A successful website requires consistent management and upkeep, especially if you have multiple users and contributors. But if you’re as busy as most entrepreneurs, you may not have the time to keep track of every action on your site.
Continue reading → How the Jetpack Activity Log Helps You Manage a WordPress Site
Growing your advertising income is an incremental process, one where small decisions can accumulate to make a real difference. One easy way to optimize your site for ads is to keep an up-to-date ads.txt file on your site. What is an ads.txt file, you might ask?
Ads.txt (Authorized Digital Sellers) is a mechanism that enables content owners to declare who is authorized to sell their ad inventory. It’s the formal list of advertising partners you support as a publisher.
If you are a current member of the WordAds program and you’ve customized the ads.txt file on your site, you may not be reaching your maximum earning potential. Advertising buyers actually block sites that are missing buyers’ ads.txt data, so it’s very important to keep this file current.
Please note: if your site is a a subdirectory site, then Ads will not work. You will need to purchase a plan with WordAds for the main site, then follow the below instructions.
To maximize the revenue you’re generating, you can configure Jetpack to control your ads.txt file — that way, the list of approved partners updates automatically, while you save time you can better invest in running your business or creating new content. Here’s how:
Regardless of the type of site you’re running, making sure that it loads quickly and feels fast should be among of your primary goals.
A fast site means a better visitor experience. Shorter load times can lead to lower bounce rates, happier readers, more page views, a healthier Time on Page, and — if you’re running a store — improved sales.
Because Google uses site speed in its ranking algorithm, it also has a direct influence on your SEO. Fast load times can result in higher rankings and ultimately lead to increased organic traffic.
Jetpack’s new site accelerator can improve your site speed and help you take control of your SEO. This new feature, similar to our Image CDN, allows you to host static site assets — such as JavaScript files and CSS stylesheets — on Jetpack’s servers and serve them from our own Content Delivery Network (CDN). This means less stress on your servers and an improved browsing experience for your visitors.
Currently, only files included in WordPress core and the Jetpack plugin can be served by our CDN.
Ready to take your new site accelerator for a spin?
Go to Jetpack → Settings → Writing in the dashboard of your WordPress site and toggle the Enable site accelerator option found in the Performance & speed section. No additional configuration or set up is necessary.
Enable the new site accelerator for your sites and let us know if you have any feedback — we’d love to hear it! Please leave a comment below or open an issue in our GitHub repository.
The Jetpack team takes the security of your site seriously. We know that keeping a website safe and secure often boils down to knowledge — what changes took place? When? — so we’re excited to announce the new Activity feature is now available on all Jetpack and WordPress.com websites.
Smart site owners know that it’s important to keep a close eye on everything happening in their dashboard. Plugin installations, theme changes, and post content updates are critical events that can dramatically change your site. Monitoring them has always been important; now it’s also easy.
Activity is a convenient, chronological list of changes made to your site. It records and displays the most important events, including:
When you try out Activity, you’ll find the 20 most recent events that took place on your site. If you have a Personal or Premium plan, you’ll have access to 30 days’ worth of events. Customers on the Professional plan will have access to a full year of events. Paid customers can also filter activities by type and date range to find exactly what you want in less time.
Activity is more than just an audit log. Having access to this comprehensive list of events makes it easier to troubleshoot and repair your site when you need to. Whether it was a faulty plugin update or an errant theme change that damaged your site, Activity takes much of the guesswork out of finding out where and when things went wrong.
You don’t have to be stuck at your desk to keep a close eye on your site. Access your site’s activity directly from the WordPress mobile apps, and enjoy peace of mind from wherever life takes you.
Keeping your themes and plugins up-to-date — and knowing when you last updated each item — is critical to the security of your site. With Activity you have access to all the details in one place, and you can even update themes and plugins directly from the event log.
Give Activity a try on your sites and let us know if you have any feedback — we’d love to hear it! Please leave a comment below or open an issue in our GitHub repository.
Every website owner, from blogger to eCommerce entrepreneur, wants visitors to engage with their site. The longer you keep a visitor around, the more invested they become in your brand — and the more likely they are to make a purchase or subscribe to your content.
That’s why it’s important to capture their attention, increase the time spent on each page, and keep them clicking through your site past the page they landed on.
A great way to keep your readers on your site longer is to entice them with more of your own content — but in a targeted way that speaks to their interests.
When a reader is already on a post, you can show them related content below to keep them clicking and reading. To do this with your WordPress site, just activate Jetpack’s Related Posts feature.
To start using Related Posts, visit Jetpack → Settings → Traffic → Related Posts and select the Show related content after posts option.
PRO TIP: It’s a good idea to always include relevant images in your posts. When you select the Show a thumbnail image where available option, your Related Posts sections will be that much more compelling.
Keep your readers engaged by showing just how much there is to explore on your site at a glance. By featuring links to content in a sidebar or footer area, you can make it easy to access more posts and pages and keep your readers around longer.
Make use of your website’s real estate by adding lists and links to your content in your widget and menu areas. Widget areas could be your sidebar, footer, or other blocks of content built into the design of your WordPress theme.
For example, with Jetpack, you can show your most popular posts and pages right in your sidebar, along with thumbnail images. Use the Top Posts & Pages widget to promote your content with the most views.
Use the Top Posts & Pages Widget to promote your content with the most views. To add a widget, go to Appearance → Widgets. Then, select one of the many widget options to link to your posts and pages. You can add the Top Posts & Pages Widget, the Display WordPress Posts Widget, a Categories widget, or you could generate a tag cloud to help people find content related to specific topics.
