Category Archives: How-to

how to setup HTTPS in wordpress site

What is HTTPS and How to Setup HTTPS in WordPress Site?

One of the most important features which you should have to ensure that your WordPress website is secure and safe for those users who want to exchange their important information on your website while shopping or doing other stuff. Setting up your WordPress website to force use the most secure transaction system is not that difficult to implement, but it needs a lot of decision making when to enforce a secure transaction process for the user.

You would have seen on some websites, their URLs starting with “HTTPS” like Facebook, Google, and many others. An “HTTPS” enabled websites to add a security layer to the data communication between your computer and the server. The data communication is encrypted with an SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) certificate.

The next question in your mind will surely be “Why do you need it?”.

Any sensitive information like your credit card details, your passwords, or anything which could be called sensitive, needs to be safe whenever it is sent towards the server so that nobody between you and the server you are interacting with can get it. That’s why most of the shopping sites don’t use “HTTP”. The next important question is how you can enable SSL on your WordPress site. It is very easy.

Setting up your WordPress site with HTTPS:

First, you have to purchase an SSL certificate for your site and install it on your domain. Then go to the WordPress admin and open the settings page. There you will see these two text fields.

wordpressURL fields

Just change your URLs by putting adding “s” after “HTTP” and save it. The next step is to open your “.htaccess” file which is residing in the root of your WordPress and put this code into that file.

RewriteCond %{HTTPS} !=on
RewriteRule ^/?(.*)  https://%{SERVER_NAME}/$1 [R,L]

Let me explain the above code.

First-line will check whether the URL which has been entered by the user is having “HTTPS” or not and will be true if it is not having “HTTPS”.

In this part “https://%{SERVER_NAME}/$”

{SERVER_NAME} = “domain name”
^/?(.*) = “the slash is representing that slash, which is coming after the domain name and? (.*) means nothing or everything”
$ = “this variable will be having everything user entered after the domain name”
In “[R, L]”, “R” means redirect, and “L” means this was the last rule so stop further processing.

Save your “.htaccess” file and you are all done. Stay safe.

create a froum on WordPress without PHP scripts

Create a forum on WordPress without PHP Scripts

WordPress is known as the easiest and simplest solution to make your own website with a low cost or even free if you use their service. However, it’s also very powerful with plugins and themes being developed daily, this means that you can do anything with it such as creating a forum on WordPress. bbPress sounds like a good idea isn’t it? But no, we’re not going to name it in our list today because we found its alternatives.

What are the benefits of having a  WordPress Forum Without PHP

Of course! Building a forum website with WordPress can be really difficult especially when it comes to people spamming with their advertising posts. But I’m sure you may have found an add-on to fix that. Let’s look at the bright side of it. First of all, you will be receiving quality contents from the community on whatever niche your website is about. One or more of those posts can lucky enough to rank on top of Google and you get more visitors. Forum can also be a great way to retain loyal readers. More & more people will come back and talk with others, etc.

What are the best plugins to create a Forum on WordPress

Vbulletin (commercial forum script) or phpBB doesn’t seems like a bad software at all except the fact that they’re PHP Scripts. You will have a hard time managing your blog and the forum because they both run on a whole different system. That’s why we do not recommend you use them along with WordPress.

But there is no need to get stuck in the hassle of coding as building  WordPress forum in not dependent on PHP Scripts, there are many plugins which can do this favor to create a WordPress forum using easy plugins without writing a single code. So let’s get started with the best ones for creating a forum on WordPress without PHP Scripts:

1. DW Question & Answer

dw-question-answer-1

If you are looking for a question & answer plugin for WordPress I think you just found one. ‘DW Question & Answer’ is small, neat, and has all the basic features that should be included. With a little of coding, you can quickly turn it into a forum.

2. WP Symposium

wp-symposium-plugin

While bbPress‘s main job is to create a simple forum then WP Symposium can help you do more than that, it can help you make a small social network with features like creating groups, creating level, messaging & chatting, email, inbox and many other functions. Currently it has 2 packages, free & paid.

What about you?

Which forum plugin are you using on your WP site. Do you think that these 2 plugins  worth a try? We also wanted to included bbPress too but didn’t because it’s too well-known.

WordPress, WordPress development agency

How to Add Styled Single Post Navigation to Genesis

Beside having related posts under each articles to keeps your visitors staying at your site longer, we could also use the next / previous navigation feature that were built right into the Genesis already. What it does is that it will have 2 text right next to each other but not that close though and under it will be your latest post and then the post before that. It could look something like this.

post-navigation-for-genesis

You see, something like that will not help you generate more pageviews and lower down the percentage of bounce rate. We’ve got to do something more creative so that it can capture the attention of readers. How about a 2 arrows (next and previous posts) on each side of the page.

That’s nice right? As you scroll down the page, it will also follow you. I can guarantee that most people will click to find out what the pointing is all about. This styled navigation can easily be added into any Genesis Child Themes with a plugin called Genesis Single Post Navigation by Arne Brachhold. Even though I recommended you not to install much plugins especially just for customizing purposes, this one is necessary because it’s useful but also a lightweight plugin.

Let’s add it into WordPress…

First you will need to visit the plugin page to download or you can go straight to Plugins > Add New and then install it there. Done! Yeah I’m serious, there is no more steps for this except you need to activate the plugin but I’m sure you already done so. To see if the new post navigation is working correctly, just click on a random post.

I hoped that this short tutorial has helped you to install a brand new fancy navigation in every single posts to keep readers active on your site as much as possible.

create a widget below first post excerpt in genesis

How to create a widget below first post excerpt in Genesis

Beside having great SEO built in feature, the Genesis Framework also good for customizations and editing even when you’re just a beginner with small amount of coding knowledge. As your blog is growing you’ll be start making money through several sources such as Google Adsense. Having good spots to place those banners are really important. In today’s post, I’m going to show you how to insert any advertising code or a WordPress widget right under the first post in your Genesis child theme. Actually, this will going to take effect on your homepage only.
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