In this blog post we will demonstrate the power of this trigger with an example: We will setup an automation aimed at rewarding new Mastodon followers with a coupon code. This not only showcases the custom trigger’s utility but also offers a practical incentive for increasing your Mastodon following.

An Overview of Mastodon

For those unfamiliar, Mastodon is an open-source, decentralized platform similar to Twitter. Unlike a centralized setup, Mastodon operates on a federated system of multiple independent servers or “instances”. This unique system gives users increased control, enabling them to select or create instances that match their preferences. Mastodon stands out due to its emphasis on user privacy and absence of algorithm-driven content.

Linking WordPress with Mastodon

Mastodon operates using the ActivityPub protocol. Simply put, this protocol allows users from different social networks to connect if both platforms support it. But it also allows us to connect our WordPress installation to the network. To establish this connection, we’ll be using the ActivityPub plugin by Matthias Pfefferle. Once activated, Mastodon users can follow your blog. Every time you post a new article, your followers will see this post in their timeline and they can interact with it. And of course, we want to be in that feed!

Setting Up the Automation

To encourage users to follow you on Mastodon, we’re offering them lets say a 10% coupon. This coupon is automatically sent to subscribers when they press the “Follow” button.

Here’s our automation setup: We utilize the “Custom trigger” and direct it to respond to the mastodon_new_follower hook. When this hook is fired, the automation sends out the coupon code to the customer who started following us.

Implementing the Custom Trigger

Let’s delve into the logic behind this. This part is a bit technical and assumes some familiarity with WordPress development. The process consists of two main steps:

In a first step, we need to somehow store the Mastodon URLs of our customers. This information is needed later to know exactly which customer started to follow us. Therefore we want to give our customers the possibility to enter their Mastodon profile URL during checkout and in their account. WooCommerce has a filter, we can utilize for that purpose: woocommerce_billing_fields:

add_filter(
  'woocommerce_billing_fields',
  function($fields) {
    $fields['mastodon'] = array(
      'type'         => 'url',
      'label'        => __( 'Your Mastodon URL', 'mastodon-automation' ),
      'required'     => false,
      'placeholder'  => esc_attr__( 'https://mastodon.social/@<username>', 'mastodon-automation' ),
      'autocomplete' => 'mastodon',
    );
    return $fields;
  }
);

Now that we store this information, we can tap into an event of the ActivityPub plugin. When a user follows our blog, Mastodon notifies our WordPress installation. The ActivityPub plugin triggers the activitypub_followers_post_follow action in response to which we will listen in our small custom plugin:

add_action(
  'activitypub_followers_post_follow',
  function($actorUrl, $object, $userId, \Activitypub\Model\Follower $follower) {
    /**
     * @var \WP_User[] $users
     */
    $users = (new \WP_User_Query([
      'meta_query' => [
        [
          'meta_key'   => 'mastodon',
          'meta_value' => $follower->get_url(),
        ]
      ]
    ]))->get_results();
    if (! $users) {
      return;
    }
    foreach ($users as $user) {
      if (! is_email($user->user_email)) {
        continue;
      }
      do_action('mastodon_new_follower', $user->user_email);
    }
  },
  10,
  4
);

In essence, the Follower object provides the URL to the profile of the new follower through get_url(). We then attempt to match this URL with those our users provided during checkout. When a match is found, the mastodon_new_follower action is activated, which provides the email address of our customer. As you can see, this is exactly the action we told our custom trigger to listen to; So once a match is found, the automation is triggered.

Conclusion

This is just one example of the potential of MailPoet’s new custom triggers. With a bit of code, you can craft unique automations that cater to your audience’s needs. And that is not all, you can extend your automations even with custom steps, which will fire hooks instead of listening to them. For a deep dive into the technical aspects of our custom trigger and the custom step, you should have a look into our knowledge base. We explain the technical details for the trigger here and for the custom step here.

At this point, you might have already mastered the art of moving your shoppers from one point of the sales funnel to the next, yet losing them at the near-end of the purchase is, unfortunately, quite inevitable. The good news is that, even though the average global cart abandonment is already at 69.57% according to recent statistics by Baymard Institute, reliable ways to overcome this are now within your reach.

Now is the best time to start creating a seamless sales funnel and boost conversions to close more sales. In this post, I’ll be sharing 5 tried-and-tested strategies to minimize cart abandonment.

Why do shoppers abandon carts?

