This Week in WordPress #183
This week's WordPress news for the week commencing Monday 25th October 2021
Tag podcast
252 – Let someone else take care of your website policies
So... you build WordPress websites and you love it. You know what you don't love? Policies. Admit it, you don't do you? The last thing that you want to be spending your time on is ensuring that you've got all your websites, and those of your clients, up-to-date with the latest policies. The reason for this is pretty obvious. You're the website building expert, but you're not a legal expert... well, you're not likely to be. Step up Termageddon to make all this go away! On the podcast today we learn about how Termageddon can make all of your legal dramas go away with their easy to use service. Check out the podcast...
251 – ‘V’ is for Vulnerabilities
It was going to be V for Virus, but we have probably had enough of the word right now, and vulnerabilities perhaps better describes what we are really talking about here - WordPress security. This is where we are different and roles are reversed. Nathan listens to podcasts on IT security and sees the worst that can happen. David remains relatively clueless and feel invincible! He's fixed about 7 hacked sites. None due to his management and the issues have not returned. It made him feel like he was king of the world! We're not experts in this by any means, but we do like to think about it and talk about it... So check out the podcast today and let us know what you think...
250 – Automated website testing with Ghost Inspector
So you have a WordPress website and it's all built and handed over to the client. You're done! Hurrah! Wait a minute, you're not done are you? Chances are that you've used some simple tools for uptime monitoring. You know what I mean. The kind of tools that periodically ping your website and report back if the site is still alive. You might even have gone a step further and employed a tool that offers you some sort of visual feedback. It will make sure that the site of yesterday looks like the site of today, and in this way you can be sure that nothing untoward has occurred. But what if you wanted to go a step further? What if you wanted to check all-the-things, and not just make sure that the website is up, but that the website is working. There is a difference! Today we speak to Justin Klemm about Ghost Inspector, which is tool which can do many, many things to make sure that your site is up and working. It's more options than you can shake a stick and might save you the late night client call, because you knew and fixed things before they even knew about it!
This Week in WordPress #181
This week's WordPress news for the week commencing 27th September 2021
249 – ‘U’ is for Undo
This is about common WordPress mistakes and how to get out of a pickle if things go wrong. With all the plugins, themes and community work in WordPress, it's often surprising that any of it hangs together, and that WordPress websites even work at all... (even more so since the Gutenberg Project says David!). Yet, despite that, neither of us have really had any issues over the years. How can this be? There's certainly plenty of scope for things to go wrong on your WordPress website, and to go wrong badly, and that's the subject of the podcast today. What can go wrong and how might you recover. Check out the podcast...
248 – How Gravity Hopper will take care of all your Gravity Forms
So on the podcast today we have Joshua Vandercar from Gravity Hopper which is a plug that allows you to have a central dashboard for all your Gravity Forms. Joshua is employed by Rocket Genius, the developers of Gravity Forms, so he knows a thing or two about how it all works! The idea is that you create a standalone install of WordPress is put the Gravity Hopper plugin on there and from that moment on you have a central dashboard from which you can handle all of your forms on all of your websites. With Gravity Hopper you can squirrel those forms away and deploy them with just a few clicks on other sites. In fact the magic goes a little further than that, because it might be that you only want to deploy a collection of commonly used fields and not entire forms? That's possible too, and so are field groups, sections and so on. There's a lot more to the plugin than this, so check out the podcast today and see if Gravity Hopper can help you save time and effort with your Gravity Forms.
246 – Building your own social network with the Friends plugin
So you love Facebook and you hate Facebook, you love Twitter and you hate Twitter. You love... You get the idea! If you're anything like me you have at times questioned how much time you've spent trawling through social media. You may even be worried about how much data they've been gathering about you, or perhaps thinking about whether or not we're even able to escape from it all. On the podcast today we've got Alex Kirk, and he certainly has been thinking about all of this. So much so in fact that he's built a social network plugin for WordPress. Listen to the podcast to find out all about it...
This Week in WordPress #177
This week's WordPress news for the week commencing 30th August 2021
245 – ‘S’ is for SEO
So today on the podcast David and Nathan talk about SEO. David certainly knows more about this than Nathan does, but neither of us claim to be experts! It's a hard subject to ever feel happy about as there's never an end to it all. Google keeps changing what you need to do and you're always under a barrage of new information from all over the internet. So in this episode, we just say it as we see it. What do we need to do and what are some of the tools that we've used to make our WordPress websites have good SEO and page ranking in the search engines? Go check out the podcast...
This Week in WordPress #176
This week's WordPress news for the week commencing Monday 23rd August 2021
244 – ‘R’ is for Resources
There are so many tools that you open up each day to do your job as a WordPress website builder or developer. In fact, I'd go as far as say that if you actually counted up the tools that you use each month, it's going to be way more that you think. There's graphics to create, template to conjure up, themes and plugins to discover and implement, emails to send, ways of getting client content... Honestly, the list just goes on and on. Inspired by suggestions from the WP Builds Facebook Group, we decided to put together a podcast highlighting some of the resources you use. There's some real gems in here... honestly, so go check out the podcast today to find out more...
243 – A different way of doing hosting: Servebolt with Remkus de Vries
If I got you to list out all of the things that you'd like your WordPress websites to be, I'm pretty sure that the word "fast" would be pretty close to the top of that list. It's super important for your website to be fast. Good hosting is crucial to your website's speed and today on the podcast we've got Remkus de Vries from Servebolt to explain why they think that they're fast, like really fast! There's a whole lot going on with their technology stack which is pretty unique and so it's well worth a listen to the podcast to find out if Servebolt is a good choice for your next WordPress website. Go listen...
