Recommended Reads for International Day of Disabled Persons
WordPress.com, as my colleague Anne recently wrote, continues to be a space for people to tell their personal stories and amplify their voices. Today, International Day of Disabled Persons, we’d like to highlight a few perspectives and thoughtful reads to raise awareness of the myriad experiences of disabled people.
This reading list is merely a starting point — be sure to explore more posts tagged with “disability” in the WordPress.com Reader, for example. We hope it introduces you to writers and disability rights advocates whose work you may not be familiar with.
“How to Properly Celebrate a Civil Rights Law During a Pandemic in Which Its Subjects Were Left to Die” at Crutches and Spice
Imani Barbarin at Crutches and Spice writes about life, current events, entertainment, and politics from the perspective of a Black woman with cerebral palsy. Read her reflections on the death of actor Chadwick Boseman, or the anniversary of the Americans With Disabilities Act (which turned 30 this year), excerpted below.
Prior to the pandemic, disabled people were told that the accessibility we needed was cost-prohibitive and unlikely to be implemented only to watch as the institutions that barred our inclusion make those tools available now that nondisabled people needed them. We called for polling places and voting procedures to be made accessible only to watch as politicians shut down polling places in predominantly black neighborhoods. We begged for businesses to be inclusive and accessible to disabled customers only for accessibility to be pitted against small businesses and workers’ rights.
And now, unironically, they celebrate.
They celebrate not weighed down by their own words calculating the amount of acceptable death it would take to reopen the economy. They post our pictures celebrating their own “diversity and inclusion” without confronting the fact they only became accessible because of a pandemic and as they loudly push to reopen, they amplify our voices for now with no plan to continue to include the disability community as businesses start to reopen.
I’m angry.
But I am also filled with love and gratitude for my community.
#ADA30InColor at Disability Visibility Project
Founded by Alice Wong, The Disability Visibility Project is a community focused on creating and sharing disability media and culture. You’ll find a range of content, including oral histories, guest blog posts, and a podcast hosted by Wong and featuring conversations with disabled people.
If you’re not sure where to start, dive into the 13 posts in the #ADA30InColor series — it includes essays on the past, present, and future of disability rights and justice by disabled BIPOC writers. Here are excerpts from two pieces.
More than anything, however, it was my blindness that allowed me to experience perhaps the biggest impact of this transition. Being able to attend a “regular” school as opposed to the school for the blind and take classes with sighted peers every day, becoming friends with classmates who have different types of disabilities, having Braille placards by every classroom door at a school not intended solely for only blind students, meeting blind adults with various jobs — ranging from chemist to statistician to lawyer — was my new reality. Even as a teenager, I knew it was a great privilege to be in this new reality — America, where there were laws in place to protect the rights of disabled people to live, study, play, and work alongside the nondisabled. At the same time, this reality began to feel like a multi-layered burden as I began to form and understand different elements of who I am: a disabled, 1.5 generation Korean-American immigrant.
“Building Bridges as a Disabled Korean Immigrant” by Miso Kwak
Even with medical documentation on file, disabled BIPOC face added suspicion, resistance, and stigma from instructors, particularly for invisible disabilities. We are also stereotyped in racially coded ways as unreasonable, aggressive, and “angry” when we self-advocate. We are especially heavily policed in graduate and professional programs, and this is apparent in our representation — while 26 percent of adults in the US have a disability, only 12 percent of post-baccalaureate students are students with disabilities. This is even lower among some ethnicities — only 6 percent of post-baccalaureate Asian American students have a disability.
“The Burden and Consequences of Self-Advocacy for Disabled BIPOC” by Aparna R.
“My Favorite Wheelchair Dances” at Alizabeth Worley
Alizabeth Worley is a writer and artist with moderate chronic fatigue syndrome. She writes about topics like health and interabled marriage (her husband has cerebral palsy). In a recent post, Alizabeth compiles YouTube clips of beautiful and inspiring wheelchair dances, some of which are from Infinite Flow, an inclusive dance company. Here’s one of the dances she includes in her list, featuring Julius Jun Obero and Rhea Marquez.
“The Intersection of Queerness and Disability” at Autistic Science Person
Ira, the writer at Autistic Science Person, explores the parallels between queerness and disability, and the way other people make assumptions about their body.
I often put down Female for medical appointments even if there’s a Nonbinary option, as I don’t want to “confuse” them. It’s just easier for everyone, I think. I worry about backlash I would receive, or the confused looks I would get if I put down Nonbinary. I think about people tiptoeing around my gender. I can’t deal with even more self-advocacy in a medical visit as an autistic person, so it’s just not worth it, I think. I’m reminded of the time I carried folding crutches to my unrelated medical appointment. Both the staff and doctor asked me why I brought crutches when I was “walking normally.” I had to explain that I needed them on my walk back for my foot pain. Both explaining my disability and explaining my gender — explaining the assumptions around my body is exhausting.
No matter what, people will make assumptions. Both ableism and cisnormativity are baked into our brains and our society. The things people have to do to accommodate us and acknowledge us involves unlearning their preconceptions. Society really doesn’t want us to do that. This is why there is so much defensiveness for both providing accommodations and acknowledging someone’s gender, pronouns, and name. People don’t want to do that work. They don’t want to be confronted with structural changes, the issue of gender norms, and the problems that disabled people face every day. They just want to go on with their lives because it’s easier to them. It’s easier for them to ignore our identities.
“The Last Halloween, The First Halloween” at Help Codi Heal
“The first Halloween my daughter could walk was the last Halloween that I could,” writes Codi Darnell, the blogger at Help Codi Heal. In a post reflecting on her fifth Halloween in a wheelchair, Codi reflects on change, pain, and the firsts and lasts in her life.
It was all automatic — all done without realizing the ways these simple acts of motherhood were deeply engrained in my identity. All done with zero understanding that something so simple could be snatched away — and how painful it would be when it was.
Because a year later I would not hold her hand up the stairs or scoop her up and onto my hip. I wouldn’t stand beside her at the door or see her face light up when — in her big two-year-old voice — she managed all three words “trick-or-treat”. A year later, I would understand the fragility of our being and know intimately the pain of things taken away. But I would still be there.
“Even If You Can’t See It: Invisible Disability and Neurodiversity” at Kenyon Review
At Kenyon Review, author Sejal A. Shah writes a personal essay on neurodiversity, depression, academia, and the writing life.
Maybe things would have turned out differently had I requested accommodations, had I known about the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA, 1990), had I understood my “situation,” as my aunt calls it, counted as a disability. The ADA law was amended in 2008 to include bipolar disorder. I began my job in 2005 and finished in 2011. It would have been helpful to know about the law and my rights under it.
