John Hughes | Torque

The Beginner’s Guide to Writing WordPress Posts in Markdown

Author

John Hughes

Filed Under

Beginners

Published

November 20, 2017

10 Comments

If you’ve ever written a post in Microsoft Word and tried pasting the content into WordPress, you have probably experienced the irritating carryover of site-breaking document styles. In fact, any text editor with formatting options can experience the same issue. ‘Markdown’ is a plain-text syntax for writing articles without distraction. Agencies can streamline content creation by working in Markdown with both writers and editors. This standardizes the copy and reduces distracting visual styling issues. Then, after approving the content, you can handle stylization directly within WordPress. In this article, we’ll introduce you to Markdown formatting and how you can learn […]

How to Save Time By Mastering WordPress’ Keyboard Shortcuts

Author

John Hughes

Filed Under

Beginners

Published

November 14, 2017

No Comments

WordPress’ ease of use is common knowledge. While the platform isn’t exactly sluggish when it comes to maneuvering around its screens, advanced users can speed up navigation through WordPress’ dedicated keyboard shortcuts. Saving a few seconds here and there when working on a large project will eventually add up, and this can save a lot of time when working with WordPress generally. Time is money, so finding a shortcut is always a good idea! Many of the basic shortcut commands are easy to memorize, and are included within your WordPress installation – without the need for a plugin. You can […]

How to Implement a Content Delivery Network (CDN) For Your Agency’s Website

Author

John Hughes

Filed Under

Community

Published

November 13, 2017

11 Comments

Site speed is an important factor in boosting usability, improving bounce rates, increasing conversions, and ranking higher on search engines. However, above all else, your website’s speed is highly dependent on the quality and location of your web host. Content Delivery Networks (CDNs) are one solution that can instantly improve the loading speed of your sites. Unfortunately, due to their perceived complexity, many people have no idea where to begin. By understanding the basics of CDNs and learning how to add them to your WordPress website, you can benefit from the speed improvements that come with them. In this article, we’ll first […]

How to Host Your Open-Source WordPress Theme on GitHub

Author

John Hughes

Filed Under

Beginners, Community

Published

November 6, 2017

2 Comments

Publishing an open-source WordPress theme sounds relatively simple if you follow the steps provided in the Theme Developer Handbook. However, what happens once a piece of code breaks the theme, while you’re in the middle of developing another feature? Without a way to easily track and manage code, your theme may soon become unorganized and unwieldy. Version control enables you to track changes to your WordPress theme so you can revert to a previous iteration when something breaks. You can also work on new features in one place while fixing bugs for old versions in another. In this article, you will […]

How to Create Automatic Section Menus Using Custom Widgets (In 5 Steps)

Author

John Hughes

Filed Under

Development

Published

October 30, 2017

No Comments

Ultimately, your readers decide the most important content on your website through search. Consequently, once they find your site, you want to encourage them to explore it. If you’re not improving their User Experience (UX) by providing helpful navigation, you risk losing them and hurting your bounce rate. One of the best ways to guide your readers through your content is to use section menus. You can use them to link pages within a category while directing your audience to different pages on your site. WordPress users can automate this navigation by using widgets. In this article, we’ll explain automatic […]

How to Add and Customize Post Meta Output for WordPress Themes

Author

John Hughes

Filed Under

Community

Published

October 23, 2017

4 Comments

‘Metadata’ is additional information about a site (or individual posts) stored in your WordPress databases, such as the author or post date. Without an understanding of how to use metadata, your themes may not utilize everything WordPress has to offer. You can improve your WordPress themes by learning to use the appropriate metadata for your posts. For example, in an outdated theme, having the post date format hard-coded means your client won’t be able to modify it from their WordPress admin area. In this article, we’ll explain what exactly post metadata is. Then, we’ll show you four ways to add and […]

2 Ways to Add Breadcrumbs to Any WordPress Website

Author

John Hughes

Filed Under

Community

Published

October 16, 2017

11 Comments

Breadcrumbs are an often overlooked, yet valuable form of website navigation. They help users establish where they are on your site, and can even offer a potential improvement to the way your content appears in search engines. Adding breadcrumbs to your site used to be a long, manual process for each HTML page. Thankfully, WordPress makes adding them in quite simple. In fact, there are several options available to you, depending on how customized you’d like your breadcrumbs to be. Because it’s so simple and quick, there’s no excuse not to get started. In this article, we’ll explain the benefits […]

How to Tell If Your WordPress Site Has Been Hacked (6 Key Signs)

Author

John Hughes

Filed Under

Agency, Development, Featured

Published

October 2, 2017

4 Comments

Getting hacked is the kind of thing that you might think only happens to other people. However, that heart-dropping moment when you realize you’ve been hacked changes everything. The signals that you’ve been hacked aren’t always overt. For example, what happens if you enter your password incorrectly on the first few tries? You might not notice right away that your admin account is no longer available to you. It’s important to learn the signs that your site has been hacked now, to avoid presenting malicious content to your visitors without even realizing it. In this article, we’ll explain what hacking […]

2 Ways to Make Your WordPress Website Printer Friendly

Author

John Hughes

Filed Under

Community

Published

September 25, 2017

5 Comments

Whether people are saving a PDF format or printing out pieces of paper, visitors sometimes want to have a permanent version of your content (especially if you are posting evergreen articles). Unfortunately, most default website styles don’t translate well to the printer. Optimizing your WordPress website for printer-friendly design is a subtle, yet powerful way to go the extra mile for your visitors. This not only impacts physical printouts but downloadable PDFs as well. In other words, you can offer beautiful PDFs on demand and even encourage the reader to download your articles for safekeeping. In this article, we’ll show […]

How to Test Your Plugins With the Upcoming Gutenberg Editor

Author

John Hughes

Filed Under

Community

Published

September 18, 2017

3 Comments

One of the benefits of working with WordPress is its maturity as a platform. However, the reason it has stayed so relevant is the project’s adaptability. Recently, there have been great strides towards a switching to a brand new editor called Gutenberg. As with any major software change, you’ll want to make sure your existing plugins and themes will be compatible with this new editor. Thankfully, the code for the Gutenberg editor is now available as a public plugin in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory. This means you can download and install it to get a feel for any major compatibility issues in […]

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