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WP Weekly Spotlight – David Hayes

Holder of a BA in History, David is WordPress developer and educator who loves to teach, share, and try to be kind. He runs WPShout, and strives to make it the best place online to learn to be a WordPress developer. Outside of that, he loves board games, bicycling, and puppies.

Michele: What do you do in the WordPress ecosystem?

David: I teach people how to do WordPress better

Michele: How did you get involved with WordPress?

David: I started out in WordPress in 2007. Without any idea of how a blogger could or would make money, I made a WordPress site and started writing. The business model never worked—because I lacked one, take that as your lesson, please :). I was mostly just a pro-user, but with time I started to get into customizing themes, then make a few plugins, and today I’ve built out at least dozens (if not hundreds) of WordPress sites for myself and clients.

Michele: Please tell me one story of someone who has inspired you within the WordPress Community?

David: My friend Amber Hinds is an awesome story. Similar (though more successful) than my start, Amber was a blogger. She (like me) found herself without a business model, but the ability to make WordPress sites turned into a shockingly marketable skill. She’s now running her own business–Road Warrior Creative–and has hired her husband out from his more traditional job. And just this year they’re planning to start on their dream to be mobile for bit parts of the year in their big green RV.

Michele: What does the Open Source Community mean to you?

David: To me open source is about ownership, more than anything else. I think each software library has its own little ecosystem, but those don’t come free with open source. I think both WordPress and PHP (the open source spaces I travel in most) are amazing because of the people who put in the energy to build a meaningful community out of the collection of people using the lines of code.

Michele: Please name some of your favorite plugins. 

David: Pods is my current infatuation. I find Yoast helpful, and Jetpack I’ve come to appreciate a lot

Michele: Do you have a favorite theme or framework you like to use?

David: No, not really. Twenty Seventeen is great though 🙂

Michele: If you could change one thing in WordPress, what would it be?

David: I think I’d love to see at little more structure and vision at the heart of the project. I think that Matt Mullenweg does a good job, but I think he can be a little hands-off and then (seemingly) capricious, by turns. Those things scare off some great contributors, and I’d love that that didn’t happen.

Michele: What is your most memorable WordPress moment?

David: I have very fond memories of the first WordCamp I went to, in Boston in 2013. At that point I’d used WordPress for about six years, but that was the first time that I saw in person that there were real physical people I could meet, chat with, and get to know, who were there trying to help each other.

Michele: What is one piece of advice you would give to someone just getting started with WordPress?

David: Just do it. There’s no substitute for action. Whether we’re talking about making your first site, writing your first line of code, or hiring a writer, there nothing that you get better at without trying. So you’ve got to learn to accept that it’ll sometimes be hard and sometimes you’ll spend hours or weeks frustrated. But that’s where the learning comes from.

Michele: What do you think is in store for the future of WordPress?

David: I hope it continues to empower non-technical people to publish on the web. I love the internet, and I love WordPress because it also loves the internet. And while HTML is great, WordPress has succeeded by being a better tool to have a personal web presence than anything else, and I think the latest news with Facebook and Twitter just continues to underscore that there’s no substitute for your own online space with your own tools underlying it.

You can find David Hayes online at WP Shout.

If you find these interesting and would like to be spotlighted yourself, please see our interview form.

5 Things to Consider Before Opening Your Virtual Storefront

Opening an online shop is becoming a trend these days, and it’s not hard to see why. After all, the number of digital buyers is anticipated to grow to 2.14 billion by 2021. 

Fortunately, this means your potential online customer base is constantly growing. But it also means that your competition is growing too. If you don’t want to get left behind, you need to learn how to play the game in an online space. So here are five tips to help you start a successful virtual storefront.

1. Have a business plan that covers the online space

Before jumping into the online world, you need to have a proper business plan in place. Even if you’ve already drafted one for a brick-and-mortar location, you should re-plan, as the online atmosphere is drastically different. Plan how you’ll finance your online venture, choose the right product or service to sell, and set your business goals. 

If you have any big ideas or stretch goals for the future, get them down in writing too. It’ll make it easier for you to reference and reassess as your company grows.

2. Pick the right domain name

Once you’ve got a solid business plan, it’s time to find the right domain name. Here are three tips to keep in mind as you pick your URL:

  • Don’t overdo it. Long domains can be hard to follow, giving potential customers more room for error. Stick with clarity over cleverness.
  • Match it with your business name, if possible. This helps customers remember your site. If someone else has already registered your business name as a domain, consider adding your city name after it or a “the” in front of it as a differentiator—just don’t get too complex.
  • Choose a name that is easy to spell. Amazon is a good example. It’s easy to spell and easy to remember. Do the same thing with your online shop. Avoid numbers and hyphens, too, as they are difficult to remember and may lead to typos.

