Fortunately, there’s no shortage of CSS frameworks that can fast-track the design and development process. By opting for a framework, you can create standardized, higher-quality code, with less time and hassle.

In this post, we’ll discuss what CSS frameworks are and why you may want to consider using one for your next project. We’ll then share advice on how to find the framework that’s right for you, before exploring six popular CSS frameworks. Let’s get started!

An Introduction to CSS Frameworks

CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) controls the presentation of a document that’s written in a markup language such as HTML. Unlike some other languages, CSS creates a separation between presentation and content. This gives you more flexibility in how you display your content.

This language also promotes code reuse, as multiple pages can use the formatting defined in a single CSS file. This can reduce complexity and repetition, while also improving your project’s performance, such as by reducing your website’s page loading times.

Many different systems use CSS. This includes WordPress themes, which uses CSS to output the data generated by this popular Content Management System (CMS). Every WordPress theme contains a single style.css file:

Although you can write pure CSS, many designers and developers choose to use a CSS framework. This is a collection of stylesheets that provide a basic structure and classes for common elements.

You can use these pre-prepared stylesheets as a reference for resolving problems of a similar nature. Alternatively, you can override the framework’s generic functionality for your specific use case.

There can be some confusion about when to use a framework, and when it makes more sense to opt for a library. With libraries, you control when this technology performs a particular function. The rest of your code exists independent from that library. However, with CSS frameworks the control flow is in the framework, and you’ll customize it in places to better suit your project.

Why You Might Want to Use a CSS Framework

CSS frameworks can reduce the amount of code you need to write. Instead of programming everything from scratch, these frameworks provide all the tools you need to spin up a basic UI.

You can then spend your time perfecting this interface to meet your project’s exact requirements. Since you’re not starting every project with a blank slate, you’ll have more time to focus on the specific features that make your site or app unique.

A CSS framework can also be useful for agencies and freelancers who manage multiple client sites. Using this tool, you can create a theme and then deploy it across countless websites. This can help you onboard new clients more quickly, and grow your business without drastically increasing your workload.

If you’re collaborating on a project with multiple people, a CSS framework can help you achieve consistency. For example, instead of each team member inventing their own class names, a CSS framework implements standardized naming conventions. This typically results in higher-quality code that’s easier to read and maintain.

When your code is consistent, you’ll also find it easier to onboard new team members or freelancers. It’s also worth remembering that just because your staff are happy in their role now doesn’t necessarily mean they’ll stick around forever.

It’s smart to ensure that even if your head developer leaves, your project can continue. To make sure your project is never wholly reliant on a single person, it’s a good idea to implement a standardized approach that’s clearly defined and understood by everyone. A framework can help you achieve this uniformity across your project.

Factors to Consider When Using a CSS Framework

A CSS framework can be a valuable addition to your project. However, if you have little previous experience with CSS, then it’s important to familiarize yourself with this language before jumping into the world of frameworks.

By taking the time to master pure CSS, you’ll be better equipped to identify issues with your syntax. When you know how to achieve the desired results in pure CSS, you’ll also find it easier to scan your framework’s documentation for the information you need. This can boost your efficiency, particularly when it comes to problem-solving and troubleshooting.

We always recommend taking some time to sharpen your CSS knowledge before you start shopping around for a suitable framework. Depending on your previous experience and knowledge, this may require a significant amount of time and effort.

A CSS framework will also add to your project’s overhead. Depending on your project, this may include lots of unnecessary or irrelevant code that you don’t even use. Bloat is never good, but it makes zero sense to increase your project’s size without adding any value.

Since your project exists inside the CSS framework, this may be limiting for your application or website. If you rely on a framework too heavily, there’s also the risk that your finished project will look similar to other sites and apps that use the same framework. This can make your project blur into the background, when it should be standing out from the crowd.

How to Choose the Right CSS Framework

To start, your chosen framework should meet all of your project’s technical requirements. It’s also smart to look for characteristics that make this framework a good fit for your project. For example, a lightweight framework may be the perfect addition to a mobile-focused design, but it may be less ideal for a large, complicated application.

Over time, your project’s requirements will likely change. Although it’s impossible to predict the future, it’s always worth considering how your project might develop over the long-term. Your chosen CSS framework should be able to support your site or application as it evolves over months, and potentially even years.

When choosing any technology, it’s always smart to consider its ease of use. Even if you’re fluent in CSS, learning any new technology requires a big upfront investment. Every moment that you spend familiarizing yourself with your new framework is time that you could have invested directly into your project.

Ideally, your chosen framework will be intuitive, user-friendly, and have a gentle learning curve. This will minimize the time between installing the framework and starting to reap the benefits. If a framework is user-friendly, then you’re also much less likely to encounter major issues, including stumbling blocks that require you to pause development in order to research the problem.

When considering ease of use, it’s important to find out what support is available. Ideally, the framework will be backed by official documentation, tutorials, and perhaps even professional support.

You should also consider the level of community resources available, including third-party blogs, forums, and social media sites. An active community can be an invaluable source of additional support. You could even put your questions directly to the community via channels such as Stack Overflow.

