Category: WordPress

The most applauded contributions to open-source projects like WordPress tend to be those that involve code. However, there are many other ways to start collaborating.

I have learned that generally, the most stable and lightweight websites created with WordPress are those that do not have many plugins activated.

Plugins extend the functionality of WordPress, which is good, but generally the more plugins we activate, the site can become slower or more complicated to maintain. A simple system is usually the most robust.

Thanks to Gutenberg blocks, WordPress is becoming a tool capable of building complex sites without the need to add external programming.

These blocks are not 100% finished yet. It happened to me that a client’s site needed a specific functionality that was not yet programmed, so I raised the following ticket:

Close overlay menu when clicking an anchor link #39585

Clicking an anchor link inside an overlay menu won’t close the menu in the navigation block. Anchor links work but the overlay should hide to make the content visible without having to click on the Close button.

JosVelasco

Here’s the first way to contribute: report a problem. The GitHub tool itself will thank you in your history when you do it: “Created an issue in WordPress/gutenberg that received 3 comments.”

I think the first barrier for those of us who do not speak English natively is the language. Reporting in English can be time-consuming and intimidating, but it is the universal language of the WordPress community, which, by the way, is very friendly.

It has worked a lot for me to keep track of WordPress on sites like WP Tavern and on the official community Slack to immerse myself and know things as basic as where to register the issue, whether in Trac or GitHub, check if someone else reported it before, etc.

It is said that from the moment someone reports a problem until it is reflected in Core, it can take a long time, even years. For this reason, it may be a good idea to focus on small and very specific problems.

I was lucky that a programmer was interested in submitting a solution to the problem. Then, the main project manager and several other people provided comments and feedback on the code. There were those who helped test it, and it was finally included in the WordPress 6.0.1 version.

There are many more teams and ways to collaborate, such as translating, designing, testing, documentation, training… I invite you to take a look at Make WordPress and discover what you like most.

Jos Velasco.

I still remember the excitement of stopping using the commercial builder plugin I used to build websites.

“I know Gutenberg isn’t finished yet, but even if I put a lot of CSS into it anyway, I think it’s worth a try.”

My past self in pandemic times

I don’t regret it, it’s just that it has been a pain to maintain the sites I developed because from time to time things get misconfigured.

But it’s my fault who tells me, to give you an example, to use a theme that in its description says that it is not intended for use in production since it is experimental.

Gutenberg is now much more than an experiment. It is a strong bet on the future of web democracy. And if, for some reason, it does not become 100% democratic, at least I like the democracy it is heading towards.

It’s fast, pretty clean, and considers many accessibility issues by default. Since you understand all its pieces, the direction it takes makes sense.

And well, I’m experimenting sparingly, too. Thanks to the fact that I have tried not to touch the code much and I make mostly purely informative sites, putting it on the balance, it has been quite convenient for me to leap.

There is a fascinating sea of ​​discussions on accessibility, interfaces, design, development, and even philosophy in various Make WordPress channels.

“Once the navigation block is available in Core, I will stop using the Gutenberg plugin”

Jos, from last weekend

For me it has been a joy to “lurk” the subprojects and spin the brilliant ideas of how incredibly complex it is to build a web layout. It’s overwhelming.

My respects.

At least for me, every day, there is exciting work to do, and the voices of the notifications I receive make me excited. Have you ever subscribed to a repository’s issues? You can read real-time discussions with talented people and how they resolve them.

The development of block-based themes that will be included in Core, such as Twenty Twenty-Two, the most flexible default theme of all time, fascinates me.

Imagine, this is a theme that, due to its importance, has the power to strongly influence the decisions of the entire project.

I have been silent on the issue of whether Gutenberg is stable or not for the same reason, because of the work it has cost me to adopt it before many.

But I am very, very grateful to the collaborators. It was already necessary for those who designed sites to turn around to see them. I am comfortable and very encouraged for 2022 and its possibilities.

-Jos of the present.

Has it happened to you that you have the conviction to write on your blog but you don’t know what? Below I share a series of recommendations to avoid writer’s block.

Write about what you already know

Exploring unknown topics can be very interesting, however it takes a long time and you will most likely not be able to contribute as much as those who know the subject.

By writing about a topic that you master, you can contribute from your experience.

One of the simplest formats is lists. Like this same entry. You can start with a general index of the topics you would like to address and gradually develop them.

Review your stats

Measuring statistics helps you make decisions about the route to follow with your blog.

