There is always someone talking about WordPress page builders and performance.

It's a hot topic that receives tons of attention. Conference speeches, blog posts, and even Facebook comments - everyone has a story to share.

No wonder, page builders are prioritizing performance as one of the focus areas. Some even share their success in a form you're all familiar with.

“Our page builder just became faster.”

But what does it really mean? Does it apply to everything that the page builder does?

I'm not in the position to talk about all page builders, but I can say a thing or two (probably more) about Visual Composer.

Today, I want to explore how performance “operates” in Visual Composer. What critical factors affect it and share some of the improvements we've implemented recently.

But before we begin…

This topic was born as the result of our internal educational session which means you have a chance to really look under the hood of Visual Composer.

Let's go.

Performance and resources

When talking about performance, it is important to understand where does it come from.

There are three main components (resources) that are “working” with performance.

It is Network, CPU, and RAM.

In addition, it can refer to either client or server sides.

What does it mean?

Whenever you work with the page builder, either your computer or server resources are consumed. The availability of those resources and optimizations on the page builder side will determine how fast (or slow) your experience is.

In the next chapter, I will present (and explain) the performance schema of Visual Composer. I will mark every block with the resources that are used within the process as followed:

• sNET - server-side network
• sCPU - server-side CPU
• sRAM - server-side RAM
• cNET - client-side network
• cCPU - client-side CPU
• cRAM - client-side RAM

Understanding the resources in use makes it easier for web creators to analyze whether the server requires optimization and how to boost the performance.

Visual Composer performance schema

There are three main blocks of performance we can distinguish:

• Requests
• User interface
• Server-side processing

As you can see from the schema, server-side processing mainly relies on server resources. Requests are a mix of both, while the user interface is highly impacted by the client-side.

We will look into the details of every block to get a more clear understanding.

Requests

All requests refer to the editor's saving and loading operations. The performance of the operations depends on both - the client and server.

The client needs a good network to perform the operation and the server should be able to process as fast as possible. Here, the main pressure lies on the server CPU.

In other words, shared hosting with a virtual CPU (serving many sites) may get you into trouble.

RAM is used for the PHP processes to store arrays and objects in memory. This means that large content blocks with multiple options enabled will consume a good portion of RAM and will have a significant impact on saving operations.

RAM size of at least 256 is much preferred.

To improve performance for these operations, optimization of data size is needed.

In Visual Composer, we have introduced a binary data format that allows us to send more data in a smaller size. This means that fewer server-side resources are spent on saving and loading.

Not all servers accept binary data. The problem usually occurs with Apache and some clients were not able to save the content because Apache refused to accept binary data.

For that, we have introduced an option to enable alternative base64 encoded saving. The method is slower but can be used by clients who are not able to use binary data.

User interface

All about the user interface is all about the client-side (mostly).

Element actions like, adding, removing, updating, and sorting (drag and drop) are managed by the client's browser.

Therefore, resources on your side are crucial.

Most of the user interface processes are consuming CPU power.

To optimize it, we rely on React and other modern technologies.

It is important to keep the framework up to date and perform regular component updates. In other words, keeping development debt low.

We found that technologies like React hooks can significantly improve the performance of these processes.

There, Visual Composer benefits from things like React hooks.

At the same time, hundreds and hundreds of elements will make operations like drag and drop costly.

Talking about rendering - a good network and CPU is needed. Since you need to load elements, images, CSS, and other assets - your network will experience a good amount of workload.

Loading components refer to how fast the server provides the information and how fast the client receives it. Both client and server network plays a significant role there.

To optimize the process, we are using package bundles in production.

Optimization of these bundles is crucial for Visual Composer.

One of the improvements we have introduced recently is gZip support. gZip allows reducing the size of the bundle up to 5 times which means that things will work 5 times faster.

Of course, your server should be able to operate with gZip which is not always the case and some legacy solutions are needed for some clients.

Server-side processing

Server-side processing refers to how fast your server operates with the data.

The time that is needed for the server to take data from the database and process it.

As you can guess, CPU and RAM play main roles there.

Talking about problems and risks, low memory limits can affect the speed of these operations. To avoid the issues, your server must be well optimized and has a sufficient amount of resources.

