Best Programming Language to Learn for WordPress Users

WordPress allows developers to build great websites with ease. However, in order to truly use WordPress to its full extent, one must have a good knowledge of PHP. WordPress is based on PHP, and it is fundamental for being able to truly manipulate the functions, design and interface of websites. While WordPress allows novice developers to develop websites visually using plugins and templates. Medium-level users who know CSS and HTML are able to modify websites and create themes.

However, without the knowledge of JavaScript and PHP, developers will be unable to develop advanced features, add functions, modify websites extensively or create dynamic immersive web pages. In order to truly be a full-stack developer using WordPress. One needs to be fluent in multiple programming or scripting languages along with our mandatory markup language, HTML. Let us look at the best programming languages out there that professional WordPress users should definitely be proficient in.

1. PHP 

PHP refers to Hypertext Preprocessor, renamed from “Personal Home Page”. PHP used to develop WordPress itself and all its plugins and environments are based on PHP as well. Knowledge of PHP allows developers to truly be able to modify or customise the design or build of WordPress websites as much as possible. Skilled developers can use PHP to create new themes, templates and even native WordPress editors that allow users to visually make changes instead of coding. PHP empowers most of the websites on the internet, continuingly dominating the development world. Without PHP, one cannot expect to truly master WordPress. A .php extension can be observed in WordPress PHP.

PHP is one of the core components of web development skills and one of the most preferred programming languages out there. PHP is open-source and allows developers to easily utilise PHP when working on HTML documents. Its a server-side programming language or a back-end language. Fundamentally requiring users to also know front-end technologies such as HTML and CSS along with PHP in order to truly become a full-stack developer. Harder to learn in comparison with HTML or CSS, however, it is truly worth it. PHP allows users to develop extremely immersive web applications through the use of syntax systems and other members of the LAMP stack such as MySQL and Apache. PHP is a multi-paradigm language, fundamentally being capable of imperative, functional and object-oriented programming.

2. HTML

HTML is an acronym for Hypertext Markup Language and is a front-end markup language. In the list of programming languages, it fails in many of the criteria as a programming language. Initially introduced as a language that empowers static pages that were basic and mostly text-based. HTML has evolved to become almost self-sufficient through the gradual introduction of minimal graphics implementation, dynamic structures and support for visual elements. Without CSS, it still cannot be used to design web pages to that extent, especially when designing sophisticated designs, themes and elements or objects.

HTML5 is the latest version with plenty of new features that allow developers to do more from the front-end directly. HTML allows developers to control the browser-side or the client-side interactions. Fundamentally making it compulsory for WordPress developers to know HTML when building pages. Even with pre-built themes or templates, HTML allows developers to make necessary modifications on the front-end. To understand how pages are presented on the browsers. HTML is definitely the easiest language in this list. Developers can learn and is the most fundamental language that is compulsory in order to not just build WordPress sites but simply to understand the concept of how web pages work.

HTML follows an easy set of rules and concepts, allowing one to extensively use it alongside other languages. Even if not combined with other languages, HTML still allows developers to build the website structures alongside inserting tables, media, text and links. Developers are even allowed to insert separate paragraphs and headings. HTML is a declarative language and does not require users to declare the logic without stating control flows.  

3. CSS

CSS stands for Cascading Style Sheet and is the most centrally focused upon language for web developers alongside PHP or JavaScript. It is the rage globally, and increasingly, more people are learning CSS in order to build websites on their own or through WordPress. It goes extremely well with HTML and completes it. Fundamentally, this means that CSS is used for declaring graphical or visual-based changes inside HTML documents. CSS allows developers to style web pages or modify the design on a macro and micro level. CSS even allows one to build graphical elements or animate elements from the front-end itself. WordPress themes are not any different, containing a .css file that determines the visual formatting of the web page.

This file is a style.css file that contains the style and design information of the WordPress theme. If medium-level users know CSS, then they are able to alter and modify themes or create themes to develop more accurate or customised web pages. However, if developers know CSS very well, then they grow to be capable of building web pages without the help of themes by styling HTML elements and documents directly through CSS. 

CSS is one of the best languages ever for web developers, empowering the designing of millions of web pages across the globe. It is easy to understand due to it following a very declarative approach towards programming and is ruled by very simple key concepts. CSS is also supported by many development environments. It is one of the most learnt and applied front-end languages as well. Learning HTML alongside CSS fully empowers developers to become experts of the front-end. CSS, like HTML, is also a declarative language, not requiring developers to declare the control flow.