242 – ‘Q’ is for Quibbles
It’s another A-Z of WordPress. The series where we attempt to cover all the major aspects of building and maintaining sites with WordPress. Today is for Q for Quibble, which is a slight objection or criticism about a trivial matter and here we are looking at those objections and criticism from both outside the WordPress community and from within. There's so many little things that we wish we could change and they add up to quite a lot, but looked at individually, they're really not too bad. So this podcast is one long moan about all the little things that we wish we could alter about WordPress. It feels good to let all this out! Go check out the podcast...
241 – How FixRunner can take on the maintenance of your WordPress websites
WordPress website maintenance and care plans might be something that you like to do, but they also might get in the way of the actual building of your websites. FixRunner are here to help you with that. They will handle all of the dull management tasks for you so that you can focus upon your clients and their website build needs. They offer all the expected things like updates, fixes, backups, but have a pretty unique one-fix pricing options as well meaning you don't need to subscribe to their service if you just need one thing fixing. Listen to founder Sam Mulaim on the podcast today...
240 – ‘P’ is for Plugins
WordPress plugins... there are so many to choose from, but it's perhaps the fact that they exist that makes WordPress the huge success that it is. So what's the point of a plugin and how do they differ from themes. Will blocks be a replacement in the future? We get into the subject of what are the 'essential' plugins that we think every WordPress site needs and which ones we have earmarked as our favourites. This discussion could have gone on for hours, but thankfully it didn't! Find out what we think about WordPress plugins in the podcast today...
239 – Use Patchstack to keep your WordPress website safe
So you might not have heard about the WordPress security company Patchstack before, but you will likely know about them! You see, until recently, they were called WebARX, but they decided that this was a somewhat confusing, and hard to pronounce name, and so changed it to Patchstack. We talk today to founder Oliver Sild, and get to the bottom of why and how the re-branding went as well as what new features have been added to the platform at the time of the changeover. You might be able to assist their security efforts and get paid into the bargain with their Red Team initiative. Go check out the podcast...
238 – ‘0’ is for Open Source
If something is free then it's likely not very good. That's the generally accepted wisdom is most aspects of life, but not with WordPress! WordPress like many other software platforms is free to use and free to modify. It's yours to use as you see fit, and you don't have to pay a penny for it. This is great, and it's all underpinned by a the 'philosophy' of the Open Source. Today in the podcast we talk about what this means and how it plays out for WordPress in particular. It's got huge benefits, but also some significant downsides. Maybe you contribute back to the WordPress project, or earn a living off the back of the development and popularity of it, there's sure to be something in this episode, so go and take a listen...
237 – Why WS Form might be the form plugin you’ll try next
So your first thought might well be this "Why do I need to look at yet another form plugin? What I've already got works fine." Well... just put that sentiment on the shelf somewhere and have a look at WS Form. When you've done that, and done it properly, tell me that you're not impressed with what it offers! Today I'm chatting to the WS Form founder and developer Mark Westguard, and he's going to tell you in his own words why you might want to take a look. It's a truly remarkable for solution and will enable you to create very complex forms with a simple to use interface. Not to mention that it connects with all-the-things that you could wish for. Check out the podcast...
236 – ‘N’ is for Numbers
WordPress is a huge and growing platform. But, just how huge is it? Well, today we answer this and many other utterly unrelated questions as we lift the lid on the numbers in WordPress. How many plugins, how many WordCamps, number of plugins, which languages. It's all in this episode. When we were researching this, it was honestly amazing just how big some of the numbers get. So join us today as we talk through WordPress by the numbers! Check out the podcast now...
235 – Use Newsletter Glue to create great emails… with Blocks!
If you're creating newsletters for your content and you use WordPress, put that quill down and check out the podcast today. Newsletter Glue is a really great blocks product that I'm sure many of you are going to love. TL;DR you can create all your blog posts and emails at-the-same-time in the WordPress Block Editor. It's a huge time saver. Write once, publish on the web and to your list at the same time. It works with all the major email providers and I'm honestly loving using it. Not only that, but the WP Builds folk are going to get 15% off the plugin - check out the post for details. This is one not to miss and your email sending clients will love it too. Check out the podcast...
233 – Store your Media Library in the cloud with the Infinite Uploads plugin
Check out the new Infinite Uploads plugin on the WP Builds podcast today. I'm joined by co-founder, Josh Dailey, who explains what it's all about, which is making your site faster. It sucks up your WordPress Media Library files and puts them in their cloud and serves them from +50 global points of presence... it all looks and behaves the same, it all happens in the background. We get into their tech stack and how they make sure that your media is safe and served up quickly. We also talk about their scalable pricing model and how they avoid vendor lock in by making it easy to download your files at any time. So if you're interested in making your website media load quickly, this is a must listen...
This Week in WordPress #166
This week's WordPress news for the week commencing 31st May 2021
232 – ‘L’ is for Loading
Today we talk about WordPress website page speed and why this is important, how you can measure it and some ideas about what you can do to improve it. There's quite a lot to say about this, and it's really timely with Google's Core Web Vitals (CWV) coming on-stream in the near future. We talk about what CWV is and what it's measuring, what WordPress loads out of the box, what tools you can use to measure your website page speed as well as what plugins you might consider to address any bottlenecks that you discover. How does hosting play into all this as well. As I say, there's a lot of ground to cover, so go check out the podcast to see what we think...
231 – One-click checkout in WooCommerce with PeachPay
PeachPay is a new 1-click-checkout option for your WooCommerce store. It aims to remove some of the friction of getting people to click the 'buy now' button by removing multiple steps for people who've used PeachPay before. We talk about how it works, debunk some myths, and discuss why you might want to think about add this to your WooCommerce website. If you build eCommerce websites for clients, you need to know about this solution and how it could improve their sales. Go listen...
