- Countless hours go into testing every bit
of a new website.
From making sure each contact form works properly
and sends email accordingly
to making sure each page is laid out perfectly
and new pages are configured correctly as well.
But how hard are you working to make the backend cleaner
and more organized?
Clients often only see the front-end of a site,
but that doesn't mean the rest should be neglected.
- After the site is developed, there is more work
that needs to be put in to maintaining it.
And for developers who maintain multiple sites,
like sometimes over 50, a new site is just another one
to keep track of and update when required.
So here are five tools to make your life
a little bit easier.
- Starting off with contact form backup.
The staple of all WordPress contact forms
is probably Contact Form 7.
It's one of the most versatile and easy to use
and it's flexible.
There's a reason more than five million sites
use Contact Form 7.
Most themes and templates even come with it
pre-packaged within them.
And that's because forms on sites are the first points
of contact for visitors and potential clients.
And it's extremely important not to lose submissions.
But even if you don't use Contact Form 7,
wouldn't it be nice to have something that stores
entries, emails and messages passed through contact forms?
The answer to which is the best WordPress form
backup plugin that varies based on your needs and use cases
but they all generally do the same job.
Just make sure you have one.
- Another problem that goes hand in hand
with Contact Form 7 is emails not sending out
through your website.
And this is most likely a case of the PHP email
not being accepted by popular email clients like Gmail,
Hotmail, et cetera due to improper authentication.
And the way some hosts or servers send emails
can sometimes make it seem like emails aren't sent
from the domain or server where they say they're sent from
and email clients then throw these emails into spam
or outright reject them.
And for many developers, this can result
in hours of research into what's wrong.
- Here's where another plugin comes to our rescue.
WP Mail SMTP helps solve this
by reconfiguring the WP mail function
with proper SMTP credentials
allowing you to connect to various services,
some of which have free tiers that helps send emails
through their servers resulting in faster emails
without any hiccups.
You no longer have to wait and see
if emails are delivered or not and rummage around
changing settings in cPanel.
Instead, you get 100% of your emails
and notifications delivered.
- And whether you'll be creating new blog posts,
pages, menu items, shop items, or more,
sometimes they require the same basic setting
and configurations with just slight edits to the content.
So wouldn't it be convenient if there was a way
that you could just duplicate or clone pages
and then make fewer changes, like just the name
and the images with the rest the same.
Huge times saver, and that's what duplicator plugins
like Yoast Duplicate Post help do,
and they make cloning and duplicating
all these repetitive settings as simple as,
you guessed it, clickin' a button.
So there's no need to create a new page
and configure everything from scratch.
Ugh, who has time for that?
Start from what you already have and then edit it.
And these plugins help duplicate not just posts and pages
but other items like menu items and restaurant themes,
courses in LearnPress, WooCommerce items and more,
saving you valuable time.
- And now let's go more into organizing
and managing all your WordPress sites.
Ever been in a situation where you're out
and a client needs some quick edits,
but you don't have a computer with you?
Well, the WordPress app helps solve that problem
by allowing you to edit pages, manage plugins and more
right from your phone.
It's available on both iOS and Android.
It allows you to connect to multiple sites to edit
and manage each on the go.
You can even enable notifications for comments,
likes on posts and manage your media.
The app also helps track visitors to the site
and gives real-time stats and analytics for your sites.
Now all your website travels with you in your pocket,
wherever you are.
- And you've heard us talk about it a lot on this channel,
the Google Analytics is a free analytics tool.
Nealey could give you an earful
of how much he loves Google analytics.
And it tracks the number of visitors
that visit your website, their demographics,
how they are finding your website,
check which pages and posts on your site
get the most visits, and honestly, even more than that,
it's super valuable.
And with all this valuable data,
you can make informed decisions
to help shape your business strategy.
And this plugin will break down the stats
right in your WordPress admin panel.
- These are a few of the several tools that are useful
and worth sharing to help the broader community
of developers.
Do you use these tools as well,
or if you've used any other helpful ones,
feel free to share those in the comments below.
But that's a wrap.
Your journey does not have to end here.
We have over 250 videos for you to watch.
- Be sure to like, comment and subscribe.
Thanks for watching. This is "The Journey."