The latest updates for UpdraftPlus 1.16.48 have now been released. This latest release of UpdraftPlus includes a number of features and tweaks to improve your backup and restore experience

Following lots of work and effort, one of the new features we have included is the ability to perform ‘atomic restores’. With this latest update, UpdraftPlus will now detect if your server has the required permissions and if available, will perform an atomic restore.

An atomic restore will restore your backup alongside your existing database before replacing the original. This means that should your site die during a restore of the database, you will no longer risk losing any tables, while still keeping your site up and running. You can then use UpdraftPlus resume restore feature to carry on with the restore process until it completes.

In a previous UpdraftPlus release we added a manual authentication feature to Dropbox. This allowed users to manually complete authentication if they were getting blocked by a security plugin or module on their server. UpdraftPlus have now extended this feature to include Google Drive and OneDrive, making it easier for users to connect to these services.

There are also a good number of tweaks and fixes included in this latest release to improve the overall performance of UpdraftPlus, such as faster deletes from BackBlaze, faster uploads to Google Drive and Google Cloud, more PHP 8 compatibility tweaks and many more.

The full changelog can be found below:

• FEATURE: If needed database permissions are available then perform an atomic restore to improve chances of successfully restoring the database
• FEATURE: Added the ability to manually complete authentication with Google Drive (Avoids issues where security modules/plugins break the authentication flow)
• FEATURE: Added the ability to manually complete authentication with OneDrive (Avoids issues where security modules/plugins break the authentication flow)
• FEATURE: Google Drive and Google Cloud now allow boosting chunk size for faster transfers
• FIX: Files/Directories Exclusion not saving correctly when adding numeric directory/file names into the exclusion list
• FIX: Different PHP versions generate different suffixes length in the temporary ZIP filename resulting in a chance of overlapping runs
• FIX: an issue with mysqldump password character escaping
• TWEAK: Avoid unnecessary database writes caused by redundant jobdata updating during backup of files
• TWEAK: Add “anywhere in their names” syntax option to the exclusion UI
• TWEAK: Bump the requirement for the S3 enhanced module, and for using the official AWS SDK, up to PHP 5.5 (in preparation for updating the SDK version later)
• TWEAK: Fix a bug of report emails for incremental backups displaying incorrectly in many email apps
• TWEAK: Update Select2 library to version 4.1.0-rc.0 to work around deprecated jQuery isFunction
• TWEAK: Update jQuery-serializeJSON library to version 3.2.0 to work around deprecated jQuery isArray
• TWEAK: Handle hosts that have disabled some of the PHP functions thus causing a fatal error on PHP 8
• TWEAK: Correct under-calculation of used memory in verify_free_memory()
• TWEAK: Fix (inconsequential to this point) double-use of identifier for SQL statement type
• TWEAK: Remove some compatibility code in Dropbox downloading pertaining to a folder selection bug eliminated ~8 years ago.
• TWEAK: Remove unneeded sub-site tables when performing a restoration/migration (Multisite)
• TWEAK: Improve the exclusion UI by adding new “wildcards” option thus allowing the user to add a set of patterns for excluding files/directories
• TWEAK: Integration of the new files that were previously added for abstracting UpdraftCentral’s client code
• TWEAK: Excluded items (Files or Folders) that are not readable should not trigger a warning about being unreadable
• TWEAK: Fix some RTL CSS issues
• TWEAK: OneDrive 4xx error reporting
• TWEAK: Update the Dropbox SDK to use refresh tokens (long lived token support ends September 2021)
• TWEAK: implement a multi-delete capability when deleting from Backblaze
• TWEAK: On UpdraftClone display the image ID in the advanced tools tab for easier debugging
• TWEAK: Make it more clear in the restore log that we are starting an AJAX restore
• TWEAK: The download backup HTML so that there is only one download button per archive type

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We at UpdraftPlus have recently transferred a large number of translation sets from our dedicated translation project to the public project at translate.wordpress.org.

Once these translations are approved and released, this update will go a long way to helping UpdraftPlus become fully translated into over 50 different languages; with 25 languages already over 90% complete!