I didn’t know the laws then; I didn’t know them until writing this essay. I looked normal; I passed. Would my career have turned out differently had I been willing to come out (for that’s what it felt like, an emergence into a world that might not accept me)? I was certain the stigma of having a major mood disorder would have hurt me professionally. Even had I disclosed my disorder, HR and my supervisors may not have agreed to modifications in my work responsibilities. I would still have needed to advocate for myself — would still have needed the energy to provide documentation and persist. For years, I had been ashamed, alarmed, and exhausted from trying to keep my head above water.
“The Outside Looking In” at Project Me
Project Me is the blog of Hannah Rose Higdon, a Deaf Lakota woman who grew up on the Cheyenne River Sioux Reservation. In “The Outside Looking In,” Higdon offers a glimpse into her experience as a child who was born hard of hearing, and whose family had very little access to the support she needed. (Higdon is now profoundly Deaf.)
I look up as my uncle talks to me. I nod. I smile. And I pretend I know just exactly what is going on. The truth is I have no clue what he’s saying or why he’s laughing, but I laugh too and mimic his facial expressions. I would never want to draw any more attention to myself than necessary. You see, I might only be 5 years old, but I know just how important it is to pretend.
“How to Center Disability in the Tech Response to COVID-19” at Brookings TechStream
Organizer, attorney, and disability justice advocate Lydia X.Z. Brown calls on the tech industry to carefully consider how policy affects marginalized communities, looking at algorithmic modeling in hospitals, contract tracing and surveillance, and web inaccessibility.
For disabled people who are also queer, trans, or people of color, the deployment of algorithmic modeling increases the risk of compounded medical discrimination. All marginalized communities have long histories and ongoing legacies of surviving involuntary medical experimentation, coercive treatment, invasive and irreversible procedures, and lower quality of care — often justified by harmful beliefs about the ability to feel pain and quality of life. These health care disparities are exacerbated for people who experience multiple forms of marginalization.
Spoonie Authors Network
The Spoonie Authors Network features work from authors and writers about how they manage their disabilities or chronic illnesses and conditions. Managed by Cait Gordon and Dianna Gunn, the community site also publishes resources and produces a podcast. Explore posts in the Featured Author or Internalized Ableism categories, like the piece below, to sample some of the writing.
When my neurologist suggested that I get a parking pass, I turned it down.
“I’d rather that go to someone more deserving,” I said. “There are people out there who are far more disabled than I am. Let the pass go to one of them.”
“You have difficulty walking. What would happen if it was icy or there were other difficult walking conditions?” she said kindly. “This is for your safety.”
I nodded and accepted the parking pass, even though I felt it made me look weak. I wasn’t disabled enough to warrant a parking pass. I can walk. I didn’t need it, I told myself.
“Not Disabled Enough” by Jamieson Wolf
More recommended sites:
- Deafinitely Wanderlust
- Unpacking Disability
- Have Wheelchair Will Travel
- Leaving Evidence
- Simply Emma
- Gin & Lemonade
- Autistic Collaboration
Note on header image: Six disabled people of color smile and pose in front of a concrete wall. Five people stand in the back, with the Black woman in the center holding up a chalkboard sign that reads, “disabled and HERE.” A South Asian person in a wheelchair sits in front. Photo by Chona Kasinger | Disabled and Here (CC BY 4.0)
10 Best Free WordPress Video Themes To Engage Audiences
Let’s say you want to run a video site. You want to run it on WordPress. You want a theme that will help you do that…and you want it for free!
Thankfully, there are several great WordPress themes out there to help — that don’t cost a dime.
A lot of WordPress themes are designed for text, but here are ten themes that are built around video and multimedia.
They’ll help display video content on your site with ease. All of these themes are up-to-date, free, and focused on video.
Many come with premium or pro features to upgrade; however, no upgrade may be needed if a particular theme has exactly what you need for your video website.
In no particular order, let’s countdown these videos – er, video themes.
By the time you check these out, there should be one that will work perfectly for your videos and your WordPress site.
1. Music and Video
The Music and Video theme is a clean, multipurpose HTML5 theme that’s excellent for musicians and video creators.
It has an easy to customize template, is SEO friendly, and very fast. It’s Gutenberg and WooCommerce compatible, fully responsive, and customizable. Plus, it features a recent post slider.
You can also purchase a Premium version of this theme that includes attributes such as a categories homepage, music player, home page images, and more.
2. ExS Video
ExS Video theme is an easily customizable multipurpose child for the ExS WordPress theme that is great for video blogs. This theme supports post likes, comment likes, and posts views plugins.
Also, it has unlimited color options, header, footer blog, and post layouts. It’s also SEO-friendly, with micro markup and structured data.
They offer a Pro version of this theme that comes with theme skins, Google fonts, animation, and more.
You can check out a demo of this theme here and learn more on their website.
3. Vlogger Video Blog
The Vlogger Video Blog theme was designed for video blogs. It has an elegant look to it that features a slider, copyright sections, promo areas, and social options.
It’s user-friendly, responsive, and features a call to action button. Plus, it’s WooCommerce compatible, comes with 100+ font options and advanced color options.
This theme is perfect for IMDb review websites, video marketers, video vloggers, and anything video-related.
4. VideoStories
With the VideoStories theme, you have a solution for a video-related WordPress site. With this theme, you can build video, movie, or IMDb review websites that are attractive and easy to create.
It also features a sidebar for advertising, photo galleries, subscription forms, etc.
Some of the key features are:
- Minimal Design
- Clean Typography
- Unlimited Colors
- SEO-friendly
And more…
5. Seos Video
Seos Video is a responsive modern theme. It works perfectly for movies, videos, music, or any video-related subject matter.
You can add a customized header and background images. Plus, this theme is translation ready.
Additionally, you can upgrade to a Premium version of this theme that offers many more options, such as scroll animations, window shortcode, and Woocommerce support.
6. Videoblog
For a traditional blog/magazine theme that’s great for videos, the Videoblog theme might do the trick. It focuses on content and readability by including an intuitive design and two-column layout.
The front page gives you the ability to feature your main posts, and also you can feature up to five different post categories.
You can see a live demo of this theme here.
7. Big Bob
With the Big Bob theme, you can give your images and videos a unique look on your WordPress site by maximizing their use. This theme does this by creating a layout that adapts well to a variety of headers.
This theme also gives users the option to allow mobile browsers to utilize videos and images. It also includes a sticky sidebar and a sticky navbar. Plus, it includes a slide panel menu for mobile browsers.