6 Popular CSS Frameworks (And When To Use Them)

With so many CSS frameworks to choose from, picking just one isn’t always easy. That’s why we’ve compiled this list of the six most popular CSS frameworks. Along the way, we’ll help you make the right decision, by suggesting the kind of projects each framework is perfect for.

1. Bootstrap

Originally named Twitter Blueprint and developed as a tool for internal teams, Bootstrap has since grown into one of the most popular CSS frameworks. Today, Bootstrap is used by around 22 percent of all websites, and its GitHub consists of over 20,000 commits from more than 2000 contributors.

To get started, you can download Bootstrap’s source Sass and JavaScript files from either Composer, Meteor, or the Node Package Manager (npm). You can also use the npm template repository to quickly generate a Bootstrap project, or check out any of the official examples, that are supported by extensive documentation.

All of this makes Bootstrap a great choice for anyone who’s new to CSS frameworks, or has limited pure CSS experience. This may include back-end developers who want to make some changes to their projects’ User Interface (UI). For these designers, Bootstrap provides templates for all of the most popular UI components, including alerts, tabs, forms, and dropdowns.

Bootstrap is also designed for responsive, mobile-first front-end development. This makes it a good fit for mobile projects.

If you do require additional support, Bootstrap has a large and active community on Stack Overflow. You can also access real-time support via the Bootstrap Slack channel.

2. Foundation

Foundation is a front-end framework for building websites, applications, and emails. Thanks to its Sass compiler, the responsive Foundation framework is ideal for creating projects fast.

Foundation favors clean, semantic code and takes a mobile-first approach. After ensuring that your project is fully compatible with mobile devices, you can add in more complexity for a fully-responsive design.

Foundation provides HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, which is great for rapidly prototyping websites. If you’re using Foundation to create emails, this framework provides tested patterns that work with all of the major email clients, including Outlook. This can help you create emails that display and function correctly, regardless of how the recipients choose to access them.

Despite its speed, Foundation is far from a limited framework, and many developers use it to create large applications. It’s also highly customizable, which makes Foundation a good choice for designers who want to create a unique experience for their end users, and who aren’t afraid to dig into Foundation’s more complex features in order to achieve the desired result.

Despite its current status as an open-source project, Foundation was originally maintained by ZURB. Today, ZURB continues to offer a full program of tutorials, online courses, custom training, and even an official Foundation certification.

3. Skeleton

The Skeleton framework is a small collection of CSS files that you can use to rapidly generate clean code and simple layouts. Coming in at under 400 lines of code, this bare-bones framework is a good fit for smaller projects, or projects that don’t require the utility of a larger, heavier solution.

As a lightweight framework, Skeleton shouldn’t add unnecessary bloat to your project, which can be particularly valuable for mobile designs. If you’re creating a mobile project, Skeleton has a well-structured grid that enables you to create a responsive layout with minimal hassle.

Skeleton provides a 12-column fluid grid with a maximum width of 960px. This grid shrinks according to the browser and device. However, if you need to alter the maximum width you can make that change with a single line of CSS.

Skeleton serves its scalable grid using media queries. It also provides a list of mobile-first queries for styling your project across multiple devices. All styles outside of a query apply to all devices, so larger devices are targeted for enhancement. This prevents small devices from having to parse large amounts of unnecessary CSS.

If you’re new to the world of CSS frameworks, Skeleton’s simplistic approach makes this a good framework for beginners. For CSS newcomers, it can even be a valuable learning tool before progressing to more complex and feature-rich frameworks.

Unlike some of the other CSS frameworks on this list, Skeleton is designed as a starting point that you can develop into something more substantial. It’s also worth noting that Skeleton’s lack of templates may become an issue if you try to use this framework in larger or more complex projects.

4. UIKit

UIKit is a responsive, lightweight CSS framework that you can use to create clean and professional-looking interfaces. This framework defines all the core components such as table views, buttons, labels, and navigation controllers.

UIKit is also extensible, and supports a comprehensive collection of advanced components that are not bundled with the core framework. This includes parallax girds, dynamic pagination, and sliders.

Alongside CSS files, UIKit provides an autocomplete package for Sublime Text and Atom editors. Since users don’t have to repeatedly look up UIKit markups and class names, this framework is great for your overall productivity.

Unlike other frameworks such as Bootstrap and Foundation, UIKit breaks the layout into three components: grid, flex, and width. Instead of restricting you to a 12-column grid setup, UIKit gives you the flexibility to create as many columns as you require.

Over at the UIKit website, you’ll find extensive official documentation and a series of video tutorials. Despite these useful learning resources, we find that UK Kit is a more complex framework that’s best suited to experienced developers.

5. Semantic UI

Semantic UI is a framework for creating responsive layouts. Based on natural language principles, Semantic UI aims to make code readable and easier to understand by creating a shared vocabulary around UI.

To achieve this, Semantic UI treats words and classes as interchangeable concepts. All classes are human words and use syntax from natural languages, including noun/modifier relationships and word order. Semantic UI also uses plurality to link concepts intuitively. As a result, its code often resembles regular text.

Human-readable code and ease of use makes Semantic UI a great choice for anyone who’s new to the world of frameworks. If you do have previous experience, it’s worth noting that Semantic UI integrates with React, Angular, Meteor, Ember, and various other frameworks.