4. JavaScript

JavaScript is one of the popular languages that is used for web development. It is a functional programming language also object-oriented. Allowing developers to program declaratively as well as through imperative approaches. JavaScript has been focused upon by the developing community ever since its release. One of the only languages that can truly be used as both a front-end and a back-end language.

JavaScript allows developers to create truly immersive designs and dynamic elements that allow web pages to become highly interactive. It empowers the building of sophisticated programs inside web environments, being the most popular choice for building web applications, browser-based applications and even mobile applications. JavaScript is fast, clean and promotes efficiency, being a language that allows faster programming and lesser code. JavaScript has taken off massively due to the incredible contributions it is able to make in User Interaction (UI) and User Experience (UX). It is the best option for animations, slideshows, interactive objects or elements and web programs. 

In WordPress, JavaScript allows developers to make massive changes in graphics and UI, also allowing users to embed programs or add complex functions (or features) into the pages. Similar to how JavaScript helps in other web development projects, it is able to make WordPress websites dynamic while enabling faster interactions. JavaScript places a lot of importance on the client-side or the browser, allowing developers to build web pages that are responsive and of high quality.

Even though the availability of pre-built or default themes does not require WordPress developers to have knowledge of JavaScript, we have gradually begun to notice that it is being extensively used for WordPress themes and core functions of WordPress. Due to the core concept behind WordPress, JavaScript goes very well with it due to its dual nature. A good hold over JavaScript allows developers to understand both the front-end and back-end very well, allowing them to build better WordPress web pages or themes.

5. SQL

SQL stands for Structured Query Language and is a declarative language allowing users to write declarations that are executed by the Database Management System or inside databases. Even though it is not a programming language, it is highly effective for managing databases across multiple environments using queries. WordPress is known for using MySQL as its inherent DBMS, allowing for integrations with other open-source tools, web servers, Operating Systems and PHP. Yes, PHP can be used to write a .php file that executes CRUD action inside databases that authorised users or admins can access. This allows the code to be embedded in a WordPress page, allowing the execution of data transactions or returning of data. 

Both WordPress databases and local databases can be used natively using PHP functions, and WordPress allows users to access or interact with databases through SQL or shortcode methods. SQL knowledge allows developers to align files and direct them for particular sections or functions inside WordPress. Knowing SQL might not be compulsory but for advanced users, it is very helpful when migrating data, recovering web pages, ensuring the security of the website and especially when implementing sophisticated databases across WordPress installations. MariaDB is a highly preferred replacement for MySQL, even though it is built by the same people.

In order to truly be proficient in working with servers, installations and databases, standard knowledge of SQL can be deemed highly necessary. Server installations require users to maintain MySQL databases, thus, one cannot work on the server-side without proper knowledge of SQL.

Terminal Access, Servers and Libraries

Other than the markup, scripting and programming languages are mandatory in order to develop WordPress websites. A few other skills, libraries and terminal knowledge make it easy to become a professional WordPress developer. WordPress requires web server knowledge and database knowledge alongside PHP to function effectively. Knowing how to execute commands in Operating Systems, such as Linux, and in terminals comes really handy, for instance, when locally installing WordPress and activating plugins without accessing the dashboard. As for installations on Apache, developers need to know how to apply their programming skills alongside configuring MySQL and Apache servers to make it host static (HTML) or dynamic pages built with PHP.

Ubuntu is another Linux-based OS that allows developers to execute WordPress installations directly from the terminal as well as configure MySQL databases. Developers are able to locally or through terminals completely manipulate WordPress installations, configure users, assign databases, work on servers, install human languages and even modify plugins and themes.

As for libraries, jQuery is one of the most preferred JavaScript libraries in existence. It is known for being fast, clean and minimal. jQuery provides the same benefits in WordPress as it does in other web environments. jQuery allows developers to write less code but enjoy great results due to jQuery simplifying event handling and requiring only the bare minimum to be written. jQuery, similar to JavaScript, is capable of offering dynamic animations, DOM interface and cross-browser support. jQuery can directly be embedded into HTML code and runs great on local or hybrid environments.