Most customers share certain similarities when it comes to online shopping frustrations. Here are some reasons that contribute to your high cart abandonment rate:

• Extra costs are too high (shipping fees, taxes)
• Complicated checkout process
• Unreasonable estimated delivery date
• Limited payment options
• Too much information needed from the customer, and many more!

Sounds familiar? No worries, help is here!

1. Avoid shocking customers with unexpected costs

One of the most common reasons why customers abandon their carts is because of price shock due to shipping fees, taxes, and other unexpected extra costs at the end of the checkout process. This tends to back them off straight away. Who wants to be surprised with additional costs you don’t want in your cart in the first place, right?

To address this, be as transparent as possible. Make sure to include all the other fees at the very onset, much better if it’s right before they add items to their cart so you can manage their expectation. This way, they’re aware of any top-up cost as they browse through your online shop.

Moreover, providing a shipping calculator, discount options, and freebies can help you successfully usher your customers through the checkout process until they settle their payment.

2. Establish trust by showing security badges and improving customer support

Did you know that there’s been a whopping 284% increase in reported cases of data breaches that affected 15.1 billion personal records in 2019, according to Risk Based Security?

Data breaches are a real danger, that’s why customers are savvier nowadays when it comes to security protection in online transactions.

Gain your client’s trust by showing off your security badges, such as a valid SSL certificate and other well-known security logos (PayPal Verified, McAfee Secure). They help establish confidence especially if your visitor is a first-time buyer. 

Another effective way to establish trust is to let them know you’re willing to assist whenever they encounter anything wrong, or when they have questions about your items.

Provide your visitors with different ways to chat with you. Have them choose from a wide range of commonly-used messaging channels (WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Viber, Telegram, and many others) so it would be easy for them to reach you even after they leave your eCommerce site. 

3. Use analytics to identify funnel leaks

There are many website analytics tools that you can utilize and take advantage of so you can get a clear insight into your customers’ behavior when they visit your eCommerce site. This is helpful especially if you’re new to the business and trial-and-error is not an option.

To get a full glimpse of what to retain, improve and eliminate from your sales and marketing efforts, start exploring the most suitable analytics tool for you, then examine the best visitor flow and pathways based on your market demographics. By doing so, you can pinpoint what part of your funnel your customers are backing off so you can strategize from there.

4. Set up an exit-intent pop-up with an irresistible offer

Successful eCommerce businesses know this secret very well. 

Knowledge about exit-intent technology would enable you to boost your conversion rate in no time. This advancement lets you track mouse movements of website visitors and detects when they intend to leave the site without giving any personal record or buying anything.

Whether in the form of an exit pop-up or a widget, your message appears as soon as the cursor of your visitor leaves the frame of your website. Such messages often include discounts, freebies, and other exclusive offerings to entice visitors to continue with their purchase.

Here are some of the reasons why you should try exit pop-ups:

• You catch their attention perfectly with an enticing offer right before they leave.
• As you put your message in the middle of their screens, they have no option but to make a choice immediately or lose the special offer permanently.
• You get a chance to offer better deals which might result in an improved relationship and brand affinity with customers.

5. Enhance credibility by displaying social proof from previous clients

When buying online, customers always want to ensure that they spend their money wisely on good quality products/services since they don’t have the ability to check themselves. The only thing they can rely on is social proof. 

They’d definitely want to know how your specific item made an impact on the previous buyers. Without testimonials, customers might think there’s a problem with you or with your product that’s why no one’s willing to testify something good about it.

To help your customers make purchasing decisions and improve your brand’s credibility, it’s highly recommended that you install a WordPress testimonial plugin on your site. With this, you’ll be able to successfully include your star ratings, testimonials, and images from actual customers.

Wrapping up!

To increase your chances of closing a sale, being transparent about extra costs can help you tremendously, while security badges can win trust when they’re handing over their bank information.

Another way to impact their buying decision is by giving social proofs and enticing them with exclusive offers through exit popups. And if you want to understand your customers’ behavior more, you can also take advantage of data analytics tools.

Although shopping cart abandonment is really a hardcore nemesis, just take these strategies to heart and you’re set for success.

And if for some reason you still see yourself experiencing increased cart abandonment, never lose hope. You always have the ability to rescue purchases and make them return to your store through MailPoet’s advanced cart abandonment email capability!

We’re excited for you to enjoy high conversion rates and exceed sales targets very soon!