Outro

Performance is a tough topic and requires attention at different levels.

From the page builder perspective, this means following the latest technologies and introducing regular improvements.

On the web creator side, it is needed to ensure that your server is ready to work with the technologies offered by the page builder.

With both parties involved, performance issues go off the table.

Are you looking to figure out how WordPress widgets work? Most WordPress users are not aware that widgets are the hidden gems of WordPress.

WordPress does a lot of stuff for you, and managing widgets is one of them! But, if you want to take control over your website design it's important to know how they work.

In this blog, we will cover what WordPress widgets are, where they live on your site, and why they are so awesome!

The Purpose of WordPress Widgets

Widgets are tools with different functionalities to help you manage and display content on your site for easy access on the user side. The areas (most typically the sidebar, menu area, or footer) where you can add widgets on your site are defined by your selected WordPress theme.

You can install different third-party widgets via the Plugins section in your WordPress Admin Dashboard or from the WordPress Plugin Directory. You can also check out this guide to free WordPress widgets to see which ones would fit your site best.

There are so many widgets that all serve different purposes, but we can break them down into two categories:

• Default WordPress widgets, such as archives, calendars, categories, latest comments and posts, social icons and feeds, search bar, video player, and more.
• Additional widgets that come bundled with themes and plugins, such as contact forms, galleries, weather, location, testimonials, reviews, polls, live chats and so much more.

Some popular widgets that come in handy are:

• WP Forms
• Mail Chimp
• Ninja Forms
• Contact Forms 7
• Envira Gallery
• WooCommerce

Note: All of the plugins mentioned above also are integrated into the Visual Composer Website Builder. Which is also compatible with all of the top WordPress plugins and themes.

Adding Widgets to Widget Areas

After installing WordPress widgets you will have them all listed on your WordPress site and ready to use.

This tutorial explains how to navigate your widgets in the new block-based widget editor for WordPress 5.8, as well as in versions before that. Both editors are similar and also offer to manage widgets in the live preview, for easier operating.

In WordPress 5.8

To add widgets to your designated-widget-areas follow these steps:

1. Navigate to Appearance and select Widgets in your WordPress Admin Dashboard;
2. Select an area where to display widgets (depending on the theme in use - these areas may vary);
3. Click on the + icon either in your selected area or next to Widgets (top left corner of widget editor);
4. Drag widgets from widget list and drop them in the selected area;
5. Click Update to save changes.

Note: You can edit, rearrange and remove widgets by simply clicking on them, and selecting from a list of available editing options.

In versions pre WordPress 5.8

To add widgets to your designated-widget-areas follow these steps:

1. Navigate to Appearance and select Widgets in your WordPress Admin Dashboard;
2. Select area where to display widgets (the right side of the screen);
   
3. Drag widgets from the left side to the widgets area;
   
4. Save changes.

Note: If you prefer to use the previous widget editor format you can downgrade to an older version manually or by using plugins. While it is possible, we do not recommend using outdated versions, as it subjects your site to vulnerabilities.

Adding WordPress Widgets to a Page

Adding widgets to the sidebar, menu, or footer (for most themes) is a native process for WordPress. But what if you need to add a custom widget to your page content areas (or anywhere else) instead? With the WordPress Widget content element, it is simple:

With Visual Composer, you can add WordPress default and custom widgets in any place of your layout more intuitively.

Also, Visual Composer offers over 500 content elements, designer-made templates, addons, and integrations to create a stunning website that your clients can manage themselves!

With Visual Composer, there is no coding required (for non-tech-savvy users). Yet, it is possible to add custom code, as well as create custom elements via API (Developer-friendly). And, best of all - it helps create SEO-friendly and high-performing websites while saving precious time.

Ending Thoughts

WordPress widgets are a great way to add more functionality to your WordPress site for your visitors to enjoy! 

Widgets can be managed easily from within the WordPress Admin Dashboard, both in the latest versions of WordPress (5.8) and in versions before that.

And even better, you can manage your widgets, layouts, and design of your website more easily with Visual Composer. Which has helped build over 90 000 blogs, portfolios, business sites, and online stores worldwide!

