Friday, August 31, 2018

6 Best Stripe Payment Plugins for WordPress (2018)

Are you looking for the best Stripe payment plugin to accept payments on your WordPress site? Stripe is one of the most popular payment processing companies in the world. It allows you to easily accept credit card payments on your website. In this article, we will share the best Stripe payment plugins for WordPress sites.

Best Stripe payment plugins for WordPress

Why Use Stripe to Accept Payments on WordPress?

If you want to accept credit card payments on your WordPress website, then there isn’t an easier solution that Stripe.

Stripe is one of the top payment companies that does not require you to go through a lengthy process of getting a merchant account. They allow anyone with a legitimate business to accept credit card payments online. All you need to do is create a Stripe account.

The best part is that your customers do not need to have a Stripe account. They can simply enter their credit card on your website to make a payment.

Accepting online payments on your website has never been this easier. There are many popular payment services that you can use to accept credit card payments on your website.

Note: Stripe requires you to use SSL on your website to accept payments. If you haven’t already done so, then see our guide on how to how to get a free SSL certificate and how to properly switch your WordPress site to https.

Unlike other “best Stripe WordPress plugins articles”, we didn’t just create a random list of Stripe integrations. We hand-picked a list of the top Stripe WordPress payment plugins for each use-case.

That being said, let’s take a look at the top Stripe payment plugins for WordPress that you can use to start accepting payments on your website.

1. WPForms

WPForms

WPForms is the best drag & drop form builder plugin for WordPress. It is currently being used by over 1 million websites and boast a 4.9 out of 5 star rating average with over 2300+ reviews.

WPForms Pro version allows you to easily accept online payments on your website using Stripe or PayPal.

If you’re looking to create a simple order form or donation form without the hassle of a full-fledged eCommerce platform or shopping cart plugin, then WPForms is the perfect solution for you.

You can create an unlimited number of payments forms and accept credit card payments right on your website. You can add these forms anywhere on your website including posts, pages, sidebar widgets, and more.

For detailed instructions, see our step by step guide on how to easily accept credit card payments in WordPress.

2. WooCommerce

WooCommerce

WooCommerce is the world’s most popular eCommerce platform. It is available as a WordPress plugin, and you can use it to create an online store or sell items on your existing WordPress website. WooCommerce enables you to sell physical goods, digital downloads, as well as membership and subscription courses.

During the Setup Wizard, WooCommerce will ask you to choose payment providers. By default, it will give you two options: PayPal and Stripe. In case, you missed the setup wizard, you can simply install and activate the free Stripe for WooCommerce addon.

3. MemberPress

MemberPress

MemberPress is the best WordPress membership plugin. If you’re looking to sell courses or add a membership option to your website, then MemberPress is a great choice.

MemberPress comes with a Stripe integration for WordPress that allows you to easily accept credit card payments on your site. Their Stripe and PayPal addon are available for all MemberPress membership levels.

You can use it to add paywalls to your site, sell courses, lock specific downloads, etc. MemberPress supports recurring payments, has complete subscription management options and everything else that you would expect from a premier membership plugin.

For detailed instructions, see our step by step guide on how to create a membership website in WordPress.

4. WP Simple Pay Pro

WP Simple Pay Pro

WP Simple Pay Pro enables you to accept payments on your website using Stripe without adding a shopping cart plugin to your website. It allows you to create unlimited payment forms with a Stripe payment button.

You can add all the fields you will need to create a payment form. You can also use it with Easy Pricing Tables plugin to create beautiful pricing pages for your website. Their business plan enables you to add subscription or recurring payments option.

For detailed instructions, see our article on how to accept payments with Stripe in WordPress.

5. Stripe for Easy Digital Downloads

Easy Digital Downloads

Easy Digital Downloads is another popular WordPress eCommerce plugin which allows you to easily sell digital downloads from your website. By default, it comes with PayPal and Amazon payment gateways. Stripe for Easy Digital Downloads is a paid add-on which adds support for accepting online payments via Stripe on your Easy Digital Downloads powered website.

It is suitable for websites that are exclusively selling digital downloads on their website. Once installed, it will add a new payment option in your Easy Digital Downloads settings page. From here, you can set up Stripe and make it your default payment gateway.

6. LearnDash

LearnDash

LearnDash is the best WordPress LMS plugin in the market. It allows you to create and sell courses online. You can easily accept payments on your WordPress site using their free Stripe integration.

