Jacob Martella

A WordPress Developer

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Time to play "Spot the Cold Front"!

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What to Expect with WordPress 5.6

What to Expect with WordPress 5.6

We’re nearing the end of 2020 and we’re coming up on the next major release of WordPress. That’s right, WordPress 5.6 is slated to be released on December 8, and it will be the last major release of the year.

This update includes a new default theme, updates to the block editor, auto updates for major WordPress releases, like this one, and PHP 8 support. But it will also not include block…

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Using Let's Encrypt for your site's SSL

Have you avoided getting an SSL certificate for your website to appease Google? Do you even know that your site probably needs one of those certificates in the first place Let me introduce you to Let's Encrypt.

Have you avoided getting an SSL certificate for your website to appease Google? Do you even know that your site probably needs one of those certificates in the first place?

Let me introduce you to Let’s Encrypt.

This is a free service that provides SSL certificates for websites while still being supported and maintained. And it’s the best way to make your site use HTTPS and more secure for…

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How to make sure your WordPress site is accessible

So you want to make your WordPress site accessible to everyone. Awesome. But it's a pretty big undertaking. Here are the simple steps to achieve that goal.

So you’re looking to make your WordPress site accessible. You’ve heard the stories, seen the lawsuits and want to give people who use the web differently the same type of experience you currently have.

How do you even do it?

Well, I won’t lie, it’s a pretty big undertaking. In fact, as of the time of this writing, I’m trying to make this site accessible (and do a bit of a redesign as well).…

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How to preload your CSS and why you should

You're trying speed up the page load time of your website and you've tried everything. But it's still not quick enough. Have you tried preloading your CSS and JavaScript resources?

So you’re trying to make your website load quicker, and you’ve done everything you know to quicken the page load time. But there are still some problems and you keep getting an issue with render blocking when you run the page through Google Page Speed tools.

What can you do to make things load quicker?

The answer is to preload external resources like CSS and JavaScript. It’s a relatively…

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How to blog correctly for your small business

Content marketing offers a great way to advertise your small business. But there are a lot of moving parts. So let's talk about one part: blogging correctly.

Content marketing is a pretty low-cost way of advertising your business. There are a lot of moving parts to it, but today I want to go over one part of it: your blog.

And more specifically, I want to share some tips on how to correctly blog for your business. There are a lot tips out there — even books on the topic matter — but these are the ones that will be the biggest help right now for you.

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Why you should learn (some) web development

Are you looking for something to learn in 2019? Wanting to fix or extend your website. Why not start to learn web development. It might be more helpful for your small business website than you think.

Are you looking for something to learn in 2019? Wanting to fix or extend your website. Why not start to learn web development.

Learning web development can be freeing, captivating and overall, really cool. You can fix things yourself, which is key if something goes wrong and you can’t get in touch with the developer. And you can feel really confident with your website.

So why not give it a…

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Best e-commerce plugins for WordPress

You've decided you want to add an e-commerce section to your website this year. But there are so many options out there. Here are the plugins I suggest for online selling.

You’ve decided you want to add an e-commerce section to your website this year. Awesome! Now how to implement that.

Well, if you’ve got a WordPress site already, you’re basically halfway there. The WordPress ecosystem is vast, and it is definitely not lacking e-commerce plugins for you to use.

The only problem is that there are so many for you to choose from. It’s pretty easy to get…

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How to make sure your content is accessible

You want to make your site accessible but have to wait for a developer to do it. What's something you can do right now? Make sure the content of your posts and pages are accessible.

Accessible websites aren’t just a nice thing; they’re basically requirements for being on the web these days.

But converting an entire site to be accessibility ready can be a challenge and time consuming, especially if it wasn’t built right. And if you’re not a developer, it takes time and money to find someone to make it right. What can you do right now to make sure your site is at least…

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Why you should have a website for your small business

So you have a Facebook page for your small business and it's the only place your business is on the web. That's okay, right? Not if you want to grow your business.

So you have a Facebook page for your small business. It’s not much, but your are on the web and can be indexed by Google in a way. That’s good, right?

Well, if you’re looking to grow your business, then not really. Yes, it’s standard practice to have a Facebook page for your business. But if that’s the only place you’re online, then you’re not doing all you can to grown the business.

Instea…

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Why accessibility matters in the modern web

The new year brought a lawsuit claiming a Beyonce's website violated the ADA. It shows that accessibility isn't a feature on the modern web; it's a requirement.

On January 3, Mary Conner, a blind New York woman, sued Beyonce’s company Parkwood Entertainment because she could not navigate Beyonce.com, and thus the website violated the Americans with Disabilities Act.

The case probably has a long way to go, and there’s obviously no guarantee that Conner will win the lawsuit.

But what this should do is be a wake up call for everyone who creates and…

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My favorite StudioPress themes

So you want to use a prebuilt WordPress theme for your website. Great! Now where do you start? Well, here are some options I recommend from StudioPress.

So after thinking through and reading about using a prebuilt WordPress theme and you’ve decided to go down that road. Now, where do you start?

One word: StudioPress.

StudioPress is the same company that sells the Genesis framework/parent theme. And they also sell child themes for Genesis that you can put on your website and run out of the box. Plus it’s pretty easy to customize them to fit…

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Where to get WordPress help

Something has gone wrong with your website. People can't get to it, and you're losing money. So what do you do? Here are some places to get help with your WordPress website.

Something has gone wrong with your WordPress website.

It’s not working. People can’t get to your website. You can’t sell products. You can see the dollar signs slipping away.

What do you do?

Well first off, don’t panic. It can be easy to go crazy when a problem arises, but panicking does nothing. So take a deep breath.

Once you’ve calmed down, contact your developer. If they can’t…

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The value of open source

The value of open What's the value in using and contributing to an open source project? Well beyond the price, it's really quite remarkable.source

One of the biggest reasons I love using WordPress and was drawn into using it is the fact that it’s an open source project. That means people have built software that’s free for anyone to use and modify.

In this day and age where a lot products, especially software products, feel very commercialized, open source projects remind us of what happens people come together to make cool things and…

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How to use page builders correctly

Page builders are very tempting to use, especially if you're a non-developer. But things can go wrong with them pretty quickly if you're not careful. Here's how to use them correctly.

It’s really tempting to use page builders.

There are so many ones out there for WordPress. You have Beaver Builder, Visual Composer, Divi, Elementor and the list goes on and on and on. And they seem pretty easy to build, which is usually a plus for the non-developer website owning crowd.

But with great power comes great responsibility. And when you’re using a page builder, things can get…

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What to check for when looking over the website

So your website is just about ready to go live. You like the design, it's been developed and the content is in. So what's next? Check the design again.

Alright, so your site is almost ready to go. You love the design, it’s been developed and the content is in.

Everything’s set to go, right?

Well, not quite. Before the website goes live and you make that final payment to the developer, you need to go over the site one last time to make sure everything is correct and how you want it to be.

But what should you be looking for? So glad you…

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Creating Gutenberg blocks with Advanced Custom Fields

Playing with Gutenberg can be fun. But creating blocks in JavaScript can be tough. But ACF will be giving developers help in the future.

Gutenberg blocks are fun for the most part. But creating them can be quite the challenge, especially if advanced JavaScript and JSX aren’t exactly your strong suits.

But there’s a change coming on the horizon. And it’s in the form of Advanced Custom Fields.

Though currently in beta testing, ACF will be adding the ability to create custom Gutenberg blocks. I’ve been using it to create some…

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