One thing you need to do for GDPR compliance is to add consent checkboxes everywhere…to every form, every optin. I’ll discuss how to do it with your optins a bit later; for adding one to your comment form, see this post. Here’s how to add a checkbox to a Contact Form 7 form: Note that… Read more
GDPR: How to add a custom note to a comment form in Genesis child themes
For clients (and anyone!) working on their GDPR compliance and want to add a note about privacy onto their comment form, here’s how to do it. Please note that these instructions are for Genesis child themes. First, go to your theme’s functions.php file: Appearance–>Editor, click on Theme Functions. Next, copy the entire contents of that… Read more
Some (very) basic HTML for editing GDPR things
While you work to bring your site into compliance for GDPR, you’re going to find out that you need to add extra info, links, etc. This has a good chance of requiring you to add some HTML, so I decided to do a quick how-to: What is HTML? There’s more to know about HTML, but… Read more
Self-Hosted WordPress Security Basics
(This post was written at the end of 2017 looking forward to 2018; it will be updated as needed.) It seems the nefarious types are on a roll these days: WordPress hacks are becoming more common than they used to be. I’ve dealt with more hacked sites this year than any other year, and various… Read more
Quick Blogging Tip: Why you want cache cleaners & two different browsers when working on your site
Sometimes if you’ve made sites changes or plugin changes but aren’t seeing them on your site, the easiest thing to do is to clear your site’s cache, if you use one, or your browser’s cache – and an easy way to clear your browser cache is to install a “quick clean” browser addon: For Chrome:… Read more
WordPress 101: How to work with menus
One of the most-asked questions about WordPress…how to use the menus! 🙂 It’s actually very easy once you know where to go & what to click. Quick overview: Go to Appearance–>Menus You can work with a menu you already have, or create a new one Select from the lists of Pages & Categories to… Read more
WordPress 101: How to work with WordPress categories
Here’s a little vid I did to explain how to use WordPress categories, which is one of the most often-asked questions clients have when they start with WordPress (along with how to use the menus, which will be the next post). 🙂 Creating categories is easy…deciding what categories you want to use, well, that might… Read more
WordPress 101: How to work with WordPress widgets
If you’re new to WordPress & not sure how to use widgets, here’s a short video I made that explains the interface. I hope it helps you! 🙂
How much does it cost to have a self-hosted WordPress blog?
If you’ve been thinking about starting or moving to a self-hosted WordPress blog, you might be thinking that it’s going to be expensive. WordPress might be free, but the “self-hosted” part is giving you pause. Here’s the truth: You can run your own self-hosted blog for about $9 per month. Or less. Here’s how: Buy… Read more
A few thoughts on blog security & domain stealing
You know the old adage “you learn something new every day?” Well, today it’s certainly true. Today I learned that it’s possible for someone to steal a domain out from under someone. Insane, right? Read the story here on Mashable (and she’s also posted it on her site): Blogger Pulls Off $30,000 Sting To Get… Read more
The Grammar of WordPress
Updated January 2019 What does the WordPress dashboard have to do with baby pelicans? Absolutely nothing. I just happen to be a sucker for baby pelicans, so I could not resist using this photo. 🙂 WordPress has its own terms for various things. This is a cheatsheet to help you get familiar with these terms:… Read more
The difference between WordPress.org and WordPress.com
I get a lot of questions about the difference between WordPress.org and .com, and it seems that people are often confused—and rightly so. WordPress is WordPress, right? Well, sort of. Usually when people talk about “WordPress,” they mean blogs that people run on their own domain on their own host, i.e. “self-hosted.” This traditional WordPress-powered… Read more
