One part of keeping your WordPress website healthy is using an uptime monitor. I use a free one called Jetpack Monitor. Jetpack Monitor is very basic. It checks your website every 5 minutes and sends an email notice if something is…
I use git locally whenever I’m doing development. If you’re using WP Engine, you can simply push directly to their repo and they’ll auto update your web server. Recently I was working with Kinsta on my own website. While Kinsta has…
Have you ever noticed that WordPress.org plugins folder names never change? For example Yoast SEO is under a folder called wordpress-seo while Google Analytics for WordPress by MonsterInsights is within google-analytics-for-wordpress. While plugin names can change the folder names are unchangeable. These persistent folders, also…
WordPress has a built-in method for throwing up a maintenance page, which makes a website completely inaccessible. This is used during its own internal updates. You probably recognize the screen: it’s a simple white screen which says “Briefly unavailable for…
The WordPress plugin ecosystem is vast. You can pretty much find a plugin to do anything. I’ve been asked “Which plugins do you recommend?” or “Can I use this?” or “How many do you recommend I use?”. I think most of…
Be default, WP Engine disables WordPress queries with a random order. You can enable it, but that will disable their caching system, so it’s not a good idea. Here is a run through on how to properly use randomization with a WP…
If you manage lots of WordPress websites, dealing with sFTP logins can be a pain. Most sFTP clients don’t allow backup/restore passwords between computers. At some point I got tired of manually entering credentials and created the following Alfred workflow to automatically import from the…
I’ve mentioned before that I use Transmit for sFTP. One of the really nice features of Transmit is the ability to sync two folders together. This comes in handy when migrating WordPress websites with a large upload directory. Prep migration by uploading wp-content…
WP Engine does not have a one click button to restore a production snapshot backup to staging. I foresee that being something they add in the future. For now, here are some manual steps to take to do just that. First,…
Many people are afraid to run their own WordPress plugin and theme updates. That’s simply because they don’t take WordPress maintenance seriously. You don’t need to be an expert in WordPress to feel safe running updates. You do, however, need a…