Key Takeaway

With the release of Gutenberg, the JavaScript-based WordPress editor, JavaScript has become increasingly important and influential for WordPress developers. This has caused massive confusion in developers when choosing whether to learn JavaScript or PHP first. Yes, HTML and CSS are mandatory and they are the building blocks of web environments, being required by both JavaScript and PHP. However, when preparing to become a fully capable WordPress developer. One must learn additional languages in order to build truly customised websites with additional or advanced features.

When it comes to WordPress, PHP is arguably the best choice due to the fact that WordPress plugins, themes and functions do not necessarily need JavaScript, but without PHP developers cannot do any of that. JavaScript provides options and the ability to implement dynamic elements and interactive features but without PHP all this be of no use. PHP is part of WordPress’s core, being the engine that runs WordPress on web servers. Even if something is possible to implement without PHP, JavaScript will simply make it more complex.

Regardless of the interactivity JavaScript offers, without PHP, one cannot make server-side changes either. It is highly recommended that WordPress developers acquire a set of skills and learn a combination of languages in order to truly be an expert.

Must Have WordPress Plugins for business websites

WordPress plugins are very crucial building blocks of your WordPress site. WordPress plugins allow you to add new features and functionalities to your website in the least amount of time and money. Plugins also affect your website’s performance like web speed, security, and performance, so you should be careful before using any plugin. It is important to have the right set of plugins for different functionalities to ensure the website’s smooth functioning and online success.

There are more than 50000 WordPress plugins available for almost every feature you want to have on your WordPress website. However, not all plugins are built equally, some of the plugins include inefficient coding that can affect your website’s performance. In this blog, we are going to walk through some of the must-have WordPress plugins for your business website in 2021.

1.  WPForms

Contact forms are one of the most essential parts of every website, it allows you to be in touch with your visitors. WPForms is one of the most user-friendly and popular WordPress contact form plugins. It is an online drag and drops form builder that allows you to create online order forms, email subscription forms, contact forms, polls forms, payment forms, and other online forms without writing codes. It is also integrated with major payment and marketing platforms thus you can create powerful forms instantly using this plugin. Major benefits with the WPForms plugin are:

• It offers pre-built templates to create contact forms.
• Conditional logic allows you to show or hide fields according to user behavior.
• Forms with multiple pages to improve user experience.
• Geolocation option to display user’s geolocation.
• Surveys and polls functions.
• It captures the user’s email address even if they don’t finish submitting the forms.
  
  

2.  Yoast SEO

Search Engine Optimization is one of the most important practices in today’s business environment. It plays an important role in increasing the number of visitors to your website; WordPress offers to build SEO-friendly web pages, which increases their website traffic. Yoast SEO is one of the most popular WordPress SEO plugins, it allows you to generate sitemaps, add meta tags, connect your site to Google search console, optimize your site for social media, and more. Features offered by the Yoast plugin that enhance your SEO are:

• Internal link suggestions.
• Readability check.
• Optimize for keywords, synonyms, related keywords, key phrases.
• XML news sitemaps.
• Allows creating custom Meta descriptions.
• Updates as per Google’s algorithm.
  
  

3.  Elementor

WordPress is by far the most popular platform used to create websites. With Elementor, you can create stunning, dynamic WordPress websites without having to write a single line of code. Used by almost 6% of all the world’s websites, Elementor is used by more than 8 million professionals to create landing pages, popups and WooCommerce stores. Key features provided by Elementor include:

•  An intuitive drag and drop editor where you can track your design in real-time
•  90+ powerful widgets
•  A powerful WooCommerce store builder
•  Lead capturing tools such as popup builders and custom forms
•  Full website kits. Simply customize and launch your own website in minutes!
  