Now you are familiar with how speeding up your WordPress site can help you all-around - let’s get into the actions you can take! First off, check out this video where we explain how to speed up your site in 7 simple steps:

Testing Your WordPress Website Speed

Before implementing any of the further mentioned methods, you should first test your website’s speed. Each page of your website can have different speed results, depending on what’s on it. For this example, we present to you the 3 best ways to test your overall website's speed:

• Pingdom Tool by SolarWinds - Tests site speed from variable locations worldwide, points out where attention is needed, and provides tips on how you can improve page performance.
• GTMetrix by Carbon60 - Gives a deep analysis of your site, including web vital statistics and a summary of your site’s content by size it takes up.
• Page Speed Insights by Developers Google - An even more in-depth test that analyzes your site's performance both on mobile and desktop.

10 Ways to Improve Your WordPress Website Speed:

1. Choose a Good Web Hosting Service

The more widely used shared hostings are notorious for negatively affecting loading times and uptime for that matter at peak traffic hours. Thankfully, some hosting companies have proven to provide great hosting solutions. These are some of our personal favorites, and also the top choices among most WordPress users:

• Cloudways - Managed cloud hosting, that provides great performance, fast set-up time, top-notch support, and excellent uptime.
• Kinsta - This managed hosting provides additional security, daily backups, and free migrations, as well as one of the fastest hosting services out there.
• WPEngine - Managed hosting that is designed specifically for WordPress. You don't need to install WordPress separately as it comes preinstalled with this hosting.

2. Choose an Optimal WordPress Theme

To ensure faster loading times, use an optimized theme that is lightweight and minimalistic. A theme that has a simple design and features helps fasten the loading time of your website. Here are the top 3 best WordPress themes, recommended for speeding up your site:

• Astra - One of the fastest loading and lightweight WordPress multipurpose themes.
• Visual Composer Starter Theme - A super simple theme that is built keeping SEO and responsiveness to different devices in mind.
• Kadence WP - A minimalistic theme that lets users build beautiful and accessible sites.

3. Optimize Images

Start by choosing the best image file format for your site. JPEG may offer a faster loading time, but it isn't as clear and high-resolution as PNG (better for images containing texts, graphics, and transparent backgrounds). The next step is to optimize images by compressing them. The following tools not only optimize image size without compromising the quality but also are completely free:

• WP Smush - The top image optimization plugin for WordPress, that includes compression, optimization, and lazy load options.
• Kraken.io - This plugin allows you to optimize and resize new and existing WordPress images, including animated GIF files. They also offer an online tool.
• EWWW Image Optimizer - Speed up your site with this full-blown image optimizer. EWWW IO optimizes all existing images, takes care of new ones automatically, and more.

In addition to these compression tools, you can also use the Visual Composer Insights tool, which notifies you when image sizes should be optimized. Including also other smart scenarios that improve the overall performance of your website.

4. Use Caching Plugins 

Caching can make your WordPress site anywhere from 2 to 5 times faster! Caching creates static copies of your posts, and serves them to your visitors, without sending a request to an outside server. That way, your visitors get a fast experience on your website! Do yourself a favor, and choose a plugin that will make your visitors happy:

• W3 Total Cache - Increases website performance and reduces loading time by leveraging features like content delivery network (CDN) integration and other best practices (trusted by over 1 000 000 users).
• WP Rocket - Reduces your loading time and boosts Core Web Vitals scores, granting a great website performance, without requiring any coding.
• WP Super Cache - Tailors cache files for each visitor, depending on if they have visited your site before or not, and can serve one cache file thousands of times.

Combine caching plugins with a web application firewall (WAF), like CloudFlare or Sucuri for the maximum performance boost. WAF filters traffic and protects your server by blocking threats that could damage your site.

5. Use a Content Delivery Network (CDN) 

Loading speed varies depending on where your website visitors are located and how far are they from your server location. CDN can help you improve the experience of your long-distance visitors. It creates a copy of your site for various data centers and serves your content from the nearest possible place, so take advantage of it with these tools:

• MaxCDN (now - StackPath) is a reputable content delivery network that will speed up your website and reduce your server load, including caching and purging.
• CloudFlare - Speeds up and protects websites, APIs, SaaS services, and other properties that are connected to the Internet.
• Sucuri - A cloud-based platform that secures websites, by fixing hacks and preventing future attacks.

