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Engagement Tips to Woo Clients and Extend the Honeymoon Phase

Having a brilliant website isn’t enough. Even if your business came with a substantial, pre-existing customer base (and let’s face it, most don’t), continuing communication is essential for retainment and growth.

Running a successful business means building and maintaining a connection with your clients – existing and potential.

There are, of course, many ways to reach your business prospects in today’s digital world: paid ads, social media, real-time messaging platforms, chat, and more.

But would you be shocked to learn that email – approaching its 45th birthday! – remains the most used, most successful platform for customer engagement?

According to Tom Wozniak, of OPTIZMO Technologies: As audience tracking and targeting become more challenging, the email address will continue to be the most valuable piece of audience identification data. [Forbes]

In this article, we’re going to look at why email is the most effective way to promote, proffer, and position your business for prime growth. Plus, we’ve hand-picked a selection of WordPress plugins that handle the various outreach tasks quite effectively.

Keep reading, or jump ahead to any section:

Okay, off we go to the electronic post office…

Which (Customer Acquisition) Channel is Best to Watch

The ways in which you reach your audience are your customer acquisition channels. They are also the avenues for increasing your customer base.

Though some might rule it out because it’s the oldest, email remains one of the best acquisition channels available. [Lesson: Don’t throw the baby granddaddy out with the bathwater.]

Email is simultaneously simple yet powerful in terms of content that can be delivered. And it’s separate from third-party elements (eg, social media, search, etc); meaning, there’s no algorithm to work around. It’s a straight shot into the hands (ie, inboxes) of your customers.

Here are some telling stats:

  • By 2025, the number of global email users is expected to reach a total of 4.6 billion [Statista]
  • When it comes to online advertising, email has seen higher click-through rates than on social media [Statista]
  • 59% of marketers say email is their biggest source of ROI [Sopro]
  • 59% of survey respondents say marketing emails influence their purchase decisions [Sopro]

Email is also extremely cost effective, allowing for a minimal investment in a tool/platform that will likely have most of the important features that mirror its high-end counterparts. It’s also easy to scale as your business grows.

With consumers averaging an online time of 397 minutes daily – giving you a golden opportunity of 6+ hours for engagement – there is simply no better way to speak directly with your customers than email. [Oberlo]

email vs social media marketing stats
Email topples social media in marketing stats. [Source]
Three more stats on email’s impressive reach: [OptinMonster]

  • 44% of users check their email for a deal from a company they know, whereas only 4% will go to Facebook
  • 60% of consumers state that they have made a purchase as the result of a marketing message they received by email
  • There are 400 million more email users than social media users

Repeat: Four hundred million MORE. If those numbers don’t convince you, I don’t know what will.

Now that we understand the value of email as a customer acquisition channel, let’s look at the different types of emails you can employ to build relationships and drive sales. Plus, one very important bit of housekeeping that needs attention first.

How to Deliver Successful Results Easily and Reliably

Whether you run a simple website or a large eCommerce store, reliable email-sending is a necessity. As fantastic a CMS as WordPress is, it has multiple limitations when it comes to sending emails.

Because WordPress uses PHP mail functionality to send emails:

  • you can’t easily build HTML templates, embed images, or add attachments; and
  • it lacks proper email headers, which often results in delivery impediments, causing emails to land in spam folders (or not get delivered at all)

Luckily, there’s a simple solution.

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SMTP server infrastructure. [Source]

Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (ie, SMTP) provides an easy way to improve successful sending of WordPress emails, increasing email deliverability by using authentication and assuring that your intended audience receives what you send.

SMTP can be set up manually using the PHPMailer library (more difficult), or connected through the use of a plugin (easier).

SMTP Plugins

There are a number of plugins for setting up SMTP in your WordPress email. After looking at the most popular, here are the five we like best.

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1. WP Mail SMTP

This plugin sits at the top of this list, allowing over three million WordPress users to send their emails reliably.

When using one of WP Mail SMTP’s built-in SMTP mail provider integrations (see below), emails are sent using the provider’s direct API. This means even if your web host is blocking SMTP ports, your emails still send successfully, helping you fix the not-sending-email issues that are prevalent in WordPress.

An easy-to-use setup wizard and detailed documentation will guide you through the process, and for most options, you can specify the “from name” and “email address” for outgoing emails.

You can send emails using your own or third-party SMTP email server, or by using integrations with popular email providers, such as:

  • SendLayer
  • SMTP.com
  • Sendinblue SMTP
  • Gmail SMTP (Gmail, Google Workspace, G Suite)
  • All Other SMTP

Instead of having to use different SMTP plugins and workflows for different SMTP providers, WP Mail SMTP brings it all into one, providing the ideal SMTP solution for WordPress.

They also offer paid plans, which include additional features (like one-on-one support, white glove setup, and native integrations for Microsoft, Amazon SES, Zoho Mail, etc).

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2. Easy WP SMTP

With 700,000 active installs, Easy WP SMTP resolves email deliverability issues using transactional mailers or an SMTP server.

The plugin offers configuration from a number of popular mailers, including SendLayer, Mailgun, Sendinblue, and more.

Easy WP SMTP also allows you to debug events that log any failed email sending attempts and the error that caused them, and the ability to specify a Reply-to or BCC email address.

Premium, paid versions are also available, and add more features (like shopping cart plugins, priority support, and reports).

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3. Post SMTP Mailer

With active installs at 300,000 and climbing, Post SMTP Mailer is a next-generation WP Mail SMTP plugin that improves email deliverability for your WordPress websites, sending emails to millions of users worldwide.

Post SMTP has a smart setup wizard that covers everything from getting started to sending test emails. It uses a commercial-grade connectivity tester to better diagnose server issues, has a built-in email log that can help with any failed email problems, and uses OAuth 2.0 security to increase the protection of email passwords.

Post SMTP also offers premium upgraded integrations, through a number of pro extensions. These are: Zoho Mail Pro, Mail Control, Twilio, Office 365, and Amazon SES.

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4. Branda

WPMU DEV’s Branda plugin, known as the White Labeling wunderkind, also has an easy SMTP tool built right in, and is completely free. Setup is a cinch with our easy-to-understand documentation.

Branda allows you to customize every aspect of WordPress to fit your brand. Transform your dashboard, customize system (default) emails, quickly toggle maintenance mode and “coming soon” landing pages, change every aspect of your login screen, remove or replace logos, create color schemes, and much more. Branda has everything to rebrand WordPress for free without touching any code or hacking modifications.

There is also a pro version of Branda, if you’d like to get the full collection of 30+ modules, along with a membership that includes an entire suite of plugins, premium 24/7 live chat support, and more.

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5. WP Offload SES Lite

WP Offload SES Lite is trusted by more than 20,000 sites to send their email, with good reason – it works exceedingly well.

This plugin is different in that it’s not sent over SMTP. They believe that going the SMTP route makes you prone to hitting rate limits, and is also missing some key features (like an email queue).

WP Offload SES Lite gives you the high deliverability, powerful managed infrastructure, and low cost of Amazon SES, with the support of a quality WordPress plugin that’s easy to set up and notifies you of sending failures.

Some of WP Offload SES Lite’s top features include:

  • Effortless configuration with an easy step-by-step setup wizard
  • Configure the default email address and name that WordPress uses for notifications
  • Set up a custom “Reply To” and “Return Path” address
  • View statistics on your Amazon SES send rate

There is also a pro version, which gives you additional features like premium support, open and click reporting, engagement analysis per specific emails, filter/search functionality, and more.

The Marketing Tools and Strategies You Need to Know

With your WordPress email primed and ready for most effective delivery, let’s turn our attention to the best ways to engage with your audience using email.

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First, you need to collect that all-important contact information (email addresses and names, at the very least), so you have a concrete way to reach interested parties.

Second, you’ll want to offer something of value, to establish a sense of fairness/generosity and drive interest in what you do. This free offering to potential customers, in exchange for a piece of their personal information (e.g. an email address or social media follow), is a tried-and-true marketing technique.

Common incentives – like a discount coupon, downloadable, or other item of interest – can be offered as compensation for providing an email address, in order to attract potential customers. Hence the name: lead magnets.

Finally, you’ll want to measure and track which campaigns or giveaways get the best results. That will give you a sense of how your site is performing; the number of visitors to your different pages, and where you’re getting conversions from. All of which help you understand which content performs the best.

This is where lead generation tools come in. They are specifically designed to identify, capture, store, and analyze leads – with the goal of turning visitors into paying customers, and paying customers into repeat business.

Lead Capturing Plugins

Employing tools and services specific to lead generation is a great way to collect the desired information, without requiring any manual work on your part. The tools automate the process, allowing you to focus on other areas of your business.

Various methods for lead capture include:

  • On-page, opt-in forms and sign-up campaigns
  • Email address finders
  • Customer Relationship Management (CRM); sales funnels
  • Communication channels (chat)
  • Advertising (social media or paid ads)

It’s not a bad idea to experiment with different options from the methods above. But for the purposes of this article, our focus will be on-page, opt-in forms, as they are the simplest to employ and incredibly successful.

Why? Well, you’re collecting contact details from people who already have an interest in your business, even if it’s at the most basic level. They’re on your site, and therefore the most likely to provide you with their contact information. After all, they came looking for you, not the other way around.

Additionally, studies have shown that most people are receptive to emails that come from companies they’ve already shown an interest in.

Here are our top 5 picks for lead capturing plugins.

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1. Forminator

Of course we’re partial to our very own contact form, payment form and custom form builder, Forminator, but it’s more than just us who think so, with more than 400,000 happy users.

Forms, polls, quizzes… nothing’s off limits with Forminator. Create new campaigns in minutes with the easy-to-use, drag-and-drop form builder, using pre-fab templates or starting from scratch – with the ability to customize settings, style, and behavior.

Forminator is the easiest way to create any form, such as a contact form, order form, payment form, email form, feedback widgets, interactive polls with real-time results, Buzzfeed-style “no wrong answer” quizzes, service estimators, and registration forms with payment options.

Speaking of payments… take donations, down payments, full payments, sell merch and more with the included Stripe and PayPal integrations. (No Pro upgrade required!) SCA-compliant Stripe and PayPal come included. Just enter your publish keys to activate the Forminator payment module for both fixed and variable payments.

Forminator comes stacked with crowd-favorite third-party integrations – email services, CRM, storage, and project managers such as HubSpot, Google Sheets, Trello, MailChimp, AWeber, Slack, and any generic webhooks (such as Zapier).

But wait – there’s more! Forminator also has these amazing features:

  • Gutenberg Block – say goodbye to shortcodes and quickly add forms to posts with the Forminator block for Gutenberg
  • Email Routing and Pre-Populate – make your site more efficient, from visitor input to email response times; use query strings to pre-fill visitor information and deliver forms direct to specific teams with email routing, auto-response and conditions
  • User Front End Post Submissions – visitors can submit post ideas from the front end of your site so you can easily curate and publish their thoughts
  • Captchas – stop the crazy bots without making it hard on your visitors (ie, no more hard-to-read random phrases)
  • Collect, Track and GDPR ready – store and organize submissions to sort, analyze, and manage responses; all while complying with the GDPR and other legal privacy policies

There is a pro version as well, which contains all the same features as the free version, plus the additional “E-Signature” and “Stripe Subscriptions” features.

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2. Formidable Forms

Formidable is a solutions-focused WordPress form plugin. Use drag and drop to create a contact form, survey, quiz, registration form, payment form, lead form, or calculator form.

Formidable is 100% mobile responsive, so your forms look great on all devices (desktop, laptop, tablets, and smartphones). It’s also optimized for speed and maximum server performance.

This free version of Formidable comes with a variety of features, like advanced email subscription forms, multi-page forms, a smart form with conditional logic, stack on repeater fields, payment integrations, form templates, relationships, and cascading dropdown fields.

Submissions are stored in your WordPress database so you won’t lose any leads, and quiz and survey entries can be viewed right from your WordPress dashboard. Also, the form generator is GDPR-friendly (even though entries are saved), and you can turn off IP tracking or stop saving submissions entirely.

Create a payment form and accept credit card payments right from your website, with seamless integration with PayPal, Stripe, and Authorize.net. You can even create a WooCommerce form with custom fields.

There is a pro version as well, that includes many more features and functionalities that help you build more powerful and larger applications.

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3. Ninja Forms

Design beautiful, complex forms with a dedicated support team at your back.

Easy drag-and-drop fields, row and column layouts, multi-page forms, conditional forms… you don’t have to be a designer to create forms that will blend beautifully with your WordPress website.

You can accept PayPal and credit card payments securely and easily from any of your WordPress forms: single payments, subscriptions, fixed, variable, or user entered amounts. Give your customers or donors all the options, or just one with a PayPal form, Stripe form, and more.

Grow your mailing lists and bring in new leads using integration with MailChimp, Constant Contact, Campaign Monitor, Salesforce CRM, Zoho CRM, Insightly CRM, and more.

Ninja Forms is also GDPR compliant, as it doesn’t collect or store personally identifiable information, or any information, from your forms. Easy-to-use templates are included for Right to Be Forgotten and Data Export requests, and tie into native WordPress GDPR features for automated compliance.

Includes pre-built templates for a contact form, registration form, application form, MailChimp form, quote request form, PayPal form, Stripe form, and more. Also mobile responsive and design-adaptable to fit in with any theme or brand.

Ninja Forms offers additional features and upgrades in two ways: per add-on, or through a membership (different tiers vary in the number of allowable sites and add-ons).

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4. Contact Form 7

At five million+ active installs, Contact Form 7 is the OG WordPress plugin for contact forms.

It has stood the test of time, still able to create simple and multiple contact forms, while allowing for the customisation of the form and the mail contents flexibly with simple markup.

Forms support Ajax-powered submitting, CAPTCHA, Akismet spam filtering, and do not track user data or use cookies. However, activation of certain features may invoke personal data to be sent to service providers (eg: reCAPTCHA, Stripe).

While the plugin boasts massive numbers and is still popular, it is becoming less so as more advanced, feature-rich competitors have become available. Especially since most of these are free to use as well.

Additionally, unlike newer plugins, an additional plugin is needed (they make one called Flamingo) just to save submitted messages from contact forms in the database.

They have also started requesting contributions from users, citing the difficulty in continuing support and development of a free plugin.

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5. Hustle

Hustle in the ultimate marketing plugin for building a mailing list and converting site traffic.

Incredibly versatile and engaging, Hustle has a myriad of options and customizations.

Easily grow your mailing list or display targeted ads across your site with popups, opt-ins, slide-ins, widgets, and shortcodes.

Build a social following with Hustle’s diverse social sharing capabilities.

Choose colors, animations, layouts, drop shadows, and display conditions for all your marketing modules from easy-to-use design settings. (There’s even CSS if you really want to go all out.) All a cinch with Hustle’s flexible appearance settings.

Default layouts and templates are fully mobile responsive, while allowing for granular adjustments (margins, padding, borders, container sizing) so you can make every module your own.

Target visitors with email opt-ins or ads using Hustle’s behavior and condition settings, and set up intelligent conditions if desired as well (e.g. specific pages/posts, visitor device/browser, country, browser cookie, etc).

Smart triggers allow you to set up a range of options for popups and slide-ins, including time on page, scroll, exit intent, and more.

Schedule when you want your marketing modules to deploy by selecting start/end dates, or show them on specific days of the week, time of day, along with custom time zones.

Easily follow up on user engagement with manual or automated email messages, and build your following on social networks with floating widgets and shortcodes to add followers.

Hustle smoothly integrates with popular form builders (like Forminator), to embed those forms/polls/quizzes into popups and slide-ins for interactive lead generation.

While you’re at it, integrate Hustle with an email service; 19 of the most popular are offered (including AWeber, MailChimp, Sendinblue, MailPoet, Zapier, and more).

Rounding out the additional features you get with Hustle:

  • Gutenberg WP editor block
  • ReCAPTCHA spam warrior
  • Ability to override Ad Blockers that try to prevent popups and slide-ins
  • Intelligent tracking on each module (including conversion stats, insightful charts, custom dashboard widget)

There is also a pro version of Hustle, which gives you all the same settings and options as the free version does. The difference is, Hustle Pro offers unlimited opt-ins, custom content, and social sharing, whereas the free version allows three of each type (popups, slide-ins, social share bars, and embeds).

Email Campaigns and Analytics Plugins

Once you’ve got those all-important email addresses collected, it’s time to set your sights on the various campaigns you can use to turn casual interest into a revenue stream.

There are a number of ways to use email campaigns to engage your audience and increase sales.

Blog posts can help by specifically targeting your audience, catering your content to them. It’s a proven way to align with your audience by providing (free) information of value to them, while keeping the connection warm. Plus, they can be kept in a devoted section of your website, making it easy for both old and new customers to partake in the historical canon unique to your business.

Newsletters and announcements are great for keeping your audience up to date on any site changes, or to promote particular products or discounts. Announcements could include down-time notices (for example, planned changes where your site will be offline briefly), or information about sales, coupons, special offers, etc – anything that is a change in your ‘norm’ that falls within a specific timeframe.

We looked at some email plugins early on, where the purpose was to improve email delivery by directing through SMTP servers or transactional mailers.

There is another category of full-featured email plugins/services that provide additional marketing, campaigning, and analysis features on top of trustworthy delivery. These can be quite handy if you want to avail yourself of pre-designed email templates, auto sending schedules, and tracking customer journeys.

Here are our favorites in this category.

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1. MailPoet

More than 600,000 websites use MailPoet to keep in touch with their subscribers, delivering 30 million+ emails each month to inboxes, not spam boxes. Enjoy high open rates with their unmatched deliverability rate and rock solid infrastructure.

MailPoet works seamlessly with your favorite CMS so you can start sending emails right away. Quickly add content and images directly from your media library. No need to upload files to third-party services when it’s all right there, ready to use in your WordPress dashboard.

From first hello to loyal customer appreciation, send emails to the right people at the right time. Welcome new subscribers with an automated series of onboarding emails and enjoy open rates of 40% and higher.

Automatically send email updates to let subscribers know about your latest blog posts, in your choice of sending schedule (daily, weekly, monthly) and bring them back to your website.

Create email updates and newsletters your subscribers can’t wait to open with beautifully designed templates you can customize to match your personality (and brand). With plenty of design options and advanced features, you can choose from a template, customize whatever you need, then send it out. Quick previews allow you to always see how your emails look before hitting send.

MailPoet is available via paid plans as well, which add features and functionality like more subscribers, unlimited emails, advanced analytics, the ability to remove branding, priority support, and more.

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2. HubSpot

HubSpot is an extremely popular, all-in-one CRM platform with tools and integrations for marketing, sales, and customer service.

The CRM in HubSpot’s WordPress plugin is your site’s command center, with 360-degree views of your customers, where you can easily:

  • Manage contacts (CRM)
  • Engage visitors with live chat and chatbots
  • Add beautiful forms to pages; create engaging email marketing campaigns
  • Capture leads with custom or existing forms; send newsletters and automated marketing campaigns
  • Track site health with easy-to-understand analytics, directly from the dashboard
  • See a unified timeline of a contact’s page views, past conversations, and more in a WordPress CRM

You’ve also got full-service email, newsletter, and marketing automation software, from which you can build professional emails in minutes, then send them to your entire contact database.

Features here include:

  • 20+ pre-designed email templates to match your campaign goals
    (Choose from templates such as newsletters, ebooks, welcome emails, and more)
  • Drag and drop email builder; adjust typography, designs, colors, and more to create campaigns your subscribers will love
  • Email automation, tracking, and A/B testing
  • Send emails anytime someone fills out a form or engages with your live chat/chatbots
  • Send messages immediately or use email scheduling to send messages later
  • Email tracking assures all of your emails are logged in your database; measure engagement of each with reports for open rate and click rate

Forms and popups are included, with a variety of templates (contact us, newsletter signup, ebook download, etc) and display options (embed, standalone page, pop-up box, dropdown banner, etc). Choose from a variety of settings, color schemes, and fonts — or start from scratch.

HubSpot also allows for integrations with other WP form builders and lead generators (like Forminator and Hustle 🙂).

And there’s much more, such as:

  • Live chat and chatbots (with custom styling, real-time messaging, Slack integration, 24/7 live support on autopilot)
  • Analytics (email, traffic, WP; marketing, sales follow-ups; time-onsite)
  • Reports (blog posts, landing pages, email campaigns)
  • Seamless use of more than 1030 integrations – including social media, ads (Facebook, Google, LinkedIn), Hotjar, YouTube, Zoom, Gmail, Hustle, MailChimp, Sendinblue, Shopify, WooCommerce, Forminator, LiveChat… and the list goes on

In addition to their free version, which offers a taste of limited features, HubSpot offers a number of paid version packages – Starter, Starter CRM Suite, Business, Professional, and Enterprise – with many different combinations of features and services to suit all needs.

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3. OptinMonster

OptinMonster is a customer acquisition and lead generation plugin. As a SaaS, its use requires an OptinMonster account, but that’s quick to set up.

OptinMonster’s popup maker allows you to create popup campaigns, email subscription forms, sticky announcement bars like hello bar, gamified spin-a-wheel opt-in forms, and other types of interactive popups for your site. Use the drag-and-drop editor to customize the look and feel of your campaigns, or choose from hundreds of templates.

OptinMonster also offers mobile popups so your marketing messages look great on all devices (mobile, tablet, laptop, and desktop). It’s also optimized for both web and server performance.

Popup options include:

  • Lightbox
  • Floating Bar
  • Slide-ins
  • Fullscreen Welcome Mats
  • Gamified Spin a Wheel Popup
  • Countdown Timers

OptinMonster also has targeting behaviors, like page level targeting, geolocation targeting, popup behavior automation, and WooCommerce. Plus trigger behaviors, like exit intent, scroll trigger, and time-on-site popups.

There are also quite a few email and CRM integrations available, such as Constant Contact, MailChimp, AWeber, and more.

A free account includes three campaigns and up to 500 campaign impressions, which never expire.

OptinMonster also offers premium, paid versions which include more features and remove the limits imposed in the free version.

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4. Sendinblue

Sendinblue is a powerful all-in-one marketing platform, trusted by more than 165,000 companies around the world to deliver their emails and SMS messages.

Sendinblue optimizes deliverability using a proprietary infrastructure over SMTP, with options that include email, SMS, Facebook, chat, CRM, and marketing automation.

The Sendinblue WordPress plugin uses their own API to synchronize contacts, send emails and get statistics. Synchronization is automatic, so it doesn’t matter whether your lists were uploaded on your WordPress interface or on your Sendinblue account: they will always remain up-to-date on both sides.

Sendinblue’s free account takes less than two minutes to set up, and allows you to send up to 300 emails per day on their free (forever) plan.

Sendinblue integrates with most lead capture and advanced form builder plugins, but also contains their own native subscription forms, with the following features:

  • Form designer with WYSIWYG and direct HTML, and CSS editing (if desired)
  • Integration as widget or shortcode
  • Send a confirmation email – you choose the template and the sender
  • Use a double opt-in confirmation – you choose the template and the sender
  • URL redirection
  • Confirmation / error message customization

The following additional options are included as well:

  • Contact lists (unlimited custom fields; CSV and TXT import; advanced segmentation)
  • Marketing campaigns (drag-and-drop tools; template library; advanced scheduling)
  • Transactional emails (with auto replacement of default SMTP)
  • Statistics (real-time and exhaustive)

Sendinblue offers a free (forever) plan that includes 9000 emails per month and unlimited contacts, with no hidden costs.

They offer premium, paid plans as well, which remove the limits, and include additional features (like removing the Sendinblue logo, A/B testing, marketing automation, priority support, and more).

Follow the Leader to the Very Top

Lead generation is often the difference between the smashing success or abject failure of a business.

And while there are many components that go into lucrative marketing, you can tap into WordPress’s generous supply of free plugins to eliminate the heavy lifting.

As shown in this post, email still holds the #1 spot when it comes to customer acquisition channels, with significant reach and conversion rates.

Determine the plugins that best meets your needs, and get going on cultivating your contact lists, securing good delivery with SMTP sends, and setting up email campaigns that drive customer engagement, traffic, retention, and loyalty.

If you want to really ensure best results, make sure you have trusted, dedicated hosting (we’re a top pick for web developers), speed and SEO optimization (our memberships come with a suite of premium plugins, including performance and security), and world-class, always-on support.

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How This Web Dev Went from 0 to 60 (Websites)

This is the first in a series, Member Success Stories, where we ask WPMU DEV-ers who are killing it in the WordPress web dev business to share key contributors of their success with us – and you.

Today we welcome Phil, the owner of Capital Web Design, a Canadian web services agency based in Ottawa.

WPMU DEV: Congrats on your professional success, Phil. Please tell us straight away, how did you grow your business so fast?

Phil: I wouldn’t say the business itself grew that fast. I’ve been building websites in some way or another since the early 2000s. Either static sites coded by hand (HTML + CSS + Javascript), using frameworks (VueJS), or with WordPress.

I started my freelance web design company in 2014, after being approached to do a replacement build for what was a costly, difficult to maintain website – and that became my first client. From there I found small and medium businesses in my hometown that had old, unsupported and unmaintained websites, or who had no website at all.

As I continued my efforts, my business ethos emerged: help companies, nonprofits and individuals in my city build a web presence they can be proud of. I focused on creating bespoke WordPress web design based on well-supported multipurpose themes, WPMU DEV and other dependable plugins, and fully managed white-glove web hosting.

Since then, I’ve had the pleasure of working with 20+ clients, and have built 60 websites targeting a multitude of industries and commercial sectors.

WPMU DEV: That’s awesome. Did you know about WPMU DEV at that time?

Phil: I had known about WPMU DEV since around 2016-18, back when you offered dozens of plugins for all sorts of functionality. I couldn’t justify the cost of a membership then, but I popped in every so often to check and see what progress was being made.

In 2019, Hosting was added as a WPMU DEV service – and this really caught my attention. During the Black Friday promotion that November (lifetime reduced membership cost!), I joined as a member, and I can’t see myself ever leaving.