4.  iTheme Security

According to WebARX report on average, more than 30’000 websites are hacked every day, WordPress sites can be more vulnerable to attacks because of plugin vulnerability, weak passwords, and obsolete software. iTheme Security WordPress plugin provides more than 30 ways to secure and protect your WordPress site by website monitoring. It works to lock down WordPress, fix common holes, stop automated attacks, and strengthen user credentials. Key features that the iTheme security plugin provides are:

• Two-factor authentication
• WordPress salts and security keys
• Malware scan scheduling
• Password security
• Password expiration
• Google reCAPTCHA
• WordPress Command Line Interface (CLI) integration
  
  

5.  WooCommerce

WooCommerce is the e-commerce arm of WordPress. It is an open-source and customizable ecommerce plugin for WordPress designed for large and small online merchants using WordPress. It is regularly audited by Sucuri (an industry leader in security) which makes it safe for users. It allows you to add unlimited products and users and allows you to accept unlimited orders. From payments and shipping to marketing and accounting, WooCommers provides a wide variety of 400 extensions. Major benefits of using the WooCommerce plugin are:

• Creating an e-commerce store
• Manage orders and customers
• Setting up Google Ads through WooCommerce
• Setting up inventory on WooCommerce
• Enables shipping and marketing management
  
  

6.  Creative Mail

You can use the Creative Mail plugin with WooCommerce. Creative Mail plugin is the WordPress-friendly email marketing solution. It offers a deep integration with WordPress, Jetpack, WooCommerce, and Creative Mail helps you to automatically add contacts from website forms. If you have a WooCommerce store, Creative Mail can manage your important transactional emails. As other email solutions require you to add contacts, API keys, SMTP servers, and more that take you away from WordPress. Creative Mail simplifies the task and lets you manage your outreach from your WordPress dashboard. It offers a smart email editor that automatically suggests ideal layouts and pulls your blog posts, images, and products into email content to share with your audience. Creative Mail also lets advanced marketers build multistep campaigns that take the audience through a series of emails based on their behavior. Benefits of using the Creative Mail plugin are:

• Enhanced ecommerce
• Interactive transactional emails
• Jetpack forms integration
• Build better branding
• Ensures better deliverability
• Live support
  
  

7.  Tidio

With 90000+ active WordPress Installations and 96/100 WordPress user ratings, Tidio is one of the most famous WordPress live chat plugins and chatbots. It enables easy and effective online communication with users. It allows you to engage with your audience, nurture leads, automate work and grow your business. Tidio comes with the following features:

• A free chatting plugin that lets you talk with your visitors
• A lightweight and customizable widget
• A free mobile app to communicate with your visitors remotely
• Incoming visitor notifications
• Viewed pages list
• Live typing preview that shows what visitor is typing before the message is being sent
• WordPress chatbots
• Chatbot templates
• Visual chatbot editor

8.  WordPress Smush

Images can slow down your WordPress site, thus it is important to have all your images optimized for the web. WP Smush is a useful plugin that aims to optimize images on your website without losing the quality of images. It is an easy-to-use plugin that scans the entire website for images and compresses the images. It compresses JPEG files, PNG files, and GIF files which helps the website to load faster and enhances the site performance. Major benefits of using WP Smush are:

• Compress image while preserving image quality.
• Compress any image in any directory.
• Compatible with your theme, page builder, and media library plugin.
• Incorrect size image detection.
• Defer off-screen images.
  
  

Conclusion

Choosing the appropriate plugin for your website needs can make your web development easier and scalable. Selecting the right plugin involves considerations such as the scope of your website, the number of visitors, and more. You should evaluate how a specific plugin can affect your website speed, security, performance, and cost. Most good plugins have a cost so make to compare the cost.  The consequences of choosing the wrong plugin can be huge, according to a report, 22% of WordPress sites are hacked because of security issues with plugins. Plugin decisions are an important step in building your website, it should be evaluated carefully before a Plugin is added to your website.

How to Create An eCommerce Marketplace Using WordPress?

Creativity and commerce with CMS, come with endless possibilities, which seriously doesn’t cease to amaze anybody who is making use of the same. With a certain degree of imagination, mashed and combined with WordPress’s huge variety of plugins and themes, you have to power to do almost anything, starting from minimal blogs, eCommerce stores and ending up with web applications.

Apart from the creation process being simple, another point that acts as an advantage is the fact, that WordPress theme does not require you to spend a lot of money. Websites, that generally will take thousands of dollars to build, along with a team full of developers, can just be built and managed by just one individual, using this platform.

You wanting to build an online marketplace is very much similar to the one mentioned above. Traditional custom solutions are extremely difficult for any average user to execute, especially the process of e-commerce development. This is where this platform comes to play, with which anybody can spend a few hundred dollars and create their next big online market place. For error free development it’s essential to go with a agency who can design, develop and market your website throughout.

