Torque
Since
May 05, 2014

Nick Schäferhoff

Nick Schäferhoff is an entrepreneur, online marketer, and professional blogger from Germany. He found WordPress when he needed a website for his first business and instantly fell in love. When not building websites, creating content or helping his clients improve their online business, he can most often be found at the gym, the dojo or traveling the world with his wife. If you want to get in touch with him, you can do so via Twitter or through his website.

WordPress Automatic Updates: How to Get the Most Out of Them

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Development

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November 17, 2020

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When it comes to site management, security is of the utmost importance. As such, making sure everything is up to date is a large part of keeping your website secure. Automatic updates are WordPress’ way of trying to help with that. If you already have lot of tasks on your plate (like most of us), it’s all too easy to let an important WordPress update slide. Yet, the longer you postpone the update, the more your website becomes exposed to security vulnerabilities due to outdated themes and plugins. In fact, outdated software components are one of the most common reasons for […]

WebP Images & WordPress: Why and How to Use Them (+Plugins)

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Development

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November 13, 2020

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The WebP image format is a great way to speed up your WordPress site. Large photos are often the main cause of slow loading times, but even an image compressor can leave your users forced to load megabytes of image files and slowing their connection to a crawl. Plus, compressors can also make your images blurry. But there’s an often overlooked file format that can compress images down to nothing while barely affecting quality at all. If you hate how lossy JPEG compression makes your photos look, or the huge file sizes of PNGs, WebP might be just what you’re […]

PHP 8: What’s New? (JIT Compiler, Attributes, and Other Features)

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Development

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November 10, 2020

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PHP 8 is coming and WordPress runs on PHP. It’s the core to absolutely everything the platform does, from its underlying functions to add ons like themes and plugins. Out of all the languages WordPress uses, PHP is by far the most important. As a consequence, you can imagine that major PHP updates are a big deal. From speeding up your website to adding new attributes and functions for developers to work with, it’s important to keep up with it all. Even if you’re not a developer yourself, you should have a general idea what to look out for when […]

How to Be a Force for Good in Times of Crisis and Darkness

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Community

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October 30, 2020

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The world is on fire. At least, that’s what it seems like. Sometimes quite literally. Wherever you look, there are problems: A deadly global pandemic Wildfires on several continents Police brutality, escalating protests, and racial tensions Economic problems and huge unemployment numbers A growing social divide and political tensions Lack of effective political leadership and growing authoritarianism in several countries All of this is reason enough to despair and many of us do. Feelings of anxiety, depression, and suicidal ideation have increased considerably in recent months. However, what can we do about it? In this post, I hope to give […]

How to Eliminate Render-Blocking Resources in WordPress

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Development

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October 14, 2020

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“Render-blocking resources” — if you’ve seen this pop up while speed testing your website, or heard about it as a common cause of slow loading speed, you’re probably baffled. You’re looking for ways to speed up your website and get rid of any extraneous code slowing it down, but where do you even start in fixing this? Lucky for you, eliminating render-blocking resources isn’t so hard once you know what you’re dealing with. A simple plugin can do the trick, or you can even take care of it manually if you’d rather do that. Totally lost? We’ll explain in simple […]

Keyword Gaps: What They Are and How to Fix Them

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SEO

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October 7, 2020

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Your competitors are consistently outranking you. Your traffic is dipping lower and lower. And people just aren’t clicking on your website — or maybe it’s not showing up in the search results to begin with. What gives? Is there something you’re doing wrong? The issue likely lies with your SEO. While you may be using keywords in your articles and doing research to find the good ones, properly formatting your website, and trying to target the right audience, there might be one thing you’re overlooking: keyword gaps. It’s time to fix your SEO and address the holes in your content. […]

Marketing in Uncertain Times: 17 Tips for Tactful Communication

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Community

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September 23, 2020

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At the time of writing this article, COVID-19 continues to spread across the world. And while some countries have had more cohesive responses than others, one thing remains for certain everywhere: how you market your business during this time is important. Not only to combat possible revenue loss but also stay in communication with your customer base. However, it’s not enough to just send out an email blast that says something to the effect of, “In these uncertain times, we care about you.” That will not suffice. Instead, it’s vital that you craft a marketing plan that speaks to the […]

What is Webflow? – A Webflow Tutorial for Absolute Beginners

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Development

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September 10, 2020

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Who hasn’t wanted to design their own beautiful website without having to do any coding at all? Thanks to platforms like WordPress, page builders, and website building services like Wix and Weebly, this has been possible for a while. In this webflow tutorial, you’ll get to know one more possibility. The sites produced with the options above can be a bit repetitive. You can usually spot them from a mile away. Webflow is an online tool that promises to do away with that. It promises to revolutionize website building, allowing you to design a fully-featured, gorgeous business website without needing […]

10 Programming Habits Web Developers Should Adopt

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Development

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September 2, 2020

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Anyone can learn to code, but developing good programming habits is another matter entirely. Programming is one of the easiest professions to pick up without any formal training. But when you’re entirely self-taught, you can end up with bad habits that are hard to kick. You may not even know you’ve picked up a common vice until someone points it out to you, resulting in the dreaded “spaghetti code”. However, it can make your projects unsalvageable and cause people to not want to work on a team with you. Ready to build better habits? There are some things even a […]

What Does It Mean to Have a High-Quality Website in 2020?

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Community

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August 26, 2020

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It’s 2020 and you know you need a high-quality website to make a positive impact on your potential customers. But it’s sometimes unclear what that even means. What constitutes a top-notch web presence changes quickly in this industry. “High quality” means something different in 2020 than it did in 2010, or even 2015 for that matter. For instance, responsive design is a must now, but that wasn’t always the case. Keeping up with the times is a challenge. But it’s well worth the effort if you want to start seeing results. If this is something you struggle with, that’s precisely […]

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