Insights, ideas and inspiration. A go to wisdom hub right here.

Every WordPress site owner needs access to a trustworthy backup and restoration system. Data loss or total site crashes can happen when running a website. This is why a reliable backup and restoration solution is so important. For the purpose of keeping your website safe, secure, and easily recoverable, this article explores the top WordPress plugins for backup and restoration for the year 2026.

Things to look for before choosing the backup plugin

When choosing a backup and restore plugin, it's essential to consider the following key features to ensure it meets your specific needs: 1. Automatic Scheduling  Automatic scheduling allows you to set up regular backups without manual intervention. Instead of remembering to initiate backups manually, the plugin will handle the process for you based on your preferred schedule. With this feature, your time and effort are saved without having to initiate the backups manually. It also facilitates a consistent data backup routine and reduces human error. 2. Incremental Backups Incremental backups are a method of storing only the changes made since the last backup, rather than creating a full backup every time. This improves site performance and eliminates dozens of backup files on your server.  Thus, your backup plugin should analyze the latest file and avoid the next backup if no changes have been made. This leads to a faster backup process, reduced storage space, and efficient storage utilization.  3. Real-time backup for high-traffic sites Real-time backups refer to the ability of a backup plugin to capture and save changes to your website's files and database as they occur, ensuring that your backup is always up to date. High-traffic sites such as e-commerce and membership sites often experience frequent content updates, user interactions, and database modifications. In the event of a disaster or site failure, relying solely on scheduled backups could result in data loss since the most recent changes may not be captured.  Real-time backups help minimize data loss by continuously saving updates as they happen, ensuring that even the latest changes are backed up. Real-time backups let you quickly restore your site after a hacking attempt, data corruption, or critical error.  In the event of a failed transaction or interaction, you may easily revert back to the state before the interruption with the help of real-time backups. This is a must-have for e-commerce and membership sites so that users can connect with them easily.

Best Backup and Restore Plugins

1. BlogVault

BlogVault is a comprehensive backup and restores solution designed specifically for WordPress websites. It provides users with a reliable and user-friendly platform to safeguard their valuable website data and easily recover from any potential disasters or issues. In addition to backups, BlogVault offers a range of website management features that enhance its value. These include one-click staging environments for testing site changes, malware scanning and removal, and a site management dashboard to oversee multiple websites from a single location.  This comprehensive set of features makes BlogVault a versatile tool for managing and protecting your WordPress sites. Key Features:

• Real-Time Backup: BlogVault offers real-time backups, guaranteeing that every update made to your website is quickly captured and safely preserved.
• Incremental Backup: BlogVault comes with an incremental backup which reduces unnecessary multiple backups thus reducing storage space. 
• Restores fully crashed sites: With BlogVault’s Emergency Connector, you can completely restore your crashed sites. 

BlogVault servers offer unlimited off-site backup storage.

2. Jetpack

Automattic has released a premium feature for their Jetpack plugin called VaultPress Backups. With this helpful WordPress plugin, restoring to a prior backup of your site is quick and painless. Jetpack offers a suite of powerful features to enhance the functionality, security, and performance of WordPress websites. The beauty of Jetpack is that it doesn't require you to download and install a bunch of extra plugins.  Thus, you'll only need to use a single plugin, reducing the overall number of plugins that slow down your website. While it comes with various tools for website management, we'll focus specifically on its backup-related features. Key Features:

• Automated and Incremental Backups: Jetpack offers daily automatic scheduling of backups along with incremental backups. Thus there is less human intervention and reduced storage space.
• Real-Time Backups: Backups happen in real-time preventing loss of data when the website crashes.
• Protection from Brute Force Attacks.
• Automated security fixes for vulnerabilities. 
• Secured off-site backup storage.
•  One-click restoration.

3. UpdraftPlus

UpdraftPlus will allow you to back up your entire WordPress site to the cloud or download it locally. The plugin supports automated and scheduled backups. You can also choose which parts you want to back up, like themes, plugins, or data. UpdraftPlus offers more remote storage options than any other WordPress plugin. The free version of the plugin supports cloud backup to Amazon S3, Rackspace Cloud Files, Dropbox, Google Drive, Microsoft OneDrive, Microsoft Azure, FTP/ SFTP servers, and many more.   The premium edition adds incremental backups, site migration to a new domain, and extensive safety reports. Key features:

• Easy modular backup and restoration of your WordPress website.
• Encrypting database backups for security in the pro version. 
• Compatible with multisite WordPress installations. 
• Off-site backup storage 

4. BackWPup

Full backups, database backups, and selective file and directory backups are the backup options that BackWPup provides. This feature lets customers personalize their backup plan to meet their unique requirements.  Similar to others, scheduled and automated backups are provided in this plugin.  The plugin supports backup destinations like Google Drive, Dropbox, Microsoft Azure, Amazon S3, and more. Users can store backups offsite to reduce data loss.  Key Features:

• The users are notified about the status and results of backup operations through email. 
• The plugin supports database optimization and maintenance tools. This feature reduces database size and fixes bugs to improve website performance.
• Automated and scheduled backups.
• BackWPup provides restoration and migration capabilities.

5.  All-in-one WP Migration

This plugin has been developed for non-technical people to migrate their websites from one server or hosting provider to another. The plugin makes it easy for you to back up your site's data (posts, plugins, media, and themes) and upload it to the cloud or local storage with just one click.  The plugin also supports incremental and scheduled backups. The backup frequency can be customized in accordance with your needs: daily, weekly, or monthly.  Key features:

• All-in-One WP Migration lets you make several versions of backup copies at different times. This lets you choose from which backup you want to restore. 
• All-in-One WP Migration has extensions for Google Drive, Dropbox, Amazon S3, and more, thus helping you with off-site storage.

6. Duplicator

Anyone with minimal experience may quickly and easily create backups, move, and clone their WordPress sites using the Duplicator plugin.  The duplicator plugin provides automated and scheduled backups, and cloud backup storage (OneDrive, Google Drive, FTP, Dropbox, Amazon S3, or any S3 Compatible service). The one-click migration feature of Duplicator simplifies the process of transferring your website to a new location. There is no other WordPress backup plugin like Duplicator, that allows you to back up a brand-new site. With Duplicator, setting up WordPress and configuring your site takes a few minutes. Key Features:

• Supports backup of large sizes of sites even in the free version. The plugin also creates a zip file of the backup in storage. 
• Get quick notifications through email whenever Duplicator fails to complete a backup, takes too long, or requires manual intervention.
• Duplicator may generate new databases and execute search and replace operations during migration, improving its efficiency and versatility. 
• Multisite support.

Conclusion

WordPress site owners need reliable backup and recovery solutions. The plugins mentioned in this blog are the ones that can protect your website from calamities and restore it quickly. Consider automatic scheduling, remote storage, migration, and convenience of use when choosing a backup and restoration plugin.  Choosing the proper plugin and following best practices will protect and restore your WordPress website, letting you focus on content and business goals.

Introduction

On May 27th, 2023 WordPress will turn 20 years old! WordPress has grown exponentially over the last two decades. From its humble beginnings as a simple blogging platform to its transformation into a versatile content management system (CMS) that powers millions of websites worldwide.  Many CMSs were launched, and gone but WordPress thrived like no other.  Let's look back at some of the significant milestones of WordPress from the past 20 years.

WordPress launched (May 27, 2003)         

Matt Mullenweg, at the age of 18 (from Houston, Texas), used to weblog on his website, photmatt.net, where he wrote about technology, economics, politics, and his passion for jazz music and photography.  Mike Little (from Stockport, England), on his weblog, wrote about books he read, and blogging technology. They both used the blogging tool b2/cafelog, which French programmer Michel Valdrighi created. On January 24, 2003, Matt posted a blog titled “The Blogging Software Dilemma,” where he expressed his concern that the then-famous blogging tool b2/cafelog had not been updated for months. The lead developer, Michel of b2/cafelog had disappeared for some unknown reasons.  Matt’s blog was growing. At that time, his blog had passed twenty thousand unique visitors in 2003. He was looking for b2/cafelog alternatives. He tried the Textpattern and Movable Type weblog tools but due to licensing restrictions, he was not willing to use them. b2/cafelog was GPL, so Matt on his weblog proposed the idea of forking it since nobody was actively working on improving it. 

“Fortunately, b2/cafelog is GPL, which means that I could use the existing codebase to create a fork, integrating all the cool stuff that Michel would be working on right now if only he was around. The work would never be lost, as if I fell of the face of the planet a year from now, whatever code I made would be free to the world, and if someone else wanted to pick it up they could. I’ve decided that this the course of action I’d like to go in, now all I need is a name.”

To which Mike Little replied back (the first comment).

“Matt, If you’re serious about forking b2 I would be interested in contributing. I’m sure there are one or two others in the community who would be too. Perhaps a post to the B2 forum, suggesting a fork would be a good starting point.”