229 – Creating Custom Sales Funnels For WooCommerce with LaunchFlows
In today’s world there is no difference between “digital” and “physical” products insofar as the transactional engine of your website is concerned. While it may have been true in the past that certain products like EDD were focused on capabilities for those who sell digitally licensed subscription software, that is no longer a factor, as the capability exists for WooCommerce to do everything. Since WooCommerce is one of the most popular plugins in the entire WordPress ecosystem, why “wouldn’t” anyone use it for all purposes? And that's what the podcast is about today, a plugin called LaunchFlows which will help you supercharge your WooCommerce store. Go listen...
228 – ‘J’ is for Jobs
This episode is about all the many, many, many jobs that you do each and every time you build a WordPress website for yourself or for a client. There really are so many! I'm not too sure that I do quite as much as David does, because, as you'll hear, he's does rather a lot. From setting hosting and email, from forms to security, this episode could have gone on for a long time. Maybe you treat each project individually, or have a template that you keep coming back to. Go listen to the podcast today and tell us what you think...
227 – Building websites in a day with your team
I've often thought about building my WordPress websites on the one day model, it's got so much going for it. I've heard stories of quite a few people who are managing this very effectively. However, it's always been something that I've associated with a single freelancer. I'd always assumed that the margins were pretty tight, and therefore most likely to work with one person. Well, Candy Phelps is on the podcast today to tell me (and you) otherwise! She's built a business creating websites in a day with a team, and, as you might have guessed, it's all about the process. If you get the process right from the start, you can make this work, as you'll have all your ducks in a row, so that there's no time wasted and every member of your team know what to do and when to do it. It's pretty interesting to see how this all hangs together. Go listen...
This Week in WordPress #160
This week's WordPress news - Covering The Week Commencing 19th April 2021
226 – ‘I’ is for Images
The web is made up of Pictures and Words. Some of those pictures are moving (video), but it's basically just those two things. We have easy ways to deal with putting photos and other kinds of images onto our WordPress websites with the features that are baked in, but there's so much more to this topic. What kind of images are the best to use? How many thumbnail sizes should we be storing? Should we be serving our images over a CDN? Is it a good idea to compress our images so that they make a more lean loading experience? Where can we source our images? What software is good for quick alterations to the images that we've got. Honestly, there are a dozen more questions, but you get the idea that there's a lot more to images than meets the eye. Go listen to the podcast to find out more...
225 – Send amazing curated newsletters with Curated
Having a newsletter is one of the best ways that you can communicate with an audience. In fact, I'd go as far as to say, that it's the best. There's no third-party platform involved. You are communicating with people who have signed up, and therefore really want to get your content. But, it can be a dull job keeping the content flowing. Today we learn about a SaaS platform which might just make that job a lot less painful. I've started to use it and it's shaved hours out of my week. Go listen to the podcast today to find out more...
224 – ‘H’ is for Health
Today on the WP Builds podcast we're talking about health. Not your health, but the health of the WordPress sites you build or manage. Turns out that there's a boatload of things that need to be done regularly to keep your sites fighting fit. From backing them up to monitoring their uptime. Checking that they're okay after updates to keeping up with the latest SEO trends. I could go on for a lot longer, in fact David and I do in the podcast. From an agency perspective, this episode is particularly interesting because many of the things that we discuss today are areas which you can productise and sell to your clients; because honestly, they're unlikely to be something that your clients are interested in, they'll just want to know that it's done. Go check out the podcast today.
223 – How we built the WP Buffs business
WP Buffs has been a company on the rise for several years now. I'm sure that you've seen some of their content and perhaps listened to their podcast or attended their WPMMR summit? The podcast today is all about how you can grow a 'side gig' business into a thriving business by creating engaging content around the subjects that your target audience really want to know about. So WP Buffs is really in the business of maintaining WordPress website, but how do you get noticed in this competitive field? How do you gain new customers when your rivals already have heritage? Content, that's how. Joe Howard explains how they created content which they knew people wanted to consume from keyword research. Blog posts, then a podcast, then a virtual summit. Join us on the podcast today to see how they did it...
This Week in WordPress #154
This week's WordPress news - Covering The Week Commencing Monday 8th March 2021
220 – ‘F’ is for forms
It’s another of chats in the series called the A-Z of WordPress where we attempt to cover all the major aspects to building and maintaining sites with WP. Today is F for... Forms. We expect most sites to have a contact form. Something that does not require the visitor to launch an email client, but there's so many other things that forms plugins have brought under their control. Payments, user registration, post creation and much more. We're also very lucky that the WordPress forms space is so competitive; so many great options to choose from. So today on the podcast we talk about forms, what we've used, what we like and what they can be used for. Go check out the podcast...
219 – Create Alexa Skills right inside of WordPress with Shoutworks
So the podcast today might catch you a little off guard! It's not something that I've ever played with before. Today we're talking about Shoutworks, which is a WordPress plugin that lets you boost your voice SEO by creating an Amazon Alexa skill in one click right from inside WordPress. Wait... What! Is this even a thing? Why would I ever want to do that? Well, the short version is that you can use devices like Alexa to alert your audience / customers when you've got updates that they might be interested in. Marketers are always looking for new ways to engage and inform audiences, and this is certainly new. Find out more on the podcast today and leave a comment so that we know what you think...