It was a perfect storm: high-quality plugins + managed hosting + 24/7 support + highly reduced cost.

WPMU DEV: So as you were building your clientele, you were putting together your professional tool box. Can you give us a peek inside?

Phil: The tools and services from WPMU DEV have been invaluable to me.

Plugins have provided me with consistency and reliability for all of the most important aspects of WordPress websites.

Knowing that I can count on Hummingbird and Smush for performance optimization allowed me to stop using other freemium plugins such as W3 Total Cache, Autoptimize, WP Super Cache and EWWW Image Optimization. I found these plugins were all good at some things, but had a lot of paywalled features that Hummingbird and Smush offered out of the box, for free.

Defender has been a great peace-of-mind addition to my repertoire, as the one-click recommended fixes are super straightforward and quite effective.

Forminator forms may be difficult at times to style with CSS, but that’s more than made up for in functionality. The drag-and-drop UI makes it much easier to build forms compared to Contact Form 7, and the amount of extras that are baked in (calculation, email routing, etc) blow other (often paid) form builders out of the water.

WPMU DEV: Aside from plugins, you mentioned our services have made a huge impact as well. Can you expand on that?

Phil: When it comes to services, it’s hard to put into words just how much The Hub and the associated Hosting have helped me throughout the last few years.

I have worked with hosting providers like 1and1, DreamHost, Media Temple, Digital Ocean VPS, and Bluehost. Each had their advantages, but in the end it always became a chore to use their services. It was clear that the quality of their offerings reflected the low cost they positioned themselves at. They were in a perpetual fight to undercut their competitors on price, at the cost of quality of service and support.

WPMU DEV Hosting came in late in the game, but out of the gate addressed two of the major concerns I experienced at other hosts: lack of support, and lack of trust in the infrastructure.

By having dedicated resources (versus shared), the web servers were consistently fast, reliable, and offered premium features such as staging, backups and WAF.

WPMU DEV: Walk us through a typical work day; what you reach for the most, and your usual workflow.

Phil: I keep The Hub open in a tab at all times, refreshing it every once in a while to keep track of ongoing community discussions, website maintenance statuses, and plugin updates.

I subscribe to key email notifications to receive alerts of technical issues on my managed sites, as well as member discussions in the WPMU DEV member forums, blogs and newsletter.

When a technical issue occurs, I’m able to troubleshoot it quickly. If I’m unable to resolve it on my own, the LiveChat support is always there to help me right away.

WPMU DEV has allowed me to optimize my workflows across the board, in areas like:

  • Faster site creation with one-click managed WordPress server provisioning from The Hub.
  • Easier client invoicing using Client Billing.
  • More efficient website monitoring and maintenance through The Hub.
  • Lower maintenance effort required with WPMU DEV plugins.
  • Faster technical troubleshooting with the LiveChat support.

WPMU DEV: Outside of your own talent and determination, what would you say has contributed most significantly to your growth?

Phil: WPMU DEV has reduced my server build-out time from 30 minutes to 3 minutes (90% reduction). Over the past few years I’ve stood up well over 75 servers, so this has saved me many hours of effort.

At the time of joining, The Hub allowed me to manage about a dozen sites from a central location as opposed to manually logging in to each separate site. This was a reduction of biweekly maintenance effort from approximately 60 minutes to 2 minutes.

Client billing and streamlined invoice creation allowed me to save approximately 20-30 minutes per invoice creation, which throughout the past few years I estimate has saved me over 30 hours of work.

All of these time and effort savings have allowed me to comfortably take on more projects and clients.

Since joining WPMU DEV, my completed projects count has grown approximately 416% – with each project being more efficient to produce than the last.

WPMU DEV: As a self-proclaimed diehard fan, you know we’re constantly upping our game and adding new features and services to our offerings. What’s a newer release that you’re really getting into?

Phil: Reseller focus. I look forward to adding WPMU DEV automated site provisioning via the reseller offerings, as well as domains and email reselling.

WPMU DEV: One last question; let’s close it out with a fun one. If you could talk to yourself at the start of your career, what would you say?

Phil: At the start of my career, I often looked up to senior staff who seemed wise beyond their years. I was afraid of making mistakes or breaking something, for fear that those-who-never-broke-anything would look down on me.

I would try to explain to a younger me that wisdom comes with experience, and experience comes from doing things, failing, and working through the failure.

The more things you work on, the more you get exposed to what works and what doesn’t. Failing or breaking something isn’t strictly negative, because every failure is a learning opportunity: troubleshoot what went wrong, understand how to fix it, and implement a solution.

Do this cycle enough times and you start to pre-emptively detect patterns, plan for success, and you get faster at fixing problems. Don’t be afraid of failure because the more you fail, the more you learn and the wiser you will become.

That wraps up this premiere episode of our Member Success Stories. Thanks to Phil for his candid, insightful answers in our interview.

Phil is one of WPMU DEV’s Agency Partners, and usesCapital Web Design - Ottawa Web Design his 20 years of web design experience to achieve one goal: give back to his hometown by building modern websites for businesses and nonprofits in the Canadian capital.

You can reach Phil via his agency partner listing or visit Capital Web Design.

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5 Brilliant Companion Products to Make Your WordPress Websites Compliant

Compliance on websites isn’t a fringe component. It’s a serious, legal matter, which can seriously affect your business.

Legal fees can be expensive, and add up quickly. Also, law is complicated, and can vary based on where you live and do business from. How does one accomplish compliance without getting their own law degree? (Or having a best friend who passed the bar exam?)

There is a way you can dot your I’s and cross your T’s, get all your ducks in a row, check all the boxes, cover your bases (this IS a post about full compliance, so one expression didn’t seem like enough 😀) – without draining your bank account, or losing your sanity.

Because WordPress is far and above the leading CMS, there are a good number of options when it comes to compliance regulation companion products.

We looked into the pool of offerings, picked the ones we thought were smart, solid, and sound, and are presenting them to you here.

Keep reading, or jump ahead to any section:

First up, let’s examine…

Why Compliance is of Utmost Importance

Privacy is a major factor in today’s world, and personal information is protected by a fast-growing assortment of legal rights.

Throughout the first three-quarters of the 20th century, collected data was relatively minimal, there were few ways to store it, and demand for its collective use wasn’t really a thing.

However, from the ’70s through today, as the inherent value of data grew – along with improved methods to collect, store, use, and profit from it – so has the need for legislation to protect it.

Living in the era of Big Data, where the sheer volume of data has increased to previously unimaginable amounts, a true premium has been put on an individual’s rights to protect it.

Non-compliance with the legal safeguards comes with steep fines and other serious penalties.

A Timeline of Enacted Privacy Protections

While data protections may have started slowly, they will continue to pick up speed as the by-product of ethical examination and pivotal litigations surrounding privacy.

Let’s take a peek at the landmark protections in the history of privacy legislation.

The Privacy Act of 1974 established the Code of Fair Information Practice on the collection, maintenance, use, and dissemination of personally identifiable information from US federal agencies.

The Data Protection Directive was adopted by The European Union in 1995. The principles set forth were aimed at the protection of fundamental rights and freedoms in the processing of personal data. This was superseded by the GDPR in 2018.

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) was established in 1996 to protect Personally Identifiable Information maintained by the healthcare and health insurance industries from theft and fraud, safeguarding people’s medical information from being used without their consent.

The Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) was enacted by Congress in 1998 and requires the Federal Trade Commission to issue and enforce regulations concerning children’s online privacy. The amended Rule became effective on July 1, 2013.

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) for data protection and privacy became law in 2018 in the European Union (EU).

The GDPR applies to the transfer of personal data outside of the EU and EEA (the European Economic Area is the countries of Iceland, Norway, and Liechtenstein), and replaced the Data Protection Directive from 1995.

Shortly thereafter, State Privacy Legislations in the US started…

  • California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) – signed into law 2018; effective 2020
  • California Privacy Rights Act (CPRA) – also known as CCPA 2.0, enacted in 2020
  • Virginia Consumer Data Protection Act (VCDPA) – legislated in 2021; effective January 1, 2023
  • Colorado’s Privacy Act – will be effective July 1, 2023
  • Connecticut’s Personal Data Privacy and Online Monitoring Act – will be effective July 1, 2023
  • Utah’s Consumer Privacy Act – will be effective December 31, 2023

While the US does not have a single, comprehensive, internet privacy law, one is currently being proposed by federal privacy legislation: the American Data Privacy and Protection Act (ADPPA). If passed into law, it will supersede all state privacy laws. Until then, it’s up to individual states to pass legislation that protects customer data.

Which Components Do You Need?

At this point you may be wondering, with so many already existing and soon-to-be-effective legal stipulations on data, which ones are you required to adhere to as a website or app owner?

That’s what we’ll lay out now in…

Compliance Requirements

To best meet overall compliance, websites should minimally have:

  • Privacy Policy
  • Cookie Policy

… and …

  • Consent (Record of Consent)

Let’s put a pin in Consent for a bit, and come back to it after we look at the policies.

A Privacy Policy addresses all the different ways your website or app might collect, process, and store data from users, both online and off.

A Cookie Policy specifically addresses how you use cookies and third-party services.

Because of the overlap, websites sometimes include a cookie policy in their privacy policy, as part of the overall data collection.

However, cookie policies need to be regularly updated (as cookies are dynamic and often change upon successive visits), whereas policy policies tend to be static.

More importantly, if you fall under the scope of the GDPR, your Cookie Policy must be separate from your Privacy Policy.

You can still incorporate a short Cookie Clause in your Privacy Policy, or cross-reference the agreements (for example, link your Cookie Policy to your Privacy Policy), but you shouldn’t combine the agreements into one.

Even if you don’t fall under the scope of GDPR, it’s safer and smarter to create a separate Privacy Policy and Cookie Policy, instead of merging them into one.

Let’s dive a little deeper into both of these important policies.

Privacy Policies

Most laws around the world require a privacy policy.

Privacy policies are legally required agreements when collecting any personal data from users (e.g. payment details, address and phone number, cookie data), regardless of the platform used (e.g. website, mobile app, desktop app, etc).

You may need a privacy policy to use third-party APIs and services (e.g. Instagram, Google Analytics, or Google Adsense), or to list your app in a commercial marketplace such as the Apple App or Google Play stores.

Without a privacy policy, you risk your business getting hit with hefty fines and/or having your website taken down, especially if you’re found to be in breach of privacy laws.

Key privacy policies or agencies, by country of origin are:

  1. Europe/European Union – GDPR (businesses in or operating with EU/EEA)
  2. United States – by state (CCPA, CPRA, CalOPPA, VCDPA)
  3. Canada – PIPEDA
  4. Australia – The Privacy Act 1988
  5. Germany – BDSG, and DSGVO (German name for the GDPR)
  6. France – CNIL (the commission overseeing privacy policies)
  7. South Africa – The POPI Act (POPIA)
  8. Brazil – LGPD (broadly aligns with the GDPR)

Lesser-known privacy laws exist around the world as well; the above is not to be considered an exhaustive list.

While privacy policies are generally referred to by location of origin, they can extend to any region that does business with them. Meaning, don’t assume that if you reside outside of Europe that the GDPR doesn’t apply to you.

The EU’s GDPR and US state laws (#1 and #2) are the most broadly reaching and widely followed privacy policies. But that’s not to say that the others don’t matter; it’s important to research any that might apply to your business.

Cookie Policies

Cookie policies are legally binding documents that inform website or app users how a company engages in data tracking and online privacy.

Cookie identifiers are considered to be personal data by the GDPR, so its rules apply to cookie usage as well. Also, any personal data collected by cookies falls under the GDPR’s jurisdiction.

The ePrivacy Directive (ePD) of the EU – nicknamed the “Cookie Law” – requires security measures be put in place to protect personal data. This regulates cookie usage, email marketing, data minimization, and other aspects of data privacy, and is largely responsible for the cookie consent forms that you encounter on most websites today. (Sidebar: This doesn’t replace the Cookie Law I grew up with; “Don’t ever serve chocolate chippers without milk.”)

The ePrivacy Regulation (ePR), the details of which are currently being hammered out by legislators, will replace the ePD once it’s passed into law.

Consent / Record of Consent

Taking out that pin that we placed earlier, it’s time to look at Consent.

The important distinction between Policy and Consent is this: Policy discloses details regarding the use of cookies, while Consent informs and records the allowances from users regarding usage.

Make sure you incorporate consent into your Privacy/Cookie policies. Full GDPR compliance means storing proof of Consent, and being able to demonstrate or retrieve details should they be requested.

I can’t stress this enough: having Privacy/Cookie policies without consent could cause major problems for you.

Additional Legal Protections

While protecting user data is of paramount importance, privacy isn’t the only concern for someone managing websites.

There are other important, legal considerations when it comes to engaging the public online.

We’ll take a look at them now.

Terms & Conditions

Unlike Privacy Policies, there are no laws that require you to have a Terms & Conditions agreement, though it is highly suggested to have one.

Without a T&C, it’s much more difficult to enforce your rules and community guidelines, copyright protection, or other issues that could arise from the misuse of your website/app content.

The majority of the public will act courteously, but that’s not who you’re protecting yourself from. It’s the small percentage of outliers who can sometimes do the most damage. Having explicitly stated Terms & Conditions can offer basic protections for you and your business, limiting your liability and declaring your rights over the content you create, in case anyone engages in abuse, intellectual property theft, or unlawful behavior.

The most common reasons for Terms & Conditions are to:

  1. Prevent abuses
  2. Protect your creative content
  3. Terminate accounts
  4. Limit your legal liability
  5. Set your governing law

If you’ve ever seen a clause in a T&C stating where (geographic region) any dispute resolution must take place, that falls under governing law, and is quite useful if you don’t want to litigate legal matters in a country outside of your own.

Disclaimers

Disclaimers can be used to offset liability from a business to a client in ambiguous or gray legal areas, or where they are required by law.

Without them, you are opening yourself up to legal liability or the possible endangerment of others, especially on sites that share advice, DIYs, or promote/sell products (most of which come with claims).

Websites and eCommerce stores benefit from disclaimers in that they:

  • Let users/customers know that the content is not legally binding advice, nor should it be solely relied on
  • Limit the liability of the website/store in the event someone has an unsatisfactory result from its advice or products

Some of the most common disclaimer types are:

  • Copyright
  • Fair Use
  • No Responsibility
  • Views Expressed
  • Offensive Content
  • Past Performance
  • Errors and Omissions
  • Affiliates / Affiliate Links

While we’re on the subject, here’s an example in actual use:

Disclaimer: WPMU DEV is not a legal entity, nor does it claim to be an authority on the laws of any region, country, or the internet. While this post contains well-researched content from respected sources, it is for informational purposes only and not intended as a substitute for professional legal advice. As such, we cannot be held liable for any omissions or errors contained within.

That said, let’s get to the tools and services of the compliance trade, with…

Our Top 5 Picks for Compliance Companions

Some of these are actual WordPress plugins, while others are content generated directly in the company’s website.

Regardless of how you access them, all offer plenty of bang for the buck, and value for the venue (I’m coining this phrase to mean free products and their providers 😉).

GDPR Cookie Consent and Cookie Yes (by WebToffee)

WebToffee has a sisterhood of plugins, with versions available on two separate websites: CookieYes and WebToffee, plus the free version on the WordPress repository.

CookieYes is one of the most used WordPress GDPR cookie compliance plugins, with 1 million+ active installations and 5 out of 5 stars.

Starting with the free WP.org plugin version, you get a goodly amount of features, including:

  • a cookie consent banner with Accept/Reject options
  • single click automatic scanning and categorization of cookies
  • display list of cookies on your cookie policy page by using a shortcode
  • adds a cookie banner to your WordPress website to show compliance with GDPR
  • fully customize the cookie notice so it blends with your existing website (change colors, fonts, styles, position on page; even how it behaves when you click “Accept All”)
  • has a Cookie List module so you can easily show what cookies your site uses and display them neatly in a table on your Privacy & Cookies Policy page
  • can be configured to have a CCPA/CPRA ‘Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information’ control to the cookie notice

The free version also includes a connection (also free) with the CookieYes web app to access advanced features (cookie scan, consent log, etc) and manage all settings from the web app account. Note: You can still use most of the features from within the WP dashboard, without connecting to the web app.

cookie yes dashboard
The CookieYes dashboard gives you a nice snapshot of information.

One of the advantages here is the dashboard, which includes a Consent section. You can view or access details on user consent should you ever be audited and need to show this information. It even allows you to download this consent data in CSV format.

From the WP plugin dashboard, there’s a lot you can do:

  • Check banner status (active, inactive), regulation type (GDPR), last cookie scan, language
  • Customize banner
  • Maintain cookie list, add new cookies
  • Change/edit default banner language
  • Generate a Privacy or Cookie policy for your site

Add the user guide provided for setup, along with a video walkthrough, and you can see why this plugin is so well loved.

cookie yes customize consent prefs
CookieYes banner and consent customizations.

If you want to go for a CookieYes paid plan, you have three tier options, payable per domain, monthly or annually. Each tier adds more pages per scan (600, 4K, 8K) and pageviews (100K, 300K, unlimited), plus a couple of additional features – like custom branding, and geo-targeted cookie banners.

As a third option here, we have the paid, premium version of GDPR Cookie Consent Plugin (CCPA Ready) – available from WebToffee’s website.

The final offering in the WebToffee family of compliance options, GDPR Cookie Consent remains in the territory of fastest-growing WP consent plugins, verifiable by a mass of happy users.

webtoffee GDPR Cookie Consent display options
GDPR Cookie Consent offers a variety of notices, all with customization.

As far as features, most are available and common to both the GDPR Cookie Consent and the CookieYes paid plans. However, the GDPR Cookie Consent plans do not have:

  • Auto-translation
  • Global privacy control
  • Do not track
  • Monthly scheduled scan
  • Privacy policy generator

GDPR Cookie Consent pricing has three tiers, based on the number of sites (1, 5, 25) you want to use it on. Each includes one year of updates and support, and a 30-day, money-back guarantee.

The primary difference between The GDPR Cookie Consent and CookieYes paid plans is the technology they rely on. The CookieYes web app is a SaaS that requires huge cloud computing, storage, and security facilities. (This is also why the CookieYes paid plans are based on scans and pageviews.)

Bonus points for their support: I reached out as a free user to clarify a few points in this section and got a detailed response in less than half a day. (High five to Mark!)

iubenda

Iubenda has been quickly rising in the ranks of compliance with their all-in-one solution, currently sitting at 100K+ active installs and a 5/5 star rating on WP.

If you’re looking for that extra layer of comfort, iubenda has it, with attorney-level compliance solutions, all of which are fully WCAG Level AAA Compliant.

The free version of iubenda compliance solutions support the GDPR, LGPD, and US State Laws (CCPA/CPRA and VCDPA).

Content is auto-updated when laws change, so it’s always up-to-date. (Their built-in site scanner runs periodic scans on your site and alerts you if it detects something that should be added to your compliance documents.)

The free version comes with the following features:

  • Privacy and Cookie Policy Generator
    • a single policy, on one site, in one language
    • up to 4 (non-Pro) service clauses
    • does not include Cookie Policy
  • Privacy Controls and Cookie Solution
    • up to 25K page views/month (for compliance with GDPR, LGPD & ePrivacy and US state laws)
iubenda privacy controls and cookie solution settings
iubenda privacy controls and cookie solution settings.

You can get the free version of iubenda from the WordPress plugin repository.

The majority of iubenda’s standout features are found in their paid/pro versions, trusted by over 90,000 clients in more than 100 countries. These allow for multiple policies, sites, and languages, as well as Privacy Control & Cookie Solutions, a Terms & Conditions generator, a Consent Database, and more.

Privacy Control & Cookie Solutions helps you meet complex legal requirements at the click of a button, as well as create a fully customizable cookie banner.

Terms & Conditions offers powerful features like plug-and-go integrations for popular platforms and legislation monitoring. It’s customizable from hundreds of combinations, available in 10 languages, and capable of handling even the most complex, individual scenarios. Optimized for eCommerce, marketplace, SaaS, apps and more.

The Consent Database activates with one click to track, store, and manage consent and privacy preferences for each of your users all in one place, allowing you to easily upload proofs of consent and legal notices in PDF format.

They also offer an Internal Privacy Management, which documents all the data processing activity within your organization. To comply with privacy laws (particularly the GDPR), companies must record how they store and use the data they collect from their users.

Additional features in the paid plans are:

  • More Compliance Laws, like DSGVO, RGPD, UK-GDPR, CalOPPA, PECR
  • Cookie consent analytics provided for high-traffic sites
  • Detects bots/spiders and serves them a clean page so that your SEO efforts are never compromised
  • Built-in compatibility with WordPress comment form, Contact Form 7, and WP Forms; can also be manually integrated with any type of web-form

Pricing is offered as bundles with 3 tiers, based on number of license slots, with paid add-ons – Terms & Conditions, and Consent Database – available as extras.

Or, you can go with their Custom plans, with 3 tiers, broken out by options for Privacy & Cookie Policy, Privacy Controls & Cookie Solution, and Terms & Conditions.

iubenda pricing models
iubenda’s pricing models with inclusions listed.

Head over to iubenda’s website for a more in-depth read about their compliance offerings, or to purchase one of their plans.

TermsFeed

TermsFeed doesn’t have a plugin; everything is generated directly from their website. But in no way does that detract from their fantastic functions.

The TermsFeed website has an abundance of compliance offerings, most of which they charge nothing for.

Since 2012, TermsFeed’s all-in-one compliance software has helped businesses get (and stay) compliant with the law, and the multitude of glowing, five-star reviews corroborates that.

Popular free features include:

  • Privacy Policy Generator
  • Terms & Conditions Generator
  • Privacy Consent
  • Cookie Consent
  • EULA Generator – gives users the right to use a copy of your product after they acquire it, through a granted license (with or without limitations)
  • Disclaimer Generator
  • Return and Refund Policy Generator
  • Shipping Policy Template – no generator for this, but a detailed, helpful template to assist businesses in creating

They also offer these additional, not-as-common free tools:

  • CCPA Opt-out – Free tool to manage opt-outs for CCPA
  • I Agree Checkbox – Free tool to enforce your legal agreements and policies on web forms
  • Embed Consent – Free tool to block embeds (YouTube, Twitter, Google Maps) from loading until you’ve got user consent
termsfeed compliance toolbox infographic
The TermsFeed site has a ton of helpful, visually appealing infographics.

All of the generators operate in the same, simple three-step: 1) Create a free account. 2) Choose what you need. 3) Download and integrate.

You answer a few quick questions, and your custom policy is ready in minutes, available to download in multiple file formats – which you can link to, edit, or update.

Or, download their handy privacy policy template (available in a variety of formats: HTML, DOCX, Google Docs), and write your own.

And the output isn’t limited to just websites; you can use it to create for mobile apps, eCommerce stores, third-party tools, SaaS, and even a Facebook page.

The TermsFeed website is well organized and chock full of helpful information, making an easy task out of finding what you need.

The majority of compliance agreements and policies on the TermsFeed website are essentially free. However, they do offer some optional, premium agreements with additional clauses to protect your business interests.

Paid items are available in two ways:

  • Privacy Consent Solution, which gives you access to all features, payable month-to-month, or yearly (with a discount).
  • Per Policy/Agreement, which allows you to select any number of policies from their huge compliance toolbox, and pay a one-time fee, per item

Both payment structures come with a 7-day refund policy, and 100% money-back guarantee.

termsfeed privacy policy blog articles summary
A summary recap of Privacy Policy blog articles in TermsFeed.

As far as videos, walk-through processes, and documentation go, out of all the sites I reviewed in this article, they had the most. On YouTube alone, I counted close to 200 explainer videos (on their content specifically, and policy terminology in general), plus dozens of tutorials for using on a myriad of website types (Wix, Weebly, Squarespace, Webflow, Shopify, etc) in addition to WordPress.

My final thoughts: the TermsFeed website is an embarrassment of riches, with compliance offerings galore, and little to no limitations on their use. Even the premium, paid-for options won’t break the bank.

Visit the TermsFeed website for tools, tips, and custom provisions, or their YouTube channel for a ton of valuable, well-produced info.

Complianz

Complianz is another widely used compliance plugin, available for free on the WP repository: Cookie Consent – aka the Privacy Suite for WP. (They offer an additional one for Terms & Conditions as well.)

Active installations are at 600K (and climbing), and rated 5/5 stars.

Complianz is a GDPR/CCPA Cookie Consent plugin that supports GDPR, ePrivacy, and more, with a conditional Cookie Notice and customized Cookie Policy, based on the results of their built-in Cookie Scan.

Free features include:

  • Cookie Notice configuration for your specific region (EU, UK, US, Australia, South Africa, Brazil, and Canada; or use one Cookie Notice worldwide)
  • Cookie Consent and Conditional Cookie Notice with custom CSS and customizable templates
  • Automatic configuration of your website based on wizard questions, WordPress scans, and dedicated service and plugin integrations
  • Proof of Consent for user registration (respects GDPR data minimization guideline)
  • Automatically detects if you need a Cookie Notice (aka Cookie Banner or popup)
  • Cookie policy generation through an easy wizard
  • Offers “Do Not Sell My Personal Information” (for CCPA/CPRA)

Complianz is one of the few WordPress native solutions, integrated with a wide variety of plugins and services. Once configured through the wizard, Complianz will work with most of your plugins and embedded content – right out of the box. Including our very own Forminator, Beehive, and the WPMU DEV Dashboard plugin (where you can integrate Complianz to allow site visitors to reject dashboard analytics statistics cookies).

Like iubenda, their policies are drafted by an IT Law Firm, and are WCAG Level AA and ADA Compliant. They closely follow the latest developments in ePrivacy regulation, the proposed Cookie Law for the EU, and other legislation worldwide, so you can be sure the content is spot-on, legally speaking.

Complianz also has premium, paid offerings for compliance, available from their own website.