This conversation was the starting point for WordPress.  That's the power of a single comment, and the rest is history.  Here is a screenshot of the blog with the comment.

Matt proposed the idea of forking b2/cafelog on his weblog to which Mike responded.

Since then both Matt and Mike, from their homes started working on improving b2/cafelog script which then became WordPress (with the name coined by Matt’s friend Christine Tremoulet)  Finally, on May 27, 2003, Matt announced the release of the first version of WordPress, 0.7.

WordPress 1.2 "Mingus" (May 22, 2004)

WordPress 1.2 Mingus Write screen Image credit

WordPress version 1.2 is named “Mingus” in honor of jazz upright bassist, pianist, and composer Charles Mingus Jr.

New Plugin Architecture 

WordPress version 1.2 was the first major release since its launch, which included the addition of plugin support. This release was significant because WordPress became a fully mature product as compared to the weblog tools available back then.  Ryan Boren invented the plugin system. In his 2013 interview, he recalled the idea behind the plugin system,

“The 80/20 is like, is this useful to the 80 percent of our user's. If not, try it in a plugin. And it allowed us to do things like, you know, all these taxonomy plugins that did their own thing that kind of paved the way and then we later adopted. That was nice.”

The new plugin architecture made it easy to modify or extend WordPress’ features. It uses hooks (actions and filters) that developers could use to extend WordPress functionality without having to edit core PHP files. The WordPress community loved this feature.

The luck of timing

Back in those days, the Moveable Type (MT) blogging tool was a top competitor to WordPress. Six Apart, the company behind the Movable Type weblog on May 13th, 2004, made changes to the licensing and, most importantly, the pricing structure for the version 3.0 launch. The users had to pay for personal or commercial licenses based on the maximum number of authors and active weblogs. The free version had only one author and three active weblogs. Nine days later, on May 22, 2004, the WordPress 1.2 version was released. Dissatisfied MT users migrate to WordPress, which is flexible and has no restrictions. WordPress downloads increased from 8,670 in April 2004 to 19,400 in May 2004 on the SourceForge website, which was more than doubled.

WordPress 1.5 "Strayhorn" (February 17, 2005)

WordPress 1.5 Write Post screenshot 

WordPress version 1.5 is named “Strayhorn” in honor of jazz composer, pianist, and lyricist  Billy Strayhorn. This was another milestone event where WordPress version 1.5 was released with a Pages feature, better comment moderation tools, and a new theme system (on which the entire theme ecosystem that we see today was built)

WordPress Pages 

The Pages feature was first introduced so that, apart from traditional weblogs, users could create websites with custom pages such as About Us, and Contact Us, among others.

Streamlined comment management Tools

To fight spam better, the comment management process was streamlined. For example, when someone comments on a blog, they are automatically held in moderation (called automatic whitelisting) unless the site owner has approved something from them before.  Also, it was easy to deal with hundreds or thousands of comments, pingbacks, and trackbacks at once. Additionally, an option to blacklist spammers was added so that one does not need to monitor comments added to the list. And lastly, an option to allow comments only from visitors who verified their email and registered on the site.

Flexible Theme System

WordPress Presentation Panel Image Source.

The introduction of the theme system allowed users to modify their blogs' look and feel.  Common site elements were divided into sections like headers, footers, and sidebars, each with its own file. The theme system was so flexible that individual pages, posts, or even categories could have their own template design. Also, multiple theme support was implemented so that users could switch the entire look and feel of the site with a single click.

New Default Theme Kubrick 

This was the first time in WordPress history that a default (adapted version of the Kubrick theme) was bundled with a release. This theme was WordPress’ default theme (also in a sub-folder named “default” in the themes folder) until 2010. From 2010 onward, yearly themes such as Twenty-Ten, Twenty-Eleven, and so on were launched.

The Kubrick Theme was WordPress’ default theme until 2010.

WordPress 2.0 "Duke" (December 26, 2005)

WordPress version 2.0 is named “Duke” in honor of jazz pianist and composer Duke Ellington.

WordPress 2.0 Write Post screenshot Image Credit

New backend dashboard 

WordPress 2.0 was released with a complete overhaul of the admin dashboard screens. Along with the User Interface (UI) facelift, the User Experience (UX) was also reimagined. For example, bloggers could add categories or tags without having to leave the post editor screen or delete comments or categories which will fade out without reloading the screen. Ability to drag and drop dialogs to rearrange and customize the admins' screens easily.  In short, the publishing experience was faster and more streamlined thanks to AJAX functionality.

New User Role System

Previous versions of WordPress had an old numerical user-level system ranging from 0 to 10. User Level 0 had the lowest privileges and User Level 10 had the highest level of access (basically administrator).  The numbered access level was confusing and was not a direct indicator of how these levels (ranging from 0 to 10) were mapped to capabilities.  In the new system, roles such as administrator, editor, and contributor were created, which made it easier to understand what capabilities the users had.

New TinyMCE WYSIWYG Editor

In this version of WordPress, TinyMCE's WYSIWYG editor was integrated. This “What you see is what you get” (WYSIWYG) editor brought a smooth creating and editing experience natively to WordPress. TinyMCE remained the default editor from WordPress version 2.0 (December 26, 2005) to version 5.0 (December 6, 2018) for almost 13 years, which was then replaced by the Gutenberg Block Editor.

WordPress 3.0 "Thelonious" (June 17, 2010)

Introducing WordPress 3.0 Video (CC-BY-SA-4.0)

WordPress version 3.0 is named “Thelonious” in honor of American jazz pianist and composer Thelonious Sphere Monk. It was the thirteenth major release and the culmination of 218 contributors' work over a half-year period.

WordPress MU merged in the Core 

3.0 release was bundled with lots of features that made WordPress a true CMS. One of the main features included the merging of the WordPress MU project (renamed to Multisite) into the core software. WordPress MU project was about creating the new multi-site functionality which makes it possible to run a single or multiple blogs (two or more) on the same WordPress installation.

Custom Post Types and Taxonomies

Custom post type (CPT) was a groundbreaking feature in this release. It was one of the features that transformed WordPress from a simple blogging tool to a full-fledged CMS. Before 3.0 the default content types were Post, Page, Attachment, Revisions, Nav Menus (and two more). The introduction of CPTs allowed the creation of new types of content for users,  CPTs such as events, testimonials, books, portfolios, case studies, e-books, and staff, among others could be created. This helped users organize their content beyond the default Post and Page post types. Prior to 3.0, WordPress had categories and tags as default taxonomies. Users could create custom taxonomies from 3.0 (similar to CPTs) thus helping to organize content in better ways.

Default Theme every year

Twenty Ten theme was included in the WordPress 3.0 distribution

Along with WordPress 3.0, the Twenty Ten theme was launched, which replaced the Default (Kubrick) and Classic theme.  Until then, Kubrick was the default theme from version 1.5 (February 17, 2005) to version 3.0 (June 17, 2010) for more than 5 years. The introduction of the Twenty Ten theme started the tradition of a new default theme every year. Since then, every year a new theme has been launched, such as Twenty Eleven, Twenty-Twelve, Twenty Twenty-Three, and so on.

WordPress 3.7 “Basie" (October 24, 2013)

WordPress 3.7 Dashboard screen

WordPress version 3.7 is named “Basie” in honor of American jazz pianist and composer Count Basie. 211 volunteer contributors' worked on this release. 

Automatic maintenance and security updates.

With WordPress 3.7, maintenance and security updates were automatically applied. The update process happens in the background and is more reliable and secure than ever before. Minor point releases of WordPress (3.7.1, 3.7.2, for example) were automatically updated. Updates for major releases such as 3.7 and 3.8 were not applied automatically. Many users in the WordPress community didn't like this feature, as they felt it took away control from them since, without their permission, WordPress was updated in the background.

A new plugin-first development process

WordPress 3.7 was launched with the new plugin-first development process. Using this process, the new features were developed as plugins, and once the development was complete, they would be merged into the core. This process helped the core development team release updates in a much shorter timeframe and decouple feature development from a release.

One billion total plugin downloads (August 12, 2015)

WordPress Plugin Directory surpassed one billion total downloads between the 11th to 12th of August 2015.  Below is a screenshot of the plugin directory.

One billion total plugins downloads

WordPress 4.4 “Clifford” (December 8, 2015)

Introducing WordPress 4.4 video (CC-BY-SA-4.0)

WordPress version 4.4 is named “Clifford” in honor of jazz trumpeter and composer Clifford Brown. 471 contributors helped develop version 4.4.

REST API infrastructure.

In WordPress 4.4, the REST API infrastructure was integrated into the core. It was the first phase of the multi-stage rollout of the REST API integration. This was marking the dawn of a new era in developing with WordPress and it was one step closer to becoming a fully-fledged application framework. The REST API gave developers an easy way to connect WordPress with third-party applications. Most importantly it laid out the foundation for the Gutenberg Block editor, the future of publishing.

