What’s New In WordPress 5.7

WordPress 5.7 is scheduled to be released on March 9th, 2021. This will be WordPress’s first major release for 2021. The new version will introduce some new features and improvements.

Editor Improvements in WordPress 5.7

  • Drag and Drop Blocks from Inserter
  • Full-height Blocks
  • Block Variations Descriptions
  • Social Icon Sizes
  • Improved Buttons
  • Adjust Font Size in More Blocks

Lazy Loading iFrames

Lazy loading is an optimation technique that waits to load some items until they are in the user’s view. The goal is to speed up the page loading. WordPress has already been using lazy loading for images since WordPress 5.5.

All embeds that use iframes, such as YouTube videos, will use lazy loading to improve your page loading speeds.

One-Click Site Migration from HTTP to HTTPS

In previous versions of WordPress, when you moved from HTTP to HTTP, you had to manually update URLs embedded in your content. WordPress 5.7 will now make is easier to migrate your website to HTTPS. In the site health menu under critical issues, it will display a button that users can click to update the WordPress URLs to use HTTPS.

New Robots API

The robots meta tag allows website owners to dictate how a web page should be indexed and served to users in search engine results. WordPress 5.7 will introduce a new function called wp_robots. Developers will be able to modify the robots meta tag by adding their own filters to the function.

add_filter( 
	'wp_robots', 
	function( $robots ) {
		$robots['follow'] = true;
		return $robots;
	}
);

WordPress 5.7 will also add a max-image-preview:large directive by default to websites configured to be visiable by search engines. This will instruct each search engine to display large image previews in search results.

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
    <head>
        <meta name="robots" content="max-image-preview:large" />
    </head>

If you are more inclined with letting search engines decide which image to use for the previews, you can add the following code to the themes functions.php file or a site-specific plugin.

	
remove_filter( 'wp_robots', 'wp_robots_max_image_preview_large' );

WordPress 5.7 adds loads of new features and improvements for both developers and users. Let us know what new features and improvements you like and what you would like to see in future releases.

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5 WooCommerce Alternatives That You Should Consider

If you visit WordPress ecommerce website, most likely it is using WooCommerce.  WooCommerce is by far the most popular ecommerce solution for WordPress sites.  But that doesn’t mean that it’s the only game in town.  There are numerous reasons why someone chooses not to use WooCommerce.  If an alternate to WooCommerce is the best option, we will show you what the alternatives are.

Easy Digital Download

1. Easy Digital Download

WooCommerce allows you to sell physical and digital merchandises.  Easy Digital Download is another option that was made within digital merchandise in mind. There are add-ons sold for it that provide frontend submissions, software licensing, and payment gateways.  If you are planning on selling just digital items, then this is a great alternative.

Memberpress

2. Memberpress

Memberpress is a WordPress plugin that allows you to sell paid memberships subscriptions.  Memberpress can easily provide multiple payment gateways, pricing tables and many other tools to help manage your subscription services.  WooCommerce has extensions that provide subscription services, but you will need additional addons to add on things like affiliate programs, pricing pages and others.  Memberpress doesn’t have the ability to act as a traditional cart.  If you need to sell any kind of product you would need to use it alongside of WooCommerce.

Ecwid Ecommerce

3. Ecwid Ecommerce

Ecwid Ecommerce is similar to WooCommerce, but the biggest difference is that it is a ecommerce platform that can integrate into other places beside wordpress.  It allows you to sell your products on other places like Ebay, Amazon, Facebook, and Instagram.  With Ecwid, you are able to choose from over 30 different payment processing options and has shipping carriers integrated.  Ecwid Ecommerce does come with a free version, but you are only able to sell 10 items and there are a lot of options that are not available to you.  To get more products to sell and access to some of the other features you would need to choose from one of their other options that range from $15 to $99 a month.

WP eCommerce

4. WP eCommerce

WP eCommerce is very much similar to WooCommerce.  It’s a free plugin that provide WordPress sites an ecommerce solution.  You can purchase additional addons and extensions to add additional features like payment gateways, coupon management, subscription management and more.  The biggest draw for WP eCommerce is the ability to be able to edit the HTML and CSS code.  This allows you customize the layout to fit your own vision.

Shopify

5. Shopify

Unlike WooCommerce and all the other alternatives mentioned, Shopify does not need WordPress.  Shopify is an ecommerce hosting solution.  Everything needed to have an online store is provided by Shopify. You don’t have to worry about security, updates, or hosting, Shopify take care of it all.  One of the drawbacks to Shopify is that you don’t have as much control of the website as you would with WooCommerce. You are also charge transaction fees which could add up if you have a lot of sales.