Their website has documentation, and as a premium user, you get dedicated support from privacy professionals and developers who (and I quote) “don’t quit until a solution is reached”.

complianz offerings screenshot
Complianz offers a full privacy suite for WordPress.
complianz premium vs free features chart
Legal docs and Consent Management offerings on Complianz, free vs paid.

Easily install the free Complianz Privacy Suite plugin from your WordPress dashboard. For the premium version, you’ll need to download from your account on Complianz.io, or use the link in your purchase confirmation, along with your license key.

In addition to the free version, paid plans are offered as 3 tiers, priced per number of sites (25, 5, 1). All include the full shebang of required legal documents, compliant in multiple regions, along with records of consent, data request processing, A/B testing and statistics, and detailed cookie descriptions.

Termly

While Termly does have a plugin on the WP.org repository, it’s outdated, and I don’t recommend using it. But that doesn’t make their compliance options any less capable or appealing.

Instead of the WP repo, head over to Termly’s website, where everything you need is easily accessible and kept fully up to date.

Termly compliance offerings
Compliance solution offerings from Termly.

The Termly website comes with a host of features, ranging from a single policy to a full suite of compliance solutions.

Here’s a breakdown of Termly’s top features:

  • Consent Management Platform
    • Manage consent on your website or app while providing a robust and flexible solution to compliment your business needs and regulatory requirements
  • Policy Generators
    • Choose from the ever-expanding list of legally vetted policies to protect your business and meet your compliance needs
  • Additional Legal Protection Generators
    • Easily create other Agreements and Notices to further protect your website (like: Terms & Conditions, Disclaimers, EULAs, Shipping Policies, Refund and Return Generators)
Termly's all-in-one cookie consent solution
Termly’s all-in-one cookie consent solution.

Termly’s free plan provides you with one legal policy, four edits, and 10K/month banner visitors, as well as their basic compliance tools, which are:

  • Privacy Regulation Monitoring
  • Cookie Policy & Banner
  • Cookie Script Auto Blocker
  • HTML Embeddable Policies
  • Quarterly cookie scans

In addition to their free/basic plan, Termly offers 3 paid tiers, priced per website. The first two go by number of policies, policy edits, and banner visits, and are payable per month or annually. The third tier is a custom “contact us” option.

With 4.5 out of 5 star rating on Trustpilot, Termly is trusted and revered by thousands.

Better Compliance and Reliance with WPMU DEV

As you can see, responsible data management is not only good business practice, it’s also the law.

In today’s landscape where massive amounts of data, along with infinitely more ways to store and use it are the norm, diligence is required in its care and handling, especially if you operate an online business (your own, or as an Agency for clients).

Regardless of what kind of business it is, where it is located, or where your visitors reside, you are bound by certain legalities.

Ignorance is not a defense, so compliance can be the difference between being successfully safe or professionally sunk.

Beyond research and recommendations for meeting compliance requirements, WPMU DEV works hard to keep your websites and web development business operating at peak efficiency.

That includes our free products and services, and our premium membership offerings – a suite of pro plugins (protection, optimization, form creation, SEO, and more), five-star always-on support, and sleek all-in-one site management tool. Plus our fast, dedicated, best-value-in-the-biz Hosting.

If you’re not a member yet, you can start your 7-day, no obligation free trial today, and instantly catch up on what you’ve been missing.

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6 Key Web Developer Trends to Watch in 2023

If you’re in the field of web development, you might want to pay attention to these industry-predicted trends.

There are a lot of design and development trends floating around the internet. Researching this topic, I came across articles that listed upwards of 50. While many of these are legitimate topics of interest, most of them weren’t headline worthy.

So how did I land on a top 6? First and foremost, the topic had to be relevant and prevalent (after all, that is the definition of trendy). In addition, they had to strike me as important and valuable when it comes to web development specifically.

If these aren’t already on your radar, chances are they will be soon. Getting a good grasp on these noteworthy topics can really help you elevate your web development business.

Here’s a quick overview of what we’ll cover:

Since AI is a common denominator in all of the burgeoning tech we’ll look at in this article, it seemed a brief history on the topic would be in order.

A Primer on AI

The very first notions of AI came in the form of myths and rumors; artificial beings endowed with intelligence or consciousness by some master craftsmen. You know, your typical origins story.

Philosophers and thought leaders in other disciplines continued to discuss the essence of what would become AI, and in the 1940s the first programmable digital computer was created. However, with the ability only to execute commands (not store them), it lacked the prerequisite for intelligence: formal reasoning.

The ’50s saw mathematician Alan Turing’s Theory of Computation, suggesting it might be possible to construct an electronic brain. He postulated that machines could use information to solve problems and make decisions, much like humans, and in 1956, the field of artificial intelligence research was founded as an academic discipline.

Through the ’60s and ’70s, AI thrived, with computers able to store more information while simultaneously becoming faster, cheaper, and more accessible.

AI continued to pick up speed in the ’80s and ’90s. Learning techniques and expert systems were introduced and popularized, while governments and industries poured billions of dollars into revolutionizing AI. Alas, the loftiest goals didn’t come to fruition, and investors withdrew funding.

During the ’90s and 2000s, many of AI’s landmark achievements were met, despite government funding and public interest taking a backseat. In 1997, IBM’s chess playing computer program, Deep Blue, defeated the reigning world chess champion grandmaster. Later that same year, Windows implemented speech recognition software.

Since the turn of the century, AI has continued to prosper. By 2016, AI-related hardware and software surpassed the $8 billion mark, and the New York Times deemed the interest in AI “a frenzy”.

In today’s era of “Big Data” (characterized by volume, velocity, variety, value, and veracity), AI continues to propel forward, at times its capabilities not only reaching but surpassing computational power. (See Moore’s Law.)

With AI at the forefront of almost any tech you can think of, the possibilities seem endless, and the opportunities exciting.

So, without further ado…

The Top 6 Trends in Web Development

Let’s get straight to the heart of the matter. Here are the top 6 trends in web development for 2023, starting with…

AI Chatbots

AI Chatbots, or AI Assistants, are extremely prevalent in today’s world, and expected to grow substantially. In fact, SEMRush predicts a 33.2% year-on-year growth rate from 2020 to 2027.

chatbot stats
Revealing AI Chatbot stats. Image Source.

AI chatbots help millions of people and businesses perform operations faster by using text or voice prompts. They also offer 24/7/365 availability, which is crucial to providing ready access to customers around the world in every time zone.

Considered to be one of the most influential technologies that will shape the future of web development, AI chatbots are smarter than regular chatbots. Due to use of natural language processing (NLP) and machine learning (ML) technologies, they better understand what the user wants, then tailor that experience to the individual.

AI chatbots can engage in complex conversations easily without the human intervention quotient. Because they analyze behavior and solve problems, their AI learning algorithms become smarter with every query they handle.

The impact of AI chatbots is substantial. Simply put: Chatbots enhance and streamline the customer experience. More specifically, they’ve been shown to lower customer complaints (i.e., improve satisfaction), improve lead capture and contact flow, and increase sales. And it goes with saying that the more customers enjoy an online experience, the more likely they are to purchase from the company providing it.

Web developers can benefit from AI-powered chatbots in a couple of ways, like replacing navigational elements on websites to make development easier, or integrating chatbots with messengers, so fewer applications need to be developed.

With customer engagement being a key indicator of business success, you really can’t afford to ignore the benefits of AI chatbots, especially as they become even more sophisticated in the near future.

Voice Assistant

We are currently in the midst of the voice search era. Every smartphone is equipped with digital voice assistants, while their home-bound counterparts (smart speakers) are skyrocketing in popularity.

The most common ways to interact with voice assistants is through smartphones, smart cars, and smart speakers – in that order. The four biggest providers of voice assistants are Apple’s Siri, the eponymous Google Assistant, Amazon’s Alexa, and Microsoft’s Cortana.

Though there are a vast number of reasons that people use voice assistants, top tasks include making calls (or sending texts), getting directions, playing music, and finding nearby businesses.

Recent data in The Global State of Digital 2022 reveals that 22.5% of users worldwide use voice assistants each week on the internet, spanning a vast range of ages (16-64 years).

percentage worldwide use voice assistants
Key voice assistant stats from The Global State of Digital report.

Additionally, the voice assistant application market size is projected to grow from 2.8 billion in 2021 to 11.2 billion USD by 2026, at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 32.4%.

How did voice assistants become so popular? Partly due to ease of use; basic communication skills are already present in humans, so both kids and seniors can adapt to voice interfaces with a minimal learning curve. Secondly, digital voice assistants are commonplace on smartphones, so the tech is within easy reach at no additional cost.

Voice Assistant technology is also being implemented to make sites more accessible for those who are hearing and sight-impaired.

Because of their massive use, voice search results will start to rank higher and more prominently on search engine result pages. Which means companies will place emphasis on optimizing their products and services with voice search at the forefront.

This provides a good deal of opportunity for web developers when it comes to voice assistant technology and incorporating it into the development process.

A good place to start taking advantage of this trend is by optimizing structured data for voice search in WordPress.

Progressive Web Applications (PWAs)

Progressive Web Applications (aka PWAs) are web applications that run independently of a browser and interact with the customer as a native app. Some prime examples are Google Maps, Starbucks, and Spotify.

pwa dev preferable
Indications that PWA is preferrable. Image Source.

PWAs are currently among the top trends in web development, and expected to fully replace traditional web apps in the near future.

Using a single codebase, developers can code Progressive Web Apps to work with modern APIs, delivering enhanced capabilities and reliability that can reach anyone – regardless of their location or what device they’re on.

PWAs improve the overall user experience because of these key benefits:

  • fast
  • relatively low cost
  • quick to launch/distribute on the market
  • install quickly and automatically update
  • save on device power and storage
  • work well offline (or with bad connections)
  • boost website engagement/conversion
  • maintenance and updating is seamless
  • fully immersive experience

Another plus for PWAs is that Google prioritizes web apps that load quickly on mobile devices. Because they reduce page load time, PWAs dramatically improve search result rankings.

According to Statista, mobile sales in the global market are projected to reach $8.1 billion in 2026. That means people will likely choose their mobile devices over their non-mobile counterparts for most of their purchasing needs, leaning directly into what PWAs provide.

PWAs are responsive, secure, easy to install, scalable, and reliably connected, making them a perfect fit for many B2B and B2C uses.

Tip: Do you use the Avada theme on client sites? Then check out our article on how to speed up and optimize Avada using our Smush and Hummingbird plugins with Avada’s own PWA plugin.

Single-page Applications (SPA)

Single-page applications (or SPAs) are one of the most critical technology trends in web development today.

SPA architecture
Architecture of an SPA. Image source.

An SPA is a JavaScript-based web application. Instead of loading separate HTML pages from a server, it loads a single, specific page to visitors, dynamically updating its content without refreshing the page.

Social media sites (think Facebook and Twitter), as well as Gmail and Google Drive, are among the most well-known SPAs.

Since most devices support it, SPA technology is cross-platform in nature. They even perform well with a slow internet connection or when offline, loading cached content when users launch the site. SPAs are also better equipped to work without server-side codes infused with API technology.

All of this means that SPAs operate fast and keep users attention, leading to greater engagement and reduced bounce rates.

SPAs are easy to create, cost-effective, and consume less server space, making them practical for both end users and developers.

Tip: Feel like getting into SPA and reading some relaxing articles to get you in the mood? Then check out these bubbly tutorials:

Internet of Things (IoT)

Long foreshadowed as the wave of the future, the Internet of Things (or IoT) is a movement where objects are given network connectivity that didn’t historically have it, in order to send and receive data.

IoT is one of the most rapidly emerging technologies in web development, with Statista indicating the number of IoT-connected devices will reach more than 29 billion by 2030.

IoT connected devices chart
IoT-connected devices worldwide by year. Image source.

IoT objects can range from home devices, to appliances, and wearable technology, as well as cameras, sensors, and signaling equipment – all helping to meet user needs more quickly.

Furthermore, IoT can make many otherwise non-connected devices accessible from your phone.

A popular example would be the Google Nest package of products, which provides users with features like media, alarms, lights, and more, simply by using their voice.

IoT-connected devices have constant data transfers, allowing companies to engage users with their services at incredible speeds, while creating a personalized experience.

IoT is scalable, as it distributes and collects data but isn’t dependent on the volume of data. It is also reliable, providing accurate results in an expedited fashion. Additionally, it employs powerful security tech to protect business and user data.

IoT’s smart ecosystem provides a wide range of benefits that can be incorporated into websites and mobile apps, analyzing customer behavior to improve the user experience while providing developers with insights.

Motion UI

Motion UI, under the umbrella of motion design, is expected to be a major web design trend in the coming year. The principle is minimalistic design coupled with sophisticated interactions that look amazing and draw the user’s attention.

Motion UI in its glory. Source: Taras Migulko for emote_agency on Dribbble.

Motion UI is a powerful front-end technology that can create customizable, animated UI elements and CSS transitions using SASS libraries.

Popular motions include background animations, animated charts, and modular scrolling, and transition actions like sliding, spinning, bouncing, etc. All of these can cater to individual styles, and aim to catch and keep users’ attention.

Motion UI is generally compatible with all web technologies, and allows flexibility in placement on websites. You can apply these transitions to overlays, off-canvas menus, modals, and more.

Humans are instinctively compelled to follow motion and look for visual clues. It’s also been proven that motion makes a greater impact than static images, meaning we’re much more likely to remember content displayed through movement.

Motion UI is best used to tell a story and invoke emotion, making it a powerful tool in driving user engagement.

Tip: Looking for Motion design in UI inspiration? Check out these websites with great examples. Also, see this moving article for a Motion UI plugin you can use to make your WordPress sites jump.

Trends or Tools of the Trade?

We’ve been following trends like AI chatbots, voice assistants, PWAs, SPAs, IoT, and Motion UI for years; see how they’ve picked up steam since 2018, 2019,  and 2020.

2023 will witness a lot of advancements in the field of web development, and will transform the way the world does business – including the way you interact with your clients.

Adopting the latest web dev trends will allow you to stay competitive, by offering the most popular and cutting-edge designs and services.

If you are looking to build your WordPress sites on the sturdiest foundation, sign up for our newsletter to hear about the latest and greatest developments in the world of WordPress, and consider membership and hosting with WPMU DEV. With our suite of pro plugins, 5-star support, and a money-back guarantee, you’re sure to stay ahead of the curve.

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Announcing… the WPMU DEV Agency Partner Directory!

The ability to access custom services such as development, design, or marketing is a common request we get, both from our members and audience at large – or should we say, it was a common request.

We’re excited to reveal that not only did we hear you, we did something about it. And today we can announce that solution (of which we’re rather proud).

Introducing… WPMU DEV’s comprehensive new agency directory that allows members to showcase their services, and helps users find trusted experts to hire for their projects.

It’s a win-win!

What’s more, you don’t need to wait for our team to build it. The directory has just launched! And it’s completely free! 😀

As with any new feature, it’s important to understand the ins and outs, so let’s take a closer look at some of the details – both for those who need help, and those who can give it.

Keep reading, or jump ahead to any section:

agency partner search and filters

How it Works

For those looking to enlist help for a project, it’s as easy as heading to the WPMU DEV Agency Partners page and searching for what you need, within the parameters you set.

For Agency Partners, we’ll be sending potential clients in their direction by referring requests we receive that are outside of the scope of WPMU DEV support.

That means FREE promotion! And potential revenue!!

Because we’ll also mention this occasionally in our weekly emails and our social media, that’s a whole lot of free marketing that will be going out to our extended audience.

Plus, by virtue of agencies being added to the directory, they’ll get high authority backlinks to their site, helping to increase their domain authority – which of course leads to higher ranking on search engines for another stellar bonus: SEO gains.

As for the directory itself, search and filtering capabilities allow users to quickly zero in on agencies that provide website maintenance, ecommerce, video production, and more.

It’s easy to use, and has loads of potential.

How to Apply

Agencies using WPMU DEV tools to build quality sites are eligible for inclusion in our Agency Partners Directory.

Such agencies that are interested in being listed in our directory can fill out this form. Every submission will be checked and agencies informed whether or not they qualify for inclusion.

While inclusion in the directory is limited to WPMU DEV members, use of the directory as a resource to access custom services is open to everyone – and it’s 100% free! Simply jump online and start your search.

Giddy Up, Partner

The Agency Partners Directory is our solution to providing those in need of custom services with quality, credible options – vetted by us – while bringing potential business to our top member agencies.

This will help users, WPMU DEV members and non-members alike, find top-ranking and trustworthy agencies.

This great symbiosis is what WPMU DEV is all about, and this launch will enhance all of our existing products and services, putting the varying specialities of our developer audience in closer reach of each other.

Give it a look-see, and tell us what you think!

If you haven’t already, try us out (free, for 7 days!) and see how WPMU DEV’s membership can make a big difference in your professional journey. All of our Memberships, as well as our Hosting, include a fleet of Pro Plugins, 24/7/365 five-star support, and a ton more.

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SmartCrawl’s Newest Release Adds A Handful of New Features, Plus Greater Flexibility in Options

SmartCrawl version 3.4 adds multiple keyword analysis, additional SEO recommendations, the ability to disable SEO & Readability Analysis in the post list, and more. For free.

SmartCrawl has been SEO optimized from the start, but each new version further improves site performance while boosting your PageRank on Google.

With automated SEO scanning, automatic XML sitemaps, real-time keyword and content analysis, and detailed audits/reports – not to mention one-click recommendations – SmartCrawl lets you create targeted content that ranks at the top of your favorite search engine.

In this post, we’re going to take a closer look at the latest features added to version 3.4, and why they make SmartCrawl even better.

Continue reading, or jump ahead with these links:

Let’s get cracking.

Multiple Keywords Analysis

SmartCrawl has had keyword analysis for a while now. It also previously allowed multiple key phrases to be added, but analysis was only done on the first one.

Now, you can analyze your post content for up to three different focus keywords (or phrases). The first keyword entered will be considered primary, while the second and third keywords will be analyzed as secondary.

Doing this is easy. First of all, let’s make sure analysis is turned on. Navigate to SmartCrawl > Settings > General Settings > In-Post Analysis > Visibility, and make sure Page Analysis is toggled on (it will turn blue), then click the Save Changes button at the bottom of the page.

keyword analysis in settings
Simple, flexible settings to start your SEO analysis journey in SmartCrawl.

Now, open any Page or Post, and scroll to the SmartCrawl section at the bottom. In the Add Keywords field, enter up to three keywords or phrases, separating each by a comma, then click on the Add Keyword button. (You can enter them individually or all at once.)

analyze multiple keywords
Multiple keyword (or phrase) analysis has come to SmartCrawl!

SmartCrawl will instantly analyze all of your keywords, showing results directly below them.

keyword analysis results
SmartCrawl provides a wealth of detail on a multitude of SEO checks.

Clicking on any of the keywords will put you on its own tab, with details listed beneath.

For each focus keyword, SmartCrawl will give you a list of recommendations to improve the SEO of your post. Suggestions will be made in yellow and gray, while passed audits will be green.

Click on the dropdown arrow to the right of any recommendation to see details specific to it.

If for any reason you decide a certain recommendation isn’t needed, simply click the Ignore button beneath it, and it will stop appearing every time you run the analysis.

recommendation drop down
Don’t want to see a certain recommendation post analysis? Just click Ignore.

As you go through making content adjustments based on SmartCrawl’s recommendations, follow them up with a click of the Refresh button (at the top of SEO section), so you can reanalyze and see what improvements your changes made.

Taxonomy List Status Column

You’ll also find a handy SEO Status column on Category & Taxonomy pages, providing the SEO status for all of your taxonomies.

It’s just a quick way to indicate whether an SEO description has been set, and remind users to craft good SEO descriptions so they do well in search results.

taxonomy seo status column
An SEO Status column has been added to category & taxonomy pages.

Green check marks mean the SEO description is set and contains the recommended 120-160 characters. Red means a description is missing. Yellow means the description provided is too long/short in length.

You can also hover over any icon in the SEO Status column for a popup with more detailed information.

A Quad of Additional SEO Recommendations

SmartCrawl suggests In-Post SEO Recommendations for every focus keyword that your post content has been analyzed for.

Each of these will click to expand, providing additional information about how to better improve your post SEO.

The list of important recommendations in SmartCrawl was already significant, but we added four more in this version release.

1. Check if the URL contains underscores

Google recommends the use of hyphens over underscores in URLs, stating that hyphens make crawling and interpreting URLs easier for search engines.

2. Check for recommending a hand-crafted meta description

Using best practices for meta descriptions increases the likelihood of your content ranking higher in SERPS. That includes handcrafting your meta description using relevant information about the page content, instead of using the auto-generated one.

3. Primary focus keyword is already used on another post/page

Optimizing more than one post for the same focus keyword confuses search engines and can affect your SEO ranking. SmartCrawl will check to see if your Primary Focus Keyword is used in other Posts/Pages, and then list the 10 most recent ones.

primary focus keyword other post-page
SmartCrawl checks for repeated primary keywords on more than one post/page.

4. Check if all external links are nofollow links

Relevant outbound site links help search engines determine the relevance and quality of your content, improving credibility, authority, and value to users. While having some nofollow links is okay, best practice is to have at least one external dofollow link in your site, so SmartCrawl will check for this.

Disable SEO & Readability Analysis Status

Posts and Pages in SmartCrawl are analyzed one at a time by default, in order to prevent excessive loads on the server.

In the newest version, you now have the ability to completely disable these checks if you prefer. To do so, navigate to SmartCrawl > Settings > General Settings > In-Post Analysis, and toggle the Disable Page Analysis Check on Pages/Posts Screen on (it will turn blue).

If you change this setting, be sure to click the Save Changes button at the bottom of the page.

disable page analysis check in settings
SmartCrawl has one-click disabling for page/post analysis.

The SEO Do-all, Be-all, End-all, SmartCrawl

SmartCrawl is built with ease-of-use in mind. Set up is a cinch, with one-click recommendations that improve your PageRank in minutes, each full of details so you can better understand and improve on them.

Now with the newest features, like analyzing multiple keywords at once, even more recommendations that benefit your post SEO, and improved readability analysis, using SmartCrawl on your WordPress site is a win-win-win.

Sign up for a WPMU DEV free membership to take a test run with us. In addition to SmartCrawl, you’ll get Smush and Hummingbird – our two most highly rated (and awarded) plugins for image and performance optimizations – as well as the rest of our popular free plugins.

If you want to up the ante even more, we recommend going with one of our Premium Memberships, which include SmartCrawl Pro (plus the rest of our Pro plugins), along with our exclusive, feature-packed Hub client portal, blazing-fast CDN, and our 24/7/365 five-star support. SmartCrawl Pro adds features like scanning, reports, automatic linking for specific keywords, 404s and multiple redirects.

You can also Host with us, and join the tens of thousands of satisfied WordPressers who see the difference our fully dedicated, fully optimized, and lightning-fast resources make.

However you go, SmartCrawl your way to the top of the search game.

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The Year in Review at WPMU DEV: A Look Back and a Peek Ahead

Is everyone still basking in that holiday glow? Many of us here at WPMU DEV took a wee break over Christmas, but are back in the full swing of things now.

Topping my to-do list was putting this roundup/roadmap post together, to share what we rolled out in 2022, and what you can look forward to from us in 2023. It’s always a thrill to see it all in one place, and I know a lot of you feel the same.

I want to thank my teammates who work hard every day to make our products and services the best they can be, and for being gracious with their time and knowledge.

I also want to thank you – our devoted customers and discerning audience – for sharing your ideas, testing ours, and playing a large role in our current level of success.

So here we go… a summary of our 2022 accomplishments and a reveal of what’s in the pipeline for 2023, with key points and insights from our brilliant Product Managers and Lead Developers.

Keep reading, or jump ahead with these links:

First up, a view from the top from our CEO, James, who continues to keep our ship righted as we steer into both new and familiar territory.

Executive Summary, from CEO James Farmer

“2022 was truly an epic year that I hope was reflected in the new and improved tools, services, and software that we provided for our members.

We hope you found our plugins – the core of who we are – better in every aspect, from their feature sets to their reliability and UX.

Our hosting has also come along in leaps and bounds, including our first genre-busting product release with Quantum… managed, dedicated, VPS-style hosting from $3.60/m in half a dozen global locations (with your own dedicated IP). I’m still a bit surprised it exists.

And bringing it all together has been The Hub, which continues to take giant strides forward and for which 2023 is going to be its biggest year yet (automated reseller, white label support, from the greatest support team on the planet… yes please!)

And that’s where we’re all at now, making sure you have the best possible 2023 using WPMU DEV for your web development, agency, freelancer or personal projects.

Below, we’ve outlined more specifically what we brought to the table in 2022 and what else is in the works for this coming year, so read on to get up to speed.”

Want to hear more from James? Check out this Post Status interview from the Product Founder Series: WordPress in the Long View with James Farmer.

All right, off to explore the individual products and services. Starting with…

Our Powerhouse Plugins

Plugins are what put us on the map, and continue to play a central role at WPMU DEV.

We currently manage 13 pro plugins, along with nine free versions on the WordPress plugin repository.

Let’s take a look at the journey plugins took last year, and what lies ahead for each in 2023.

Smush

The most popular image optimization plugin for WordPress, Smush continues to rule with blazing-fast CDN, super 2x compression, caching, and lazy loading.

Our Head of Products, Mohammad Sharab, will be providing summaries for Smush, Hummingbird, SmartCrawl, Defender, Forminator, and Snapshot.

First up, here’s Mo with the lowdown on Smush:

“In 2022, we focused on improving the user experience of bulk image optimization and giving back to our free users who made Smush the number one image optimization plugin.

Bulk image optimization processes are much faster with the new Parallel optimization improvement, putting Smush on the top of the list of image optimization speeds. We also removed wait times on image optimization, making workflow more efficient with the introduction of Background Optimization features.

Additionally, we unlocked two features to our free users: Lossy Compression, and the 50 images limit. Now free users can benefit from any amount of lossy, compressed images.