Phew! There’s a lot to consider!

As a member of the MailPoet support team, I regularly work with developers. In previous roles before joining MailPoet, I handled WordPress support for various companies, I’ve also been a developer for hire, and I’ve hired over 20 developers for a range of different projects.

To help you understand how hiring a developer works, I’ve put together this guide to help you get started with finding and hiring a developer to assist with your WordPress site. We’ll look at how to scope out your project, where to find developers and how to vet them, contracts, and more.

How should a WordPress developer propose email solutions? We’ve covered this topic in full How to Package and Price Email Marketing Services for Your WordPress Clients.

Getting started: scoping your project

What kind of project do you need a WordPress developer for? Are you building a website from scratch? Do you need a customization? Or are you bringing someone on board to pick up where another developer has left off?

It’s important to ensure you have a substantial and thorough project scope—also known as a project specification, or spec—before you start looking for a developer. This way, you’ll be able to advertise your project more accurately and you’ll be more likely to receive high-quality applicants.

At a minimum, a good scope should include the following for full website builds.

• An overview of the project. What do you need? Explain what your project involves.

• The number of pages. If you’re project is a whole or partial website build, consider the number of pages you need and what they’ll contain. Pages such as About Us, Pricing and Features are common building blocks of any website.
• User interactions. Plan how the user will interact with your website, from landing on the first page and every step thereon. Don’t leave anything out — cover every click and link.
• Functionality. Whether you need shopping carts, appointment forms, contact forms or anything else. Ensure every piece is mapped out for the potential developer to review.
• Special considerations. Anything unique or unusual in what you need? If it’s not covered above, map it out here and share links to other websites that have a similar feature.

Not every project is a full website build, you might need someone to make a minor update to an existing plugin, implement DKIM & SPF for your email marketing, or the assistance of a copywriter to get your sales pitch just right. In those cases, we recommend a more generalized specification with specifics as needed.

• An overview of the project. A paragraph or so about what the project involves.
• Breakdown of the project. Here’s where you get into specifics on exactly what you need, make sure it’s detailed after all no detail is too small.
• Timelines. What do you expect? When do you expect it? Understand that timelines are rarely an exact science and as a client you need to communicate just as much as the freelancer.

Where to hire a WordPress developer

With your scope in hand, it’s time to start searching for a developer. The following sites are some of my go-to places for finding WordPress developers.

1. Codeable.io

Codeable key facts;

• Codeable manually screens all new candidates that join its platform.
• Quality work and satisfaction is guaranteed. All development work comes with a guarantee for 28 days.
• Prices from $70 – $120/hour.
• Any project size is welcome, no matter how big or small.
• It’s quick to get started, with the average project attracting bids in under 10 minutes.
• The site features a browsable directory of WordPress developers, ordered randomly since they are all vetted already, which is unique to this directory.

Codeable has provided a marketplace to hire WordPress developers since 2012. With hourly rates starting at $70/hour, I can vouch from personal experience that the developers you’ll find are well worth it.

Codeable puts all of its freelancers through an intensive selection process (only 2% of applicants make it through) before allowing them to join the platform. Developers are then expected to maintain a minimum number of positive reviews to stay on the platform.

Disclaimer: the main link above is an affiliate link. It was added after we wrote this article and has no effect on our final recommendations.

2. Upwork

Upwork key facts;

• 76,000+ WordPress developers for hire.
• Rates from $30/hour.
• Any project size, from small to large.
• There’s a browsable directory of freelance developers for hire by rating.
• Wide range of skill level so hire with caution and do your research on the candidate.

Upwork makes it quick and simple to post a project and start fielding inquiries, enabling you to go from idea to hire in under 30 minutes.

One of the features I like most about Upwork is the ability to set out interview questions. This allows you to put questions to applicants—and know for sure if the freelancers are actually reading your project scope. It’s a simple way of sifting the good developers who pay attention to detail from the bad ones who are lazy.

3. PeoplePerHour

PeoplePerHour key facts;

• UK-focused jobs board, but you can post a job wherever you are in the world.
• Rates from $20/hour.
• There are 10,000+ WordPress developers for hire.
• A unique rating system, which measures community, engagement, repeat usage, and trust or CERT for short.
• Wide range of skillsets and capabilities of the developers available for hire.
• Fixed-price hourly rates for specific jobs.  

This board from the UK offers a surprising array of varied talent. It offers hundreds of SEO consultants, designers, and developers, all for WordPress.