LearnDash comes with powerful features like multi-tier courses, assignments for students, quizzes, grading system, and more. You can easily set prerequisites for students such as finishing a lesson first before going to next lesson.

For more details, see our step by step guide on how to sell online courses in WordPress using LearnDash.

We hope this article helped you find the best Stripe payment plugins for WordPress. You may also want to see our guide on more ways to make money online from your WordPress website.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

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Thursday, August 30, 2018

How to Check for WordPress Security Updates (Beginners Guide)

When starting a blog, often beginners don’t know that they can check for security updates on their WordPress site. Security updates can help protect your website against malware attacks, hacks, and other common security threats. In this article, we will show you how to check for WordPress security updates.

How to check for WordPress security updates

Why You Should Check for WordPress Security Updates?

Security should be a top priority for every website owner. This is why we recommend that you always keep your website up-to-date to stay protected from hackers, malware, DDoS attacks, etc.

WordPress shows you updates for the core software, themes, and plugins in your dashboard. These 3 things are interconnected, so you need to update them regularly to avoid any compatibility issue between the old and latest versions.

Security updates will also protect your website from all new threats and malware attacks. For more details, you should check out our complete guide on WordPress security.

That being said, let’s take a look on how to check for WordPress security updates step by step.

Checking for WordPress Security Updates

WordPress has a dedicated page for the updates that you can access from your admin area. Simply login to your WordPress admin account and go to Dashboard » Updates page.

WordPress updates page

On this page, you’ll see the timestamp when your WordPress site last checked for updates. WordPress automatically checks for updates on a regular basis, however you can also click the “Check Again” button to manually check for updates.

Next, you’ll see a “Re-install Now” button which allows you to reinstall the current version of WordPress. Most users can safely ignore this button. This is only helpful for those who’re restoring their website from a backup, and they may need to re-install the latest version of WordPress core software.

After WordPress core, you’ll find the plugins section where it’ll display the latest available updates for your installed plugins. If you are looking for a specific plugin update, and you don’t find it on this page, then you can also force WordPress to check for plugin updates.

You can either update the plugins individually or select all plugins at once, and then click on the Update Plugins button.

Update WordPress plugins

Once the plugins are updated, you’ll find the WordPress theme updates section below. If there’s a latest version available for your installed themes, then you can update it from here. Similar to plugins, you can either update the themes individually or select all themes to update them in 1-click.

When you update a WordPress theme, it will update all the theme files and change the settings to default. This could mean that you’ll lose the customization that you made previously on your theme. Simply follow our guide on how to update a WordPress theme without losing your customization.

Note: Before performing any updates, we strongly recommend that you create a complete backup of your WordPress site.

Backups allow you to easily restore your WordPress site should anything go wrong. Although unlikely sometimes an update can cause compatibility issues, and this gives you a safety net.

That’s all. We hope this article helped you learn how to check for WordPress security updates. You may also want to see our guide on how to protect WordPress against brute force attacks.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

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Wednesday, August 29, 2018

How to Put Your WordPress Site in Maintenance Mode

Do you want to put your WordPress site in maintenance mode? The maintenance mode allows you to display a user-friendly notice to your users instead of a broken site during website maintenance. In this article, we will show you how to easily put your WordPress site in maintenance mode.

putting your WordPress site in maintenance mode

Why and When You Need to Put WordPress in Maintenance Mode

Normally, you can work on customizing your WordPress website without having to put it in maintenance mode. You can perform minor tweaks, publish new content, update themes and plugins without any downtime.

However, sometimes you may need to work on your website for a longer period. Like when you are manually setting up a new theme or configuring a new plugin that changes the behavior of your website. During this time your website may appear broken to your users for a period of time.

If your website has a lot of traffic, then you don’t want your users to see a broken website because it creates a bad user experience and give them a poor impression of your brand.

Putting your WordPress site in maintenance mode allows you to remedy that with a user-friendly notification, alternative links to visit, and provide a time frame for when the maintenance will be done. This creates a better user experience and a positive brand image among your users.

If you are working on a new website, then you can use the same concept to put your website in an under construction mode. This will allow you to build anticipation among your users and create hype for your upcoming website.

Having that said, let’s take a look at how to easily put your WordPress site in maintenance or under-construction mode.

