{CODE} is all about helping developers unleash their potential and do more with WordPress, and it offers a plethora of learning opportunities.

Throughout the one-day virtual event, attendees will learn more about modern web development—from comprehensive tool overviews to practical insights on new website implementations.

DE{CODE} also focuses on revolutionary technologies that are redefining WordPress. For example, this year’s event offers a great opportunity to discover how to enhance SEO, streamline development workflows, and utilize WPGraphQL with Atlas, WP Engine’s headless WordPress platform.

Join Virtually–Access Anywhere, Anytime

If you’re unable to join live, don’t fret! All DE{CODE} 2024 sessions will be available after the event.

You can see a preview of what to expect by exploring last year’s sessions here. 

Don’t miss out on this opportunity to grow, connect, and learn.

Secure your spot at DE{CODE}2024 today!

The post Do More With WordPress: Registration Now Open for DE{CODE} 2024! appeared first on Torque.

After two years on the market, Gutenberg is overcoming its rough start and reputation as a half-baked product. Now, it’s proving itself as a solid foundation for building WordPress sites, and agencies are starting to notice.

Who we interviewed

Fifteen agencies reached out to help us understand what led them to transition from page builders to the Gutenberg block editor.

All of the agencies we interviewed have been building WordPress sites for many years (even decades) and range in size from 1-60 employees. They work in a variety of industries such as non-profit, cybersecurity, real estate, hospitality, retail, publishing, and more and have experience building eCommerce sites, directories, membership sites, learning management systems, and everything in between.

All of the interviewees used to use Elementor, Beaver Builder, Visual Composer, Muffin Builder and Divi but now use Gutenberg to build their sites, usually partnered with the Gutenberg-based plugin Toolset.

The challenges agencies have with page builders

For many years, agencies have relied on the drag-and-drop functionality and styling options that come with page builders. So why did the agencies we interviewed abandon them?

Speed and performance

It’s true, page builders make it easy to create beautiful designs, but often that comes at the expense of site performance. With Google’s announcement that they will be making site performance a bigger SEO ranking factor starting this June, this is more important than ever.

It’s no secret that page builders add extra, often unnecessary code to your site, but what may be surprising is how much this can actually slow your site. In a recent article, author Kyle Van Deusen saw his Google’s PageSpeed Insights score increase from 46 to 94 by switching from one popular page builder to Gutenberg.

Our interviewees reported improvements in page and site speed, leaner pages, and less of a need for so many plugins which has resulted in better SEO rankings and faster sites.

Christophe Keppens, who creates sites using Kadence Blocks or Toolset (including dynam-IT) is pleased with the performance of the sites he builds with Gutenberg:

Dependency on 3rd party code

Because page builders are such a core part of building a site, any issue with a page builder can create huge problems. Some agencies cited issues like these as wake-up calls to reduce their reliance on 3rd party solutions.

“After taking over a few sites that were using different page builders, spending a lot of time to sort out the mess, I was very suspicious of anything that was not clean WordPress,” says Stina Deurell, who created the site Deep Adaptation Guidance using GeneratePress theme and Toolset.

Christophe Keppens adds, “As many others, I also had some issues [after a page builder’s] release. That’s when I decided I wanted to eliminate the dependency on 3rd parties as much as possible. At the same time, I discovered Kadence Theme and Kadence Blocks. Also 3rd party, but much closer to the WordPress core system. So, I tried rebuilding one of my sites and it went rather well.”

Steep learning curves with clients

If clients want to edit their content or take over the maintenance of their site, it can be difficult for them to learn a whole new interface on top of learning how to use WordPress. With Gutenberg, however, they only need to learn one.

Joe Watts created a site for non-profit organization Cawaco using Genesis Framework theme, Genesis Blocks, and Toolset. “Gutenberg started making sense to me when I looked into how much easier it was for clients to use. They like pages that are pages—where they can edit the page and actually make changes to it…[Clients are] much happier. They feel like it has given them some additional controls over their websites.”

John Fleming used Blocksy theme, Stackable Blocks, and Toolset to create a site for author Lily Morton:

Difficult to create a dynamic site

Though page builders are starting to add some dynamic capabilities, some require other plugins, add-on solutions, or custom programming to create fully dynamic sites. Only Toolset and Crocoblock allow you to both create custom content like fields and taxonomies and display them dynamically across your site.

Dawson Barber of Total Local Online Marketing (built with Astra and Toolset) is one interviewee who has found it quicker to build dynamic sites with Gutenberg:

Dragan who built the site TreeRay with WoodMart and Toolset says, “By using Gutenberg to build my sites, I solved the custom coding problem – instead of using custom code, I just add a block and then focus on my content.”

Toolset even adds dynamic functionality to other 3rd party block plugins, which John Fleming says “is a game changer for us.”

How using Gutenberg works for agencies and their clients

All of the agencies reported that clients are just as happy with their sites built with Gutenberg, and they feel that they have more control and understanding of their sites.

This can be especially useful if you only want to deliver a project, not maintain it. This is the case for Marijke Metz who built Metz Design using GeneratePress and Toolset.

“All of our clients are really happy with their Gutenberg-based sites,” adds Dawson Barber, “particularly those that want to occasionally update some content on their own (they didn’t like the editing experience with frontend page builders).”

Stina Deurell similarly shares, “Depending on [the client’s] computer maturity they range from liking the look of [the site], to love to be able to make a new View themselves.”

The remaining pain points in Gutenberg and how agencies deal with them

Gutenberg still has some areas of improvement. In our interviews, agencies reported some similar issues they struggle with when working with Gutenberg. Overall, they reported these issues as being more annoyances than stoppers.

• They want default styling per site for blocks and images.
• Abundance of available blocks through different plugins is overwhelming – hoping for the ability to turn off blocks clients won’t use.
• Working with global and reusable blocks is not intuitive yet.
• They want more animation options.
• It’s difficult to create designs that differ from the theme’s default styling.

Joe Watts and Marijke Metz both struggle with Gutenberg giving clients too many options:

• Joe says, “The wonderful and vast number of blocks is both a blessing and a curse. It can be overwhelming to clients when they are presented with dozens and dozens of options for each block. Turning off the blocks you know your clients won’t need, will help them love Gutenberg even more. There are some I never use. There are some I use a lot.” 
• Marijka also adds, “[Clients] are easily overflowed with all the possibilities and don’t know where to look to solve their problem.”

Dragan found solutions to his problems with Toolset: “The challenges that still remain with Gutenberg are creating designs that differ from my theme’s default styling, i.e. having full control over styles to design templates for custom post types and archive pages. To overcome these challenges I use Toolset plugins (Blocks, Types, Forms and Access) to add custom post types to my sites and display them as I choose.”

Agencies have found a better site-building solution with Gutenberg

Overall, the agencies we spoke to were very happy with their switch to Gutenberg and the added possibilities and functionality Toolset adds. 

Geoff Smith, who built the coupon site Blippr using GeneratePress and Toolset says, “Other blocks are limited in what they can do, but using Toolset custom post types and dynamic blocks I was able to build a pretty complex site that has a lot of different content being pulled in and updated on a regular basis. I think [building a site with blocks] is one of the only ways to build larger sites on WordPress, otherwise you are going to be doing custom development (have fun with that!). Toolset has made it easy for us to do things in days that would have taken us weeks before.”