In-built responsive images

Another awesome feature that was launched in WordPress 4.4 was native responsive image support. This removes the need for any custom code or plugin. WordPress smartly displayed responsive images on any device (based on the srcset and sizes attributes on the image tag.)

WordPress 5.0 "Bebo" (December 6, 2018)

WordPress 5.0 screenshot

WordPress version 5.0 is named “Bebo” in honor of Cuban jazz musician Bebo Valdés. This release had 423 contributors with props. 

Say Hello to Gutenberg Editor

“What is Gutenberg?” video (CC-BY-SA-4.0)

WordPress 5.0 revolutionized the content editing experience with the introduction of a new block editor Gutenberg. The new block-based editor was a game-changer and the first step toward a next-level content editing experience. The Classic TinyMCE WYSIWYG editor (launched on December 26, 2005) was replaced by the Gutenberg editor (December 6, 2018) after almost 13 years. The classic editor was available as a plugin in the WordPress repository for users who wanted a legacy editing experience.

Native Gutenberg Blocks in WordPress 5.0

Gutenberg editor has basic website building blocks such as paragraphs, headings, code, and quote, among others, as well as more advanced blocks such as gallery, audio, video, cover image, and many more to build custom layouts. Using these blocks, users can build their websites without writing a single line of code.

Introducing Twenty Nineteen theme

Twenty Nineteen theme Desktop and Mobile view.

Twenty Nineteen theme which has full Gutenberg support was launched with WordPress 5.0. It showcased the power of building websites using blocks. It’s a first-of-its-kind new generation theme where the layouts designed in the Gutenberg editor will be displayed exactly in the front end of the website. 

WordPress 5.9 "Josephine" (January 25, 2022)

WordPress version 5.9 is named “Josephine” in honor of dancer, singer, and actress Josephine Baker.  624 generous volunteer contributors contributed to WordPress 5.9.

Introducing WordPress 5.9

 

Full Site Editing

Full Site Editing experience right in WordPress admin

WordPress 5.9 introduced Full Site Editing (FSE). In simple terms, in FSE, one can build and customize the entire website in the Site Editor. All the parts of the website, such as the header, footer, sidebar, pages, and posts in short, every section of the website can be built and customized using the Site Editor.

Twenty Twenty-Two Theme

Twenty Twenty-Two, the first default block theme in the history of WordPress, was shipped with version 5.9. It's a perfect example of how block-based themes should be built, and how Full Site Editing works. It's also an excellent reference for theme and plugin developers to learn from by looking at the source code.

Templates customization

WordPress 5.9 introduced various native block-based templates such as Home, Search, Single Post, and many others.

Templates of Twenty Twenty-Two Theme in Full Site Editing

In classic themes, these templates are PHP files such as home.php, single.php, and search.php, among others stored in the theme directory. In block-based themes such as Twenty Twenty-Two, there are HTML files stored in the “templates” directory. The best part about Full Site Editing is that these templates can be customized directly in the Site Editor without writing a single line of code. Below is a screenshot of editing the “Page” template right in the WordPress admin. All the layout changes in the site editor are stored in the database (instead of directly editing HTML files in the template folder of the Twenty Twenty-Two theme.)

Editing the “Page (Large Header)” template of the Twenty Twenty-two theme 

Template Parts Customization

WordPress 5.9 also introduced the customization of template parts which are smaller reusable structural parts commonly used for site headers and footers. Again, one can customize the header and footer Template Parts in the Site Editor.

Template Parts in FSE

WordPress 6.2 "Dolphy" (March 29, 2023)

WordPress version 6.2 is named “Dolphy” in honor of e woodwind jazz wiz, and multi-instrumentalist, Eric Allan Dolphy Jr. Over 600 contributors have contributed to this release. Out of which 178 were new contributors.

The new Gutenberg editing experience

Reimagined Site Editor

WordPress 6.2 is the most recent, major, and stable release in 2023. The Site Editor is just getting better and better with every major release.  The Site Editor has been completely reimagined and is now out of beta. Awesome new features were introduced, such as distraction-free mode, an easier-to-use navigation block, the ability to copy and paste styles between blocks, and many more.

Openverse integration

  Over 700 million free, openly licensed, and public domain works are available in Openverse's library (currently only stock photos and audio). Users can search the Openverse catalog right in the media tab of the block inserter. Once the image is selected, it gets uploaded and inserted in the content with the correct attribution.

WordPress Powers 43.1% of The Web (May 27, 2023)

On May 27th, May 2023, WordPress Powers 43.1% of the top 10 million websites.  The below screenshot shows yearly trends in the CMS usage statistics since January 2012.

Wrapping up

Over the past two decades, WordPress has achieved remarkable milestones. Since its initial release on May 27th, 2003, it has come a long way. It now powers more than 40% of the web. It’s been an awesome journey so far, and one that won’t stop any time soon.   Here is a video that shows how WordPress has grown. [video src="https://w3techs.com/pictures/cms-bcr-202209.mp4" /]

The evolution of CMS usage statistics, 2014-2022, Video Source

That’s it for this article. Signing off for now. Happy birthday, WordPress, from the bottom of our hearts.

In the current digital world, search engine optimization (SEO) is essential for the success of any website. Better rankings, more organic traffic, and more satisfied users are all possible benefits of an SEO-friendly WordPress website. Numerous SEO plugins offer various features and benefits. This article will discuss the top WordPress SEO plugins for optimizing your website for search engines.  Best WordPress SEO Plugins of 2026  The following are the best WordPress SEO plugins:

1. Yoast SEO

Yoast SEO is one of the best WordPress SEO plugins. The free version provides multiple features, such as analyzing the content of your post or page, XML Sitemaps, social media integration, and many more.  The Yoast SEO Premium provides more sophisticated features like advanced language analysis that helps to write naturally, the use of synonyms and keyphrases that help to make text richer, adding schema markup, optimizing a page for up to five keywords, previewing your page appearance on Twitter and Facebook, and suggesting internal links to guide users to other areas of your site. Furthermore, Yoast SEO boasts its own website, offering premium support options, a vibrant community in its forum section, an educational blog for SEO insights, and courses catering to beginners, intermediates, and advanced users. Nevertheless, budget-conscious users can still take advantage of the free version, which outperforms most other WordPress SEO plugins by a significant margin.  Key features:

• Preview your exact appearance in Google search results, allowing you to tweak the meta description and title for improved appeal and keyword usage.
• Yoast SEO allows you to add schema markup to your website, enhancing the visibility and appearance of your pages in search engine results.
• It enables you to use focus keywords, thus helping you to optimize content with targeted keywords.
• It comes with a Redirect manager, so you don’t have to install another plugin to handle your 301 redirects. 

2. Rank Math

Rank Math SEO is a multipurpose plugin for your WordPress website. It provides complete on-page SEO management at your fingertips. Rank Math is a lightweight and easy-to-manage SEO plugin for WordPress that consolidates the functionality of several other plugins.  The free version comes with an XML Sitemap, SEO Titles and Meta Descriptions, schema markup, focus keyword analysis to visualize the optimized content with different keywords, and much more. The premium version provides the user with keyword rank tracking, local SEO integration, Google News, and Video Sitemap, to name a few.  Key features:

• Each post, page, or product undergoes an SEO analysis based on 40 criteria.
• It allows automatically adding alt or title tags to images that lack them.
• Rich Snippets support is built-in, with a choice of six different snippets, such as Article, Product, Recipes, Events, Video, and Local Business.
• The plugin also features a Redirection module, allowing you to direct 404 errors to more relevant content on your website.
• Breadcrumbs are incorporated within the plugin, eliminating the need for an additional plugin.
• Open Graph and Twitter Card support are also included.

3. All-in-One SEO (AIOSEO)

The most effective SEO plugin for WordPress is All in One SEO for WordPress (AIOSEO). It helps you improve your search results without learning complicated SEO terms. XML sitemaps, SEO title and meta tags, schema markup, and social media integration are some of the features available in the free version. The premium features come with more extensions, such as advanced WooCommerce support, local SEO integration, and an advanced robots.txt editor that offers an intuitive interface for editing and managing the robots.txt file of your website, thus controlling search engine crawlers' access to specific areas of your site. Key features:

• Open Graph metadata is easily manageable with the built-in social media integration.
• SEO Audit Checklist.
• Faster Indexing with RSS sitemaps.
• 404 Error detection and redirection.
• It provides a Link Assistant, which completely revolutionizes the practice of internal linking.
• It offers the best features from different plugins, which eliminates the need for multiple plugins. 

