Category: WordPress plugins

Do you really need a WordPress security plugin? My personal opinion? No, they suck. They slow down your site. They can’t secure/detect everything. They cost money. They give a false sense of security (BIGGEST OFFENSE). Don’t worry, I’ll explain.

Super simple guide to quickly backup your WordPress remotely to S3 using an awesome free backup plugin. Now you have backups ready in case something ever happens to your site or web-server!

Google AMP sucks. Creates more problems and doesn’t always solve the one it’s supposed to. My biggest issues with it are breaking your site design/functionality, still not making your site all that fast, and worst of all…it ruins your user experience. Just go install a generic theme if you love AMP so much. I don’t… Read more Google AMP Sucks for WordPress

Swift Performance & LiteSpeed Cache are my favorite WordPress caching plugins. They work great for any site on my servers but I may prefer one over the other depending on the plugins used, and the site’s traffic.   Generally speaking… SWIFT for small/low-traffic sites with less than 400 pages and 50k monthly visits. Main Swift… Read more Favorite WordPress Cache Plugins

My honest review about this membership plugin from over 7 years of use (and still counting). It does some things well and lacks in others. I’ve written about DAP before here and here. Here are the quick facts, pros and cons about DAP:

Do you ever wonder why cache plugins suck? Truth is, they don’t. It’s your understanding of them ‘sucks’. Before you get all defensive and angry, please understand that some tools require a bit of skill and knowledge to use. I feel the same when I hear someone say “WordPress sucks”. No, it doesn’t. You just… Read more Cache plugins suck!

Three ways to optimize/compress your images to improve WordPress load time: Open up Photoshop, export to Save-for-web, JPEG 50%. Save your image in the highest quality possible, go to ShortPixel’s online compress tool, and simply upload there. Download an image compression plugin that does it automatically from WordPress. I like ShortPixel but there are many… Read more How to Optimize/Compress Your Website Images

Having many javascript files loading will slow down your page load! For that reason, I cover the 2 most common optimization tactics below: Defer them if they aren’t critical for initial page rendering. On pages where they aren’t used, disable them from loading at all.

You should uninstall the Jetpack plugin for WordPress immediately! Why?! Because it sucks and hated by much of the community: Slows down your website—EVEN WITH ALL MODULES OFF. You don’t need many of its features. Feels like adware, keeps pitching their services. I don’t trust it. (More explained in this guide.) Read on to learn… Read more Get Rid of Jetpack Plugin – Why and How

I cover different WordPress migration plugins, their pros and cons. Features, reliability, cost, ease-of-use. Enjoy!

I’ve made lists sharing my favorite plugins but never made a list of bad plugins. These are probably equally important to know as they’re known to cause many issues with sites, causing poor performance or conflicting with other plugins. I include the most popular “bad” ones below.

Yeaup, it’s still the best. And I keep getting asked everyday by clients, “Why?…why do you like ShortPixel so much?”

So much has been said about this incredibly popular WordPress plugin that just about everyone should have heard about it by now. But why is it so popular and what exactly makes MemberPress the best membership plugin for WordPress right now? Here are my top 10 reasons why MemberPress is the best WordPress membership plugin…

A quick rundown of the asset organizer plugins I’ve tried for WordPress. I’ve had a ton of sites that were loading slow because of unnecessary plugins loading on certain pages. Normally, this wouldn’t matter so much as you can always cache the page but in these instances, the pages weren’t cacheable. I wanted to prevent… Read more Plugin Script/Asset Organizer Review

Quick chat I had with a friend… Why shouldn’t I combine CSS styles and JS scripts? To combine/merge or not. It’s an endless debate over which is better. Merging CSS/JS looks great on performance test sites like Pingdom and GTmetrix but is it really the best performance for your site?

I haven’t used any recipe plugins personally but have heard developers chat back and forth and also managed a few clients using them. The old plugins were either too simple and missing key features, or they had tons of features but much too bloated. Luckily, the new generation of recipe plugins are so much cleaner-designed… Read more Best WordPress Recipe Plugins Review

WP Compress challenges the current WordPress image compression king (ShortPixel) with never-before-seen features and shockingly size-efficient algorithm!

Swift Performance easily beats WP Rocket for me. (UPDATED 2019) It’s faster, just as easy to use (although requiring a few extra clicks to setup), has more features, and performs better on a wider range of servers. WP Rocket is no slouch, it was the WordPress caching champion for several years! Let’s do some deeper… Read more Swift Performance vs WP Rocket – WordPress Cache Plugin Comparison

Honest advice from an experienced user in both WooCommerce (with WordPress) and Shopify platform. They’re both fantastic ecommerce platforms with incredible designs and features. Both are popular for all users, beginners, experts, and even large corporations. It used to be that Shopify was considered the “expensive/paid/pro” option and WordPress/WooCommerce was the “cheap/free/open-source/DIY” option…but a lot has… Read more WooCommerce (WordPress) vs Shopify – Ecommerce Store Comparison (2018)

I review different WordPress backup plugins and the many nuances I noticed about each one. There are numerous features to consider and many ways to go about it. I go over several options explaining why I like (or don’t like) each one. 