Of particular interest are these language sets, which have received a large number of new translations:

• Bulgarian (1300+ new strings translated!)
• Spanish (Mexico)
• Turkish
• Japanese
• Danish
• Portuguese (Brazil)
• Indonesian
• Chinese (China)
• Chinese (Taiwan)
• Greek
• German
• Russian
• Polish
• Dutch

If you are interested in completing these translation sets, you can submit your own translations here – https://translate.wordpress.org/projects/wp-plugins/updraftplus/

Additionally, if you are interested in contributing to our own project (which includes translations for Premium features), you can find more information here – https://updraftplus.com/translate/

Many thanks to all our translators, both on translate.wordpress.org and our dedicated translation project team.

The post New UpdraftPlus translations added appeared first on UpdraftPlus. UpdraftPlus – Backup, restore and migration plugin for WordPress.

When backing up your WordPress website with UpdraftPlus, we have given users multiple options to backup your site using many of the top remote storage options, including Google Drive, Amazon S3 and DropBox. 

One of the additional storage options UpdraftPlus offers is DreamHost – the popular cloud service platform from DreamObjects. DreamHost offers a 30 day free trial account for users who want to experiment with the platform before purchasing. After this trial period, DreamHost offers the following competitive pre-paid pricing plan. 

Some users have chosen to use DreamHost as their cloud storage option over other services, such as Google or Amazon, due to DreamHost’s following features.

• Infinitely scalable
• Allows you to start small and grow
• Customizable metadata
• Inexpensive option

To find out how to add DreamHost to your UpdraftPlus backup settings, just follow the video above or written guide for step-by-step instructions.

Configuring the UpdraftPlus plugin

1. In the UpdraftPlus plugin of your WordPress site, select the DreamObjects remote storage option, scroll down to the bottom of the page and select the ‘Save’ button.

2. In the DreamObjects information section, you will need to enter an access key, secret key and the path of your DreamObjects location.

3. In your DreamObjects account, generate the required information and copy and paste it to the relevant UpdraftPlus DreamObjects settings. Next, press the ‘Test DreamObjects Settings’ button in the UpdraftPlus plugin.

4. Once you have received a ‘test was successful’ message at the top of the screen, you are now ready to create a backup. This backup will now store the information for your website in your DreamObjects cloud storage account – should you ever need to restore your site using UpdraftPlus.

DreamHost by DreamObjects is relatively simple, quick and easy to set-up, providing a secure and cost effective method to store your website’s backups should you ever need them. If you have any questions or comments, be sure to let us know in the comments section below.

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WordPress content

If you run an eCommerce operation that falls short of dominating its niche, you’re always going to be looking for new ways increase traffic and sales via your WordPress site. But before your eCommerce site can make more sales, you’re going to need more traffic. There are of course existing marketing channels you can explore to sell to existing customers, such as targeted email campaigns and tempting personalized offers. But they can only bring in so much growth.

The key to taking things to the next level typically lies in reaching new audiences: Specifically locating those people who stand to benefit from your product, and figuring out how you can sell it to them. This concept of course, is much easier said than done — and there are many actions you can take that might help you achieve your goals.

In this blog, we’re going to focus on one method in particular: creating rich content through your WordPress blog that will grab potential customers attention, boost your product views and earn you more conversions. Regardless of the nature of your store, this is can be a viable approach that has shown success, regardless of what you may sell.

Create slick product pages featuring rich media

WordPress may have been originally developed to serve as a blogging platform, but it’s become so much more than that over the years due to its modular nature and immense popularity (it currently powers over 40% of the world’s top websites). No matter what type of site you want to create, you can create it and manage it through the right combination of plugins and development, with eCommerce WordPress sites certainly no exception.

Eager to take advantage of its accessibility and convenience, many sellers install great retail plugins (WooCommerce being the best reviewed) to turn their WordPress sites into fully-functioning sales platforms. As noted above, this means that WordPress eCommerce content isn’t solely about supporting the site itself and helping improve SEO. The content can be directly for eCommerce and help drive traffic and sales. 

When you’re working on the content for your WordPress-based store, your primary focus should be on your product pages. The better your product pages are, the more likely they’ll be to convert visitors to customers, which is the ultimate goal for any online store. It can be extremely hard to earn hyper-relevant visits of potential buyers looking to buy your specific product, so failing to take advantage of them is a huge waste of time and effort.

A great product page should have a slick design, with content set out in a fully mobile-responsive layout with a logical structure (the most important aspects of the product covered first, with other details placed in expandable sections for those who want them). It should ideally also feature varied forms of media arranged in appealing ways, such as adding images or videos in a carousel.

An example of poor and good product image examples.