4. SEOPress

SEOPress is an ad-free, premium WordPress SEO plugin. Even the free version is 100% white-labeled and leaves no trace. It's easy, quick, and powerful, and it lets you control the title and meta descriptions for all of your pages, posts, and post types.  It has a simple setup for new users and more complicated controls for those with more experience. As far as capabilities and customization go, it's on pace with the best WordPress SEO plugins available today. Optimizing tags (Open Graph and Twitter Cards) for sharing on social media; generating sitemaps in XML and HTML; and monitoring site traffic using Google Analytics are a few of the features of SEOPress.  The free edition also includes a content analyzer for site administrators to use while writing articles. More than seventy-five hooks are available to developers for configuring the plugin. The paid version of the plugin comes with additional features such as breadcrumbs optimization, Google structured data types, and many more. Key features:

• WooCommerce optimization for enhanced SEO support to eCommerce websites. 
• Local SEO integration. 
• The premium feature Backlink Integration helps to monitor and analyze your website's backlinks to understand your link profile and improve your SEO strategy. 
• Modify and optimize your website's URLs for better readability and SEO with URL rewriting.

 

5. Squirrly SEO

Squirrly SEO is one of the finest WordPress plugins for large, unique-content websites with high traffic. To help you improve your WordPress site in all aspects, from its backlink profile to its domain authority, it employs artificial intelligence and has an easy-to-use interface. The full keyword tracking and data tools make Squirrly SEO stand out. This WordPress plugin is also useful for regional search engine optimization thanks to features like local business schema and Google Earth integration. Squirrly's SEO recommendations differ from those of the other plugins. To begin, enter the topic you want to write about. You then proceed to compose your piece while the green lights respond to the inputted term. Key features:

• Optimization of keywords happens in real time as you write.
• If you're replacing another WordPress SEO plugin with Squirrly, your current settings will remain intact.
• You can share content reports created using Squirrly with colleagues.
• Analyze your competitor’s SEO strategies to gain insights and stay ahead of them. 

Conclusion

In conclusion, when it comes to WordPress SEO plugins for 2026, there are several notable options to consider. Yoast SEO offers comprehensive features and user-friendliness, while Rank Math provides advanced functionality like keyword tracking and internal linking suggestions.  All-in-One-SEO is a reliable choice with essential features, while SEOPress and SEO Squirrly offer a range of advanced features like competitor analysis (SEOPress) and social media monitoring (SEO Squirrly).  Consider your specific SEO needs and budget when choosing the right plugin for your website. Stay updated with the latest developments as these plugins evolve to meet the changing SEO landscape. Ultimately, integrating an SEO plugin will optimize your content, improve visibility, and drive organic traffic in the years to come. We hope this article has helped you learn about the best SEO plugins that suit your needs. 

Introduction 

Google is advising website owners to upgrade to Google Analytics 4, as Universal Analytics (UA) will be discontinued on July 1, 2023. (July 1, 2024, for Analytics 360 properties). It's critical that you switch to Google Analytics 4 as soon as possible since UA will stop collecting data after sunset. In this article, we’ll show you how to easily switch to Google Analytics 4 and add the tracking code to your WordPress website.

Switch to GA4 from GA3 using the setup assistant

The first step to setting up Google Analytics 4 is to create a new property in your Google Analytics account. 1. Log in to your Google Analytics account. 2.1 Once you have logged in to your account, you will see a warning message to migrate to GA4 property (from UA). As seen in the below screenshot, click on the “Manage GA4 migration” link.

Screenshot 1: Migrate to GA4 warning message

2.2 If you don't see any warning messages, then head over to the admin section on the bottom left.

Screenshot 2: Choose the UA property to migrate

3. Choose the UA property you want to migrate, and click on the “GA4 Setup Assistant.” 4. To create a new GA4 property, click on "Get Started."

Screenshot 3: Click on “Get started” to create a GA4 property

5. The setup assistant popup will appear; click on “Create and continue.” This step will create a new GA4 property.

Screenshot 4: Click on “Create and continue” in the GA4 setup assistant popup

A few things to note when you are creating a new property using the GA4 setup assistant 

• The setup assistant will keep your original Universal Analytics (UA) property unchanged. 
• Basic settings from your UA will be copied over to the GA4 property. If you have configured advanced settings in UA, then it needs to be set up manually in GA4.
• By default, the setup assistant creates a website tag to start measuring activity 
• GA4 offers enhanced event measurements, which capture all the interactions on your website as events. This new feature is enabled by default.

The following table shows, for an event trigger, which parameters are collected in GA4.

Measurement option (event name)	Parameters collected
Page views (page_view)	page_location (page URL),  page_referrer (previous page URL)
Scrolls (scroll)	No parameters are collected
Outbound clicks (click)	link_classes,  link_domain,  link_id,  link_url,  outbound (boolean)
Site search (view_search_results)	search_term
Video engagement (video_start,  video_progress, video_complete)	video_current_time,  video_duration,  video_percent,  video_provider,  Video_title,  video_url,  visible (boolean)
File downloads (file_download)	file_extension,  file_name,  link_classes,  link_domain,  link_id,  link_text,  link_url
Form interactions (form_start, form_submit)	form_start form_id: HTML id attribute of the <form> element form_name: name attribute of the <form> element form_destination: form submit URL Form_submit form_id:  id attribute of the <form> element form_id: HTML id attribute of the <form> element form_name: name attribute of the <form> element form_destination: form submit URL form_submit_text: text of the submit button, if present

<!-- Google tag (gtag.js) -->
<script async src="https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtag/js?id=TAG_ID"></script>
<script>
 window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || [];
 function gtag(){dataLayer.push(arguments);}
 gtag('js', new Date());
 gtag('config', 'TAG_ID');
</script>

add_action( 'wp_head', 'add_ga4_code' ) ;
function add_ga4_code() {
  ?>
    <!-- Google tag (gtag.js) -->
<script async src="https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtag/js?id=TAG_ID"></script>
<script>
 window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || [];
 function gtag(){dataLayer.push(arguments);}
 gtag('js', new Date());
 gtag('config', 'TAG_ID');
</script>
}

Code snippet 2: Sample GA4 code added through functions.php file

Method 2: Using a free version of the plugins (Site Kit or Monsterinsights )

Note: In the steps that follow, we will assume that you are installing the Site Kit or Monster Insights plugin from scratch. 

Option 1: Adding GA4 tag using the Site Kit plugin by Google

1. Head over to Plugins -> Add New Plugin, in your WordPress backend. Search for the keyword “google analytics”. 2. Next, install and activate the Site Kit plugin, as shown in the below screenshot.

Screenshot 10: Install and activate the Site Kit plugin.

3. Once the Site Kit plugin is activated, click on "Start setup."

Screenshot 11: Click on "Start Setup."

4. Select the check box ”Connect Google Analytics as part of your setup.” This step is important in configuring GA4. 5. Click on “Sign in with Google.”

Screenshot 12: Connect Google Analytics as part of your setup

6. Choose an account that you use to login into Google Analytics.

Screenshot 13: Choose the Google account that you use to log in to Analytics.

7. Give access to the Site Kit as shown in the below screenshot and click “Continue.”

Screenshot 14: Select all the checkboxes to proceed further.

8. Click on “Verify.” This will add a verification token to your site's HTML code.

Screenshot 15:  Verify site ownership

9. Click "Allow." It will allow your website to access Google Analytics data. The metrics will be shown in the Site Kit dashboard.

Screenshot 16: Allow your website to access Google Analytics data

10. Click on “Setup” to connect Site Kit and Search Console.

Screenshot 17: Connect Site Kit and Search Console

11. Click on “Next” to allow Site Kit to set up Google Analytics. You will be redirected to the Site Kit dashboard.

Screenshot 18: Allow Site Kit to add your website to Google Analytics

12. In the Site Kit dashboard, select the Google Analytics account and the newly created GA4 property. Also, select the associated UA (GA3) property as shown in the below screenshot.

Screenshot 19: Connect Google Analytics service

13 Click on “Configure Analytics,” and the Site Kit setup is complete.

Screenshot 20: Site Kit setup completed 

Here is a screenshot of the code snippet added by Site Kit.

Screenshot 21:  Google Analytics snippet added by Site Kit

Few things to note when you have installed the GA4 tag using the Site Kit Plugin 

• If Site Kit is used to configuring UA and GA4, stats will be tracked for both properties. 
• At the time of writing, GA4 statistics are not shown in the Site Kit dashboard and can only be viewed. Integration of GA4 data to Site Kit’s dashboard is not yet implemented in the current version of the plugin hence you have to view GA4 data in your Analytics account.

Option 2: Adding GA4 tag using the MonsterInsights plugin

1. Go to Plugins -> Add New Plugin, in your WordPress backend. Search for the keyword “monsterInsights”. After that, install and activate the plugin as shown in the below screenshot.

Screenshot 22: Install and activate the MonsterInsights plugin.