8. Ananya
The Ananya theme is an easily customizable, fully responsive, and translation ready video theme. It’s for more of a blogging platform and for telling stories.
You can add a unique video header and customize further with custom background colors, custom accent colors, custom menu, and social menu. Plus, you have typography options.
Some other features are:
- Blog Page Options
- Social Links in Topbar
- Unlimited Colors
- Add a Search Box
This theme is mobile-friendly and also supports RTL language (e.g. Arabic).
9. Fairy
The Fairy theme is Gutenberg ready and a good fit for travel, food, technology, and fashion blogs.
It comes with demo data to make the site like the demo and includes detailed documentation for video and text.
Some of the features include:
- Responsive Theme
- Translation Ready
- Light Weight Theme
- Cross-Browser Compatible
- Unlimited Google Fonts
You can upgrade to a Pro option that includes an author bio, header layout, color options, and more.
10. Rosa2 Lite
Rosa2 Lite was created for small businesses and includes some cool video aspects to it. The parallax effect allows any small business that will capture visitors’ attention.
You can include a media card block in a few clicks where you can include a background video menu on each parallax section of the page.
And That’s a Wrap
Videos can add value to your site by engaging viewers and showcasing products. As an added benefit, they’re great for SEO due to the fact they can make a user on your site longer.
Hopefully, one of these video themes will work well for your WordPress site. They all have a different look and feel to them, and all involve video in some manner. Plus, they’re all free!
Additionally, be sure to check out our article, How to Add a Video Background. This can be quite useful if you already have a theme in place and still want to add a video to the mix.
5 Free WordPress Restaurant Menu Plugins for Online Ordering During COVID-19
In a time where more people are staying home due to the pandemic, restaurants are being forced to change their approach to customer service. In this article learn how you can adapt to the current situation with the help of WP plugins.
Now more than ever, if you’re a restaurant owner or work as a WordPress developer for one, it’s important to have the online menu and ordering process running flawlessly.
A Plugin Can Deliver
Thankfully, like most things in WordPress, there are plugins to help with deliveries, takeout orders, collecting information, and more!
Here are five free top-rated WordPress plugins for restaurants to ensure your establishment keeps orders flowing from the kitchen and stays in business through these difficult times.
-
Forminator
When it comes to creating restaurant ordering forms and accepting payments (for free!), our very own Forminator plugin will do the trick.
You can add order amounts, tax, coupon discounts, delivery charges, and more!
Plus, Forminator allows you to integrate with 1000+ apps like MailChimp, so you can continue marketing out to your customers.
Also, you can create polls and ask questions that can help your business (e.g. asking customers if there’s anything else you can do to ensure that your ordering process is safe during this pandemic).
The drag and drop form blocks make it easy to customize your order forms and build them in minutes. You can add fields for address, phone number, and all the essentials for delivery or takeout.
You can also create a field for special instructions on where to leave orders once delivered to help maintain social distancing.
Some of the top features of Forminator are:
- Collecting payment
- Calculations
- Easy to create forms
- Registration form options
- Collecting and tracking submissions
With Forminator, you can even include a COVID-19 track and trace form for your restaurant! Learn more about that here.
Our plugin has over 100K active downloads and a 5-star review, you can’t go wrong with using Forminator for your restaurant ordering needs.
Finally, for more detailed information on creating a free payment form with Forminator, be sure to check out this article.
-
Five Star Restaurant Menu
The Five Star Restaurant Menu plugin is used to create a responsive menu for your WordPress site.
You can also make a restaurant menu ordering system in just a few minutes — perfect for social distancing takeout or delivery.
It features a simple to use menu builder and a ton of customizable options, such as separate menu sections, set hours, and more – making it great to match your brand and your needs.
Some of the main attributes are:
- Unlimited menus and menu items
- Separate menu sections (e.g. Appetizers, kid’s menu, etc.)
- Add multiple prices for a single item
- Defined hours of food ordering
- Responsive restaurant menu layout for mobile and all devices
Plus, you can upgrade to a Premium version that features multiple layouts, dietary menu icons, and advanced custom fields.
Currently, the prices for Premium range from $40 for one site and up to $220 for a 10-site license.
This plugin, with over 10k active installations, is living up to its name with a solid 5-star review.
For a plugin that covers all of the restaurant essentials, it’s worth trying out.
-
WPPizza
Especially with the pandemic, pizza has been a top choice for delivery (I mean, who doesn’t love pizza?). The WPPizza plugin is specifically made for the pizza business, but flexible enough to work for other food options, too.
This plugin is more than a menu plugin. It also allows customers to place orders, and it keeps track of those orders.
It offers a lot of flexibility (e.g. multisite enabled), and it is already set up with many different options for things like meal size, additives, opening times, etc.
It also helps that these sections are pre-populated with some data to give you a quick idea of what they’re about and how they work.
Some key features are:
- Maintains your restaurant menu online
- Set multiple categories, descriptions, and prices per item
- Multillingual frontend
- Allows you to keep track of your online orders
- Shortcode enabled
The plugin is free, but it also has Premium extension options that feature options to add ingredients, preorders, coupons & discounts, and more. Depending on what extension options you choose, prices will vary.
This plugin has over 2K active installs and a 5-star review. Whether you’re in the pizza business or something else, this plugin has a lot of the essentials that might work out great for your restaurant.
-
Restaurant Menu – Food Ordering System – Table Reservation
The Restaurant Menu plugin uses a simple and friendly interface for restaurant menus, booking, and online food ordering.
You can get this plugin set up and ready to use in a matter of minutes. There’s no coding knowledge needed and its simple drag & drop online menu editor makes it a breeze.
Its menu setup is suitable for any type of food; from pizza to complex burger menus.
The main features are:
- Single page checkout
- Drag & drop menu editor
- Customizable food menu items (e.g. add-ons, sizes, etc)
- Data auto-fill for returning customers
- Scheduled deliver options
They don’t include online payments with the free version, however, with a premium version, you can have a payment feature.
Premium also features support for tips. The costs start at $29 per month for online credit card payment services and $19 per month for advanced promo marketing.
With over 10k active downloads and a 4.5-star review, this plugin is definitely worth checking out for your restaurant needs.
-
Food Menu
The Food Menu plugin is a mobile-friendly food menu display plugin. It’s great for any restaurant, cafe, bar, or coffee house that’s ready to deliver in a socially distancing world.
When it comes to the food categories, you can display all of the food options by multiple or single categories.
