WordPress host WPEngine seems to have the most profitable affiliate program I’ve ever used. They’re currently paying $200 minimum per new referral (up to the entire first month’s account payment). It’s also a two tier program, so if you sign up other affiliate bloggers, you earn $50 per each of their customer referrals (they also earn the […]
All posts by Jeff Reifman
Jeff Reifman
WordPress Plugins for Publishing eBooks
Anthologize Anthologize is a free, open source plugin for WordPress. It makes it quite easy to organize an ebook from a subset of content on your WordPress site. It has a few bugs and quirks that need to be worked around but is otherwise quite good. I have a tutorial pending publication at Tuts+ which […]
Best WordPress Plugins for Backups and Migration
We will add additional plugins to this page in the near future – so check back regularly. The Duplicator Plugin The Duplicator plugin gives WordPress administrators the ability to migrate, copy or clone a site from one location to another. The plugin is also a great backup utility; you can backup your site at regular intervals with […]
Installing Themes and Plugins
Choosing a Theme [sc:wpcloud]There are many great themes for WordPress. A lot are free but I don’t mind spending a bit (<$50) for a high quality, custom design. Browse ThemeForest for a number of great options. Themes can slow WordPress down considerably – but the whole point of this guide is to optimize the performance using smart […]
Installing W3 Total Cache Plugin
[sc:wpcloud]W3 Total Cache is an outstanding WordPress plugin. It’s free and provides a tremendous performance optimization for your site. You can learn more about W3 Total Cache at its plugin site. Log in to your WordPress administration page at http://yourdomain.com/wp-admin using the username and password you configured during setup. Select Plugins -> Add New from […]
Installing Varnish
[sc:wpcloud]Depending on the complexity of your WordPress theme, performance can actually be quite slow on AWS. That’s where Varnish can make a tremendous difference. Varnish is a cache which stores copies of pages for users that aren’t logged in (most aren’t). When requests come in to your server, Varnish returns these pre-built pages instantly rather […]
Installing WordPress
[sc:wpcloud]It’s time for the fun part of installing WordPress. Full instructions are supplied in more detail at WordPress’ Codex. Upgrade to the latest Ubuntu distribution and its packages: sudo apt-get dist-upgrade Create a www directory with permissions for the Apache web server: sudo mkdir /var/www sudo chown www-data:www-data /var/www cd /var/www Download the latest version […]
Secure Your Instance
Secure Your Instance [sc:wpcloud]While AWS provides its own firewall, there are still things you can do minimize security risks. Here are three things I recommend: Create an Alternate User Account to the Default root (ubuntu) Login Turn off SSH Access for Default root (ubuntu) Account Change the Default Port Used for SSH From 22 1. […]
Activating Amazon CloudFront
What is a CDN? [sc:wpcloud]The goal of a Content Delivery Network (CDN) service is to deliver your static content quickly and affordably worldwide. The CDN stores your files locally on its servers around the world – delivering bits to your site visitors more quickly through geographic proximity and other optimizations. W3 Total Cache’s integration with […]
What’s Not Covered
What We’re Not Addressing [sc:wpcloud] BitNami Cloud: I’m not using the BitNami Cloud to launch an AWS AMI with WordPress. If you’re interested in AWS but don’t want to do all the work of running your own instance, this may be a good middle step for you. However, they aren’t integrating Varnish and W3 Total […]