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301 redirects

Weekly Links Roundup – Membership Plugins, Not Allowed Error, 301 Redirects, Localization

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This week’s WordPress and web marketing links.

If you run a membership site like I do, you’re always looking for ways to improve. Here’s a nice post from one of my favorite membership plugins MemberPress – it’s a review of 9 plugins for enhancing your membership site. These are all behind-the-scenes plugins but some are essential (security!) or desirable for most membership sites (SEO, lead gen).

Ever see that ‘you’re not allowed to access this page’ error in WordPress? Baffling, isn’t it? Unfortunately there are a number of possible reasons to get this error – but here’s a guide to troubleshooting the problem, if you’re not afraid to get your hands a little dirty in the backend of your site.

If you ever need to change the URL of a post, change your permalinks, or do something else that affects an existing link (like changing your domain), you’re going to need to use 301 redirects. A 301 redirect lets you redirect traffic without causing problems for either human visitors or search engines. Here’s a guide to using 301 redirects in WordPress, either with a plugin or in the .htaccess file.

Finally… if your business is international, you’ll want to internationalize (or localize) your website. This is a big task, and here’s a big post that goes into detail on how to do it.

 

Weekly Link Roundup – Security Plugins, Server Issues, Permalinks, 301 Redirects

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This week’s WordPress and web marketing links.

For WordPress security, I’ve been using and recommending Wordfence for a few years, but with a recent update they totally changed the interface , greatly reducing the quality of the user experience, in my opinion. I find the new version hard to navigate, and that doesn’t bode well for my clients who use it. So I’m experimenting with other security plugins to find a replacement; right now the candidate is All-in-One WP Security & Firewall. This plugin has been around a long time and true to their claims, it is quite easy to configure. If you’re looking for a security plugin try this post with quick reviews of 17 top WordPress security plugins.

When there’s a problem with your site, it’s common to assume it’s your site causing the problem – but that’s not always the case. Sometimes it’s your host’s server. Here’s a guide to 8 common server issues that can affect your site in various ways: making it slow, not delivering email, or even showing the dreaded ‘no database connection’ error.

Do you know what permalinks are on your WordPress site? A lot of clients have never heard of them, until they decide to change them on an established site, which can cause big problems. Learn all you need to know about permalinks here, but pay special attention to the part about not fooling with them unless you have a brand new site. In order to make changes later, they also talk about 301 redirects which are a way to make changes safely.

And speaking of 301 redirects, here’s a guide to 7 top redirection plugins (this is an older post but all still valid information). My current favorite, which I last used just this week, is Redirection.

 

Friday Link Wrapup – Sliders, Changing Ecommerce Platforms, Redirects

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This week’s WordPress and web marketing links.

To slide or not to slide? The poor slideshow has taken a beating from web designers in the last few years as being too big, too distracting, and a waste of space, but some of us still believe that they have their place in certain circumstances. Here’s a guide to deciding if a slider is right for your site, plus a roundup of tips to add value to your site with a slider. My favorite slider at the moment is MetaSlider – I use Pro for the animated layered slides and video slides, but the free one is also a fine choice.

Right now I have two clients that are migrating from one WordPress ecommerce platform to another. These are big jobs, not to be taken lightly.Here’s a set of issues to keep in mind if you’re considering upgrading to another ecommerce plugin/system (note that this page you’re going to is awful in terms of all the ads, sorry. The article’s worth reading despite them).

And finally… If you move your WordPress site (say from another domain, or from/to a subdirectory) you’re going to need to employ 301 redirects to make sure broken links don’t have a negative impact on your search engine rankings. Here’s a guide to doing it right, plus the best WordPress plugins to make it easy (this is my current favorite).