Tag Archives: wordpress-hosting

7 Ways to Improve Your Site Speed in WordPress

Posted on August 14, 2019 by Hosting

The post 7 Ways to Improve Your Site Speed in WordPress appeared first on HostGator Blog . For the past several years, Google has been emphasizing site speed as a ranking factor in their algorithms. Given that, it’s amazing to see the number of under-optimized WordPress sites that exist. People spend so much time on “SEO” and content generation, and they forget to do the one thing that will increase the ranking of all their pages. Well, it’s never too late to get started. Here are seven ways to improve your site speed in WordPress. These will make Google sit up and take notice! These are listed in order of importance. Method 1: Use a Datacenter Closest to Your Clients The location of your server plays a big role in your site speed. For example, if your clients are based in the US, then HostGator is an ideal web host, since we have two data centers in the country – one in Texas, and one in Utah. You can view the speed with which your site is fetched by the Googlebot in your search console. Ideally, this should be just a few hundred milliseconds. When I switched my server to a local host, you can see how fast my site fetch speed went down: So don’t ignore this aspect of site speed. It’s crucial! Method 2: Implement Dynamic Caching WordPress generates its pages afresh each time a visitor comes to your site. This is quite a costly process and puts a strain on your database as well as your CPU. In addition, page generation takes time, so there’s a small delay for each visitor. The solution to this is dynamic caching. What is Dynamic Caching? The idea behind dynamic caching is to save a copy of the generated page and serve that copy to the next visitor. This way, each page is generated just once instead of over and over again. Not only is this faster, it reduces the resource load on your server, which means other parts of your site will work faster. It also means that your site can handle many, many more visitors! How to Implement Dynamic Caching on HostGator Dynamic caching can be implemented either with a 3rd party plugin or on the server. Having it enabled on the server is much faster. Not many web hosts allow this, but HostGator offers server caching on their WordPress plans as shown here on the product page: So if you use managed WordPress hosting with HostGator, just turn on the feature and you’re good to go! Here’s a complete review of HostGator WordPress , including all the special features! But even if you don’t have WordPress optimized hosting, you can implement dynamic caching with a plugin. I personally recommend WP Super Cache, which is an extremely popular WordPress plugin, is easy to use, and will get the job done without hassles. Method 3: Use a CDN A CDN is a “Content Distribution Network”. Apart from dynamic pages, there are lots of things on your site that never change. Images, Javascript, and CSS. Well… almost never change. Because of this, it’s best to deliver these resources from a server closest to your client. A CDN looks at the IP address of your visitor and chooses to send static content from a server closest to that location. Which means that people on opposite ends of the earth will receive the content equally fast. It’s really quite a magical technology. As before if you have WordPress hosting with HostGator, a CDN is available by default. But even without such a plan, you can use Cloudflare as your CDN. Despite it being free, I think Cloudflare is one of the best CDNs on the market. HostGator has a tie-up with Cloudflare, which allows for easy integration. You can even do cool stuff like changing your nameservers for faster access. But that’s beyond the scope of this tutorial. Method 4: Deferring or Asyncing JavaScript This one can be a bit tricky. Almost all websites use JavaScript. It’s an essential part of the web, but this adds to the page load time. The key is to wait until the page has fully loaded and is visible before loading JavaScript. It’s easier said than done, and each website works differently. Which is why we need a plugin. The one I recommend is Autoptimize . It’s open source and is almost universally recommended by WordPress gurus. After downloading and installing the plugin on WordPress, you can click the button to aggregate and asynchronously load JavaScript as shown here: The plugin has many options. Make sure to test them all so that your website’s features work properly. Stuff like resizing tables etc are all enabled by Javascript. Method 5: Inlining and Deferring CSS The CSS counterpart to method 4, this refers to delaying the loading of CSS files until the page has downloaded and displayed. However, there’s a catch. If we delay the loading of CSS, our page will look horrible and unstyled, since the CSS files are missing! The solution is called “Inlining” above-the-fold CSS. What this means is that you need to isolate the CSS rules that apply to all visible elements when your page first loads. And then paste those rules directly into every page so that they’re loaded instantly. Once your page has rendered, you can then load the CSS files at your leisure. So how do we do this? Get the Critical CSS This is pretty hard to do manually. So we’re lucky that automatic online tools exist to do it for us! For example, here’s an online tool from SiteLocity that’s quite popular. Simply type in your URL, and it’ll generate the critical above-the-fold CSS for you. Copy the rules that it gives you and use it in the next step. Insert the CSS Inline In method 4, we used the tool “Autoptimize”. Just like before, there is a section in the main settings area to enter your critical CSS as shown here: As shown above, paste the CSS into the box and save your changes. Now when you load your page, all the important CSS will be downloaded immediately, but the external files will be served later when the page has fully loaded. This makes your site blazing fast! Method 6: Lazy Load your Images Images constitute the bulk of a web page’s size. And not surprising, since a single image can be hundreds of MB. So it’s important to only load those images when necessary. “Lazy Loading” is the practice of downloading images only when the user has scrolled far enough to view them. Otherwise, if you have an image way down the article, and the user leaves the page before that, it’s wasted bandwidth both for you as well as the visitor. And it means your site slowed down unnecessarily. Lazy loading is yet another feature that’s difficult to implement manually. Luckily for us, WordPress themselves have released a plugin called Jetpack . I highly recommend using it, since it has a ton of useful features that you can play around with, and lazy loading of images is one of them as shown here: It’s just a single setting! Enable it and you’re done. Now when you visit your page, the images won’t be downloaded until you’re far enough down to see them. In which case, they’ll appear by magic as your user scrolls. Neat right? Method 7: Removing Unnecessary Emoji Code I didn’t notice this myself until I combed through my HTML code. WordPress adds a whole lot of junk useless emoji code to every page in order to render smiley faces and emojis. It’s a useful feature, but it’s a lot of wasted code, and it’s loaded every single time. Luckily, the Autoptimize plugin that we saw earlier has a way to remove them in the “Extra” tab as shown here: Click this option, save your changes, and you’re done! No more emoji code. The idea is to keep your WordPress installation neat and clean, without any unnecessary junk. These seven methods outlined here are a mix of server level and page level optimizations. Together, they should put your site on a fast track to higher rankings, and better experiences for your visitors. Find the post on the HostGator Blog Continue reading →