We will show you two different plugins to create coming soon or maintenance mode pages. You can choose the one that works best for you.

1. Setup Maintenance Mode Using WP Maintenance Mode Plugin

First thing you need to do is install and activate the WP Maintenance Mode plugin. For more details, see our step by step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, you need to go to Settings » WP Maintenance Mode to configure the plugin settings.

WP Maintenance Mode

The plugin’s setting screen is divided into five tabs. By default, you will see the General options tab.

The first option under General is Status, which is set to Deactivated by default. In order to put your WordPress site into maintenance mode, you need to set it to ‘Activated’.

If you want search engines to be able to see your website while it is in maintenance mode, then you need to set ‘Bypass for Search Bots’ option to Yes. If you have an established website, then we recommend setting this to Yes.

WP Maintenance Mode allows you, the administrator, to have full access to your website during the maintenance mode. This means that you can see the working website and login to your WordPress dashboard.

You can specify which user roles should be allowed to access the front and backend of the website while it is in maintenance mode. By default, it is set to Administrator only.

Other options on the page are self-explanatory. Once you are satisfied with the settings, you need to click on the Save settings button to store your changes.

Creating Your Own Splash Page for Maintenance Mode

WP Maintenance Mode allows you to create beautiful landing pages to display during maintenance mode. To create your splash page, simply click on the Design tab on the plugin’s settings page.

Design your maintenance page

First, you need to provide a title, heading, and content to display on your maintenance page. If you are creating a coming soon page, then you can change the content accordingly.

Next, you need to select the text color and background type. You can choose from the background color, choose a pre-defined image, or upload your own background image.

Once you are done with the settings, don’t forget to click on the save changes button to store your settings.

Adding Countdown and Newsletter Signup on WordPress Maintenance Page

If you are putting WordPress in coming soon mode or just want to let users know when your site will be up, then you can use a countdown timer module that’s included with the plugin.

You can set it up by going to the Modules tab on the plugin’s settings page. From here you can select a start date and enter the remaining time.

Adding a countdown timer

You can also allow users to subscribe and be notified when your website is back online. These users will be notified via the plugin, and they will not be subscribed to your email marketing list.

Subscribe to be notified

You want to make sure that your WordPress site is able to send emails. For more details, see our guide on how to fix WordPress not sending email issue to test and fix WordPress emails.

Next, you can also add links to your social media profiles in the coming soon mode or maintenance mode page. Simply enter your social media profile URLs, and the plugin will automatically display the social buttons.

Add social media buttons

Optionally, you can also enable Google Analytics and add your tracking ID in the plugin settings.

Don’t forget to click on the save settings button to store your changes.

WP Maintenance mode also allows you to set up a pre-programed live chat bot which includes an interactive conversational help box. You can use this feature to politely ask users if they would like to subscribe.

Manage bot settings

If you enable the bot, then it will hide the maintenance mode content you had set in the General settings page. This is how the chatbot would look on your website.

Chatbot preview

If you are collecting user data through the signup forms on your maintenance mode or coming soon mode page, then you would want to make it GDPR compliant.

You can do this by switching to the GDPR tab on the plugin’s settings page. From here you can enable the privacy module and select your privacy policy page.

GDPR settings

You can now visit your website in a new browser window with the incognito mode, and you will be greeted with your maintenance mode or coming soon page.

Preview of the maintenance mode page

2. Setup Maintenance Mode using SeedProd Plugin

SeedProd is a premium WordPress plugin that comes with beautiful designs and guaranteed support.

The first thing you need to do is install and activate the SeedProd plugin. For more details, see our step by step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, you need to visit you need to visit Settings » Coming Soon Pro page to setup coming soon or maintenance mode page.

Enable maintenance of coming soon mode

First, you need to select the status. You can select ‘Enable Coming Soon Mode’ or ‘Enable Maintenance Mode’. You can also select redirect mode which allows you to simply redirect your users to some other website.

After choosing maintenance or coming soon mode, click on the ‘Save all changes’ button.

Next, you need to click on ‘Edit Coming Soon/Maintenance Page’ button. This will open the SeedProd theme customizer.

Select a theme

You will now see a list of beautiful ready-made themes that you can use for your maintenance or coming soon page. Click to select a theme and SeedProd will show customization options for the theme.