Some of the main features are:
- It’s fully responsive
- Currency select option
- Custom meta fields
- Shortcode
- Displays all food items
There are Pro features that include 11 layouts, layouts by categories, custom image resize option, and more. It comes at a cost of $39.
This plugin doesn’t quite have as advanced features as some of the other plugins, however, with a 5-star review and over a thousand active downloads, it provides some of the essentials for food delivery.
Stay Safe and In Business
Things will get better eventually, but with COVID-19 still around and dining options limited, delivery and takeout are more important than ever.
These plugins can help you or your clients’ business stay in good shape and open now — and in the long run.
Awesome Free WordPress Accordion Plugins
Looking for a nice accordion plugin? This post features a roundup of the top five free WordPress accordion plugins on the market today.
Accordions are great for a number of different specific design challenges on a WordPress site.
Maybe you’d like to compress a lot of content into a small area. Or maybe you want to give the reader the option of seeing or not seeing certain content, such as movie spoilers or answers to quiz questions.
While there are standalone accordion plugins for WordPress, these days you’ll mostly find accordion functions tied into plugins that do a number of other things as well, such as creating columns or buttons or tabbed areas.
And so that’s what you’ll mostly find below too — accordion functions bundled into plugins that do other things as well.
Here are some of the best accordion plugins for WordPress. Each one is highly ranked, free, and updated.
-
Squelch Tabs and Accordions Shortcodes
The Squelch Tabs and Accordions Shortcodes plugin gives you shortcodes for both accordions and tabbed content. It also lets you choose both horizontal and vertical options, which is something the other plugins don’t.
This plugin comes with a number of different themes, and this is why we’ve given is such high marks for appearance.
Some of the features are:
- Interactivity with collapsible accordions and tabs
- Customized styling
- Content separation
You can choose from 24 jQuery UI themes, or you can also create your own.
This 5-star rated plugin has 2k active installations. The feedback is very positive, which makes this an attractive accordion plugin worth a shot.
-
Accordion
The Accordion plugin is a simple and powerful way to create faqs, tabs, WooCommerce faq tabs, and more.
It gives you the option to customize the look and feel to match your brand with colors and font size. Plus, you can create unlimited accordions and tabs.
Some of its key features are:
- Displays via WordPress accordion shortcode
- Lazy load
- Responsive accordion and tabs
- Custom icons
And more…
It has a 4.5-star rating and over 3oK active installations, making it a popular and high-ranked plugin to try out for yourself.
-
Shortcodes Ultimate
Shortcodes Ultimate is packed with more than 40 different shortcodes for tabs, boxes, buttons, etc. One of those, of course, is accordions shortcode.
It also comes with a very attractive pop-up box that is activated from your visual editor. This lets you choose the shortcode you wish to place in your post.
Some of the main features are:
- 50+ shortcodes
- Live preview
- Gutenberg ready
- Functions with any theme
- Custom CSS editor
This plugin comes with a ton of documentation, support, and a solid 5-star review with over 800K active installations.
-
Tabs
The Tabs plugin allows you to display both horizontal and vertical tabs style. You can also add multiple tabs on multiple posts and pages.
This plugin can also customize the color scheme and font styles, along with additional images, videos, music, or another shortcode in the tab description field.
Some of its attributes include:
- Responsive design
- Drag & drop builder API integrated
- Display only icon tabs
- Compatible on all browsers
This plugin has a 4.5-star review and over 30K active installations. It coins itself as the #1 tabs plugin, which might be the case.
-
Accordion FAQ
With the Accordion FAQ plugin, you can add unlimited accordion and collapse with various colors.
This plugin makes it easy to sort your accordion positions in the backend with its drag & drop builder. Also, it’s entirely mobile-friendly and offers a highly customizable frontend.
Some of the key features are:
- Responsive design
- Limitless accordion anywhere in any theme
- Uses accordion shortcode
- Bootstrap framework based
This plugin offers a live demo and you can also upgrade to a Pro version that has additional features, such as 550+ Google fonts, toggle/collapse effect, and more.
The Accordion FAQ plugin has a nice 4.5-star review and over 30K active installations, making it potentially a good choice for your WordPress site.
Hopefully, one of these five accordion plugins will work perfectly for your website. They all have various features and attributes to fit your needs. Plus, since they’re free, you can check out several of these options before landing on a specific one.
Try one of these accordion plugins out today for a nice boost to your WordPress site’s design and functionality.
Photo credit: brett jordan
Six WordPress Security Authentication Plugins
Protecting your WordPress site is obviously important. There are plenty of precautions you can take to avoid getting hacked and having your site compromised. One of the best forms of protection is two-factor authentication.
If you manage a WordPress site or even several sites for clients, beefing up the overall security of a site is a no-brainer. Most users know how to strengthen passwords, but two-factor authentication takes security to the next level.
Even if a hacker guesses your username and password, they will not be able to login to your site without a code, which is usually connected to your smartphone or emailed.
We’ll look at six authentication plugins available for WordPress. Most are highly rated, free, and can offer a great solution to stopping hackers in their tracks.
-
1. Defender
Our very own answer to security, Defender, features two-factor authentication that can be customized to your specifications to keep your site secure.
The 2FA works in collaboration with the Google Authenticator app, making it easy to use. There is also a Lost Phone feature so that users can get an OTP (one-time-pass) code sent to their email.
You can also select user roles for whom 2FA should be enacted. Plus, as an additional option, you can enter a custom message that will be shown to the user if they have not yet enabled it.
Some of Defender’s main features for 2FA are:
- Enable two-factor authentication for specific users
- Customized emails for OTP codes
- White-labeled so you can create custom graphics for your login page
- It’s Free!
Defender offers a lot beyond 2FA to prevent brute force attacks, hackers, and malicious code. It also features Firewall, login masking, block or allowlist IPs, 404 detections, and much more. To find out more, be sure to check out our article on how to get the most out of Defender.
With a 4.5-star rating and over 40K active installations, Defender is a great choice for keeping your WordPress site secure with 2FA and beyond.
-
2. Google Authenticator
The Google Authenticator plugin gives you two-factor authentication by using the Google Authenticator app. This app works for Android, iPhone, and Blackberry devices, making it convenient to use and access the code.
The two-factor authentication can be enabled on a per-user basis and can be used for an administrator account, with still being able to log in as normal with less privileged accounts.
Some of the best features are:
- QR code on the Profile and Personal options page
- Adjustable settings for description, secret, and password
- Free to use
This is a great plugin if you want to easily increase login security on your site with 2FA and Google Authenticator.
It has a solid 4.5-star rating and over 30K active installations, making it a popular choice to check out.
