Not An April Fool’s Day Joke

The best WordPress theme pack

I hate April Fool's Day. So many pranks, and most of them aren't funny.

But I can assure you that what I'm about to tell you is not a prank or a joke.

I create dozens of websites a year. I only use WordPress now. It's all about speed of implementation and speed to market.

I've used my share of themes, too. And most of them are “just okay.” Some, of course, are great.

And others are, well, not so great. Bad, in fact. ​​​​​​​Really bad.

My theme framework of choice is Genesis. And I love their child themes (StudioPress).

I use them exclusively now. The only times I don't use them is when I'm working with clients who just have to use something else.

Despite my protestations.

StudioPress themes coupled with Thrive Content Builder (for building kick-a$$ landing, sales, and squeeze pages) is my go-to combo for building great-looking (and, more importantly, in my not-so-humble opinion, great-performing) websites.

I can quickly get a website online (less than 5 minutes), install the theme, set it up, and have a brand new online business up and running in a couple of hours.

I wouldn't use anything else. And trust me — I've explored a whole lot of alternatives.

While you can purchase the Genesis framework by itself and then purchase themes one-at-a-time, if you're like me and build dozens of websites a year, it's best if you buy the whole she-bang at once.

That's what I did, years ago.

Here's the non-April Fool's joke: Rainmaker Digital (makers of Genesis and StudioPress themes) is changing their pricing model.

On April 1, their “Pro Plus All-Theme Pack” will change from a single payment plan to an “activation + recurring annual payment” plan ($499.95 + $99.95 per year).

Up 'til then, however, you can just pay the $500 and be done with it.

Either way, this is what you get:

• All current StudioPress themes — there are 37 as of right now
• All future StudioPress themes — several are currently in development
• All design, security, and functionality updates
• All current and future third-party themes added to Pro Plus — there are 10 currently
• Support for all themes — they support StudioPress themes, while the third-party developers support their themes

​​​​​​​There really isn't a better package of WordPress themes around. Give StudioPress a look before it's too late.

How to Speed Up Your WordPress Website in 3 Simple Steps

I recently gave a presentation at the Internet Marketing of the Bay Area Meetup that showed how to speed up a WordPress website in 3 easy steps.

The presentation is below, shared on SlideShare.

In a nutshell, here's how you increase your loadspeeds on a WordPress website:

1. Use a Content Distribution Network (CDN)
2. Minify your stuff
3. Use a caching plugin

Optionally (and these are biggies but they take a LOT more time):

Optimize your images before you upload them to your WordPress site (obviously, to do this right, you have to take down your existing images, run them through Photoshop to decrease the filesize, and then re-upload them).

Use as few plugins as needed, no more. Really evaluate how much you need those 32 plugins 🙂

Seriously, just do this: Go to tools.pingdom.com and run the test with all of your plugins activated, and then re-run the test with all of your plugins deactivated.

Marvel at the results.

IMPORTANT: Update WordPress to 4.0.1

The good folks at WordPress just released Security Update 4.0.1 that fixes a host of security vulnerabilities. Go get it now.

https://wordpress.org/news/2014/11/wordpress-4-0-1/

4.0.1 fixes the following in 4.0, and fixes a LOT more from previous versions.

• Three cross-site scripting issues that a contributor or author could use to compromise a site. Discovered by Jon Cave, Robert Chapin, and John Blackbournof the WordPress security team.
• A cross-site request forgery that could be used to trick a user into changing their password.
• An issue that could lead to a denial of service when passwords are checked. Reported by Javier Nieto Arevalo and Andres Rojas Guerrero.
• Additional protections for server-side request forgery attacks when WordPress makes HTTP requests. Reported by Ben Bidner (vortfu).
• An extremely unlikely hash collision could allow a user’s account to be compromised, that also required that they haven’t logged in since 2008 (I wish I were kidding). Reported by David Anderson.
• WordPress now invalidates the links in a password reset email if the user remembers their password, logs in, and changes their email address. Reported separately by Momen Bassel, Tanoy Bose, and Bojan Slavković of ManageWP.

ALWAYS keep your WordPress up-t0-date. WordPress.org doesn't release Security Updates for nothing.

Nifty Tool to Find Out What Themes and Plugins Your Favorite WordPress Websites Are Using

Want to know what plugins and themes your favorite websites are using?

Have you ever stumbled across a website where you said to yourself, “Wow, I wonder how he did that?” Like the theme was pretty killer or there was a plugin that did something you hadn't seen before, but you know you just need it, as in right now?

If you want to find out what's installed on a WordPress website, click the Twitter button below (it's content unlockable by simply tweeting).

Now, truth be told, it doesn't capture every single plugin a site may be using. I think that's because not all “footprints” of a plugin are used on every page load. But I'm not a developer, so don't take my word for it.

Can I Put Ads on a WordPress Blog?

Can I advertise on a WordPress blog? It depends. Read below.

“We have a feature called WordAds that lets WordPress.com bloggers with moderate to high traffic and appropriate content turn on ads and earn money from their blogs.”