“[Gutenberg is] now our first choice for building WordPress websites, so much so that, even though we’d redone our agency website [to switch from one page builder to another] in the last year, we decided to rebuild our agency website from scratch using Gutenberg and Toolset. We’re extremely pleased with our agency website rebuild,” says Dawson Barber. “All in all, we’re really happy that we embraced Gutenberg and look forward to new features from Gutenberg as well as the Toolset team.”

What is your experience with Gutenberg?

Would you make the switch from page builders to Gutenberg, or have you already? What’s your number one concern about moving to Gutenberg? Let us know in the comments!

The post Why WordPress Agencies Are Embracing Gutenberg appeared first on Torque.

Fortunately, there is a simple solution to see your websites become ADA compliant within 48 hours. With a few tweaks, such as color contrasting, adding legible text, and additional navigability, you can ensure your designs are accessible. There are even companies that can help you get the job done.

In this article, we’ll go over why ADA compliance is a necessity. Then, we’ll discuss some non-negotiable accessibility concerns, and show you how you can implement accessible design. Let’s dive in!

What ADA Compliance Is (And Why It’s a Must)

Essentially, ADA compliance means that your website is accessible to everyone, including visitors with disabilities. This includes physical disabilities – both temporary and permanent – but also auditory, cognitive, and visual disabilities, too. After all, those who are color blind may struggle to see your text without the proper contrast.

While some Content Management Systems (CMS), such as WordPress, have their own pushes towards accessibility, it can be a struggle to know where to start. Even using projects designed to help, like a11y, can leave you feeling confused.

Unfortunately, part of that confusion stems from a lack of clarity surrounding web accessibility and ADA compliance. One reason is that the ADA does not mention websites specifically. However, Title III of the ADA is often interpreted to extend to the web, as it concerns ‘public spaces.’

Thankfully, there are some standards you can apply to your website designs to keep you protected. They were made by the Web Content Accessibility Initiative of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) to make disabled lives easier.

These recommendations are called Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1, and can make your designs accessible! Some of the recommendations are:

• Text alternatives for media and other sensory experiences
• Captions for video and audio content
• Non-restricted display orientation
• Color not being used to convey information
• Ability to pause or stop audio after three seconds of auto-play

If this sounds opaque, you’re not alone. Many web developers have struggled to navigate the waters of ADA compliance, and have been left feeling concerned about where they stand legally.

Some Common Concerns About ADA Compliance

The concerns you have are likely shared by others. The threat of lawsuits over ADA compliance are on the rise for web design agencies and the web development community at large.

In fact, they’re a primary cause for lawsuits against design agencies in particular. When an agency creates a website for their client, they expect the product to not only be great for their business but to adhere to ADA accessibility standards.

Even if you don’t get sued, you run the risk of getting bad reviews on search platforms such as TrustPilot, G2, or Capterra. These can negatively impact your business, and lead to lost revenue. Worse, you might find it difficult to attract recruits, as they may be scared to work with a company that has a bad reputation.

Unfortunately, there’s no easy fix. As the ADA standards are vague, it’s up to individual judges to decide what is and isn’t accessible. This means you must be prepared for anything and everything.

4 Accessibility Implementations Your Design Agency Should Make to Stop ADA Compliance Lawsuits

Accessibility work is time- and labor-intensive. It can be difficult to muddle through and can leave even experienced developers feeling lost in an endless sea of programming.

However, there are a few prominent areas you should begin with. Here are four important implementations that can help you avoid ADA compliance lawsuits.

1. Ensure Your Designs Can Be Easily Navigated

To be accessible, a website needs to be able to be navigated without the use of a mouse. Those with motor limitations or paralysis might not use one and may rely on the keyboard entirely.

As a means to make navigating easier, you could create anchor links to let users jump around your page easily. This prevents them from endlessly scrolling using other methods.

It’s also a good idea to keep menus accessible by not having any ‘mouseover’ content. Instead, let all menus be accessed easily through the keyboard alone.

Overall, you can help those who can’t use a mouse most by using proper page structure. This means enabling skip links, using header hierarchies, and coding accurate semantic HTML.

To test the functionality of your sites quickly, simply Tab through it as an impaired user would. You can also try Shift + Tab to go between links and buttons. Otherwise, you could use a Web Accessibility Evaluation Tool to test things automatically. Simply put in your URL, and let the tool analyze it.

2. Make Sure the Text and Font You Use Are Readable

Those with visual impairments will sometimes need a screen reader to properly understand your website designs. This impairment can be especially ‘spotlit’ if you don’t use a font that is both clear to see and scalable. After all, if someone has difficulty seeing, they’ll need letters to be easily discernible and to be able to resize text at will.

While you won’t always have control over the content provided on each web page, you can ensure that the fonts won’t provide hurdles to those with disabilities. With this in mind, it’s prudent to choose fonts that are legible, not just readable.

This means ditching fancy fonts that may look exquisite but are actually complicated. Instead, go for something simple, and try not to add more than three font types per page. Also, look to set your fonts to a size large enough to be easily distinguished by those with poor eyesight. By doing so, you’ll be making mobile navigation easier, too.

A quick and easy way to check how fonts look on the screen is to use a tool such as Type Scale:

This offers a huge selection of Google Fonts and enables you to adjust sizes based on either a custom setting or a multitude of preset scale ratios. You can also grab permalinks for your settings to send to clients or other team members.

3. Be Conscious of How You Use Color

Color-blindness affects seven to ten percent of all men (and a small number of women,) and usually involves ‘red-green’ confusion. However, there are many kinds of color-blindness affecting a variety of people.

When it comes to web development, you may want to incorporate colors that offer plenty of contrast into your design. For example, if you’re using a white background, you might opt for a dark blue (or #112e51 on the color palette), muted red (#cd2026), black (#212121), or gray (#494440) for fonts.

Another way you can help those who have difficulty differentiating between hues is to not rely on colors as indication. For example, links can be underlined, and required form fields could be indicated with an asterisk.

Overall, try to create an adequate contrast between the foreground and background. Doing so can ensure that your website is easy to see, and text is effortless to read.

4. Test Your Websites Thoroughly to Ensure Compliance

No website design is truly finished until it has been thoroughly tested for ADA compliance. While this may be a lengthy process, it’s one that can benefit you, your clients, and all who rely on accessible features.

First, you may want to test your website to see how screen readers handle it. A screen reader will typically read your HTML and HTML5, but adding Accessible Rich Internet Applications (ARIA) to describe how your website is laid out can smooth the process.

Next, you might use a tester for color contrast to determine if you meet all ADA standards. Simply add specific hues to the tester’s foreground and background colors, and it will tell you how acceptable your contrast is.

However, you can take the hassle out of the entire accessibility process by employing a leading Software as a Service (SaaS) solution, such as accessiBe. It’s an AI-powered platform that will scan, analyze, and transform every page of your website to meet accessibility standards.