-
3. Duo Two-Factor Authentication
Duo Two-Factor Authentication allows you to add an extra layer of login security to your WordPress site with two-factor authentication.
There are multiple ways you can authenticate, including using the mobile app, one-time passcodes generated on the app, one-time passcodes delivered via SMS, phone callback to any mobile or landline phone, and one-time passcodes generated by an OATH-compliant hardware token.
You can also use the Duo Push, which sends a message to your phone and opens the Duo app, allowing you to approve or deny a login request.
Some of Duo’s main features are:
- One-tap authentication
- One-time passcodes
- Phone callback
- One-time SMS passwords
This plugin is easy to set up and has a support forum for any additional help that’s needed.
It also has a 3.5-star review and has over 8k active installations.
With all of the various 2FA options, it offers a bit more than some of the other plugins mentioned as is worth a shot.
-
4. Two-Factor
With the Two-Factor plugin, you can enable 2FA authentication with time-based one-time passwords and email.
It functions well with custom login pages or membership plugins.
Some of its main features are:
- Email codes
- Time-based one-time passwords
- FIDO universal 2nd factor
- Backup codes
- Testing with a dummy method
This free plugin is a simple solution to 2FA. It has a 5-star rating and over 20k active installations, making it a top-rated and popular security plugin.
-
5. Google Apps Login
With the Google Apps Login plugin, you can allow existing WordPress user accounts to login to your site using Google to authenticate their account. That enables them to click their way through the WordPress login screen with no username or password if they’re logged into, for example, their Gmail.
This plugin uses the most recent secure OAuth2 authentication that is recommended by Google.
Some of the main features are:
- One-click Google login for existing WordPress users
- 2FA
- Free
Though it’s a free plugin, however, there’s also a premium version that offers full support and allows everyone in your G Suite domain to login to WordPress. The prices vary significantly, depending on sites and users. It can range from $29 to $740.
This plugin has a 4.5-star rating and over 20K active installations. For quick access for logging in to your WordPress account via Google, this plugin might work great for your needs.
-
6. Next Active Directory Integration
The Next Active Directory Integration plugin will allow WordPress to authenticate, authorize, update, and create users against Microsoft Active Directory.
It’s simple to import users from your Active Directory into your WordPress instance and keep them synchronized by this plugin’s features.
Some of the main attributes include:
- Authenticating WordPress users against a single or many AD Server
- Authorizing users by Active Directory group memberships
- SSO (single sign-on)
- Automatically creating and updating WordPress users based on their Active Directory membership
- Free
There is also a premium version of this plugin that includes features such as profile pictures, BuddyPress simple attributes, support, and logins with Ultimate Member. The prices range from $569 to $2499 per year, depending on the number of sites.
With a 5-star rating and over 3k installations, this is a great authentication plugin for its intended uses.
As you can see, there are plenty of free (and premium) options out there to help secure your WordPress site with 2FA. This is great for you and your users to ensure that your site stays safe.
They’re all easy to set up and get started with immediately, leaving hackers scratching their heads and moving on to a vulnerable WordPress site instead of yours.
Retiring Custom Sidebars
WordPress is continually evolving. As Gutenberg marches toward full site editing, it’s inevitable that some things will change and get left behind…like our Custom Sidebars plugin.
Whether you love Gutenberg or don’t, the fact is that WordPress is heading toward a “full site editing” user experience built entirely out of using blocks.
As has been covered extensively since WordPress introduced Gutenberg in version 5.0, blocks are an entirely new paradigm.
Whereas, until now, things like themes, plugins, and the old Classic Editor have played distinct roles in how design, functionality, and content come together to create a WordPress site, full site editing (FSE) means that users will soon be able to use blocks to transform any and every aspect of their site, including the header, footer, and sidebar.
Although things are not entirely clear yet, full site editing will no doubt affect many traditional aspects of WordPress, from plugins and themes to elements like menus and widgets, page builders, etc.
Which brings us to the point of this short post…
We Will Retire Custom Sidebars After WordPress 5.6
WordPress introduced a new block-based Widgets Screen in Gutenberg 9.1 as one of its major focuses for the release of WordPress 5.6 in December 2020.
As much as our entire development team is fully committed to supporting all of our plugins, the new Widgets Screen is not compatible with our Custom Sidebars plugin, so we have made the decision to retire it once WP 5.6 drops.
*** UPDATE***
WordPress recently announced that the Widgets Screen will not be shipped with WP 5.6 but has been penciled in for 5.7. Regardless of this announcement, we still plan to retire the plugin.
What You Can Do If You Use The Custom Sidebars Plugin
Unfortunately, there’s not much that you can do if you plan to keep using the plugin except disable the new Widgets Screen after it’s released.
Disabling the new Widgets Screen
Place the simple filter below in your theme’s functions.php
file to disable the new Widgets Screen and keep the old screen:
add_filter( 'gutenberg_use_widgets_block_editor', '__return_false', 100 );
“If I Keep Using the Plugin, Will It Break My Website?”
If you choose to keep using the plugin on a theme that uses widgets, it should continue to work.
Keep in mind, however, that there is a very big chance that WordPress will remove the Widget screen entirely in favor of the full site editing experience. If it does (and we expect it probably will) and your theme gets updated to remove widgets without backward compatibility, then the plugin will probably not work at all after this.
For this reason, we recommend considering transitioning away from using widgets from this point forward.
With over 200,000+ active installations, we know that many Custom Sidebars users will be disappointed to hear that we will soon be retiring the plugin and we apologize for the inconvenience and disruption this will surely bring to many of you. As much as we always try to have our users’ back, WordPress forced our hand on this one.
If you did like using the plugin, don’t despair. The way things are developing with Gutenberg, when FSE becomes part of WordPress core and replaces the need to use widgets, creating customized sidebars for every page should be easily done using regular blocks.
If You Want To Run With It…
Custom Sidebars is an open-source plugin, so we’ve added it to GitHub for anyone who wants to download, modify, or extend it.
6 Of The Best WordPress Question and Answer Plugins
Whether you want to create a site that’s similar to Reddit, a quiz-style Q&A where answers are provided, or a submission form that will answer users’ questions – WordPress has you covered with a variety of specialized Q&A plugins.
In this article, we’re looking at six of our favorite WordPress question and answer plugins.
We chose these plugins because they all function uniquely, have helpful features, and of course – positive reviews.
Why Use a WordPress Q&A Plugin?
There are many benefits to using a WordPress Q&A plugin, especially if your theme or design doesn’t include Q&A features.
