MainWP Blog - Tips & Tricks

What is the WP-CLI? The WP-CLI is a way of doing anything that you would be able to do in the back-end of a WordPress site in wp-admin, but using command lines. A number of hosts have WP-CLI installed on new servers. One great example is on Cloudways. Common WP-CLI commands If a client site has a white screen issues from an active plugin or theme and you have sFTP/SSH access on the site, then you can change the active Continue reading the post...

Warning: This post may contain Gremlins. With Christmas around the corner, one of the classic Christmas movies is still Gremlins (1984), a mid-eighties mix of comedy and horror, set with a very Christmas theme. With the film’s mix of Frank Capra and Speilbergisms, the setting is a riff of Bedford Falls from It’s a Wonderful Life, even if it does look like the back-lot of Universal Studios. The film is a classic mix of director Joe Dante’s best work and Continue reading the post...

With Christmas only a few days away, now is the time to reflect on the many nuggets of joy that WordPress has sprinkled over our lives. As well as the frustrations and the many, many things that can break on clients site, as well as the things that WordPress core updates can break. On the 1st day of the Christmas, WordPress gave to me – A way to delete the Hello Dolly plugin on client sites, so clients did not activate Continue reading the post...

The beauty of open source lies in the fact that code is open and can always be tweaked, modified, and customized to your needs. The ability to customize an open-source project (in this case your MainWP Dashboard) is one of its greatest benefits. An open code base of the plugin allows you to reshape and re-outfit the plugin at any time. Example 1 – Simple MainWP Customisation In this example, I will show you how you can easily rename the Continue reading the post...

With the WordPress 5.0 release less than two weeks away from being shipped, the release is going to be pushed back to be later than November 27, 2018. You need to make sure that your child sites have been updated to deal with the new version of WordPress. The major changes being the new default Gutenberg block editor. WordPress 5.0 release data has been pushed back due to certain issues, with issues found in the beta, and release candidate being Continue reading the post...

Why is the hosting so import? The MainWP site is hosted on Cloudways using Vultr for the infrastructure data center server. Without solid hosting, no matter the amount of site optimization is going to improve being hosted on subpar servers. After hosting, where to start? This is what the MainWP site was loading in GTMetrix results before the site was optimized for performance. Here is what the MainWP site is loading in after the site was optimized. You can not improve Continue reading the post...

WooCommerce powers over 30% of all online e-commerce stores, but when used on stores, it can cause performance issues if you are not aware of how to improve the load times and optimize the performance. A number of optimization changes to your child sites which are using WooCommerce can easily be made from your MainWP Dashboard site. Cart Fragments If you speed test a site using GTmetrix or WebPageTest, the slowest request you will notice in the store waterfall will Continue reading the post...

One of the techniques that online marketers have used for years now is the lead magnet. The lead magnet has shown to be an effective means for building an email list. What is a lead magnet? Barry Feldman says, A lead magnet is a free offer you make in exchange for an email address (and possibly additional information). There are lots of ways to create an email lead magnet. In fact, according to Danavir Sarria, the Copy Monk, there are Continue reading the post...

A few months ago, I took a coffee brewing class. The local coffee shop offered the class, and I jumped at the chance to make a better pour over brew at home. I learned a lot about the process, but I don’t really feel like I am that much better. I learned about things that made a difference with pour-overs including water temperature, grams of coffee, the type of grind, and the way one pours the water. Naturally, you have to have Continue reading the post...

Speeding up our WordPress project with starter themes and frameworks I like innovation as much as anyone. It is a mark of creativity. Heck, when I was a kid, I liked creating stuff. What did you create when you were a kid? One of the cool things about building WordPress websites is the opportunity to create something. That is why many of us got into this business, to create. Not only do we get to play around with design and Continue reading the post...