In 2023, we have some key items coming up:

  • Improve our Local WebP Compression
  • Revamp Smush UI/UX
  • Introduce CDN Management per site for users who are managing multiple sites (instead of per account)

As always, we’ll keep you informed when new features hit.”

Hummingbird

The ultimate performance suite, Hummingbird monitors, analyzes, and optimizes the performance of all your websites, assuring they run at peak speeds.

From Mo:

“The Hummingbird team is working with two goals in mind: to make it safer, and easier to optimize.

We know that Manual Asset Optimization isn’t easy for all users, and moving the wrong file to the footer or delaying it from loading could affect/break the front page style. That’s why we introduced a new Safe Mode feature for Manual Optimization, so users could optimize their files and test page speed without breaking anything. Then publish those changes to live, once happy with their configuration.

For 2023, the team is working on two new features that will help users improve site speed score with a click of a button. These are: Delay JS, and Critical CSS features.”

SmartCrawl

SEO superstar SmartCrawl provides higher ranking and improved SERPs, with full schema support, crawling and indexing audits, and content analysis.

Once again we have Mo here to recap last year’s advancements and what’s coming next.

“SmartCrawl has been steadily growing and improving every year, and this year is no exception. We continue to strive to make SmartCrawl a plugin that will be synonymous with SEO and WordPress. To do that, we’re making it more powerful, flexible, and accessible to all our users and members.

Our most recent update is an improvement to our in-post Content Analysis. We now support analysis for multiple keywords or key phrases. In the past, we allowed our users to enter multiple key phrases separated by commas but we only did an analysis on the main/first focus keyword.

Now you can add multiple key phrases and do analysis on subsequent secondary key phrases enabling you to optimize your content even further.

Some other updates we tackled last year were:

  • Multilingual Support for Readability Analysis – We now support 7 Languages with our readability analysis
  • Automatic Linking Refactoring – We have made Automatic linking more efficient and have added a few new features
  • Regex and Bulk Imports for Redirection – You can now use Regex for Redirection and bulk Import and Export redirects between sites

On the horizon for 2023 is… Breadcrumbs! You’ll be able to add Breadcrumbs visually, and they will also include schema data. And, there is still so much more we want to do with Content Analysis, so look for those upgrades this year, as well as other great new features and improvements.”

Defender

Seamlessly integrated with WPMU DEV’s powerful WAF, our tough-as-nails security plugin Defender has helped more than 300,000 sites stay secure while assisting with the early detection of malware.

Mo continues with Defender news:

“In 2022, we made several improvements to Defender, including:

  • Allowlist/Blocklist IPs on multiple sites from The Hub
  • Biometric and YubiKey Authentication for 2 Factor authentication
  • Google reCAPTCHA & 2FA integration with BuddyPress and WooCommerce Checkout
  • Enhancing the Malware scanner’s ability to detect security threats and provide CVSS severity score for vulnerabilities

In 2023, we’re planning several improvements in Defender to make it even better. Here’s the shortlist:

  • Safe Quarantine – Quarantine malware-affected files
  • Defender Firewall – Protect your site from Bad IPs flagged by other sites
  • Improving the plugin’s user interface to make it even more user-friendly and intuitive
  • Enhanced ability to detect and block security threats, such as malware and malicious code

With the ever-increasing need for website security, we are committed to improving Defender and making it the best protection possible from security threats on WordPress websites. To that end, upcoming updates will be comprehensive and effective.”

Forminator

There’s no limit to what you can do with interactive forms, polls, and quizzes in Forminator. Create campaigns in minutes with the most flexible, easy-to-use, drag-and-drop form builder for WordPress, and see user engagement soar.

Mo has this to say about Forminator:

“Our first big feature of 2022 was Global Appearance Presets, released in February. This enabled users to easily create presets of form appearance and reuse them for as many forms as desired.

Our next most-voted feature was Partial Submissions, which we introduced last June. This enables you to save your progress when filling up a large form by saving your submission as a draft, and continuing where you left off at any point later.

We implemented Reports in September 2022, in order to better track the performance of your forms, polls, or quizzes. These reports come both in a dashboard form, where you can see stats about a specific form straight in WordPress admin, or you can schedule regular sends of these reports via email.

Also in September, based on many requests received to support more automation services like Zapier, we adjusted our Webhook integration to support multiple automation tools. In addition to Zapier, Integrately, Tray.io, Make, Workato, and more will now support webhooks through Forminator.

Two other highly requested features that improve form usability are Field Grouping, and Group Repeater functionality. We rolled these out in October, making users able to group fields into sets – which can be repeated on the frontend as many times as needed or desired. This can be particularly useful, for example, if you want your site visitors to fill out the form with multiple guests attending an event, where the same set of details from each extra guest is needed.”

Mo continues with a look-see of what’s up and coming in 2023:

“We’re pumped about what it will bring. For starters, we’re pleased to announce that Forminator version 2.0 will be released in Q1 of 2023, with a highly requested feature: PDF Generation.

While we already have an integration with E2PDF, building this into the plugin will bring a lot more usability, and will allow the use of invoices, quotes receipts, and more.”

Snapshot

A final roundup from Mo, this time for Snapshot, our automatic, efficient, off-site storage backup buddy. Select from reliable third-party storage options, get instant email alerts, and implement one-click restores.

“Last year we formed an awesome new team for Snapshot with the goal of improving the backup success rate. We took care of lots of underlying issues in the Snapshot Incremental API and in the Snapshot plugin, which boosted the backup success rate in 2022 from 80% to 90%.

We’ve also fixed issues where backups were running for a long time without any success or timeout error.

And finally, with November’s 4.13 release, Snapshot now consumes even less memory. That means higher backup success rates on third-party servers with lower specs.

Here are some other 2022 improvements we made on Snapshot (in chronological order):

  • Redesigned Snapshot Installer with a new engine that takes lower memory
  • Added HTTP Authentication option for password-protected sites
  • Fixed compatibility issue with Siteground’s Ultrafast PHP (We’ve seen a 50% drop in backups failing at random database tables.)
  • Added ‘OneDrive’ destination
  • Database table exclusion UI
  • Snapshot uses MySQLDUMP (if available) to dump the database

Early in 2023, we have a couple of items lined up:

  • Continue improving backup and restoration success rate
  • Redesign File exclusion UI

Then later in 2023, we’ll be working on AZURE Destination.”

Dashboard

The WPMU DEV Dashboard plugin securely connects your site to your Hub via our API, giving you one-click installation, upgrades, and security updates for all our plugins, directly from your WordPress.com dash.

Lead Developer Joel James is bringing us the intel on Dashboard.

“Dashboard had some nice growth this year. For starters, we added the ability to sign-in with Google.

Next, we added the ability to select the Hub Team after login, as well as Optimizing SQL queries for a noticeable performance improvement.

And finally, we added WP Consent API integration for WPMU DEV Analytics, and Improved UX on the login screen.

Looking ahead, we plan on refactoring the UI this year. Also, we’ll be improving support for third-party plugins and themes updates.”

In Maintenance Mode

Hustle, Branda, Beehive, Shipper, and Integrated Video Tutorials have been in maintenance mode.

While they had no major feature upgrades in 2022, we continued to fine tune and squash bugs on these workhorse plugins.

The Hub & The Hub Client

The Hub and The Hub Client come together as your client portal extraordinaire, entirely customizable with your own branding, navigation, and domain. White label everything WPMU DEV, resell our services, and handle Client Billing and management needs.

The Hub Client allows you to control settings and configure navigation and user access from the WordPress dashboard. It syncs seamlessly with The Hub, our WordPress site management tool that is cPanel on steroids – but more beautiful and bountiful.

Both have exploded this year, with a ton of new features and enhancements.

Leading us through all things Hub-alicious is our Product Manager, Mukul Chawla.

“I won’t be burying the lede here. While we accomplished quite a bit with The Hub this year, our two biggest feature adds were Domains and the Free Hub.

Fulfilling our promise to ‘be your own GoDaddy’, Domain Services were added in Q4 of 2022. Agency members can now buy domains within The Hub from WPMU DEV for themselves, or to resell to their clients (manually for now, automated reselling coming soon). Clients can buy just the domains from their client portal and link them to their existing sites.

The Free Hub was also released in Q4, allowing users on free plans to sign up and experience The Hub. There are some limits on the free version, such as the quantities permitted and some advanced settings, but most of the features allow you to experience the basic functions that paid members enjoy in full.

Global IP Banning was added, providing members with a global IP allow/block list that they can easily sync with all their websites from The Hub Sites page.

Members also got their first look at our Automated Reseller in the form of a video prototype. The response was great, and allowed us to gather valuable feedback.

Remove Issued Invoices was one of the top requests for Client Billing, and that option is now available. The payment due or failed invoices can be canceled, which will change the invoice status to Void. This applies to both one-time and recurring invoices.

Live Chat got a couple of highly requested features added as well. Members can now Download Transcripts of their live chats with our support team on The Hub > Support page. Additionally, members can now buy Live Chat Add-on for Team Members, so they too can get access to WPMU DEV support.

We also rolled out Sidebar Navigation last year. This provides the flexibility to add more site services without worrying about available space. It also improves navigation; with hosting subtasks as a drop down, users can go to any page (under Hosting) from the side navigation directly, eliminating an entire navigation step for users.

Here are some additional features and improvements that we implemented in 2022:

  • Pre-paid Hosting Credits – members can buy hosting credits in bulk to save on Hosting costs
  • Delete SnapShot backups for disconnected sites
  • Custom Thumbnails for websites – members can upload custom thumbnails instead of keeping defaults, providing a more customized UX for their clients
  • ‘Hub Accounts’ release to Hub 2.0 – we’ll keep running Hub 1 & 2 for now, but plan to completely remove Hub 1 by the end of March

All in all, 1000+ tasks were completed last year, including the development and improvement of the above mentioned projects, as well as other bug fixes, updates, and new features that were implemented across The Hub.”

Eager to share what’s up and coming for The Hub & Hub Client, Mukul continued:

“At the top of our punch list is Domains Transfer. Coming soon, members will be able to move their existing domains to WPMU DEV.

Also, we’re already hard at work on one of the most highly requested features by members – IMAP emails.

Here are some other items in the pipeline for 2023:

  • Automated Reselling for Hosting & Domains – members will be able to resell our hosting and domains to their clients in a self-provisioned way
  • Broken Link Checker (BLC) plugin – will integrate with The Hub (with a new API-based broken link checker service)
  • Centralized White Label Settings in The Hub – improved white labeling experience across our products, with configurations moving into a centralized location in The Hub
  • Reports 2.0 – coming this year, based on a lot of feedback, reports will be new and improved

We’re stoked about what’s coming, and believe you will be too.”

Premium Hosting

We’re toasting to hosting! 2022 has been a banner year for our Hosting service. New plans were added, and we’ve continued to boost the core features for every tier while the platform grows exponentially.

Product Manager Neel Gajjar is on deck to share all the highlights.

“It’s been almost three years since we launched our Hosting platform, and last year we were thrilled to introduce the addition of Quantum.

Quantum is a brand new droplet for Agency members, ideal for reseller hosting. It’s an even smaller, lower-priced offering than our prior starter plan, Bronze, but provides the same dedicated and compartmentalized resources. And, we’ve already updated its features. When first released, we had blocked certain items (such as plugins), then lifted those restrictions based on user feedback.

Also new – the ability to Suspend Hosting Sites. This valuable tool allows members to quickly incentivize slow or non-paying clients by temporarily (or permanently) suspending their site(s) from within The Hub.

Hourly Backups Add-on was implemented last year as well. Members can optionally enable hourly backups, instead of the default nightly backup on hosted sites.

Here are some other great new features and enhancements for Hosting in 2022:

  • Disable Staging Pass protection – option added
  • PHP 8.1 Support – added for both production and staging sites
  • ionCube Loader – enable or disable this on sites hosted with us (if any plugins require it)
  • Performance and Security improvements – hundreds of improvements in our hosting performance and security
  • Additional SSH commands allowed

To wrap up 2022’s accomplishments, I’ll share a cool stat. WPMU DEV Hosting handled 3000+ Manual Migrations last year for members, with the fastest time clocking in under 12 minutes!”

Ready to dish the dirt on what’s to come for hosting, Neel added:

“We’ve got some awesome stuff already mapped out for 2023, including:

  • Block XMLRPC by default – only used by outdated Windows/Mac software, XMLRPC is vulnerable and should be blocked by default
  • Custom SSH and SFTP path – members will be able to create SSH | SFTP accounts with custom paths
  • Ubuntu 22.08 – We will be upgrading our server operating system to the latest Ubuntu 22.08
  • PHP 8.2 – adding support for this released version, so members can use the latest PHP version for best site performance
  • Advance Monitoring of server resources such as Server load history, PHP Limits History, Ram Usage history, etc. Currently you can only see live server stats but with this feature you can see history of the data, such as what was the server usage like 24 hours ago

And of course, we’re constantly at work refining our Hosting platform overall, to offer better security and performance, so expect to continue seeing those upgrades.”

Hosting is going places, and we’re glad you’re with us for the ride.

A Good Year For WPMU DEV & Our Customers

That’s everything, folks. If you’re still reading, thanks for sticking with us.

It’s your input, usage, and feedback that helps us focus on what our members and the web development community value most. Then we get to work on implementing those features and enhancements in the way that most benefits our products, services, and you.

To see what’s on deck at any time during the year, check out our company Roadmap.

If you’re not a part of WPMU DEV, we invite you to try our Free Membership, which includes all of our free Plugins and Features, including the Free Hub (all maintained and updated) – completely free, no credit card required.

Take it to the next level with one of our Premier Memberships (all Pro plugins, The Hub, CDN, Client Billing, and much more) – along with a 30-day, money-back guarantee.

Go the distance with our Managed Hosting (Fully Dedicated, Lightning Fast, Rock-solid Security), which comes with a free 7-day trial for a no-risk, hassle-free experience.

Bonus: all of our Hosting and pro Membership plans come with WPMU DEV’s always on-call Expert Support – who assist with anything WordPress, not just our products.

Cheers to 2023! We wish you and yours happiness, health, and success throughout the year and beyond.

 

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You’re Safe! Hummingbird’s Newest Release Allows for Manual Optimization in Protected Mode

Fine tuning your website through manual optimization can be tricky, but our new Safe Mode feature in Hummingbird puts that problem in the rearview.

Now, you can now test optimization in a temporary area that allows for non-permanent changes, so you can work out any kinks, then push them to your live site. For free!

Introducing Safe Mode for Manual Asset Optimization – allowing you to optimize in a private space while your users still enjoy a fully functioning site.

In this article, we’re going to look at how Safe Mode in Hummingbird works, while touching on a few related features and settings in the plugin. Plus, we’ll take a look at an additional (surprise!) feature also included in this release.

Continue reading, or jump ahead using these links:

Let’s dive in.

Asset Optimization in Hummingbird

Hummingbird makes your website faster by optimizing site performance with fine-tuned controls. Setting enhancements make things easy and efficient, giving you new ways to boost PageSpeed Insights.

First, it identifies files that can be optimized (HTML, Javascript, and CSS), then offers a variety of means (compress, combine, or move) to make that happen.

The result gives you marked improvement in your website’s performance.

There are two different modes for asset optimization in Hummingbird:

  1. Automatic – use our preset options to optimize your assets and improve page load times.
  2. Manual – configure each file yourself to achieve the setup best suited to your specific site needs.

Drilling down even further, there are two options within Automatic Optimization mode:

  1. Speedy – compresses & auto-combines smaller files together, and optimizes your fonts for faster delivery.
  2. Basic – compresses all your files to deliver a faster version of each.

Automatic mode allows for a quick setup, providing positive gains without the time commitment that manual adjustment requires.

Both of the Automatic options can be configured for Files (CSS, JavaScript), and/or Fonts.

manual asset file types
Hummingbird lets you optimize CSS, JS, and font files.

Manual mode allows you to tinker with any and every file individually, so you can optimize your site on a very granular level.

It’s a good idea to test files one at a time to measure results; that way if something doesn’t work it’s easy to identify what caused it and revert back without issue.

We’ve mapped out specific steps for what to do in each mode, so that you can easily follow along in Hummingbird and produce optimal results.

You can see these anytime by navigating to Hummingbird > Asset Optimization > Assets, then click on the How Does it Work? text at right.

There is a page for Automatic and one for Manual; just click on the corresponding header button that you’d like to read about.

asset optiimz how does it work
Get one-click access to summarized details on both modes of asset optimization.

If you’re just starting out with Hummingbird, we recommend selecting Automatic optimization in Speedy mode to start. As you use and test your site and the plugin further, you can switch to auto basic or manual mode to check for possible improvements.

And of course, you can always view our detailed documentation, or reach out to our customer support gurus, available 24/7/365.

Testing Changes in Safe Mode

We’re going to zero in today on optimization done in Manual, as that’s where the new Safe Mode lives.

Hummingbird’s Safe Mode allows you to test different asset optimization settings in a safe environment, without affecting your website visitors’ experience.

You’ll be able to preview your site from the frontend and check for any errors in your browser’s console, then publish your changes to go live once you’ve got everything just right.

To enable this feature, go to Asset Optimization > Manual Asset Optimization, and click on the toggle button next to Safe Mode.

From here, you can also click on the filter icon, which will open a panel for finding files faster. You can free type or select from the dropdown menu.

manual safe mode+filter
You can filter to search for files while in Safe Mode.

When you’re in Safe Mode, clicking on any icon box will change its state.

You will see a solid outline around it, indicating it’s been selected, and a circular info icon will also appear on the far left of the row.

These visuals are to remind you’re in preview mode, and will remain until you click Publish, committing the changes you’ve made.

preview mode changed state
Visual cues will alert you to unsaved changes.

With Safe Mode enabled, you can start tweaking your files for peak optimization.

Each asset will have a status icon indicating its current state, and these vary based on the asset they’re attached to.

As an example, the Compress option can have the following states:

  • Gray icon – files that are already compressed
  • White icon – indicates which files can be compressed
  • Blue icon – New assets selected for compression
  • Can’t be compressed – marks files that can’t be compressed

Hover your mouse over any icon for a popup description of what action this change would make.

hover popup details
Need info on a particular icon? Just hover over it for a status popup.

To see the effect any change makes, click the Preview button.

preview button in safe mode
The Preview button shows up once you turn Safe Mode on, taking the place of the Publish Changes button.

Hitting Preview will load the frontend of your site, where you can check on the asset optimization you configured, making sure it doesn’t generate errors or break anything on your site.

safe mode page preview
What our Preview page looks like in Hummingbird’s Safe Mode.

As you can see, the preview page has three clickable buttons at the top: Go Back, Copy Test Link, and Publish.

Click on Copy Test Link if you want to gauge asset optimization you’ve made using a third-party performance test. Just paste the copied text into your preferred tool.

Click on the Publish button if you’re content with the change(s) you made, and are ready to save.

Click on the Go Back button if you’ve gotten an error message, a site break, or had no observable performance improvements, so you can continue to tweak your assets further.

Once you’ve completed this exercise, turn Safe Mode OFF, as leaving it on can cause page load delays on your live site.

And there you go! Maximum optimization achieved, which is completely changeable at any time.

What’s The Other New Feature in Hummingbird 3.4?

There’s another new feature in the latest release that I wanted to mention, as it’s sure to make your search experience in Hummingbird better.

In the past, if you were working with a particular encrypted file from your performance test reports, locating it on the Manual Asset optimization tab by filename was a bit messy.

That was because Hummingbird generates special filenames for optimized files, and there was no direct way to find them there. Until now!

optimized filenames search in browser bar
Copy filenames, then use Ctrl/Cmd+F to quickly find them in the browser search.

With this release, you can copy filenames from the performance reports, then look them up directly in the browser search in the Manual Asset Optimization tab.

This makes finding optimized files easier and faster.

Get Your Site Humming with Optimal Performance

Hummingbird is the ultimate performance suite for all users – whether you’re looking for simple, one-click solutions, or want to fine-tune your site performance down to the last CSS file.

You’ll get faster loading pages and higher search rankings and PageSpeed scores with Hummingbird’s speed optimization.

Now with Safe Mode for asset optimization, you can manually configure and test any files without worrying about a site break or interrupting the visitor experience on your site.

Hummingbird is only one of our highly rated and multi-functional Pro plugins. You can try them all – along with WPMU DEVs membership or hosting – for free! Everything comes with our money-back guarantee, fully supported by our always on-call, 5-star support.

We’ll help you keep your sites humming and your clients happy.

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How to Point a Domain to WPMU DEV Hosting

Pointing domains… nameservers… figuring out DNS… it can all feel daunting! Fortunately, WPMU DEV makes it easy, whether you’re working with a domain purchased from us or from another provider. We break it all down in this article.

Keep reading to learn how to easily connect your domain to our hosting service.

Here are the topics we’ll be covering:

Connecting Your Domain To WPMU DEV Hosting

With our new domain service recently rolled out, you can directly purchase domains and register them through WPMU DEV – in which case we automatically do the DNS hookup (i.e., the pointing part) for you.

If you purchased your domain through another DNS provider and are hosting with us, the tutorial below will show you exactly what you need to do and explain why this is also a great choice.

Prepping for a Change in Domain Nameservers

Nameservers are often referred to as the phone book of the internet, sending you to the correct domain when you type in a web address.

There are two primary components to making your website accessible to the public:

  1. Your domain name (purchased from a registrar)
  2. Nameservers (provided through a host)

The first must point to the second to connect the two.

The registrar you purchased your domain from also has its own nameservers (if it offers hosting), however if you want them managed elsewhere you must change the DNS records.

Doing it all from a single location is ideal, as it cuts out the middle agent and puts the same quality that powers your sites behind your DNS.

DNS propagation is the term for your site’s nameservers and other records (e.g., A, AAAA, CNAME, MX, etc) updating across the web. This process can take anywhere from a few minutes to a couple days to finalize.

If your site was already live, it might become briefly inaccessible to visitors during the nameserver change. You could create a temporary page with info regarding the approximate downtime, then publish it just prior to the server change. (Remember to change it back once the process is complete).

It’s also helpful to handle nameserver changes during a period when traffic volume is typically on the low end.

Importing Your Domain Records to WPMU DEV

Alright, we’re ready to start our edits. The first thing we’re going to do is navigate to The Hub on WPMU DEV.

Click on Domains from the top menu bar, then Connected Domains from the submenu, then the Connect Existing Domain button.

connected domains - populated and unpopulated (wpmudev)
Connecting domains in WPMU DEV’s The Hub.

The Add New Domain modal will pop up. Here you will enter your domain name in the text field – making sure to include the extension (e.g. .com, .net, .xyz) – then click the blue button.

add domain (step 1)
Step 1 of 2 in WPMU DEV’s Add New Domain modal.

The Hub DNS Manager will run a scan for common DNS records, then automatically import and list them for your verification.

setup dns (step 2)
Verifying the scanned records to import into a WPMU DEV DNS configuration.

Here you’ll see the summary of record information, which will include:

  • Type – A, CNAME, MX, TXT
  • Hostname – @ for root; www for www. subdomain
  • Value – if record is an alias, directs, or returns
  • TTL (seconds) – Time To Live is how long the DNS query caches before expiring and needing a new one. (The lower this number, the better/faster.)

You can remove any records, if you want to exclude them from being imported, by clicking on the Trashcan icon.

You can also manually add any records that are missing. See Add or Edit DNS Records for details.

If you’re in any doubt as to whether records should be added or deleted, just reach out to support (any time, day or night) and they’ll happily walk you through it.

Once you’re satisfied with the populated DNS records, click the blue button once more.

After the ellipsis bounce, the page will load with the imported information specific to your domain.

WPMU DEV nameservers are listed towards the top of this page, where you’ll see there are three of them.

wpmudev nameservers
WPMU DEV’s trio of nameservers, ready to copy/paste into your domain registry records.

Keep your Hub page open, as we’ll be copying & pasting the nameservers in the next step. (Or, do what I do, and just copy the first one, then replace the “1” with “2” then “3” as you paste each, since these ordinal numbers are the only difference.)

Putting WPMU DEV Nameservers in Your Domain Registry Records

Now that we’ve imported your domain details into WPMU DEV, the next step is to overwrite the nameserver records of your registrars with ours.

There are a lot of registrars, so how your domain details are kept and displayed will vary, but they should all have the same key elements. We cover more than a dozen of the most popular ones here.

In the case of registrars that serve as hosts, what they permit when it comes to allowable changes in nameservers can vary. For example, pointing nameservers to another host is not permissible for a Wix-purchased domain. However, you can transfer your domain away from them (although it involves a different process).

Assuming your domain registrar allows for pointing nameservers away from them, or that you’ve taken any necessary prior steps in preparation, login to their website and locate the records for your domain.

namecheap nameservers (orig)
Changing nameservers through the Registrar; in this case, Namecheap.

Popping back over to the Hub, copy that first nameserver, then head back to your domain registrar details page, pasting it in the appropriate text field. Do this for all three nameservers, then save your input.

Depending on your registrar, you’ll probably get a confirmation message with time estimates on how long it will take the DNS hosting server to update.

It’s rare, but on the outside chance your domain registrar requires identifying our nameservers by IP address, you can find them here.

Double-Checking Your Changes

As with any significant edit, verifying everything is working as it should is an important last step.

Some registrars will send you an email notifying you that the propagation is complete. With others, you might need to revisit the site and continue checking.

Either way, we can verify things through The Hub. Let’s head there, and navigate to Domains > Connected Domains.

For the domain name in question, if you see the green check marked Propagated correctly under Nameservers Status – you’re good to go. If it says Pending, click on the vertical ellipsis icon to the right, and select Manage DNS from the dropdown.

onnected domains manage dns (wpmudev)
Managing DNS through WPMU DEV’s The Hub is effortless.

If everything was done properly and the process has completed, you’ll see a row of green highlighted text, confirming Your nameservers are propagated correctly. If that message isn’t displayed, click on the Check nameservers button.

check dns - nameservers propagating correctly (wpmudev)
Success! Nameservers have been propagated to WPMU DEV.