218 – ‘E’ is for eCommerce
It’s another of our chats in the series called the 'A-Z of WordPress', where we attempt to cover all the major aspects to building and maintaining sites with WP. Today is 'E' for... Ecommerce. There's just so much to say here because WordPress and Ecommerce are growing at a phenomenal rate. With so much activity, you'd think that there might be a 'best' way to build an online shop. But as is so often the case with WordPress, there's multiple ways to achieve the same goal. So today on the podcast we talk about our experiences with WordPress as well as surface some of the plugins and themes that we've come across over the years to make your WordPress / WooCommerce shop a reality. Go check it out...
This Week in WordPress #151
This week's WordPress news - Covering The Week Commencing 15th February 2020
217 – Get your WordPress tasks in order with DocketWP
Today we're talking about the DocketWP WordPress plugin with Andre Gagnon and Kyle Van Deusen, the project founders. So, what does it do and why might you want it? It's a plugin that provides you with an easy to access to-do list right inside of your WordPress dashboard. You can sync this list in the cloud so that you, or your team are always doing the tasks that are needed. You also get pre-written tasks lists from industry leaders ready to download so that you're up to speed about SEO, care plans etc. in as little time as possible. It's a small plugin, but one which could possibly have large implications upon your productivity. Check out the podcast today to find out more...
This Week in WordPress #150
This week's WordPress news - Covering The Week Commencing 8th February 2021
216 – ‘D’ is for Database
It’s the 4th in our series of chats called 'the A-Z of WordPress' where we attempt to cover all the major aspects of building and maintaining sites with WordPress. Today, we are really going set pulses racing with the letter 'D' for Database! The word alone sounds incredibly dull, and for years I pretended it did not exist. Even now I do anything to avoid directly interacting with it. But I do now appreciate how essential it is to the health and speed of a WordPress website. I’m now quite interested in how plugins and themes interact with the database. All that being said, this episode is one of those where we talk about things that we don't really understand. Being website builders, both David and I tend to just allow the database to exist and we try to ignore it. There's loads in here though, so have a listen to the podcast and let us know what you think...
This Week in WordPress #149
This week's WordPress news - Covering The Week Commencing 1st February 2021
215 – Checkout CheckoutWC for a customised WooCommerce experience
So if you're a user of WooCommerce, then the podcast today will be of interest to you. It's all about creating the best checkout experience to increase conversions with the CheckoutWC plugin. The checkout process of WooCommerce 'out-of-the-box' is okay, but it's not all that great. Yes, it works, but you know that you've seen better workflows; better ways of guiding you through the final stages of your purchase. The guest on the show today, Clifton Griffin, has been working for the last two years at getting the WooCommerce cart experience as painless as possible with his CheckoutWC plugin. Check it out on the podcast today...
214 – ‘C’ is for Caching
It’s the third in our series of chats called the A-Z of WordPress, where we attempt to cover all the major aspects to building and maintaining sites with WordPress. Today, it’s the letter 'C' for Caching (including server side caching, front end caching (plugins) and CDNs. However, we avoid getting too deeply into page load times and scores, which we cover separately on another podcast. So what is the point of caching? What does it do and how might we do it with our WordPress websites. It's certainly a complex subject, and we don't have all the answers, but we do surface some good plugins that you might not have heard of. Check out the podcast...
213 – What goes into organising and cancelling a live WordCamp?
We all know that the WordCamps in 2020 got cancelled. This was a good idea because saving lives comes before attending online events, but I thought that it might be a good idea to get someone on the WP Builds podcast to have a chat with us about WordCamps nonetheless. Why, you might ask? Well, can you imagine what it would be like to be a part of a team who had worked extremely hard to get an event like WordCamp Asia, or WordCamp Europe up and running, only to have to cancel it with just a few days and weeks to go? I could not imagine that, and so I talked to someone who could. Someone who has firsthand experience working on a WordCamp and then having to pivot it into an online event. So find out what's involved in setting up a WordCamp on the podcast today...
This Week in WordPress #145
This week's WordPress news - Covering The Week Commencing Monday 4th January 2021
211 – Its importent to get you’re grammer write; and ProWritingAid Will help with that,
Writing is important. It's one of the greatest inventions in the history of humanity. In fact, it may very well be the most important. But we can all agree that not all writing is equal. Most of the writing that we create and read has nothing to do with prose. It's the news that we consume, the recipes we crib from, the information that we study and the emails / letters that we use to communicate. In these situations, it's important to write in a clear and understandable way. Errors in grammar, spelling and structure stand out and spoil the flow of what you're trying to get across. So step up ProWritingAid to the rescue! It's a tool built by Chris Banks, the guest on the podcast today. Listen now to see why he built it and how it might help your own writing.
209 – Get meaningful feedback about your product or service
If you have a product or service, it's critical that you have a mechanism for users to be able to offer their feedback. That could be comments, but perhaps more importantly you'd like to offer your users a way to help you make the product better. Give them a way that they can suggest features and vote for the features that others have already suggested. Better yet, it'd be nice to be able to display all of that on an easy to understand Kanban style roadmap. Today we've got a WordPress plugin which can do just that. Listen to the podcast today to find out more...
208 – ClassicPress V WordPress
So for those who don’t know what ClassicPress is we had better say... It's fork of WordPress 4.9 before the Gutenberg block editor was introduced and a reaction to the decision, it was started by a Laravel developer called Scott Bowler, a long term WordPress user who first campaigned for Gutenberg not to go into core (at least without being a majority support for it), and it started in August 2018 and continues to be developed with folk writing plugins solely for it, as well as some forking of other needed plugins like eCommerce and SEO options. All that said, why would anyone want to use it over good 'ol WordPress? Find out what we think in our final debate of the season...