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How to Secure a Website from Hackers [10 Step Guide]

Posted on August 5, 2019 by Hosting

The post How to Secure a Website from Hackers [10 Step Guide] appeared first on HostGator Blog . As a website owner, is there anything more terrifying than the thought of seeing all of your work altered or entirely wiped out by a nefarious hacker? We see data breaches and hacks in the news all the time. And you may think, why would someone come after my small business website? But hacks don’t just happen to the big guys. One report found that small businesses were the victims of 43% of all data breaches.  You’ve worked hard on your website (and your brand) – so it’s important to take the time to protect it with these basic hacker protection tips. 5 Easy Steps to Secure Your Website from Hackers You may have worried when starting this post that it would be full of technical jargon that your average website owner would find baffling. Some of our tips further down do get technical, and you may want to bring in your developer for those. But there are a few things you can do on your own first that don’t involve that much technical know-how.  Step #1: Install security plugins. If you built your website with a content management system (CMS) , you can enhance your website security with plugins that actively prevent website hacking attempts. Each of the main CMS options have security plugins available, many of them for free. Security plugins for WordPress: iThemes Security  Bulletproof Security  Sucuri Wordfence fail2Ban Security options for Magento: Amasty Watchlog Pro MageFence Security extensions for Joomla: JHackGuard jomDefender RSFirewall Antivirus Website Protection These options address the security vulnerabilities that are inherent in each platform, foiling additional types of hacking attempts that could threaten your website. In addition, all websites – whether you’re running a CMS-managed site or HTML pages – can benefit from considering SiteLock .  SiteLock goes above and beyond simply closing site security loopholes by providing daily monitoring for everything from malware detection to vulnerability identification to active virus scanning and more. If your business relies on its website, SiteLock is definitely an investment worth considering. Note: Our Managed WordPress hosting plan has SiteLock built in, along with other features to help secure your site. Step #2: Use HTTPS As a consumer, you may already know to always look for the green lock image and https in your browser bar any time you provide sensitive information to a website. Those five little letters are an important shorthand for hacker security: they signal that it’s safe to provide financial information on that particular webpage. An SSL certificate is important because it secures the transfer of information – such as credit cards, personal data, and contact information – between your website and the server. While an SSL certificate has always been essential for ecommerce websites, having one has recently become important for all websites. In July 2018,  Google Chrome released a security update that alerts website visitors if your website doesn’t have an SSL certificate installed. That makes visitors more likely to bounce, even if your website doesn’t collect sensitive information.  Search engines are taking website security more seriously than ever because they want users to have a positive and safe experience browsing the web. Taking the commitment to security further, a search engine may rank your website lower in search results if you don’t have an SSL certificate. What does that mean for you? If you want people to trust your brand, you need to invest in an SSL certificate . The cost of an SSL certificate is minimal, but the extra level of encryption it offers to your customers goes a long way to making your website more secure and trustworthy. At HostGator, we also take website security seriously, but most importantly, we want to make it easy for you to be secure. All HostGator web hosting packages come with a free SSL certificate. The SSL certificate will be automatically applied to your account, but you do need to take a few steps to install the free SSL certificate on your website.  Step #3: Keep your website platform and software up-to-date Using a CMS with various useful plugins and extensions offers a lot of benefits, but it also brings risk. The leading cause of website infections is vulnerabilities in a content management system’s extensible components.  Because many of these tools are created as open-source software programs, their code is easily accessible – to both good-intentioned developers as well as malicious hackers. Hackers can pore over this code, looking for security vulnerabilities that allow them to take control of your website by exploiting any platform or script weaknesses. To protect your website from being hacked, always make sure your content management system, plugins, apps, and any scripts you’ve installed are up-to-date.  If you’re running a website built on WordPress, you can check whether you’re up to date quickly when logging into your WordPress dashboard. Look for the update icon in the top left corner next to your site name. Click the number to access your WordPress Updates. Step #4: Make sure your passwords are secure This one seems simple, but it’s so important. It’s tempting to go with a password you know will always be easy for you to remember. That’s why the #1 most common password is still 123456. You have to do better than that – a lot better than that to prevent login attempts from hackers and other outsiders. Make the effort to figure out a truly secure password (or use HostGator’s password generator).  Make it long. Use a mix of special characters, numbers, and letters. And steer clear of potentially easy-to-guess keywords like your birthday or kid’s name. If a hacker somehow gains access to other information about you, they’ll know to guess those first. Holding yourself to a high standard for password security is step one. You also need to make sure everyone who has access to your website has similarly strong passwords. One weak password within your team can make your website susceptible to a data breach , so set expectations with everyone who has access. Institute requirements for all website users in terms of length and types of characters. If your employees want to use easy passwords for their less secure accounts, that’s their business. But when it comes to your website, it’s your business (literally) and you can hold them to a higher standard.  Step #5: Invest in automatic backups. Even if you do everything else on this list, you still face some risk. The worst-case scenario of a website hack is to lose everything because you forgot to back your website up. The best way to protect yourself is to make sure you always have a recent backup. While a data breach will be stressful no matter what, when you have a current backup, recovering is much easier. You can make a habit out of manually backing your website up daily or weekly. But if there’s even the slightest chance you’ll forget, invest in automatic backups . It’s a cheap way to buy peace of mind.  5 Advanced Steps to Secure Your Website from Hackers All of the above steps are relatively painless, even for website owners with minimal technical experience. This second half of the list gets a little more complicated, and you may want to call a developer or IT consultant to help you out.  Step #6: Take precautions when accepting file uploads through your site. When anyone has the option to upload something to your website, they could abuse the privilege by loading a malicious file, overwriting one of the existing files important to your website, or uploading a file so large it brings your whole website down.  