The software will go through every page on your website, analyze them, and then implement any changes you need to be up-to-date with accessibility standards. That means it will adhere to Accessible Rich Internet Applications (ARIA) attributes, and adjust your site as needed.

These changes that the AI will make include adding descriptions for actionable icons, providing accurate labels, making font and color adjustments, and placing alt-text where it needs to be. Best of all, accessiBe’s AI will allow users to make the changes they specifically need, rather than creating a single, monolithic accessible website.

Furthermore, accessiBe software will use its AI to scan your entire website to optimize for both screen-readers and keyboard navigation. While that may sound like an intensive process, they’ll carry out all of this work within 48 hours.

They offer different plans, depending on your needs. If you need less than 1,000 pages scanned, you could choose their Pro option, which costs $490 annually. However, there are also plans that cover unlimited web pages, starting from $990 a month.

Conclusion

Ensuring that the websites you design are accessible may seem like a long process, yet it’s entirely necessary. Not only will you protect yourself and your clients from avoidable lawsuits, but you’ll also protect your reputation.

There are many steps involved to making your websites ADA compliant. Let’s recap four of the ways you can do so:

1. Ensure that each website is navigable without a mouse.
2. Choose legible texts with larger sizes.
3. Use color wisely by picking hues that have plenty of contrast.
4. Test all websites after you’ve implemented changes to gauge your success.

Do you have any questions about how your design agency can protect itself against ADA compliance lawsuits? Ask away in the comments section below!

The post 4 Accessibility Implementations Your Design Agency Should Make to Stop ADA Compliance Lawsuits appeared first on Torque.

It’s a subtle shift in emphasis, but it needs to encompass your entire business – from the way you find prospects, to how you onboard clients, to the way you deliver mockups and launch products, to your project recap surveys.

Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon, famously left one chair empty at every meeting for “the customer,” the most important member of the corporation. Now, each meeting is attended by an employee who has been trained to play the part of the customer, called a Customer Experience Bar Raiser.

Customer-centricity is about building your business around ensuring a positive customer experience. It’s no longer left as the purview of your account managers alone. Instead, it’s woven into the fabric your entire business and all of its processes.

In 2016, a Gallup poll noted that 71% of B2B customers would switch vendors for better customer experience and that higher customer engagements drive revenues 50% higher. Some 59% of individuals already feel that companies have lost touch with the human side of customer experience.

And Forrester research has found that 95% of customer-centric companies reported that their customers are satisfied, as opposed to only 46% of non-customer-centric organizations.

How to be more customer-centric

Transforming into a customer-centric agency requires a complete culture overhaul to generate a customer-centric focus in every department and on every level. Here are three steps to start making your agency more customer-centric in 2019.

1. Increase self-service options

Clients appreciate feeling in control, and one of the best approaches is through a secure customer portal.

One key way to optimize the customer experience is by enabling clients to troubleshoot issues themselves before submitting a request – or to view information about project statuses through a dedicated web presence. Client Portal, an aptly-named WordPress plugin, makes this easy to implement.

For a web design company, this could mean giving clients secure, limited access to certain areas of your website back end. Presenting real-time progress reports and important website metrics for immediate, round the clock customer access, instead of waiting for the client to make a request, can also be done smoothly with a secure client portal.

2. Listen better

Next, start to listen more closely to the client. For example, a web design and management agency might classify certain design requests as “minor issue”’ which don’t demand priority resolution. But for the client who’s handling hundreds of daily sales through the site, each “minor” issue can add up to several thousand dollars in lost sales. When your agency takes the client’s complaints seriously, the client feels better cared for and is willing to renew their contract.

In order to be able to offer this kind of response, you first need to create an environment where your client feels comfortable approaching you with feedback and complaints. Just like B2C companies, service agency organizations should offer as many channels of communication as possible.

Email and telephone support are good, while adding live chat and text is even better. If you want to go above and beyond, use a webinar platform. ClickMeeting, for example, allows agencies to hold regular virtual client meetings embedded in a dedicated client portal and synced to all stakeholders’ calendars. You’ll be able to strengthen your relationship with your client, understand their needs, and help the client to feel truly heard.

3. Make it personal

It might seem hard to believe, but data from Drift showed that 58% of companies don’t respond to inquiries from cold leads on their website. That’s an expression of neglect and disinterest that service agency customers won’t forgive in a hurry.

Web design agencies have many ways to personalize their offerings. If you’re providing management services as well as one-off designs, you could send a “happy anniversary” email each year to mark the date that you began your professional relationship, perhaps with a discount coupon for an add-on service.

You might want to send seasonal offers that are relevant for different types of clients too. For example, your retail clients might appreciate a template for a landing page for the winter shopping season, or high-end jewelry industry clients could use a discount on building Valentine’s Day landing pages for them.

When not to listen

It’s important to note that being customer-centric doesn’t mean giving up on your leadership position. You want to strike a careful balance between remaining proactive and innovative as well as becoming customer-led. Bear in mind that your customers might not know what they want.

As Henry Ford famously said, “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.” Steve Jobs took a similar approach by pushing the iPad at a time when no customer had ever considered such an item.

By becoming customer-centric, you’ll be vigilantly tracking what your customers are asking for, and listening for their real needs beneath their words. It’s up to you to offer web designs that match their real needs as well as incorporating the features and styles they request.

Customer-centric business practices are good for every business

Although you might think that customer-centric business practices are mainly for B2C businesses, your web design business has a lot to gain from incorporating some of the same approaches.

By listening better, offering more control, and improving personalization, you can realign your business to focus on your customer without losing your authority or undermining your credibility as a B2B business.

The post How to Become a More Customer-Centric Agency in 2019 appeared first on Torque.

In this article, I will branch out from the regular technical blogs published on this excellent website and start to discuss soft skills and behaviors for developers that will help the community rise from being optimizers to consultants.

It’ll be no surprise for the guys in my team to read this and hear me talking about The Clean Coder, A Code of Conduct for Professional Programmers, by Robert C Martin (aka Uncle Bob).

One of our developers introduced me to the book (thanks Pog!) and it’s been a genuinely life-changing experience. This article isn’t a review so I won’t go into detail, but the key theme underlying the book is about how developers are (were?) not treated like the professional services industries such as lawyers & accountants.

Uncle Bob relates back to a story where he was expected to work on a Saturday to deliver a project, but was denied access to the legal team for whom he had crucial questions on that Saturday “Because they are professionals.”  The book explains some behaviors that you can take on which help you behave like a professional would, with the aim of being treated like one.

One of the particular points that resonated with me was a moment when an old system that Uncle Bob had been working on had been retired and he wanted to bring it back. The CEO of the company said to him “OK Bob, work up a plan. Show me how I can make money. If you do, and I believe it, I’ll start up [the project] again.”

Behave Like a Professional, be Treated Like a Professional

That got me thinking that by and large we, as developers, often think like developers and focus on new tech, new libraries, new platforms to test our code, and the list goes on.

It’s easy to fixate on the technical side of our work, but the reality is that we are required to think commercially and on behalf of the businesses and clients that we’re working on. For me, it’s a skill sorely missing from many developers and a skill which can elevate you from a good developer to a great one.