207 – Running a growing WordPress plugin company
There are some companies in the WordPress space that are very much on the rise and today we're speaking to Shahjahan Jewel about his company WP Manage Ninja, and they certainly are rising! I heard about WP Manage Ninja about a year ago, when they did a lifetime deal sale on their WP Fluent Forms plugin. After some research, I hopped on the deal and I"ve never looked back. It's become my go-to plugin for forms because of it's reliability and fast pace of development. The features that they've added have been useful and well executed. There's loads more to this company, not least the new Fluent CRM plugin. Listen to the podcast to find out more...
205 – Flipping websites with Blake Hutchison
Flipping domains can be a profitable business and today on the WP Builds WordPress podcast we're going to be hearing about how and why you might want to look into doing it. There's more than you might think! In it's simplest form, flipping is the process of buying (or selling) a domain. In the real world businesses are bought and sold all the time, there's nothing unusual about it at all, but buying a current domain can be a little harder, and Flippa is a platform that's designed to take all of that difficulty away! Whether that's the job of locating a website / domain / app (and more) that you might want to buy, to actually taking care of all the minutiae of getting the deal done. Blake Hutchison is here to explain how it all works. Go check it out...
204 – Author Support V Community Support
Where should you go for support for WordPress plugins, themes and blocks? This debate was partly prompted by a WP Tavern article regarding what can be done about the WordPress.org forum being used to support premium versions of plugins which are not in the repository. There seems to be a lot of complexity to this due to the varying expectations of support and the vast difference in what plugin and themes do. We are probably better for having both types of support, but perhaps polarizing these can help explore the topic. Find out which is the best way to receive support on the WP Builds Podcast today. Go listen...
203 – The WordPress journey of Wendie Huis in t Veld
This is one of those warm and fuzzy episodes! It's all about Wendie and her journey with WordPress. There's no product here, no tutorial, just a good, old fashioned chat about WordPress with a thoroughly lovely person! Wendie and I have been chatting on and off for years. It all started back in the day that both of us were going through the WP Elevation program and we decided to be accountability partners. We chatted from time to time during that and drifted in and our of conversations online for many years. We met in person at WordCamp London in 2018 as well as WordCamp Europe in 2019. She's been working in the WordPress space for years and has a really interesting story to tell. So have a listen to the podcast to find out more...
202 – Matte v glossy screens
Nathan says 'Matte and Glossy' sound like a Las Vegas cabaret act so David's down for a quick win on this one! This is a little bit of a sham debate as it is as silly as matte or gloss paper. But some designers have a preference for one over the other and all of us who make websites probably need to consider that visitors may have vastly different experiences depending on what they use. It's quite surprising when you look into this how much the screen that your beautifully designed WordPress website is viewed upon can impact how it looks. I mostly assume that what I design is what everyone sees, but it's just not the case. The screen really, really matter. So whish is best... Find out what we think on the podcast this week...
201 – How to make your WordPress website run smoothly (even after a year) with Alexandru Covtun
Today we talk about how to keep your WordPress website running smoothly, whether that's one month or one year after you launched it. So we all know that having a website is more work than most people think. There's a ton of things that need to go on in the background to ensure that it's up and running, performing well and getting you leads. As WordPress web professionals, we take much of this for granted. In fact I was thinking as I wrote this post of all the little tasks that it takes to create a website and then keep it running in a performant way, and I was honestly surprised at all the things that I could think of. There were dozens...! Today we have Alexandru Covtun on the podcast to tackle this subject. He's with WP Dandy which is a WordPress maintenance and support company, so he knows what he's on about. Go listen...
200 – To niche or not to niche
So, you're a WordPress website creator. You sell your websites to clients far and wide, or at least that's the hope. We all know though that the reality is that finding new clients can be hard and keeping them can be harder. The question in this episode of the podcast is, what's the best approach for attracting new clients. Should you go for anyone and everyone, or are you best targeting your efforts at a particular niche? Well, it's not that easy and there are pros and cons to both options. Today on the podcast, which by the way is episode 200 (yay!), we discuss which is best. Honestly, it throws up some unexpected results. In the end you'll have to decide for yourself, but perhaps listening to others debate this point might get you on the right track! Go listen...
199 – Benjamin Ritner speaks with Kadence
Today we hear all about Kadence Blocks, the Kadence Theme and Kadence Membership from the creator, Benjamin Ritner. This suite of WordPress tools has been growing in popularity at an amazing rate. Wherever I seem to go, it's being mentioned, and in a very positive light. He's built out a broad set of tools which will enable you to build just about any WordPress website that you could imagine. He prides himself on keeping things lightweight and offering good support. Have a listen to the podcast today to see if Kadence is something to consider in your WordPress toolbelt in the days to come. Go listen...
198 – Value pricing v fixed rate
This debate will never die, but we keep hearing more about it each year. The traditional model is to charge your client a fee that is made clear on your website. You charge a fixed fee for the services that your provide. But now we've got value pricing which says charge the client based upon the value that you bring to their business. More profit for you. But is this easy to pull off, or does it feel like deception from the client's point of view. One model is simple, the other takes more thought, but offers higher rewards (if you can find the clients). Find out what we think about this debate in the WP Builds Podcast today...
WP Builds Weekly WordPress News #132 – Gutenberg 9.0, SkyVerge joins GoDaddy and The Ig-Nobel prize
This weeks WordPress news - Covering The Week Commencing 14th September 2020
197 – Multiple domains, one WordPress install, you need Landing Kit
Marketers rejoice! WP Landing Kit is a plugin that you've wanted for ages and ages and now you have it! It allows you to point all of your domains at one WordPress install! You can then control all of your landing pages from one WordPress install, meaning that you save time on updating it and you can use successful page templates with ease. You might not immediatley see the utility of a plugin like this, but after listening to the podcast, you'll realsise that it's a genius idea. Jason Schuller is on the podcast today to talk about how it all works and how you can use it. Go listen...
