25+ WordPress hacks for developers

WordPress is the global leader among content management systems. A vast majority of organizations, small and medium-sized businesses use WordPress, but it’s also the first choice for many individuals who run their own websites.

WordPress powers dozens of millions of websites around the globe, so we decided to show you a few stats to prove its supremacy:

• Almost 30% of all websites on the global scale use WordPress. Joomla, Drupal, and all other platforms barely reach 5%.

• This content management system receives over 22 billion monthly page views.

• Millions of users demand new WordPress features each day. For this reason, it offers more than 50 thousand plugins.

If you are thinking about developing your own WordPress-based webpage, you need to learn the most frequent tricks and make the job easier. In this article, we will show you top 25 WordPress hacks for developers.

1. Change the Login Logo With Yours

It’s always nice to have your own logo instead of the standard WordPress mark. If you want to change it, open the functions.php file and add a custom login logo. It’s a small detail but still important for the overall brand awareness.

2. Install Google Analytics on WordPress

Google Analytics is an anchor of every website because it allows developers to find out all information about user behavior. Monster Insights is the plugin that can set up Google Analytics to the webpage easily even if you don’t want to bother with coding. That way, you will finish the process faster and skip to the next WordPress hacks.

3. Change the Footer in WordPress Admin Panel

A classic footer that you see in WordPress admin field can be rearranged quickly. Instead of ‘Thank you for creating with WordPress’ you can add your own message simply by writing the code: function remove_footer_admin. Doing so, you can add text according to your style and personal preferences.

4. Disable WordPress Login Hints

When hackers try to attack your webpage, they look for detailed error messages on the WordPress login page. You should disable this type of content to improve site security by adding: function no_wordpress_erros. This will make the job more difficult for hackers and they will probably stop trying to breach the safety border.

5. Show Images In Rows and Columns

WordPress-powered websites display images on top of each other, which usually doesn’t look so good. If you want to change this, you change the format to the grid layout. You can do it manually or use plugins such as Envira Gallery.

6. Change the Default Avatar

WordPress has a default avatar on its blogs, which is really annoying for most users. You can develop your own version of avatar by uploading the selected image and adding the code: add_filter( ‘avatar_defaults’, ‘wpb_new_gravatar’ ). After that, simply go to Settings – Discussion to select the custom avatar.

7. Keep Logged In WordPress For A Longer Period

Public networks can be dangerous for the website security, so we recommend you log out after usage. But if you constantly use the same (private or business) network, you should allow it to remember your login data like this: add_filter( ‘auth_cookie_expiration’, ‘stay_logged_in_for_1_year’ )

8. Subscribe To Comments

When users post comments, they always come back looking for replies and reactions. It’s a boring task if you have to do it manually, so we suggest you install the Subscribe To Comments Reloaded plugin to automatically send email notifications to users once they receive comment feedback.

9. Randomly Change Background Color

Some developers love to see the webpage background color change randomly day after day. If you are one of those guys, you can do it by changing functions.php code or using the plugin called Fabulous Background Colors.

10. Add Featured Image To Each Post

It’s easy to publish a simple post in WordPress but you might want to make it mandatory to add a featured image to each one. This task demands a few extra lines of coding but it will make your content more interesting.

11. Limit Login Attempts

Standard WordPress website settings give users as many login attempts as they need. In theory, this gives people the chance to keep entering passwords until they guess the correct option. A plugin called Login LockDown records the IP address and timestamp of every failed login attempt. If more than a certain number of attempts are detected within a short period of time from the same IP range, then the login function is disabled for all requests from that range.

12. Add New Navigation Menus to Your Theme

If you want more than the default WordPress navigation menu, you can create your own and unique design. To do it, you need to enter function wpb_custom_new_menu. After that, you need to choose ‘My Custom Menu’ in Appearance – Menus.

13. Reduce Post Revisions

WordPress does not limit the number of post revisions, which is impractical and slows down page load times. To change this, go to wp-config.php file and add: define( ‘WP_POST_REVISIONS’, 3 ). Simply write the number of revisions you find appropriate and it’s done.

14. Add a Facebook Thumbnail Image

According to content creators at professional writing service, the worst thing that could happen is to find a terrible photo next to the article that took you days to write it perfectly. When you want to avoid random and inappropriate images following your posts on Facebook, you can download Yoast SEO plugin to choose the convenient photo.

15. Manipulate RSS Feed Footer

Bloggers can add advertisements to the RSS Feeds under their posts to maximize the marketing potential of the blog. This can be done using a simple coding move like this:

16. Delay Posting To RSS Feeds For A While

Sometimes you just don’t notice a type until you see the post published online. However, you can postpone email distribution for a while to avoid such inconveniences. Open the functions.php file and add code: Delay_RSS_After_Publish. You can postpone it for 30 or 60 minutes, or whatever period of time you consider necessary.

17. Show Abstracts in RSS Feed

RSS feeds automatically come in the full-article form, which makes it easier for receivers to copy/paste the content or read posts without ever visiting your webpage. It’s a minor but very annoying issue – solve it in Settings – Reading by choosing ‘summary’ option in the box called ‘For each article in a feed, show’.

18. Disable Login by Email

Most developers prefer logging in with username instead of email address. If you want to disable email login, you need to write a small piece of code to the functions file: remove_filter( ‘authenticate’, ‘wp_authenticate_email_password’, 20 );

19. Show the number of results found

When users search for a phrase in WordPress websites, they don’t get the exact number of search results. To change this feature, you need to enter a code line into the search.php file to display the number.

20. Display Random Header Images 

Some people love to see random header images on their websites. You can upload dozens of image files to create a colorful WordPress theme. Do it in Appearance – Customize section by clicking the Header option. Expand it, add new header images, and choose the ‘randomize’ option to confirm this action.

21. Remove RSS Feeds 

If you don’t need a WordPress site with RSS feed, you can disable this option quickly. Here is what you need to do:

22. Show Total Number of Registered Users

A lot of WordPress developers want to prove website authority by revealing the total number of registered users. The easiest way to do it is by downloading the Simple Blog Stats plugin. This tool will show you the overall number of posts, comments, drafts, and many other features.

More importantly, Simple Blog Stats will also reveal the number of registered users, so you don’t have to spend time changing code lines in the function file wpb_user_count.

23.  Add Full Screen Search Overlay

If you want to make the search experience more friendly and transparent, you can add the full screen search overlay to your WordPress-based webpage. Simply install and run the WordPress Full Screen Search Overlay plugin and you’ll get this valuable feature.

24. Disable XML-RPC

Third parties can interact with your webpage remotely through the XML-RPC module, which sometimes leads to security breaches. To avoid potential safety risks, you should turn it off using a new code in functions file: add_filter(‘xmlrpc_enabled’, ‘__return_false’).

25. Include Category in Post URLs

Adding categories to content links can improve your search ranking and maximize the SEO potential of your posts. For this reason, you should go to Settings – Permalinks, choose the custom structure and write /%category%/%postname%/ beside.

CONCLUSION

As the most powerful content management platform in the world, WordPress attracts thousands of developers. It’s hard to find a website that doesn’t run on this system, so it’s a real challenge for programmers to become the masters of WordPress design.

In this article, we showed you 25 best WordPress hacks for developers. If you follow our tips, you can upgrade your knowledge and build better websites. Therefore, you should bear our suggestions in mind and don’t hesitate to leave us a comment if you have other inquiries about this topic – we would be glad to give you a hand!