3. Find a hosting setup and address security

Plenty of services offer domain hosting, web hosting, a content management system, and e-commerce options all in one, while others cater to a more piecemeal approach. WordPress has two options (differentiated by a .com and a .org domain) to let you go the route you’re more comfortable with.

Whichever way you go, make sure your host has strong security and a good reputation, especially if customers will be entering sensitive data or financial information through your site. You should also take steps on your end to learn what you can do to secure your site against potential hacks.

4. Do some online market research

To succeed in online marketing, you must understand what your customers want. Do some digging into these three key marketing strategies:

  • SEO: Invest in Search Engine Optimization to boost your rankings in Google and help customers find your business site effectively.
  • Social media marketing: Get your business onto the social media platforms where your customer base is most likely to be.
  • PPC: Bid on relevant keywords to appear in the ads at the top of searches for those terms.

An investment into all three of these areas will help your storefront gain more traction with new customers, often for less than traditional advertising efforts.

5. Invest in reliable tech

When you move into the online space, make sure you can promptly and efficiently field any issues that arise, including updating your store offerings and handling customer service requests. To do that, you’ll need a reliable tech setup, including a computer, modem/router, and a solid internet plan.

The exact models and plans you pick should depend on your budget and needs, but there are a few guidelines: The computer should have solid reviews and a support plan that will keep your device up and running. The modem/router should be advanced enough to handle up to whatever top speeds your internet plan can put out. And as for an internet provider, you’ll want to decide between a business or residential plan—the former offers benefits that the latter doesn’t, like a static IP address, better upload and download speeds, and more accessible customer service, but you may be fine with a residential plan if your operation is still small. 

Ready to Open Your Online Business?

Given how many consumers now do their shopping on the internet, having an online storefront is a great way to meet your buyers where they are. Just make sure you follow these five steps first—and you’ll be on your way to making sales and beating out competitors.

WP Weekly Spotlight – Jason Yingling

Jason Yingling

Jason has been developing with WordPress daily since 2012. He’s currently the Director of Development at Red8 Interactive in St. Louis, MO. You can find him blogging about WordPress development tips on his cleverly titled site jasonyingling.me. Or building themes and plugins on themes.pizza.

Michele: What do you do in the WordPress ecosystem?

Jason: I’m a self taught developer. I build custom WordPress sites for clients by day. And fiddle with custom themes and plugins by night.

Michele: How did you get involved with WordPress?

Jason: My first experience with WordPress was to put together a blog for my friends and myself to post on. I knew little more than HTML and CSS at the time and stumbled across the WordPress software as a free blogging option. That site did not last. But eventually the skills I learned led me into a development career.

Michele: Please tell me one story of someone who has inspired you within the WordPress Community?

Jason: I’m inspired by all the WordPressers that have been able to build their own businesses on WordPress. One of the more well-known examples is Pippin Williamson who has turned his little plugin business into an empire with Easy Digital Downloads, Restrict Content Pro, and more. All while giving back time and knowledge to the community.

Michele: What does the Open Source Community mean to you?

Jason: It’s a community about sharing knowledge and expertise to create. What’s really great about open source is all of the cool ideas that can come to life by making it easier to get started and that anyone can get involved.

Michele: Please name some of your favorite plugins. 

Jason: Easy Digital Downloads and WooCommerce are great tools for setting up an online business that anyone can get started with. Advanced Custom Fields is amazing for creating custom sites with WordPress. It’ll be interesting to see where it goes with Gutenberg.

Michele: Name a favorite theme or framework you like to use.

Jason: I typically like to start from scratch on my themes with underscores. Array Themes and Themebeans make some really great premium themes as well.

Michele: If you could change one thing in WordPress, what would it be?

Jason: That’s the thing with WordPress. If there is something that bugs me enough I can change it by contributing to the core software. One area I’d like to see improvement is the onboarding process for new users. I haven’t had the time to really dig into it, but it’s something I’m interested in tackling.

Michele: What is your most memorable WordPress moment?

Jason: The first WordCamp I went to I had the realization that I could actually do a lot of this stuff people were talking about. It made me realize that I had knowledge I could share even if I don’t know everything. No one really does anyway.

Michele: What is one piece of advice you would give to someone just getting started with WordPress?

Jason: Just get started. Don’t spend hours looking for the right tools and techniques to do things. If it works for you it is the right way.