Here are some of the major advantages of note:
- Customized Design that Integrates with Your WordPress Site: All of the plugins featured in this article can be customized to match the design on your site. This means adding a Q&A to your site won’t interfere with your brand and style – rather it will match and compliment it.
- Consumer Confidence and More eCommerce Sales: Having answers about your eCommerce products can enhance consumer confidence. Q&A plugins give your visitors the information needed to influence them (in a good way) and make a sale.
- Reward Systems and User Profiles: You don’t need to look any further than here at WPMU DEV to see this in action. We have this feature in our “DOTW” (Discussion of the Week) forum where users can earn “Hero Points” for participating in question and answer threads.
- Enhanced Q&A Functionality: Considering WordPress currently doesn’t support Q&A beyond the comment section, a plugin can offer a more attractive (and modern) solution to Q&A.
As you can see, Q&A plugins can offer great benefits to your WordPress site, and there’s a full range of free and premium options available.
So the natural question is: Which one will work best for you?
Let’s get into our list then.
6 Of The Best WordPress Q&A Plugin Options
Here are 6 great WordPress plugins for adding Q&A functionality to your site. Hopefully, one of them will be the answer (pun intended) you’ve been looking for.
-
Forminator
To get started, our very own Forminator is a 5-star rated option that’s perfect when it comes to quizzes or forms for question submissions (for free!).
You can even use your Q&A quizzes to generate leads. Forminator allows you to integrate a lead-gen form into your quiz and collect participants’ information (e.g. name, email, etc.).
Forminator also has some handy email routing and pre-population features – making it quick and easy for users to pre-fill Q&A submissions.
On top of that, you can integrate your Q&A forms with your favorite 3rd party apps, such as HubSpot, MailChimp, Trello, and more.
Finally, you can easily set up forms which enable users to submit questions and have a personalized auto-response answer.
With over 100k active installations (and again, a 5-star review), Forminator is a great choice for a Q&A plugin because of its ease of use, integrations, lead generation, and it costs nothing to use!
-
CM Answers
The CM Answers plugin allows users to post questions and answers (Stack Overflow style). The plugin comes with voting, notifications, moderation, access control, and more.
Admins have the ability to customize the questions & answers, filter unwanted content, add answers, and keep tabs on users’ actions in the forum.
Some of the basic features include:
- View count
- Answer count
- Sorting options in the Q&A pages
There is also a Pro version that has additions, such as anonymous posting, private answers, advertisements, and more. The costs range from $39 to $199, depending on add-ons and the number of sites.
This plugin has a 4-star review and over 1k active installations.
-
WP Answers
WP Answers is a premium plugin that also includes its own responsive theme if required.
This plugin doesn’t go for the Stack Overflow look and feel, however, it provides a simpler but equally pleasing layout.
WP Answers includes a reputation system, social media integration, and built-in moderation. It also can be used with your existing theme as an add-on feature.
This plugin also has:
- Automatic product updates
- Premium support
- Help documentation
- 30-day money-back guarantee
Their site states that they’re the ultimate WordPress questions and answers plugin. It seems like a good quality choice to interact and reward users.
As of December 2020, the cost for WP Answers is $34.
-
YITH WooCommerce Questions and Answers
The YITH WooCommerce Questions and Answers plugin allows visitors to your eCommerce shop to ask questions about products.
It even features a FAQ mode that lets you use a section of your site as a FAQ page that shows information users might find useful.
The plugin offers your visitors a way to interact, ask, and answer questions while giving your customers confidence about their purchase.
Some of the key features are:
- Users can ask questions on specific WooCommerce products
- Easily manage questions and answers
- FAQ mode
You can find more information about this plugin with their documentation. Also, you can see a demo of it in action here.
This plugin has a 4-star review and over 2k active installations. It might be a good fit for you if you have a WooCommerce WordPress site and numerous products for sale.
-
bbPress
With the bbPress plugin, you can integrate an elegant and streamlined discussion board into your WordPress site. You can also have a Q&A forum up in no time.
The forums are all arranged by topics in your dashboard. From the dashboard, you can see the replies, author, and when it was created. This well-organized approach is visually appealing and functional for users.
bbPress is a popular plugin that’s well maintained and updated – it also has an active support forum.
It currently has a 4-star review and 300k active installations.
-
Simple:Press – WordPress Forum Plugin
Simple:Press – WordPress Forum Plugin is for creating a customized forum with a lot of possibilities. It gives you the option to add as many additional features as you need, so you can enhance your Q&A forum as needed.
The plugin has hundreds of features between its free and premium version – such as multi-level forum structures, post threading, and private messaging.
You can also import data into Simple: Press’ forum from other forums, which makes moving easy if you decide to switch to their platform.
Some of the other key features are:
- Unlimited Forums
- Alternate Custom Login and Registration Screens
- Pin Forums
- Breadcrumbs
As mentioned, there are also premium options, such as analytics, ads, WooCommerce dashboard integration, and more. Prices start at $99 to $199 per year, depending on what package you go with.
This plugin comes in with a 4-star rating and 600+ active installations.
For all of the options it offers, it’s a plugin worth testing out if you have a lot of customization needs.
Q: What’s the Best One? A: That’s Up to You!
When it comes to choosing the best Q&A plugin for WordPress, it largely depends on whether you need to have a forum-type option, a quiz-style, or submission forms.
Plus, there’s the option of free or premium. Or, you can use a combination of plugins, if necessary.
Adding a Q&A plugin is a quick, attractive, and easy solution to answering your users’ questions, keeping them engaged, and, if you have an eCommerce site, giving them confidence in knowing what they’re purchasing.
Any questions?
New 2FA Integrations and Other Upgrades with Defender Pro 2.4!
Just when you thought Defender, our answer to WordPress security, couldn’t get any better — with the release of v2.4, he’s now better than ever!
Defender Pro now comes with two-factor authentication integrations, a new notifications interface, bulk actions for security recommendations, and more.
These improvements help you customize your security options and streamline recommended security precautions.
Here’s a breakdown of the new features. We’ll look at how to:
- Quickly Activate and Schedule Reports in the New Notifications Area
- Easily Integrate 2FA with Google Authenticator, Microsoft Authenticator, or Authy
- Take Care of Security Recommendations in Bulk
This article will give you a quick overview of what’s new, and you’ll be able to implement them in Defender Pro today!
1. Quickly Activate and Schedule Reports in the New Notifications Area
Defender has a new look and better functionality with Notifications. It’s a centralized manager area for all notifications and reports.
The Notifications area gives you a complete overview of the reports, whether it’s enabled or not, gravatars icons of the email recipients, and reports’ frequency.