Theme options

From here you can easily add your own logo, background, change content, add email subscription form, social sharing buttons, countdown timer, progress bar, etc.

SeedProd also supports all popular email marketing services. You can simply select your email service provider and setup a signup form by following on-screen instructions.

Email sign up form

Once you are satisfied with the changes, don’t forget to click on the save button to store your changes. You can now visit your website in an incognito mode to preview your maintenance mode page in action.

SeedProd preview

For more detailed instructions, see our article on how to create coming soon pages in WordPress with SeedProd.

We hope this article helped you learn how to easily put your WordPress site in maintenance mode. You may also want to see these examples of maintenance page ideas that you can use on your website.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

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Tuesday, August 28, 2018

How to Fix the 504 Gateway Timeout Error in WordPress

Have you ever gotten a 504 gateway timeout error on your WordPress site? This error can make your website inaccessible to users. What’s worst is that it can disappear and reappear on its own if the underlying issue is not fixed. In this article, we will show you how to fix the 504 gateway timeout error in WordPress.

Fixing 504 gateway timeout error in WordPress

What Causes 504 Gateway Timeout Error?

The 504 gateway timeout error is usually caused when a server is unable to connect to an upstream server to complete a request.

For example, if you are using a website firewall like Sucuri, and it is unable to connect to your WordPress server, then you will see a 504 gateway timeout error.

The error page’s appearance and the message may be displayed differently depending on your WordPress hosting company, the proxy server, or the browser you are using. Following are some of the most common 504 gateway timeout error messages.

  • 504 Gateway Timeout
  • HTTP 504
  • 504 ERROR
  • Gateway Timeout (504)
  • HTTP Error 504 – Gateway Timeout
  • Gateway Timeout Error

504 Gateway timeout error

While the most common reason for the error is a proxy server unable to reach the upstream server, it can also be triggered by other hosting configuration issues.

That being said, let’s see how to easily troubleshoot and fix the 504 gateway timeout error in WordPress.

1. Wait and Reload

Sometimes the 504 gateway timeout error may simply be caused by a temporary glitch on your WordPress hosting servers. Give it a few minutes and then try reloading your website.

If the issue disappears, then you don’t need to take any further steps. However, if the error persists or reappears after a while, then continue reading to troubleshoot and fix the problem.

2. Turn off VPN

Turn off VPN

If you are using a VPN service to browse the web, then try disabling it. Sometimes your VPN server may not be able to get a response from your managed WordPress hosting server, and this will result in 504 gateway timeout error.

If your website reappears, then this means that the VPN server was the culprit. Now if using the VPN is important for you, then you can try switching to a different VPN server. If you are seeing the error even after changing servers, then you would want to contact your VPN service provider for support.

3. Turn off Website Firewall

If you are using a DNS level website firewall like Sucuri or Cloudflare, then try to temporarily disable the firewall. This will allow you to connect to your WordPress hosting server directly.

Sucuri 504 error

If that fixes the issue, then it’s likely that your hosting server is blocking the firewall IP addresses which can cause this issue. You will need to contact your firewall service provider to get their list of IP addresses, and then contact your web host to whitelist those IPs.

Sometimes disabling the firewall might show you the actual server error notice. In that case, you should refer to our list of common WordPress errors to fix the specific issue.

4. Disable Your Network Proxy

If you are connected to the internet through a proxy server, then that server may be unable to get a response from your WordPress website.

Try accessing your website using a different internet connection or use online services to see if your website is down just for you or everyone.

If it is down just for you, then you need to change your network settings. You can contact your internet service provider or a network admin to troubleshoot the issue for you.

5. Change Your DNS Servers

Your internet connection uses something called DNS servers. These servers help your computer connect to the different servers on the internet.

If the DNS servers you are using are down or unable to connect to your website, then you could see a 504 gateway timeout error. The easiest way to check this is by changing the DNS servers your device is using.

On Windows computers, you can find them under Control Panel » Network and Sharing Center screen.

Changing DNS servers in Windows

On Mac computers, you can find them under Settings » Network. Click on the Advanced button, and then select the DNS tab.

DNS settings on Mac

You can change your DNS server address to 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4 and apply changes.

Try visiting your website now. If this solved your error, then you are all done. The problem was with your internet connection, and it is now fixed.