Michele: What do you think is in store for the future of WordPress?

Jason – I think WordPress will continue to open doors for people to start their businesses and side projects and become more of a force in ecommerce.

Michele: Just for fun, share one memory that makes you proud to be a part of the WordPress Community?

Jason: I’ve had nothing but good experiences attending WordCamps. It always amazes me how willing to help out everyone is regardless of their experience level.

You can find Jason Yingling online at https://jasonyingling.meC.

If you find these interesting and would like to be spotlighted yourself, please see our interview form.

How to Keep your Website Secure from Hackers

Websites tend to be “If you build it, they will come”, but this also means hackers will want to come to check out your site as well. Is there anyway stop them from coming? There are simple steps in WordPress security and the first step is one of the most important actions to take. That is making the step to a proactive approach (instead of a reactive process) and to do it TODAY. Any website, even the simplest of test sites, and the site that does not get any traffic can be infected if not maintained properly.

The bulk of WordPress websites that are infected is typically due to out-of-date core, theme, or plugin files, use of insecure logins, or a brute force attack.  Mostly though it is due to not being updated regularly or logins. I have watched first hand a brute force attack on a test site that was not indexed by Google and had no visitors. However, while nothing is ever completely and utterly full proof, there are simple steps  to take to avoid the bad things that could happen. Let me share some simple steps anyone can take to keep their online presence safe and secure that require a little bit of time and no coding on your part.

Secure Passwords ALWAYS

A great password is the first line of defense to keep the unsavory people and bots out of your websites. When a bot comes to try to get into a WordPress dashboard, the first thing they try to use when logging in is “admin” and “password” as that combination is the most widely used login STILL. Changing it around to be “Pa$$w0rd” does not make it any more secure either. This is due to the fact it still reads as “password”. Names or anything that will still read as a legible words or phrases are the easiest and quickest hacked passwords.

Typically, all passwords should be at least 12 characters that are illegible, containing upper and lowercase letters, numbers, and special characters. The more characters in the password, the harder it is to break. If you want to test how secure your passwords are, check the How Secure Is My Password checker. This will show you how long it would take a computer bot to break your password. The checker told me that it would take a desktop PC about 377 billion years to crack one of my passwords. That is when you know you have a great password! 

Passwords should also be unique to that login and only one login. The more you use the same password, the greater opportunity that it could become found and used against you. Imagine if you used the same password on all logins. It would take a bot or a person less than 5 minutes to find out your email, website, banking, and all of your online information. No one wants that to happen. Again, always use secure and unique passwords. It is also advisable to use a password keeper like LastPass or 1Password to keep your passwords secure, but we will get to that later.

Security plugins can help!

There are many types of security plugins that do a full range of options. You can use more than one security plugin on your site as long as you do not have them set to do the same things. Here is a list of some great WordPress security plugins that are available. 

Jetpack – I use the multi-functional plugin Jetpack on all of my sites. They have a few features built in for security measures.

  • Monitor – Jetpack will notify you when your site goes down and when it comes back up again. Always be in the know when your customers can not access your website.
  • Protect – Protect used to be a stand alone plugin called BruteProtect. It was one of the highest used plugins to block out brute force attacks. Automattic acquired it last year and now has it built into Jetpack.
  • Manage – Jetpack’s Manage lets you update your plugins, themes, and core of all of your self hosted websites from one dashboard and gives you the opportunity to have automatic updates.

iThemes Security (formerly Better WP Security) – While iThemes Security is NOT a security firewall, it does give great benefits to securing a website without having to change any the code yourself. They do have a free and a Pro version. 

WordFence – While I do love WordFence’s scanner, I typically only have it downloaded to a site when I am double checking to make sure all malware has been deleted. If you feel like your site has been infected, WordFence can detect any WordPress file that has been changed from it’s original form.  If you do choose to use WordFence,  and you can enable all options, do not run it with iThemes Security, Jetpack’s Protect, or the Sucuri Security as they can cause conflict with each other. If you do choose to use WordFence with iThemes Security, only have the scanner active on WordFence. 

SiteLock – SiteLock WordPress Plugin provides complete website security management without leaving WordPress. Users can access their SiteLock Dashboard from within their WordPress back-end, allowing you to focus on what’s most important—your business, your passion, your word.

Sucuri Security – Sucuri has both a Firewall and an AntiVirus that can help block the bad guys and bots out of your website for good. Sucuri has the most widely used WordPress firewall in the industry. You can run the Sucuri CloudProxy Firewall with iThemes Security but get the list of the CloudProxy IP’s from Sucuri to put in your IP WhiteList in the iThemes Security settings.

