Shop News

See how 10 customers are using our plugins

Did you know that many of our WordPress plugins can be used with any WordPress theme, not just those built by us? It’s true! Our Shop the Post, Grid, Boutiques, and Newsletter Pop-up plugin have been implemented and used by plenty of bloggers who are rockin’ themes from other shops (or in some cases, even custom designs!). We absolutely love seeing how our customers make use of our themes and plugins, and it’s especially fun to see our plugins used alongside layouts not built by <em>press. The examples below are certainly no exception! Most of these customers used our plugins straight out of the box, while a few have made some minor tweaks to the styling (you can get a beginner tutorial on how to do this here, and check out some of of the recent code snippets and instructional posts we’ve shared with more ideas for how to customize your <em>press themes and plugins).

Be sure to check out the sites below to see our plugins in action! And of course, while you’re there, don’t forget to browse each of these customers’ blogs to see what they’ve been up to as we head into the fall season. Click on any tile to view more!










Blogging Tips

A Complete Guide to WordPress Categories & Tags

WordPress is chock full of powerful tools. One of the simplest and most under utilized is its native taxonomy system—better known to users as categories and tags.

Did we lose you yet? We hope not! While this topic seems a little dry, we often find many custom clients and <em>press customers don’t take full advantage of their site categories. But in fact:

Categorizing your content consistently and accurately is the key to showing users content they want to see and engage with! 

Having well categorized (and organized!) blog posts makes your menus more powerful, your search more useful, and can even enhance your site SEO.

What happens when content isn’t categorized well?

In a simple example, let’s say you haven’t been categorizing your beauty posts, with most still labeled as “uncategorized.” If a user clicks on the “beauty” category in your navigation and sees only 3 posts (out of 50 total you’ve written), it tells the user one of two things: 1) you either don’t have a lot of content in this category, or 2) your site is poorly organized and difficult to use. Both scenarios aren’t good!

But what’s the difference between a tag and a category? When should you use one versus the other? Today, we’re breaking it down! Click through to read our complete guide to WordPress categories and tags!

Keep reading “A Complete Guide to WordPress Categories & Tags”

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Tech Stuff

Q+A: Why is my site load time slow?

One of the questions we’re asked most often is: “Why is my blog site load time so slow?” After all, the longer it takes to load your site, the more likely a new reader will lose patience and click away, without reading anything. Plus, search engines love to recommend sites that load quickly — a site that loads too slow can definitely be penalized in search engine results. So today we’re sharing a few issues that can contribute to a slow-loading site. Let’s dive right in, shall we?

Keep reading “Q+A: Why is my site load time slow?”