2. Click on “Launch the Wizard.”

Screenshot 23: Launch the wizard

3. Choose your website category and click “Save and Continue..”

Screenshot 24: Choose a category that best describes your website

5. Click “Connect MonsterInsights.” After which you will be redirected to the MonsterInsights website to connect your Google Analytics account.

Screenshot 25: Connect MonsterInsights

6. Choose a Google account to continue.

Screenshot 26: Select a Google Analytics account.

7. Click on “Allow” to give MonsterInsights access to your Google Analytics and Search Console data.

Screenshot 27: Allow Monsterinsights to access your Google account data.

8. Choose the GA4 property from the list of available properties and click on “Complete connection.”

Screenshot 28: Choose the GA4 property to connect

9. Click on “Save and continue” on the recommended settings page.

Screenshot 29: Events tracking enabled by default

10. Choose which features you want the MonsterInsights plugin to enable. We recommend enabling the “Advanced Reports” and “Advanced Tracking” features. 11. Click on “Continue.”

Screenshot 30: Choose which feature you want to enable. 

At this point, the tracking and analytics setup is complete. 12. Next, click on “Complete setup without Upgrading.”

Screenshot 31: Google Analytics is connected, and the tracking code is installed.

You will be redirected to the settings page, which will show a success message. 13. Click on “View Reports.”

Screenshot 32: Google Analytics 4 property is connected

You will be redirected to the “Reports” menu, where you will be able to see Google Analytics 4 data in the WordPress dashboard.

Screenshot 33: View reports to see your GA4 data flowing.

Note: It can take a few hours for the data to start appearing in GA4 and in your MonsterInsights Dashboard.

Conclusion

Google is sunsetting Universal Analytics (UA) as of July 1, 2023, which means it will stop collecting and processing new data. In order to have a considerable amount of GA4 data tracked before UA is retired, we advise setting up Google Analytics 4 (GA4) as soon as you can. After this date, Site Kit will no longer display previous UA data. In this blog post, we discussed in detail two methods of adding GA4 code. First, by adding code manually, and second, by using the plugins Site Kit and MonsterInsights. That's it for this blog, Signing off for now. If you want experts to manage your WordPress website, then hire our awesome experts.

Introduction

Are you looking to add a FAQ schema to your WordPress website?   If yes, then you have come to the right place. In this blog, we will discuss in-depth & step-by-step methods of adding an FAQ schema to a WordPress website.

What is FAQ Schema, and why should you add it to your website?

In simple terms, a FAQ schema is structured data (JSON markup) that allows the contents of frequently asked questions (FAQs) on your website to be displayed in rich result snippets, as shown in the below screenshot.

Screenshot 1: Example of FAQ schema in action

As you can see from the above screenshot when a user searches for the query “What is ChatGPT?”, along with the blog content that has ranked organically, there are two FAQs shown below it. You can accomplish this by adding a FAQPage schema markup to your website. The benefit of implementing FAQ structured data markup is that you get more screen estate in SERPs,  it improves click-through rates, and it will drive more traffic to your website. In short, by adding an FAQ schema to your website, you can help search engines better understand your content so that they can display it in rich results.

Methods for adding FAQ schema in WordPress 

In this post, we’ll show how to add a FAQ schema using two different methods. Method 1: Using Plugins  Method 2: Manually adding the schema code   Note: All the methods that we discuss in this post use the Gutenberg Block Editor.

Method 1: Using a free version of Plugins (Rank Math SEO and Yoast SEO)

The simplest and most straightforward method is to add an FAQ schema using plugins. The plugins will automatically generate the FAQ schema and dynamically add it to the post without you worrying about the underlying technical aspects of it.

Option 1: Adding FAQ schema using Rank Math SEO 

Step 1.1: Install and activate the Rank Math SEO plugin

The first step is to install and activate the Rank Math SEO plugin on your WordPress website. This plugin makes it very easy to add structured data markup to your website, such as FAQ Schema. If you have already installed the plugin on your website, you can skip this step and go to step 1.2.

Screenshot 2: Search, install, and activate the Rank Math SEO plugin.

Search for the Rank Math SEO plugin and install it, or download (from here), upload, and install it on your website.

Step 1.2: Create a new post and add the Rank Math FAQ block

Let's say you want to add the FAQ schema to a post (similarly, you can add it to a page).

Screenshot 3 Search and add Rank Math FAQ block to the post

Search for the FAQ schema block in the Gutenberg blocks. You will see the Rank Math FAQ block since we have installed this plugin in Step 1 above.  Add the FAQ block to the post.

Screenshot 4: Add the FAQ question and its answer

Next, fill out the question and answer as seen in the above screenshot. You can add multiple FAQ blocks as per your requirements. Once you've added your FAQs, you can publish them by clicking the "Publish" button.  The Rank Math SEO plugin will automatically generate the FAQ structured data and add it to your post.

Screenshot 5: FAQ and Styling options of Rank Math SEO plugin

The Rank Math SEO plugin also lets you set FAQ options such as 

• Choosing the List style of the FAQs (Numbered or Unordered HTML list )
• Setting the HTML elements as a wrapper for the title of FAQ (H3 to H6, P or Div element)
• Choosing a size of FAQ images (Thumbnail, Medium, and Large). 

It also provides styling options such as setting

• Title wrapper CSS classes
• Content wrapper CSS classes
• List CSS classes.

Behind the Scenes of Rank Math SEO FAQ block (technical stuff)

Here is the schema markup that the Rank Math SEO plugin generated. You can see it by viewing the source code of the post once you have published it

Screenshot 6: Schema markup added by Rank Math SEO

Note that the Rank Math SEO plugin by default adds a few schema types on the fly, such as:

• Rich Results test tool detected Article Schema structured data along with FAQ Schema structured data.
• Schema.org’s validator tool detects BlogPosting schema as the root @type under which 
  • FAQ schema is added as isPartOf property with mainEntity as @type question and 
  • FAQ schema is added as mainEntityOfPage with mainEntity of @type Question

Below is a sample of structured data that is generated. (The JSON-LD markup is trimmed to show only the FAQ schema.)

<script type="application/ld+json" class="rank-math-schema">
{
  "@context": "https://schema.org",
  "@graph": [
    {
      "@type": [
        "WebPage",
        "FAQPage"
      ],
      "@id": "https://www.wpoets.com/testbench/?p=16#webpage",
      "url": "https://www.wpoets.com/testbench/?p=16",
      "name": "Rank Math FAQ Schema - testbench",
      "datePublished": "2025-03-10T10:26:24+00:00",
      "dateModified": "2025-03-10T10:26:24+00:00",
      "isPartOf": {
        "@id": "https://www.wpoets.com/testbench/#website"
      },
      "inLanguage": "en-5US",
      "mainEntity": [
        {
          "@type": "Question",
          "url": "https://www.wpoets.com/testbench/?p=16#faq-question-1677825596784",
          "name": "This is First FAQ question",
          "acceptedAnswer": {
            "@type": "Answer",
            "text": "Lorem i5sum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum."
          }
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}
</script>

Code snippet 1: JSON-LD schema markup generated by Rank Math SEO plugin

Option 2: Adding FAQ schema using Yoast SEO

Step 2.1: Install and activate the Yoast SEO plugin

The first step is to install and activate the Yoast SEO plugin, as we did for the Rank Math SEO plugin. You can use either of the two plugins to add the FAQ schema code.

Screenshot 7: Search, install, and activate the Yoast SEO plugin

Search for the Yoast SEO plugin in the “Add New” plugin screen, install it, and then activate it. You can also download (from here), upload, and install it on your website.

Step 2.2: Create a new post and Add the Yoast SEO FAQ block

Let's say you want to add a Yoast FAQ block to the WordPress post (similarly, you can add it to a WordPress page).

Screenshot 8: Search and add a Yoast FAQ block to the post

Search for “FAQ” in the Gutenberg blocks. You will see the Yoast FAQ Gutenberg block since we installed this plugin in Step 2.1 above.  Click on the FAQ block to add it to the post. Now let's add the FAQ content. Enter the question and the answer to the question in the block. You can add as many questions and answers as you'd like by clicking the "Add Question"  button at the bottom of the FAQ block.

Screenshot 9: Add the FAQ question and its answer.

Once you've added your FAQ content, preview your post to make sure everything looks good.  If the preview looks good, publish the post.  That's it! By following these simple steps, you can easily add FAQ schema to your WordPress post using the Yoast SEO plugin.

Behind the Scenes of Yoast SEO FAQ block

Below is the markup snippet that the Yoast SEO plugin automatically generated. You can see it by viewing the page source.

Screenshot 10: Schema markup added by Yoast SEO

Note that the Yoast SEO plugin by default adds a few schema types to the post, such as:

• Rich Results test tool detects BreadCrumbs and Sitelinks searchbox structured data along with FAQ Schema structured data that was added.
• Schema.org’s validator tool detects only WebPage Schema and FAQPage schema as the root @type under which FAQ schema is added as mainEntity 
  • It also added breadcrumb schema as a child node to the root node of @type WebPage and FAQPage.