6. Clean Up Your WordPress Database

Cleaning up your unnecessary WordPress data is important because it reduces loading time and frees up space for new data. If you wish to keep your database space to a minimum, you should:

• Remove inactive user accounts, spam comments & unnecessary drafts.
• Clean up your media library by removing images, that are no longer in use.
• Uninstall unused plugins, that will remove junk and free up backup space.
• And finally, use WP Optimize - a multi-use plugin for cleaning and organizing your website storage.

Moreso, keep no more than one plugin for one purpose/ functionality because multiple same-use plugins can contradict each other & impact your website performance negatively.

7. Deactivate Trackbacks And Pingbacks

Trackbacks and pingbacks are core components of WordPress, that inform users whenever their website receives a link. Unfortunately, this feature put a huge amount of strain on server resources, resulting in slow website speed. If you don't find them useful, you can disable them:

1. Go to your WordPress admin panel and locate 'Settings';
2. From the dropdown menu click on 'Discussion';
3. From here, disable 'Allow link notification from other blogs (pingbacks and trackbacks) on new posts';
4. Save changes.

To disable this the trackback and pingback option, for posts you have already created:

1. In your WordPress admin panel and locate 'Posts';
2. From the dropdown menu select 'All Posts';
3. Then click 'Screen Options' in the top right corner;
4. There type in '500' for 'Number of items per page to see all your posts;
5. Select all posts;
6. Under 'Bulk actions' choose 'Edit' and apply;
7. Now on the right-hand side, choose 'Ping' and select 'Do not allow'';

8. Click 'Update' to finalize changes.

8. Avoid Uploading Videos Directly to WordPress

While it is possible to upload videos directly to your WordPress site, they will take up a lot of space and decrease the loading speed of your site. Hosting videos on your own site will cost you bandwidth and increase your backup size by a bunch, which will make it difficult for you to restore WordPress from backup. Rather than uploading videos directly to your WordPress site, you should use a video hosting service, like:

• YouTube - With over 2 billion users, this is by far the most popular video hosting service, to upload, convert and store videos.
• Vimeo - This video streaming service is created more for creative professionals and businesses, and has a reputation for hosting overall higher quality videos.
• DailyMotion - This video platform is limited to 60-minute videos, and is oriented more towards news categories, yet is completely free and anyone can sign up.

In case you decide to upload a video directly to your WordPress site, make sure your website is set up to properly embed videos, and that the videos are properly optimized (compressed) before uploading.

9. Consider Using Lazy Load 

Lazy load is made to delay loading an element until it is needed. For example, if a visitor opens a page but doesn't scroll down all the way, there is no need to load the whole page contents, especially if they impact the overall loading time. This improves performance and saves system resources. To apply this functionality, you can use:

• Our very own Visual Composer Website Builder - comes with additional lazy load options for content elements, to improve your site’s speed efficiently.
• Optimole - The lazy load option of this plugin defers offscreen images and seamlessly sizes them in the container without any content shifting.
• Lazy Load - This plugin ​​reduces the number of HTTP requests and offers to replace Youtube iframes with a preview thumbnail to speed up the loading time of your website even more.
• EWWW Image Optimizer - This plugin has a special auto-scaling ability, that can generate right-sized PNG placeholders to prevent layout shifting. The PNG placeholders also help the lazy loader know the correct size of the image for the auto-scaling function.

10. Minify CSS, Javascript, And HTML 

A poorly written and overloaded code can slow down your website tremendously. Minifying sites code and script files dramatically improves speed and accessibility, directly translating into a better user experience. While you can manually minify your CSS, JS, and HTML files, you can also automate the process with these tools (and we highly suggest that you do):

• CSSNano - Takes your formatted CSS, compresses, and optimizes it, to ensure that the final result is as small as possible for a production environment.
• UglifyJS - Minifies and “beautifies” your JavaScript, by optimizing an AST (JS object containing a tree representation of your source) into a smaller one.
• Minifier - Works by running your markup through a series of regular expressions written in PHP.