This blog will focus on how anybody can very easily create an e-commerce website. However, before getting to know about the steps involved in creating a website, you need to be informed about what is meant by a WP marketplace. Getting to know all this will also help you to be sure if you even need to hire WP developers, to get the wordpress development services

What Is Meant By an Online Marketplace?

An online marketplace is basically another name for an eCommerce website. To define it simply, it allows all the users to become a seller. They have the freedom to sell any kind of product. One important thing to note is, being a marketplace owner, you are not the owner of any kind of inventory. Your job is to allow different users to list and sell their products on your marketplace.

Almost all developers are familiar with the fact that this platform can be used to build an e-commerce store on any website. However, there exists a huge possibility that even though most people understand the basic concept of a marketplace, they might not be able enough to know how a marketplace is different from a store.

The fundamental difference between the two is the fact that in a store, a single vendor attempts to sell certain goods, whereas, a marketplace includes a number of stores, which is comprised of various vendors and sellers.

.

After getting informed about what a marketplace refers to, it is time that you get to know in short about how much it costs to create an online marketplace.

How Much Does It Cost?

An actual physical marketplace takes years to get set up properly and also needs you to spend, millions of dollars. On the other hand, an online marketplace can cost as low as 6.95 dollars a month and can get created in one hour.

There are certain tools that you need to set up a marketplace, and each of it comes for a price:

● Domain name – This is the address to your website on the internet. It costs around 14.95 dollars per year.

● Web Hosting – It refers to the online location, where a user stores the content and files of their website. It costs around 13.99 dollars per month.

● SSL Certificate – This is the feature that adds a green padlock icon, to your address bar. This lets your customers know that your website is safe to visit. .

Benefits of Setting Up an eCommerce Marketplace

The biggest advantage of creating and running such a marketplace has already been talked about briefly in the previous section. The benefit that is most important for most people is the fact that as a marketplace like this grows in scale, your potential to generate revenue increases accordingly.

There however certain factors that are important for you to consider if you want to gain advantage from this feature. You need to have the ability to understand whether the current market you are targeting is good enough for your purpose. You need to be sure that the marketplace you are planning to build will be able to attract multiple customers and vendors at the same time.

Proving a good experience to the vendors and the customers, along with finalising the correct niche, wins half the battle for you. The vendors, who do make money from your marketplace will focus greatly on driving the traffic for you. In addition, the customers who will receive a good experience after visiting your marketplace will ideally inform their friends about it.

Finally, it is time for you to know in detail about the steps you need to take to create a WordPress marketplace. The following section comprises of the same.

Steps to Successfully Create A WordPress Marketplace

● Creating and Setting up of Your eCommerce Platform

The very first step involves purchasing a domain name and an account for web hosting. Just web hosting will not be enough, as you will need access to software that specialises specifically in creating e-commerce websites.

● Switching your Platform Into a Marketplace Using a Plugin

The moment your e-commerce platform is ready, you can install a vendor’s plugin and make use of it. This plugin is going to transform your single vendor store into a marketplace, which will attract multiple vendors. Once this setup is complete, a number of vendors can choose to sign up to your website and sell all their products online.

● Allowing Account Creation

This is an important step. You need to allow all your customers to create an account. For instance, while making use of a WooCommerce plugin, a customer needs to visit its ‘settings’ page, and then go to the ‘Accounts and Privacy’ tab and make use of ‘Account Creation’ feature.

● Adding an Accounts Page

The next step is to make sure that you have added a ‘registration’ option to your navigation menu. The purpose of this tab will be to ease up the registration process, and in turn, will allow all the users to sign up quickly and seamlessly.

● Run and Maintain Your Online Marketplace

This is undoubtedly the final step of the creation of an online marketplace. Once you develop the idea that your online marketplace is ready, then the best thing you can do to check is to create an account, to confirm that every feature is working as expected. 

Maintenance is an equally important function, so you must check whether there exist any pending vendor requests and if so, you need to address it immediately.

Wrapping Up

If you are certain about the fact that you want to create a WordPress marketplace, there is the presence of a huge variety of tools and resources online, which allows you to try the entire process by yourself.

There is however that fact you need to consider, that just building a marketplace does not assure that you will be successful. Just building a marketplace, will not make the sellers want to visit it, let alone wanting to sell their products on it. 