In addition to the functionality you’d typically expect from a CSS framework, Semantic UI provides simplified debugging and performance logging. This enables you to track down bottlenecks without digging through stack traces. These added extras make Semantic UI suitable for larger projects, including enterprise apps and websites.

6. Pure

Built on Normalize.css, the Pure framework is a set of small, responsive CSS modules that provide layout and styling for native HTML elements. This includes many common UI components. Pure has a minimal and unopinionated design, so you should have no issues adding new CSS rules and overriding Pure.css with your own styles.

Coming in at 3.87B minified and gzipped, this is a simple, lightweight framework. If you only require a subset of Pure’s modules, you’ll save even more bandwidth. This makes Pure ideal for smaller projects, or any project that has modest requirements.

Its small footprint also means that Pure is a good choice for mobile projects, where you’re typically working with less memory. Even better, this framework is responsive out of the box, thanks to its use of Pure Grids and Vertical Menus. With Pure CSS, you can be confident that your UI will look and display correctly across a range of mobile and tablet devices.

Conclusion

Building applications and websites from scratch can quickly start to feel repetitive. Instead of wasting time coding the same elements over and over again, a CSS framework can handle this busywork for you.

If you’re still unsure which CSS framework is right for you, here’s a quick reminder of the six frameworks we covered earlier:

1. Bootstrap: An open source framework that’s perfect for responsive, mobile-first front-end web development.
2. Foundation: With an emphasis on speed, Foundation is ideal for rapid prototyping.
3. Skeleton: Coming in at under 500 lines of code, this CSS framework is designed with mobile devices in mind.
4. UIKit: A lightweight, modular framework that targets highly-experienced, professional developers.
5. Semantic UI: This theming framework contains pre-built semantic components that can help you create professionally-designed, responsive websites.
6. Pure: A collection of responsive CSS modules that have much to offer for mobile developers.

A CSS framework can be your secret weapon for developing professionally-designed websites and applications in record time. However, once you’re ready to send your project out into the world, you’ll still need somewhere to host it.

By choosing a provider that’s optimized for web frameworks, you can ensure that you’re getting the very best out of your finished project. At A2 Hosting, we’ve optimized our plans for a wide range of frameworks, including Bootstrap. We even offer 1-click framework setup!

The post What Is a CSS Framework? (And When to Use 6 Popular Options) appeared first on The A2 Posting.

So, Does Website Migration Affect SEO? 

Any server change carries a slight SEO risk with or without modifications to your website,  but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. You see, migrations primarily affect site speed. So if you’re migrating to a host like A2 Hosting, you’ll notice increased site speed. As loading time is a top SEO ranking consideration, this can only help you, not hurt you. Unfortunately, this means the opposite for migrating to a slower host (maybe it’ll make you think again about migrating to a cheaper host?). 

When users experience slow loading times, they’re less likely to revisit your site in the future, especially when more than 50% of visitors abandon a website if a page takes over 2 seconds to load. Since 2010, speed has been a ranking factor for desktop searches on Google. When researching new hosts, look for speed optimizations or determine how the web hosting company optimizes its servers for speed. 

For example, at A2 Hosting, we use only SSD and NVMe storage. “Our speed, your success” is our motto because we believe that speed is the most critical factor in attracting, maintaining, and increasing traffic and conversions. Additionally, our Turbo servers offer Litespeed caching, and specific servers also offer the AMD EPYC processors. When combined, these three elements contribute to lightning-fast speeds.  

Changing web hosting providers can also come with risks, especially if you lose certain functionalities at the new host or move from Apache to Nginx or IIS (Internet Information Services). If you’re wary about changing hosts, talk with someone on our sales team about the process and ensure your server needs match up with what we can offer you. 

Now that we’ve discussed how website migrations affect SEO, let’s review the migration process. Use our SEO checklist to prepare your website for its migration:

• 1. Set up a staging site on your new server. Before canceling your other web hosting plan, compare your existing site’s page load speeds against the new server’s load speeds. Hopefully, the new server improved your site speeds! 
• 2. Pick a slow time. After testing your new site on the server, pick a quiet time to perform the DNS propagation. Your site may be down for up to 24 hours as the DNS propagates around the world, but choose a time when you experience low traffic, so you’re not missing opportunities for leads and conversions. 
• 3. Perform checks on your site. For example, check the organic health of your website. Is there any penalization for spammy backlinks? Are your current backlinks relevant for the content? We recommend tracking your site’s domain authority with Moz Pro. 
• 4. Crawl your site. With Moz Pro or ScreamingFrog, you can crawl your website to receive a full URL and content inventory. Then, you can fix issues while you’re staging your site and map old URLs to new URLs in your 301 redirect map.  
• 5. Update Internal Links. Test your website and update internal links to avoid internal redirects or broken links. ScreamingFrog allows you to find internal links and their attached anchor text and their respective pages.
• 6. Create a custom 404 page. When visitors experience a broken page, engage them with a custom 404 page. It should direct them to your homepage or additional pages on your website. Otherwise, a blank 404 page frustrates users and makes them want to close the browser tab altogether and find a site that works. 
• 7. Update your Robots.txt file. The robots.txt file tells search engine crawlers which pages the crawler can or can’t request from your site. It lives at www.yoursite.com/robots.txt. 
• 8. Test your website on mobile. Is your site responsive or rendering correctly on a mobile device? Google offers a Mobile-Friendly Test tool to determine if Google views your site as mobile-friendly. 
• 9. Measure your performance post-launch. Once you’ve ensured your site launches appropriately, there are no broken pages or backlinks, your site is mobile-friendly, and you’ve updated your robots.txt file, analyze your performance after you launch your website. Check your ranking performance, organic traffic users/sessions, check for site crawl issues, and monitor your backlink profile. Track any 404 page traffic in your Google Analytics post-launch to catch and add any redirects to your 301 redirect file. 