Two-factor Authentication is a must!

Any login that you can have a two party authentication on, it is always advisable to use. There are different ways this can be set up. There can be a CAPTCHA, a Google Authorization code, or a simple math question to prove that you are a human. With some options now, you can have a choice of fingertip or facial recognition on mobile as well. If you choose to use any of these, make sure that each person accessing the dashboard has their own unique login. Shared logins can cause issues especially if using the Google Authorization code that is sent to a single cell phone.

  • iThemes Security Pro – Has multiple two-factor options including CAPTCHA. Google Authorization, and simple math.
  • Two-Factor – Works right out of the box.
  • Google Authenticator – Uses two-factor authentication by the Google Authenticator app for Android/iPhone/Blackberry.

Always update all the things!

The biggest reason malicious code gets into a website is due to a found vulnerability in code for a plugin, theme, or in an outdated core file. This is easily remedied by having your website on a regular update cycle. Some site agencies and owners will have a set day of the week to update their website, while others will update every time they login. There are plugins that can help keep your sites updated. Please make sure you are updating your site at least once per month. It is recommended to update sites once a week at minimal. We update our sites as soon as they come through however, we do test the updates on a staging server before updating the live site. 

Here are some options to help you run your site updates

  • Jetpack – Handle all of your Jetpack connected sites in one WordPress.com dashboard
  • ManageWP – A comprehensive dashboard for updating, backups, and security options. 
  • iThemes Sync – Sync up to 10 sites for free so there is one dashboard to update, run BackupBuddy, and unlock iThemes Security lockouts.
  • WP Staging – Gives you the ability to build a staging site to test updates on before updating your live site. 

Always have a backup

There is very little that is more important than having a backup system in place. As long as there is a full backup of the website including the database, you will never lose your website. No loss will ever be permanent. There are numerous ways to backup a website, some are automated, some are manual. It is up to you to decide which way you want to keep them. Do not leave it up to your hosting company unless you have direct access to the backups. If the backups are made with a plugin. always send your backups somewhere other than your server.

Here are site backup services that CSG recommends. 

  • Updraft Plus – They have a free and premium version to backup your website.
  • Jetpack’s Site Backups – Built into the popular Jetpack plugin
  • BlogVault – A premium backup service that has white-label options.
  • BackupBuddy – A premium backup plugin that integrates with iThemes Security and Sync.

Other tips that are equally important 

While these do not fit into their own category, they are just as important to remember and to follow.

  • Always use SFTP when using a file manager if it is available.
  • Using SSH or WP-CLI is even better!
  • Never, ever have your files and directories wide open at 777 or 666! That will leave them wide open and executable by everyone. Especially hackers!
  • Use a complex and unique username and password for your site’s database.
  • Use a password manager to keep track of your logins. Passwords should never be so easy that you remember them and you should never save them to your browser.  LastPass and 1Password are great tools that can be used on all popular browsers and on your mobile devices.
  • Do not EVER send passwords in an email. Attach them as a zipped text document. You can also use a sharing program like One Time Secret or Password Pusher.
  • Always have an antivirus on your machine to stop the automatic downloads from a malicious websites. Even if you are using a Mac, have an antivirus active on your machine. 
  • Use a VPN when using public WiFi. There are many good choices out there in every price rage. 

Following these simple steps can keep you and your online presence safe. Securing your site today will save you from having to pay to get your site cleaned tomorrow. If you find your site is hacked, Can’t Speak Geek can help you through cleaning a hacked website. 

WP Weekly Spotlight – Chris Wiegman

Chris Wiegman at WordCamp US 2015
Q & A with Chris Wiegman, Speaker, WordCamp US 2015 #wcus Photo Credit Casey Alexander, Creative Commons

Chris Wiegman is currently a software engineer at WP Engine working on developer tools to support the WP Engine user base as well as WordPress, PHP and other web developers.

Chris grew up primarily in Chicago and after high school thought he could make it as a musician (among other things). Fortunately, at least for Chris, those were in the days of the Y2K scare and he quickly realized he could make more money in Information Technology than in music so he left college after a semester and decided to try the IT world.

While a career in IT brought plenty of money it didn’t hold much else in the way of attraction. It turns out fixing other peoples’ computers just isn’t much fun. After his son was born about a year later he decided it was time to pursue a career in something he loved so he enrolled in the Aviation Program at Southern Illinois University (SIU) and relegated IT to no more than fixing computers at the airport as a student worker.