Below is a schema snippet that Yoast SEO generated (the markup snippet is trimmed to show only the FAQ schema).

{
  "@context": "https://schema.org",
  "@graph": [
    {
      "@type": [
        "WebPage",
        "FAQPage"
      ],
      "@id": "https://www.wpoets.com/testbench/2025/03/17/yoast-faq-schema/",
      "url": "https://www.wpoets.com/testbench/2025/03/17/yoast-faq-schema/",
      "name": "Yoast FAQ Schema - testbench",
      "isPartOf": {
        "@id": "https://www.wpoets.com/testbench/#website"
      },
      "datePublished": "2025-03-17T11:03:23+00:00",
      "dateModified": "2025-03-17T11:03:24+00:00",
      "author": {
        "@id": "https://www.wpoets.com/testbench/#/schema/person/7481d9a511fe42faa4e1593e6f702108"
      },
      "breadcrumb": {
        "@id": "https://www.wpoets.com/testbench/2025/03/17/yoast-faq-schema/#breadcrumb"
      },
      "mainEntity": [
        {
          "@id": "https://www.wpoets.com/testbench/2025/03/17/yoast-faq-schema/#faq-question-1679044158945"
        }
      ],
      "inLanguage": "en-US",
      "potentialAction": [
        {
          "@type": "ReadAction",
          "target": [
            "https://www.wpoets.com/testbench/2025/03/17/yoast-faq-schema/"
          ]
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "@type": "Question",
      "@id": "https://www.wpoets.com/testbench/2025/03/17/yoast-faq-schema/#faq-question-1679044158945",
      "position": 1,
      "url": "https://www.wpoets.com/testbench/2025/03/17/yoast-faq-schema/#faq-question-1679044158945",
      "name": "This is a Second question",
      "answerCount": 1,
      "acceptedAnswer": {
        "@type": "Answer",
        "text": "Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.",
        "inLanguage": "en-US"
      },
      "inLanguage": "en-US"
    }
  ]
}

Code Snippet 2: FAQ Schema code generated by Yoast SEO

If you observe the FAQ markup generated by Rank Math and Yoast SEO, the structure of the JSON-LD code is different in each case.

Method 2: Adding schema manually

In this method, we will look into how to add FAQ schema data to the post manually without the use of plugins.  There are a few things that you should know when adding the schema manually 

• Since we are not using any plugin, the styling of a FAQ block has to be done manually.
• The FAQ schema is to be coded manually or generated using an online tool

Step 2.1 Create the visual part of the FAQs in the Post

The first step is to add the question and answer to the post using inbuilt Gutenberg blocks. This will create the HTML (visual part) for the FAQs.  To do that, search for the heading block (as shown in screenshot 2.1 below) and add it to the post.  In the heading block, add your FAQ question. Change the heading level to H5 or H6 as per your choice. You can also use a paragraph block instead of a heading Gutenberg block.

Screenshot 11: Add an FAQ question to the post using inbuilt Gutenberg blocks.

Once the question is added, enter the FAQ answer in the paragraph block, as seen in screenshot 2.2 below.

Screenshot 12: Enter the FAQ answer

Now we have added both the question and its answer to the post. Next, we will add schema code so that search engines can detect the FAQs and display them in rich search results.

Step 2.2 Generating JSON-LD markup using online Schema Generator

Head over to this Link https://saijogeorge.com/json-ld-schema-generator/faq/ which is a free tool for generating FAQ schemas.

Screenshot 13: JSON-LD online Schema Generator

Add your FAQ question and its answer as shown in the above screenshot. You can add multiple FAQs at the same time. The schema generator will add structured data for that many FAQs.

Screenshot 14: Add JSON-LD schema markup to the HTML block in your post

The next step is to add this generated code to our WordPress post. To do that, search for an HTML block and add it to the post as shown in the above screenshot (2.5). After that, you can update or publish the post. Visually, there is no difference after this step, but search engines can now crawl and display the FAQs as rich results.

Behind the scenes of manually adding the FAQ schema

Once you have published the post, right-click on it and view its source. 

You will see the FAQ schema code that was added manually.

Screenshot 15: FAQ schema code added manually to the post

<script type="application/ld+json" class="rank-math-schema">
{
  "@context": "https://schema.org",
  "@type": "FAQPage",
  "mainEntity": [
    {
      "@type": "Question",
      "name": "This is a first FAQ question",
      "acceptedAnswer": {
        "@type": "Answer",
        "text": "Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum."
      }
    }
  ]
}
</script>

Code snippet 3: JSON-LD schema code generated by online schema generator

Drawbacks of manually adding schema

While you can manually add the JSON-LD FAQ schema to a WordPress site without using a plugin, there are some potential drawbacks to consider:

• You need to manually update the schema markup every time you add or remove or update a FAQ question or answer. This means you have to either manually edit the question and the answer in the JSON code or regenerate the schema code for the FAQs. This can be time-consuming and error-prone. 
• If your website has many web pages which consist of FAQ sections, manually adding FAQ schema to all those web pages will become time-consuming, error-prone, and not scalable.
• Managing multiple schemas on a single page or post can be challenging. Especially if you need to add or update properties to the existing schema code.

Testing the WordPress FAQ schema 

Once you have implemented schema markup on your WordPress site, whether using a plugin or manually, make sure you test it. You can test it using these two tools 

• Google's Structured Data Testing Tool. 
• Schema.org validator tool

Testing the FAQ schema using Google’s Rich Results Testing tool

Rich results test tool allows you to check whether or not the structured data is correct. To test the validity of the FAQ schema code, simply copy the URL of your post and paste it into the tool.

Screenshot 16: Enter the URL in Google’s Rich Results Testing tool.

The tool shows the test results, as shown in the below screenshot. We can see that valid FAQ structured data is detected. If there are any errors or warnings, they will be highlighted in the test results.

Screenshot 17: Test results show a valid FAQ schema.

Testing the FAQ schema using Schema.org’s validator 

https://validator.schema.org/  is an online tool where all the schema types can be validated.  It shows a summary of the extracted structured data graph and points out syntax errors. Head to this URL https://validator.schema.org/ and enter the URL for which you want to test FAQ markup data.  Once the URL is entered, click the "run test" button as shown in the screenshot below.

Screenshot 18: Testing structured data using schema.org validator

Screenshot 19: FAQPage detected by schema.org validator

As you can see from the above screenshot, the schema tool detected valid FAQPage structured data.  If you have multiple schema codes added to the same post, they will also show up in the list.  Also, If there are any errors in the markup, then make sure to fix them before submitting your pages for indexing by search engines.  Note: If you are updating the schema code, make sure you clear the WordPress cache before testing it using these tools.

Conclusion 

In this blog post, we discussed in detail two methods of adding an FAQ schema. First, by using the plugins Rank Math SEO and Yoast SEO; and second, by using the manual method. We recommend that you use plugins to add the FAQ schema code to your website because it will automatically create and update the schema for you behind the scenes.  It will also save a lot of time, and you need not worry about the underlying technical aspects of it.  Also, once the schema code is added using any of the above methods, it's important to use the recommended tools to validate it to make sure it was added correctly and is visible to search engines. If you want experts to manage all the schemas of your website, then hire our Awesome WordPress experts. That's it for this blog, thanks for reading - happy optimizing :)

At the Outset

“A Woman is a full circle. Within her is the power to create, nurture and transform” - Diane Mariechild.

On the occasion of International Women's Day, we at WPoets decided to celebrate the remarkable women who make up our workforce. As part of our preparations for the day, we organized a video shoot where all the female employees of our organization expressed their thoughts, experiences, and ideas about being a woman in the modern workplace. Our hope was that by sharing their stories, these women would also inspire others to find their own voice and embrace their own power. We were excited to see what would come from this initiative and couldn't wait to hear from the amazing women of WPoets.

The Preparations

After holding a round of interactive brainstorming sessions, we came up with something special to celebrate this year's International Women’s Day. The idea was to enable women of WPoets to share their thoughts and to encourage more women out there. After a lot of discourse, we decided to interact with the women at WPoets, interview them, and record their sessions to understand their perspective on women's empowerment.  Soon, the preparations began for the execution, and the team had the whats and hows in order.

Getting ready for the IWD interview and some fun moments behind the scenes 

Finally, all the women were asked to start preparing for the shoot. Some of our teammates are still working from home, so we held their recording sessions virtually. All the team members who were in town were called to the office to shoot their parts one after the other.

Awesome ladies getting ready for their video interview

We asked a series of questions to each one of them, and they expressed their thoughts about their success and struggles. (Which I hope everyone must have seen in the video posted earlier. If not yet, then it’s never too late. Click on this link to get a glimpse of what collective female brawn looks like.)