SEO doesn’t need to be significant when migrating your website concern. With a few preparations, you can efficiently execute a website migration plan without worrying about lowering your website’s ranking. 

Related articles:

• How to Migrate a WordPress Website to a New Host
• Tips for Migrating to Joomla 4
• How to Switch Your Domain Name Without Damaging Your Site’s SEO
• A Total Beginner’s Guide to Website Hosting
• Who Has the Fastest Web Hosting? Matching Your Need for Speed

The post Does Website Migration Affect SEO? The Definitive Website Migration SEO Checklist. appeared first on The A2 Posting.

What is a Fully Qualified Domain Name (FQDN)? 

A Fully Qualified Domain Name (FQDN) is a domain name consisting of three parts: the hostname, the domain name, and the top-level domain. The hostname is the specific computer or device on the network that you want to use the FQDN for. The domain name is the section of the FQDN that uniquely identifies your network. The top-level domain is the highest level of classification for domains and is assigned by ICANN. For example, when you type “www.google.com” into your web browser, “www” is the hostname, “google” is the domain name, and “.com” is the top-level domain. 

Different computer types use different terminology for FQDNs like network names or full computer names. 

Why should I use an FQDN? 

FQDNs indicate unique addresses on the internet. If you don’t have an FQDN, you don’t have an accessible website. They’re required for installing SSL certificates, imperative to the security of your website. 

Apart from having an accessible website, FQDNs are also useful to have a discoverable computer on an internet network, like when you need to access a computer remotely. This is common in an office to track a computer’s activity. 

Also, FQDNs help you access domain services like FTP (File Transfer Protocol) and email. For example, if you want to connect your domain name’s email to an email app on your phone like Gmail or Apple Mail, you need to know the FQDN for the mail server, which is typically something like “mail.yourdomainname.com.” 

Here is an example of an FQDN:

1. www.a2hosting.com
2. mail.a2hosting.com
3. ftp.a2hosting.com

How to find your FQDN

If you’re not sure how to find your FQDN, please review the following links: 

Find your FQDN for Windows OS (operating systems).

Find your FQDN for macOS.

When you generate a domain name, it should contain three parts. The first part is the hostname which identifies the specific computer or device on your network that will be using this FQDN. The second part of an FQDN is the domain name and it uniquely identifies your company’s network. Finally, there is the top-level domain (TLD) which classifies domains as either generic or country-code TLDs such as .com for commercial purposes. If you need help viewing any of these components within your own FQDN contact our support team today!  

Related Articles:

• How to manage cPanel Mail Exchanger (MX) records
• How to use the DNS Zone Editor in cPanel
• How to verify site ownership with Google
• How to determine your account’s server name

The post What Is a Fully Qualified Domain Name? appeared first on The A2 Posting.

When you have an eCommerce site, ensuring a smooth payment process is critical to gaining conversions from leads that visit your site. WooCommerce allows you to configure various payment methods such as direct bank transfer, checks, cash on delivery, and Paypal to provide your customers with additional options for completing order transactions.

The WooCommerce PayPal Checkout extension allows your WordPress store to accept PayPal payments and makes use of customizable Smart Payment ButtonsTM. Customers who use PayPal Checkout can pay with PayPal or any major credit or debit card without ever leaving your website. Using this extension visitors can buy directly from your product pages and pay in 26 different currencies. This blog will walk you through the process of configuring and adding the WooCommerce PayPal Checkout for WordPress sites.

Installing the WooCommerce PayPal Checkout Plugin in WordPress

Note: Paypal Checkout Plugin is no longer available in the WooCommerce marketplace. You may use PayPal payments as it’s the upgraded option to this extension.

Follow these steps to install the WooCommerce PayPal Checkout in WordPress:

1. Log in to WordPress as an administrator.

2. In the search plugins, type “WordPress PayPal Checkout.” Install and activate the plugin pictured below:

3. After you’ve successfully installed the plugin, you’ll need to configure the PayPal checkout in WooCommerce.

Configuring the PayPal Checkout Process in WooCommerce

Follow these steps to set up the PayPal checkout process in WooCommerce.

On the WordPress Dashboard, in the left sidebar, click WooCommerce, and then click Settings. This will take you to the WooCommerce settings page, which has multiple tabs for various settings. To enable the payment method, navigate to the Payments tab.

Enable the toggle button next to the PayPal checkout option on the Payment Methods page. To configure the PayPal Checkout settings, click Set up or Manage.

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You will then be directed to the PayPal Checkout page, where you can begin configuring various checkout settings. The process will begin with basic store information, then help you link your PayPal account, and finally assist you in configuring the checkout page’s look and feel, including payment and billing details.  