Product photos in particular can help increase your eCommerce sales. As buying online prevents customers from physically inspecting something before buying it, the product image could potentially make or break the sale of an item in your store. You should always aim to create your own product photos whenever possible. This is something that can be easily achieved, as even entry level smartphones now have excellent cameras that will allow you to take unique and high quality images that can help set your store apart from those of your competitors.

Write posts covering frequently-asked questions

SEO, or search engine optimization, is a key part of making sure your potential customers can find you online. Many retail journeys start with Google searches for particular products and if your store doesn’t rank well for relevant terms, how will potential customers even find it and make a purchase? One part of ranking well is picking up high-quality back-links (your website address linked from high value websites). Another method you can explore to get your site to rank highly is to upload content that covers and includes the top keywords for your store/product.

When you’re trying to rank for terms relevant to your products, don’t obsess over reaching the first page for high-volume keywords: they’ll no doubt be incredibly competitive and challenging. Instead, look for long-tail keywords that haven’t been suitably addressed elsewhere, paying particular attention to long-form queries that keep being asked. For example, if you run a shoe website, you may find that you can generate valuable traffic by focusing on a long-tail keyword term such as ‘what are the best walking boots for snowy conditions’. This can generate valuable traffic for your site, instead of trying to rank highly for a popular and hard to rank search term such as ‘walking boots’. 

Sites like AnswerThePublic can be extremely useful for identifying these questions. Once you’ve made a list of keywords and whittled it down, you can now create content accordingly. For example, you could make one large FAQ post covering them all, or make various individual pieces answering specific queries in greater detail related to the long-tail keyword. Nail the copy and the metadata, and you’ll have a great chance of picking up some actionable visits from searchers.

Provide details on new and upcoming releases

Not all your content should be re-actively based on what people are searching for. Sometimes you need to take charge of providing information that your audience will want before they know they want it. That’s where a new product release becomes invaluable. On occasion, you’ll update your stock inventory with new items, so remember to generate some content specifically for them.

The goal in doing this should be twofold: to demonstrate to your customers how exciting and changeable your store inventory is (incentivizing people to return), and to show your unique point of view and insight into what makes a new product so interesting. Just as a successful blogger establishes the value of their unique perspective over time, so too should you use the steady release of product updates to make people eager to pay attention.

Remember that there’s nothing wrong with including some of your own personal and store brand personality. Companies like RedBull and Apple have built a massive following that goes far beyond their products by having a vibrant and engaging company personality. You don’t need to dryly recite talking points about your products and should always try to describe them in your own words, getting creative as you do so. If you’re excited about a product or feature, remember to explain why. Make the reader feel your excitement. The more emotion you can convey, the more trustworthy you’ll seem, and the more potent your posts will become.

Ultimately the production of outstanding WordPress content can work wonders for the popularity of your eCommerce brand and the conversion rates you achieve. If you can prioritize the optimization of your product pages, create SEO-polished content and build a notable brand personality through commentary and insight, it can help you get ahead of the pack and build a successful online store.

The post How to increase eCommerce traffic and sales with WordPress content appeared first on UpdraftPlus. UpdraftPlus – Backup, restore and migration plugin for WordPress.

You can now manage all of your posts, from all of your sites, from a single location in Updraft Central’s dashboard posts feature. 

By going to the “Posts” tab in your Updraft Central dashboard, you can now edit all of your posts, without having to go to each individual site. 

Post and Page Modules feature details:

• Edit page details and post content, such as article’s title, body, permalinks, etc. As you normally do within the WordPress panel, but with some limitations (see limitations section below)
• Add/remove categories or create a new ones
• Create or assign new categories and tags to your post
• Upload featured image or change existing images to your content
• Change publishing details
• Change post owner/author
• Preview changes

Perform quick edits on your posts for even greater time savings

• Set parent pages and templates for your page content.
• Edit your pages and posts content either using the classic editor or block editor (previously known as Gutenberg).
• Quickly manage your pages and posts information through the quick edit feature.
• Choose/edit publishing dates.
• Schedule your posts or pages.
• Password protect your content.
• Easily set your content status or make it private while you are still editing.
• Easily move around posts and pages by setting their status to a different state.
• Pages and posts search is supported with date and category filters.
• Bulk actions for pages and posts are supported.
• Easily switch editing between the classic or block editor. Just close the editor and switch to the other editor when required.
• Edited remote content and its details/properties are automatically reflected among the quick edit, classic and block editors. No re-loading needed.