Fast forward to the Great Recession and, after flying private jets and nearly anything else with wings Chris was working as a captain for a small airline in Hawaii with SIU called to see if he wanted his old tech support job full-time. It paid about what a captain made in those days (next to nothing) and offered him the ability to get a master’s degree in Computer Science for free so over the next five years he moved back to Carbondale, IL, got married and made a transition back to technology with one difference. This time, instead of fixing other peoples’ computers he was writing code to build solutions to bigger problems than a crashing application.

It was at SIU that Chris discovered WordPress as a solution to make it easy for various people and groups in the Aviation department to create their own websites. To help protect those sites, as so many others on campus were being hacked, he also started Better WP Security around this time to protect both his own sites and the Aviation websites from the biggest threats they would face, their own users (it’s true that the “Away mode” feature in the plugin was actually built to stop student workers from posting about parties and other things they shouldn’t have been after hours).

After college Chris and his wife, Joy, moved to Austin, TX and quickly got involved with the Austin WordPress community while watching Better WP Security go viral in the WordPress world. A few years, and a few jobs, later he realized that Better WP Security had reached what he could do with it on his own so he sold it to iThemes where it became iThemes Security.

Chris continued to work on iThemes Security until 2015 when he moved to Florida and joined 10up. In 2016 he returned to his roots in Higher Education by joining the team at UF Health where he worked on their two large WordPress networks for hospitals, colleges, clinics and various other units in the UF Health system. Finally, Chris moved from UF Health to WP Engine in September 2018 to help better support WordPress and other developers with workflow and other improved developer tools.

While only having been officially employed as a developer since 2012 Chris has lucked out, if you will, by getting to work with some of the best and brightest in the WordPress and Higher Education spaces. Today he is considered an expert in WordPress plugin development, security, WordPress site performance and the technologies and techniques needed to succeed as a modern web developer.

When not writing code, Chris and his wife enjoy getting out to the beach near their home as well as traveling, writing and reading as much as possible. This year alone you might seem him at various conferences around the country or even hear him passing overhead with a student in a small airplane.

Michele: How did you get involved with WordPress?

Chris: While at SIU I got into WordPress as a solution to providing sites to our faculty, student groups and other stake holders. Originally I thought of it as a simpler and complimentary system to work alongside our Drupal sites but as time went on it’s abilities shined through and it eventually became the sole system I worked with.rcross: On accident, really, since I had a full time job in the finance industry at the time. I had built a server at my house with an old desktop, and had to install something on it. It took a bit to get WordPress to run (this was a Windows server in 2006) but a friend had a small site he needed hosted so I assumed I could figure it out.

Michele: Please tell me one story of someone who has inspired you within the WordPress Community?

Chris: There are so many here that naming one is nearly impossible but I would say I’m constantly inspired by folks like yourself (Michele Butcher-Jones) who have overcome so much to be where you’re at with the help of WordPress and its various communities.

Michele: What does the Open Source Community mean to you?

Chris: Democracy and shared goals are, to me, the key components of the open source community. The ability for a wide range of folks to work together to, in some cases, change the world is really unparalleled in technology.

Michele: Please name some of your favorite plugins. 

Chris: Pods Framework, SearchWP, Gravity Forms, Jetpack, Yoast SEO

Michele: Name a favorite theme or framework you like to use.

Chris: My current site is on Underscores but I’m also a big fan of Genesis

Michele: If you could change one thing in WordPress, what would it be?

Chris: Replace the organizational structure with a board of directors made up by a more diverse group of WordPress users and companies.

Michele: What is your most memorable WordPress moment?

Chris: When my plugin, Better WP Security, first crossed 1 million downloads.

Michele: What is one piece of advice you would give to someone just getting started with WordPress?

Chris: Don’t be afraid to pursue your own goals and remember WordPress is just one tool of many to get you to those goals.

Michele: What do you think is in store for the future of WordPress?

Chris: Like any project it will continue to evolve and change. As long as there is no real competition it will continue to thrive with an ecosystem that really can’t be topped.

Michele: Just for fun, share one memory that makes you proud to be a part of the WordPress Community?

Chris: While I’ve seen it a few times it’s the ability of the WordPress communities to take care of their own. From friends like Jesse Petersen and Jeff Chandler to countless others I’ve watched people in WordPress be there from the beginning to the end in ways that go far deeper than any job or club. I’ve seen Jeff, for example, be there for people who really need help and then turn around and introduce himself to me with the opening line “so you’re that asshole…” Not many places or people could manage that.

You can find Chris Wiegman online at ChrisWiegman.com.

If you find these interesting and would like to be spotlighted yourself, please see our interview form.