You’re all set! Your nameservers are successfully pointing to WPMU DEV as your acting DNS provider.

If you don’t get a confirmation or see an error message, check out our detailed documentation, or reach out to our always-on-call support team.

As an additional option, you can use this DNS propagation checker to verify the current IP address and DNS record information for your domain name(s).

The Benefits of Pointing Domains to WPMU DEV Nameservers

Nameservers are essential in directing internet traffic as they locate and translate hostnames into IP addresses.

If you host your own or your client sites with WPMU DEV, pointing your domains to our nameservers has definite advantages.

For starters, subpar nameservers will experience difficulties more often, and your visitors could get “DNS server not responding” messages. Quality nameservers, like ours, can limit or avoid that altogether.

Additionally, pointing your domains to our nameservers allows you to keep the settings with your current email client as is, eliminating the hassle of making a bunch of changes in that regard. (Just make sure existing MX records are imported during the DNS record setup.)

Finally, with the ability to purchase domains now directly through WPMU DEV, managing client sites becomes even more centralized, as your hosting provider and domain provider will be one in the same.

This gives you all of your domains in one place/one dashboard, with auto renewal, free protection, and a built-in grace period; priced incredibly low for Agency members.

Not a member yet? Give us a go, and see how much our hosting has to offer. If you’re not thrilled, we’ll refund you 100%; simply cancel within 30 days. Chances are good you’ll find our value and service are unmatched.

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How To Finance Your Site With Micro-donations

Donations are a great way to show support, providing businesses and nonprofits with a monetary contribution to assist in the continued creation of goods or services that they deem important or valuable.

It’s pretty common in today’s service industry to have tip jars prominently displayed at counters and checkouts. Customers will often throw in a little extra in appreciation for quality service – using that jar for cash & coins, or rounding up a small percentage on their credit/debit transactions.

Either way, it’s common practice to give monetary thanks for a job well done. This applies online as well, and not just as a result of specific transactions, but as a way to say, “I really like what you’re doing here, and would like to help keep it going”.

Of course when you’re online, cash, coins, and tipping jars don’t exist, so monetary gifts have to go through some sort of payment platform.

In the case of micro-donations, where amounts are typically on the low end, it’s important to choose an option that doesn’t absorb the majority of your gift in processing fees.

We’re going to look at some payment portals that are ideal for micro-donations via WordPress websites.

Continue reading, or jump ahead using these links:

Let’s dive in.

Defining Micro-donations

Incremental amounts anywhere up to ten dollars are typically considered micro-donations, and are making micro-philanthropy a significant portion of the fundraising landscape.

Historically, businesses effectively used micro-donations through the collection of spare change at the checkouts of their brick & mortar locations. However, with the growth of the internet and increased time spent on the web, online and mobile donations have become the dominant source of this form of philanthropy.

Millennial and Gen-Z donors top the leaderboard when it comes to micro-donations. Thanks to the popularity of smartphones and social networks constantly within reach, these younger donors can be tapped into through effective use of social media.

A Fraction of Your Funding

An interesting phenomenon is that most individuals are more willing to give a little bit a lot of the time, than to give a lot all at once.

Consider this coffee shop example… If a friendly, skilled barista asked for a $35 monthly donation upfront, most people would balk. However, those same customers buy a cup of coffee every morning for $3.50, pull out a five dollar bill, and toss the remaining change into the jar. Let’s say after taxes they’re tipping $1.25 each time. Add that up over 4 weeks – and there’s your $35.

This is the benefit of micro-donations; small, incremental amounts that become significant over time, especially if they come from a number of people, and/or are given on a repeated basis.

Using this same formula, many of you who are running WordPress websites could also benefit from micro-donations, whatever type of businesses they might be.

Perhaps you want to support philanthropy on your site by collecting and contributing to a charitable cause. Or, maybe you’re a writer hoping to get a little financial bonus for the time-consuming creative content you produce for your readers. Of, could be you’re a coder who could really use supplemental funds to cover the development & distribution of your plugin.

Most hard-working online creators are appreciative of a little boost in income. Why not present the opportunity to your audience? They might be ready and willing… you just need to make them able.

Qualities to Look for In a Micro-donation Solution

What exactly makes for a good micro-donation platform?

Most importantly, it has to be simple to use, quick to submit, and recognizable. Any transaction method that requires significant time to complete will cause potential donors to bounce. Likewise if the payment platform they’re considering opening up their wallet for is something they’ve never heard of.

Secondly, transaction fees should be relatively low. If the user is only contributing a few bucks, it’s important that most of that isn’t eaten up by a processing fee – or worse, actually costs you money.

So which micro-donation plugins fit the bill? Let’s take a look.

Recommended Micro-donation Plugins

We researched what was available in the arena of WordPress donation plugins, and are sharing the ones we thought were best. Bonus: they’re all free.

Here’s the list of reviewed plugins:

Forminator

Forminator is much more than a simple donation plugin, but earns a spot here because it handles this specific task quite well. And hey, why not use a plugin that has more than one function? You’ll cut down on resources, and your learning curve.

In addition to being an all-around form building wiz, Forminator does feedback widgets, interactive polls (with real-time results), buzzfeed-style quizzes (no wrong answer), and service estimators – including the option to include payment elements.

It’s easy to use, appealing to look at, and has a proven track record for successful leads and conversions.

forminator forms summary section
Forminator’s dashboard provides a lot of detail in a concisely summarized section.

We have some great articles on the blog specific to Forminator on form creation walkthroughs and details on its other fantastic capabilities, so I won’t go through the setup in detail here.

Instead, I’ll just quickly demonstrate how things look on the front end using a donation form I created.

Forminator helped me create a donation form in minutes.

When creating in Forminator, Fields, Appearance, Email notifications, Integrations, and Settings are all editable, with a significant amount of options.

This allows you to make the content, format, look, and behaviors of your forms customizable to the smallest detail.

Payment gateways Stripe and PayPal are included in the free version, as well as every other powerful feature Forminator offers (minus, the e-signature field). And of course, it includes a testing mode.

There’s also a Submissions section, so you can easily track all the donations that come in, along with their associated details.

Forminator has 5/5 stars, and the pro version is available with a WPMU DEV membership, along with all of our other premium plugins, managed WP hosting, and our site management maestro “The Hub”.

GiveWP

This plugin is smooth and polished from the starting line, with a setup wizard that gets things going as soon as you activate it.

Almost everything is customizable, from text to images to the process itself (choose defined amounts or allow the donor to enter) – and it’s all very nice to look at.

givewp basic vs customized donation widget
GiveWP’s donation form: default vs customized.

Options allow you to create a number of different donation forms, all with their own format, features, and content. You can view or edit a form’s content at any time, as well as keep tabs on actual donation information.

givewp donations summary
GiveWP‘s donation summary reveals details like donor info, gateway used, payment type & amount, and more.

The free version allows you to connect with PayPal or Stripe, and make test payments.

GiveWP has 4.5/5 stars, and offers paid individual addons or tiered plans with preselected features (like Recurring Donations and more payment platforms).

Accept Donations with PayPal

This plugin does a nice job of putting basic donation options on your site. Instructions are easy to follow, and you can place your PayPal Donation button anywhere on your site with a simple embed code.

As you can tell from the name, this connects to your PayPal account, so you have to have one (or create one for free). The process is quick, and allows for a fair amount of flexibility – you can choose from different button types (including making your own), create a sandbox account to test in, designate custom redirect URLs for Cancel and Return pages, and choose predetermined currency amounts (or allow for free entry at time of donation).

Accept Donations with PayPal plugin -- form amount dropdown
Selecting a donation amount from your predefined drop down in Accept Donations with PayPal.

Additionally, there is a section with details on all donations that come in, including info like payment amount & fee, transaction ID, date, and payer email.

Accept Donations with PayPal plugin -- donation details
Accept Donations with PayPal plugin’s donation details screen.

This plugin works with any WP theme, and the developer is an official PayPal partner.

Accept Donations with PayPal has 4.5/5 stars, and offers a premium paid version with additional features (such as Recurring Donations).

Paymattic

Formerly known as WPPayForm, this plugin allows you to build your own donation form.

It comes with a selection of prebuilt forms (which are editable), to help you get started.

Creating a form from scratch works similarly to the WP block editor, but with fields. You can select from general fields (name, email, dropdowns, radio field, text area, etc), donation & product fields (payment item, item quantity, etc), and payment method fields.

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Form creation in Paymattic, from both the front and back end.

Stripe is the only payment method included in the free version, but the premium upgrade includes an additional 8 gateways (plus an offline option).

There isn’t much in the way of customizing the look; colors and fonts are locked into the plugins’ default selections. You can add a checkout image in the Stripe setup, and choose the wording for your text fields and form name.

It allows for payment testing, and provides a full listed summary of donations made.

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Paymattic’s donation summary screen in the WP dashboard.

Paymattic has 4.5/5 stars, and offers paid plans with additional features (like Advanced Reports & Analytics, and pro support).

Charitable

Charitable touts itself as The WordPress Fundraising Toolkit.

Forms are added and created as campaigns, which are basically WordPress pages.

You can add multiple suggested donation amounts (as well as a custom donation field), extended descriptions, and change the creator of the campaign if desired.

Emails are available for donor, admin, and user, and include options like donation receipt (donor), donation notification (admin), and password reset (user), among others.

Design options are included, and work as if you’re in a theme. You can select any color (affects links and button backgrounds), choose where your form will show (separate page, same page, or in a modal), and whether or not to show required fields only.

You can use their prefab text for Privacy and Terms & Conditions fields, or edit to suit your preferences.

Making a test donation in Charitable.

Making a test donation in Charitable.

Stripe, PayPal and offline donations are all available in the free version, and testing mode is included.

There is also a donation summary list with assorted details (e.g., amount, donor name, campaign name, and status ) to keep tabs on the status of donations.

Donation Forms by Charitable has 5/5 stars, and offers paid plans with additional features (like unlimited campaigns, no transaction fees, and additional payment gateways).

Seamless Donations

This plugin works by placing a single embed code on any page or post. There are no additional arguments or options, but it’s been designed so that extensions can add features to the main shortcode.

Seamless donations automatically keeps logs on system information and Cron data, both of which are viewable from the plugins dashboard menu in WordPress.

By default, it uses the Stripe payment platform, which initializes in sandbox mode for testing. Also readily available is the option for PayPal, which you can set up in Live or Test mode.

There are six predefined donation amounts (referred to as ‘Giving Levels”), which you can select or deselect, but cannot edit.

Options for which form fields and sections you’d like to display include repeating donation, employer match, anonymous donor checkbox, and more.

As for styling options, there are two defaults built-in: classic or modern (or you can go with none). Or, you can purchase from the premium add-ons, which include a library of 35 additional form designs with customizable images.

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Seamless Donations uses a single embed code on pages/posts to display your donation form.

Emails have a Thank You template which is editable, and can include four available placeholders for personalized text. Sections include name, email address, message body, designated fund, anonymous donations, closing, and more. A separate Thank You message page can also be set up.

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Seamless Donations post-donation email confirmation.

As with the other plugins reviewed today, Seamless Donations keeps a summary of donations, each with associated details, like date, name, payment platform, and amount. However, this one also keeps two additional summary sections, for donors and funds.

Seamless Donations has 4/5 stars, and offers seven premium add-ons with additional features and benefits (such as Giving Level Manager, Basic Widget Pack, and Thank You Enhanced).

Payment Portals and Their Associated Fees

Fees are dependent on what payment portal you are using, and the country that is associated with any given donation.

Because of the variance in these deciding factors, and the knowledge that they are subject to change at any time, we’re not going to include specific amounts in this post.

If the donations you will be accepting are strictly nonprofit, it is possible to get discounts from PayPal, Stripe, and Mollie. (Sidebar: Mollie is currently not supported in the U.S., but available in about 30 other countries.)

Some of the plugins we selected offer add-ons that can offset overhead transaction fees (ex: GiveWP’s Stripe Premium add-on or Seamless Donations Donors Pay Fees), providing additional savings if you’re getting a large overall amount of donations.

Your best bet is to do a little math in advance. Using the associated fees of any given payment platform, determine what base figure wouldn’t cause you a transactional loss, and set your lowest donation option to that amount. You can always change it later if rates should fluctuate higher or lower.

A quick disclaimer: When it comes to the status of a business entity – LLC, Inc, 501(c) nonprofit, etc – there are financial and legal implications regarding how you report different types of income (including donations). Make sure to check with a certified, licensed attorney or other legitimate lawful source. WPMU DEV does not claim to give nor are we qualified to give legal advice.

Giving Feels Good and Getting Brings Gratitude

Micro-donations are a fantastic way to collect small monetary gifts that can add up to substantial gains.

Amazon is a great example of micro-donations. Through its Amazon Smile website, 0.5% of total spend amounts are made to the nonprofit of a customer’s choice. Given how much business Amazon does, these can and do make a huge impact over time.

But even on a smaller scale, you can benefit from the generosity of others. That might be collecting to contribute to a cause you believe in, or allowing your customers to tip you when they’re feeling generous.

With so many options for adding donation capabilities to websites, it’s as simple as choosing one you like and setting it up. Even if no one ever donated, it doesn’t cost you anything – assuming you’re using a free plugin. And if donations did start to really pick up on your site, you could always add premium features to improve the process.

If you’re a WPMU DEV member and have any questions about Forminator – or any of the plugins we reviewed – just reach out to our excellent support team, and they’ll get you sorted in no time. If you’re not a member yet, get your free trial on, and see what you’ve been missing. :)

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How WPMU DEV Members Optimize Their Client Sites For Maximum Speed

When it comes to WordPress sites, we’ve all got the need for speed. But our web developer members actually have the tried & true methods to best accomplish this, and we’re passing these on to you.

We’ve dipped into the collective wealth of experience that our web developer members have, and compiled the results of their top picks for getting blazing fast site speed.

In this article, we’re going to share their recommendations, along with the details of what makes these efforts so effective in real (online) world use.

Here’s what we’ll be looking at:

Since this is all about speed, let’s hit the ground running!

The Benefits of Boosting Your Speed

Most of us buy into “the faster, the better” motto, but might not fully understand why that is, or how to get there.

The benefits of WordPress performance optimization are numerous, and we’re going to examine each one carefully.

Creating and Growing Your Engagement

Countless studies have shown slow sites are the number one reason people will leave without interacting.

People are simply unwilling to wait around while their cursor spins. We’re talking a matter of seconds – as in two or less. According to Google, that’s how fast your website should load.

Everyone knows there are endless choices for online activity, so they won’t hesitate to bounce without a second thought.

Getting and Handling More Traffic

Greater speed is directly related to more traffic, which means the potential for interactions and conversions to climb exponentially is higher.

If you’re lucky enough to get visitors to your site – established ones coming back, or new ones getting their first look – you’ve got to set things up so the inevitable increase on your resources doesn’t negatively impact anyone’s experience.

Upping Your SEO Rank

There’s a lot that goes into SEO, but site speed is definitely a big factor.

Google’s search ranking algorithms consider site speed a signal, and page performance is also a search engine ranking factor.

Ergo, the faster your site, the more likely you’ll rise in the SERPs – an ideal goal to reach for.

Recommended Tools and Services That’ll Get You Going Faster

As mentioned above, we spoke to the web dev experts in our member collective to get their thoughts on site speed.

They shared their combined knowledge on the subject, as well as specific tools and services they use to get (and keep!) their sites operating at peak performance.

Let’s see what they had to say.

Caching & CDNs

Caching topped the submissions, and with good reason.

Caching minimizes the number of queries that are sent to your server, which means page performance, load time, and user experience all improve.

Additionally, when your site’s data is cached closer to user locations, it consumes fewer resources, thus lessening the load on your server.

Content delivery networks (CDNs) provide cached content from a network location closest to a user to speed up its delivery, with architecture designed to reduce network latency caused by carrying traffic over long distances and across several networks.

This all equates to improving your site speed and performance.

“I use Smush and all the CDNs that come pre-packaged with your [wpmudev] hosting!” – JD

“Hosting with CDN makes a lot of the difference for speed for WordPress sites.” – Matthew Forse

“The difference between images optimized on a CDN (vs not) is ENORMOUS” – JD

Top Recommendations:

CDNs

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Cloudflare

Trusted by millions, Cloudflare is a global network designed to make everything you connect to the Internet secure, private, fast, and reliable.

QUIC.cloud

QUIC.cloud CDN is one of few that can cache both static and dynamic WordPress content. Maximize page speed scores with Online Services, Image Optimization, Critical CSS, Unique CSS, and Low-Quality Image Placeholders.

Caching Plugins

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Hummingbird

Hummingbird gives flight to your site with expert caching and compression. In addition to being a full caching suite (Page, Browser, Object, Gravatar, & RSS), Hummingbird also delivers asset optimization at every level.

“I use Hummingbird on all my sites, it’s the reason I became a WPMU DEV member.“ – kahnfusion

“I use the Speedy function [in Hummingbird], but I optimize the files manually on the largest projects. I have achieved very good results, even on “heavy” sites. – Isidoros Rigas

LiteSpeed Cache

LiteSpeed Cache for WordPress is an all-in-one site acceleration plugin, featuring an exclusive server-level cache and a collection of optimization features.

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LiteSpeed vs select competitors. [Image credit.]
WPRocket

WP Rocket offers a set of advanced options to boost your performance, including delaying JavaScript execution, removing unused CSS, minification, and LazyLoad.

NitroPack

NitroPack features caching, image optimization, and a CDN ready to go out of the box. No 3rd party plugins or complex setups needed.

Image and File Optimizers

Another element that significantly impacts site speed is asset optimization.

There are two categories when it comes to these assets – files and images – though methods to optimize them overlap somewhat.

We’ll look at a number of ways to get peak performance for each.

File Optimization:

  • Enable Gzip (text compression)
  • Lazy load comments and smaller posts
  • Cache site elements (e.g. page, browser, gravatar, RSS)
  • Minify files (strip unnecessary CSS & JS code)
  • Combine smaller files (fewer files = fewer requests)
  • Defer CSS (defer loading above-the-fold content)
  • Preload & defer Javascript (fix JS execution time & deliver smaller payloads)

Image Optimization:

  • Reduce image size with compression (lossy or lossless)
  • Choose the best file type (PNG, JPEG, etc)
  • Use progressive loading for JPEGs
  • Use next-gen file types (Webp)
  • Lazy load offscreen images
  • Optimize image delivery (serve through a CDN)

What seem like small tweaks can and do add up to noticeable speed improvements.

Top Recommendations:

Hummingbird

Aside from being an overall caching wizard, Hummingbird handles a large degree of optimization features, like better organizing assets, viewing file size reductions, Gzip Compression, compressing web pages and stylesheets, and reducing file transfer time.

With automations and single-click settings, setup is a breeze.

Oh, and Hummingbird is free.

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Smush

Smush put us on the map. With 1 million plus active installations & 5 out of 5 stars, this powerhouse performer is dressed to impress.

Optimize unlimited images (Bulk Smush, Super Smush=2x compression), lazy load, automatic resize, compress, backup or bulk restore original images, and resolve Google PageSpeed recommendations – all from one simple and intuitive dashboard.

Smush is free, too. 🙂

“If I want close to perfect performance I code my templates, replace most plugins by wpmudev plugins and the result is great (mostly A with GTmetrix and close to 100% with google page speed).” – Antoine

“Smush and Hummingbird go into every site. I have no requests for Smush whatsoever – it’s a champ.” – Tony G

“I use both (Hbird & Smush) on every site and I don’t have anything to change: ever since plugin setting templates have come out, I just set it and forget it!” – Phil

“Smush I have always found to be excellent. I really, really like it. It’s very impressive what it can do with just a few clicks.” – Matt

“Smush seems perfect already … I don’t see how you could make it better.” – Isidoros Rigas

EWWW

Optimize images using tools on your own server, and offload the CPU-intensive process of optimization to their specialized servers for more compression.

Images are automatically compressed, scaled to fit the page and device size, lazy loaded, and converted to the next-gen WebP format.

ShortPixel

Uses minimal resources and works well with any shared, cloud, VPS or dedicated web hosting. Optimize any image on your website, even images that aren’t listed in the Media Library.

Both lossy and lossless image compression are available for the most common image types plus PDF files.

Plugins & Themes

Most of our web devs agreed: while the number of plugins being used can definitely affect speed, it’s the quality of those plugins that matters most.

Top Tips:

  • Limit plugins to the most essential ones, and delete any you’re not using.
  • Use as lightweight a theme as possible.
  • Clean up your WP databases, to get rid of unnecessary files left behind by unused plugins.

“It comes down to minimizing plugins, over and over and over. A year ago I used to use an average of 20. Now (other than the WPMUDEV standards) I barely use 5. My sites are just as functional but 10x the speed!” – JD

“Always try and minimize the number of plugins used.” – James

Top Recommendations:

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Elementor + Hello Elementor

Elementor is the #1 website platform for WordPress. From landing pages, and eCommerce stores, to full-blown websites – build it all with Elementor’s live drag-and-drop editor.

Hello Elementor is the minimal vanilla theme specifically designed to pair with the Elementor page builder. Topping the charts soon after its release, it has more than a million active installations, with 4.5/5 stars.

Divi

Divi takes WordPress to a whole new level with its incredibly advanced visual builder technology.

A website building platform that replaces the standard WordPress post editor with a vastly superior visual editor, it gives you the power to create spectacular designs with surprising ease and efficiency.

Bricks

A faster, more customizable & performant tool to visually design your entire site from header to footer, and anything in between. Insert dynamic data, and edit & preview multiple breakpoints for a fully responsive website optimized for mobile.

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Breakdance

With 120 built-in elements, a modern UI and workflow, and deep WooCommerce integration, Breakdance is the ultimate website builder plugin for WordPress.

10Web

The first ever AI-powered WordPress builder. Get the initial structure & design of your website with AI, edit it with 10Web builder based on Elementor, then push to live with one click.

“I found this site that does some interesting things in the free version, it is like a game change for mobile pagespeed score. Lots of smart features to help you build better sites in less time.” – Edoardo

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Oxygen

Powerful visual editing for your entire website. Build with fundamental HTML elements. Write PHP, CSS, and JS live.

Features include: Drag element edges to set spacing, or drag & drop to re-order; visual control of every part of your WooCommerce store; create custom website headers visually, including sticky and overlay headers; edit colors in one place.

“Speed web builder like Oxygen is a game changer for the speed of websites.” – Greg

Impreza

Top rated WordPress Website and WooCommerce Builder theme.

“I use IMPREZA because it’s high performance.” – Phil

Underscores

A starter theme meant for turning into the next, most awesome WordPress theme. Ultra-minimal CSS means less stuff to get in your way when you’re designing.

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Advanced DB Cleaner

Over time (or heavy plugin use) WordPress databases accumulate old revisions, orphaned post meta, spam comments, etc, making sites sluggish and bloated.

This plugin easily eliminates unnecessary data to reduce your database size, improve website speed and performance, and have quicker database backup (since the file will be smaller).

Quality Hosting

Of course hosting rose to the top of our web dev gurus lists, their voices eager to express just how important quality hosting is.

If you put every speed saving element on this list in place, then go with a hosting platform that has shared servers, minimal resources, or subpar support, all of your efforts will be for naught.

A web host provides more than just a place to store online content. They are the foundation of your sites. Choose a secure, reliable, reputable host to build your online residence; the peace of mind and success that come with that are well worth every penny.

Top Recommendations:

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WPMU DEV Hosting

Lightning fast, dedicated and fully-optimized for WordPress, with nothing shared and no interruptions.

Here are just some of the features: 10 data centers + 45-point CDN; FastCGI; best-in-class security and site management tools; 99.9% uptime guarantee; WooCommerce optimized; premium support (24/7/365).

Don’t take our word for it; see what other like-minded people have to say about us.

“Choosing good hosting is the main thing. WPMU DEV hosting is great.” – Greg

“My fastest sites are on WPMU Dev hosting” – Brad

“Hosting: WPMU DEV 100%” – Phil

A2 Hosting

Secure with enhanced protection features. Managed server benefits and tools for theme and plugin management. Stability with 99.9% uptime commitment and 24/7 in-house support.

“A2 is my non-WPMU DEV hosting; Turbo (on LiteSpeed servers) is very fast.” – Greg

Grab Bag (Miscellaneous) Tools & Tips

There were also some tools and tips that fell outside of our other categories, but we wanted to include them because they definitely add value to the conversation.

Use Custom Snippets for Fine Tuned Control

“I constantly find myself writing custom snippets to do things like dequeue scripts on pages that aren’t needed, or disabling features in Jetpack, WooCommerce, Core, etc. that I don’t need to waste time loading.” – Super Adorkable

“I try to avoid adding plugins if it’s something I can do with a few extra lines in my functions.php file.” – Matt

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Code Snippets

An easy, clean and simple way to run code snippets on your site, it provides a GUI interface for adding snippets and actually running them on your site just as if they were in your theme’s functions.php file.

Snippets can be activated and deactivated (just like plugins), and be exported for transfer to another site, either in JSON for later importing by the Code Snippets plugin, or in PHP for creating your own plugin or theme.

Stats: Active installations: 700,000+, ~400 reviews, 5/5 stars

Work with LMS Platforms

“I work with LMS platforms and we couldn’t do or achieve any more than doing just that. Working with websites to build courses became a thing of the past.” – Manuel

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LearnPress

Create & sell courses online easily, with curriculums that include lessons & quizzes, all managed with a user-friendly interface.

Simply & quickly create educational or online course websites with no coding knowledge required. There is also a library of free and premium addons that extend functionality.

Stats: Active installations: 100,000+, 500+ reviews, 4.5/5 stars

Use a Cloud Server Management Platform

Runcloud

Modern server management panel; The enterprise-grade platform for cloud server management; Automate server configuration and security updates.

With RunCloud, you don’t need to be a Linux expert to build a website powered by DigitalOcean, AWS, Google Cloud or Vultr. Use this graphical interface to build a business on the cloud affordably.