You can configure and disable reports in one-click. If a report can be enabled, you’ll see a plus sign next to it.
Once clicked, you can choose who to send email notifications to.
You can easily search for recipients to add by username or click on an individual user from the list. Alternatively, you can always invite a user by email by clicking Invite by Email.
If the report is already enabled, clicking on the gear icon will allow you to configure it by adding recipients, frequency of reports, day & time of reports, and additional settings.
Want to configure reports in bulk? You can do that in a snap with the new Bulk Action dropdown. This will give you the option to Enable, Disable, and Update reports all at once.
Enable all of the security reports and notifications at once.
If you enable the reports, Defender will direct you to set up your Recipients, Configure Notifications, add the times and dates for reports, and more — all in bulk.
You can also send notifications without a recipient for the Malware Scanning report when you configure it.
If you opt for this, your reports will still be conducted, but they won’t go to your email and instead can be viewed in The Hub.
Defender has made it quick and easy to manage your reports, notifications, and recipients. This can all be set up in just a few clicks!
2. Easily Integrate 2FA with Google Authenticator, Microsoft Authenticator, or Authy
Another great new feature for Defender is now you can integrate two-factor authentication with more than Google Authenticator. We’ve now added options for Microsoft Authenticator and Authy!
This is all done in one click. You simply go to the 2FA section in Defender’s dashboard. From there, you choose whatever 2FA option you’d like.
Google Authenticator, Microsoft Authenticator, or Authy. The choice is yours!
Once you choose your option, select whether to download it from Google Play or the App Store and you’re all set.
3. Take Care of Security Recommendations in Bulk
Instead of handling security recommendations one-by-one, you can get them all handled in an instant with bulk updates. Likewise, you can choose to ignore all of the security recommendations at once.
This can all be done from the Recommendations area in Defender’s dashboard. From here, you’ll see the number of security recommendations at the top of the screen.
If you have recommendations, you can then bulk action them. You can choose to Action All or Ignore All.
Select all of them at once by checking the Security Recommendations box or click individual recommendations. Once you decide on what to do, it’s done by simply clicking Apply.
Handle all of the recommendations instantly.
As always, you can always view the recommendations in detail with the dropdown by each recommendation. It will give you an overview and more information.
If you have any questions or can’t decide whether to delete or ignore a security recommendation from Defender, just reach out to our 24/7 support for expert help and advice.
And That’s Not All…
We didn’t stop there. A few other new features for Defender includes onboarding that replaces the old quick setup and enables everything that is recommended and better UI/UX and performance for Malware Scanning.
Beyond that, there are always new features and developments happening regularly!
Our team of dedicated developers and programmers are always keeping Defender up-to-date with the latest recommendations, security protocols, and more!
Be sure to see what’s next for our security superhero in our Roadmap. And learn more in our article, How to Get the Most Out of Defender Security.
Managing your WordPress security with Defender just keeps getting better – making it easier for you and harder for hackers!
How To Check WordPress Site Speed With The New GTmetrix (Featuring Lighthouse)
GTmetrix is now powered by Lighthouse, delivering page performance test results that better reflect the user’s perception of how fast their websites are loading.
Any business that wants to stay in business knows it’s essential to have a fast loading website. Websites that load quickly retain more visitors and perform better in search engines Google.
We have written a number of articles on how to speed up WordPress and fix WordPress page speed problems using free page speed testing tools.
One of these tools is GTmetrix.
The new GTmetrix report is designed to help you assess the page’s user experience and looks at both structure and performance, i.e. how well the page actually performs for users in areas like loading, interactivity, and visual stability.
The main difference in the newly redesigned report is that GTmetrix has replaced its PageSpeed/YSlow libraries with Lighthouse, the open-source tool from Google that is considered the industry standard in modern web performance data and metrics.
In this post, we’ll look at:
Using the New GTmetrix Tool
GTmetrix is free to use for generating a basic yet very useful site loading speed report.
Just head over to GTmetrix.com and enter your site or page URL, then click the test button.
A report will be automatically generated after a few seconds.
Previously, GTmetrix reports focused on how well your page was built for speed (i.e. its structure), but not how fast it loaded from your users’ perspective. This resulted in sites sometimes achieving great PageSpeed/YSlow scores and a slow Fully Loaded Time.
Fully Loaded Time (i.e. how long it takes for a page to completely load) has also become less useful as a metric for site performance as modern websites began to adopt more efficient page-loading strategies (e.g. client-side rendering).
The new GTmetrix Report reflects how fast your page loads for users and how well it’s built for performance, using a new scoring system called the GTmetrix Grade.
This is based on a weighted grade comprised of new Performance and Structure Scores (70% Performance Score + 30% Structure Score) and the addition of new tabs, visualizations, graphs, and deeper insights.
As mentioned earlier, what makes the new GTmetrix tool significantly different from its old Legacy report is that it has replaced PageSpeed/YSlow with (Google-owned) Lighthouse analysis and performance data.
This provides an assessment of webpages focused on the pages’ user experience and tracks the timing of various milestones that users actually experience and care about, then scores each of these metrics in three key areas:
- Loading Performance (55% of the total score). This comprises of the following metrics:
- First Contentful Paint (15%) – measures how much time has elapsed before the browser begins to display the first elements of your site.
- Speed Index (15%) – shows you how quickly the contents of your page are being visibly populated.
- Largest Contentful Paint (25%) – measures how long the largest content element on your page (e.g. a featured image or heading text) takes to load on the users’ viewport.
- Interactivity (40% of the total score).
- Time to Interactive (15%) – measures how long it takes before the user can reliably interact with the content on the page (e.g. click links, enter text into input fields, etc.)
- Total Blocking Time (25%) – measures the total amount of time that a page is blocked by scripts from responding to user input (e.g. mouse clicks, screen taps, or keyboard presses) during your page loading process.
- Visual Stability (5% of the total score).
- Cumulative Layout Shift (5%) – Measures how much of your site’s content layout shifts as it loads (e.g. late-loading ads that negatively affect the user’s experience by pushing content down after it has already loaded).
Using Core Web Vitals to Improve Your Search Engine Results
GTmetrix also displays another set of metrics in its reports called Web Vitals.
Most site visitors aren’t as concerned about how long it takes for your entire site to load as they are about how soon they can start engaging with the content on the page you’re presenting them.
As described on the feature’s information tooltip,
Web Vitals represent a small set of core metrics that indicate whether you’re delivering a fast and (what Google calls) a delightful experience to your visitors. Focus on these impactful metrics first before undertaking deeper optimizations.