6. Clean up your WordPress Database

A corrupt WordPress database may also trigger a 504 gateway timeout error. Don’t worry, your WordPress data is most likely safe. However, your database may need a little a bit of spring cleaning.

This can be easily done by optimizing your WordPress database using phpMyAdmin or using a plugin like WP-Sweep. Make sure you backup the WordPress database before performing any action.

7. Deactivate WordPress Plugins and Switch to Default Theme

WordPress plugins and themes are less likely to cause a 504 gateway timeout error. However, if a plugin or theme is making too many requests to the server, then it is likely that some of these requests may drop off and trigger a 504 gateway timeout error.

To test this, you need to deactivate all WordPress plugins via FTP.

Deactivate all WordPress plugins

After that, visit your website to see if the error has resolved.

If it is, then one of your plugins was causing the issue. You now need to activate all plugins one by one until you can reproduce the error. This will help you locate the plugin responsible for the error.

If deactivating plugins didn’t solve your issue, then you would want to check your WordPress theme. You will need to switch WordPress theme via phpMyAdmin.

After switching your theme to the default WordPress theme, visit your website to see if it’s working.

8. More Troubleshooting

If all else fails, and you are still unable to solve the 504 gateway timeout error, then follow the steps in our ultimate WordPress troubleshooting guide for beginners.

Finally, as a last resort, you need to reach out to your hosting provider for support. They may be able to fix the issue or point you in the right direction.

We hope this article helped you learn how to fix 504 gateway timeout error in WordPress. You may also want to see our guide on how to protect WordPress against brute force attacks.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

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Monday, August 27, 2018

How to Ask Google to Recrawl URLs of Your WordPress Site

Recently one of our readers asked if it’s possible to get Google to recrawl specific URLs? If your website is new, then Google will take some time to crawl and display new pages or changes in search results. In this article, we will show you how to ask Google to recrawl URLs of your WordPress site.

How to ask Google to recrawl URLs of your WordPress site

When and Why Do You Need to Ask Google to Recrawl URLs?

When you add pages and posts in your WordPress site, Google will take its due time to crawl these new links. The same time is required by Google to crawl the updated URLs of your WordPress site.

When you manually ask Google to recrawl your URLs, then it will put your new link in the queue to get indexed on Google. A Google search bot will start recrawling your links one by one and display them in search results.

Some of the common reasons for asking Google to recrawl URLs are:

  1. When you add a new post or page
  2. When you make changes to an existing post or page
  3. If you think a page should be indexed in Google, but you can’t find it

For the first two options mentioned above, you can automate this process using XML sitemaps. Google is pretty good at indexing website because that’s their business.

However we have seen specific pages go missing from Google (for no reason). Sometimes just asking Google to recrawl will make the page appear right away.

That being said, let’s take a look on how to ask Google to recrawl URLs of your WordPress site and display them in the search results.

Asking Google to Recrawl URLs of Your WordPress Site

First you need to get your site listed on Google and then Google will automatically start crawling your URLs. However, you can also request Google to recrawl your new links for any cases that we discussed above.

You can follow the steps below to ask Google to recrawl URLs of your WordPress site.

Step 1: Using the URL Inspection Tool to Recrawl URLs

URL inspection tool is available in the new and updated Google search console (formerly known as Google webmaster tools). This tool helps you identify the issues related to your URLs and offer solutions to index your links in Google.

It will also help you troubleshoot the common WordPress errors for your URLs and other URL indexing issues.

In the new Google search console, you need to select your property or website to check the URL index status.

Note: If you don’t have a website listed on Google webmasters tool, then first you need to add it as a new property to continue with the URL inspection tool.

Select property

After selecting the property, you need to go to the URL Inspection tool on the left menu and add your URL in search field that you want to inspect.

Inspect URL

It will get the data about your URL and display it in the Google search console dashboard.

If your URL is on Google, then you’ll see a success message with the useful information about your link. You can expand the findings and see if there are any other issues to be solved. If not, then you’ll see the submission request from Google to recrawl and index your URL.

However, if the link isn’t on Google, then it’ll show you the errors and a possible solution to get your URL indexed on Google.

You can solve the issues and inspect the URL again until you get the success message. After that, a request is initiated to recrawl your URL. Simply repeat the same for all your URLs that you want Google to recrawl.