Check which topics are the most popular and which rank best. Are there any topics that you haven’t explored enough?

A good starting point is to consolidate what you’ve already published on similar topics.

Check the competition

If your blog is well structured and you know the main categories you would like to cover, a good idea to find topics is to keep an eye on your rivals.

Surely there is something that they lack or that you don’t agree with in their approach. Remember that on your blog you can decide the way you would like to tell everything and you can do it better than others.

Edit your published content

If you simply can’t find what to write about, remember that you can go back to your past content to update it, add new points, and improve its writing.

The advantage of doing this is that you can take the opportunity to link them and give them new life, share them again on the networks and thus reactivate them.

Closing words

As long as you commit to your blog, writing on it doesn’t have to be a burden. There are several tasks you can review before giving up on the blank page. Remember that you can always ask for help from the community you are creating, take up their comments, and invite collaborators or hire professionals to create content or edit it.

The best advice I can give you is to enjoy the process of writing so that you can do it for a long time.

—Jos.

Divi is a visual builder chosen by many web designers for its ease of use, but today, it has a lot of solid competition in the WordPress builder market. Is it worth building websites with Divi?

Main competitors

The market for building websites with WordPress has been evolving, but some builders that offer unique features have stood out. Here are a few.

Elementor

This website builder has become very popular because it offers a relatively complete free version in the official WordPress repository. For more specific functions, the paid version is an annual subscription.

In help forums and Facebook groups, it is the Swiss Army knife for solving problems because it was one of the first to incorporate editing the entire website, from the header to the footer, without touching much code.

WPBakery Page Builder

The formerly called Visual Composer became a popular builder because it used to be bundled with the purchase of premium themes.

It is one of the most mature website builders that exist today. The so-called demos of premium themes can quickly help you build a website.

It has front and back-end editors to edit the content visually by filling in fields in pop-up windows.

There are many extensions to this website builder developed by other programmers.

It doesn’t have a very native way to edit the header and footer, but there are very cheap extensions to build and call up reusable sections, like Templatera.

It is not currently the most famous builder because it is aimed more at programmers to achieve specific functions.

Gutenberg / Site Editor

It is the builder under development by the WordPress community. It is 100% open source and free.

The exciting thing about this plugin is that the builder is already included by default with WordPress, so it loads quickly and integrates well.

Unlike other builders, it does not use shortcodes to build the content but rather an elegant solution based on HTML, which in some way protects the information and makes it easier to export than others.

The future of builders is undoubtedly Gutenberg since it will not only be restricted to being the content editor but will extend its functionality to other parts of WordPress, such as editing menus, the header, the sidebar, and even complete themes without the need for complex programming.

However, Gutenberg still has a long way to go to compete with Divi. If you’re an advanced CSS user, synched blocks, block groups, and columns are enough to lay out almost any site.

Advantages of Divi

Divi has many advantages to choose from as a website builder. Below, I list some of them.

Visual editor

Its strongest point is the visual ease with which each element you insert into the pages can be configured.

If you do not know CSS, its options menu is quite complete.

Fonts, colors, spacing, columns, repositioning of elements, effects, transitions, animations, responsiveness, and filters can be customized with clicks.

A feature that has just been seen in any builder is using visually editable global styles called Presets. With this configuration, it is possible to save a lot of time since editing an element’s style can be applied to the entire site immediately.

Full Website Library

It has hundreds of templates, so you don’t have to start from scratch. With one click, you can import an already programmed website to focus on replacing information.

They have focused on this point to prevent you from buying themes and convincing you to purchase a license.

It also includes a dynamic content builder to build blogs or more advanced sections without touching code.

Disadvantages of Divi

Server resources

It is known that it consumes a lot of server resources. Without a server with good memory and easy execution times, making a website with this editor will hardly be pleasant.

It generates heavy sites if it is not optimized with caching plugins and good practices.

Community?

It depends mainly on a company rather than on the community. Its community has reported features to its developers that are not attended to promptly.

Like Elementor Pro, its affiliate program makes users recommend it with little thought.

Conclusion

Divi is an excellent option to make websites quickly and without the need to learn programming if you have the resources to hire powerful web hosting and have no problem configuring your project in depth.

It has managed to stay on the market and will integrate well with Gutenberg.

This entry arises from WordPress Guadalajara Meetup #28: Getting to know Divi in-depth, modules, Theme Builder, and everything you need to hear about Divi. (in Spanish)

I thank Jefferson Maldonado for his time and heartily recommend his premium Divi courses and tutorials at UxDivi.

