News

As WordPress becomes ever more popular it becomes a target for hackers and malware. Just like Windows dominates the computer market and suffers from viruses due to it’s massive market share, WordPress is suffering a similar fate. To avoid problems, keeping your installation up to date is the single most important thing you can do. Update your plugins, secure WordPress folders, automate backups in the event of disaster so you have your info and data, and limit your potential spam avenues. Not sure which plugins to use or how to backup your website? Call me now on +1 (829) 726-6219!

It has been decided, the next major project for Cabarete Web Design will be an online store that sells water sports equipment, and in particular, stand up paddle boarding gear. Under the tentative name of Green Water Sports (EDIT: Now confirmed), the store will use a WordPress base and Woocommerce as the shopping cart platform. Stay tuned as we track the development of this project.

A new surf school/surf tour/surf package option on the North Coast of the Dominican Republic is now available and open for guests. From the House of Waves website: Dominican Republic Surf School and High Performance Training House of Waves is a surf school located on the wave rich Caribbean island of the Dominican Republic. We offer guided surf trips and vacations, surf lessons and high-performance training that will take your surfing to the next level. Our coaching programs are designed for all ability levels, from the novice to the elite surfer. We invite you to enjoy great waves and a beautiful tropical paradise…

Have you ever come across an article or page on the interwebs that sounds forced or a little off? It was probably written by a robot. These robots take human written text, slice it and dice it and publish it in all sorts of locations for search engine optimisation (SEO) purposes. These articles include links to various pages that may seem vaguely related. These back links build a site’s profile and eventually their ranking in Google. And we all know that a higher rank in Google is worth it’s weight in gold. However, Google is now cracking down on this style…

In expanding their concierge services, DRREBA.com is now offering vacation or long term rentals in the Cabarete and Sosua areas. The listings are controlled by WordPress, as usual, and offer easy to input data fields for each property. The galleries are native with a jquery colorbox addition. Listings are organised by category and are also fully searchable by all features and content.

When I set up a new client’s website, the first thing I do after registering the domain name is to create a Google Analytics account. This service allows you to track your site visitor numbers, time spent on site, visitor IP location, where they came from … the list goes on and on. There are so many metrics it can make the mind boggle, however, knowing where people come from, what language they speak, what screen size they use, is all extremely important information for creating a better experience for the visitor and improving and refining your content and advertising…

Ever wondered where the image, title and text come from when you share or like a link on Facebook? Has your site ever had a weird image, title or text show up when you’ve shared it? This information is either selected by Facebook after it “scrapes” your page for an image, title and description, or, via the Facebook open graph meta properties. If these properties aren’t set, it can pull up weird and random images and text from your site. When people share or like your link, this info is being shown to their friends or even the public so…

As with everything in life and business, you need to be safe and have a backup plan if things go wrong. As Murphy’s Law will always dictate, if you don’t have a plan you’ll be in deep doodoo when the doodoo hits the fan. With your website though, this is easily solved. Have a backup and Murphy’s Law will mean that you’ll never need it. If you do need it, you’ll have it there ready to go. Minimal down time and hopefully, no lost revenue. I use WordPress for 99% of my clients. Not only does this make it easy…

A new event for the North Coast town of Cabarete, Dominican Republic. Showcasing all that the town offers for the adventurous to family oriented travellers, WEPA Cabarete will offer activities for a week starting May 28th through to June 2nd. From the WEPA Cabarete website: WEPA stands for: Wind Energy Playa Ambience, all the things that make Cabarete what it is today! WEPA is a showcase of Cabarete’s uniqueness and a fund raiser, to enable young talented local athletes stars to participate in competitions around the world and promote Cabarete there. Registration is open to all. It is only US$ 150 to…

A few months ago, the 3 Mariposas Montessori hit a few snags in managing their website. In to the rescue was Cabarete Web Design and within just a couple of days, the site was back up and running on a new server, with a secure and updated admin system, updated sidebar to integrate social media and further customising and edits for a more complete and interactive website. Amongst other new features, the website now features my automated file and database back up service which copies your entire WordPress file system (site admin and content) and database weekly, and saves the 10…