But, “that’s a Project Manager / Product Owner / Analysts / The Client’s job!” I hear you exclaim and you’d be partially right to think so. It is their job, but there are decisions that these roles don’t get involved in which can have a profound financial effect on a business that we as developers must take responsibility for.

I started and run my own agency, so I often take this way of thinking for granted. Recently I’ve come to realize that we can all benefit by thinking this way and if we benefit as developers, we can pass that benefit on to the rest of our team and our clients. Anyone that works in an agile team should already know that cross-functional teams are a necessity, and cross-functional doesn’t just focus on development work.

Re-Inventing the Wheel

I want to run through a recent project I’ve been working on to highlight this exact problem.

This particular client sells music CDs across Europe. They had a website built around eight years ago which has been continually iterated since launch. The client approached us because they wanted to improve the conversion rate on their website so we started to dig into what they already had.

Problem number 1: the developer had built a bespoke eCommerce platform for the client.

Effect: nobody else other than the original developer could effectively support this eCommerce platform. This tied the client to this developer. Some may say this is a deliberate strategy to protect the contract with the client.

Lesson 1: Don’t reinvent the wheel. Hours/days/years have been but into existing proprietary (or preferably) open source eCommerce platforms, content management systems and libraries, so take advantage of all that hard work.

To make my stance on this clear, I’m not against bespoke websites when necessary, there is absolutely a need. Eight years ago there were already eCommerce platforms that could have been used to build the site. Nowadays there are plenty of eCommerce platforms to use including our beloved WooCommerce, so there is rarely a case where we need to build a bespoke one.

Technical Architecture

Due to the nature of how the music industry works there are some quite complex rules about where music stock comes from.  Some of this stock is held by the retailer, others by the distributors, and different distributors have different rules for minimum order requirements. This all gets quite complex to manage, so naturally, the client had requested that this complex workflow was built into the way that the site they had build works.

The developer then built this bespoke functionality into the website.

Problem number 2: the developer built complex functionality around the business logic into the eCommerce website itself.

Effect: Websites should be treated as expendable and as technology moves on, it can sometimes be more cost effective to throw out what you already have and start fresh.

Lesson 2: Don’t mix complex business logic which works against the website’s primary purpose. Keep the website’s purpose clear and specific, and build separate systems which can be integrated with for managing business logic. This client needed an order management and purchasing system, not an overly complex eCommerce website.

It was clear that the existing platform was not easily customizable (see problem number 1), would require a major learning curve for our team to work on which would mean it’s not cost effective for us to work with it.

Naturally, we considered WooCommerce as the best platform. The client has a complex product catalog, but not so complex that we’d be thrashing WooCommerce into an inch of its life.

All Websites Become End of Life

We then started to look into the requirements of the site. Most of the requirements are fairly standard eCommerce functionality, but there were some very specific requirements based around the points I made above about distributors and minimum orders.

There are no existing plugins in WooCommerce that support this functionality, so we then start to talk about how to solve this problem. The client has a decent budget but it’s not endless, and it’s clear that there wasn’t enough budget to replicate the functionality they had, neither was it necessarily a good idea.

Problem number 3: the client is in a position where it’s not cost-effective to replace their existing website

Effect: The client is stuck with an old EOL platform

Lesson 3: PHP developers code with OOP in mind, where objects are discrete and decoupled.  Apply this principle to overall technical architecture so that individual elements can be replaced, rather than the whole application.

Conclusion

As our industry shifts from a small number of trailblazing developers, to heavily funded government schemes focused on skilling a large number of developers, and the rise of cheap development houses, and then on to the not too distant future where AI automates some of the simpler aspects of our job, developers need to evolve with it.

Are you afraid of this?  My thought is that we shouldn’t be afraid of this; we should evolve to ensure we’re offering the best value we can to our team and our clients, and thinking with a little more commercial awareness will go a long way towards that.

The post How to Think like an Agency to Become a Better Developer appeared first on Torque.

Of course, an influencer can mention and talk about your brand, perhaps getting people to follow you on social media, or visiting your website, but how can you use them to make them convert and generate those all-important sales? Today, we’re going to find out.

Implement them into Your Product

One of the best ways to use an influencer to boost your conversion rates is actually to include them in your product or even to create a product with them in mind.

For example, if you’re writing a book on a certain niche, and you include quotes and references to that influencer, you can encourage them to share the product, making it far more likely that people are going to buy it.

Think About Quotes

While we’re on the subject of quotes, it’s important to remember that quotes are one of the best forms of content your business can have and for two reasons;

• People love to have what they say quoted
• Online users love to share quotes

This is obviously why all social media giants, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest etc., all have an overwhelming number of quotes shared with them every single day. If you’re using quotes, don’t forget to use tools like Via Writing and Grammar Checker to check your grammar to ensure it’s perfect.

Work Together with Your Influencer

Consider how you currently implement your influencers into your content marketing campaign. You might be writing content for their websites; they might be writing content for you and backlinking to each other and visa versa, but how about bringing the two parties together?

“By taking the necessary steps to create a collaborative piece of content, perhaps a video, a blog post or anything you like, you can dramatically boost your WordPress conversion rate, simply because it’s much easier for your customers to see that you’re actively working with the influencer,” says Duncan Taylor, a marketer for Top Canadian Writers.

This works on the mindset that if your influencer is so involved with your business, then their followers feel as though they should be as well, which provides optimal benefits for your bottom line. Some other ways to do this is to get the influencer to start commenting and interacting with your social media posts.

The Audience Has the Spotlight

It’s important to remember that no matter how you’re using your influencer, the audience that you’re promoting to should always have the limelight. At the end of the day, you need to remember that the visitors to your WordPress website are the ones who are going to be giving you their money, so you need to focus on them at all times. After all, it’s easy to get caught up in your marketing efforts and to lose sight of the original goal.

There’s no one that knows your influencer’s audience better than the influencer themselves so make sure you’re communicating with them, so you can customize your own content to suit their needs. This way, when a follower comes onto your WordPress site, all the content they see is written in a style that is going to appeal to them.

Make sure that you’re checking your content to make sure that it’s perfect for the public eye. This means editing and proofreading your content, getting your influencer’s opinion on it and using tools like Studydemic, Academadvisor and Cite It In as writing guides and tools to help you complete your content to a high standard.

Use the Right Influencer

“There are so many influencers out there to choose from. Make sure you’re not just picking the one you can afford with the largest following as an influencer with just 5,000 followers could give you 5,000 sales, whereas an influencer with 100,000 might give you 100,” says Sarah Turner, a marketer for UKWritings.

This is perhaps the most important consideration that you need to be thinking about. When it comes to the influencer you want to use, you’ll want to make sure that you’re choosing one that has a following of the sort of people that you want to be attracted to your WordPress website.

The post Using Influencer Content to Boost WordPress Conversions appeared first on Torque.

ACCESS NYC functions as a public online screening platform in which residents answer a brief set of questions to discover whether they’re eligible for food, money, housing, or work benefit programs—and find out how to apply. The eligibility screener accepts dozens of pieces of information, such as a person’s marital status or income, and returns a list of potentially eligible government programs. Some prompts are revealed conditionally based on answers to earlier questions; for example, if a user notes that her household includes a grandparent, she will then be invited to enter that grandparent’s income and expenses.