Core Web Vitals comprise of three different metrics (see the previous section for brief descriptions):
- Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) – GTmetrix recommends aiming for an LCP of 1.2 seconds or less for a good user experience,
- Total Blocking Time (TBT) – GTmetrix recommends aiming for a TBT of 150 milliseconds or less.
- Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) – GTmetrix recommends aiming for a CLS score of 0.1 or less.
Core Web Vitals, then, are an important indicator of how your site visitors perceive the performance of your website. These key metrics connect your site’s performance to user experience and Google thinks they’re important enough to include as an SEO ranking factor starting from May 2021.
According to Google, Core Web Vitals will affect mobile and desktop results and play a significant role in determining whether or not your content appears in Top Stories.
GTmetrix, Hummingbird, and Smush
If you use our Hummingbird and Smush plugins to optimize WordPress speed and images, you should find the new GTmetrix reports’ Lighthouse data and metrics to be more actionable after running our plugin scans.
This is because our plugins and GTmetrix now both follow Google’s PageSpeed Insights recommendations, which are derived from Lighthouse data.
Hummingbird’s scans and Smush’s settings mirror Google’s PageSpeed testing and automate many of its fixes and recommendations, while GTmetrix uses the latest API from Google Pagespeed Insights to create and compile its report.
For more information on improving Google PageSpeed Insights recommendations, see our Performance Optimization Guide and these tutorials:
- How to Optimize WordPress for Speed with Hummingbird
- How to Get the Most Out of Smush Image Optimization
Will You Score The Perfect 100?
I don’t want to spoil the ending here for you, but you’ll probably never get that perfect 100!
We’ve tried and discovered that there are many challenges when it comes to getting a perfect score on page speed test results.
Here are some articles we’ve written about the challenges of optimizing WordPress sites for speed based on the recommendations of tools like GTmetrix, Google PageSpeed Insights, and others:
- Why Trying to Get 95+ on Google PageSpeed Insights for Your WordPress Site Will Drive You Mad!
- The New Google PageSpeed Insights: A Perfect 100 Is Now Super Easy
- Why You’ll Never Get a 100 Google Pagespeed Insights Score
Also, definitely check out our video series on improving WordPress performance:
Scan your sites today and happy WordPress optimizing!
Smush Pro Now Supports Local WebP Conversion (No CDN Required)
Until now, next-gen WebP images could only be served by activating Smush Pro’s CDN. But by popular demand, Smush Pro now also supports local WebP image conversion.
Our CDN is awesome, it really is. However, we’re all for giving people options.
This is exactly why we’ve now made it possible to convert your images to WebP format without needing to use our CDN.
It was also one of Smush Pro’s (and WPMU DEV in general!) most anticipated and requested features of the year.
You told us that…
- If you’re happy without a CDN, you don’t want to have to use one just for WebP support.
- You were also conscious that using Smush Pro’s CDN to serve images uses precious bandwidth – which might not be ideal for larger sites.
So, like any good company who actually listens to their audience, we’ve obliged, and made our award-winning image optimization plugin – even better!
Read on to find out the in’s and out’s of Smush Pro’s game-changing new feature.
Here’s a quick overview if you want to skip to a particular section:
1. Why Convert to WebP?
2. Activating Local WebP on WPMU DEV Hosted Sites
3. Enabling Local WebP Conversion on Third-Party Sites
4. Apache Server Configuration
5. NGINX Server Configuration
6. How to Check Your Image Format.
Why Convert to WebP?
The benefits of WebP images speak for themselves.
WebP image files are much smaller and load faster than JPEGs and PNGs – all while offering no perceptible difference in quality.
The proof is in the pudding – when YouTube switched their thumbnails to WebP, they saw a 10% reduction in load time!
Once you activate the Local WebP feature, Smush Pro will convert your images into the next-gen file type during regular Smushing.
And while not all browsers support WebP (we’re looking at you, Internet Explorer!), you can rest safe in the knowledge that Smush will serve up the JPEG and PNG equivalent to non-supported browsers.
Activating Local WebP on WPMU DEV Hosted Sites
First things first – the latest version of Smush Pro needs to be installed on your site.
You can then head into the WebP settings.
If you host with us, you’ll be lucky enough to be greeted by this message on the next page:
Everything is automatically configured for you, and all that’s left to do is run a Bulk Smush so that your images are converted.
From this page you can also see the supported media types, as well as delete all your WebP images.
So let’s get to the nitty gritty – what if your site is not hosted with WPMU DEV?
You have two options.
- Switch to one of our awesome (and affordable!) hosting plans.
- Follow our step-by-step configuration guide below.
How To Enable WebP Conversion On Non WPMU DEV Hosted Sites
Smush will try to automatically detect the type of server your site uses.
If the detected type is incorrect, you can change it manually using the dropdown box.
Apache Servers
If your server type is Apache, try the Automatic method first.
This will hopefully add the needed rules to the .htaccess file located in the /wp-content/uploads directory.
If the Automatic method does not work, you can switch to the Manual option and add the displayed rules to your .htaccess file yourself.
Note that the rules must be added to the .htaccess file located in your /wp-content/uploads directory, not the main .htaccess file in the root of your WordPress install. If that file does not yet exist in that directory, you can create it to add the needed rules.
Smush talks you through what you need to do.
If neither of these methods are successful, you’ll be provided with a list of troubleshooting tips – and of course our 24/7 superhero support team is always on hand if you need extra help.
NGINX Servers
If your server type is NGINX, the required rules must be added manually to your configuration file.
Smush provides clear instructions on how to do this.
Just be aware that if your setup is running NGINX as a proxy for Apache, the Apache/Litespeed rules may not work in .htaccess, and you’ll want to add the NGINX rules manually using this method.
How to Check Your Image Format
Unlike the WebP Conversion option in the Smush Pro CDN, you won’t see the “.webp” format appear in source code.
Instead, if you want to verify that images are indeed served as WebP, you’ll want to pop open your browser’s developer tools and, under the Network tab, check the Response Headers for any image.
If you see “content-type: image/webp” there, that tells you that the browser is indeed serving up the WebP version of the image.
Are You Converted?
Hopefully, after reading this article, you’re confident that not only is WebP the right image format for your sites – but Smush Pro is the right plugin for the job.
Just remember that if you want to take full advantage of the full power of Smush, you can always use Smush Pro’s CDN too!
Not a WPMU DEV member? Check out Smush Pro’s 7-day free trial and take the new local WebP feature for a no-risk test drive.
Subscribe to MarketingSolution.
Receive web development discounts & web design tutorials.
Now! Lets GROW Together!