196 – Coding v non-coding
Should you code or just buy plugins, themes and blocks when building your WordPress website? Many people like to know all the code so that they can create sites that so exactly what they want with zero bloat. That's fine if you've got the time and clients who are willing to pay for all that, but these days there's so many great tools that will enable non-coders to build fantastic WordPress websites. So... to code or not to code, that is the question. Find out what we think on the podcast today...
195 – Translate your WordPress websites with Weglot
So this podcast episode is all about translations and how you can do that on your WordPress website. Perhaps you have a legal requirement to have multiple languages on your site, or perhaps you just want to further your reach into different parts of the world. Whatever the reason, doing this stuff manually would be really time consuming. Far better to have a nice, helpful WordPress plugin at hand that will do all the heavy lifting for you. Find out how to that we Weglot on the WP Builds Podcast today...
194 – Static design v in-browser design
This week was debate whether it's better to design your WordPress websites with browser based tools like a Page Builder, or use dedicated apps like Figma, Adobe XD or Sketch. Years ago this question was completely absurd. Not only did the tools not exist, but there was almost no conception that the browser might even be capable of image manipulation on the scale that would be needed. Fast forward to today and the tools exist and are excellent. So should you just stay in the browser, educating your clients about WordPress along the way or stay with solutions which have stood the test of time? Find out what we think on the podcast today...
193 – Helping people to learn WordPress on YouTube
Have you ever wanted to start a YouTube Channel related to WordPress content? You've seen other people out there making a great success of it and you think that it's really easy. Paul Charlton is on the WP Builds Podcast today to chat about what it's really like. It's a slog at times and you need to keep the content fresh and of a high quality. Paul focusses on Elementor, Brizy, ACF and JetEngine but straying into all sorts of other areas too. His content is of exceptional quality and I highly recommend a listen to the podcast to find out more about how he grew his channel and created a niche for himself educating people about how to use WordPress...
192 – WordPress V other blogging platforms
Is WordPress the best option for bloggers or do some of the rival services offer a better set of features and ease of use? This argument is not as simple as you might think. I know that we're all into WordPress, but perhaps we need to get some distance and see what the competition is actually doing. Perhaps they have some unique options that WordPress does not have? Perhaps the simplicity is what draws people in, a stripped back set of features that allows you to do what you want and then get out of there - no plugin and theme updates, no security problems, no things breaking that you don't know how to fix. There's quite a bit in the WordPress rival's favour it turns out! Find out our thoughts on the WP Builds podcast...
191 – If you need maps on your WordPress website, MapsMarker has you covered
You need maps on a website like you need butter on toast. I really struggle to think of too many projects that I've built where the client did not want a maps show there business location. It might be that you can get away with a simple Google maps embed, but what if you want something more complex? Well, there's a plugin for that called MapsMarker and it's the topic of the podcast today. Robert Harm, the plugin developer is here to tell us all about it, and when I say 'all', there's honestly a lot to say. This plugin can do lots! Listen to the podcast to find out what...
190 – Content first v content later
If you've been building WordPress websites for any length of time, then you know this debate inside out. Should you get all the content from the client before you start the project? The answer is not as simple as you think. There are so many factors at play. Clients who just don't know what they want until they see it. Clients who don't understand your processes. Perhaps you even prefer to iterate your designs as the prject wears on and like the possibility to adapt what the client needs as you go. You might even take of the whole thing and say that you'll supply content and they can overwrite it at a later date when they're ready. Whatever the case may be, you don't want to be help up getting the website built, shipped and paid for because of content! So what's the best appraoch? Find out what we thing on the WP Builds podcast today...
189 – Let us take care of your WordPress websites so that you can keep building them
I got into building WordPress websites because I like building websites. Now that is a breathtaking insight I know! But it's important to think about this for a minute. I have no metrics on this, but I know for certain that I spend quite a but of my week just patching up and maintaining websites that I've already built. This is covered by my care plans but I'm not all that sure how profitable my WordPress website care plans are, one month I might do very little, another, I'm inundated! Today on the WP Builds Podcast we have Brad Morrison from GoWP who is here to tell us how they can take this support burden away from you. They'll do all the maintainance, support, updating and content edits for you. Their new service will even build your webpages for you! Have a listen and see if it's for you...
188 – Headless v’s not headless
This week on the WP Builds Weekly WordPress Podcast we talk about the subject of static hosting. You've used hosting for years, you know how it works and how to make it work. You're happy. And then people start talking about a clever new way of hosting - static hosting and you've got to throw most of that knowledge out of the window! So... why...? Because it's fast, secure and new, that's why! There really are some major advantages, but there's also some real disadvantages that you need to mindful of; things that might make it a non starter for you and your WordPress website building business. Join us on the podcast today as we talk this whole process through from both sides and see if static hosting is a things that either of us will take on or just some passing technology that's great, but not for us...
187 – Let’s Fix the Broken Web with WordPress, WordProof and Blockchain
How can you prove that you own your website content. That you wrote it on this date? You can use the WordProof plugin which leverages blockchain technology, that's how. It's not just for your blog content though, it could be used for almost anything and that's what makes it so exciting. That song that you recorded, those legal documents that you need to guarantee were updated last week. If you want to prove that something happened to your content on a certain date and time, WordProof is a WordPress plugin which will enable you to do this. It's such a new technology and it's perhaps a little new to most of us so Sebastiaan van der Lans is here to explain how it all works and why you might need it on the WP Builds podcast today!