Developers can be ranked by delivery time, location, and hourly rate (from $20 to $150). Profiles display a satisfaction rating and the total number of jobs the developer has completed, to help you determine the quality of developers you might want to hire.

Prices are in dollars, euros and pounds.

4. Facebook groups

Facebook groups key facts

• It can be difficult to determine the quality of developers due to a lack of ratings or reviews.
• Wide range of specialist groups for various themes and plugins, making it easier to find someone who specializes in what you need.
• Rates from $40/hour in most groups.
• Wide range of skill sets and capabilities—hire with caution!
• Rules of how to hire vary per group so always read before posting.

There are many and varied Facebook groups where WordPress developers come together, providing the perfect place and opportunity to advertise your project.

Before posting, make sure you read the rules of each group as some have specific requirements around posting jobs, and some even disable comments.

Some of the best WordPress developer groups include:

• Advanced WordPress
• WordPress Paid Gigs Only
• WooCommerce Help and Share
• WordPress Help and Share

5. Finding developers in your local community

The WordPress Project has spawned a worldwide community of professional and hobby developers who come together at WordCamps, but also Meetup groups.

Local Meetups allow developer to share what they’ve learned, teach other, discuss trends and practices, and network with other developers.

You can search for local meetups on meetup.com or on your own WordPress admin dashboard. These events are usually monthly or quarterly with 5 to 20 attendees. These groups provide a great opportunity to ask developers for help for free, and meet face-to-face with developers who are seeking work.

WordCamps are annual events in cities or countries that attract hundreds of people. They usually have a “Happiness Bar” where you can talk to developers and get help with your website. Ask around and you might find your next WordPress developer. Search on WordCamp Central for the next WordCamp in your local area.

Finally, every country has its preferred job boards too. For example, Germans developers can be found on Indeed while the French community has a channel for jobs on Slack.

Sorting through applications from developers

After posting the perfect project scope and receiving dozens of quotes, it’s time to start sifting through your applications.

I recommend initially crossing applicants off your list who don’t meet your requirements (there’ll always be applicants who “have a go” but haven’t read your project scope). Then, you can start narrowing down the serious applicants to two or three solid developers for further evaluation.

Here’s how I suggest you evaluate your top three applicants:

1. Pricing

The pricing sweet spot when it comes to hiring a developer is $50/hour. It’s a sensible price for a good quality developer. Of course, you will receive quotes varying wildly in price from $20/hour to $100/hour.

If you decide to hire a $100/hour WordPress developer, you should expect someone at the top of their game and nothing less.

Developers who charges less than $20/hour should send up major red flags. It just isn’t a sustainable hourly rate, and you should be wary of the quality of work they might provide.

2. Inspect their portfolio

Developers should be able to provide you with an online portfolio of their previously completed projects. Here are just a few things you should be looking for:

• Projects that are similar to yours. You want to know that the developer is capable of producing what you are asking for.

• Their skill level. While difficult to judge, if you have a complex project that requires a lot of functionality, it’s important that the developer you hire has the experience to build it. If their portfolio contains mostly simple sites with limited functionality, they probably don’t have the expertise to fit your project.
• Style. It the style of their work close to what you want? If not, you may want to find someone else.
• Types of project. If you want a custom plugin, but the developer only builds websites, or vice versa, they may not have the skillset you need.

3. References, ratings and jobs completed

The biggest risk when working with someone new is knowing whether they will actually complete the project to your requirements and on time. While some job boards, like Codeable, will screen candidates for you, many others will leave this challenging task in your hands.

In this case, look for any references and the URLs of projects they have previously completed so you can check their work yourself and possibly speak with the person who commissioned the project.

If a developer can’t provide any references, you shouldn’t entertain the thought of hiring them for another second—just move on to the next developer on your shortlist. Without references or proof of completed work, you’re looking at working with an unproven wildcard, which is risky business.

Check the star ratings and reviews of developers on job boards. These pieces of information provide a wider view of how a particular freelancer has handled themselves on past projects, and whether previous clients have been satisfied with their work.

Boards like UpWork and sites like Codeable also provide information on the number of successful jobs developers have completed. The more projects they have worked on, the more experienced they are, and the more likely they will be able to diligently complete your project.

Lastly, don’t be put off if a freelancer only has a few reviews to their name. They could be new to the platform, and if that’s the case, you can ask them for other references before proceeding.

