Cloudflare is launching domain registration services

cloudflare registrar screenshot

Cloudflare has built a name for itself as a reliable CDN, firewall, and DNS provider. Now the company is coming after another service that’s plagued with overpriced providers and confusing configurations: domain registration.

Before the end of the year, Cloudflare will open up registrations and transfers for domain names. Continue reading “Cloudflare is launching domain registration services”

A brief review: WordPress eCommerce plugin preparations for GDPR

There’s a good chance upcoming regulations will catch many eCommerce store owners by surprise next month. With the possibility of getting slammed with a penalty of 4% of annual revenue, now is the time to start preparing for the new requirements.

GDPR, which can be seen as a ‘suite’ of privacy regulations from the EU, will go into effect May 25, 2018. If you don’t sell any products to customers in the EU, congratulations, you don’t have to worry about compliance with GDPR. However, it should be noted that many of the requirements are generally consumer-friendly privacy practices that you may want to consider nevertheless. Continue reading “A brief review: WordPress eCommerce plugin preparations for GDPR”

Abandoned cart recovery made simple with Jilt [tl;dr review]

Abandoned cart recovery for WooCommerce and Easy Digital Downloads used to involved a jumble of janky extensions and a couple crossed fingers. That’s a thing of the past.

Here’s a quick review of Jilt, from the reputable SkyVerge. Continue reading “Abandoned cart recovery made simple with Jilt [tl;dr review]”

Google Analytics basics: how to see your website’s performance in a few steps

Most website owners have spent the couple minutes installing Google Analytics on their website. But when was the last time you actually looked at the Analytics dashboard? What did you learn from that?

If you’re like most business owners I’ve talked to, you haven’t opened up google.com/analytics since you installed it. Or, if you did open it up, you weren’t too sure what all the numbers meant or what you were supposed to do with that information.

In this post, I’ll show you how to access actionable data with Google Analytics so you can improve your site and get a better understanding of how it’s performing.

Before we begin, have you seen the new Analytics dashboard?

Not too long ago, Google Analytics updated their main dashboard (or “Google Analytics Home”) with more user-friendly wording and graphs. Right away, you can see how you’re acquiring new visitors, what pages they’re visiting the most, and what devices they’re using.
Continue reading “Google Analytics basics: how to see your website’s performance in a few steps”

A year at WeWork Gas Tower: A review of the Downtown LA coworking space

Just over a year ago, I moved into WeWork Gas Tower in Downtown Los Angeles. WeWork, a Silicon Valley-based company with 140+ coworking workspaces across the globe, is well-known within the LA entrepreneur community as having the most “premium” office space experience compared to all the other options out there.

So what’s all the hubbub about and how does it stand up after a year? Continue reading “A year at WeWork Gas Tower: A review of the Downtown LA coworking space”

Chrome will soon mark all non-SSL sites as “Not Secure” [updated: last chance]

Update: August 18, 2017

When Chrome 62 is released in October, Chrome will show a “Not Secure” warning anytime someone starts typing into a form field that’s on a non-https page. In addition, the browser (that just so happens to have the most marketshare!) will show a “Not Secure” warning immediately upon opening a non-https page in Incognito Mode.

In other words, it’s crunch time if you still have not secured your website with SSL so it shows “https” in the URL bar.

This also means that eCommerce sites shouldn’t just use SSL for the cart/checkout/thank you pages. All pages should be running within the SSL’s environment.

Not sure if your site is using SSL? Enter your homepage here: https://www.ssllabs.com/ssltest/. You should get a grade of A if it’s installed correctly.

Need a new host that makes it easy to set up SSL? Check out the details about WP Engine below. Continue reading “Chrome will soon mark all non-SSL sites as “Not Secure” [updated: last chance]”

Starting an eCommerce company? Here are common pitfalls. [WP eCommerce Show Podcast]

Starting an eCommerce company seems easy on the surface. Slap together a quick website, uploading the product photos, set prices, and launch. Or even better: create a quick marketplace website in a particular niche that allows other people to sell products and you don’t even have to worry about inventory or support! Right?

As they say, “if it sounds too good to be true, it is.” Continue reading “Starting an eCommerce company? Here are common pitfalls. [WP eCommerce Show Podcast]”

Why we host with WP Engine

Hosting: every website needs it. When we start working with a new client, choosing a hosting provider is one important decisions that we make. For us, that decision is almost always to work with WP Engine.

But, the question that usually follows that is, “Why?”

Personally, I have attempted nearly every hosting situation possible for clients: shared hosting, VPS hosting with cPanel, Amazon Web Services with cPanel, Digital Ocean, you name it. Once I discovered WP Engine a few years back, I never looked back. Continue reading “Why we host with WP Engine”