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Weekly Links Roundup – Image Gallery Plugins, Blogging Mistakes, Analytics Tracking Code, Moving Content

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This week’s top WordPress and web marketing links.

I’m a big fan of the FooGallery image gallery for WordPress, when I need something pretty simple. It supports albums and a lightbox and has a decent variety of free gallery styles, plus their support for the free version is speedy. But sometimes you need more… or maybe just ‘different.’ Here’s a fresh (2019) review of 9 great WordPress image gallery plugins. Envira Gallery is another I can recommend.

Getting into blogging – or doing it already and not seeing the results you expected? Take a look at this… and make sure you’re not doing any of these 13 steps to failing miserably with blogging. Learn what not to do, and be more effective and efficient with your blogging efforts.

Did you know that there are a lot of different ways to get your Google Analytics tracking code into your WordPress site? You can use a plugin, add the code to your theme manually, use Google Tag Manager… Learn about the different ways of adding Analytics code and why you might want to choose one over another.

Finally… Moving content from one WordPress site to another can be a truly painful experience. This post on how to do that is from 2017 but still valid. And yes, it’s still a pain.

Did you find this information useful? Please share with your friends and colleagues! And comment below with questions or observations.

Weekly Links Roundup – Analytics, WordPress Security, Domain Names, Travel Blogging

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This week’s WordPress and web marketing links.

Even if you use Google Analytics (and especially if you don’t) you might find adding one of these Google Analytics alternatives plugins to your WordPress site useful.

Are you protecting your website? Is it enough? Learn about the 5 most common WordPress security breaches and how to protect yourself and/or recover from them. Critical to remember: always have a fresh backup of your site stored somewhere other than your hosting account!

Got a new business? Looking for a good (and available) domain name and getting frustrated? Try one of these 5 blog name generators; the article provides a detailed review of each generator and why you’d want to use it (or not).

While on the subject of new business – here’s a beginner’s guide to starting a travel blog. This article includes setting up a domain, hosting and WordPress; finding a theme (assuming you’ll want to start with very little budget); and plugins for travel blogging.

Friday Link Wrapup – Search, Google Analytics, Content, Page Builders

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This week’s WordPress and web marketing links.

WordPress search has room for improvement. Here’s a great post that provides examples of four powerful ways to improve WordPress search:

  1. Faceted search
  2. Using a more powerful search algorithm
  3. Upgraded search for BuddyPres or Multisite
  4. Providing a better search experience

Doing your own SEO? Here’s a big comprehensive guide from WPMUDEV on using Google Analytics to understand your WordPress site’s traffic.

Going along with that theme, here is an older but still very relevant post on content and usability in writing for the Web.

Finally, if you’re a fan of page builder plugins, here’s a review of seven of the author’s recommended plugins.

What is MonsterInsights?

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New MonsterInsights logoOne of my go-to plugins, Google Analytics by Yoast, was purchased by Syed Balkhi, the founder of tutorial site WPBeginner. Today they rolled out their first new update, but the impression made was probably not what they were expecting.

Sounds like some users were afraid they’d been hacked when they saw the new big green monster logo high up in the WordPress menu… it really doesn’t provide the most reassuring appearance at first glance. The word ‘monster’ and lack of any wording related to analytics doesn’t help either. It also looks like everyone using it will have to reauthenticate with Google Analytics, too.

Not sure yet whether I’ll stick with the plugin. I highly respect Syed Balkhi and have learned a lot from his posts and tutorials, so maybe this is a good thing for the plugin’s future. But it’s not exactly the rollout I would have recommended.

Followup: the new owners of the plugin worked quickly to address user concerns, thanks guys! The changes include:

  • Moving the plugin icon near the bottom of the menu stack instead of under the dashboard
  • Making the icon light-on-dark like the others
  • Removing the ‘Monster’ from the plugin name in the menu

Friday Link Wrapup – Analytics, True Cost of WordPress, Membership Sites

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This week’s WordPress and web marketing links.

If you’re new to Google Analytics and not sure how to use it or even what you should be looking for, here’s a good introduction. See 6 things that Google Analytics can tell you about your WordPress site.

Self-hosted WordPress is free! That’s one reason that peaks the interest of business owners considering a new WordPress site. But ‘free’ is a relative term. The true cost of building a WordPress site is considerably more than ‘free’ when you consider things like developers, commercial themes, ongoing maintenance and high-quality (i.e., not shared) hosting.

And finally, if you own (or are thinking of building) a free or paid membership site, here are 3 marketing strategies you might want to consider. There are other ways to drive traffic than social media and this post explores them a bit.

If you have a WordPress site and have questions about how to keep your investment safe and happy, give us a shout. WP Minder can help.