“After testing so many different hosting strategies we found this the most efficient one… very fast to create and a lot of automation possible because Runcloud offers a great API.” – Ricardo

The All Important Aspects of Testing

Since there are so many variables you can use to get your site running faster, the best way to truly know what works best is to test what you put in place.

Also, because of the dynamic nature of WordPress websites, it’s vital to continue to keep tabs on how well all the components are running.

Recommended Speed Test Tools:

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Google PageSpeed – PageSpeed Insights (PSI) reports on the performance of a page on both mobile and desktop devices, and provides suggestions on how that page may be improved.

GTMetrix – see how your site performs, reveal why it’s slow, and discover optimization opportunities.

Checkbot.io – creates very detailed reports about the various things that affect your page’s speed and SEO; tests 100s of pages at once for broken links, duplicate titles, invalid HTML, insecure pages and 50+ other checks.

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WebPageTest – instantly test your site’s speed, usability, and resilience in real browsers, devices, and locations around the world.

Lighthouse – a chrome browser extension and automated tool for improving the performance, quality, and correctness of your web apps; it runs a barrage of tests against the page, then generates a report on how well it did and what you can do to improve.

Sizzy – a browser for Web Developers; allows you to test in multiple viewports, check performance scores, develop and test for all use-cases without having to manually simulate them in a regular browser.

Regular testing and tweaking is an important part of maintaining those next-level speeds. So choose the tools you prefer, and make sure to do this on a consistent basis.

Improve Your WordPress Website Performance

The importance of speeding up a WordPress site cannot be emphasized enough.

You’ve poured everything into your website – now match that great content with competitive page load speeds to get your engagement and conversions on the rise.

With so many options to speed up a WordPress site readily available, and many of them free, it doesn’t make sense not to use them to your advantage.

Hopefully you’ll readily employ some of the tools and techniques in this post, and see for yourself how much of a boost your site speed can get.

If you’re not a WPMU DEV member, give us a try, risk-free (no credit card required), and see how well we can complement your site. Our support is unmatched, and will help with any issue in WordPress – even if it’s not our product.

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WPMU DEV’s Client Billing Makes Managing Clients and Processing Payments Hassle-Free (and Fast!)

Imagine a room full of accountants, bookkeepers, and invoicing agents billing your clients, collecting, processing, and instantly depositing their payments into your bank account. That’s what WPMU DEV’s Client Billing does.

Client Billing is an integrated solution that is easy to set up, easy to use…and completely free!

In this article, we’ll explore the full gamut of top-notch features and show you how to set up and automate your client billing by integrating your services, pricing, and clients, with your payment processor account.

“Just now I input all of my websites and hooked it up to client billing, to see my MRR right there motivates me so much I think I will upgrade to the agency plan and push hard with business.” – Web Host Wizards (WPMU DEV Member)

Here are the topics we’ll cover:

There’s a lot to cover, so let’s dive right in.

Feature-packed: Clients & Billing is Loaded

We weren’t kidding when we set out to make an elevated experience out of the customer billing and payment process.

Look at all the features included in Client Billing:

  • Bill Clients Fast – Create profitable subscription plans, and track your recurring revenue.
  • Invoice with a Click – Professionally branded invoices, automated and ready to send in minutes.
  • Clever Client Management – Includes everything you need to monitor clients, invoices, and subscriptions.
  • Profitable Plans & Subscriptions – Create tiered plans unique to your business, and maximize revenue.
  • Personalized Client Portal – Branded, user-friendly access for clients to remit payments securely.
  • Streamlined Payments – One-time or recurring payments, the latter of which auto-charge clients after the first invoice is authorized.
  • Per-Client Site Billing – Link subscriptions and invoices to site-specific products or services.

The above features are all part of The Hub, our all-in-one WordPress site management tool.

If you’re a member, you’ve already got access to this power performer. And if you’re not, sign up – it’s free – and The Hub & Client Billing are included.

Configuring The Components in Clients & Billing

Because there’s so much you can do in the Client Billing module, I wanted to lay out how we’ll go through the touchpoints.

  1. Connect your Stripe account.
  2. Initial setup of clients and products.
  3. Branding and your business profile.
  4. Create and customize invoices.

There’s a lot of great material to unpack, so let’s have at it. :)

Connecting To Your Stripe Account

Client payments in The Hub are currently made through the Stripe payment platform. Additional payment options (such as PayPal) are on the table for future inclusion, so stay tuned.

To start accepting payments in Clients & Billing, you’ll need to connect your Stripe account, so that’s our first order of business. And don’t worry; if you don’t yet have a Stripe account, you can easily create one through the Hub’s integration wizard.

Login to your WPMU DEV account, then navigate to The Hub > Clients & Billing.

From the Getting Started wizard, click the Connect with Stripe button.

Enter the Email and Password fields, using those you want associated with your Stripe account, then click the Log in button.

If you happen to have more than one Stripe account associated with the email address you’ve entered, they’ll be presented here.

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Account selection in Stripe setup.

Select the account you want from the listed options, then click the Connect button.

Continue with any additional steps in the setup wizard. (If you need to start over at any point, just click Return to WPMU DEV on the left side of the screen.)

Upon completing the wizard, you’ll be directed back to the Getting Started screen in your Hub, and prompted to select the currency you want to use in your Client Billing portal.

Click on the box denoting awareness of currency not being changeable later, then you’ll be able to hit Finish Setup.

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Your connected Stripe account will automatically import after you select currency.
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The purple dot is for a Client Billing popup tour, which you can choose to skip.

If you don’t don’t already have an account with Stripe, the Getting Started wizard will prompt you to create one. It’s a quick and simple process, which puts you right back in The Hub upon completion.

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Creating a Stripe account through The Hub integration.

If you prefer you can go directly to Stripe’s site, set up your account there, then return to the wizard in the Hub and complete the connection there.

create account on stripe's site
Creating an account directly on Stripe’s website.

Note that you can only connect one platform to any Stripe account at any one time. (This is due to Stripe’s policies.)

Initial Setup of Clients & Products

All of the tools you need to manage the Stripe account connected to your Clients & Billing, such as your business profile, your custom branding, the importing of products and clients, and more, are housed here.

Let’s look at them now.

Managing Your Billing Account

From the Hub’s Clients & Billing page, under Configuration > Billing Account, you’ll see the info associated with your Stripe account (name, email, and connection date).

stripe account settings in the hub clients+billing
Stripe account settings in The Hub’s Clients & Billing.

The Payment Preferences section beneath shows the currency you selected, as well as the business name that will appear on your clients’ bank or credit card statements.

If you want to change the statement descriptor, just click on the name or arrow to the right of this row, and edit as desired.

stripe payment prefs & addtl tools
Stripe payment preferences and additional tools.

Finally you’ll see Additional Tools at the bottom, which is where you can import customers or products & services from your connected Stripe account, if there are any associated with it.

To import clients or products & services, click on Import or the arrow to the right of the row.

From the resultant popup, select any clients you’d like to import, by checking the box preceding their email address. (Or, click the checkbox to the left of the email address header to select them all.) Then click the Import button at the bottom, which will reflect the total number of clients you’ve selected.

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Client importing in Stripe.

The clients you imported will be listed under the Clients tab, where you can manage all activity relevant to your Hub business. You can also Add New Clients from the Clients tab. (See Adding Clients Manually for details.)

Lather, rinse, repeat for Importing products.

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Product importing in Stripe.

Pricing plans associated with an imported product will be imported automatically.

You can also create new pricing plans from the Products & Services tab. (See Adding Products Manually for details.)

Understanding Client Roles & Access Permissions

There’s another element we should take a look as it pertains to our clients: assigning roles.

It’s important to define and understand what the purpose of a client’s site access will be.

For some clients, you’ll want to allow access to billing only. For others, you may want to give access to a couple of different sections, but not full run of the house.

And others still, you may want to allow them to view and edit everything.

Assigning roles gives you complete control over what views and actions clients will have in your branded Hub. This has the following benefits:

  • Omits unnecessary distractions and clutter; clients see only what you need them to see.
  • Protects against unintentional actions with potentially dire consequences. (They can’t break what they can’t touch.) This gives you and your client great peace-of-mind.
  • Allows clients to feel connected to their account information, and see the value of what they’re getting through you.

For illustrative purposes, we’ll target three arbitrary types:

  1. Regular Client = needs access to billing only (to view & pay online)
  2. Hosting Client = needs access to billing and hosting
  3. SEO Customer = needs access to billing and SEO for their website

Example #1 – Regular Client

Regular clients are the ones you’ll be doing all of the WordPress development for. You’ll provide reports, do site edits, and run the entire show. The only thing these clients will need is access to billing information.

Therefore, you just want them to be able to pay their invoices.

Clients & Billing in the Hub comes with three pre-established system roles, which are:

View All & Access Billing: client can access and manage their billing and view site data.

Edit All & Access Billing: client can view, edit, and take action regarding anything on their site and manage their own billing.

Access Billing Only: client can view and manage their own billing.

These preset roles can’t be edited or altered; that’s where custom roles come into play (which we’ll get into later).

Navigate to The Hub > Clients & Billing > Clients > Roles, and select Access Billing Only.

roles client roles
Access Billing Only is one of three predefined roles.

Based on the premise that our Regular Client type will need to Access Billing Only, we’re going to select that as our default by clicking the Make default text in its row.

Now when you add new clients, it’s already established that this is their role. Of course this is editable should we need to change it at any time.

Example #2 – Hosting Client

This client plans on focusing some of their business on hosting in addition to billing. For this case, the client would need access to the following 4 areas:

  • Sites — to view the list of sites
  • Hosting — to view the hosting options
  • Site Billing – to view billing at site level
  • Access Billing – to view the Billing tab and pay invoices from either the site billing or the global billing tab

Start by clicking on + Create New Role.

roles create a new role
It’s just a few clicks away from creating a new role.

Give it a Name (in this example, we’ll call it ‘Hosting’) and select what access the client will have. We’ll enable the 4 areas as listed above.

roles example hosting client
An example of a Hosting Client, and the roles you would enable for them.

Customize even further when clicking on each category dropdown. You can select View & Edit, View Only, or Custom.

If you select Custom, here’s a look at all the options you could select for the client to have access to in custom role creation, pertaining to Hosting.

roles create a new role custom
Select any hosting options you want.

Customize further by clicking the dropdown in each specific category (Staging, Analytics, Logs, Emails, etc), and selecting any/all of the options.

Here’s what Staging looks like:

roles create a new role custom staging
There are plenty of options for Staging.

Once you have everything customized, click Save – and that’s it! You now have a new, customized role you can assign to any client.

roles create a new role role added
As you can see, Hosting is now a client role.

Example #3 – SEO Customer

This client wants to view SEO details, in addition to billing. We can take the same approach we just took with our hosting clients: create a new role, name it, and select SEO as an option available to the client.

Specifically for this case, access to the following 4 areas would need to be enabled:

  • Sites — to view the list of sites
  • SEO — to view the SEO options
  • Site Billing – to view billing at site level
  • Access Billing – to view the Billing tab and pay invoices from either the site billing or the global billing tab
roles create a new role seo
In our SEO client example, we would select the SEO option (instead of Hosting), along with the other 3 options mentioned above.

If you choose to customize your SEO options for your client, they’ll be able to view SEO information, run new SEO Crawl, Apply config – basically anything you select here in permissions.

roles create a new role seo selections
Choose any options you’d like.

Hit Save, and the new role is now available.

Of course, this was just a demo of three random client types. You can set up ANY client type and customize it to fit your business needs.

For more information on setting up Users & Roles in The Hub, see How to Simply Set Up Users & Roles in The Hub for You and Your Clients.

Customizing Your Emails

Prior to inviting our clients to the portal, let’s customize the emails we’ll be sending.

If you’d like, you can configure an SMTP plugin that allows you to enable your own domain address as the sender email. That would result in a from address like this: admin@yoursitename.com

While your own domain as the from address is the most professional, it isn’t required. Without any changes, your from addresses will be something like these:

  • Sent from a site without our hosting: wordpress@yoursitename.com
  • Send from a site with our hosting: noreply@yourwpsite.email

You can use any SMTP plugin of your choice; we recommend our (free!) Branda plugin, which handles this task with ease, and comes fully loaded with additional white-labeling features. Check out this how-to guide on activating SMTP mode in Branda, and this helpful walk-through on SMTP setup through Gmail.

There are a number of different emails that are sent from The Hub Client to you and to your clients, depending on various triggers.

Emails that come to you will be branded with WPMU DEV, while emails that go to your clients will be branded with the logo & colors set up in your Business Profile.

email settings
Branding and footer settings for your Hub emails.

Two additional informational pieces can be included or excluded from your email notifications:

  • Business Branding – toggle for your logo & brand color (from Business Profile).
  • Emails Footer Note – add a custom message at the bottom of all emails.

Here is an example of an email your clients could get:

email payment issue
A sample email clients could get for a payment processing issue.

Of course any of the placeholder text in double brackets would be auto populated by the associated data in your hub before it is sent to you or your client.

Alright, roles have been considered and created accordingly, emails have been formatted… let’s put the finishing touches on our business profile.

Branding and Your Business Profile

Break out the logos and color codes! We’re going to make these billing materials our own.

From the Configure screen, click on the Business Profile tab.

In the Branding section, you’ll decide on the branding that will appear in your business invoices, emails, and billing receipts. It takes only a few seconds and minimal clicks.

Click on the right side of the Brand Logo row to upload your visual identity; likewise on Brand Color, to select your shade match via color selector box or hex code.

biz profile configure branding
Branding your business documents.

The logo you select will also appear in the top right corner of your clients’ profile menu when they log into your Hub via WPMU DEV.

Now we’ll add our business coordinates in the Business Info section – which will appear in any client documents you produce.

Simply click on Add or the arrow to the right of any row, and you’ll be able to enter every available field. (This info will have been imported if it was set up in your Stripe account, but is always fully editable.)

config business profile
Adding your business information for inclusion on client docs.

If you created custom fields for your Business Profile, they will appear beneath the main Business Info, under Additional Info.

config business info additional info
Custom fields allow for additional information you deem pertinent.

To add or edit custom fields, click on the Custom Fields tab, and enter as many additional items as you’d like in Business, and/or Client Profiles.

config business custom fields
Adding Custom Fields is as simple as click, type/select, save.

Creating and Customizing Invoices

Now that we’ve got our documentation branding in place, let’s create an invoice that uses it.

This is what you’ll send to your actual clients, and there’s a lot you can personalize.

Under Configurations, click on Customize Invoices. Click on any of the arrows or toggle buttons from the right-side menu column.

You’ll be able to select your numbering format, add a footer note, choose default language, add a logo, brand color, business name, and client information, as well as any custom fields you have added.

When you’ve got the content the way you want it, click on the Preview Sample button for a quick look-see, and it will open in PDF format.

invoice sample
A sample customer invoice easily produced in Clients & Billing.

With an Invoice template created, let’s make one for a specific client.

Click on the + Bill Client button at the top of the page.

bill client button
Billing a client in The Hub’s Clients & Billing section.

From the modal popup, take the following actions:

  1. Select the Client from the dropdown.
  2. Select the Website from the dropdown (optional).
  3. Select a Product/Plan from the dropdown, and change the quantity if desired.

    bill client 1
    Creating an invoice, steps 1-3.
  4. Add another Product/Plan if desired; repeat this step as needed.
  5. Add a Tax if desired, and repeat this step as needed.
  6. Click the blue Continue button.
bill client 2
Creating an invoice, steps 4-6.

This will open the invoice that you’ve created thus far. You can check and see if the content is as you’d like it to be, and add a note if desired.

At this point, you can Preview the invoice, Save as Draft, or Send Invoice.

invoice confirm & send
Confirming an invoice prior to sending.

Click Send Invoice, and we’ll send a white-labeled email to the client you selected. From the Invoices tab, you’ll be able to see it listed now, with status Payment Due.

invoice list summary
The list summary of clients billed in Invoices.

Here is the email your client will see:

email invoice
Client email for a billed invoice.

The client can simply click on the Pay Invoice link in the email, and it will take them to your branded hub, where they can quickly & easily remit payment to you.

That’s a wrap on the initial set up and configurations in Clients & Billing. Now we’ll move on to…

Upkeep and Management of Clients and Billing in The Hub

We’ve completed all of the preliminary steps in Clients & Billing! Now you can quickly and easily bill clients, collect payments, and manage your customers, all from one convenient area.

Of course you’ll want to continually manage this content – from client contact info changes, to invoicing and payment status changes, and your own business details as well.

We’ll look at what’s involved in the continued management of these features, so we can keep all of our information current.

Overview Summary

The Overview section in Clients & Billing allows you to see a collective summary of key data and settings in your portal.

One of the coolest things about Client Billing in the Hub, in my opinion, is the ability to get to everything you want almost instantly.

The Overview section gives you an at-a-glance, sectioned view of the most important details, as well as a path to access these elements on the spot. Revenue, products & services, clients, account configs, billing activities – it’s all here.

This is a clever convenience that makes it a stand-out.

hub client overview
The Clients & Billing Overview screen is a detailed dynamo.

Let’s take a closer look at the displayed sections in the Overview.

Revenue

  • Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR) – the combined total monthly revenue from all active subscriptions, regardless of billing periods
  • Active Subscriptions – the total number of active subscriptions from all clients
  • Net Billing – the combined total amount billed for all subscriptions and other products (excluding refunds)

Clients

This module displays three items:

  • Total Clients – the total of all active, inactive, & pending clients
  • Average Billing per Client – Net Billing divided by total number of clients
  • Clients with Active Subscriptions– the total number of clients with active subs

All of the summary totals above do not include any taxes.

To see the full list of Clients in your billing portal, click View All.

Products & Services

This module displays three items:

  • Total Products/Services – the total number of products & services combined, including those with no pricing plans attached
  • One Time Plans – the total number of active one-time pricing plans
  • Recurring Plans – the total number of active recurring pricing plans

To see the Products & Services section in your billing portal, click View All.

Configurations

This module displays the name of the Stripe account you’ve connected to your Clients & Billing portal, and its status. A green check mark verifies that the account is active.

Click any of the configuration line items to see/edit the associated information.

stripe configurations overview
Managing Stripe Configurations from the Clients & Billing Overview.

Managing Clients

As discussed prior, clients must confirm your invitation to be able to access their billing portal in your Hub.

There are three different ways you can send clients an invitation: 1) when you’re initially adding them; 2) from the dropdown menu in the main client screen; or 3) in their individual client overview screen. In all cases, just click Invite/Invite Client.

invite client from summary list
One of three ways to invite a client to your branded portal – from the client summary list.

This will generate a white-labeled invitation email to that client, which will look like this:

client email invitation
A branded client invite to join your portal, sent in a formal but friendly email.

The Clients tab will populate with summary info about each client, once you have added one or more to The Hub.

Here is the information you will see in the Client overview section in The Hub:

  • Client Info – the client’s name, email, and Gravatar (if available)
  • Account Status – status of client email invite acceptance (Active/Pending), or if invite email has not been sent (Inactive)
  • Sites – the total number of sites managed by this client
  • MRR (Monthly Recurring Revenue) – this client’s average monthly revenue for all subscriptions (excluding taxes)
  • Net Billing – the total amount this client has been billed to date, including taxes
client summary list
A summary list of your clients, with billing details associated to each.

You can access client management options by clicking on the ellipsis icon to the right of any client row.

If you select Manage Client from this dropdown menu, you’ll go to the Overview screen for that client. From here you can view and manage all aspects of the client’s account and subscriptions.

indiv client overview
Individual client overview.

Managing Products & Services

Now we’ll look more closely at the Products & Services section.

This is where you’ll manage all the products & services that you offer to your clients within the Hub.

If you hadn’t yet imported products in the Configure module, you’d be prompted to add your first one – either manually, or as an import from Stripe.

We already did that, but I’ll show you how to manually add a product here.

Click the + New Product/Service button, and enter the form fields info in the popup.

Under Pricing Plans, you’ll want to create at least one plan to associate with the product.

create a product or service
Creating a product or service, primary modal.

There are two billing types: Recurring and One Time.

Bill Every and No. of Billing Cycles only appear if you’ve selected Recurring as the type.

  • Bill Every is the period of time that repeated billing will occur; options are: Day, Week, Month, and Year.
  • No of Billing Cycles is how many times a client would be billed for a recurring plan before their subscription expires. (Leave this field blank if you want the plan to auto-renew until it’s canceled).

One time billing services are used for creating a single instance of a service rendered, such as a set up fee, or a site creation.

After you’ve added your first plan, click + Add Another Plan for each additional one you’d like to create. You can make as many as you want.

add another plan
You can add as many pricing plans as you’d like under each service.

Once at least one product has been created, you’ll see it on the Products & Services screen, along with its status and the number of pricing plans associated with it.

In the below example, we created a single product – Support Only – with 2 recurring pricing plans – Yearly and Monthly.

products & services summary list
Click Show Plans to view or edit Services nested under Products in the summary list view.
products & services menu access
Accessing menus is a click away in the Product summary.

To manage options for any product, click the ellipsis icon and select any option from the dropdown menu: View/Edit, Add a Pricing Plan, Duplicate plan, or Archive Product.

edit product or service
Editing a Product or Service couldn’t be easier.

As before, you can manage options for any pricing plan by clicking the ellipsis icon and selecting the desired action from the dropdown menu.

plan summary details & menu
The Plans summary offers slightly different menu options.

The Archive option will deactivate a product or plan, making it unavailable for selection when billing a client. It won’t affect any existing client subscriptions.

When editing a product or plan, only the name & image of a product/plan can be changed. (This is a limitation of the Stripe API, so we are unable to modify it.)

There is an easy workaround though. If you want to make a change to non-editable settings in an existing plan, just make a duplicate, then edit the desired fields of the duplicate before saving it. Afterward, you can archive the original.

A note about deletions: You cannot delete a pricing plan from the Hub. That action must be done directly through your Stripe account, with the caveat that the plan hasn’t been used in a transaction. If it has, then archiving is your sole option.

Subscriptions

Because of the fluid manner of subscriptions, keeping track of them is a necessity. Luckily, managing subscriptions is a piece of cake in Clients & Billing.

Subscriptions are viewable by client. To see them, click on any client, then from the top menu sections – Overview, Products & Services, Invoices – click on Products & Services.

This page will display three Subscription Types, broken out into tabbed subsections, as follows:

  • Current Subscriptions
  • One Time
  • Inactive Subscriptions
subscription status and menu options
Subscription summary in Products & Services.

Current Subscriptions

This is where you’ll see any current subscriptions for this client. The status column will show as Active or Pending.

One Time

Sometimes the need to bill a client for a one time service will come up again. Say, for example, you do another site set up, and need to invoice them for it again.

When this happens, you don’t need to recreate the entire product or service. Just click Bill Again from the ellipsis dropdown menu on the desired line item. This will automatically bill the client again for the same one-time product.

Inactive Subscriptions are any subscriptions that were at one time active, but are no more. The status column will show as Canceled or Expired.

hover for products popup
Hover your mouse over the row number beneath the Products column for a popup listing of all products contained in that subscription.

You can easily reactivate any subscription for a client.

subscription reactivate inactive
Reactive subscriptions in a snap.

Click the ellipsis at the end of the desired row, and select Reactivate Subscription from the dropdown menu. When you reactivate a subscription, it will send a new invoice to the client and create a new subscription, which becomes active upon the client paying that invoice.

Managing Invoices

The more your business grows, the more invoices you will be sending out, and the more they will accumulate for record keeping.

While this could create a cluttered mess of paperwork and file folders, it’s carefully and neatly organized in The Hub’s Client Billing.

Everything is found in the Invoices tab of each client, and the content included is straight forward.

For a quick assessment, a red notifier icon on the Invoices tab header indicates the number of currently unpaid invoices for that client.

On the main Invoices page, you’ll see a summary list of all of the invoices for this client.

Click anywhere on a row to view the actual invoice, or, click on the ellipsis icon at rows’ end to show the dropdown menu for other actions. Depending on the status of a given invoice, the options available will vary.

invoice list summary
Invoice list summary.

If you’d like to read more about Clients & Billing in The Hub, see these articles on Fee Free Client Billing, and Getting The Most Out of Client Billing.

Client Billing by WPMU DEV is the custom labeled, payment making, subscription managing, email automating, keeper of all things in the accounting realm of your business.

Ok, it won’t file your taxes, but it does allow for including them on a client invoice.

From branding, to invoicing, to automated emails, and in-app, trusted payment methods, the features you can offer your clients (and yourself) in Clients & Billing are hard to match.

Offering both in-depth and at-a-glance views, you get to present visually customized elements to your clients, and maintain them through your professional services (while we handle everything behind-the-scenes).

All that and more is built into the Hub’s Clients & Billing experience. And it’s included at no extra cost in your WPMU DEV membership, along with our 5-star, expert support.

Include our fast-growing, highly-rated hosting, or go for the membership only – either way, you’d be hard pressed to find a better value. (Plus, full refunds are given if you’re not thrilled.)

Set your sites on the most enjoyable billing experience you’ve likely ever had!

Posted on

How To Create A Fully-Branded, Customized Client Portal With WPMU DEV

Learn how to give your clients an easy and professional white label portal experience where they can access their account, sites, and pay you via a secure and self-hosted checkout.

Imagine having your own unique portal where your clients can login, access their billing accounts, even make payments – all hosted on your own site, with your own branding.

Well, good news, with WPMU DEV it’s possible and simple! And in this article we’re showing you how to create the client portal of your dreams.

You’ll learn:

  • How to create custom login pages for clients,
  • How to invite clients to your portal using branded emails,
  • How clients can make payments to you quickly and easily.

By the end of this article you will have set up a sleek portal under your own brand that clients can use to access information about their sites and make secure payments for your services.

Here are the section breakouts:

And we’re off!