Other Factors That Affect Speed

There are some factors that your website visitors are able to influence on their side if they wish to improve their own experience. And there are also other things, you should keep an eye on, to not lose speed. Those factors are:

• Internet browser - That can affect site loading speed but depends purely on user preference. Vivaldi and Opera are the fastest internet browsers. But, when looking purely at graphically intensive tasks, Chrome is the fastest.⁴
• Internet connection - This factor is dependent on users’ location and internet provider. So choose a good internet provider or location!
• Traffic volume - High traffic rates slow down your site and can even crash it, as the servers can't keep up with the request count. So, make sure your server has enough resources to handle the traffic.

Conclusions

Faster websites lead to happier visitors & enhance the chances of converting them into customers! Each and every second (down to milliseconds) matters.

When adapting your website speed, don't forget to improve it on all devices, especially for mobile and computer devices. Firstly focus on mobile speed since it is the tripping stone of most websites and generates more traffic than computes & tablets do together!

And, in case you are looking for a one solution fits all, here it is!   Visual Composer works wonders for WordPress sites in SEO ranking, performance, and speed! Get started for free and join 90 000+ developers, designers, and business owners today

In a perfect world, websites would never experience technical issues and links would always lead you to the intended pages.

Well, you can turn this problem into an opportunity, in this case, and we'll show you how.

In this article, we discuss:

• What is a 404 Error Page
• Best Approach to Creating a 404 Page
• How to Create a 404 Page
• Best 404 Page Plugins
• Most Unique 404 Page Examples

What is a 404 Error Page?

A 404 Page - also know as HTTP 404, 404 Not Found, 404, 404 Error, Page Not Found - is an error that occurs when a user is trying to reach a non-existent page.

A 404 Error happens when:

1. A user is typing a domain URL by hand and misspells.
2. The page user is trying to reach a page that has been deleted, moved, or renamed without redirecting the URL, but there are old or incorrect backlinks still circulating the net.
3. The website is down, either due to overcapacity (more users coming to a page than the server can handle), under maintenance or crashed for some reason.

In case any of these events take place - visitors land on a 404 page. This is where you can make your website visitor experience better by making the page functional or even beneficial. Similar to landing pages - you can lead users to where you want from there.

Moreso, most likely you will never be able to find & fix all of the broken links, or be able to ensure that users never mistype anything. This is why 404 pages are so important.

Best Approaches to Creating a 404 Page

Like with any error occurring on a website, there is a high chance that users will leave. Our mission is to make sure that the visitors return to the content pages and continue browsing.

The best 404 page practices are:

• Display an error message that lets the user know that they have reached an unavailable page.
• Maintain the branding of your site. Don't forget to add a logo and continue with the existing color palette and font styles as in the rest of the website.
• Add a link back to the home page. Ensure that the user has a place to return or go to next and is not left hanging in an empty space.
• Add a search bar. This helps the user to navigate to the place they had intended, and you can also add suggestions.
• Add a menu bar. This can also help users to “return to safety” and find their way back to the content.
• Add links to social media. It is always a good practice to add ways that users can get in touch with you.
• Use humor. Astonish your visitors by leaving a little less room for formalities and more for a chance to enlighten their day. They will probably be surprised if they don't reach the standard error page anyway.

There are multiple integrable elements to make your 404 pages functional and stunning. Remember that all of the elements mentioned above are optional - it is up to you how simple or extensive you make it.

Best 404 Page Plugins

In addition, some add-ons offer to do the work for you. 

The best WordPress plugins for managing 404 pages are:

• A great multi-use plugin that allows to avoid 404 page errors when you move or delete content with their Redirect Manager tool is Yoast SEO. While its main purpose is to keep track of keyword usage and optimize your site for search engines, it is a great redirection tool as well.
• The most popular regular expression (regex) tool in the WordPress plugin repository is Redirection. It helps to keep track of 404 errors, manage 301 redirections, and tidy up any loose ends your site may have.
• URL Fixers might also come in handy. For example, Link Fixer detects when WordPress cannot find a permalink. Before it generates a 404 error it locates posts with similar words. As a result, instead of issuing a 404 error, it most likely redirects the user to the intended page.

