10uppers Share Expertise Through Articles, Conferences, and Webinars

Jeff Paul on June 7, 2021

10uppers travel the globe every year to volunteer, speak at, and organize dozens of industry events. The pandemic may have limited the ability to travel to events, but it hasn’t stopped our team from giving back and sharing their expertise. Here are some recent highlights:

WP Engine Includes ElasticPress.io In New eCommerce Hosting Plans

Vasken Hauri on June 3, 2021

WP Engine recently announced a new eCommerce solution for Small/Medium Businesses (SMBs) seeking to launch a new WooCommerce store or scale up, optimize, and increase revenue for an existing online store.

The new solution offers an integration with ElasticPress.io — our fully integrated, end-to-end SaaS solution for adding the power of Elasticsearch to WordPress and WooCommerce.

10up Recognized In 2021 Microsoft Supplier Program (MSP) Prestige Awards

Elena Bargo on May 27, 2021

At 10up, we have enjoyed collaborative, multi-year partnerships with several different departments and teams at Microsoft, including the Microsoft Cloud Marketing team. Since 2017, 10up has successfully scaled the Cloud Blog’s platform to support 18+ blogs, several migrations, accessibility compliance, and strategic initiative projects with innovative and cost-effective technology solutions.

Each year, we build upon those strategic relationships to positively impact the Microsoft brand.

This year we were honored to be nominated for three different supplier awards in the 2021 Microsoft Supplier Program Prestige Awards and named a finalist in one category.

Seven 10up Projects Recognized In 25th Annual Webby Awards

Jake Goldman on April 26, 2021

The Webby Awards honors excellence on the Internet. It is the most widely accepted industry award recognizing websites, online video and advertising, apps, Internet games, and podcasts. For its 25th year, a record-breaking 13,500 projects from around the world were entered into the competition.

We were honored to discover that seven projects supported by 10up in 2020 have been recognized by The Webby Awards — including three listing 10up as the creator, and four others listing clients and partners.

Core Web Vitals and Google’s Page Experience Ranking Signal

Patrick Ahl on April 19, 2021 • 1 Comment

A significant Google search algorithm update coming this June incorporates new performance metrics: Core Web Vitals. A new set of ranking signals based around page experience combines Core Web Vitals with existing signals such as mobile-friendliness, safe-browsing, HTTPS-security, and intrusive interstitial guidelines to provide a holistic picture of the quality of a user’s experience on a web page.

Google tends to be guarded when it comes to big algorithm updates and how those changes impact search engine results and page rankings. This time, the search giant has provided explicit insight into what’s coming and how site owners and digital agencies can prepare.

Core Web Vitals were introduced by Google less than a year ago to measure real-world web page user experiences and provide guidance for delivering a great experience. While Google captures many data points that speak to site performance and considers hundreds of ranking factors in its algorithm, the Core Web Vitals this update will focus on are:

Largest Contentful Paint (LCP): Measures perceived load speed — the time from clicking a link to seeing the majority of the on-screen content.
First Input Delay (FID): Measures responsiveness and interactivity — the time “long” tasks delay a visitor’s ability to interact with a page.
Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS): Measures visual stability — the unexpected movement of page elements due to lengthy load time or ad insertions that hinder user interaction and experience.

How To Optimize Search For A WordPress Ecommerce Store

Vasken Hauri on March 29, 2021

On Wednesday, March 31, I’ll be joining the team at WP Engine to deliver a free webinar titled How to Optimize Search for Your WordPress Ecommerce Store.

We’ll show how analytics can be used to create dynamic search results that boost sales and how modern search tooling can set up an online store to scale smoothly as the business grows. We’ll also highlight some ecommerce stores that are “doing it right” — like an apparel company that saw an 18% increase using the techniques this webinar covers.

10up Releases Convert to Blocks to Support Safe Migrations to The WordPress Block Editor

Darshan Sawardekar on March 25, 2021 • 2 Comments

Convert to Blocks is a new WordPress plugin that automatically converts existing classic content to blocks when a page or post needs to be edited.

The plugin works upon activation, with no configuration needed and does nothing until an editor needs to update or edit an existing piece of content. If a page or post is not already formatted using blocks when the editor is opened, Convert to Blocks automatically maps the content to the relevant blocks that come with WordPress. This approach ensures that existing and older content is preserved as-is until modified, which reduces the risk of unknowingly breaking a page or post content.

10up Relaunches Eight Day Week, Rolls Out Dedicated Microsite

Jeff Paul on March 23, 2021

We recently relaunched Eight Day Week, our free, open-source plugin that adds web-to-print workflow capabilities to WordPress. As part of the relaunch, we rolled out a new microsite to help explain the plugin.

With no settings or configurations to set up, the plugin empowers publishers to:

Design individual print publications by organizing WordPress Posts into Print Issues. Within print issues, editors can create sections, arrange articles, and manage each article’s status.
Manage access for print production staff with new print users roles isolated to access and CMS capabilities relevant to their job — e.g. creating and managing issues, viewing issue information, and exporting for final production.
Export the print issue as an XML package that can be imported into Adobe InDesign for final page layout and print production.

Two 10up Plugins Compete In Plugin Madness 2021

Jeff Paul on March 19, 2021

Two of 10up’s open-source solutions are vying for your votes in Torque Magazine’s 2021 Plugin Madness competition: Safe Redirect Manager and ElasticPress.

In its sixth year, this bracket-style competition pits the best WordPress plugins against each other. This year, more than 300 plugins were nominated and narrowed to just 64 competitors. Voting is open now and everyone is invited to weigh-in.

WordPress 5.7 Released

Jeff Paul on March 11, 2021

WordPress 5.7 was released this week, bringing with it a refined block editor UI, lazy-loading iframes, streamlined migration from HTTP to HTTPS, standardized colors in the WordPress Admin, and a new Robots API and media search engine visibility setting.

FunFact: WordPress 5.7 is named for Esperanza Spalding, a modern musical prodigy. This is only the second time a WordPress namesake has been a living jazz musician.

Nine 10uppers helped make this release possible, including myself, who was recognized as a Noteworthy Contributor. Thank you for helping make WordPress: Helen Hou-Sandí, Fabian Kaegy, Felipe Elia, John Watkins, Lukas Pawlik, Pete Nelson, Ramon Ahnert, and Stephanie Walters.