What You Will Need To Create Your Portal

Before we get started, here’s what you’re gonna need if you want to follow along, or eventually create your own portal:

1. The Hub, to establish the base of your portal and integrate billing tools

The Hub is your central interface as a WPMU DEV user, and it’s where our web developer members manage every aspect of their client sites.

You can learn more about how it works in our how to get the most out of The Hub article.

This all-in-one site interface also includes a built-in client management and billing dashboard – where you can invoice clients, set up subscriptions, track monthly recurring revenue (MRR), and more.

And most importantly and relevant to this article… you can invite your clients to have customized access to your billing dashboard (and specific areas of your overall Hub), where they can view their account and subscription info, and even pay invoices directly via a built-in Stripe checkout.

All of the above lays the groundwork for your white label client portal. But it’s still all under WPMU DEV’s branding up until this point.

That’s where this next tool comes into the equation…

2. The Hub Client, to brand your portal as your own

The Hub Client allows you to take your Hub interface, including billing tools and checkout, and white label the entire thing with your own branding, logos, etc.

This instance will be on your own site at your own domain, so when your clients login they see your brand, not ours.

3. A Hosted Site For Your Portal

Finally, you’ll also need a hosted site to host your client portal…

This can be either a 3rd-party hosted site, or there’s always our own dedicated WordPress hosting, which you can also manage right from your Hub dashboard.

All of the above tools are included with the WPMU DEV Agency plan, which you can also trial for free right now.

Okay, now that you know what’s needed, we’ll get down to it!

How To Create and Brand Your Client Portal

Okay, first things first… since the white label client experience comes courtesy of The Hub Client, we want to install and configure that straight away.

Once you’ve signed up for a paid WPMU DEV membership, The Hub Client plugin will be available to install for free via the plugin landing page, The Hub plugin manager, or the WPMU DEV dashboard plugin (shown below).

hub client wpmudev dashboard install
Installing The Hub Client from the WPMU DEV WordPress dashboard.

Once activated, click on it to see the Welcome screen, then click on Get Started. This puts you directly into Settings.

By default, your Hub Client will inherit the Brand Name and Logo you have set in your own Hub, but you can customize it to be whatever you like.

hub client branding page & preview
The Hub Client settings in WordPress, default view.

We’ll quickly set up our first three brand customizations under Site Profile.

  1. Click the arrow icon for Brand name, type what you’d like to call it, and Save Changes.
  2. Next, click the arrow icon for Your Logo, upload your graphic, and Save Changes.
  3. Under Color Scheme, click the arrow icon for Navigation Background, select desired shade from the color picker, then Save Changes. You can also select your Navigation text and Navigation text selected & hover colors here, to match your fully branded color scheme.

You can see all of your changes in real-time via the Preview strip at the top of the Settings page.

the hub client settings wp dashboard
The Hub Client Settings main screen, customized to your brand.

Configuring Menu Navigation Items

We want to make getting around in our branded portal a satisfying, sensible experience for our clients.

We can easily accomplish this through the Hub Client’s settings.

Let’s look at personalizing the rest of the branded portal for your clients.

First up, we’re going to set up what will be displayed as the main menu of your branded portal.

From the main screen in The Hub Client; scroll down to Configuration, and click the chevron arrow to the right of Navigation.

Select from the dropdown options, or create a site specific menu in WordPress’ Appearance > Menus, then come back to this page and select it.

select the Navigation menu in client portal
Selecting the Navigation menu in your client portal.

Now we’ll set the client page as the hub.

Click the chevron arrow to the right of Client Page, and from the resultant popup, select as desired from the dropdown options, then Save.

select Client Page to be replaced with your client hub
Selecting the Client Page to be replaced with your client hub.

Now you’ll see this additional linked text – View Page, next to Client Page, along with the name of the page you selected to the right. In this case, “hub”.

config nav client page view page text in menu
We’ve set the client page as the hub.

Click on View Page and it will open this instance of the Hub in a new webpage, where you’ll see the page you selected, with the menu you selected at the top of the site.

branded hub client view
The Client’s view of your branded hub.

You can also customize the link used for the Back text on your Client Login page. We’ll knock that out right now.

From the WP Dashboard > The Hub Client > Settings > Configurations > Home Site URL, click Add to open the configuration module.

Enter the site URL and site name (Title), and Save changes. (You can also click the checkbox to Open in a new tab prior to saving, if you prefer.)

customizing site home URL for back button
Customizing the site home URL for the back button in the Hub Client.

Note: if no customizations are made here, the back button will direct to the default home page for that site.

If you ever want to revert back to the default state, simply click the Reset button.

Setting Up a Help Button

Having help resources readily available for your clients is a big plus. It goes a long way to making them feel calm and collected, knowing answers are just a click away.

“Provide enough customization options so that we can tweak the look and feel of the interface to some degree. And the ability to put in our own info, such as contact info and links to our own help pages/customer support and things like that.” – Julian (WPMU DEV member)

Getting the Help Button in The Hub Client is a cinch. I’ll walk you through how to do that now.

From the WP Dashboard > The Hub Client > Settings > Configuration; to the right of the Help Button, click Add.

Enter the URL for your Help page, then Save Changes.

Tada! You’ll now have a floating help bubble on your Hub page that when clicked, will direct the user to your chosen URL. By default, the Help page will be opened in a new tab.

Once you’ve set up your Help Button, it will display in the lower right corner of The Hub main page, ready for action.

help button client portal view
Adding a Help button to your sites in The Hub.

Integrating Live Chat

Live Chat is a fantastic feature to provide to your clients. And The Hub Client offers three highly-rated chat platform integrations to choose from.

If you head over to the WordPress dashboard, The Hub Client > Settings > Integrations, you can configure a Live Chat widget on your Hub Client.

Three of the most popular third-party services are available: LiveChat, Tawk.To, and HubSpot.

Live Chat logging in for Tawk.to
Live Chat in the Hub Client, logging in for Tawk.to.
tawk.to customized live chat preview
Tawk.to’s live chat appearance settings and preview.

Depending on which live chat service you choose, the setup will vary.

If you’d like a basic walkthrough on setting these up in The Hub Client, read How to Set Up Live Chat on WordPress. Or get the full rundown in our Integrations help docs.

Inviting Clients To Your Custom Portal

Time to roll out the red carpet! With customizations set, we’re ready to bring our clients inside.

Let’s start by manually adding a new client.

Navigate to The Hub > Clients & Billing, and click + New Client.

adding a new client
Getting a client set up takes only a few clicks.

Enter all the client’s required (and optional, as desired) information in the form fields.

User Roles play a very significant part in Client setup. Basically, these decide what each client will have access to in your hub, in terms of viewing and taking action. You have full control on these by selecting permissions.

We’ll take a deep dive into User Roles in our upcoming Clients & Billing article. For now, click on the dropdown arrow under User Role, and select View All & Access billing.

add client user role dropdown
You decide what your client has access to by applying a user role.

If you opt for a Custom Role – you can make one on the spot by clicking on + Create custom user role.

This will bring up the screen where you can select options from the main and nested menus. Name your new role, and save it.

Now if you go back to that client, you can assign this custom role to them.

While adding a client, you will also determine what Primary Hub they’re associated with.

If you have more than one Hub, it will be available in the dropdown. If you are using The Hub Client on a site, and select it as the Primary Hub, when that client clicks on a Confirm Invitation or Pay Invoice link from your Client & Billing automated email, they’ll be taken to the your white labeled Hub site instead of wpmudev.com.

add client select primary hub
Whatever Primary Hub you choose will sync the communication preferences that will occur from that Hub (e.g. emails, invoices, etc.).

At the bottom, switch the Invite Client toggle to on, then click Add.

invite client from add client window
Invite a client from the Add client window.

Boom! Client has been added, and sent a white-labeled invitation to your client portal, which will look like this:

email confirm invitation

Once the client confirms by clicking the Confirm Invitation link in your email, they’ll have access to your branded portal.

If they already had an existing Hub account with you, it will take them directly to the login page of the Hub they were invited from.

If they’re new to your account, they’ll be taken to the account creation page of that Hub instance.

From the account creation page, they’ll get a popup modal with their email address already in the form field. They’ll just need to create a password, then click the Create Account button.

create account (from email invite)
Client account creation in your Hub.

What Your Clients Will See Inside Their Portal

Every client experience in your portal will be unique to them.

Your branding will be prevalent throughout, and what your clients will be able to view and access is dependent on the permissions you’ve granted them through User Roles.

It’s a fantastic way to custom serve each client a perfect fit for your combined business interests and needs.

The Client Dashboard

Once your clients have logged into your client portal, they’ll be greeted by a dashboard with access to any content you’ve given them permissions for.

portal initial view
A client’s-eye view of your custom branded portal.

Clients can organize single or multiple sites in your portal, and organize them in their dashboard area as they see fit.

portal multi sites
Clients can favorite sites, color labels, and more in your branded Hub.

The roles you’ve assigned to a client are editable by you and can be changed at any time in the management and billing platform.

For example, if we assign Billing permissions to a client, he/she will have the ability to view and edit anything in that section, but they’ll be cut off from any other pages/screens in Client Billing.

plugins, manage existing
Clients can be given access to modify and view, or view only, making it possible to hide screens like Plugins entirely.

Read this post for a closer look at User Roles and Permissions.

Letting your clients view and manage their own billing details saves you the time and effort you would otherwise spend on their admin activities, and allows them to feel connected to their account.

There is a lot your clients can accomplish here. For example, managing their billing info and account details, viewing their services and subscriptions, filtering on payment status (due or paid), assessing what their average spend is, and much more.

billing details client view
The Billing Overview section gives clients a quick but informative top-level view of their account(s).

In the billing section, clients can see all of the details by drilling down through the various menu options.

current subscriptions
The Products & Services page allows views by breakout sections for subscriptions, both active & inactive, and one-time services as well.

Any line item here can be clicked on for full details, and/or to take certain actions. For example, canceling a subscription.

view subscription details
Details on a particular client subscription, with an option to cancel it.

Invoices can also be examined in full detail.

invoices summary list mixed pay status
The client invoice summary list, with easily visible status and amounts for each.

The built-in filter functionality is great, offering distillation options for date, payment status, and website.

filter on invoices
Even archived invoices can be located fast using the robust filter.

If you’ve given them permissions to do so, clients can view details and take action on services and bills, such as making payments or downloading PDF versions of invoices.

filter on invoice menu options
Every line item has quick actions via the popup menu, such as making a payment or viewing a subscription.

Client Profile

Clients can freely edit their personal content – profile info (including their profile pic, if they have one set in Gravatar), make a password change, setup 2FA (requires an authenticator app), or sign out, all through the cog icon menu in the upper right corner.

client profile edit
Clients can easily edit their own profile information.

Everything updates in real time. For example, if the client changes the email addy in their profile, it will also update in their billing profile, since the Hub and Clients & Billing profiles are synced. Easy peasy!

Clients Can Pay Invoices via The Client Portal

With the Clients & Billing modal, your client will have the convenience of paying you directly through your branded client portal (with secure Stripe checkout fully integrated)!

As mentioned earlier, all client management activities including payments take place securely inside your own domain and fully custom-branded screens.

hub URL
Everything happens at your chosen domain URL.

Throughout the course of their business journey with you, clients are kept in the loop with automated emails, which reflect your custom brand and company details.

email pay invoice
Email communications and invoices are triggered automatically and remain on-brand, taking that task off your plate.

Clients can readily make payments by clicking on the invoiced email link, taking them to the payment portal.

client invoice payment in portal 1
Clients give a final check to their invoice details, then click the Make Payment button.

The client can enter their payment information, then click the Pay button, which will have specific information on it regarding the amount of money and service they are approving.

Note, if they previously added a payment method, it will auto populate here, with an option to change it if desired.

client invoice payment in portal 2
Client payment process in The Hub, continued.

The client can check all of their info on the next page, then click to pay.

client invoice payment in portal 3
Client payment process in The Hub; one last visual check, pre-pay.

With the payment made, the invoice will load up, reflecting the details and paid status.

client invoice post payment details
Client invoice details; status: paid.

Now if you go to the Invoices tab, you’ll see all current and outstanding invoices.

invoice summary list status all paid
Client invoice summary list in the Hub.

In the Status column, red indicates payment is due, and green indicates payment has been made.

The top-level Invoices menu has a notifier icon (a number in a red circle), indicating the quantity of outstanding invoices – for quick visual reference.

The client can download a copy of any paid invoice by clicking the PDF Invoice button at the top-right of the invoice screen.

Clients Can Access Invoices Directly in The Billing Modal of The Hub

Your clients can easily view and manage billing activities from any sites in their Hub, related to specific billing. It will be nearly identical to what you see in your Hub Billing area, of course specific only to their site(s).

Clients can use the left sidebar menu to navigate to their billing section.

Clients need only click the Billing link in the sidebar menu of any site they’re viewing to get started. Any invoices you’ve sent to them will be accessible to them here.

client billing overview with sidebar
Client overview screen in your branded Hub.

Clients who you’ve added a website for but haven’t yet sent an invoice to will still see the site, it just won’t have any specific billing info.

Once the first site-specific invoice has been paid, data will immediately populate in the Summary section, along with the Products & Services and Invoices sections’ Status, which will reflect as Active and Paid.

If you’ve stuck with us through the full breakdown, congrats! You’re now very well versed in many of the great features in the Client Portal – ie your branded Hub. We have no doubt you’re going to do amazing things.

If you do ever need an assist, reach out to our highly-trained (and top-rated) support team. They’re always on, 24/7/365.

For a complete guide to everything on the client portal, see The Hub Client documentation.

Giving Your Clients a More Customized Experience with The Hub Client from WPMU DEV

The Hub Client lets you run WPMU DEV on your own domain as a 100% white label experience for your clients.

You can fully customize your branding, colors, links, logins, emails, and users access…even allow clients to edit certain areas at your discretion.

“It’s like giving your clients backstage access, but as a VIP experience.” – Josh Hall (JoshHall.co)

Check out our Hub Client plugin through a trial of one of our paid plans, or our Hosting – fully dedicated and optimized for WordPress. We offer a 100% satisfaction guarantee, and our support team helps with all things WordPress, not just our products and services.

See you on the inside!

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Save Time and Increase Your Production With WPMU DEV Templates

Whether you prefer to build sites from scratch, use a theme/page builder, or a combination of the two, WPMU DEV’s site template features can save you considerable time and needlessly repetitive efforts. Learn how in this post.

Minimize efforts and maximize profits when building new client websites by harnessing time-saving templates…even if you’re a die-hard, from-the-ground-up coder!

In this article, we’re showing how easy it is to create and use WPMU DEV site templates for instant availability on your web development jobs.

You’ll learn how to create your own or use our pre-made templates as a starting point – all of which are perfectly suited for eCommerce stores, portfolio sites, professional services, and more.

We’ll also cover how to bring templates from Elementor and other page builders, saving designs you’ve tailor-made to use for future site builds.

Here’s what we’ll be covering:

Skip ahead if a particular section sounds more relevant to you.

What’s Your Web Development Approach?

How you use and get the most out of our site templates will largely depend on what kind of web development approach you take.

When polling our 50,000+ strong web dev members, results showed there are three distinct types when it comes to profiting as a WordPress website builder:

  1. Custom web development
  2. Template web development
  3. Hybrid of both types

You probably already know which of these approaches resonates with you the most, but just in case you’re not sure what the pros and cons of the other approaches are, let’s review these briefly.

Custom Web Development

Custom WordPress development typically involves wireframing, designing, and building a website to the specific needs of a business.

As a web developer, the pros of providing custom WordPress development services include being in complete control of all aspects of the website, and tailoring the site to your client’s unique needs, goals, & preferences.

Because you are building the site to spec, only essential features are included, eliminating the bloat caused by having unnecessary elements added to the site — resulting in a better product overall.

“I build custom websites from scratch. I don’t use themes or page builders. I have found my clients don’t want a raft of features and bloat they neither understand nor are able to update themselves. So I build with Gutenberg blocks and they have features and flexibility for only what they need. This obviously makes each website very specific to each case.” – David (WPMU DEV Member)

The cons of this approach are that it takes a lot longer to plan and build a custom website from scratch.

Also, because custom development is time intensive, it can drive up the cost for your clients significantly.

Template-based Website Development

Template-based web development typically involves starting with a ready-made free or premium WordPress theme purchased from a marketplace such as ThemeForest, or using a page builder like Elementor, Divi, WP Bakery, etc, then modifying and customizing the theme and its settings.

The pros of using ready-made themes to build a WordPress site include saving money.

It typically costs less than $100 to buy a pre-built theme, which means that you can mark up your costs and make higher margins), saving time (you are using pre-built pages and elements that may only need some tweaking), and being able to choose from thousands of ready-made WordPress themes. Sites built using existing themes are less costly and faster to build.

“Having a starter theme that I can launch a new website from each time is hugely beneficial. The current option of templates is a great idea and will definitely help…” – David (WPMU DEV Member)

The cons of working with pre-built themes include having to learn how the theme and its options work, “bloating” from unnecessary code (themes usually cram loads of features you may not need), performance issues due to poor coding quality (affecting security and page speed), and lack of support if the theme developer doesn’t keep up with new WordPress releases or goes out of business.

Hybrid Website Development

“A good thing for page design (which is what takes me most of my time) will be to have pre-set “modules” that I can use, duplicate, modify, and then insert them into my pages.” – Guigro (WPMU DEV Member)

The hybrid approach involves starting with custom-built time-saving presets or pre-built/boilerplate templates to help speed up your custom development work.

These templates then act as springboards for building fully customized and uniquely designed sites for clients.

This approach can involve fine tuning or creating customized templates using a “page builder” framework application (e.g. Divi, Elementor).

You can also use preset wireframes (like Elementor’s Wireframe Kits), wireframe patterns or block plugins like Kadence Blocks or Spectra (formerly Addons For Gutenberg).

Or, depending on the kind of sites you build, integrating ready-made processes like sales funnels or eCommerce workflows into your custom-built structures.

The pros of using the hybrid model are that you can target your services to specific niches and offer your clients unique sites built on proven designs or processes shown to be effective with previous clients, at a lower pricing point and faster delivery timeframe than building full custom websites from scratch.

The cons of the hybrid model are the time you will need to invest into learning to use whatever application you choose to build your customized templates with and building your templating processes.

“I would need to invest time in building out various templates that could be reused.” – Phil M. (WPMU DEV Member)

How All Web Developer Types Can Benefit From WPMU DEV Templates

All these approaches have advantages and disadvantages and no matter what your preference is, we have an option to complement your site builds.

Here’s a look at how different web development approaches can benefit from using our templates:

Doing It Yourself from Scratch with a Boost from WPMU DEV

If you prefer to take the custom approach to web development, you can create, save, and reuse your very own custom templates, essentially acting as your own master to use on any sites going forward.

And when we say save, we mean it in the fully encompassing sense.

It’s not just a snapshot of the surface view. Yes, we save the theme, placement of elements, customizations, etc. But beyond that, our templates create a full backup of your existing site, meaning they include everything.

From plugins, user settings, and configs, to license keys, and data – every detail is preserved at the moment you save it.

Let’s create a new site from a template now. You can follow the video walkthrough, or the written tutorial below it.

Note that you’ll need a hosting account to follow along. You can take WPMU DEV Hosting for a free, no-risk trial right now.

Creating your very own custom template in The Hub.

  1. Navigate to The Hub > Sites > Site Templates.
    (If you’re unfamiliar, The Hub is WPMU DEV’s unified dashboard to monitor, optimize, and update unlimited sites from one location.)
  2. Here you will see two tabbed sections: My Templates, and WPMU DEV Templates. Click on My Templates.
  3. Click Create Template.
  4. Select a hosted site, add a template title, and a description (if desired).

It’s that easy!

In a matter of minutes your template will be created, and ready for use in your My Templates section.

Whenever you want to create a new site from this template, simply click on its Create Site button, then follow steps 5-8 below for Creating A New Site From A Template.

templates_my templates
Creating your own site template in WPMU DEV.

Creating your own templates gives you two major benefits:

  1. You can create a library of up to 25 of your own custom templates  – completely free – making new site creation a breeze.
  2. These have zero impact on your hosting storage.

Click here for more FAQs on WPMU DEV Custom Templates.

Starting on Your Own Then Joining WPMU DEV

The My Templates method explained above will easily fit the needs of someone taking a hybrid approach.

When you get to step 4, selecting a WPMU DEV hosted site, simply choose one that you created using any WordPress page/theme builder tool (e.g., Elementor, Divi, Kadence, WP Bakery, etc), and create your template from that.

The site selector allows you to choose any of your WordPress sites, regardless of what method, theme or builder plugin you used to create it.

templates_my templates hybrid (from elementor site)
Creating a template from a site made with Elementor.

Voila… you’ve got a quick template for any future site builds, based on a blended creation where you put your own special touches on a page builder or theme builder base.

Creating with WPMU DEV From the Onset

“…Having a starter theme that I can launch a new website from each time is hugely beneficial. The current option of templates is a great idea and will definitely help… The plugin settings and saving a default setting is already in operation so that is nice.” – David (WPMU DEV Member)

For those who prefer to work with templates, we have over two dozen site templates with diverse visual and structural appeal for various industries, like Freelancer, Blogger, and eCommerce.

templates_wpmudev templates
WPMU DEV has plenty of options when it comes to ready-made site templates.

Let’s create a new site from a pre-made template now. You can follow the video walkthrough, or the written tutorial below it.

Creating a new site with WPMU DEV’s pre-made templates.

  1. Navigate to The Hub > Sites > Site Templates.
  2. There are two tabbed sections: My Templates, and WPMU DEV Templates.

Click on WPMU DEV Templates. You’ll see the Template collection here.

Note that you can see a full, multi-page preview of any template by clicking its Preview button.

  1. Once you’ve selected the template you want, click the Create Site button.
  2. On the next screen, you’ll select what hosting plan you want for this site. There are details and prices listed for each, visit the WPMU DEV Hosting page if you’d like to learn more. Once you’ve selected a plan, click the Continue button.
  3. Create your temporary website URL by typing a name (appended by .tempurl.host). While you’ll be able to name your site what you want, and you’ll be able to point it to a custom domain, this temp URL will be permanent, so make sure you choose a naming convention you are comfortable keeping.
  4. On the next screen, you’ll create your WordPress administration account. Enter the email address, username, and password you’ll be associating it with.
  5. Finally, you’ll choose the server location for your site. Select the one closest to you geographically

That’s it! In a few minutes, your template-based site will load up, and be ready and waiting in your list of Hub sites.

From here, you can click on it any time to view or adjust settings, or open the site in WordPress to tweak and customize as desired.

With templates covered, we’ll take a look at a few other site building, time-saving features available through WPMU DEV.

3 Additional Time-Saving WPMU DEV Tools

This section will spotlight the other web development game changers included with our platform.

These additional features are helpful to all of the Web Developer types we highlighted.

Apply Plugin Settings To All Sites Fast With WPMU DEV Configs

Part of your WPMU DEV Hosting or membership benefits is full access to our a full suite of reliable WordPress plugins.

WPMU DEV Configs allow you to create specific preset settings for WPMU DEV plugins, and apply them to any or all of your sites instantly. This saves you a lot of setup time, as you only have to create your ideal plugin settings once, then apply to unlimited sites

Applying a preset config immediately overwrites all settings and options on the chosen site for any given plugin.

As well as creating and tweaking your own Config settings, you can also apply our recommended configs – which our plugin experts have curated specifically. Saving you even more time if you’re unsure of the ideal settings for any plugin.

Here’s a quick walkthrough and example on creating and applying Configs:

Navigate to The Hub > Sites > Configs.

From the Default Configs tab, you’ll see six plugins listed. Each has had configurations set by our expert development team.

To inspect the details of any of these, click on the vertical ellipsis icon, then click on Details.

You will see the full list of specific configurations listed here, along with the date it was created.

Configs - default config details
Default configurations for Hummingbird Pro.

If you want to apply these settings from detail view mode, simply click the Apply button.

On the next screen, select the site (or sites) you’d like to apply these configs to, then finish by clicking on the Apply to # sites button.

To apply any of these defaults from the main Default Configs tab, click on the text Apply to site(s) >, and select any or all sites to apply these configs to.

Click on the Apply to # sites > to finish.

configs - default configs
Default Configs are a quick way to apply the basic tech-recommended plugin settings.

To make your own configs, go to the WP Dashboard of your site first, and customize any of the settings for any plugins that you want to create custom configs for.

Afterwards, head back to The Hub > Sites > Configs > My Configs.

Click on the Create config button. Input a name, select a site, and a plugin or service; click Save.

You’ll get a notification that the config has been created, and you’ll see it populate in your My Configs tab.

configs - my configs
My Configs are saved and ready to apply to any sites from The Hub.

Applying your own configs works in the exact same manner as applying default configs.

You will have some additional menu items when you click on the vertical ellipsis icon for any of your Custom Configs. In addition to Details, you’ll also see options to Rename, and Delete.

New configs can be created in WordPress or The Hub, and they will automatically sync from one to the other.

Make Identical Copies with Cloning

We saw the positives of being able to create your own site templates. There are times when it would be really handy to duplicate entire websites.

WPMU DEV’s Cloning feature generates an exact copy of a site’s files and database (including themes, plugins, content, and site settings), then uses them to create a brand new WordPress installation. The new site is identical to the original, but with a different domain name.

Once the cloning process is complete, you can use our Adding Domains guide to point to the new site’s permanent domain.

Cloned sites can be added to your account with any hosting tier, which can be upgraded or downgraded at any time from your account.

In addition to not copying domains, cloning does not copy SFTP/SSH users or staging configurations.

You can clone any existing WPMU DEV hosted site, or create and use your own custom templates. You can even clone pre-configured WPMU DEV templates with theme and plugins pre-installed.

Here’s a walkthrough of how easy cloning sites is.

There are three different menu access points to get to the Cloning process.

All begin with navigating to The Hub > Sites > My Sites.