WP Builds Weekly WordPress News #121 – jQuery updating, community news and nice Chrome CSS feature
This weeks WordPress news - Covering The Week Commencing 29th June 2020
186 – Business liability insurance v’s none
If you run a WordPress website business then you'll likely have had a run in with a client. You need insurance to protect you... don't you? In this podcast we discuss if it's really needed or whether it's something that you can resonably do without. Do people actually take legal action against the people who build their websites, and if so is there anything substantive that they can get from you, or are we just falling for the insurance salesman and his trap of offering cover for things that we don't really need. Fairly nerdy topic and lots to discuss. Listen to the podcast to find out more...
185 – Why you should automate all-the-things with James Rose
Do you want to remove boring tasks from your life? Those tasks that you know that you have to do, but just wish someone else would do. Well it's likely that you can automate many of them and James Rose is here to help you do that. He's not suggesting that you automate everything, but tasks that offer you zero return might as well be done by a robot as by you. His favourite tool is Zapier and he really has delved deep into the platform and its inner workings. So much so that he's created a course to save you time as you learn how to save time! Check him out on the WP Builds Weekly WordPress Podcast this week.
184 – Limited client access v’s full access
Some WordPress freelancers and agencies give clients full admin access to WordPress. Some give another role, such as the Editor role. What works best for you and your clients? Some completely reconfigure and white label the WordPress dashboard. Some give an Editor role for everyday use and an Admin role so they have ownership. I’m sure there are more variations. Perhaps you've changed your position on this over the years, or still have a level of uncertainty. Do you or don't you want clients to see what's going on under the hood with their WordPress website? Check out the WP Builds podcast to find out what we think!
183 – How I have evolved my Wallace Inline WordPress plugin
If you're the kind of person who likes to make sure that the website that you hand over to your clients is safe from their clumsy hands, then your might be interested in the podcast today. Wallace Inline is a great tool for making it really easy for people to update their website content. The idea is that you find a place on the page that you want to edit, and you click on it and alter it right there without the need to go into the settings for the module / element. Bradley Kirby comes on the WP Builds Podcast today to talk about what's new with the plugin and how it might save you time when dealing with clients. Check it out.
182 – Office v home working
Are you a WordPress website builder or developer? If so you're likely working from one of two locations, home or an office. You might have tried out both in the past, or long for the one that you don't currently have. In this episode of the WP Builds Weekly WordPress Podcast we debate the merits of one over the other and there's a surprising amount to say! Whether you're happy with your setup but have thought about changing, or if you just want to confirm your decision that your current location is the best... have a listen to the podcast and leave some comments...
181 – How to visually build your WordPress translations with TranslatePress
Using WordPress and want to offer multiple languages? TranspatePress is a super simple, visual way to do that. Point, click, type, save, done! Easy as that. It's like a Page Builder for translations. You can translate anything on the page, post or ever WooCommerce products. There's a ton in the free version, but we also talk about the premium options which you can purchase too. It's a very mature offering and seems like a great WordPress translation solution. Check out the WP Builds Weekly WordPress Podcast to find out more about it and how it works...
180 – WooCommerce v other options
I don't do eCommerce! So when David suggested that we carry about a debate about WooCommerce v's other options, it was pretty clear which side of the fence I was going to defending! The opening of the podcast is about whether or not you should be involved with eCommerce at all. Yes, I know that lots of your clients want it, and there's decent money to be had from building such sites, but there's also the strain and stress that eCommerce websites bring that no others do. Upgrades can be problematic, restoring from a backup after something goes wrong, with orders still coming in is a nightmare, and it's likely the only kind of website that you're going to build which your clients are going to poking about in every single day - they break things and then, well, you know who they turn to for help! So just don't do eCommerce... period! David diagrees, so I ought to let him have his say too, so listen to the podcast to find out wht he thinks...
179 – A little look at 10Web hosting
So today on the podcast we've got a new hosting provider for you, and that provider is 10Web. They are a platform that is hoping to take care of all of your WordPress needs. The idea is that you set up an account on their platform and then bring in sites that you've already created, or use their suite of tools to get you started. I'm seeing more services like this poppnig up all over the place... buy their service, log in, create a website with a Page Builder and have almost no idea that you're using WordPress at all. Go check out 10Web in the podcast this week.
178 – Hosting clients v’s not hosting clients
We are talking about website hosting. Email hosting seems like a whole other debate, so we're going to avoid that altogther. This is just about hosting, and whether it is worth the hassle of getting your clients to have their hosting through you, or if it's better to just let them sort that out for yourself, leaving you to worry about building websites instead. There is money in them thar' hills though, so perhaps it's worth considering. Then again, it's a real pain the neck when things go wrong, and they will go wrong. So, what should you do, well, listen to the podcast of course!
177 – Pro WaaS a.k.a. websites as a service with Michael Short
So a couple of years ago the concept of WaaS (website as a service) started up, and we covered it quite a bit, we talked about WP Ultimo and did some live demos as well. The concept is simple, you create some templates for websites, most likely in a niche that you've identified, and you put them up for sale. People can come to your WaaS and they can get a site spun up that they can start using right away. Micheal Short saw this and decided that he could extend this, and so WaaS Pro was born. Micheal talks on the podcast about how his solution can greatly inprove your WaaS offering...
176 – Lifetime Deals v Subscriptions
Today, the podcast about whether we should make use of lifetime deals or be happy to pay a recurring subscription for our WordPress plugins. We shall be mostly looking from the perspective of WordPress implementers. Folks like us who have clients who rely on us, who rely on developers to keep our site running smoothly… and to an extent move with the times. There's quite a few arguments in favour of both, which is quite surprising! It's not all about saving money and although it's great to get a good deal upfront, does this offer the developer of the plugin the financial security and motivation to keep development up to date and bug free? Anyway, lots to talk about so go have a listen.