If possible, simply don’t accept any file uploads through your website. Many small business websites can get by without offering the option of file uploads at all. If that describes you, you can skip everything else in this step.   But eliminating file uploads isn’t an option for all websites. Some types of businesses, like accountants or healthcare providers, need to give customers a way to securely provide documents.  If you need to allow file uploads, take a few steps to make sure you protect yourself: Create a whitelist of allowed file extensions. By specifying which types of files you’ll accept, you keep suspicious file types out. Use file type verification. Hackers try to sneakily get around whitelist filters by renaming documents with a different extension than the document type actually is, or adding dots or spaces to the filename.  Set a maximum file size. Avoid distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks by rejecting any files over a certain size.  Scan files for malware. Use antivirus software to check all files before opening. Automatically rename files upon upload. Hackers won’t be able to re-access their file if it has a different name when they go looking for it.  Keep the upload folder outside of the webroot. This keeps hackers from being able to access your website through the file they upload. These steps can remove most of the vulnerabilities inherent in allowing file uploads to your website.  Step #7: Use parameterized queries SQL injections are one of the most common website hacks many sites fall victim to. SQL injections can come into play if you have a web form or URL parameter that allows outside users to supply information. If you leave the parameters of the field too open, someone could insert code into them that allows access to your database. It’s important to protect your site from this because of the amount of sensitive customer information that can be held in your database. There are a number of steps you can take to protect your website from SQL injection hacks; one of the most important and easiest to implement is the use of parameterized queries. Using parameterized queries ensures your code has specific enough parameters so that there’s no room for a hacker to mess with them. Step #8: Use CSP Cross-site scripting (XSS) attacks are another common threat site owners have to be on the lookout for. Hackers find a way to slip malicious JavaScript code onto your pages, which can then infect the device of any website visitors exposed to the code. Part of the fight to protect your site from XSS attacks is similar to the parameterized queries for SQL injections. Make sure any code you use on your website for functions or fields that allow input are as explicit as possible in what’s allowed, so you’re not leaving room for anything to slip in. Content Security Policy (CSP) is another handy tool that can help protect your site from XSS. CSP allows you to specify which domains a browser should consider valid sources of executable scripts when on your page. The browser will then know not to pay attention to any malicious script or malware that might infect your site visitor’s computer. Using CSP involves adding the proper HTTP header to your webpage that provides a string of directives that tells the browser which domains are ok and any exceptions to the rule.  You can find details on crafting CSP headers for your website here . Step #9: Lock down your directory and file permissions All websites can be boiled down to a series of files and folders that are stored on your web hosting account.  Besides containing all of the scripts and data needed to make your website work, each of these files and folders is assigned a set of permissions that controls who can read, write, and execute any given file or folder, relative to the user they are or the group to which they belong. On the Linux operating system, permissions are viewable as a three-digit code where each digit is an integer between 0-7. The first digit represents permissions for the owner of the file, the second for anyone assigned to the group that owns the file, and the third for everyone else.  The assignations work as follows: 4 equals Read 2 equals Write 1 equals Execute 0 equals no permissions for that user As an example, take the permission code “644.”  In this case, a “6” (or “4+2”) in the first position gives the file’s owner the ability to read and write the file.  The “4” in the second and third positions means that both group users and internet users at large can read the file only – protecting the file from unexpected manipulations. So, a file with “777” (or 4+2+1 / 4+2+1 / 4+2+1) permissions is readable, write-able, and executable by the user, the group, and everyone else in the world. As you might expect, a file that is assigned a permission code that gives anyone on the web the ability to write and execute it is much less secure than one which has been locked down in order to reserve all rights for the owner alone.  Of course, there are valid reasons to open up access to other groups of users (anonymous FTP upload, as one example), but these instances must be carefully considered in order to avoid creating a website security risk. For this reason, a good rule of thumb is to set your permissions as follows: Folders and directories = 755 Individual files = 644 To set your file permissions, log in to your cPanel’s File Manager or connect to your server via FTP.  Once inside, you’ll see a list of your existing file permissions (as in the following example generated using the Filezilla FTP program): The final column in this example displays the folder and file permissions currently assigned to the website’s content.  To change these permissions in Filezilla, simply right click the folder or file in question and select the “File permissions” option.  Doing so will launch a screen that allows you to assign different permissions using a series of checkboxes: Although your web host’s or FTP program’s backend might look slightly different, the basic process for changing permissions remains the same. Our support portal has solutions for how to modify your folder and file permissions . #10 Keep your error messages simple (but still helpful).  Detailed error messages can be helpful internally to help you identify what’s going wrong so you know how to fix it. But when those error messages are displayed to outside visitors, they can reveal sensitive information that tells a potential hacker exactly where your website’s vulnerabilities are.  Be very careful what information you provide in an error message, so you’re not providing information that helps a bad actor hack you. Keep your error messages simple enough that they don’t inadvertently reveal too much. But avoid ambiguity as well , so your visitors can still learn enough information from the error message to know what to do next.  Protecting Your Website from Hackers Securing your site and learning how to protect against hackers is a big part of keeping your site healthy and safe in the long run! Don’t procrastinate taking these important steps.  At HostGator, we have created a set of custom mod security rules to aid in the protection of your website. If you’re looking for a new hosting provider, you can click here to sign up for a great deal. For new accounts, we’ll even transfer you for free! After you’ve created an account, you just need to fill out the form here . Don’t worry about getting tripped up in the process. HostGator has world-class support available around the clock! Our customer support specialists are available 24/7/365 via email ticket, chat, or phone. We can help you get secure! Find the post on the HostGator Blog Continue reading →