The redesigned ACCESS NYC site makes finding social services easy and accessible.

Why did the City want to redesign ACCESS NYC?

The City of New York’s longstanding website was not effectively meeting the needs of its diverse users who were increasingly accessing the site on mobile and experiencing difficulties determining their eligibility for services. With the City’s focus on user-centered design as a starting point, they redesigned ACCESS NYC and partnered with Blue State Digital to rethink the site’s technical strategy and infrastructure.

Previous iterations of the site had been developed in a proprietary platform that was difficult and expensive for the City to update and maintain, and—most importantly—failed to convey the information in an easily consumable, mobile-friendly format. The screener was also producing a high dropoff rate, with users unable to complete the questionnaire due to usability issues.

Blue State Digital was able to completely replace this complicated, expensive piece of technology with an elegant solution that the City’s team can support through both technical and non-technical resources.

How did human-centered design influence the project?

The NYC Opportunity team conducted a 12-week human-centered design process and tested five successive prototypes with caseworkers, City agencies, and residents to reach a design solution. The most important aspect of the approach was making it fit into the lives of real New Yorkers.

Not only is the interface easy to use, but the tone of the site’s content is friendly and straightforward, departing from more traditional government resources. Given the growing trend of residents accessing information from their phones, we built ACCESS NYC mobile-first, prioritizing the small-screen experience over the full desktop site.

ACCESS NYC also adheres to Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). The eligibility screener and other features of the site were designed and built to be used with screen readers and other accessibility tools. The design follows guidelines for text size, color contrast, consistent navigation, and button labels.

Finally, the site is available in seven languages to accommodate the millions of non-English speaking residents of New York City and will soon be adding four more.

To ensure that real New Yorkers feel comfortable using these tools, NYC Opportunity offers monthly hands-on training sessions for community-based organizations and City agencies, highlighting the main features of and best practices for using ACCESS NYC. Additionally, the team regularly conducts outreach training on-site for City agency workers, including a recent series with the Department of Homeless Services programs, where they provided training and materials to over 60 caseworkers.

What is the technical infrastructure of the site?

Our approach also allowed us to build an eligibility screener to collect the household demographics of each user. Built in JavaScript, the screener determines eligibility by submitting data the user entered into the eligibility screener to a back-end rules engine API, which is an implementation of the open source Java-based Drools platform.

Drools returns IDs of various programs, which the WordPress application uses to lookup program information. Unique results combinations are each paired with a URL so that users can return to their results page without creating a login. This functionality allows users to save or share using email and SMS links, which is game-changing to New Yorkers accessing the site from a library or other public terminals. Plus, the API is hosted on a high-availability Amazon Web Services (AWS) environment that allows for sub-second processing time.

Additionally, we developed the new version on the open source WordPress platform, cloud hosted on WP Engine. WordPress allows NYC Opportunity to make quick changes and updates to the site, connect to other services, and present a clean, mobile-friendly front end. Overall, this solution is more cost-effective, easier to maintain by the City, and more accommodating to crucial integrations.

The program content is managed through a web-based content system called GatherContent. All content was drafted in GatherContent, iterated on with agencies, sent out for translation, and then published. The content feeds both ACCESS NYC directly and also a public open dataset on the NYC Open Data Portal via an API.

The ACCESS NYC code itself is open source and available on GitHub. By openly hosting code on Github and publishing data via the NYC Open Data Portal, NYC Opportunity is making it possible for other governments and technology providers to use the code and information to inform their own projects. NYC Opportunity has been approached by other city, county, and state governments that are engaged in similar efforts to increase benefits access.

How have New Yorkers responded to the ACCESS NYC redesign?

Today, more residents can find these vital resources without worry or complication. Initial data indicate a higher completion rate in screening for benefits since the redesign. Since the launch of the redesign, the total number of New Yorkers completing the eligibility screening process per month has increased from 5,000 to 8,600 on average, and the rate of completion has increased from 44 percent to 67 percent.

—

About the Mayor’s Office for Economic Opportunity

The Mayor’s Office for Economic Opportunity (NYC Opportunity) uses evidence and innovation to reduce poverty and increase equity. NYC Opportunity advances research, data and design in the City’s program and policy development, service delivery, and budget decisions.

NYC Opportunity develops and manages a portfolio of city-wide digital products that help the City address poverty-related challenges. These include public-facing services as well as tools for City staff to better serve clients. The digital product team conducts user research, creates user experiences, and works closely with internal and outside technology teams to prototype, develop, and set ongoing strategy for these digital services. The team has rebuilt legacy systems to have a more human-centered approach and developed new products.

The post Rebuilding ACCESS NYC with Blue State Digital appeared first on Torque.

But how can you take your WordPress business to the next level? What if you don’t aspire to the traditional route of growing your company and taking on staff, an office, and everything that comes with that?

This is the story of how I co-founded Barn2 Media with my husband Andy, and scaled it from a startup to one of the UK’s best known WordPress agencies with over $300,000 annual revenue. We’ve scaled from a two-person company to a virtual team, and from a web design studio to a plugin business – all without employing a single person.

The Early Days

For years, my husband Andy and I worked traditional jobs while dreaming about starting our own business and building a more flexible lifestyle. We finally took the plunge in late 2009 – Andy quit his day job to start a web design business, which I supported alongside my existing job.

Andy had a software development background and mine was in project management and marketing. Web design felt like an industry that would suit us both while allowing us to work from home and have a flexible lifestyle. We soon discovered WordPress and have never looked back.

Since then, we have built a thriving WordPress company while always putting our lifestyle first. We’ve scaled the business alongside major life events such as having a baby, illness, and moving house. We don’t work crazy hours, and we regularly take time out of the working day for important activities such as hiking and eating out!

This is how I’ve learned to scale a WordPress business without employees, and how you can too.

How to Scale a Client-Facing WordPress Business

Like most WordPress businesses, Barn2 Media started by designing websites for clients. Back then, there was a shortage of WordPress specialists and we always had more work than we needed. Before long, all our work hours were spent building websites for other people – there was no time left over to develop our own business.

We made a lot of incremental improvements, such as switching from estimates to fixed pricing and prioritizing clients with higher budgets. These increased our income slightly and allowed me to quit my day job, but we weren’t sure how to scale the business beyond this. Lots of WordPress freelancers fall into the same trap.

Provide Repeatable Services

I used to say “Yes” whenever a client requested something new – even if I hadn’t done it before. I wasted lots of time learning new skills for each project, which weren’t repeatable for future projects. Once, I even designed a scaffolding advert for a builder whose website we had designed – nothing to do with WordPress!

If you provide every service that customers ask for, it’s impossible to work efficiently or scale your business. Instead of saying “Yes” to everything, focus on what you’re good at (and what you enjoy doing). By specializing in a particular service, you can increase your prices while working more efficiently. This helps to scale your business while decreasing your workload.

Bonus tip – Build passive income by making referral deals with other WordPress professionals. When a client requests a service you don’t provide, recommend someone who can help. The client will be grateful, and you’ll get paid commission if the work goes ahead!