Jos Velasco.

Charge per hour? By project? What do I include in the costs? This guide will help you consider the best way to charge for a WordPress website.

Charge per hour or project

To start, you can base yourself on what is usually charged in your country or in the country where you are going to work. Personally, the model I like the most is hourly, although it is usually tricky, especially if they are new clients, to convince them of this model.

What I like about charging by the hour is the luxury of working as projects progress without stressing out so much about a deadline. Of course, it is an art to accommodate the gaps in the agenda, and working on one project at a time will always be more optimal. But the latter is unrealistic.

Some clients know what they want, while others experiment with your time.

What is certain is that many customers want a final price as a product, not a service. How much does a website like this cost? They seek the certainty of tying you to a budget.

These are some project types: Landing page, Online store, and Page with several sections. Different sizes, but that’s not everything there is to consider.

How much they cost depends on how generic you will deliver the work or how personalized it is. If you team up with people who already know how to design on the web or for a particular platform, you can calculate easier and have more certainty.

Regardless of the charging model, charge extra since there are non-billable hours, such as meetings or research.

Those hours, as well as other expenses such as depreciation of your equipment or training, can be included directly in your cost per hour.

Registering everything included in your proposal and what is not helps make it increasingly more accessible for you to quote a specific type of project since, many times, some details get out of hand.

Standardize your processes

If you always use the same plugins and website builders, you become a specialist; you deliver faster and better. You are also more aware of the costs of the licenses that a type of project uses.

As far as possible, use technologies already integrated with WordPress to avoid plugins that complicate and slow down the system.

As for plugins, I’ll give you two examples: Contact Form 7 and Flamingo are a couple of free plugins that do their respective jobs well. Although they are not so friendly to the end user, they are very stable, and a vast community supports them.

I recommend Gutenberg / the WordPress Site Editor, as a website builder. You may have to learn CSS at first for granular details, but there is nothing to lose with this type of technology.

Consider donating to open-source software as part of your costs. There are ways to contribute, such as helping with language translations, reporting bugs, making suggestions for improvement, leaving a review, or providing support in the help forums.

Include extra costs

The taxes and commission of the tool you use to receive your payments, especially from abroad, can cause your accounts not to turn out well.

Make it clear what things you are charging for so you can negotiate unforeseen expenses and not have to absorb them.

I’m not a big fan of giving discounts. Chris Lema recommends asking your customer for a list of what the project competition includes. Being a professional, you know how to charge and include what the client asks of you and what you know their project will need. You will surely do more work than the competition and be chosen. If not, it’s not worth the customer.

Specialize

What makes you different from others? The more competition there is, the more we can become more replaceable.

Competing on price is very complex unless we compete with a market with a more developed economy than our country.

Having fewer quality clients rather than working in volume is the way to go. The most straightforward and repetitive projects can be delegated to a work team to focus on building a good portfolio.

Maintenance and hosting

They are for a later stage of development, but if taken into account from the beginning, they can generate a continuous income. The hosting platform is essential because its learning curve can lengthen your work hours inefficiently if you don’t know it.

No one better to maintain a site than the person who developed it. I still think it is best to charge by the hour to attend to the project according to its specific needs, remembering that a website is a living thing. Still, these activities are sold more efficiently by a package of hours.

Optimizations, backups, and audits are some of the post-sales activities you can offer your clients, sometimes achieving a continuous income.

How much to charge?

It depends on the complexity of the project, your market, trajectory, the delivery time, and the costs generated.

The question should be when to charge. Get paid as soon as possible and always in advance. I heard somewhere that a reasonable advance payment should be enough to finish the project and be satisfied even if you do not receive the final payment.

Jos Velasco.

There was a time when blogging was trendy, and there were things called blogrolls where you recommended your friends in the sidebar.

Everyone read each other and commented… it was so cool. RSS was the way to subscribe.

As a fashion, blogs stopped being popular, and people began replacing them with microblogging on platforms like Twitter.

The sidebar of websites stopped making sense as people began to consume more from their cell phones.

Then, podcasts and vlogs (video blogs) became fashionable.

Everything became more vertical, even advertising.

When creators stop publishing with the same frequency, they usually make apologetic content with titles like this post. Why did I stop blogging?

It’s not my case. I stopped blogging due to an emotional breakup.

Then, I dedicated myself to building websites for others using WordPress without knowing it would become my way of earning a living.

