WP Melbourne Meetup – December 2019

Posted in Meetups by
Anthony Hortin

View all the notes from our WordPress meetup for December 2019.

Thanks to everyone that came along to our open panel discussion. Here are the notes we took on the questions and answers.

Gutenberg and Blocks

We discussed Gutenberg since it’s now been 12 months since it was included in WordPress Core.

https://wptavern.com/gutenberg-one-year-later

A few of our members are using it, and they noted that it is getting better in recent times. It was also noted that quite a few members (including the panel) aren’t using it for everyday use.

WooCommerce Customisation

Q: How can I customise my WooCommerce product options?

There’s a few different options that you can do:

WooBuilder Blocks
https://www.pootlepress.com/woobuilder-blocks/

Advanced Custom Fields
https://www.advancedcustomfields.com/

Editing Templates
https://docs.woocommerce.com/document/template-structure

FacetWP was also mentioned as a solution for providing more navigation and filtering options.

Security and Backups

Q: What can I do to harden my site?

Make sure your site/theme and plugins are updated. Use a security plugin such as Sucuri, Wordfence or iThemes Security. These have options for further hardening.

Q: Does anyone have any backup tips?

Take backups often, and keep a separate copy. Don’t rely on just your web host backups.

A few popular plugins and services:

Backblaze
Dropbox
Google Drive

Consider using an external drive (ideally encrypted) for storing offline copies and archives.

“Update” Not Working

Q: I have a website and the “Update” button isn’t working?

Some quick things to check is do you have enough disk space on your web hosting account. It could also be something being blocked by security plugin, or some sort of hosting issue. Check your disk space first and if it looks ok, contact your host, they may be able to help.

Page Speed and Web Performance

Q: My website is slow, how do I test my performance of my website?

You can use a free online tool like WebPagetest.org to get detailed information on page load and metrics of each component the makes up your website. You can also use your web browser developer tools for this too.

Things to look at that can impact on performance:
DNS
Hosting
Resources
Theme/Plugins
Caching

Popular caching plugins: W3 Total Cache, Supercache, WP Rocket

Choosing Quality Plugins

Throughout the night the importance of choosing quality plugins kept coming up. Here’s a good article on how to pick a quality plugin. Here are a few articles to get your started:

https://www.wpbeginner.com/beginners-guide/how-to-choose-the-best-wordpress-plugin

Talk Ideas for Next Year

SEO
Security
WooCommerce
Performance
Basics (configuring, WordPress usage)

Huge thanks to Chris Burgess for taking all these notes and writing them up.

We look forward to seeing you in 2020!

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