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Does Your Small Business Website Have the Cybersecurity Basics Covered?

Posted on August 2, 2019 by Hosting

The post Does Your Small Business Website Have the Cybersecurity Basics Covered? appeared first on HostGator Blog . Think your business is too small to be targeted by hackers? Think again. Last year, 43% of all reported data breaches affected small businesses —and the costs of recovering from a breach are high enough to force many small businesses to close. So, if you’ve recently launched your SMB website or are getting ready to launch, make sure you’ve got these 8 cybersecurity basics nailed down. 1. Domain Privacy There are so many things to love about the internet, but spammers, identity thieves, and stalkers are not among them. You can protect yourself with a domain privacy plan that shields your name, email, mailing address, and phone number from people who look up your site in the ICANN’s Whois database.  2. SSL Certificate An SSL certificate is a must-have if you run an eCommerce store or collect visitor information on your site. That’s because an SSL certificate proves that any data your visitors send to your site is encrypted, so hackers can’t see it while it’s in transit. (You can read a more detailed SSL explanation here.) SSL certificates also keep visitors from seeing a browser warning that your site may not be secure. Plus, they may also help your site rank better in search results. 3. Automatic Site Backups If your business website site is hacked, or if an update crashes it, you need a way to get up and running again fast so you don’t miss out on customers. Get an automatic site backup service like CodeGuard , and you can quickly restore the most recent uncorrupted version of your site if something goes wrong. Make sure that whichever service you choose runs daily backups, so you don’t have to go back to an out-of-date site version in case of a crash.  4. Automatic Malware Scans and Removals Thanks to cybercriminals armed with botnets and malicious code, all sites are continuously at risk for malware injections that can steal data and let criminals take over sites. This means site owners need to monitor their sites closely for attacks. And the only practical way to do this is with automatic scans. A site-scanning tool like SiteLock gives you daily protection from new malware and botnet attacks. SiteLock also seeks out vulnerabilities on your site, so you can fix them before hackers exploit them. 5. Automatic Domain Renewals Domain registrations don’t last forever. At some point—anywhere between one and 5 years from when you first sign up–you’ll need to renew. If you don’t, you can lose control of your business domain name, and anyone who comes along and buys up your expired domain may be able to access the email accounts on it. That could open you and your customers up to data theft and fraud. The best way to prevent this is to enable automatic renewals, either when you register your domains or during your next renewal. You may also be able to switch to automatic renewals now by logging into your domain registration account and adjusting your billing preferences. (HostGator customers, here’s how you can renew your domain registration.) 6. Automatic WordPress, Plugin and Theme Updates On the internet, you have to stay up to date. That includes WordPress software and the plugins, themes, and addons you choose for your SMB site. Why not stick with the old versions if they’re working for you? There are lots of reasons, but the main one is security.  Some updates are designed to patch flaws that hackers have shown they can exploit. So, when updates are announced, you need to install them right away. But updates don’t always come out on a schedule, and if you have a large site with lots of plugins, updating manually can be a hassle that’s too easy to postpone. The solution is to set WordPress and everything else on your site—themes, plugins, etc.—to update automatically. You can do this within most apps, or you can use a WordPress security plugin like Easy Updates Manager to handle it all for you. 7. Seriously Secure Passwords One of the simplest ways to protect your SMB website is to use a unique, secure WordPress password that would-be hackers are unlikely to guess. Make sure that any employees or contractors who have access to your site use secure, unique passwords, too.  You might think this goes without saying, but even in 2019, too many people are still using passwords like 123456 , monkey, and blink182. 8. Site Login Protection Login forms on your site make it easy for customers to sign into their accounts with your store or business. These forms also create potential weak spots where attackers can break in. In simple terms, a bot-powered brute force attack can try thousands of possible login credentials to try to get past a login form. If they find a way in, they can unleash malware, ransomware, or other mayhem to disrupt your business. To keep bad actors and botnet attacks from experimenting with logins until they find a way in, add some layers of protection to your sign-in forms.  One option is to limit the number of login attempts a user can make in one session. For example, after three failed attempts, the user is locked out of trying again until they contact your tech support team for more guidance. This lets legitimate customers get the help they need and prevents bot-powered brute force logins. Another option is one you probably see every day. Ask visitors to prove they’re not a robot when they sign in with a reCAPTCHA tool. The Contact Form 7 plugin lets you enable reCAPTCHA , or you can install a different reCAPTCHA plugin for the forms on your site. Yes, it’s an extra step for your site visitors, but one that can keep your visitors and your business safe from bot-powered data theft. Now that you know the cybersecurity basics, are you ready to set up your site?  HostGator’s Managed WordPress Hosting plans come with CodeGuard, SiteLock, and SSL certificates for free and make it easy to buy domain privacy services. Find the post on the HostGator Blog Continue reading →