Blogging involves effort but not as much as vlogging. The thing with this type of means of expression is that for the creator, although it does not always return money, it often serves as pseudo-therapy. Or as a way to improve your reputation if you use them professionally.

So, blogs still have a place in my heart.

Now, I blog about WordPress. And I plan these posts to serve as outlines for video content.

Jos.

Some characteristics of digital publications. What makes a site on the Internet recognized as a magazine? How different are digital magazines from print ones? Things that should not be missing from a digital magazine.

Editorial control

A team that decides the magazine’s focus receives and edits the materials and enriches them with multimedia content such as images, audio, and video. That categorizes or labels the contents so that they are displayed, related, and archived appropriately.

Periodicity

Traditionally, magazines define when they are released to the public. Thematic magazines usually use this time to collect and edit their content. The Internet allows the possibility of not depending on periodicity, creating infinite lists of topics where articles from different editions are archived.

I believe a magazine should categorize its contents by number/edition and in the section to which they correspond—for example, date/number, subject, section, etc.

Announcements

The call to receive content can be done in various ways on the Internet. The most traditional is to write an email to actual collaborators.

Social media can also be influential in getting collaborations from the general public.

In addition, it is possible to have a permanent section on the site with calls or a banner that attracts attention.

Subscription / Broadcast

Social networks are booming as a form of subscription. Electronic newsletters are also an option, but they generally require more work on the part of the publisher, and many times, the service to send newsletters costs to reach a large number of subscribers.

Technologies such as RSS are another option on the Internet to receive notifications of new content in almost real-time.

Even though the contents of an edition are usually published on the same day, they can be distributed in a relevant cadence throughout the period.

Advertising

As long as the advertising is not intrusive, elegant pieces of advertising can be created.

Not all advertising should be external. Using spaces to run a campaign to find new collaborators or highlight content is possible.

Include the term magazine.

If you want people to identify your digital publication as a magazine, it’s a good idea to add the word “magazine” to the site name, perhaps also to the domain.

This way, they will arrive more easily from the search engine if they search by your brand and identify that your project is collaborative.

Archive by author

In addition to showing the list of collaborations, this archive can link your authors to their projects to promote them and get to know more about the collaborators by publishing their biographies.

For some, this can become the collaborator’s website.

Search engine

Users can use categories to navigate the site, but nothing is more powerful than a search engine to find content.

Fun fact: many of the searches for a magazine have to do with contributors searching for themselves.

Comment system

It’s optional. If you decide to have one, it can be a direct way to provide feedback to the collaborator and the editor.

There are two basic types: the classic form that asks for your name, email, and comment, and the systems that ask you to authenticate on social networks to pull your photo and information and distribute your comment.

Remember that comments can be moderated if we are interested in generating an atmosphere of debate and avoiding spam.

Sharing buttons

The number of Likes on a post serves as a quick measure of the popularity of a post. It is also a way to distribute the discussion to social networks and as a call to action.

Content permanence

Don’t forget that an archive is being created when building a magazine. Try to preserve links and content in general never to be broken.

You can ask readers to report any issues to us to keep the system optimal.

Responsiveness

The information can be consulted appropriately on any device, using responsive designs that adapt to the width and type of screen.

Versions

It is not always necessary to create apps to distribute the content, upload the PDF of the printed version, or be on all the emerging social networks.

It can be enough to have a good web version to reach everywhere.

Contact

It is possible to create contact forms that reach directly the different departments of the magazine.

It doesn’t matter if the team is small. Distributing and preparing the proper communication channels from the first moment can make the difference between winning and losing an advertising offer.

Web developer

In addition to the editorial and design team, an excellent online magazine must have the technical staff to avoid catastrophes such as loss of information, infections, server crashes, and boosted visits based on statistical analysis.

Contact me if you are interested in starting or improving your magazine.

Jos Velasco

CC0 licensed photo by Marcus Burnette from the WordPress Photo Directory.

An excellent way to use your email inbox is to keep it as tidy as possible to review your pending tasks. Here are some extra tips to manage your inbox.

Leave only emails in your inbox that you cannot or do not wish to reply to immediately. These will become your to-do list.

Archive emails that you don’t need but could be helpful to you at some point. The search engine, tags, and filters you create will help you reach them later.

Mark unwanted emails as spam. If it is a newsletter that you did not request, there should be a way to unsubscribe. If there is not, ask for it manually. If the emails persist, you can create a filter to delete them automatically.

