Speed Up Your WordPress Site With a Few Clicks of the Mouse!

For years, I was very skeptical about Jetpack WordPress plugin.

But…today I’m a Jetpack convert.

If you don’t already know, Jetpack is one of the most popular WordPress plugins.

It is owned by and pushed heavily by Automattic, the for-profit corporation that more-or-less runs the WordPress project.

They’ve got a lot to gain, financially, by its success and its footprint in the WordPress eco-system.

I am wary…very wary of letting a corporate interest like that gain a large footprint on my and my customers’ WordPress sites.

But here’s why I have finally come around and granted Jetpack/Automattic access to my own WordPress sites and why I recommend Jetpack to customers.

Why Jetpack WordPress Plugin Is Awesome

Jetpack takes care of a number of critical, value-add website features out-of-the-box, for free, with a few clicks of the mouse!

Here are the Jetpack features I always enable:

Carousel: Never worry about adding a fancy gallery slideshow plugin again!
Social Comments: Visitors can comment using their Facebook, Twitter, etc.
Lazy Images: Load your site faster and waste fewer server resources!
Downtime Monitoring: Know when your site is down.
Image CDN: Load your site faster and save server resources!
Login Protection: More security means fewer headaches for you and for visitors and for SEO.
Auto-Post to Facebook, Twitter, & LinkedIn: Save time, money, & energy by auto-posting to your social media accounts!
Related Posts: Reputable shared hosting companies will not allow you to do related posts (for good reason)…until now!
Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc. Social Sharing Buttons on Posts: If you absolutely need these sharing buttons (you probably don’t), this is the best way to add them!
Nightly Backups: The simplest and best backup tool for WordPress. I’ve been using this service since before Jetpack!

Trust: Jetpack is supported by Automattic, a company with a vested financial interest in the WordPress eco-system and WordPress community and, generally-speaking, in WordPress’ continued success.

Many of the features above will save you money and headaches.

There’s also some nice widgets included in Jetpack, specifically the Mailchimp Subscriber Popup Widget and Upcoming Events List Widget, which syncs to your Google calendar!

Why Not Use Jetpack WordPress Plugin

The criticism of Jetpack, which I empathize with for the most part, is that we are relying on a for-profit company for some nice-to-have website features.

You can also do all of the above stuff with other free WordPress plugins that aren’t tied to a for-profit corporation.

For me, given most of the functionality Jetpack provides is non-critical, the pros outweigh the cons.

Jetpack Issues

Like every WordPress plugin, you will run into bugs and other issues unexpectedly.

I’ve had websites where Jetpack was causing a white screen of death unexpectedly. Not good.

But honestly, in my line of work, I see this sort of thing all the time, and so long as the Jetpack dev team is on top of things and actively-fixing bugs, I’m okay with the occasional issue.

Conclusion

Y’all know I’m someone who appreciates fewer dependencies, especially when it comes to depending on for-profit corporations.

But in the case of Jetpack, for now, the benefits outweigh the risks.

You’ll eliminate some headaches, better-secure your WordPress investment, and add some nice-to-have website features in the process!

p.s. If you’d like help installing Jetpack or any other plugins, or if you are an existing customer and would like a free WordPress speed audit, I’m here for ya! Just let me know.

6 Quick Website Wins You Can Achieve Today!

FYI, This is a quick summary of a longer and more in-depth article that can be found here.

6 FREE & Quick Digital/Business/Website Wins You Can Achieve Today!

Get a quick, cheap website from Google via Google My Business.
Local SEO via Google My Business: It’ll take you 10 minutes, and you’ll show up higher on mobile searches! FREE! Quick!
Email List: Start building your email list! Get a free Mailchimp.com account, then copy-and-paste the “signup” embed code into your WordPress site. That’s it!
Google Analytics: Create a free Google Analytics account, install the free Monster Insights WordPress plugin, configure the plugin in your WordPress, and rock on!
Install & Configure the free Jetpack WordPress plugin. Activate just about everything it offers to improve page speed, functionality, and security.
Install & Configure Yoast SEO WordPress plugin. This does all the basic stuff that Google asks of us.

Good Questions/Bad Questions In Website Design

Ever have random website questions that pop up as you build or manage a website?

Check out this post about good and bad website questions!

– Toby

“Updating Failed” WordPress Gutenberg Solution

I’ve been getting an “Updating Failed” error in WordPress Gutenberg plugin. [watch Youtube video of the error]

Here’s the solution to the “Updating Failed” issue.

Copy your IP Address here.
Log into Cloudflare and click “Firewall”
Scroll down on the “Firewall” page in Cloudflare to the “Access Rules” section.
Paste your IP Address (copied in step #1) into the “Enter an IP, IP Range…” field.
Select “Whitelist” from the dropdown next to that field.
Click the green “Add” button.

All done!

See screengrabs below.