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10+ Best Free Gutenberg Ready WordPress Themes

Posted on August 2, 2019 by Hosting

The post 10+ Best Free Gutenberg Ready WordPress Themes appeared first on HostGator Blog . There are hundreds of thousands of WordPress themes on the market. A lot of them are free while some cost more than a few hundred bucks. Finding a theme that suits your WordPress site’s style and is compatible with all the plugins you use is very difficult. If you want to use WordPress’ new Gutenberg editor , then you need a theme that is compatible with it. With thousands of themes to choose from, most of which aren’t compatible with Gutenberg, I wanted to make it easier for you to find the perfect theme. So, here’s my collection of the best free Gutenberg-ready WordPress themes right now. What is Gutenberg? Gutenberg is the latest page/post editor that comes with WordPress. If you are a fan of the original, the classic WordPress editor, then it might take you a few minutes to get comfortable with the new editor. Gutenberg is WordPress’ attempt at creating a drag and drop page builder that can make it easier for beginners and novices to create beautiful looking pages. If you want your website to stand out, you need your content to stand out in your niche. The easiest way to do this is by improving the design of your blog’s content. Now, if you hire a programmer to do it, it will cost you well over $500. But with a tool like Gutenberg , you can do it all by yourself within minutes… for free. Why you need a Gutenberg compatible theme? If you want to use the new Gutenberg editor and take advantage of all the wonderful tools and widgets it has to offer, then you need a WordPress theme that is compatible with Gutenberg . Most themes on the market, even the premium ones, aren’t compatible with Gutenberg. If you use a theme that isn’t compatible, most of your pages will break in unexpected places. If you don’t want your blog to break right when you catch your big break, then you should only use a theme that is compatible with Gutenberg. To make it easier for you to find the perfect theme, we have made the following list of the best free WordPress themes that are Gutenberg-ready. Best Free Gutenberg Themes 1. GeneratePress Best suited for: All types of websites, is a Multipurpose theme. Sites having this theme activated: 200,000+ Download/preview link: https://wordpress.org/themes/generatepress/ GeneratePress is one of the most popular WordPress themes out there. Unlike some other themes on this list, this is a multipurpose theme. That means, you can use it to build almost any type of website you want. Whether you want to use it on a travel site or cooking blog, you can easily customize this theme to suit your niche. You can customize almost all elements of this theme without writing a single line of code. This theme is made to be a lightweight kickstarter for any kind of a project based on WordPress.  They offer a big library of importable templates for all types of websites including travel, cooking, and personal blogs. You can also use this theme to build an eCommerce site and sell your products online. Features: Clean minimal design that is suitable for all types of websites. A huge library of hundreds of design templates available to choose from. Easily customize almost all aspects of the theme’s design. Compatible with all page builder plugins on the market including Gutenberg and Beaver Builder. Translation ready and supports over 20 languages. A lightweight theme that won’t slow down your website. 2. Gucherry Blog Best suited for: Personal Blogs, Travel Blogs, and blogs that display large images. Sites having this theme activated: 700+ Download/preview link: https://wordpress.org/themes/gucherry-blog/ GuCherry Blog is a beautiful free WordPress template designed for blogs. It offers a very clean, minimal design that focuses the user’s attention on the content. If you are looking for a theme for your personal blog, then this is one of the best options. You can easily customize this theme to suit your personal style by changing the colors and typography of the design. It comes with full support for page builders like Gutenberg. It is optimized for speed and is translation-ready. This theme is perfect for bloggers who want to start a blog , build an audience online and stand out in their niche. It offers a simple design and comes with everything you will need including social media share buttons and a lot of built-in widgets to choose from. It is also SEO optimized so that you can focus on creating content without worrying too much about the search engine bots. GuCherry blog is designed to be fast and offers lots of space placing advertisements on your blog. You place ads on your blog with just a few clicks in many different places without editing any code. Features: A minimal design that will help you stand out in your blogging niche. Lots of places to place ads on your blog to earn a side income. Optimized for SEO and fast load times. Easily customize everything from the colors to typography. Built-in support for page builders like Gutenberg. Translation-ready and supports RTL languages. A theme best suited for bloggers. 3. Getwid Base Best suited for: Startups, Digital Agencies, and Portfolio websites. Sites having this theme activated: 700+ Download/preview link: https://wordpress.org/themes/getwid-base/ Getwid Base is a free WordPress theme that is designed specifically to work with Gutenberg. Getwid Base theme is a part of Getwid, a bundle of multipurpose blocks designed for Gutenberg. To get the most out of this theme, we recommend that you install the Getwid plugin but even without the bundle, this theme has all the features you will need. It offers a beautiful, minimal design that is compatible with Gutenberg. It is best suited for digital agencies, startups, and portfolios. Although it is designed for digital agencies and startups, you can customize it to suit whatever niche you are in and change the design to suit your brand style. Features: A theme that is built specifically for Gutenberg page builder. Customize the theme easily with just a few clicks without touching code. You can add more blocks and widgets compatible with this theme by installing the free Getwid Gutenberg bundle. It comes with a simple design that looks great on all devices. 