Check your spam folder occasionally; emails with multiple links can be detected as spam even if they are not.

Delete emails you don’t need. Although they weigh little, they can steal space from your mind.

When you write your emails, include keywords that will help you find the email later if you perform a search. “There’s your bill” differs from “Invoice January 2024 Project Client.”

Use a signature to promote yourself; Use actual clickable links, not just images.

Jos.

CC0 licensed photo by Aaron Jorbin from the WordPress Photo Directory.

Making a website backup is essential to experiment with our information safely, update the system, move the site to another server, and check that our backup works.

To experiment without fear

I remember the day when my uncle, who repairs computers, told me not to be afraid of them and that nothing wrong could happen with them. He lied. Computers can be damaged when experimenting with them, but his advice has helped me a lot.

Experimenting is one of the most effective ways to learn something.

What causes fear of experimenting? Many times, we ruin things. In the case of websites, if we have no idea what we are doing or if we like to perform dangerous maneuvers, we can make a backup to restore everything to its original state.

To update the system

If our website is generated using a content management system such as WordPress, it is highly recommended to back it up before updating it.

With new updates, our design and functionality can be affected or cause fatal errors that prevent us from accessing the site or even losing information.

Document yourself to know if it is safe to update and the correct way.

Additionally, updating the system is essential to prevent the site from being vulnerable to attacks.

To move the website to another server

A full backup is nothing more than a copy of the website.

By downloading said copy, we can take it to another hosting provider of our convenience whenever we want. Maybe to a more powerful, cheaper, or more compatible server.

In addition, making a backup can help us realize the actual weight of the site. We can detect possible errors when changing servers and give it a general cleaning before doing so.

To test our backup

There is no point in creating a website backup if we cannot trust it.

There are different ways to check a backup.

The database backup is a text file we can open in a text editor and review.

The best test is migrating the site to another server or another folder to ensure it works.

Jos.

It is common for websites to be redesigned and spend some time offline while new files are uploaded or design or structure modifications are made. Usually, there is no need.

For minor modifications, there is a trick that I have used a lot. The cache is a static version of a website, which is generated mainly so that visitors can browse faster without the server having to access all of its resources all the time.

I suggest that while maintenance is being carried out, the cache should be activated for all users except site administrators so that visitors will continue browsing as if nothing had happened while administrators can work on the latest changes without fear.

You have to take into account the configuration of the cache system. For example, checking how often it refreshes is crucial. I turn off automatic cache clearing while making changes to sites. Also, some actions, like saving a Page, will clear that cache’s content.

Remember to clear the cache when you finish.

Jos.

CC0 licensed photo by Pablo Moratinos from the WordPress Photo Directory.

Note: this was originally published on Jun 24, 2008.

Since switching to WordPress, I have been surprised by how many plugins people work on. Open Source is a delight for those who want and don’t want to code.

With my work in Villahermosa, I have time to spend on the blog; I am doing so to test some functions I will put on my customer’s website.

I have seen how quickly this platform evolves. Virtually everything you can think of is already programmed. Even plugins (extensions) are updated automatically. The platform itself does it… It’s like a monster that takes on a life of its own.

To give you an idea, here are some recent examples WordPress does for me:

For the system update process:
It downloads the update file, unzips it to the corresponding folders, runs the configuration files, updates the databases, and confirms if everything went perfectly.

All that (and surely more) with just one click.

I had a problem with a plugin I use for surveys. I couldn’t add new ones, so I moved on, and later, WordPress notified me that a new version was available; I updated it and tried it again. It was already working! I didn’t even have to look at the code.

Another plugin, the one for photo galleries, I wouldn’t say I liked to use because I had to upload one photo at a time. They updated it, but it still didn’t convince me.

With the new WordPress update, it now turns out that galleries are already part of WordPress, and it is not necessary to install a plugin.

You can even upload folders. You don’t even have to worry about adjusting the size of the photos. While they are uploaded, you can update their title and additional information.

Additionally, each photo generates a page to be commented on.

In the support forums, I asked for a function that returns a random photo. People can help you find what you need.

Another excellent example is language support. Some people are dedicated to translating WordPress into Spanish and do it neutrally, as standard as possible. You replace a tiny file, and everything is already translated.

And the list goes on… For example, I send an email to a specific address on my domain, and a new entry is automatically published, taking the Subject as the post’s title and the email body as the post’s content.

Jos.

CC0 licensed photo by 文派翻译（WP Chinese Translation） from the WordPress Photo Directory.