This Month in WordPress — June 2015 Edition

Six months down; six more to go, and no matter what — the clock just keeps on tickin’.

I know it’s not summer for all of you guys right now, but here on the West Coast of U.S.A., we’ve been hit with a serious heat wave from Cali to all the way up to Canada. Not like that’s particularly interesting, but man has it been hot!

Besides the weather, though, the online WordPress world has been a steady stream of awesomeness. So, without further delay, here’s this month’s round-up post.

This Month in WordPress

Divi 2.4 is Simply Divine!

Hello, Divi

By far, the most exciting news to the Elegant Themes community was the unveiling a major update to Divi — Divi 2.4.

The update caused quite the stir of excitement when Nick gave us all a sneak peek back in April of this year. The update promised to bring improvements to the Global Settings in the Customizer, the creating a Fluid grid, and much more. However, I think many would agree that the update went beyond and above our highest expectations.

Nick and the development team really knocked this one out of the park. Divi is now easier to use than ever before with its new global setting and builder options, a well put together designing Library to use with the theme along with all the other tweaks and additions. It will certainly be exciting to see the new designs that you Divi users will create.

WooCommerce Opens Some Security Boo-Boos

Do you use WooCommerce? Then pay close attention to this next part.

Back at the beginning of June, the popular WordPress security service, Sucuri, found a major Object Injection vulnerability which could allow an attacker to download any file from a site. (They proved this by running tests and downloading files from a secure WordPress site.)

The weakness lies in the WooCommerce plugin version that contains the “PayPal Identity Token” option in the backend of WP. The vulnerability is so bad that Sucuri gave it an 8 out of 10 on their DREAD Score — uh, yikes!

The best solution to this problem: update now!

CodeInWP gave some suggestions on how to avoid the attack including one tip that is extremely important, so be sure to read the short post before you jump on things right away.

Ten Years of Automattic

June marks the ten-year anniversary for Automattic. Though WordPress itself is a couple years older, Automattic has quickly risen to the top as a concrete organization with WordPress at its core. To quote Mark Armstrong’s post:

Ten years, 2.5 billion posts, and 3 billion comments later, Automattic is stronger than ever — with WordPress.com and a host of other services aimed at helping independent publishers, bloggers, and business owners (the roster includes WooCommerce, Jetpack, Akismet, VaultPress, Polldaddy,Cloudup, Simplenote, Longreads, and more). All this, and we have a perfect record from the Electronic Frontier Foundation for protecting our users’ rights.

The company employs nearly 400 employees, but there are many more who have reaped the benefits of their flagship CMS platform — Elegant Themes included.

It’s exciting and impressive to see how the seed of an idea can become a tree of knowledge and inspiration to feed those of us hungry to create. What will ten more years bring to Automattic and the rest of us avid WordPress enthusiasts worldwide?

Time will tell, but I’m sure it will be nothing short of glorious.

Highlights from the Elegant Themes Blog

• WordPress Freelancers: How to Run a Freelance Business Entirely from WordPress | If you’re a budding freelancer, the chances are you never realized just how much you needed to juggle to make sure your business ran smoothly. One way to help you keep track of things is by using WordPress as your one-stop-shop for running everything. Want to know how to do it? Read Shaun’s post to find out more.
• How To Increase Membership Conversions Through Content Marketing | There is something about the phrase “Content Marketing” that just tickles me pink. Content creation, copywriting, content promotion — it’s all part of a big moving puzzle that a lot of people want to solve. Dan expounds on some ways to use content marketing to help the get more members on your site.
• The 7 Most Effective Types of Email Marketing Messages You Should Employ | Email Marketing is another phrase that is creating a lot of buzz in the online marketing world. It can be easy to get lost in the information out there. In this post, Tom breaks down 7 types of emails to send to your subscribers as well as the pros and cons to each of them. The points are easy to digest and actionable so, enjoy!
• Ontraport Review: CRM Meets Autoresponder | If you’ve been dabbling in the alchemy of email and online marketing, then I’m sure you know of services like AWeber, MailChimp, and GetResponse. Ontraport is an email marketing service paired with a CRM to really take things up a notch. It’s not like any of the other big names and is worth a look at if you feel like something is lacking in your email marketing platform.

Delving into The New Divi

With a major update to Divi, there is quite a bit of new things to learn. Nick and Kenny have put together some informational posts to help walk you through what’s new in the theme and how to use them.