Fun rehearsals for the final shoot 

There were times when camera consciousness kicked in, but drawing inspiration from each other and a few retakes were all it took to get the job done. The shoot was executed without a hitch, and the footage later went to the editing team for final preparations. The whole team of WPoets also had a small celebration as a token of appreciation, love, and respect for the ladies they have in their lives personally and professionally.

Commencement of the celebration

Cake Cutting Scenes

A cake was ordered for the beautiful ladies of WPoets. The scrumptious cake left everyone drooling. Everyone laughed around and enjoyed snack time.

Celebrating the Women's Power

Customized mugs as a token of gesture for all the Ladies

The team also came up with the idea of giving out customized mugs. Our designers did a fabulous job with their creativity in representing what exactly was initially visualized (as you can see in the design concept below).

Customized mugs designed

Distributing gifts to the Awesome Women of WPoets

We could witness the spark glowing on everyone’s face while being cherished at the time of celebration and gifts distribution.

Customized mugs gifted to the Awesome Ladies

The spotlight of the event

After all the hustle and bustle, the final video was rendered and launched.

Kind and heartfelt gestures from the entire team on #IWD

The women of WPoets have always had a lot of support from their male colleagues.  As for shooting the video interviews, Aashish guided, supported, and encouraged all his female colleagues. He recorded the video interviews at the office, put them all together, and edited them to make the amazing IWD interview you saw above. Pratik, who’s an avid blogger, wrote a benevolent post supporting and praising all the women out there. Check out his awesome post on IWD.

Embrace Equity: International Women’s Day and Beyond

This year’s International Women’s Day for WPoets was empowering not just for the women but for the men as well. All the encouragement, support, and guidance that women received from the male colleagues was something in itself beautiful and inspiring to witness.  It was an inspiring reminder that all of us can help create an environment of gender equality and equity. Here is the feedback from our co-founder, Savita Soni, on celebrating International Women's Day at WPoets.

“Taking this opportunity to appreciate Sanjana Bhatt for organizing such a beautiful event for Holi and Women's day and it was not possible without mentioning Aashish’s and Pratik’s efforts and hard work. Thanks, everyone, for participating and making it wonderful!“

That’s all for this International Women's Day. May we make it an even bigger success next year. After all, the females are Avyaanas….

Introduction

Every once in a while, we come across marketers and business owners who tend to believe WordPress myths. They believe that it's difficult to use, that only small-scale websites can be built using it, that it's not secure, that it’s too expensive to maintain, or that sometimes they even have personal excuses about it. Let's talk about why these misunderstandings happen in the first place and how to get past them so that the readers can make an informed choice.

WordPress is not secure

This is one of the most common myths about WordPress and has been done to death.  While no CMS is 100% secure, WordPress is actually quite secure when compared to others. WordPress security revolves around three things. Let's discuss this in more detail.

WordPress Core 

The WordPress core software is one of the most critical targets for attacks. Hackers are always looking to exploit out-of-date versions of the WordPress core. They use loopholes to gain access to the website and perform unauthorized activities. To protect that, the WordPress core software is regularly audited and updated by security experts and released to the public. The WordPress Security Team is in charge of core security. It’s made up of lead developers, security researchers, and web security professionals.  Any security flaws that are detected, are reported to the security team. The team then works to confirm the vulnerability and figure out how severe it is.  If the vulnerability is confirmed, the security team makes plans for a patch to fix it. Depending on how serious the problem is, the patch can either be added to a future version of WordPress or put out right away as a security release. In short, they are really working hard to keep the WordPress core secure.

Themes and plugins system

One reason why so many people use WordPress is because of its theme and plugin system. The WordPress theme directory has over 10,000 themes to choose from, and the plugin directory has over 60,000 plugins. These numbers come from official directories, but just think about how many themes and plugins are available on third-party sites and in private repositories. Hackers take advantage of themes and plugins that are poorly coded because they are easy targets with many attack surfaces.   If you are really serious of your WordPress website security then you should follow certain best practices such as 

• Installing themes and plugins from trusted sources 
• Limit the use of plugins to a minimum
• Regularly updating themes and plugins 
• Scanning themes and plugins from a security perspective

Managing the website 

The security of WordPress also depends on how it's managed.  We see that most website owners do not manage their websites because they lack knowledge, time, or budget, or are simply negligent. They don’t realize how important it is to keep their WordPress site secure until someone hacks it.  If you follow the best security practices, like using two-factor authentication, installing SSL certificates, keeping the versions of your WordPress core, theme, and plugins up to date, and using a secure hosting provider, among others, you can easily prevent security problems. On top of that, it's recommended to use a third-party security plugin or service to further strengthen your website's security. To know more about "dos and don'ts" in WordPress security, go through this article.

WordPress is not as trending as it was five years ago.

Another common myth about WordPress is that it's not as trendy as it was a few years ago. 

Here are the WordPress usage statistics. If we have a look at the growth of WordPress in the past five years, it is astounding.

Historical yearly trends in the usage statistics of WordPress Source: https://w3techs.com

WordPress is still one of the most popular content management systems out there, and its popularity keeps going up.

WordPress is difficult to use

WordPress started primarily as a simple blogging tool, but over time it evolved so that a wide spectrum of web solutions could be built. To achieve this flexibility, an architecture of themes and plugins was created. Concepts such as  posts, pages, permalinks, blocks, widgets, etc. were used, Advanced concepts such as custom post types, and custom fields, among others, were introduced. When you first start using WordPress, all of this technical jargon may seem overwhelming. But over a period of time, you will get used to it.  In fact, WordPress hits the sweet spot between being beginner-friendly and developer friendly. For beginners, it provides a great way to build websites. Of course, there is a learning curve for it, and to help them, a lot of resources are available on the internet to get them started. For developers, they can build everything from beautiful websites to complex web applications to high-traffic websites on top of WordPress.

WordPress is slow 

It's true that WordPress isn't fast out of the box; it needs to be optimized continuously, which is where this WordPress myth comes from. Here are a few possible reasons why WordPress may be slow.

Slow WordPress admin dashboard 

This is one of the most common problems that stakeholders who manage the site complain about.  You know the scenario: You want to quickly publish a post, bulk upload images, add or reshuffle menus, or update content on pages, but WordPress admin takes forever to load. This problem gets worse when you have a team of people, like a web manager, content producer, developer, webmaster, marketer, and others, working on the admin dashboard at the same time. We can all agree that a slow WordPress admin dashboard is a productivity killer. But having said that, there are many ways the WordPress backend can be made faster. Here are a few 

• Upgrade the hosting plan or change your hosting provider
• Update PHP version
• Increase WordPress memory limit
• Optimize WordPress database

Reduce the number of admin side plugins. Instead, custom code the admin side functionality. Here is an excellent, in-depth article explaining how to speed up WordPress admin panel.

Slow Frontend 

The front end of the website will receive almost all of your website traffic. If your front end of the website is slower, then, in the most simple terms, it's hurting your business. 

Here are a few reasons for the frontend website being slow

• Bulky themes or slow page builders
• Slow plugins ( that add too much CSS/JS )
• Not using caching, image compressions, and other speed improvement techniques 
• Not using CDN 
• Relying on cheap or shared web hosting

But having said that, there are many ways the WordPress frontend can be made faster. Here are a few ways

• Get Good WordPress Hosting
• Use Optimized themes and plugins
• Use a Content Delivery Network(CDN)
• Use a Caching Plugin
• Reduce the number of HTTP requests
• Always optimize images

Here is a blog post that we wrote about how to improve the speed of your WordPress website.

The future of WordPress is Uncertain

In recent times, this new misconception has popped up. We see that many marketers are talking about this as they are worried about the future of WordPress.  Here is the reason why this misconception arises in the first place. Nowadays, a lot of popular JS frameworks are on the rise. You might be aware of or have heard of frameworks like ReactJS, Next.js, and Gatsby, among others.  These are Javascript frontend frameworks, which are used for building websites and complex business applications. They use an architectural approach called Jamstack, which has recently become popular. Since these new frameworks are on the rise (along with the Jamstack approach), stakeholders are uncertain about the future of WordPress. They believe that WordPress will be obsolete in a few years and that they will need to switch to these frameworks to build their next website (which is a form of FOMO). Also, there is a lot of debate going on between WordPress and Jamstack about which one is better. You can read more about it here. There are many differences between Jamstack and WordPress. These tools use a different approach and architecture to build web solutions. Here are a few differences.   As we can see, there are many differences, along with pros and cons, between Jamstack and WordPress.  The best way to choose between both tools when building websites is to evaluate the project requirements and then decide which one is suitable since every project is unique. And regarding the misconception that WordPress will be obsolete, here’s our take. Building websites using the Jamstack architecture is growing, but disrupting the WordPress CMS market share is not easy. Developers are loving Jamstack, hence, they are quickly adopting and promoting it, but businesses aren’t as quick to ditch WordPress and adopt new frameworks. In short, WordPress is not going away soon.