4. Page Builder Framework Best suited for: Agency Sites, Portfolios, and Service Businesses. Sites having this theme activated: 10,000+ Download/preview link: https://wordpress.org/themes/page-builder-framework/ Page Builder Framework is a free WordPress theme that is designed to be super fast. It is a lightweight theme that weighs less than 50 kb and doesn’t slow down your website. If you need a clutter-free, minimal design that you can customize yourself without editing code, this theme is a great option. This theme is designed for page builders like Gutenberg and Beaver Builder. You can easily customize all aspects of this theme’s design to suit your personal style. This theme scores 99% on all speed test tools like YSlow, Pingdom, and GTmetrix. It loads in less than 100ms. Features: This theme is built for speed and will never slow down your website. Customize all aspects of this theme’s design with just a few clicks. Designed to be compatible with all page builders including Elementor and Gutenberg. Responsive design that works on all screen sizes. WooCommerce support, if you want to build an eCommerce store. 5. Mission News Best suited for: News and Magazine sites, and sites with lots of content. Sites having this theme activated: 3,000+ Download/preview link: https://wordpress.org/themes/mission-news/ Mission News is a free WordPress theme designed for news and magazine websites. The design is clean and makes your website look like a classic news site. It’s fully responsive and looks great on all devices no matter the screen size. The layout of this theme is minimal, clean and focuses attention to the content. It is fully compatible with Gutenberg, Elementor, and some other page builder plugins. It also offers WooCommerce compatibility so that you can build an online store within a few minutes. This theme is optimized for speed and loads really fast. Features: WooCommerce support allows you to build an eCommerce site without writing any code Easily customize all aspects of your website’s design using the customization options. 100% responsive and looks great on all devices. Compatible with Gutenberg and Elementor. 6. Storytime Best suited for: Personal Blogs, Story Blogs, and Author Blogs. Sites having this theme activated: 1,000+ Download/preview link: https://wordpress.org/themes/storytime/ Storytime is a theme designed for authors and creatives. If you are a writer or really want to showcase your work, this is the theme for you. This theme comes with hundreds of customization options. You can choose from 2 blog layout options and 10 sidebar options. It is fully compatible with Gutenberg and is designed with the tool in mind. It also comes with its own built-in Gutenberg blocks you can use to improve your content. The theme offers a fully responsive minimal design. It offers a beautiful layout design that focuses attention on the content of your blog. If you are starting a personal blog and want to stand out in your niche, this theme is one of the best options. Features: Fully compatible with page builders like Gutenberg. Comes with additional built-in Gutenberg. Easily customize the theme using WordPress Theme Customizer interface. Hundreds of customization options so you can customize the design to suit your brand. 2 Blog layouts and 10 sidebar positions to choose from. 7. Music Lite Best suited for: Music artists, Bands and Musicians. Sites having this theme activated: 2,000+ Download/preview link: https://wordpress.org/themes/music-lite/ Music Lite is the free version of Music Pro. The free version of the theme comes with dozens and dozens of customization options. If you want more customization, then you can always upgrade to the pro version. It is built on a responsive framework to make sure it always looks good across different devices. It is also retina-optimized to look good on a large screen and high resolution displays like Apple’s products It comes with a tour dates page that you can easily customize and change dates on for your fans and followers. The theme comes with custom page templates that you can use to build your whole website in only a few minutes. It also comes with multiple column layouts. This theme allows you to easily customize the logo, the header, and even the background without writing any code. Features: The design is built on a mobile responsive framework and works on all screen sizes. Tour dates pages where you can list your tour dates with just a few clicks. Easily customize the theme using WordPress’ Theme Customizer tool. Custom page templates. The theme comes with multiple column layouts to choose from. 8. Portfolio Lite Best suited for: Photography Portfolio, Creative Portfolios, Freelancer Portfolios. Sites having this theme activated: 2,000+ Download/preview link: https://wordpress.org/themes/portfolio-lite/ Portfolio Lite is a portfolio theme for creatives. It offers a very unique design to help you stand out of the crowd. The design is very minimal to focus the attention on the portfolio items. If you are a freelancer and need a site to show off your work, this is the best theme for you. It comes with a sidebar menu on the left to allow for easy and minimal navigation. This theme will allow you to build your portfolio online in only a few minutes. This theme is best for portfolios with lots of images. It is best suited for people who wish to show off their designs or photography. It comes with a few different page templates to choose from for your portfolio items. You can easily create a slideshow for your portfolio within seconds. Features: A clean minimal layout to show off your creative portfolio. Showcase large images in a beautiful layout. Different page templates for portfolio items to choose from. Get more features by purchasing the premium version of this theme. Dozens of customization options and support for WordPress Theme Customizer. Support for Gutenberg and other Page Builders. 