How to Create a 404 Page with Visual Composer

Thanks to website builders and other handy tools, creating a 404 page becomes a piece of cake. And in this video, we explain the best way to do it (and the easiest).

In case you are looking for an even quicker way to set a 404 page - Visual Composer offers over 300 predefined template solutions that are customizable to fit your brand.

In the Visual Composer Hub, you will find different content elements and add-ons, and also templates. Look for the marketplace icon in the navigation bar.

In the search bar, type in what you are looking for (i.e. “404”) and select from either the free or premium templates, depending on the plan you've chosen.

Once you are done designing your 404 page, you need to save the template. In this video, we explain how you can manage your 404 pages:

Best 404 Page Examples

Now that you have learned how to set up 404 pages with Visual Composer, we would like to give you some great examples of 404 pages.

Keep it Simple

This 404 page by CharlieShotMe is super simple yet elegant and perfectly matches the feel of the whole website. Remember, that 404 pages are not intended to keep the user for a while and instead to lead them back to content.

Be Creative

This is a great example of a creative 404 page design by Bocconcini. Straightforward yet entertaining. Will make the user less if not at all dissatisfied with the fact that they have reached a dead-end page.

Make it Visually Appealing

While you can never go wrong with simple designs, you can also never make a mistake with beautiful imagery. This great page design by MartiniTime has bypassed creating a 404 page, by simply redirecting all path links straight to the main page. Which by the way, is a one-page site (commonly used for informative purposes).

Use Humor

One of the greatest pages was created by Mint, which is still considered to be one of the funniest and overall best 404 page examples.

Conclusion

Now you know how the create an amazing 404 page for your website visitors, that performs the function of leading users back to your main or previous page, whichever you decide on.

Remember to always keep things simple and fun as possible with 404 pages. That way, you will be sure to keep visitors returning to your website.

Get started and install the multi-purpose Visual Composer Website Builder, to not only build 404 pages but a whole website with everything you could possibly need.

Granting the right user roles is a key for securing a website against errors caused by user’s lack of knowledge in certain areas of a WordPress site.

User roles define a set of capabilities for users. In other words, user roles state what users can and can not do with your site. In a WordPress site, there are five default user roles with a predefined set of permissions. Such as creating and editing posts, managing themes, or deleting unwanted comments.

This article will explain how to create, customize, and effectively manage user roles as you grow and start adding more helping hands to your site. Plus, in the end, we will look into popular cases on when you should consider setting up different user roles for your site.

Built-in WordPress User Roles

By default WordPress offers 5 user roles:

• Administrator
• Editor
• Author
• Contributor
• Subscriber

Note: Users who have access to all capabilities between a multisite network are Super Admins.

WordPress User Roles and Capabilities

Administrator

The most powerful role is automatically assigned to you when you create a website (most commonly assigned to site owners or developers). It gives full access to all settings, options, and features of WordPress.

Editor

The role that can manage all content sections (posts, comments, categories, and tags) also the ones created by other users.

Author

This role is for users who create, publish and edit content. Compared to the editor, the author’s controls limit to their own posts only.

Contributor

The contributor role is similar to the author’s - it allows to submit drafts for admins or editors to review, but does not allow adding media or publishing the content.

Subscriber

The role of a subscriber is for users who have registered to your site and subscribed for newsletters or updates. Allowing them to log in, update profile information, comment on posts, or even access exclusive pages or posts within your WordPress website.

Note: Be mindful about giving permissions to each role because it can easily make or break your page.

Around 70% of all sites experience downtime due to user role mismanagement

Comparing WordPress User Role Capabilities

The table below lists all the default WordPress user roles, starting from the simplest to more advanced options in comparison.

Let's compare the main differences between user roles and their capabilities:

Note: Some users can operate with all user posts, while some can control only their own.