Conclusion 

We discussed the top myths and misconceptions revolving around WordPress and tried to overcome them.  It will help marketers and decision-makers make an informed decision about whether to use WordPress in their next project. If you have any further questions or would like to learn more about WordPress, please contact our web experts.

Introduction

One of the projects required us to put more than twenty YouTube videos on a WordPress page. They had various videos showcasing their expertise, which were to be added to the website. But the problem is that embedded YouTube videos slow down web page load times. It also has an impact on the Core Web Vitals.  After embedding the YouTube videos, we conducted the PageSpeed test, and as you could anticipate, the result was poor. We were dissatisfied with it because page load time is an important factor in the user experience of a web page. So let’s discuss the problem in detail and the solution.

The Problem 

Let’s create a simple page consisting of six videos. We are using the built-in Youtube Embed block in Gutenberg, where we just copy and paste the video's URL into the editor. 

Screenshot 1: YouTube embeds Gutenberg Block

Here is a demo page that is similar to the client’s video gallery page, which we discussed before.

Screenshot 2: A page with six videos in a video gallery.

The PageSpeed score is 49 (Lighthouse data), which is very low. 

Screenshot 3: Low PageSpeed score

Let’s understand why the page load time is so high. When a YouTube video is embedded on a page, it requires many resources (mostly javascript files) to render it, which slows down the loading of the page. These resources are required to style the video player along with its functionality, such as pause, play, etc.

Screenshot 4: Number of JS requests

As we can see, fifty or more JS requests are made for the six videos embedded on the page (excluding the WordPress theme and third-party JS library requests). In general, the more videos that are embedded on a page, the heavier the page becomes, which makes the performance even worse.

Solution

So now that we know the problem, let’s discuss the solution. To embed YouTube videos on a WordPress page, we are going to use the <lite-youtube> web component. It’s a custom HTML element that renders YouTube embeds faster. The awesome part is that it's just a vanilla web component with no dependencies.  Let’s integrate this web component into WordPress.

Step 1: Register and Enqueue Scripts

add_action( 'wp_enqueue_scripts', 'init_assets' ) ;

/**
 * Enqueue required assests.
*/
function init_assets(){
   $handle = 'lite-youtube';
  //You can also load this JS only for YouTube video-specific pages
   wp_register_script( $handle, 'https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/@justinribeiro/[email protected]/lite-youtube.js', '', '', true );
   wp_enqueue_script( $handle );   
}

add_filter('script_loader_tag', 'add_type_attribute' , 10, 3);
function add_type_attribute($tag, $handle, $src) {
   // if not your script, do nothing and return original $tag
   if ( 'lite-youtube' !== $handle ) {
       return $tag;
   }
   // change the script tag by adding type="module" and return it.
   $tag = "<script type='module' src='" . esc_url( $src ) . "'></script>";
   return $tag;
}

The above code registers and includes the JS file loaded via the CDN.

Step 2: Using the <lite-youtube> web component 

Now let's use this web component. Pass in the video id as a parameter.

<lite-youtube videoid="guJLfqTFfIw"></lite-youtube>

Copy and paste this code into Gutenberg HTML blocks, as seen in the below screenshot.

Screenshot 5: <lite-youtube> custom HTML block

The page looks like this.

Screenshot 6: A video gallery displayed using <lite-youtube> component

In comparison to the original page's 48 PageSpeed score, this page has a 99 PageSpeed score on mobile devices (Lab data from Lighthouse). On the surface, the page looks similar to screenshot 2, but the story behind the scenes is different.

Screenshot 7: High PageSpeed score

Let’s see how this PageSpeed score was achieved. Instead of the YouTube iframe, the <lite-youtube/> web component only loads a thumbnail image of the video (as a placeholder) with a play button. Notice the slight difference between both play buttons in screenshots 2 and 4. Here is the code snippet.

<div id="frame">
 <picture>
  <source id="webpPlaceholder" type="image/webp" srcset="https://i.ytimg.com/vi_webp/wmuEzcz3ebo/hqdefault.webp">
  <source id="jpegPlaceholder" type="image/jpeg" srcset="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/wmuEzcz3ebo/hqdefault.jpg">
  <img id="fallbackPlaceholder" referrerpolicy="origin" loading="lazy" src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/wmuEzcz3ebo/hqdefault.jpg" aria-label="Play: Video" alt="Play: Video">
 </picture>
 <button id="playButton" aria-label="Play: Video"></button>
</div>

Now, when a user clicks the play button, the video loads and begins to play in the placeholder. Notice the iframe that is injected when the play button is clicked in the following code snippet.

<div id="frame" class="activated">
 <picture>
  <source id="webpPlaceholder" type="image/webp" srcset="https://i.ytimg.com/vi_webp/wmuEzcz3ebo/hqdefault.webp" />
  <source id="jpegPlaceholder" type="image/jpeg" srcset="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/wmuEzcz3ebo/hqdefault.jpg" />
  <img id="fallbackPlaceholder" referrerpolicy="origin" loading="lazy" src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/wmuEzcz3ebo/hqdefault.jpg" aria-label="Play: Video" alt="Play: Video" />
 </picture>
 <button id="playButton" aria-label="Play: Video"></button>

 <!-- iframe is injected--> 
 <iframe frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/wmuEzcz3ebo?autoplay=1&amp;start=0&amp;null"></iframe>
</div>

So, in short, when the page loads, the video has not been rendered. Instead, when the user clicks on the thumbnail image, only that video is dynamically inserted into the placeholder. This is known as lazy loading. Now let’s look at the number of requests made.

Screenshot 8: Less number of JS requests

On page load, the web components JS library is included (excluding the theme and third-party JS files). On subsequent play button clicks, requests are made to load the corresponding video. Here is the result of a visual comparison test performed on both pages.

Screenshot 9: Timings compared of the two pages

It can be seen in the above screenshot, the timings are less for the <lite-youtube> web component compared to plain YoutTube embeds.

Screenshot 10:The number of requests compared between the two pages

The number of requests for the <lite-youtube> web component is lower than for plain YouTube embeds, as shown in the above screenshot.

Conclusion

When you embed YouTube videos directly on a web page, it takes longer for the page to load, so it fails the Core Web Vitals test.  The page load time is drastically reduced by using a lightweight web component <lite-youtube>. We compared Lighthouse (Lab) data from two pages: one with a direct YouTube embed and one with the <light-youtube> web component. Having said that, it's important to test and evaluate the Real User Monitoring (RUM) data, which represents the load times on actual user devices (over a 28-day period). That's it for this tutorial. If you need any help optimizing the Core Web Vitals of your WordPress website, talk to our web experts.

Festivals are a way to bring people together. Be it your family at home or a family at your workspace. In the wake of work commitments, we often forget to celebrate and cherish the moments with them.  Hence this year, in order to enjoy the holiday season, we brought back our (secret) Santa to the office. Just like we begin a year with so much happiness and newness to life, celebrating secret Santa will give us a good echo to end the year. So let’s take a walk to open the door to see how the planning and execution of secret Santa started. We all know the world was hibernating a couple of years ago due to COVID. We celebrated the 2020 secret Santa virtually (hope you all have checked our previous blog of secret Santa. It was one good virtual success).  One day a couple of weeks ago, during our weekly meeting, everyone started sharing their memories and new year’s plans. And just like that conversation led to secret Santa celebrations that happened in 2020.  Without skipping a beat, HR took a prompt decision to make it happen this year too, which reciprocated a positive output. Everyone was excited to do it again this year, too.  This time we have so many new members in the team, it had intrigued them as well. Moreover, they started asking questions about how it will be done since most of us are still working from home.  But we had it all in control already. We had created an Awesome App in 2020 that helped the team add their wishlist and whereabouts. Hence, we opened our previous trunk and reused the app. It was circulated to everyone, and instantaneously the list was ready.

Team members added themselves as Santa

After the list was complete, team members were shared virtual Santa boxes to draw the person's name for whom they would be Santa. It was all fun and games. Everyone’s biggest challenge was to hold their calm until their gifts arrived at their doorsteps.

Secret Santa choosing a gift for a teammate

Finally, everyone started receiving their gifts one by one. The ones who were a little late had their eyes glued to the doors, watches, and calendars. But as said, "it’s never too late," gifts were received, and the team members shared the photos, expressing gratitude to their secret Santa.

Gifts by secret Santa

Some more secret Santa gifts

Some more secret Santa gifts (2)

Some more secret Santa gifts (3)

It’s always good to do a little extra and go one step further, even for the ones from whom we will not receive anything. The happiness that’s sparked by sharing and caring was seen on the faces of the team members. Having this activity on board brought our team not only lovely gifts but also a sense of cooperation and collaboration. That in itself is something we look forward to doing every year, possibly. That’s all from our secret Santa episode of 2022. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year !!!!!