OVER 40+ WordPress cache plugins reviewed, with test scores and personal notes! I tested every single WordPress cache plugin I could find. (And yes, I have no life!) I’m a total speed addict and love tweaking my sites for the absolute best page load times. Q: Why does website speed matter so much? A: It… Read more Best WordPress Cache Plugins Review – UPDATED 2019

My favorite WordPress plugins (and also HIGHLY RECOMMENDED by experienced WordPress developers). All these plugins are clean-coded, super-fast, and best in class. I’ve also included thoughts on others that I don’t like…just so you have some context.

DAMN!!!! DAMN DAMN DAMN! I feel embarrassed to say this but gotta give credit where it’s due: SWIFT PERFORMANCE LITE PLUGIN is the motherf**ken magic wand of the WordPress speed-up universe! I’m embarrassed because I’ve made it my personal mission to stay on the cutting edge of WordPress speed-related optimizations/development and for whatever reason have… Read more Swift Performance Lite – WordPress Cache Speed Plugin REVIEW

I made a long explanation about it a long time ago but can’t remember everything I said. Basically, BackupWordpress has all the features I need for free and doesn’t nag me at all like UpDraft.   Off the top of my head, Updraft: Doesn’t back up the entire root directory unless you pay for premium… Read more WordPress Backup Plugin Review – BackupWordPress vs Updraft

I’ve studied, read up and compared many different membership plugins. I have personally tried MemberPress, MemberMouse, and DAP (still using MemberPress and DAP currently). Here is a basic summary of why I think MemberPress is best. For those wondering about my membership site. I basically sell access to 3rd-party hosted videos, downloadable videos & ebooks,… Read more MemberPress vs MemberMouse vs DAP – WordPress Membership Plugins Review (2018)

How to make WPML run faster! (instead of slow) Is WPML slowing your site to a crawl? (10-20s load times?) I hear complaints about WPML slowing down sites almost every other day. And for the most part, there’s truth to that. ANY multi-lingual plugin, not just WPML will slow down your site. But many people… Read more WPML Speed Optimization Tips

Honestly…there are only 3 good ones (ShortPixel, WP Compress, and Imagify). The rest are junk to me. Either poor compression quality, lack of features, hard to use, or don’t offer anything unique that these 3 already do.

Which is better? The free-for-all community driven software or mature enterprise-grade production-ready commercial software? Those supporting open-source software claim it has the obvious advantage of being free but more importantly, is developed by more community experts with more contributing hands. It’s likely to grow and fork faster into more exciting projects. Those support proprietary software claim it’s… Read more Open-Source vs Proprietary (closed-source)

I’m very happy with it. It works out of the box. It’s not overly complicated or pricey like Gravity Forms, or as pretty as Ninja forms. But I like that it doesn’t try to over-stylize your form. Newbies may prefer something prettier but more web-savvy guys like myself prefer having a clean well-coded form that… Read more Caldera Forms – WordPress plugin review

Some people have asked which WordPress plugin is best for redirection, to avoid 404 errors, or maybe after a change in permalinnks (url structure), or migration to HTTPS. Of all the WordPress redirection plugins, IMO Safe Redirect Manager is the best. Other plugins are consumer grade, but this one is enterprise grade (and the fastest).… Read more WordPress Redirection Tips – HTaccess vs Plugins

This is starting to become a big problem with many DAP websites being targeted. I’ve chatted personally with Veena, the author of the DAP plugin and she says the plugin is secure but I can’t help but notice other issues with the same problems I did. About 8 months ago, I was hacked every day… Read more DigitalAccessPass hacked – and changed address (PayPal IPN hack)

There’s only 3 good ones that I’ve found. They are all full-featured, updated (as of this writing), and highly regarded.   1. The SEO Framework This is the one I’m using currently on my site and I love it. Very clean and simple. All the necessary functions. Very fast, no bloat. And not obnoxious. It’s… Read more BEST WordPress SEO Plugins 2018

A fast breakdown of the strategy I used to turn my WordPress into a multilingual site to target different readers and customers from all around the world. I go over many of the typical challenges you’ll face when trying to translate your website into other languages. Read to learn about different WordPress translation plugins, ideas… Read more WordPress Multilingual Guide 2016 – Plugin Review, Language Translation Strategy, and WPML Tips

This is a review of my research regarding DigitalAccessPass (DAP) and DLGuard. Both are 2 powerful gateways built to sell your digital e-products. Their differences are mainly in the amount of options they have in delivering the product, securing the product, and displaying the product. Ultimately, I chose to go with DAP and I’m very… Read more Digital Access Pass (DAP) vs DLGuard Review