9. Davis Best suited for: Personal Blogs and sites that are more focused on the content. Sites having this theme activated: 3,000+ Download/preview link: https://wordpress.org/themes/davis/ Davis is a minimalistic WordPress theme that you can either use as a framework to build your own theme or you can use to build a superfast website that scores high on all page speed test tools like Google PageSpeed. It is super lightweight and weighs only 61 kb. This theme offers a super minimal design that focuses the attention on the content. It is fully responsive, looks great on devices, and comes with a dark mode option. It also supports featured images, and aside post format. This theme is built to be fast and minimal and to be used as a framework to build upon and as such doesn’t offer many options or customization features. It is pretty minimal. Features: Fully responsive design. Super minimal, clean design. Super lightweight theme that weighs only 61kb and loads really fast. Comes with full support for Gutenberg and other page builders. 10. Block Lite Best suited for: Creative portfolio sites and photography portfolios. Sites having this theme activated: 1,000+ Download/preview link: https://wordpress.org/themes/block-lite/ Block Lite is a theme that is built for the Gutenberg editor. It comes with dozens of customization options that you can use to customize all aspects of the theme. It offers a responsive design that is minimal and looks great across all screen sizes. This theme is best for showcasing your creative portfolio. If you are a designer or a photographer, this theme will allow you to focus the visitor’s attention on your portfolio items. It is retina optimized to make sure the design looks great on even large-resolution displays. Block Lite’s premium version offers dozens of more customization options and features. Features: Easily customize the design of this theme using WordPress Theme Customizer. Customize the Typography and use any of the free Google Fonts you like on your website. A clean, minimal design best suited for showcasing creative portfolio items like pictures and designs. 11. Atomic Blocks Best suited for: Blogs and websites that need a minimal design. Sites having this theme activated: 2,000+ Download/preview link: https://wordpress.org/themes/atomic-blocks/ Atomic Blocks is a free WordPress theme that offers a simple design. It is fully compatible for Gutenberg page builder. This theme is a part of the Atomic Blocks plugin. The plugin adds more blocks to the Gutenberg builder. With this theme, you don’t need to download a hundred different plugins. It comes with blocks for everything including pricing table, newsletter sign up forms, post grid blocks, call to action blocks, testimonial block, sharing block and much more. Although this theme offers a minimal design and is best suited for blogs, it can be easily customized and used to build any type of a website. Features: Add dozens of new blocks to Gutenberg page builder by installing the accompanying Atomic Blocks plugin for free. Simple, responsive design. Dozens of theme options to help you customize the design without touching a single line of code. Fully compatible with Gutenberg and other page builder plugins. 12. Richone Best Suited For Minimal, basic portfolio sites. Sites having this theme activated: 600+ Download/preview link: https://wordpress.org/themes/richone/ Richone is a clean, beautiful portfolio theme that is compatible with Gutenberg editor. It offers a super minimal design that looks clean and focuses attention on the portfolio items. This theme offers full support WooCommerce so you can create an online store on our own. This theme comes with dozens of customization options so you can customize everything from the typography to the color scheme of the design. It offers a widget sidebar at the bottom. Features: WooCommerce ready so you can build an online store in minutes. Fully compatible with Gutenberg. Comes with custom page templates so you can build your website in minutes without any code. This theme is optimized for SEO, so you can focus on creating content. Fully responsive minimal design that focuses attention on the content Wrap Up All of the themes in this list support Gutenberg and will help you create content that stands out of the crowd. Most of these themes not only support Gutenberg, they also support other page builder plugins like Divi and Elementor , and others. If you are still having trouble deciding which theme to go with, let me make it super easy for you: If you need a theme that loads up really fast, then go with GeneratePress . It’s mostly a theme framework to help you build super fast websites. It comes with dozens of customization options and is really lightweight. If you produce a lot of content on your website, then go with Mission News . Although it’s a theme built for news sites, it is fully customizable, so you can easily customize it to suit your needs. If you want more Gutenberg blocks than the defaults, then go with the Getwid theme and download the accompanying Getwid plugin to add more blocks to the Gutenberg editor for free. Are you using a free Gutenberg compatible theme that has been left off this list, and you think is worth mentioning? If so, we would love to hear all about it in the comments! Find the post on the HostGator Blog Continue reading →