Prioritize Ongoing Services

In the early days of Barn2 Media, I never looked beyond the go-live date for each project. Providing ongoing services such as hosting and maintenance felt like a distraction. I just wanted to take on as many new projects as possible. How wrong I was!

Ongoing services are an excellent way to scale your client-facing business, as the profit margins are much higher:

• Ongoing hosting – If you use a good quality managed WordPress host like we do with WP Engine, then it’s no hassle to host your clients’ websites. We now host over 70 websites, some dating as far back as 2010. A reliable company can take care of everything.
• Maintenance and software updates – All websites need maintenance, and you should convince clients to invest in keeping their website running smoothly. Website maintenance is one of the easiest tasks to outsource, as it’s standalone and easy to hand over. There are plenty of WordPress maintenance companies who can take care of your clients’ websites.
• Ongoing retainers – This one is harder to scale. There are only so many clients that you can support without employees, and the work can be quite fragmented and distracting. Used correctly, retainers are a good way to grow your income, as you’re already familiar with each website and can work efficiently.

Whenever a project goes live, aim to secure at least $100/month of ongoing revenue. This will quickly start adding up once you’ve got a few happy customers under your belt. Over time, ongoing services will provide semi-passive income that will scale your business.

Build a Distributed Team

By mid-2012, we had reached the limit of the number of websites we could develop ourselves. We’d worked hard to streamline our processes, and our income was similar to what we earned from our previous jobs. The business was pretty successful, but it had hit a ceiling. How could we continue to scale without taking on staff?

Answer: Build a distributed team of WordPress freelancers.

Working with freelancers is great because it doesn’t have the same overheads that you get with employees. You can hire people for individual projects, with no ongoing commitment. They’re responsible for their own training and development.

At its height, the Barn2 Media virtual team consisted of about 10 WordPress professionals working regularly together. We used various strategies to find the right people and thoroughly vetted new recruits just as if they were employees. We recruited people with different skills including designers, developers, and SEO experts.

Why We Stopped Doing Client Projects

Running a distributed team allowed us to scale the business from 10 to 20 projects at a time. However, we eventually reached another ceiling because I didn’t have time to manage any more projects.

I tried recruiting freelance project managers but wasn’t really prepared to provide the training to make it a success. It felt too much like training an employee!

Overall, we were burned out from designing websites for other people. We had scaled as far as we could and wanted to continue growing the business. We needed to think smarter and find a new direction. One that would allow us to scale even further without employees.

Sell Products, Not Services

I’ve met countless people who dream of generating passive income by selling WordPress-related products. We were the same.

Selling products sounds like an obvious way to scale a WordPress business, so it was the obvious next step for Barn2 Media. The theory is that you create a product once (e.g. a WordPress plugin or theme), and can sell it an unlimited number of times for the same amount of work. It doesn’t quite work like that because you have to provide support, but we have used products to scale the business to a new level.

How We Failed At Selling Themes

Our first attempt to build a WordPress product was a multipurpose theme called Ratio. Don’t bother Googling it – it was never launched. We spent a year building the theme as a sideline to the client business. The plan was to sell it on ThemeForest and tap into their huge customer base. Unfortunately, by the time we submitted the theme to ThemeForest, the design was no longer current and the market was dominated by huge themes such as Avada which we couldn’t compete with.

I do believe that you can scale a WordPress business by selling themes, but you need to focus on a specific niche where you can get enough exposure. You also need to move quickly and take an advantage of an opportunity before it’s too late. Unfortunately, we didn’t do either of these things.

Our Transition to a Plugin Business

In early 2016, we decided to enter the plugin world. We felt that niche plugins had more potential than themes because a plugin can offer specific functionality, which makes the support and development more manageable for a small company. Plugins are known to be easier to scale than many types of product.

We were well-known as a WordPress agency, but not as a plugin company. To start building a name for ourselves, we initially launched 2 free plugins – Better Recent Comments and Posts Table with Search + Sort.

While we hadn’t intended to monetize these plugins, Posts Table with Search + Sort quickly started opening up opportunities for scaling the business. It lists WordPress posts in a searchable and sortable table, and people immediately started asking to list other types of content too. We made this possible by creating 2 premium plugins – Posts Table Pro, which lists any type of WordPress content, and a dedicated e-commerce plugin called WooCommerce Product Table.

During 2016, we launched five premium WordPress plugins – all designed to solve a specific need. Our WooCommerce table plugin has been amazingly successful, and the others bring in a regular stream of sales. Within 6 months, the plugins were making enough money for us to stop taking on new clients, and we haven’t looked back since.

How to Scale a WordPress Product Business

In the 18 months since we started selling WordPress plugins, we’ve made lots of mistakes. We’ve created some successful plugins and other products, and some not-so-successful ones. We’ve learned how to structure the business in a way that maximizes sales without increasing our workload. Here’s how you can do the same:

Choose Your Products Wisely

Listen to the WordPress community and find out where the gaps are. Read about where to find ideas for WordPress plugins and create something that doesn’t already exist.

WordPress and WooCommerce have such huge market share that even very niche plugins can get plenty of sales. That’s good news because it’s easier to scale a business that sells small, very focused products. Don’t try to create the next WooCommerce – think small, and keep it realistic.

Provide Great Support (But Only When You Have To)

Good support can make or break a WordPress product business. Andy and I provide fast, helpful and personal support – without any support staff.

In 2017 we’ve quadrupled our plugin sales to over 200 per month – but still only spend a couple of hours a day on support. You can do the same by designing your products and documentation to prevent people from needing support:

• Build a knowledge base – Try to view every support request as an opportunity to make sure no one else asks the same question. Create a knowledge base and structure it so that customers are forced to search the documentation before they can request support. A good knowledge base will help customers to self-serve, reducing the support burden.
• Onboarding emails – Send an automated email to new customers, with clear instructions on how to set up the product, and links to the knowledge base.
• Design for user-experience – Your WordPress products should be clear and intuitive to use. Follow standard WordPress conventions in terms of navigation and usability. If lots of customers are making the same mistakes, redesign your product to stop these mistakes before they happen.

Don’t Reinvent The Wheel

Keep your WordPress company small by using off-the-shelf solutions. For example, we sell our plugins using Easy Digital Downloads and Heroic Knowledge Base. These save us time, so we don’t need employees to manage our website and documentation.

Add New Features Based on Demand

Keep a feature request list of all the improvements your customers are asking for. Create a scoring system and mark each feature request based on demand, impact, and difficulty. Only add new features when you know they’re achievable and will help to scale your business. This helps you to prioritize and create successful products without employing extra developers.

Streamline Your Processes

I believe that a small WordPress company can achieve just as much as a big one. WPML have an 11-step process for making amendments to their documentation. I just log into our website and edit the relevant article!

Diversify – But Not Too Much

Your business will be safer if you have more than one product. This will protect you from rivals and wider changes in the plugin industry. But at the same time, don’t spread yourself too thin.

We have five plugins, plus an online course, and an eBook. They all generate some income, but some are much more successful than others. We spend most of our time improving and promoting WooCommerce Product Table, while making sure the others provide that all-important safety net.