Option 1 – Clone From Your Hub Dashboard

  1. Click on the +Add Site button at the top right of the page.
  2. From the next modal window, click on the Clone button.
  3. From here, you can Clone from a site or a template. For this tutorial, we’re going to click on Clone from my sites.
  4. Choose the site you want to clone from the dropdown menu.
  5. Type in a name for your temporary URL.
  6. Select your server location from the dropdown.
cloning--option 1
The cloning process is super simple, and only takes a few minutes.

Aaaand you’re done. In just a few minutes your cloned site will be created and ready for action.

Option 2 – Clone Directly From a Selected Site:

Click on the vertical ellipsis icon at the right of the row of any of your listed sites, then click Clone site from the dropdown menu.

Then follow the same steps 3-6 from above.

cloning--option 2
Cloning directly from a selected site.

Option 3 – Clone From The Hosting Area

Click on any of your sites, then click Hosting, then click Clone in the top menu bar. Follow steps 3-6 from above.

cloning--option 3
Cloning from your hosting area.

Managing and Installing WordPress Plugins Directly From Your WPMU DEV Dashboard

Gone are the hours of jumping from the WordPress Dashboard to the WordPress repository, hunting for your must-have plugins, and installing each one individually.

WPMU DEV’s built-in plugin manager comes complete with upload, installation, and activation capabilities.

You can mark your favorite plugins – all of ours, plus any from the WordPress Repository – and quickly select, install, and activate them from one place via The Hub.

Here’s how quick and easy this is:

Navigate to The Hub > Plugins.

From the Add New tab, you will see a sub header with five options: WPMU DEV, WP.org, Favorites, ZIP, and URL.

Click on any WPMU DEV, WP.org, or Favorites to see the plugins specific to each section.

Click on ZIP or URL to add plugins by uploading a zip file or from a URL link.

plugins - add new
Plugin management in The Hub saves so much time and aggravation.

From the Manage Existing tab, you can handle a slew of plugin actions, such as:

  • Favorite – click any star icon in the far left column to favorite that plugin
  • Status – see exactly which sites have what plugins installed, activated, deactivated, or not installed
  • Manage – click the vertical ellipses icon to manage the plugin, see related plugin info, or remove it from favorites
plugins - manage existing 1
Manage existing plugins from a single spot in The Hub.

You can also hover your cursor over any of the plugin status columns, and the popup will display site-specific activations for that plugin — including what version it is.

plugins - manage existing 2
Viewing plugin status & version number in The Hub.

If you select Manage from the above menu dropdown, you can Add configs or Deactivate that particular plugin from any of your sites.

plugins - manage existing 3
Config & Deactivation options are available per plugin.

See below video for a quick walkthrough on Plugin options in The Hub.

Plugin options aplenty in The Hub.

Plugins that have been installed to your sites from a source other than WPMU DEV or WordPress.org can’t be installed to your other sites from the Hub’s plugin management section.

Use Templates To Improve Your Workflow No Matter Your Web Development Approach

No matter what your preferred site building method is, everyone can benefit from time saving tools.

Templates are a huge help in the field of web development work, whether you initially build your own creation, craft from a page or theme builder, or tweak a pre-made one.

Whatever your path, you can save your template(s) for handy use at any future date, using WPMU DEV’s template tools.

Add to that our one-click Configs, Cloning Tools, and Plugin shortcuts, and you’ve got an A+ process for building quality sites with speed, efficiency, and finesse.

Interested in using WPMU DEV Templates or any other tool mentioned in this article? The easiest place to start is taking WPMU DEV Hosting for a free trial. There’s no risk, plus, you also get access to our best site management tools, plugins, and support.

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Google Analytics 4 Now Integrates With Our Beehive Plugin (For Free)

Universal Analytics is out and Google Analytics 4 is the way forward. In keeping with the times, our free Beehive plugin now integrates with GA4. Learn more about the integration and the advantages of Google’s new analytics overlord.

Earlier this year, Google announced that Google Analytics 4 will be permanently replacing the much beloved Universal Analytics from July 1, 2023.

If you’re using Universal Analytics and haven’t already switched over to the new GA4, we’ll give you the necessary info on what needs to be done.

Plus, we’ll also talk about some of the best GA4 features and how it now easily integrates with our free Beehive plugin.

Continue reading, or jump ahead using these links:

How To Connect Google Analytics 4 To Beehive

Since its inception, Beehive has been tightly integrated with Google Analytics – and as of the plugin’s newest release, now caters to GA4.

It adds a customizable GA dashboard to WordPress, so tracking user behavior can be done from one convenient location.

Beehive stats UI GA4
GA4 stats in Beehive’s UI; a thing of beauty.

As already mentioned, connecting Google Analytics 4 to Beehive is quick and easy.

There are two different ways to connect:

  1. Direct with Google – uses Google’s shared API to display tracking statistics in your site’s wp-admin.
  2. Via GA’s Measurement ID – allows data to be sent to a GA account property.

Once connected, Beehive makes all of your most important stats available to you at a glance – from your most-visited pages to your most-popular referral platforms, and more.

Want a full overview of the plugin’s most powerful tools and features?

Read our how to get the most out of Beehive article.

Now that you’re all set with your Beehive integration, let’s cover some of the best features GA4 brings to the table, that Universal Analytics does not.

Google Analytics 4 Vs. Universal Analytics – What You Need To Know

Why is Google Sunsetting Universal Analytics?

The biggest reason Google is discontinuing Universal Analytics is that UA was originally built to report-on and track independent sessions, rather than considering the multiple touch points visitors will have with any given website.

Google thought this method of measurement and reporting was outdated, and it’s where Google Analytics 4 comes into the picture.

Because GA4 on the other hand, runs across the web, apps, and doesn’t rely exclusively on cookies. It also uses an event-based model to deliver more accurate, user-based reporting.

What is an event-based model?

According to Google: “An event allows you to measure a distinct user interaction on a website or app.”

For example: Loading a page, clicking a link, and completing a purchase – these are all interactions you can measure with events.

GA4 Reports Snapshot
GA4 Reports Snapshot.

Finally GA4 is a lot more privacy-focused than UA, for example, it does not store user IP addresses.

Upgrading Universal Analytics Properties To Google Analytics 4

Google Analytics 4 is now the default for all new properties created in your Google Analytics account.

And depending on the date you created a GA property, you may or may not need to upgrade it.

More specifically:

  • If you created your property before October 14, 2020, you’re likely using a Universal Analytics property.
  • If you created your property after October 14, 2020, you’re likely using a Google Analytics 4 property already (no action is required).

But you can also create a new GA4 property from an existing Universal Analytics property and they will be nicely integrated.

If you need help, Google has put together this detailed guide on switching to GA4 and upgrading properties.

Tracking Link Clicks in Google Analytics 4 Vs. Universal Analytics

When it comes to button and link tracking a big downside with Universal Analytics is that it tracks data based on pageviews and requires the help of Google Tag Manager – a tool that can be time-consuming and complicated for newer users.

GA4 on the other hand, is based on entirely different tracking protocols and is built to handle event tracking out-of-the-box.

Enhanced measurements in Events
Enhanced measurements in Events.

Some events will still require the help of GTM to track properly, but most can be handled directly with GA4 (e.g., link click tracking).

Does Google Analytics 4 work with Data Studio?

The connection with Data Studio is a critical element for GA users.

GA4 connects with Data Studio in exactly the same way that UA does. Even better, new GA4 reports have more data visualization options in Data Studio.

If you want more reporting options you can also use BigQuery, which is freely included with GA4 and can take your insights to the next level.

A summary of the key GA4 features and differences:

  • Uses events instead of session-based data
  • Includes privacy controls (cookie-less measurement, behavioral & conversion modeling)
  • Predictive capabilities offer guidance without complex models
  • Direct integrations to media platforms help drive actions on your website or app

Putting Google Analytics 4 to Work for You

Getting insights into the client journey and funneling that into the growth of a business is very powerful information to have at your fingertips.

Unleash the power of your web and app data from the industry leader in analytics, by putting GA4 directly in your WordPress dashboard with Beehive.

Install Beehive for free, or sign up for the free WPMU DEV plan, which includes Beehive, plus a whole suite of WP plugins and site management tools.

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The Ultimate Guide To Securing Your WordPress Login (For Free!) With Web Authentication

Defender had already implemented Two-Factor Authentication (2FA) in WordPress for hardened security… now we’ve added fingerprint/facial recognition, and external hardware security keys, too!

It has become increasingly apparent that relying strictly on usernames and passwords for logins no longer offers the highest levels of security.

WPMU DEV’s solution to addressing this is through the use of the WebAuthn standard, which bypasses vulnerabilities by providing a protocol of public key cryptography as a login authentication method.

Our newest Defender release—both Free and Pro versions—marks the start of our odyssey into the world of Web Authentication; providing the ability to verify the authenticity of a user login by way of biometrics (facial or fingerprint recognition), or a USB security key (e.g., YubiKey).

Usage of these new web authentication methods is similar to the 2FA methods already present in Defender, alongside the existing TOTP (Time-based One-Time Password), backup codes, and fallback email authentication methods.

In this article, we’re going to look at how to implement these new Web Authentication methods, as part of our 2FA WordPress plugin features in Defender.

Continue reading, or jump ahead using these links:

Let’s explore all that Defender has to offer in the form of login protection with the cool new 2FA WebAuth features.

The All-Encompassing Defender

Defender gives you the best in WordPress plugin security, stopping SQL injections, cross-site scripting XSS, brute force login attacks—and other vulnerabilities—with a list of one-click hardening techniques that will instantly add layers of protection to your site.

It also makes safety easier on and for you, taking advantage of the latest in WebAuth security measures.

By way of a quick overview, here’s how this works in Defender… the user will input their username & password to log in, and if Platform authentication has been configured for that device, said user can verify their identity through their fingerprint scanner or facial recognition software. Likewise, if the Roaming authentication has been configured for that device, the user can verify their identity through their USB security key.

Because we’re using the WebAuthn protocol, Defender does not at any point receive any biometric or security key data, only a confirmation or rejection from the user’s device.

I want to interject here with a quick point of interest, shared by one of our techs, Marcel Oudejans (and paraphrased by me)…

The convention of naming a dog “Fido” was popularized by Abraham Lincoln, though its use as a canine pet name dates back to the ancient Romans.

“Fido” means “faithful”. FIDO stands for “Fast IDentity Online”. The new Biometric authentication feature uses WebAuthn protocol from FIDO.

So in a lovely, roundabout way, by using the FIDO protocol to implement this feature, one could say we are infusing ‘faithfulness’ into Defender.

Synonyms for faithfulness
Faithful FIDO.

For more technical information on FIDO, check out this article.

Ok, now let’s take an in depth look at these awesome new Web Authentication features.

Full Walkthrough on Web Authentication

First, make sure you have the Defender plugin installed and activated, and update it to the latest version (at the time of this writing, that’s 3.1.1). Defender versions 3.0 and higher are fully compatible with the recently released WordPress 6.0.

Two important things to note up front:

  1. Configuration of authorized devices is required on a per-user basis, since authentication is linked to individual user accounts.
  2. PHP 7.2 or above is required, as it improves performance and security, while also supporting the new biometric feature.

Enable Biometric or USB Security Key

Navigate to the WordPress Dashboard > Defender. If you’ve just now updated, you’ll get the popup modal. Give it a quick read, then click the Got It button.

defender splashscreen
WPMU DEV’s WebAuth features have expanded again!

You’ll be on Defender’s main page now. From the left sidebar, click on the 2FA menu header.

Another popup will appear; click on the Activate button.

Defender activate 2FA
One-click activation in Defender.

Now you’ll see all the section information for Two-Factor Authentication, and all the options we have available here.

From the same Defender 2FA page, under User Roles > Administrator, toggle the button On. Make sure to scroll to the bottom and click on Save Changes.

Toggle on Admin user roles.
Permission to enable 2FA is given through User Roles.

From the Dashboard’s side menu, go to the Users section, and click on your Admin User profile.

Scroll down to the Security section, and next to Web Authentication, toggle the button ON.

web auth toggle on
Selecting the WebAuth feature in Defender.

You’ll see a recommendation to choose an additional authentication method from these options: TOTP, Backup Codes, and Fallback Email.

In the example below, you’ll see I’ve selected Fallback Email, but you can choose whatever method(s) you prefer. Remember to click the Update Profile button at bottom.

Selecting additional authentication methods
The selection of additional authentication methods available in Defender.

Web Authentication does not replace your traditional WordPress login (i.e., username & password), instead adds an additional secure layer, like the other authentication options above.

While many browsers and operating systems are compatible with the WebAuthn protocol used to manage the authentication process, some are currently not. Check here to see WebAuthn’s browser and OS compatibility list.

Register Device

With WebAuth authentication enabled, the Registered Device table will appear, with options to Register Device or Authenticate Device.

Registered device identifiers
Defender keeps a list of Registered Device identifiers.

Clicking the Register Device button will start the prompt from your browser to configure the form of Web Authentication you wish to use, depending on what’s available on your device.

Select an Authenticator Type, enter any name in the Authenticator Identifier field, then click the Start Registration button.

webauth register device
Inputting info to authenticate a device; in this case, a USB Security Key.

Depending on the authenticator type and device you are using, the registration process will differ.

Example 1:

Registering a Windows desktop or laptop will prompt you to enter your Windows Hello PIN, or whatever other authentication method may be enabled on your device.

Windows hello PIN login
The Windows Hello sign in PIN entry.

Example 2:

Registering a mobile device will prompt you to touch the fingerprint sensor, or whatever other authentication method may be enabled on your device.

Verify fingerprint sensor
A sample fingerprint sensor authenticator window.

Example 3:

Registering a USB Security key will prompt you to go through a brief series of steps.

Back on your Users Profile page, if you scroll to the bottom under Security > Registered Device, you’ll see your device listed here, along with a message beneath it confirming it has indeed been registered.

webauth registered confirmation
Congrats! You’re registered. Next up… authentication.

The next step is to authenticate the device you just registered.

Authenticate Device

Once the device has been registered, click the Authenticate Device button.

The same authentication method used to register the device will prompt you to confirm the action.

authenticated device successfully
WebAuth device authentication confirmations for a Desktop PC, and a YubiKey.

Once done, you’ll see a success message appear. Now you’ll be able to use the registered WebAuth options as additional, secure ways to login to your site.

Rename or Delete Device

If desired, you can rename or delete any authenticated device.

Navigate to the WordPress Dashboard > Users, and click on your username.

To Rename:

From Profile > Security > Registered device, click on the Rename text in the Action column. Type the new name, and click Save.

Rename or delete registered device
Action options for registered devices.

To Delete:

Same process as above, but click on the Delete text in the Action column, then click OK from the next popup.

Confirm delete action
Confirming the delete of an authentication.

Be advised that the Delete action doesn’t save settings, so if you decide you want to use the Biometric feature from that device again, you will need to go through the full setup process.

Likewise, if you deactivate any WebAuth functionality on your device, the login will no longer work, and you would need to repeat the process on your device to restore the feature’s functionality.

GDPR Compliance

FIDO Alliance standards were created from the outset with a “privacy by design” approach and are a strong fit for GDPR compliance.

Because FIDO delivers authentication with no third-party involvement or tracking between accounts and services, biometric authentication with FIDO2 compatible devices is fully GDPR compliant.

With FIDO, no personally-identifying information ever leaves your device.

For more information, see the following article on the FIDO website: FIDO Authentication and GDPR.

Enabling Multiple 2FA Methods

If you enable more than one additional authentication method in your profile, each will display as alternate options beneath the method you have set as your default. In the example below, TOTP Authentication is my preferred method.

You can click on any available option in the list, and it will display the selected alternate authentication method.

TOTP authentication
Using a TOTP to authenticate, with alternate methods (per your selection) listed below.

A final note… Web Authentication requires that the following PHP extensions be enabled on your server: mbstring, GMP, and Sodium. These extensions are enabled by default on all sites hosted by WPMU DEV.

If you are hosting elsewhere and any of them are not enabled on your server, you’ll see an alert like the one below. Reach out to your hosting provider to have them enable the extensions for you so that you can use this feature.

Message alert, requirements not met
If you see this message, don’t panic–you’ll just need some PHP extensions enabled.

Click here for WPMU DEV’s full documentation on Defender’s Web Authentication feature.

The Complete Package

As protective measures go in WordPress, it’s hard to beat Defender.

Defender has powerful security protocols, including malware scanning, antivirus scans, IP blocking, firewall, activity log, security log, and two-factor authentication (2FA), including the two newly added Web Authentication methods–Biometric, and USB Safety Key.

The latest version of Defender also came with an additional, useful enhancement to Defender’s WP-CLI “scan” command. By using this WP-CLI command and option, if any issues are found, Defender will create a table with results.

Previously, you could only see the results of a malware scan from the back-end of the site (at WP Admin > Defender Pro > Malware scanning), but now you’ll be able to see the completed scan results right in the console.

Coming soon for Defender… we’ll expand on our use of WebAuthn, with our devs currently working on the ability to use hardware authentication devices. Plans are also underway to implement ‘password free’ logins in the best way possible, using the WebAuthn protocol.

You can read about upcoming features for any of our tools and services anytime in our product Roadmap.

If 2FA is the question, Defender is the answer. Handling security in your WordPress sites can be as simple—yet complete—as activating Defender.

Posted on

The Ultimate Guide To Securing Your WordPress Login With Biometric Authentication – For Free!

Defender had already implemented Two-Factor Authentication (2FA) in WordPress for hardened security… now we’ve added Biometrics, too!

It has become increasingly apparent that relying strictly on usernames and passwords for logins no longer offers the highest levels of security.

WPMU DEV’s solution to addressing this is through the use of the WebAuthn standard, which bypasses vulnerabilities by providing a protocol of public key cryptography as a login authentication method.

Our newest Defender release—both Free and Pro versions—marks the start of our odyssey into the world of biometric authentication; providing the ability to verify the authenticity of a user login by way of a device fingerprint reader or facial recognition software.

The use of this new biometric authentication is similar to the existing 2FA methods already present in Defender, and can be used together with the existing TOTP (Time-based One-Time Password), backup codes, and fallback email authentication methods.

In this article, we’re going to look at how to implement the Biometric Authentication feature, as part of our 2FA WordPress plugin features in Defender.

Continue reading, or jump ahead using these links:

Let’s explore all that Defender has to offer in the form of login protection with the cool new 2FA Biometric feature.

The All-Encompassing Defender

Defender gives you the best in WordPress plugin security, stopping SQL injections, cross-site scripting XSS, brute force login attacks—and other vulnerabilities—with a list of one-click hardening techniques that will instantly add layers of protection to your site.

It also makes safety easier on and for you, taking advantage of the latest in biometric security measures.

By way of a quick overview, here’s how this works in Defender… the user will input their username & password to log in, and if biometric authentication has been configured for that device, said user can verify their identity through their fingerprint scanner or facial recognition software.

Because we’re using the WebAuthn protocol, Defender does not at any point receive any biometric data, only a confirmation or rejection from the user’s device.

I want to interject here with a quick point of interest, shared by one of our techs, Marcel Oudejans (and paraphrased by me)…

The convention of naming a dog “Fido” was popularized by Abraham Lincoln, though its use as a canine pet name dates back to the ancient Romans.

“Fido” means “faithful”. FIDO stands for “Fast IDentity Online”. The new Biometric authentication feature uses WebAuthn protocol from FIDO.

So in a lovely, roundabout way, by using the FIDO protocol to implement this feature, one could say we are infusing ‘faithfulness’ into Defender.

Synonyms for faithfulness
Faithful FIDO.

For more technical information on FIDO, check out this article.

Ok, now let’s take an in depth look at this awesome new Biometric feature.

Full Walkthrough on Biometric Authentication

First, make sure you have the Defender plugin installed and activated, and update it to the latest version (at the time of this writing, that’s 3.0.1). Defender versions 3.0 and higher are fully compatible with the recently released WordPress 6.0.

Two important things to note up front:

  1. Configuration of authorized devices is required on a per-user basis, since authentication is linked to individual user accounts.
  2. PHP 7.2 or above is required, as it improves performance and security, while also supporting the new biometric feature.

Enable Biometric

Navigate to the WordPress Dashboard > Defender. If you’ve just now updated, you’ll get the popup modal. Give it a quick read, then click the Got It button.

Defender new version modal
Two F’s = Fingerprint and Facial (recognition).

You’ll be on Defender’s main page now. From the left sidebar, click on the 2FA menu header.

Another popup will appear; click on the Activate button.

Defender activate 2FA
One-click activation in Defender.

Now you’ll see all the section information for Two-Factor Authentication, and all the options we have available here.

From the same Defender 2FA page, under User Roles > Administrator, toggle the button On. Make sure to scroll to the bottom and click on Save Changes.

Toggle on Admin user roles.
Permission to enable 2FA is given through User Roles.

From the Dashboard’s side menu, go to the Users section, and click on your Admin User profile.

Scroll down to the Security section, and toggle ON the button next to Biometric.

User role security, enable biometric
The toggle for enabling the Biometric feature is in the Users > Security section.

Once the Biometric feature is toggled on, you’ll see a suggestion to choose an additional authentication method from these options: TOTP, Backup Codes, and Fallback Email.

In the example below, you’ll see I’ve selected Fallback Email, but you can choose whatever method(s) you prefer. Remember to click the Update Profile button at bottom.

Selecting additional authentication methods
The selection of additional authentication methods available in Defender.

Biometric authentication does not replace your traditional WordPress login (i.e., username & password), instead adds an additional secure layer, like the other authentication options above.

While many browsers and operating systems are compatible with the WebAuthn protocol used to manage the authentication process, some are currently not. Check here to see WebAuthn’s browser and OS compatibility list.

Register Device

With biometric authentication enabled, the Registered Device table will appear, with options to Register Device or Authenticate Device.

Registered device identifiers
Defender keeps a list of Registered Device identifiers.

Clicking the Register Device button will start the prompt from your browser to configure the form of biometrics you wish to use, depending on which are available on your device.

Enter any name in the Authenticator Identifier field, then click the Start Registration button.

Register new authenticator
Name your identifiers for easy recognition later.

Note that depending on the device you are using the registration process will differ.

Example 1:

Registering a Windows desktop or laptop will prompt you to enter your Windows Hello PIN, or whatever other authentication method may be enabled on your device.

Windows hello PIN login
The Windows Hello sign in PIN entry.

Example 2:

Registering a mobile device will prompt you to touch the fingerprint sensor, or whatever other authentication method may be enabled on your device.

Verify fingerprint sensor
A sample fingerprint sensor authenticator window.

Back on your Users Profile page, if you scroll to the bottom under Security > Registered Device, you’ll see your device listed here, along with a message beneath it confirming it has indeed been registered.

Registered new authenticator
Confirmation of registering a new authenticator.

The next step is to authenticate the device you just registered.

Authenticate Device

Once the device has been registered, click the Authenticate Device button.

The same authentication method used to register the device will prompt you to confirm the action.

Authenticated device successfully
Success! Confirmation of an authenticated device.

Once done, you’ll see a success message appear. Now you’ll be able to use the registered biometric option as a fast, secure way to login to your site.

Rename or Delete Device

If desired, you can rename or delete any authenticated device.

Navigate to the WordPress Dashboard > Users, and click on your username.

To Rename:

From Profile > Security > Registered device, click on the Rename text in the Action column. Type the new name, and click Save.

Rename or delete registered device
Action options for registered devices.

To Delete:

Same process as above, but click on the Delete text in the Action column, then click OK from the next popup.

Confirm delete action
Confirming the delete of an authentication.

Be advised that the Delete action doesn’t save settings, so if you decide you want to use the Biometric feature from that device again, you will need to go through the full setup process.

Likewise, if you deactivate any biometric functionality on your device, the login will no longer work, and you would need to repeat the process on your device to restore the feature’s functionality.

GDPR Compliance

FIDO Alliance standards were created from the outset with a “privacy by design” approach and are a strong fit for GDPR compliance.

Because FIDO delivers authentication with no third-party involvement or tracking between accounts and services, biometric authentication with FIDO2 compatible devices is fully GDPR compliant.

With FIDO, no personally-identifying information ever leaves your device.

For more information, see the following article on the FIDO website: FIDO Authentication and GDPR.

Enabling Multiple 2FA Methods

If you enable more than one additional authentication method in your profile, each will display as alternate options beneath the method you have set as your default. In the example below, TOTP Authentication is my preferred method.

You can click on any available option in the list, and it will display the selected alternate authentication method.

TOTP authentication
Using a TOTP to authenticate, with alternate methods (per your selection) listed below.

A final note… Biometric authentication requires that the following PHP extensions be enabled on your server: mbstring, GMP, and Sodium. These extensions are enabled by default on all sites hosted by WPMU DEV.

If you are hosting elsewhere and any of them are not enabled on your server, you’ll see an alert like the one below. Reach out to your hosting provider to have them enable the extensions for you so that you can use this feature.

Message alert, requirements not met
If you see this message, don’t panic–you’ll just need some PHP extensions enabled.

Click here for WPMU DEV’s full documentation on Defender’s Biometric authentication feature.

The Complete Package

As protective measures go in WordPress, it’s hard to beat Defender.

Defender has powerful security protocols, including malware scanning, antivirus scans, IP blocking, firewall, activity log, security log, and two-factor authentication (2FA), including the newly added Biometric Authentication.

The latest version of Defender also came with an additional, useful enhancement to Defender’s WP-CLI “scan” command. By using this WP-CLI command and option, if any issues are found, Defender will create a table with results.

Previously, you could only see the results of a malware scan from the back-end of the site (at WP Admin > Defender Pro > Malware scanning), but now you’ll be able to see the completed scan results right in the console.

Coming soon for Defender… we’ll expand on our use of WebAuthn, with our devs currently working on the ability to use hardware authentication devices. Plans are also underway to implement ‘password free’ logins in the best way possible, using the WebAuthn protocol.

You can read about upcoming features for any of our tools and services anytime in our product Roadmap.

If 2FA is the question, Defender is the answer. Handling security in your WordPress sites can be as simple—yet complete—as activating Defender.