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How to Add Google Analytics to Your WordPress Site [Step-by-Step]

Posted on July 10, 2019 by Hosting

The post How to Add Google Analytics to Your WordPress Site [Step-by-Step] appeared first on HostGator Blog . If you have a business, your website is a gold mine of information that tells visitors if your brand if right for them and suits their needs. If you want your site to increase your conversions , however, you need to keep tabs on its performance regularly. It’s also important to know how visitors interact with your website so you can continue making tweaks that suit their needs. Your WordPress website is as good as stale without tracking its progress in Google Analytics. Nearly 28 million websites rely on Google Analytics to keep their businesses afloat and give customers what they want. The key to running a successful business is knowing the customer so well you hand them opportunities before they realize they need them. With Google Analytics, you’ll have access to the data you need to know your customer. Setting up Google Analytics on your WordPress website is simple and doesn’t take much time at all. Here’s how to get started. 1. Know What Data You’re Looking For There are several reasons to use Google Analytics , but the main one is that it keeps you in tune with your visitors so you can give them what they want. To get the most out of it, you need to know what you’re looking for. It doesn’t make much sense to scour data and statistics when you aren’t quite sure what your numbers should be or what to look at. It’s essential to have a clear understanding of how your audience interacts with your site so you can continue creating content they’ll enjoy. Tracking your metrics is the best way to do this. Keep an eye out for these particular metrics: Bounce rate Acquisition overview Unique visitors Returning visitors Page views Session duration or engagement There’s an entire plethora of information you can gather from looking through your analytics. With Google Analytics, you can: See what blog posts perform the best and get the most shares so you can continue to create similar content you know will be useful. Track your bounce rate and see where visitors are leaving your site so you can figure out how to prevent that from continuing and instead focus on increasing page views. Visit your landing pages to see how well they are or aren’t capturing new leads. You can also decide the best times to post content , how people find your website, what browsers they use, and more. All of this information can aid you in creating a high-converting web experience for your site visitors. It’s always a good idea to A/B split test different components of your website if you aren’t reaching the conversion rates you predicted. You can create these tests right in Google Analytics to understand how you can achieve your goals faster. 2. Set Up a Google Analytics Account First, you need to either create an account with Google or use an existing one. Then, sign in to your Google account. Go through the following screens to continue to sign up for your Google Analytics account. Next, enter your account information. Google will ask you whether you’d like to track a website or mobile app, so make sure it’s under the Website tab. At the bottom, click on Get Tracking ID . This is a code Google uses to track your site information. Then you’ll want to accept the Terms of Service as well as Additional Terms. When you click Accept, you’re directed to your Analytics dashboard. Congratulations! Your Google Analytics account setup is now complete. You’re going to end up copying and pasting your tracking ID code into your MonsterInsights plugin settings. This will allow MonsterInsights to read and receive Google Analytics’ data so you can see it from your WordPress dashboard. 3. Install MonsterInsights for WordPress To set up Google Analytics straight to your WordPress dashboard, you need a plugin like MonsterInsights . The value of MonsterInsights is that it brings your Google Analytics data straight to you, in your WordPress dashboard. That means you no longer have to sign in to a separate website to view your site traffic and performance. First, you need to download and install the MonsterInsights plugin . From your WordPress dashboard, upload the plugin and select Install Now . Click Activate Plugin so your MonsterInsights plugin is added to your website. Now you need to authenticate your MonsterInsights account. Hover over the MonsterInsights button in your WordPress panel and click Settings . Authenticate your Google account so that it’s integrated with your WordPress website. Once you connect your MonsterInsights account, it will redirect you to sign in with your Google account. Click Complete Connection . From the MonsterInsights button in your WordPress dashboard, hover over it, and click Reports . Now, your MonsterInsights analytics is connected to your WordPress website and ready to view reports! The great thing about setting up MonsterInsights is it takes mere minutes to set up. Just a few clicks and filling out information and you’re able to see all your site’s data straight from WordPress. It’s convenient for you so that you can make quick, informed decisions about your website or business for the best results and highest conversions. Get Started with MonsterInsights Setting up your website for Google Analytics will be the best thing you do for your website. When you know how visitors are interacting and engaging with your site, you discover how you can serve them better so they can move further down the funnel and eventually become loyal customers. There are endless benefits when tracking your site’s progress and Google Analytics paired with MonsterInsights is the best way to do so. Find the post on the HostGator Blog Continue reading →

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