Choosing your developer

After carefully vetting your top three and asking them for additional information, they’ve returned to you with the details you need and you’ve finally found your chosen one.

Before you move forward, however, there are some other important considerations you need to settle first.

1. Fixed fee or hourly rate?

Hourly rates are the best and simplest way to pay developers because development work is very hard to judge via time scales. This will avoid a scenario where the developer becomes disinterested if the project drags on, or new tasks are requested out-of-scope.

Ask the developer to track all their hours in a shared timesheet—a tool like Google Sheets is sufficient—which you can review at any time.

If you go the fixed fee route, suggest paying 50% upfront and 50% at the end of the project. This reassures all parties. At MailPoet, we use Transferwise for bank payments, or PayPal when the developer asks for it.

2. Propose milestones

Using milestones can help you break down a large project into manageable chunks, both for you and the developer. The developer can then provide clear visibility of their progress, which can be tracked over several days instead of weeks.

You can then set your payments to match milestones if the project spans a few weeks.

Good developers should propose a calendar of milestones themselves since they’re in a better position to estimate the amount of work needed and how long it will take them to complete.

3. Maintenance promise

Ask your developer about maintenance or a final round of corrections before the project goes live.

A good developer will provide support post-launch for an initial launch-window period and then ongoing maintenance at a fixed fee per month.

If the WordPress developer you hire doesn’t mention maintenance or—worse—doesn’t want to provide maintenance, steer clear. Developers should always provide a guarantee of their work, and be available to step in if something goes wrong.

4. Quick and clear communication

When you start working with a new developer, you should expect quick email responses within 24 hours, Monday to Friday.

If you’re on a tight schedule, ask the developer for their Skype details. In fact, it’s a good idea to meet your developer over Skype for an initial kick-off call when they start your project. This way, you can make sure your both on the same page when it comes to the nitty gritty details of your project.

Watch out for a good level of English for clear communication and understanding so nothing is misinterpreted or misunderstood.

Writing a contract

The final step now you’ve chosen your preferred WordPress developer is to create and finalize a contract—an important step in protecting you and the contract developer.

A good contract should at minimum contain:

• Client details
• Developer details
• Project scope
• Details of milestones and what they entail (if used)
• Pricing for the project
• Maximum number of hours the developer is permitted to work if hourly
• What happens if new features are required that are outside the project scope.
• The type of support available post-launch
• How disagreements will be handled
• Who owns the IP and at what stage the IP is transferred
• Shared passwords (you always need to have access to them)

If you don’t have access to a lawyer to help you craft a bulletproof contract, services like Rocket Lawyer (US), LawDepot (UK) and LegalVision (Australia) provide online legal services and template contracts.

Once the project has started

It’s perfectly normal to be wary the first time you work with someone new. Here are a few things to look out for:

• Ensure all milestones, tasks, or changes in the initial scope have proposed dates for delivery. You want to ensure there are firm dates set so your project is completed on time and doesn’t drag out.

• If you find that quick email replies during the initial exchange start to trickle in slowly once the project has started, pull up the developer and ask for faster communication. Set a Skype call to ensure the project is on track and the communication remains clear.
• Make sure your tasks or changes are in-scope. Developers will want to please you initially and take on extra work without letting you know they’re considering it as a debt. This might lead to acrimonious negotiations at the end of the project.
• Estimating the workload required for the development of a project is notoriously difficult. It’s normal if a feature is suddenly taking twice more time than initially. If you’re unsure why something is taking so long, just ask.
• If the developer starts to ask about aspects of the project that were already defined at the outset, it could be a sign they don’t understand what you need, and reevaluation could be in order.
• If you’ve paid the deposit and a milestone payment isn’t due you shouldn’t part with any more money until the appropriate work has been completed.

Wrapping up

Hiring a WordPress developer can be like navigating a minefield the first time you do it, but each time you work with a new developer you’ll find the process gets easier. There’s a lot to consider, from project scope and job boards to contracts and payments.

Make sure you bookmark this guide for when you need to hire a developer. Goodluck with your project!

Have you hired WordPress developers before? Maybe you’ve found the perfect place to hire developers? Let us know in the comments below.

For time-poor site admins, knowing where to start is half the battle. Simply googling “speed up wordpress,” brings up 197 million results—talk about overwhelming!

From simple strategies like choosing a good web host through to more advanced methods such as implementing prebrowsing hints, there are a bazillion different site optimization techniques out there.