If you’re unable to find the Top Posts & Pages Widget, make sure that you have the Widgets feature enabled from Jetpack → Settings → Writing:
PRO TIP: using Jetpack’s Widget Visibility feature, you can have complete control over where widgets do – and do not – appear across your site. This allows you to better target visitors with relevant links and content, depending on which page they’re currently browsing.
Another fun and effective way to advertise your content is using Jetpack’s Image widget. You can add temporary images linking to interesting posts, popular products, items currently on sale, or any content where you’re looking to drive lots of traffic.
Use this flexible feature to create your very own advertisements directly on your site. The visual cues will direct a reader’s attention to the content or products you want them to explore. This can be very useful for eCommerce sites, service providers, and websites offering special promotions.
When you add a new Image widget to your site, you can either select an image that has already been uploaded to your media library, upload a brand new image from your computer, or insert an image directly from a URL.
PRO TIP: If you need some help creating compelling promotional images or badges, we recommend checking out Canva (it’s free!). In just a few minutes – with no design experience required – you can be up and running with a beautiful design.
It’s important to remember that if your content isn’t linked in your navigation menu or promoted on your homepage, your visitors may simply never find it. Make sure everything is easy to access by creating custom menus in your menu or widget areas.
These could be short menus or a single complex drop-down menu. Either way, the goal is to make it easy for your visitors to navigate your site with a thoughtful and straight-forward menu structure. When your content is categorized and put on display, it becomes much more pleasant and intuitive to explore your site.
Learn how to create and customize your menus from Appearance → Menus here.
PRO TIP: While you’ll definitely want to include all of your static and important pages in your primary navigation, don’t be afraid to include links to other content that you’re trying to promote. This can include posts or even external links. If you want your visitors to see something, getting it in front of them on the home page and in the primary site navigation is really important.
Whether you run a personal website or a large eCommerce marketplace, you don’t just want traffic: you want your readers to engage with your website in a meaningful way. That’s why it’s important to reward them with relevant content that delivers on their expectations and adds value to their lives.
The more readers enjoy being on your site, the longer they’ll stay — and the more likely they will become a subscriber or customer. A proven way to build your following is to use Jetpack’s Related Posts feature, the Top Posts & Pages Widget, Image widgets, and WordPress’ custom menu feature to make it easier for your readers to engage.
What about you? What tips do you have to keep visitors on your site for longer? Share them with us in the comments.
It’s often the little things that count — especially when it comes to your stats and writing. Based on valuable feedback from the community, we have just launched a few improvements that we think you’ll really love.
Continue reading → Improved Stats and Distraction-Free Editing
Today, all Jetpack users have free access to the 165 themes professionally made by WordPress.com. Gorgeous, elegant, and multi-purpose themes all the way from classics like Hemingway Rewritten to our newest addition Lodestar.
To browse, preview, and activate these themes, simply visit the WordPress.com Theme Showcase, select your Jetpack site from the sidebar (if you have more than one), and scroll down to the all-new “WordPress.com themes” section.
It’s now also possible to manage and upload any theme to your Jetpack site from this very same interface. You can also search through the new showcase by theme name (Lodestar!), feature (like Sidebar), color (try Green), type (Restaurant or Portfolio), and more.
There’s more.
Although we’re announcing today that you can use 165 themes for free, we’ll continue adding more to our showcase. Last year alone, we added 11 new free themes, and we’ll be continuing that work to make sure that you always have a fresh look available for your existing or future sites.
Give it a spin. Try searching for a new theme and, as always, contact support for any assistance.
Pro Tip: Personal plan customers benefit from priority support and faster assistance.
Google Docs is one of the most popular online collaborative writing tools, and we’ve just improved upon it by giving you the ability to publish from Google Docs directly to a WordPress site. Eliminate copying and pasting, re-uploading images, and re-formatting. Stop disrupting your creative flows: just write, collaborate, and publish.
Installation is simple. Visit the official page on the Chrome store and click the blue “Free” button to install the add-on. Then follow the prompts to approve our add-on and you’re all set.
Continue reading → Collaborative Writing for WordPress with Google Docs
We are happy to announce that we are now accepting payment for Jetpack’s premium services via PayPal.
To use the new payment method just click the “or use PayPal” link on the bottom right of the checkout screen as shown below.
As always, questions and feedback are very welcome. Just drop us a comment here or contact us directly.
Pro Tip: Personal plan customers benefit from priority support and faster assistance.
If you post regularly on your blog you probably use various shortcodes to embed content on a regular basis (and if you don’t, learn more here as they’re super useful).
A shortcode is usually a line of plain text that might look like this:
Jetpack converts this line of plain text into the necessary HTML and JavaScript needed to display the video directly on your blog post or website page.
You can just as easily embed videos from other services, picture galleries, Spotify playlists, Google Maps, and so much more.
Readers subscribing to your site using Jetpack’s (free) email subscriptions service would, until now, receive in their inbox the plain text version rather than the beautiful, embedded, rich version.
The latest version of Jetpack however solves this elegantly. Subscribers now receive email-friendly content and layout for over 200 of our most popular shortcodes so that your emails look the way you intended.
So now, you can expect your emails to look more like the email on the right of this:
This improvement, we hope, makes your Jetpack experience even better and continues bringing you closer to your readers and customers.
Upgrade to the latest version of Jetpack or install it today for free.
Pro Tip: Personal plan customers benefit from priority support and faster assistance.
