Have you noticed a sudden increase in the number of hosting companies offering managed WordPress hosting service?
Last week, I was approached by two of my good friends asking me to recommend a reliable WordPress hosting company. Since they were just getting started, I recommended BlueHost to them as a good option for beginners.
However, these people seem to have done their homework before talking to me. So, they asked, “How about going for managed WordPress hosting offered by BlueHost?”
My goal with this post is to discuss some of the top WordPress plugins I use and recommend. If you have questions about installing WordPress plugins, you may want to refer to my earlier post about installing WordPress Plugins on your blog.
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One of my favorite things about WordPress as a blogging platform, is the ability to extend its features by using WordPress plugins. A few clicks and you are on your way to having a fully functional website with some great features.
Since I posted about setting up a self-hosted WordPress and blog, many people have asked for my recommendations on WordPress plugins, and so this post.
Naturally, it is hard to decide what to install and what to leave from more than 22000 plugins available in WordPress Plugins directory, isn't it? However, with a careful consideration of your needs, you can choose what you need and leave the rest.
I have shared my website hosting story on a prior occasion, where I told you how I decided to do it myself when a web developer from Bangalore asked me to pay an amount which I thought was too much for the job.
But I was an IT professional by background and I had a handle on technology in general already. So, when I started hosting my first website, as an entrepreneur, I didn’t have much difficulty in catching up with WordPress.
I started by hosting my first website with GoDaddy and it was great. I didn’t have any experience in SEO and therefore I had no expectations. I didn’t care how much time it took to load a page and if I recall, snigdhakrishna.com used to take about 35 seconds to load. Neither Snigdha nor I cared and as a matter of fact, no one ever complained that the website was slow.
Brute Force Attacks on WordPress Websites have caused a lot of pain to webmasters and web hosting companies in recent weeks. If you’re using WordPress to power your website, you may be vulnerable to a new web-based attack that aims to hack your admin password.
The good news is you can do something about it. You can tighten your WordPress security to counter these attacks. But first, let’s understand these attacks a little better.
Brute Force Attacks are targeted to hack your WordPress Admin Dashboard. These attacks specifically target your WordPress website’s wp-login.php from a large number of IP addresses spread geographically around the world.
WordPress plugins are the reason why WordPress has become the most popular content management system today. If you ever need to add any new feature of functionality to your blog powered by WordPress, most probably you will find a suitable WordPress Plugin with one simple search.
Recently, I visited a friend who has just started to blog. He requested me to review his blog. To my amazement, though he has installed a premium responsive WordPress theme, his blog lacked almost all important plugins.
If you are like my friend, just started blogging using self-hosted WordPress and still figuring out various options, this post is for you. I want to share some basics of setting up your blog, installing and configuring important WordPress plugins. Let’s get started.
When I started blogging just a couple of years ago, I did not think it was necessary to worry about the security of my WordPress Blogs or make regular backups very often. Whenever possible, I did manage to make a few backups, once in a while, using the default backup services provided by the web hosting companies.
However, as my blog and online business footprint started to grow, I soon realized that it is not just about writing and publishing blog posts, but I also needed to take good care of things: like managing plugins, database optimization and even SEO improvements, wherever applicable.