Plan Your Business to Scale

It’s true – scaling a WordPress business isn’t easy, especially if you want to keep your company small. However, I have done it, and you can too.

Over the past seven years, we’ve scaled our business from a 2-person startup to a virtual team; and from a virtual team to a thriving plugin company – all without employees. We’ve had successes and failures along the way, and learned from lots of mistakes.

Don’t just work hard – work smart. Think strategically about the nature of your business and how to scale it. Stop doing work that eats up your time and can’t be scaled. That way, you can scale your income while keeping the business small – and living the lifestyle you’ve always dreamed of.

The post How I Built a WordPress Business and Scaled It (Without Employees) appeared first on Torque.

On the other hand, for many users the platform has been a gateway to learning web design and development. It makes sense. You start off with a simple site, then look for ways to customize it. After that, it’s only natural to pick up basic design or programming skills and keep going from there.

Yet, there are still times when you need a professional designer or developer. However, when do you need to hire which of the two? And what even is the difference between web designer and web developer? After all, the two terms are often thrown around synonymously.

In this article, we want to shine a light on these very questions. We will look at what web designers and developers each do in their field work to find out the difference between them. After that, we will also have a look at whether the division between the two is even that clear.

In the end, we want you to end up with a clear understanding of the job descriptions and who you need in which case. Or, if on the other side of the fence, give you enough information so you can decide for where you’d like to take your career.

What Does a Web Designer Do?

“Web designer” is the most common term for people creating websites. However, it is usually a stand-in for a very broad set of skills. So, in order to show the difference between web designer and web developer, let’s peel the onion and see what web designers actually do.

Work with Graphics and Visuals

Web designers typically do the visual design of a website and create the overall look and feel of it. The result are templates for websites that can later be put into practice.

To do this kind of work, web designers usually first have to sit down with the clients to understand their needs and then come up with a concept that fits it. While doing so, they also need to consider existing branding in order to preserve a unified experience across all marketing channels.

Once they have a concept, web designers start creating the visuals. Usually their tools of choice are graphic design software like Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign. With their help, designers put together wireframes as well as necessary assets like graphics, buttons, images, and the likes.

In order to do it right, they need an understanding of things like colors and how they work together, contrast, shapes, textures, typography, and more. Aside from that, you also need a certain amount of creativity and imagination and other things generally considered right-brain activities.

Guide User Interaction

However, web design is not just an art but also a craft. It not only needs to look good but be functional as well and accomplish its goal.

For example, most websites aim to move visitors to take an action such as make a purchase, sign up for a service, jump on an email list or something similar. In addition to that, they also need to be easy to navigate and intuitive to find your way around.

For that reason, web designers also need to understand user psychology and keep on top of the latest developments in interface design. Otherwise, the end result will not only be hard to use but might also look out-of-date and unprofessional.

In Contrast to That, What Does a Web Developer Do?

So, how is this different from development? Well, web development is usually the second stage of the website creation process. It’s where you take the design and make it a reality. For that reason, a developer’s job is usually much more technical. However, there are different kinds of development work.

Frontend vs Backend Development

Web development is most often divided into two camps: frontend and backend development. While their work often overlaps, they do serve two different purposes:

• Frontend — Frontend developers take the finished design and translate it into code. They are usually skilled in HTML (which is used to create the site structure) and CSS (for adding styles and layout). Sometimes they also use JavaScript for advanced design and interactivity. If you have ever customized a WordPress theme (hopefully with a child theme), that’s pure frontend work.
• Backend — Backend work, on the other hand, is, even more, code intensive. It focuses on how the site works, for example, how it interfaces with the database. You might also need a backend developer for advanced functionality like user accounts or a shopping cart. In WordPress, backend developers need solid skills in PHP as the platform mostly runs on that language. In addition to that, they might also work with APIs and need to know how to connect different types of software with one another or create functionality from scratch.

As you can see, no matter which part of web development you end up working in, all developers need programming chops. For that reason, the tools include code editors and other development tools. Development work is also very analytical and detail oriented.

Of Full-stack Developers and Designers

The above shows the difference between web designers and web developers on paper. But is it really that clear-cut? The answer is no. In reality, the lines are often a lot more blurred.

Design and Development Have Lots of Overlap

Since both parts of the website creation process depend on one another and have a lot of overlap, many designers and developers have skills outside their main area of work.

For example, as a visual designer, it only makes sense to know how pages work and behave. Doing so makes you more effective at your job as you can put that knowledge into practice without having to constantly check back with the developer as to what is possible.

This is especially important in areas like responsive design which has put new demands on the work of both designers and developers. Having cross knowledge only makes it easier to stay afloat in an ever-changing field.

Many Choose to Branch Out

In addition to that, some people just continue adding to their skill set. The number of designers learning to code and developers learning to design is ever increasing. For that reason, we also have a growing group of people who are hybrids between design and development.

For example, someone might not stop at creating designs on paper but also want to do the frontend work necessary to bring it into existence. It’s just a logical next step, since working with CSS is also a fun and creative task. Plus, it makes sense economically as you can do more for your client or work in different parts for different clients, giving you more earning potential and making you more marketable.

However, is this person a web designer or frontend developer? You tell me. (I’ve recently heard the term devigner, which I personally like a lot.) However, the fact is, we are seeing a lot more of them in today’s online working world.

Embrace the Full Stack

Some people even go all the way and train themselves in all necessary skills to make websites a reality. Those are often called full-stack developers. They are able to build a website from scratch, from design all the way to frontend and backend development.

However, it is a challenge to keep up to date on all necessary skill sets and stay on top of multiple fields that are constantly evolving. That’s why full-stack development is usually performed by a team where the knowledge can be compartmentalized and you have experts for different parts.

Web Designer vs Web Developer – The Verdict

Thanks to platforms like WordPress and the overall growing need for web presence, web designers and developers are more and more in demand. For that reason, anyone deciding to move into that field is probably making an investment in their future.

Above, we have talked about the difference between web designer and web developer. As we have seen, on paper, the two disciplines are very much different, call for different skill sets and take care of different parts of the website creation process.

Consequently, if you are hiring somebody for a major role in your web project, it absolutely matters whether you are looking for a designer or developer. Plus, most web projects need both in the long run.

However, when you are just starting out in your career, you don’t necessarily need to make a decision and stick with it. While it’s a good idea to make up your mind where to get started, we have seen that you don’t have to stay in your particular area and can always branch out and add to your skill set.

My personal tip: learn what most interests you. Doing so makes the process most enjoyable while still making sure you are investing in an important field of knowledge. You can always move in another direction later.

However, no matter what you call yourself and which part of the process you oversee, the important part is to end up with a beautiful, functional and usable site. That should be something we can all agree on.

What do you see as the main difference between web designer and web developer? Where on the scale do you see yourself? Let us know in the comments section below!

The post Web Designer vs Web Developer – What’s the Difference? appeared first on Torque.

The signals that you’ve been hacked aren’t always overt. For example, what happens if you enter your password incorrectly on the first few tries? You might not notice right away that your admin account is no longer available to you. It’s important to learn the signs that your site has been hacked now, to avoid presenting malicious content to your visitors without even realizing it.