To begin configuring the PayPal checkout process, fill in the basic information about your store before moving on to linking the store to a PayPal account.

• Title – Choose the title shown to customers during checkout
• Description – Add a description shown to customers if they use PayPal Checkout
• Account Settings – Environment  – Select Live to accept payments and Sandbox to test payments.

Linking Paypal Account in WooCommerce

In WooCommerce, you can use the API settings to create or link an existing PayPal Account. To link it to your PayPal account, use the API credentials sections on the PayPal Checkout setup page, under the payment tape.

When you click the Setup or link an existing PayPal account button, you will be taken to the PayPal account login page.

Log in to your PayPal account, then click Activity on the top menu bar and select API Access.

Next, scroll to NVP/SOAP API Integration (Classic) and click Manage API Credentials. Ensure Request an API Signature is checked and click Agree and Submit.

 Click Show to reveal API Username, password, and signature.

Copy the API Username, Password, and Signature into your WooCommerce PayPal Checkout settings.

In the PayPal-hosted Checkout Settings section, enter details such as your Brand Name,  your site or product name, images for logo and header, and so on to ensure the PayPal checkout page has the same look and feel as your website. The landing page is the URL that all customers see when they check out.

Additional payment confirmation details can be set in the Advanced Settings for further advanced settings of the checkout pages, such as shipping details.

Once you’ve finished filling out all of the settings, click Save Changes at the bottom of the page to finish the PayPal Checkout configuration in WooCommerce.

Smart Payment Buttons™ PayPal Checkout Advanced Options

Smart Payment Buttons™ is an added benefit for US customers, as the feature provides relevant payment options such as PayPal and both Pay in 4 and PayPal Credit*, allowing your customers to buy now and pay later while you get paid upfront. Fill out the sections after the advance settings if you want to further customize the look and feel of the buttons or configure PayPal checkout pages. Please see the PayPal Checkout page for more information.

Have any questions or concerns? Contact our sales team today! Looking for a new Managed WordPress Hosting plan? We have you covered with our new Managed WordPress plans that simplify speed, security, and stability.

The post How to Add Paypal to Your WordPress Website Using WooCommerce appeared first on The A2 Posting.

Although this may seem overwhelming at first, there’s a WordPress plugin that provides you with all of these aspects under one roof. With the Jetpack WordPress plugin, you don’t need to install several plugins to get the features you want, since it offers nearly everything you need for your starter website.

What are the key features of Jetpack that make it unique?

Key Features of Jetpack

One of the best things about using Jetpack is that you can seamlessly integrate Jetpack to meet your needs. These are the main features of the Jetpack plugin:

• Content Delivery Network (CDN): A slow site could be cause for search engines to penalize your rankings. With a CDN, you can help your website load faster while saving on your server’s resources. The great thing about this Jetpack feature is that it’s free and provides users with unlimited CDN bandwidth.
• Social media sharing: Using Jetpack for WordPress can provide you with social media features such as share buttons that let your visitors share your content in just a few clicks.
• Lazy loading images: Jetpack has a lazy loading image feature that displays photos while a person scrolls rather than presenting them with a blank div. The feature is beneficial for websites that use a lot of images but don’t want to compress them, which can lower photo quality. This can solve many image loading problems.
• Shortcode embeds: The Jetpack shortcode lets you embed content from your social media straight to your website. With this feature, you can embed these components by copying and pasting URLs within the visual editor.
• Automated spam blocking: With the Jetpack WordPress plugin, you can save time by automatically setting it to block and remove spam. This feature allows your site visitors to browse without being distracted.

How Can Jetpack Benefit WordPress Users?

Are you still asking the question, “Do I need Jetpack for my WordPress site?” If so, then let us share with you a few benefits that the plugin has to offer for WordPress users.

It Enhances Website Functionality

One of the best things about the Jetpack WordPress plugin is that it offers many features in one place. This means that you don’t have to install a new plugin every time you want to add functionality to your website.

It Increases Website Traffic

A website that doesn’t drive traffic is useless with today’s standards. Using Jetpack for WordPress is great because it helps improve traffic to your site once it recognizes that it’s lacking in that department.

Through its Publicize feature, you can automatically have it push out new blogs that you publish to your social media pages such as on Tumblr, Facebook, and Twitter. This will help drive traffic from your social channels to your website.

It Provides Excellent Security

Nothing is more important for users than the security a website offers and this is exactly what the Jetpack plugin provides.

Its Protect feature offers fortified security by identifying and blocking any suspicious IP addresses from potentially harming a website. It also stops repeated login attempts that have failed to stave off cyberattacks.

It Offers Centralized Site Management

Running and managing several WordPress websites can be extremely time-consuming. Fortunately, the Jetpack WordPress plugin lets you streamline the site management process through a feature that lets administrators manage several sites from one interface.

Specifically, users can update all of the themes and plugins they have in each WordPress website simultaneously with just a click of a button.

Conclusion

The WordPress plugin known as Jetpack is one of the top add-ons users can get if they want to make managing their WordPress websites easier. Not only does the plugin offer better site functionality, centralized management, and improved security, but it also helps drive much-needed traffic.

At A2 Hosting, we offer the services of our experts to handle the administration aspect of your WordPress website. Getting a Managed WordPress account from us means that you can leverage numerous features, one of which is having a free Jetpack profile.