But really, who’s got the time? It’s easy to fritter away hours tweaking a site to make it faster. Plus, you’re not going to get any love from your web host since they usually don’t help with performance issues.

So in this guide, we’re going to zip through seven things you can do right now—in just 60 minutes—to speed up your WordPress site and get your page loading quickly.

Got a slow site? Say goodbye to conversions…

But first, let’s recap some important stats:

• A 1-second delay in page load time can lead to a 7% reduction in conversions – Neil Patel.
• 47% of people expect a page to load in 2 seconds or less – Akamai.
• Shoppers often become distracted when made to wait for a page to load, with 14% opening another browser tab to start shopping at another site, and 23% walking away from their computer – Akamai.
• If an e-commerce site makes $100,000 per day, a 1-second page delay could potentially cost $2.5 million in lost sales every year – Neil Patel.

These are sobering statistics—and proof that on the web, every second really does count.

Your page speed impacts every metric on your site that matters—user experience, bounce rate, ranking in Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs), conversions, and page views.

It’s simple really: when your pages load quickly, you keep visitors happy and they’re more likely to stick around and convert.

But first: Benchmarking your page speed

Before you make any performance tweaks to your site, it’s important to know what your page speed actually is. This will tell you how your website is currently performing, but also give you a benchmark for measuring the effectiveness of the performance optimization changes you implement.

Pingdom, GTmetrix, and WebPagetest are three popular options for testing website speed. What’s great about these particular tools is that they each offer detailed information about the performance of your site that can help you identify bottlenecks

For an in-depth rundown of these of these tools, check out Pingdom vs GTmetrix vs WebPagetest: How Are They Different?

Note: Google’s PageSpeed Insights is another tool for measuring site speed, but it offers more general insights in your page speed rather than the specifics provided by the tools I’ve mentioned above.

How to speed up your WordPress site in 2019

1. Install a caching plugin

If you’ve got static images, CSS, and JavaScript on your site that rarely change—for example, you have a website that you don’t update very often—a caching plugin can help make your pages load faster.

Browser caching involves storing elements of your site in the user’s browser so they only need to be loaded the first time someone visits your site and not for subsequent visits. Caching, as well as cache preloading, is especially helpful for repeat visitors and for sites that are image-heavy, such as retail websites and other online stores.

My pick as far as free caching plugins go is the relatively new Swift Performance Lite plugin. It includes everything you’d expect of a full-featured caching plugin (page caching, cache preloading, GZIP compression, browser caching, minification, etc.)

For premium caching, you can’t go wrong with WP Rocket. It’s super easy to set up and you’ll notice immediate performance gains. Their support team can help you with fine-tuning so you can stay lazy.

How to get it done quickly: If you’ve got $40, go with WP Rocket. But if you’re on a tight budget, install and activate Swift Performance Lite. It’s easy to set up, especially with its intuitive configuration wizard.

2. Compress and optimize images

Images account for a whopping 42% of the total file size of the average web page, according to the HTTP Archive. That means almost half your site is probably made up of images—and if they’re large and unwieldy, they’re dragging down your page load times.

You can easily check the size of your site ordered by content type. Simply run your site through Pingdom and you’ll get a list of content types ordered by size.

Fortunately, image optimization is considered “low hanging fruit” as far as speeding up WordPress goes because it’s so easy to fix. All you need to do is install and activate an image compression plugin.

WP Smush is the most popular image optimization plugin for WordPress with 1+ million active installations. It works by applying lossless (or lossy) compression techniques to your images that shrink them in size without any noticeable loss in quality.

A useful feature of WP Smush is the ability to bulk smush images automatically when you upload them to your site so you don’t have to do it manually.

Alternatively, if you have the Jetpack plugin installed, simply enable Photon. This free service will compress your images and store them in the cloud. Your site will load faster because it will load your website and the images in parallel.

If you use a lot of images on your site, you might want to implement lazy loading. The a3 Lazy Load and Jetpack plugins offer this feature, which loads images on a page only when they come into the user’s view. This technique not only speeds up page load times, but also saves bandwidth for users who don’t scroll all the way to the bottom of your pages.

How to get it done quickly: Install and activate WP Smush and enable bulk smush for easy, automated image optimization.

3. Enable GZIP compression

GZIP compression is a popular method for speeding up WordPress—and one you might already have enabled on your site. When turned on, it can help reduce the total size of your pages and improve the time to first paint. This ensures your content is delivered to your visitors faster and reduces their data usage.