Managing WordPress user roles

WordPress allows for creating different types of users and assigning user roles. To assign a specific user role to your user follow these steps:

1. Navigate to the 'Users' section in your WordPress Admin Dashboard
2. Checkbox users and choose new user role from Change role to drop-down menu
3. Save changes

Creating a new WordPress user

To create a new user:

1. Select Add New and fill in the necessary information
2. Click Add New User
3. A new user will receive an e-mail notification about his/her account

Note: You can control user role capabilities in Visual Composer via Role Manager.

Adding Custom WordPress User Roles

When it comes to creating a new role there are two different techniques, by plugin or by code.

First, let's look at how to add a custom role manually (you can create any role to fit your needs).

For example, let's create a Blog Moderator role, which will be able to answer or delete comments, and update or correct information within blog posts.

1. Navigate to 'Appearance' in the WordPress admin dashboard
2. Click 'Theme Editor' and make sure you're in the selected themes 'functions.php' file
3. Copy and paste the following text at the end of the code:

   add_role(
       'Blog_Moderator', 
       __( 'Blog Moderator' ), 
       array(
           'read'  => true,
           'edit_posts'   => true,
           'moderate_comments'  => true,
       )
   );
   

4. Click 'Update file' to make sure to save the new settings
5. Navigate to 'Users' in the WordPress admin dashboard
6. Select a user and click 'Change role to..' and 'Change' to finalize

Note: If you need help with ideas for permissions you can browse a list of user role capabilities.

WordPress User Role plugins

We've already told you how to create a user role manually, but there is a second option - plugins. Certain plugins have their own options when it comes to user roles. This is done to restrict user access to specific features and options.

As some websites require more specific user roles than the default WordPress set - different plugins offer different capabilities. 

Visual Composer, for example, has a Role Manager addon to help manage user access to certain features within the editor itself.

Here are some WordPress User Role plugins we’d also recommend for effective user role management:

• User Role Editor by Vladimir Garagulya - let’s assign multiple roles to users, create new roles and delete unnecessary ones (one of the most popular plugins according to user ratings on WordPress.org).
• Members by MemberStaff - has all the features mentioned above, plus the seamless integration of roles from other plugins and access to all of the add-ons free of charge (block permissions, privacy caps, and others).
• PublishPress Capabilities by PublishPress - the plus about this plugin, is that it offers backups of previous permission settings and allows to regulate media library access for different user roles (allow access for contributors or restrict access for other roles of your choice).
• WPFront by Syam Mohan - this plugin helps migrate users between sites, clone user role permissions, and restores deleted roles, if needed (besides the main features all user role plugins share).
• Ultimate Member by Ultimate Member - a great plugin for managing user memberships, offering user e-mails, custom form fields, and allowing authors to add comments on user profiles.

Note: To maintain the security of your website, review user roles regularly. Remove any users who no longer need access to your site or update permissions so that they fit the role meant for the user.

Still haven't figured out if you need to set user roles?

Let's sum it up!

Times When to Use WordPress User Roles:

• Several people are managing your site (ex. developers, bloggers);
• When different teams manage different areas of your site (ex. shop, blog);
• In cases when you have guest authors writing for your blog;
• When you have team members with less technical skills (or still learning);
• You want to give your customers a less bloated WordPress interface (so they can easily change only things they need to change).

In Conclusion

WordPress User Roles offer security for website owners, meaning less confusion for users and fewer mistakes, due to properly assigned roles.

Remember, roles are designed so users have access to the tasks, they are meant to perform on your site, simple as that.

As you can add new user roles, create custom ones, set roles in bulk, and of course, delete any role - WordPress User Roles are guaranteed to make your site's management run smoothly and efficiently!

It’s 9:00 am. You’re about to finish your first coffee cup while scrolling an online magazine or news portal. What do you see in those WordPress websites? Well, these posts are organized in the grid layout. Or you navigate through the archive page. Lists of WordPress posts filtered in a specific way (by category, tag, etc.) are called archive pages.

In this post, I am going to cover the following:

• What’s an archive page
• How to create an archive page in WordPress
• Post grid layout explained
• How to display WordPress posts in a grid layout

To give you some icing on the cake, I will provide a list of the best archive page and grid plugins for WordPress.

Ready? Go!