Month: November 2017

So you want to know how to use Simple 301 Redirects plugin? WordPress has many plugins available and today I thought I would write a short article about using the Simple 301 Redirects plugin for WordPress. The plugin’s name could not be better. It really is simple to do 301 redirects.

What is the Simple 301 Redirects Plugin for WordPress?

The Simple 301 Redirects Plugin is a helpful plugin for redirecting one URL on your site to another. For example, if you modify the URL of one of your pages, then you can take the old URL and redirect it to the new one. Not only can this keep some SEO value, but it’s good for user experience as well.

If there are any links set up to go to your old page, users would encounter a 404 Error. However, with this plugin, you can redirect the user from the old link to the new one without them realising. It keeps their journey on your website going without any interruptions. Would you stay on a website if it couldn’t find the page you want to go to?

How to Add Simple 301 Redirects to your Website?

This article presumes you have the plugin installed on your website already, but if you don’t, you can download the plugin from WordPress or you can install it from your back office.

Let’s Use Simple 301 Redirects Plugin

To use the plugin, you need to look in your back office and find its page. You can find its page by hovering over settings (left-hand side menu), then clicking on “301 Redirects” from the menu. It should take you to a page like the image below.

The left column is for your old url, please remember to replace “/old-url-this-side/” with the URL you want to redirect from. The right column is the URL you want your old URL to redirect to. Again, please remember to change the URL to your new URL and not my example! The old URL can be written from the forward slash onwards, i.e “/contact/”, but the one it redirect to should use your domain as well, i.e. “https://example.com/contact-us/”.

The only negative with this plugin is you can only do ONE 301 Redirect at a time. After you’ve filled in the boxes, click on “Save Changes” button, then add your next redirect in the new empty boxes below your previous redirect.

Conclusion

That’s all there is to it. You should be able to use Simple 301 Redirects Plugin now. There are other functions such as importing/exporting your redirects, but if you’re creating redirects for the first time, then you won’t need to do that.

Also, if you need to do a lot of redirects, I highly advise looking at Simple 301 Redirects Addon – Bulk Uploader. This has been a very helpful plugin especially when I have had to do hundreds, if not, thousands of redirects for a website.

If you have any questions, please do contact us as we’ll be happy to help.

Contact Form 7 (CF7) is one of the most popular contact form plugins for WordPress. However, like many contact forms, users want to cut down the amount of spam passing through their forms. One of the most popular ways to do so is by using a captcha. I am going to highlight TWO different captcha styles you can use plus I’ll let you know which CF7 Captcha I recommend.

Hold On…What’s A Captcha?

A captcha, as described by Dictionary.com, is…

An online test designed so that humans but not computers are able to pass it, used as a security measure and usually involving a visual-perception task.

The most common captcha is typing in a series of letters that you see in an image, but the letters have been distorted. I’m not a fan of these because sometimes they can be hard to read them even with good eyesight! Spoiler Alert: I will not be recommending distorted letters as a captcha!

1. “I’m Not A Robot” (reCAPTCHA)

The first captcha style is reCAPTCHA, but you might now it as “I’m Not A Robot”.  What you have to do is click the box, so it ticks it, to confirm you’re not a robot. Yes, it really is that simple!

This is likely to be the more user-friendly, but it can be more complicated to integrate. Also, this is the one Contact Form 7 recommends by default, so it does make it easier to do. If you want to use this as your Contact Form 7 Captcha, then you will need to get an API key from Google. I’ve not had difficulties with it, but be careful when you change your website’s domain or hosting as it may stop working.

The ETA for setting up this captcha with Contact Form 7 is no longer than 5 minutes.

2. Math Captcha

Yes, there is a math captcha, who does not love a bit of math? Although math captcha might not be as popular, they are still quite good. Over the last few months, I have opted for math captchas over “I’m Not A Robot”. I am not entirely sure why, but I have.

I find the Math Captcha is not as user-friendly, but it’s really easy to integrate it into your Contact Form. All you have to do is install the Math Captcha plugin, then copy and paste the shortcode into your Contact Form 7 contact form.

It might be easy to set up, but it does have a few problems. The first problem is the math might be a bit too complicated for a user who wants to quickly fill in a form and send it. For example, the question might be “72 + 64”. Although it’s not complicated, it’s not as simple as “2 + 3”, which would be a lot easier to do. My opinion is if it requires more than a few seconds of thinking time, then don’t add it. All we have to do is look at page loading statistics to show people want things done quickly. From this Kissmetrics article, we can see even “a 1 second page delay could potentially cost you $2.5 million in lost sales every year” (if you’re an e-commerce site).

Additionally, I encountered an issue with captchas when your site is cached. If you do use a CF7 Captcha, disable cache on any pages with it.

Conclusion and My Recommended CF7 Captcha

In conclusion, using a CF7 captcha is okay, but it does add an additional step for users. It’s a well-known fact that shorter contact forms generate more leads than longer ones because the user doesn’t have much to do. The quicker and easier it is for the user, then the more likely they will convert into a sale, enquiry or lead.

My recommendation, if possible, is to not even have a captcha. Yes, it does help cut down the amount of spam, but it does add an extra step for users when filling in the form. What’s more important? Spending 2 seconds per spam email deleting it or potentially getting more leads using a shorter contact form?

If you have any questions regarding contact forms or require any other help regarding to websites, please get in touch and we’ll be happy to help you.

Most versions of WordPress come with important security updates and WordPress 4.8.3 is no different. You should keep the WordPress core up to date, so stop reading this and go update it!

The latest version of WordPress (Version 4.8.3) was available as of the 31st of October, 2017. You can read all about it from WordPress’ website here. You will see from WordPress’ post there was a vulnerability related to WP-DB. As such, you need to update to version 4.8.3 to be safe from it.

In addition, please keep plugins and themes up to date as well. Keep an eye out for any new updates to plugins or themes over the next few days as they are likely to be important.

If you require any assistance with updating WordPress, plugins or themes, please drop us an email to support@peakplex.com and we’ll be happy to help.