GZIP is used to compress code and text files, including HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. According to Google Developer Advocate and Web Perf Guru Ilya Grigorik, GZIP “often achieves compression rates of as high as 70-90%.”

Many web hosts automatically enable GZIP for the sites they host. To check if your site is using it, you can use the free Varvy Gzip Compressions Test tool to scan your site. What’s great about this particular tool is that it also tells you the compressed and uncompressed size of your site’s files.

Most caching plugins come with built-in support for GZIP. WP Rocket, for example, automatically adds GZIP compression rules to your .htaccess file when you activate the plugin.

How to get it done quickly: Get in touch with your web host if GZIP isn’t enabled for your site. If you’re already using a caching plugin like W3 Total Cache or WP Rocket, check the GZIP option in the settings.

4. Minify HTML, CSS and JavaScript

Minification basically means removing any unnecessary characters in your HTML, CSS and JavaScript files that aren’t required for code to execute. This includes characters such as comments, formatting, whitespace, and new lines.

While spaces and tabs make code more readable for humans, servers and browsers don’t need them, so long as your code is valid and executes without error.

Rather than manually sifting through your code and removing white space yourself (which would be incredibly tedious to do!), free plugins like Hummingbird and Fast Velocity Minify can handle this at runtime.

Caching plugins usually include minification. Both W3 Total Cache and WP Rocket include advanced minification options that let you choose the types of files you want to minify.

It’s worth mentioning that while minification is a simple concept and usually works in practice, the reality is that it can, and does, break sites. If you attempt to minify your files and something goes wrong, simply disable it and ask the plugin author for support.

How to get it done quickly: Install and activate the Hummingbird plugin. If you’re already using a caching plugin like W3 Total Cache or WP Rocket, check the minification option in the settings.

5. Optimize database tables

WordPress databases can often become bogged down with many thousands of items that you no longer need. Items like old plugin settings, spam, trashed items, post revisions, and stale transients can cause database queries to take longer than necessary.

Optimizing your database can fix this. It’s a lot like defragging your computer or changing the oil in your car—it can help reduce the size of your database and speed up queries.

There are many different ways you can clean up your WordPress database. Plugins like WP-Optimize and WP-Sweep offer simple options for choosing what you want to clean up and remove from your database.

You can also optimize your database tables manually using phpMyAdmin.

Don’t forget to back up your site before optimizing your database, just in case something goes wrong. It’s always a good idea to make a back up before making anything changes to your site.

For a comprehensive guide to cleaning up your WordPress database, check out WP Rocket’s post How to Make Your WordPress Database Clean as a Whistle.

How to get it done quickly: Install and activate WP-Optimize or WP-Sweep. If you’re already using WP Rocket, simply go to the “Database” tab in the settings to optimize your database.

6. Upgrade to PHP 7.2

To ensure your site is running as efficiently as possible, you’re going to want to update to the latest version of PHP.

PHP 5.6 is slooow. Yet, so many WP users are still using it:

Why? Basically, because web hosts don’t want to break customers’ sites.

Despite the fact PHP 7 was released in 2015—and support for PHP 5.6 is set to end on 31 December, 2018—hosts have held off updating their servers because the latest versions of PHP have the potential to break plugins and themes.

PHP 7 is six times faster than any previous version of PHP and requires fewer servers to deliver your site to the same number of visitors.

If you want your site running on the latest version, which is now PHP 7.2, you’ll need to take the initiative and do it yourself or ask your host for help.

If you’re not sure what version of PHP your site is running, the Display PHP Version plugin can add this information to the “At a Glance” widget in the WordPress dashboard.

It’s worth keeping in mind that MailPoet will require PHP 5.6 as a minimum in 2019, but it’s strongly recommended that you upgrade to PHP 7+.

How to get it done quickly: The laziest way to get this done is to get in touch with your host. So contact your host and ask them to enable it for your site.

7. Deactivate and remove slow plugins

It’s good practice to only keep the plugins you absolutely need to run your site and remove all others. Not only does this help streamline your WordPress dashboard for efficiency, but it’s generally recommended from a WordPress security and maintenance standpoint.

Although the quantity of your plugins may well be a factor in slowing things down, it’s more likely that there’s an issue with the quality of your plugins. The quality of code combined with other factors, such as how you’ve configured your plugins and how well they play with your hosting set-up, could be forcing your server to work overtime.