The solution is consistency. After you build your marketplace you need to focus on consistently promoting it and maintain it and give it the time it needs to grow. 

Your WordPress Down Right now? How to Check & Monitoring ways?

Are you running a WordPress.com site? Or do you own a self-hosted WordPress website? It is possible in both cases you may face a disturbing situation. It is when your website goes down. This means your website goes offline. You wonder is WordPress down right now? Sometimes you spend considerable time finding out the local internet connection. Maybe you have a bad connection and the signals are down. But, at last, you discover that everything at your side is completely fine. It is WordPress that is down.

How to Find out is WordPress down right now?

Once you come to know that WordPress is down your next step should be to restore it. If you are sure that your local internet connection is alright and there are no signal issues, think of a regional internet connection. Call your service provider and ask them if everything with the service is fine. If there is no issue in the internet, you rest assured that your WordPress is down for some other reason.  

You can know if the WordPress service is by down through a few ways and here they are

1. Use a Checking Service

You can check it here: down for everyone or just me This amazing website is the preferred method of every web designer. Whenever you feel like your site is down but it still looks online, your first option is to go to the above site. Once you can check your website on this portal you will know the status of your website. You just need to enter the URL of your website in the place you find on the site. This is a hassle-free and easy method. But, in some cases, the site is not offline and you get the message that your site is offline. This is because your site is loading so slow that it is counted offline.

2. Use a Proxy Server

You can open your site like any other user and see what other visitors see on your website.  So, you can see is WordPress down for you only or everyone?

Use a different IP; go to any proxy server and enter the URL of your website there. Wow, you are seeing your site just like any other visitor does! Viewing your website with a different IP address can be quite informative for you. However, this method is not very efficient because the local variables do not change. You are using the same internet connection and the same device. This method cannot always prove that the site is down for everyone.

Using a Monitoring Service

There are monitoring services that can offer you help in this regard. Before you get alert to see if your WordPress is down, this service will let you know.  Many web hosting companies keep this monitoring services part of their services.  Hence, you get a message when your website goes down.  At this moment you can instantly work to solve the issue.

There are monitoring tools as well that ensure your website’s operating status. One of such tools is UptimeRobot. This is quite helpful.

There is a question that several customers ask, “Can we prevent WordPress to go down?”

Learning prevention is better than searching for a cure for a bad situation. If your site is not down and you feel it will go down. Learn here some preventive methods to save it in the future from going down.

Here are some top ways to prevent your site from going down:

3. Update Everything

Keep updating your plugins, core files, and theme. Often the outdated files do not comply with the latest technology. They often create conflict or just take things down. Malicious attackers are very expert in attacking old and outdated files, plugins, and themes. They can wreak havoc and bring your business to ground zero.

 If an attack happens you will not only think is WordPress down right now but you will have to spare a lot of energy in removing the malicious intruders. So, your best bet is to keep everything updated. Check the availability of updates. Some updates are monthly and some are bimonthly.

Premium themes and plugins are often the best choices. The latest version of these is made strong enough to fight malicious attacks. If you hire a pro for this job, it would be securer. Otherwise, teach yourself these basic tech matters and do not let there be any chance of falling prey to malicious attackers.

4. Get Expert Hosting Services

The modern reputable web hosting services provide a bundle of features in a limited amount of monthly charges. Once you stick with them, you get many perks for almost for free.  If you compared the outcome of different features of hosting service, you will find that you are getting a lot for a very little price that things almost seem to be free of charge.

Running a website slow or going it down should not happen. This depends a lot on the hosting service you get. If you are getting a premium hosting plan, you are getting a huge array of features that would let your site boom among its competitors.

5. Find professionals to Manage Your Website

Managing a site can be hectic and complicated especially for those who are not tech-savvy. To be honest, a very little number of people are tech-savvy and that does not mean they should not have a website. You can always have the services of experts who can take care of your website for you. The professionals know how to handle things like updates, plugins, and security. A pro knows the problems and their sources. Instead of experimenting and losing time, it is good to hire professionals to carry on the website matters efficiently from day one.

Summary in Final Word

Your WordPress can go slow or can go down doesn’t matter whatever you using whmcs theme or Dedicated hosting. This moment can be worrisome for you when issue raise. But there is always a solution like checking first and then solving the issue. The best option is to take preventive measures and do not let your website down