Step 2: Submitting XML Sitemap to Recrawl URL

If you’re still not sure about the indexing of your URLs on Google, then you can simply submit an updated XML sitemap with your new URLs to Google webmaster tools. Sitemaps are the quickest way to get your new URLs indexed on Google.

For this step, we recommend using Yoast SEO plugin which includes flexible options to properly set up your XML sitemaps in WordPress.

In your WordPress admin area, you need to go to SEO » General page. Under the Features section, you need to turn on the XML sitemaps setting.

Enable XML sitemaps

Don’t forget to click on the Save Changes button.

Next, you can view the updated sitemap by clicking on the question mark icon next to the XML sitemaps heading. If your new links are visible in this sitemap file, then you can go ahead and submit it to Google webmasters tool.

View XML sitemaps

To submit the XML sitemaps, you need to visit the new Google Search Console and go to Sitemaps on the left menu. Simply add your XML sitemap link and click on the Submit button.

Submit XML sitemaps

This updated sitemap will ask Google bots to quickly recrawl your new URLs and display them in the search results.

Note: you only have to upload the sitemap once. Google recrawls your sitemap regularly, and it will add updated posts quickly once your sitemaps are added.

We hope this article helped you learn how to ask Google to recrawl URLs of your WordPress site. You may also want to see our ultimate guide on how to improve WordPress SEO.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

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Friday, August 24, 2018

5 Best WordPress Caching Plugins to Speed Up Your Website (2018)

Are you looking for the best WordPress caching plugins? Caching helps you speed up your WordPress site and boost performance. In this guide, we will share the best WordPress caching plugins for your site.

Best WordPress caching plugins to speed up your website

What is Cache?

Cache is a collection of temporarily stored data for quick access upon request. In computers, information is usually stored on hard disk. When it is requested, a computer needs to run several processes before the information can be presented.

Caching solves this issue by processing the frequently requested information and then storing it in a temporary storage or memory. This allows computers to access it the file quickly.

The same caching concept can also be used by WordPress websites to improve performance and make your website load faster.

You see, WordPress is a dynamic content management system. This means that each time a user visits your website, WordPress fetches information from the database and then runs several other steps before the web page is sent to the user’s browser. For details, see our article on how WordPress actually works.

This makes your website load slower when a lot of users are visiting it at the same time.

Caching allows your WordPress site to skip a lot of steps. Instead of going through the whole page generation process every time, your caching plugin makes a copy of the page after the first load, and then serves that cached version to every subsequent user.

How caching works?

Why is Caching Important

Caching is important because it reduces the load on your WordPress hosting servers and makes your website run faster. You need proper caching set up to improve your WordPress speed and performance.

A faster website improves user experience and encourages users to visit more pages. This also helps you boost engagement and the time users spend on your website.

A faster website helps you drive even more traffic to your website from organic search. Google gives a significant SEO advantage to faster websites which helps you rank higher in search results.

That being said, let’s take a look at the best WordPress caching plugins that you can use to boost your website speed.

1. WP Rocket

WP-Rocket

WP Rocket is the best WordPress caching plugin in the market. It is the easiest and most beginner-friendly caching plugin, which is a big help if you don’t know the technical terms used for different caching options.

It allows users to instantly cache their website with one-click. It’s crawler automatically fetches your WordPress pages to build up the cache. The plugin then automatically turns on recommended WordPress caching settings like gzip compression, page cache, and cache pre-loading.

WP Rocket also includes optional features that you can turn on to further improve performance. This includes lazy loading images, CDN support, DNS pre-fetching, minification, and more.

2. W3 Total Cache

W3 Total Cache

W3 Total Cache is one of the most popular WordPress caching plugins. It is a comprehensive WordPress caching plugin with a ton of options which may make it appear a bit intimidating for beginners.

It includes all the features you will need to properly set up WordPress cache. This includes page cache, object cache, gzip compression, limited minification support, CDN support, and more.

Beginners may find W3 Total Cache a bit difficult to use. For detailed setup instructions, see our article on how to install and set up W3 Total Cache plugin.

3. WP Super Cache

WP Super Cache

WP Super Cache is another popular WordPress caching plugin. It is free and comes highly recommended by many of the top WordPress hosting companies.

WP Super Cache plugin includes all recommended caching features that you will need to speed up your website. This includes gzip compression, page cache, cache pre-loading, CDN support, advanced cache preload, and more.