Talk to our sales team today if you would like to learn more.

The post The Key Benefits of Using Jetpack for Your WordPress appeared first on The A2 Posting.

What if we told you that WooCommerce can do all that for you? With the free and open-source plugin, maintaining your website instantly becomes so much easier.

Keep reading to find out exactly what WooCommerce is and how it can help your WordPress website.

What Is WooCommerce?

WooCommerce is an e-Commerce plugin used by over 3 million online stores. It was developed to be used as an extension to WordPress, which is why it integrates perfectly into any WordPress site. A simple but powerful platform chock full of features, it is a fantastic solution for anyone looking to sell their products online.

We highly recommend that you use WooCommerce as an extension for your shop, as it contains everything that you need for your business to run smoothly.

What Are the Benefits of WooCommerce?

WooCommerce exists to make managing your online shop simpler. It is incredibly user-friendly and offers dozens of helpful features right at your fingertips. If you’re about to open your own online shop or just want to upgrade an existing site, we’re certain that you’ll find all of the features of WooCommerce to be extremely helpful.

Customization Options

You can make changes to your store page any time you like with no additional costs, thanks to WooCommerce. You can either customize everything yourself or choose from a wide array of stylish, functional themes.

Built-In Analytics

Even if you have no experience in tracking implementation, WooCommerce comes with a built-in data analysis tool that will give you more insight into your growing business.

Integrated Payment Gateways

An efficient payment process is essential for any store. With WooCommerce, you can give your customers the option to choose from several platforms, such as Stripe, PayPal, debit or credit cards, bank transfer, or even cash on delivery.

Various Shipping Options

WooCommerce allows you to provide any variety of shipping options for your customers’ orders, like a pickup from nearby stores, local delivery, or international shipping. You can even restrict shipping options as you see fit.

Automatic Tax Calculation

WooCommerce makes it easy for anyone to calculate taxes for their online shops. All you need to do is configure the settings to automatically compute taxes on every order.

Order and Inventory Management

The built-in inventory management system of WooCommerce allows shop owners to handle and track everything in their supply. Plus, you can oversee the entire order process, from tracking orders to shipping them out.

All these amazing WooCommerce advantages will pair perfectly when used with a Managed WordPress platform, which is another worthwhile investment for any WordPress user.

What Is Managed WordPress?

Managed WordPress is a hosting platform that is fully streamlined and optimized for easy creation and management of your website. As its name implies, the web host manages your WordPress for you, taking over all the server responsibilities.

Our platform, A2 Hosting, revolves around making your site run as fast and secure as possible. We will handle all the administrative tasks, from installing WordPress, to security checks and updates, and even caching your web page. If you have any questions you can speak with our sales team for more information on our new and improved Managed WordPress plans!

WooCommerce is an incredibly powerful tool for WordPress users. When paired with our efficient Managed WordPress platform, managing your online shop will be fast and hassle-free. For an optimized eCommerce shop, get started on managed WordPress today with A2 Hosting!

The post What Is WooCommerce? Explaining the Features and Benefits appeared first on The A2 Posting.

This new PHP version has allowed popular frameworks like Symfony and WordPress to run on PHP 8.1, so you know that A2 Hosting’s servers will be able to support it! You can now take advantage of PHP 8.1 with your PHP applications hosted by us.

New Updates!

PHP 8.1 is the most recent release of PHP and features new updates, such as:

Scalar Type Hints

PHP will now receive better error messages when type hinting doesn’t match. This means that if you’re expecting a string and PHP receives an integer, PHP will throw a clear and concise error message to help you debug the issue easier. PHP will also not allow errors to occur when typing hinting at your PHP variables. This is just one of the ways PHP 8.1 helps you keep your PHP applications secure and bug-free!

Return Type Declarations

PHP 8.1 now supports return type declarations which means that PHP will be able to tell what kind of data you’re expecting back from a function. PHP 8.1 can not only help with security but also PHP performance as PHP will be able to execute the function and return the type of data you’ve requested without an extra step which speeds up PHP execution!

PHP 7 Compatibility

PHP 8.1 now has improved compatibility with PHP 7 so PHP developers don’t have to rewrite their PHP scripts for PHP 7. PHP 8.1 is backward compatible with PHP 7 so you don’t have to rewrite your code!

Contact Us Today

A2 Hosting is a leading provider of PHP hosting with a 99.9% uptime guarantee and a 24/7 support team to help you get the most out of PHP 8.1, today! Our expert Guru Crew team can help you with any questions or concerns about your PHP application, PHP 8.1 support, or migrating to PHP 8.1! We are available 24/7/365.

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Looking to learn more in-depth about the security included with all these plans? Below is an explanation of the different security tools and features included and how this can help you make sure your website is safe and secure.

The Importance of Security on Websites Using WordPress

When there’s a huge demand for a script or CMS, there’s a good chance that hackers and attackers will be keeping an eye on websites using it. At any one time, there could be hundreds or thousands of attacks happening on the internet. This makes WordPress websites a target.

As such, hackers will always be scanning WordPress websites for vulnerable areas. This means website owners who don’t properly prepare and secure their WordPress sites may be at risk. This is why you need to keep the security on your website in tip-top shape! Below are the features we offer at A2 Hosting on our Managed WordPress plans to help ensure your security success.