• The Power Of Divi’s Global Modules And How To Use Them
• A FREE Library Pack Built With Divi’s New Advanced Design Settings
• Building Beautiful Blog Posts With The Divi Builder
• All New Footer Layouts And Design Settings
• Using The Divi Code Module To Integrate Third Party Plugins Into The Builder
• All New Header Styles And Design Settings
• Divi, And How You Can Use Them Effectively” href=”https://www.elegantthemes.com/blog/resources/exploring-divi-2-4-why-rows-are-now-the-most-versatile-part-of-divi-and-how-to-use-them-effectively”>Why Rows Are Now the Most Versatile Part Of Divi, And How You Can Use Them Effectively
• How To Use Semi-Transparent Colors Creatively Throughout Your Website
• Creating A Unique And Unified Blog Design Using The Global Post Title Module
• How The Custom CSS Tab and The Divi Library Can Transform Your Workflow
• Using The All New Full Screen Header Module

Other Great WordPress Related Articles from Around the Web

• So You Want To Sell WordPress Plugins? | If you’re a WordPress developer or you’re handy with PHP, you may be thinking of dabbling in selling WP plugins. If that’s you then be sure to read Josh Pollock’s post — it’s very enlightening.
• 14 Stunning Medium-Style WordPress Themes | Medium is becoming a popular way to create and share content. If you love that minimalistic style that Medium possess and want to find some WordPress themes to utilize on your blog, then check this post out.
• How to Create a Custom WordPress 404 Page | Error pages are just plain terrible for user experience; bad user experience equals bad SEO — especially in this day and age. Creating a custom 404 page can help you avoid some WordPress UX boo-boos while still keeping things styled to fit in with your blog.
• The Best WordPress Shared Hosting Providers in the World [By the Numbers + INFOGRAPHIC] | Finding a host provider for your website isn’t as easy as some might think. This article and stunning Infographic, though, makes things a bit easier to narrow down the choice.
• Avoiding the WordPress Theme Lock-In Effect | Theme lock-in effect can be a really not-so-fun situation that many WordPress users have found themselves in. This is a great read for anyone looking to buy a new theme.
• 10 Innovative WordPress Security Hacks to Protect Your Website | Keeping your WordPress site safe and secure is something that keeps many of us on our toes. There are many articles on the topic, but this post delves into a few more options that you may not have thought of yet.

Articles about SEO, Social Media, and Online Marketing

• How To Promote Your Next Blog Post And Increase Traffic By Over 425% | Love a good infographic about blogging? Then you’ll love this one on BloggingWizard about how to make your next blog post work harder and better.
• How I Cleaned Up a 30,000+ Backlink Profile in 15 Minutes | Brian Jackson is one of the best WordPress and PPC bloggers that I know. This post of his really rocked the house and won’t take more than 10 minutes out of your day to read.
• Which Social Media Networks Are Right for Your Brand? | Most of us know that Social Media is important, but not every platform is the best choice for your brand. Want to know which one is? Read Nicole’s article to find out.
• 15 Quick Tips to Convert Visitors Into Email Subscribers | Ah, the elusive subscriber — how we long to gain more of them. There are a ton of posts on this topic, and Neil Patel throws his hat in the ring with another one about converting visitors into subscribers.
• 6 Surprising B2B Facebook Marketing Case Studies | One of my all-time favorite blogs is Convince & Convert, and once you read the top notch articles like this one, you’ll see why. Brian clears up some misconceptions about Facebook marketing and how you can use it for B2B and not just B2C marketing.
• Revealed: The Secret SEO Strategy No One Is Talking About | SEO is confusing — right? Well, there’s certainly a lot of conflicting information out there about it so it’s easy to get confused. Will’s post simplifies things about SEO to make it much easier to understand and reveals something that may surprise you.
• How to Translate Audience Data to Improve Your Content Marketing Strategy | I’m saving the best for last here. This post on Content Marketing Institute gives options for translating data for both right-brain and left-brain content marketers and how both can use each other’s tactics for a well-rounded marketing strategy.

Wrapping It Up

Truth be told, there were so many great articles from around the web to share that I couldn’t include all of them or this post would have been way too long!

I have noticed the growing trend of blogs using video and infographics along with their written content and it’s certainly a refreshing change of pace.

What articles have you read this past month that you really enjoyed? What would you like to see more of on the blog? Let us know in your comments below.

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