It includes a comprehensive settings section with a separate tab for easy setup. For detailed instructions, see our article on how to install and set up WP Super Cache plugin.

4. Sucuri Firewall

Sucuri

Sucuri is the best WordPress firewall and security plugin. As a website firewall, Sucuri comes with a built-in option to cache your website content and enable gzip compression with a click of the button.

It is the best option for any website because Sucuri is a DNS level firewall. This means that they can serve cached content to your users even before their request reaches your website. This gives your website an incredible performance boost.

5. Built-in Cache Plugins from Hosting

Caching helps significantly reduce the load on hosting servers allowing them to perform optimally. This is why many managed WordPress hosting companies now offer their own built-in caching solutions.

If your website is hosted with one of the following hosting companies, then you can use their built-in caching plugins for your websites.

SG SuperCacher

SiteGround offers a built-in caching solution with all their hosting plans. It can be enabled by from your hosting account’s cPanel dashboard.

SiteGround SuperCacher

Once enabled, you can install and activate the SG Optimizer plugin to manage SuperCacher settings directly from your WordPress admin area.

WP Engine Caching

WP Engine is one of the best managed WordPress hosting companies. Their hosting plans come with built-in caching and performance optimization.

You can manage settings and clear cache from your WordPress admin dashboard. Simply click on the WP Engine menu and under the General settings tab you can manage WP Engine cache settings.

For more advanced caching options, you can install and activate WP Engine Advanced Cache plugin. The plugin provides you some additional controls to manage WP Engine cache settings for your website.

Bluehost Caching

Bluehost is one of the biggest hosting companies in the world and an officially recommended WordPress hosting provider. Their hosting plans include built-in caching that you can enable from your hosting dashboard.

After logging into your hosting account, select your site from ‘My Sites’ page and then click on the performance tab. From here you can turn the cache on / off and change other advanced caching settings.

Bluehost caching

We hope this article helped you find the WordPress caching plugin to speed up your website. You may also want to see our list of best WordPress plugins for business websites.

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Thursday, August 23, 2018

How to Show Before and After Photo in WordPress (with Slide Effect)

Do you want to show the before and after photos on your website? A before and after photo can be useful to display side by side comparison of two identical images with minor differences. In this article, we will share how to easily show before and after photo in WordPress.

How to show before and after photo in WordPress

How Does the Before and After Photo Effect Work?

Normally people use Photoshop to create a before and after image. It’s a single photo that shows before / after effects, and you can add it as a static image on your WordPress website.

A functional photo slider is an interactive way to show 2 different versions of a similar image in full size. You can move the slider handle to compare both images side by side.

Let’s take a look on how to easily show before and after photo in WordPress.

Showing the Before and After Photo in WordPress

First thing you need to do is to install and activate the Twenty20 Image Before-After plugin. For more details, see our step by step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, you need to create or edit a page/post in your WordPress admin area where you want to show the before and after image. Now, click on the Add Twenty20 button above the text editor.

Add twenty20 button

It’ll open the WordPress Media Library in a popup. From here, you need to select two images for the before and after slider.

Before after images

Once the images are selected, click on the Insert button.

Next, it’ll display the text fields to add content on top of the before and after photos. You can also add width for the slider, offset value, slider direction, and more.

Insert before after photo shortcode

After that, click on the Insert Shortcode button to add the before and after photo in your WordPress page.

You can also use the Twenty20 image widget to display the before and after photo in your WordPress sidebar. Simply go to Appearance » Widgets section in your WordPress admin, and then drag the Twenty20 Slider widget in your Sidebar widget area.

Sidebar widget for before and after photo

The Twenty20 Slider widget has similar settings for the before and after photo as we shared above in this guide. You can select the 2 images one by one in the widget settings to create the before and after photo slider.

Now, you can visit your website to see the before and after photo in action.

Before and after photo

As the users slide the handle towards each image, the other image will become visible. Users can take the slider all the way to the right or the left to see the full before and after image. As the users slide the before and after labels will automatically disappear.

Slide before and after image

This plugin works great with the popular WordPress page builders like Beaver Builder and Elementor to quickly show before and after photo in your website pages without using shortcodes.

We hope this article helped you learn how to show before and after photo in WordPress. You may also want to see our guide on how to add magnifying zoom for images in WordPress.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

The post How to Show Before and After Photo in WordPress (with Slide Effect) appeared first on WPBeginner.



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