In this article, we’ll explain what hacking is and why people do it. Then, we’ll introduce you to a few ways to tell whether your WordPress site has been hacked. Finally, we’ll provide some advice for what to do after the hack is discovered. Let’s get started!

What It Means For Someone to Hack Your Website

‘Hacking’ technically means when someone has gained unauthorized access to your website server. However, people often use the word to mean any situation where your website has been inappropriately interfered with.

There are two main types of hackers. ‘White hat’ hackers help improve security on the internet. Rather than breaking into your site and wreaking havoc, they notify you about any insecurities they find. Companies often hire white hat hackers intentionally. ‘Black hat’ hackers, on the other hand, aim to steal information or cause some other kind of trouble.

There are many common forms of hacking that put your site and its users at risk. Here are a few examples:

• Someone may inject a script on your page for specific users, often over a shared public WiFi connection. This is called a man-in-the-middle (MITM) attack.
• A denial of service (DOS) attack is when many requests are sent to your site at once, which overloads the server and crashes it.
• Random data queries can be injected into your site, adding, removing, or stealing content.
• In some cases, a hacker can gain complete admin access to your site and its data, and lock you out.

Security is vital, particularly if you store any user information or sensitive data on your website. Most hacking attempts are moments of opportunity, automated, and impersonal. 51% of WordPress websites are hacked because of a theme or plugin, and 8% due to a weak password. The rest are often due to poor hosting security. You can prevent your average attack by avoiding default credentials, enabling two-factor authentication, using Secure Socket Layers (SSL), and opting for a secure hosting server.

Now that you understand what types of hackers are out there, it’s time to find out what it looks like when someone attacks your site.

How to Tell if Your WordPress Site Has Been Hacked (6 Key Signs)

Each day, hackers experiment with new ways to gain illegitimate access to websites. So it’s impossible to predict all the signs that your website has been hacked. However, there are some subtle but common signals that will clue you into the most common hacks out there.

1. Unexpected Users Are Registering on Your Site

If you have registrations turned off and someone is still adding users, that means someone else has administrative powers. WordPress may send you new user registration emails, which can let you know this is happening, or you might find the accounts under the Users menu in your dashboard.

In one case, a hacker was able to add their own PHP script to the server to bypass WordPress’ normal security measures. There are also many reports on the WordPress.org forums of similar automated users being injected through plugin security holes.

Exploits like this often stem from an outdated plugin or security issues with your host’s FTP. If all your plugins are updated, ask your hosting company’s technical support for help securing your FTP account.

2. You Are Unable to Access Your Admin Account

Your admin account should only be accessible to you, via your unique credentials. If someone changes your password or deletes your account, you’ll lose access. Alternatively, you might still be able to login, but find that your administrative controls are missing. In this case, the hacker left your account open but removed your ability to control WordPress.

If you’re trying to log in unsuccessfully, first check that you’ve entered your password correctly. Services like 1Password or LastPass help you always enter it right on the first try.

If that doesn’t work, the most likely culprit is a weak password. Prior to 2015, WordPress didn’t pre-fill a strong password during the user registration process. If you haven’t updated your password since then, we recommend doing so right away. As usual, outdated WordPress core, plugins, and themes can also leave vulnerable points on your website for hackers to exploit and are worth a look if this problem occurs.

3. Sudden Drops or Spikes in Traffic Appear in Analytics

If your site receives a stable amount of traffic, unusual drops or spikes is another troubling sign. This happens when hackers redirect existing traffic away from your website, causing a dip in traffic, or if they send new traffic to the domain after uploading their own malicious content.

There are a few likely exceptions to check for first. For example, Google pushes out regular updates to its search algorithms. If you get a lot of traffic from search engines, new updates can change your position in the rankings for certain search terms.

If your site has been hacked and is showing a dip in traffic, it is likely due to improper file permissions. These enable a hacker to add a custom redirect script to your WordPress site, steering unwitting visitors to a malicious location. To avoid this problem before it happens, you can configure your permissions more strategically.

4. Your WordPress Site Redirects to Another URL

Another huge signal that your website has been hacked is that it redirects to another site. If you Google your brand name, you may see an indicator that your URL has been compromised and is potentially harmful.

This issue often goes hand in hand with the previously discussed dip in traffic. Check your website while logged in and out of your admin account, as some redirects intentionally only impact users who are logged out (to avoid detection by the administrator for as long as possible).

There is one exception it’s worth being aware of, however. If the redirect goes to a location you recognize as appropriate to your business, and you have a dedicated developer, talk to them about the redirect first (as it may have been intentional).

5. Your Homepage Design Is Defaced or Displays Manipulated Content

If you open your website’s homepage and discover that it has been defaced or new content has been added, you have probably been hacked. This isn’t always as obvious as you might imagine; the change can be as subtle as a few new links.

Unfortunately, it’s also possible for a hacker to include hidden links on your site. However, you can spot this by being aware of your site’s intended content and paying attention to when something doesn’t look or feel right.

There are few exceptions in this situation. If your site includes content you (or your other users) didn’t put there, you’ve been hacked. Default credentials, such as using the admin username, are often to blame in this situation, another proof that it’s important to choose yours carefully.

6. Errors Show Up in the Browser

Most browsers warn you about potential security risks when you visit a suspicious site. If a warning appears when you are attempting to access your own website, this is a serious red flag. You can test for this at any time by checking Google’s Transparency Report.

Typically, this problem occurs because your website has had suspicious code added to it. The warning prevents others from being infected by malicious viruses while visiting your site.

Obviously, if you’ve created a malicious or spammy website yourself, that’s on you! In all seriousness, however, if you run ads on your website or use any third-party widgets, you may want to contact their administrators to ensure that they are safe.

What To Do If Your WordPress Site Has Been Hacked

In the sections above, we’ve provided a few preventative measures to help you secure your site more effectively. In addition, we offered a few ways to track down the source of a hack and address it when it occurs. However, it can be helpful to have a more thorough guide for what to do if the worst happens.

If you encounter any of the signs above, you can run an audit through a tool like Is It Hacked?, by simply submitting your domain name to see whether any suspicious activity is detected. If there does seem to be a problem, you can follow our previous guide on how to regain access to your site and fix the issue as quickly as possible. Once your site is secured again, consider taking some steps to avoid future hacks as well.

Conclusion

Not fixing a hacked website as soon as possible can cause a major disruption for you and your visitors, and can put everyone who visits your site at risk. Knowing the warning signs, however, will help you catch the hack early and fix it as soon as possible.

In this article, we explained the most common types of hacking you might encounter, and presented some signs to watch out for:

1. Unexpected users are registering on your site.
2. You are unable to access your admin account.
3. Sudden drops or spikes in traffic appear in analytics.
4. Your WordPress site redirects to another URL.
5. Your WordPress homepage is defaced or shows manipulated content.
6. Errors or warnings are displayed in the browser.

Do you have questions about whether your WordPress site has been hacked? Let us know in the comments section below!

Image credit: NeONBRAND.

The post How to Tell If Your WordPress Site Has Been Hacked (6 Key Signs) appeared first on Torque.