Some popular plugins are notorious for slowing down sites, such as Broken Link Checker, Contact Form 7, and Visual Composer, to name a few.

The only way to really know if a plugin is slowing down your site is to test it. The usual method of identifying a troublesome plugin is to deactivate your plugins one-by-one until the issues you’re experiencing stop.

Brenda Barron’s excellent post, Use This Test to Find Out Which Plugins are Slowing Down Your WordPress Site, offers a step-by-step guide on how to do this.

Alternatively, if you really want to dig into the inner workings of your site—and you’ve got some extra time up your sleeves and you’re an advanced user—give the Query Monitor plugin a go, or even sign up for New Relic. These developer tools can help you monitor the PHP and database performance of your site.

It’s worth pointing out that most newsletter plugins will slow down your site as they rely heavily on your server (you can read more about hosts and their sending limited here). If you use PHP to send your emails, for example, it uses more CPU as your server is also handling the sending. It’s important to consider this if your list has more than 50,000 subscribers.

If you opt to use the MailPoet Sending Service, MailPoet’s dedicated email servers take care of all the heavy lifting so there’s less strain on your servers. Plus, the MailPoet Sending Service is optimized for sending large numbers of newsletters and enjoys high open rates with an industry-leading 97.5% deliverability rate.

How to get it done quickly: There’s no really quick and easy way to do this. Sorry, but you’re going to have to spend some of your hour deactivating and activating your plugins to pinpoint which ones are giving your grief.

Speeding up WordPress doesn’t have to be slow

If your site is slow, implementing just a few of these techniques can drastically improve your page load time. There are lots of free plugins available that can help you put these solutions in place, with very little time and effort on your part.

There are plenty of other methods that I left off this list that take a bit more time to implement, such as upgrading your hosting (or switching hosts) and reducing HTTP requests.

Don’t forget to benchmark your page speed before you start making changes to your site so you can compare your before and after results.

Maybe you don’t have 60 minutes for this or you possibly feel it’s too complex for you? You could hire a WordPress developer for a couple of hours as a start and if you aren’t sure where to start, we wrote an in-depth guide on hiring your first WordPress Developer. Or even better, purchase WP Rocket and let their support configure the plugin for you.

Nowadays, I tell people to use PicMonkey, an online photo editor which is both fun and easy. Most of its core features are free too.

Let me run you through 8 photo editing steps that I usually do to all my photos.

After this lesson, and with a bit of trial and error, you’ll be able to go from this before:

To this after:

Flickr image source.

1. Level the horizon

It’s a relatively common error for amateur photographers to unintentionally tilt the camera, and get a slightly diagonal horizon.

Here’s how to fix it in PicMonkey:

Flickr image source.

2. Reframe your photo

Thankfully you get a second chance at framing a photo with an editor thanks to the crop tool.

For example, take this photo:

In this picture, I’m only interested in the main subject: the post cards. The tree, the sidewalk and the full post box, I can do without so my viewers focus on the main action:

It’s no coincidence that the crop tool is the first one at the top of the PicMonkey toolbar:

Flickr image source.

3. Don’t centre your subject

The first artistic rule in photography is the “rule of thirds,” a concept borrowed from painting.

In short, don’t center your subject. For the long explanation, read this nice article with examples.

Take this picture for example, with a centered mail box:

It now looks a little better after I cropped it and move the post box to the right:

4. Add contrast

I always play with the contrasts and brightness of each image. For example, this sun glared picture could use more contrast:

It looks a little better once we add contrast, and lower the brightness:

Look for the exposure tool in PicMonkey:

Flickr image source.

5. Filters, like in Instagram

PicMonkey offers nearly 30 free filters, some of which are reminiscent of Instagram.

A really plain photo, like this one:

… can suddenly have a different feel to it. I opted for a bit of vintage:

Flickr image source.

6. Add a frame

This is a must, especially for your newsletters with a lot of photos which in turn can start to look bland:

I prefer the pics with fat frames, like this:

In PicMonkey, stick to the first three types of frames:

7. Insert text!

This is to be used sparingly, since some of your subscribers won’t display the images in their email clients.

This said, it can really help attract your users attention, like this:

This sums it up! Of course, you can use the same tricks with other editing software like the free Picasa, or Aperture for Mac. Then again, PicMonkey is so much easier.