Managed WordPress Security Features

A2 Hosting’s new Managed WordPress plans now come with a selection of enhanced security features that have been designed to support our users such as HackScan Protection, Reinforced DDoS Protection, and KernelCare. We’re including a complete breakdown below of three of the main tools we will be including in the plans and the different security features they provide our users:

WordPress Toolkit

We include different levels of cPanel’s WordPress Toolkit on all of our WordPress plans. Below are some of the main security perks:

• 1-Click Hardening: Used to scan existing and new sites for settings that may be potentially vulnerable.
• Automatic Hardening: This can keep your site safe through the auto-application of the industry’s best practices in security.
• Mass Hardening: Scans all your sites for vulnerable settings while securing every site with just a click.
• Security Rollback: In rare cases, security updates may create compatibility issues on your website. This feature will allow you to quickly revert the changes made.
• Mass Updates: This allows you to execute updates for all of your website’s WordPress themes, core, and plugins.

Jetpack Security

We will also be including the popular Jetpack Plugin. This plugin comes with a multitude of security features including:

• Automated Spam Filtering: Protects your site by keeping spam content away.
• Brute Force Attack Protection: Works to keep your website safe by blocking unsafe login attempts from distributed attacks and malicious botnets.
• Free Daily Malware Scans (Included with our Fly & Sell Plans): This feature automatically checks your site for vulnerabilities such as malware. You’ll also receive immediate alerts if Jetpack finds problems to be addressed quickly.

A2 Optimized

All of our plans also come with our plugin, A2 Optimized. We’ve focused on various security measures with A2 Optimized, which include the following:

• Deny Direct Access to Configuration Files and Comment Form: This allows you to protect your configuration files by creating a Forbidden error to bots and web users who try to access WP configuration files.
• Lock Editing of Plugins and Themes from the WP Admin: This prevents exploits to use the built-in editing capabilities of the WP Admin.
• Login URL Change: With this, you can hide your wp-login and wp-admin pages, blocking off hackers from entry through brute force attacks.
• Regenerate wp-config salts: WP salts and security keys help to secure the site’s login process along with the cookies that WordPress implements to authenticate users.
• ReCAPTCHA on Comments and Login: Used to increase site security while decreasing spam by adding a CAPTCHA to the login screen and comment forms.
• Unused Themes & Inactive Plugin Notifications: Themes and plugins with security flaws can still have an impact on the site. Having these notifications can help you better manage other features on your site for improved security.

cPanel Security Features

There is also a wide range of improvements to cPanel’s Security. This includes:

• Directory Privacy: Blocks users who want to open a folder that you’ve designated for protection. They will first need to enter a username and password for access.
• Free SSL Certificate (Free RapidSSL On Sell plans): This allows you to secure pages on your website so that details such as credit card numbers, logins, and more are sent encrypted instead of plain text.
• Hotlink Protection: Stops your images from being used on other sites.
• Imunify360: A comprehensive security suite for real-time and proactive website protection. It provides an all-in-one security solution that features a Web Application Firewall, an Intrusion Prevention and Detection system, a Network Firewall, Patch Management, and Real-time Antivirus protection.
• IP Blocker: Blocks a range of IP addresses to stop hackers from getting access to your site.
• Leech Protection: Stops users from publicly posting or sharing passwords to restricted areas of your site.
• ModSecurity: Provides real-time monitoring for incoming threats and blocks malicious connections before reaching your WordPress website and applications.
• Patchman: This scans your account for any outdated WP malware scripts, vulnerabilities, and applications. It will then fix any vulnerabilities without doing damage to the site.
• SSH: Provides more secure file transfers.
• Two-Factor Authentication (2FA): If turned on, it will require the app on your smartphone to provide a unique security code that you must input apart from your password when trying to log into your account.
• Virus Scanner: Configurable scan of your account to identify any security threats.

Need Help? Ask Our Guru Crew

If you need support or just have a few WordPress Hosting questions, you can count on our expert Sales team! Working 24/7/365, our friendly and knowledgeable staff are more than happy to address any concerns or issues. You may also reach them via email, phone, or live chat, so you can get the answers you need when you need them.

The post New Managed WordPress Enhanced Security Features with A2 Hosting appeared first on The A2 Posting.

What does it mean to “optimize” your website?

Optimizing your website is the process of using tools, strategies, experiments, and analyses to improve your website’s performance with the end goal to drive more traffic to your website, increase conversions, and grow revenue. 

You may have heard of SEO or search engine optimization. SEO is only one aspect of optimization (albeit the most critical). 

Optimization combines a variety of dimensions for optimal website performance like

• SEO
• Your website’s content and landing pages
• Analytics
• UX (frontend)
• Web development (backend)

What is A2 Optimized?

A2 Optimized is a WordPress optimizer. It combines various ideal WordPress configurations to enhance website performance and increase security.

Performance-enhancing

A2’s motto is “our speed, your success” and A2 Optimized is no exception. Our plugin enhances speed with:

• Page caching – storing copies of your web pages in a temporary storage location for quicker access.
• Object caching – storing database query results in a temporary storage location for quicker access.
• Minifying (minimizing code) for HTML, CSS, and Javascript) in your web pages and script files.
• GZip data compression – takes chunks of data and makes it smaller.