Limitations:

• Currently, both editors (classic and block) do not support custom metaboxes.
• Block editing is only supported when WordPress version 5.0 and higher is installed on the remote sites.
• For block editing, custom blocks that were installed on the remote sites must also be installed on the WordPress install where UpdraftCentral is installed/hosted if you wish to use them.
• Revisions viewing and auto-saving are currently disabled as not to interfere with editing/handling of remote page and post contents.

While the new post module feature currently only works on your UpdraftCentral dashboard WordPress install, we aim to have it also support remote blocks in your block editor in the near future. There is currently a workaround that you can employ in the meantime. To use this workaround, just make sure that your UpdraftCentral dashboard WordPress install is in sync with your controlled sites that are registered with UpdraftCentral. 

Block Editor

If you wish to use a specific or custom block that you have created or installed on your controlled site/sites, then you must first copy or install them to your UpdraftCentral dashboard WordPress install also. 

Classic Editor

The post module does not currently support any third party options. Editing is limited to the following options/sections “Publish”, “Categories”, “Tags” and “Featured Image” only.

Both Classic and Block Editors

Currently the post module does not support viewing or browsing of revisions of the current post and moving of the current post to trash directly from the editor. If you want to move the current post to trash or delete it, then it is recommended to do it outside the editor via the “Post” table interface in which the list of remote posts are displayed.

Summary

The new UpdraftCentral Post module gives an extra level of control to users that have multiple sites with lots of posts. The convenience and time saving aspects of this new release further improve the overall features and usability of UpdraftCentral, making it a must have for anyone looking to update their posts with minimal fuss.

The post Post and page module added to UpdraftCentral appeared first on UpdraftPlus. UpdraftPlus – Backup, restore and migration plugin for WordPress.

The latest updates for WP-Optimize 3.1.7 have now been released – including the preload key request feature. We have taken a lot of time and effort to launch these new improvements and hope that they further help improve users’ experience of WP-Optimize. 

When aiming to improve the speed of your WordPress site using WP-Optimize, one of the new features we have released with this update is the ability to preload key requests. Preload key works by using an audit to identify which resources to preload on your WordPress site. The browser will then preload resources so they are available immediately when needed, preventing eventual waiting time later on, making your site load faster. Google’s pagespeed insights will often suggest preloading the requests to font files and other assets as a speed improvement:

With the latest WP-Optimize Premium release, you now have the ability to manually add any resource you want to be preloaded:

As can be seen in the Google PageSpeed insight test, preloading key requests can result in massive time savings when visitors are loading your site.

In order to get the URL to add to WP-Optimize, just right click on the resource and copy the URL:

Next, past the URL in the ‘New Asset’ box of the ‘Preload key requests / assets’ section of WP-Optimize and press ‘Add’. 

The URL you added you will be added to your preload key requests.

The updates to WP-Optimize 3.1.7 also includes the following:

WP-Optimize: 3.1.7

• FEATURE: Premium – Preload key requests (Preload fonts and other assets)
• FIX: Detecting Brotli compression issue
• FIX: Cache – PHP Warning in URLs to exclude from caching
• FIX: Premium – Unused images – Unused Images Tool not recognising Greek characters
• FIX: Button for disabling Gzip doesn’t showing
• TWEAK: Database optimization – Prevent fatal error due to files missing
• TWEAK: Skip minify when SCRIPT_DEBUG is set to true
• TWEAK: Fixed Font-awesome settings
• TWEAK: Add support for different spellings of “Font-awesome”
• TWEAK: Update the feature comparison table
• TWEAK: Added the option to not show the warning before deleting a table
• TWEAK: Wipe all options upon plugin de-installation
• TWEAK: Premium – Lazy-load – Lazy load support for background images
• TWEAK: Minify – Add file size in the minify cache summary
• TWEAK: Detect conflicting plugins for GZIP issue
• TWEAK: Database optimization – Include all tables if database prefix is not set on WP install
• TWEAK: Premium – Unused images – added “X of X images loaded” for unused trash images
• TWEAK: Don’t allow to remove actionscheduler_ tables
• TWEAK: Premium – Unused images – Show a progression screen when doing any action with unused images
• TWEAK: Cache – Enable cache for the old default permalink structure domain.com/index.php/a-post-name by creating a folder without the extension
• TWEAK: Show previous action as message on Trackbacks or Comments enable or disable.
• TWEAK: Prevent deprecation notice on PHP 8.0
• TWEAK: Update notices

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