Secure

Secondly, A2 Optimized is secure by:

• Denying direct access to configuration files.
• Preventing bots from submitting to comment forms.
• Cutting off the file editor in wp-admin.
• Preventing plugins and themes from wp-admin tampering.
• Disabling other bot-targeted services like XML-RPC.

A2 Optimized configures difficult settings so you don’t have to. If you’re not technically savvy, installing the W3 Total Cache plugin may prove challenging. But when Memcached is enabled for WordPress, A2 Optimized automatically installs the plugin for you. 

A2 Optimized combines the best caching features and enhanced security configurations making it the ideal WordPress plugin. And an extra bonus, it’s free and just as easy to install as it is to uninstall, so give it a try today to see if it’s right for you! 

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Is A2 Optimized free?

Yes, it is! 

Can I use A2 Optimized with any host?

Absolutely! A2 Optimized works with any WordPress-supporting host. However, A2 Hosting provides some of the fastest servers in the business, and also includes additional tools to speed up your site on our servers. 

Will A2 Optimized make all of my sites faster? That’s a guarantee?

A2 Optimized does speed up sites the majority of the time, but not all plugins and themes are created equal. 

If your site is slower after enabling caching in A2 Optimized, ensure you’re using the best plugins for your website by speaking with a developer.

Can I use A2 Optimized with WordFence?

A2 Optimized is compatible with the majority of features in WordFence, but we recommend disabling caching and logging in WordFence. Otherwise, if page caching in A2 Optimized is enabled, some WordFence features may not respond.

Related Links:

• Everything You Need to Know About the WordPress 5.7 Esperanza Update
• An Introduction to WordPress Toolkit Deluxe
• How to Install a WordPress Theme on Your Website
• WordPress.org vs. WordPress.com | What’s The Difference?

The post What is A2 Optimized (and how does it help your WordPress site)? appeared first on The A2 Posting.

So, let’s get started! 

Best Free SEO Plugin – Yoast

There’s no I in Team Yoast. With over 25,000 five-star reviews, there’s a reason Yoast has carved their place in the plugin marketplace since 2008.

Want to rank higher in search engines? This plugin is a necessity. They consider themselves a versatile everyman application for SEO users of all kinds–from bakery owners to corporate giants. 

Sure, there’s a Premium version, but Yoast SEO Free is packed with the most important features you’ll ever need. 

Here at A2 Hosting, we use Yoast for all of our blog posts and like good students, we double check our work before publishing it into the ether of the internet. 

What we love about YoastSEO: 

• It automates mundane processes like writing titles and meta descriptions.
• Offers advanced XML sitemaps so Google can better understand your site’s structure.
• SEO analysis. 
• Readability analysis. Arguably Yoast’s best feature. Yoast uses an algorithm to determine how user-friendly your post reads. They offer several checkpoints to increase reading accessibility for humans and search engines. 

Who it’s best for: Websites actively creating content. 

Best Free WordPress Optimizer – A2 Optimized

Lazy loading images evoke a picture of a tortoise waking up from a nap, but in fact, they’re part of what improves loading speeds. Neil Patel says people don’t have patience for slow websites with 40% abandoning a website taking longer than 3 seconds to load. 

Technically, this is under the SEO umbrella as well, but every website owner can benefit from optimizing their images. 

Images that are lazy loading mean they’re only loaded when users see them instead of loading all at once when the initial page loads. 

Smush literally smushes your images down, compressing them into a smaller size, without sacrificing the quality (this is called lossless compression). 

What we love about it: 

• A user can compress or “bulk smush” up to 50 images in one click saving you the tedious task.
• The ability to resize images. Larger files mean longer loading times. You can set max width and height dimensions.
• No daily, monthly or annual limits for images up to 5MB in size. 
• Faulty image detection to quickly locate images slowing down your site.

Who it’s best for: Websites with a large volume of images. 

Best Free WordPress Optimizer – A2 Optimized

Did you know that A2 Hosting has our own in-house WordPress plugin? 

That’s right. A2 Optimized was designed specifically to enhance and secure your WordPress website. Our experts have tested the best settings and functionality configurations of third-party plugins. 

What we love about it: 

• Page caching capabilities. Storing full copies of webpages so that they can be accessed quicker by users and in turn speed up your site.
• The ability to compress the size of HTML pages to provide page load improvements.
• WordPress hardening rules to prevent browser access to specific files.
• Bot prevention for comment forms.

Who it’s best for: Any WordPress user wanting to optimize and secure their site with minimal manual effort.

Conclusion

These are obviously only three plugins out of thousands, but they are our favorite, and frankly, practical and efficient for your WordPress needs, whatever they may be. 

If you have any questions about how A2 Hosting can help your website, contact our sales team today!  If you’re looking for a host for your WordPress website check out our new Managed WordPress Hosting plans!

Related Resources: 

• An Introduction to Website Caching (And Why It’s Necessary)
• WordPress plugins A2 Hosting does not recommend
• A Beginner’s Guide to WordPress Plugins and How to Install Them
• How to Evaluate Your WordPress Plugins (In 3 Steps)

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