175 – Having a system for ‘Word of Mouth’ marketing with Jason Resnick
Today we chat with Jason Resnick, a seasoned WordPress pro, who has been working with WordPress and eCommerce pretty much when it all started out! We're talking today about 'word of mouth' marketing. Now, most people when asked about word of mouth will probably see this as something that happens organically, something that you don't really have all that much control over. After all it's happening in situations largely outside of your control. You can offer a great service and hope that people are going to mention your name when they get asked the question... 'Who would you recommend to build my WordPress website?', but it's little more than hope, right? Jason explains why it's a little bit more than this in this weeks podcast...
174 – WordPress Page Builders V SaaS Page Builders
This is the WordPress.org page builders i.e. Beaver Builder, Elementor, Divi, Oxygen, Brizy etc, against Wix, Weebly, Squarespace etc. In this debate we're talking about building a standard brochure sites that may need a blog or a shopping cart. So it's not about building out a complex, bespoke site that has masses of unique features. It's about something that's simple and can be done with the native features in the Page Builders. We debate the pros of using both types of page builders and learn some truths along the way...
172 – Growth v staying small
There’s many types of businesses providing websites and marketing to many different client types. We have self-employed freelancers seeing it more as their vocation or as a side gig. Then we have large Agencies with teams of specialists, designers, UX experts, frontend and backend developers, project manager and a whole load more. Anyone who knows us we know we are really the former. Why the debate? Probably because there is a general wisdom that self employed people need to think of themselves as a business and that business are expected to grow. We are exploring whether this applies to those offering website services with WordPress. So, somewhat arbitrarily, David is going to argue from the point of view of growth, and I’m (Nathan) will argue that we can stay small. Check it out...
171 – How EmergencyWP can protect your online legacy
Trigger warning - this episode touches up on the subject of bereavement and so, you may want to bear that in mind before you listen. So today I'm talking with Albert Brückmann, the founder of EmergencyWP which is a WordPress plugin that you can use to protect your legacy, both online and offline. Think of EmergencyWP as a way of a silo of information that you would like to pass on to anyone in the event that you pass away. Albert created the EmergencyWP plugin, and the various iterations that went before it, as a result of an accident that occurred to a friend who had made insufficient preparations. It made Albert realise that the unexpected can happen and that having options to organise what and how your relations and friends receive might be something that you wish to be in control of.
170 – Page Builders v The Block Editor a.k.a. Gutenberg
To avoid things getting stale we decided to mix it up for a while and challenge ourselves by arbitrarily taking one side each in some of the great debates in WordPress. The idea is that it might make us dig harder in to topics, give us a focus and force us to look at other perspectives. So today we're tackling the WordPress debate of the moment 'Page Builders v The Block Editor (Gutenberg)'. With so much innovation in the Page Builder space is there any room for something similar in WordPress core? Do we like it? Do we use it? Do we see a future for it? Whatever your point of view, there's certainly a whole heap of arguments on either side of the debate, and honestly most of them are completely legitimate too! I'm sure that we're not going to change your mind about this, but we might come up with a few things that you'd not thought of before. I hope that you enjoy listening to it...
169 – Advanced Custom Fields, the past, present and future
Want to learn about Advanced Custom Fields for WordPress? Join founder Elliot Condon as we talk about the plugin... past, present and future. We talk about what the plugin does and how it can transform the kind of sites that you're able to build. We then go on to chat about the last couple of years and how Elliot had had to put in a lot of work to make sure that ACF was ready for the 5.0 release of WordPress which brought in the Gutenberg editor. It was a period of huge learning and enormous uncertainty, but Elliot came through with flying colours. He managed to create ACF Blocks which is a non-coding way of creating your own bespoke Blocks that you can reuse within the editor. We also talk about the recent pricing changes - why an increase in price was long overdue and how it's going to support the plugin's development long into the future. Seriously nice guy... great episode...
168 – Making an impact
This episode is all about trying to make some kind of impact... how you can actually get people to notice what it is that you're doing and make them want to care about it, enough perhaps to become your client. So for this people really need to know what it is that you do. Not for a myriad of things that you might be interested in doing, but the core things that you do well and that are profitable for your business. Alongside all of this is the need to have some kind of emotional impact as well, something that really resonates with your clients. We go into all of this in the podcast, so why don't you have a listen...
167 – How I use Agile and WordPress to launch a minimal viable product with Marius Vetrici
Today we stray into waters that we don't often swim in. We're talking about Agile development and launching a Minimal Viable Product, and the person I'm talking to is Marius Vetrici. Marius is a WordPress developer and runs an agency of twelve people... so he's got to have all his processes in place to ensure that his business is profitable and that his clients are happy. This discussion centres around a long post that Marius wrote entitles "Agile WordPress Development: How To Maximize The ROI Of Your MVP Website". In that post we learn that Marius had to learn to have processes in place because of a $200,000 project that just got out of hand. The product that he launched did not have the research done properly before the work started, and as such there was no real understanding of exactly what it was that they were trying to build. We talk about structuring work into sprints, how these sprints map to goals and how WordPress is the perfect tool to do all of this with minimal time and cost. Honestly... really interesting.
WP Builds Newsletter #101 – WordPress 5.4 beta 1, WordCamp Asia cancelled and many phones kills Google maps
This weeks WordPress news - Covering The Week Commencing 10th February 2020
166 – The when and who of marketing
This episode is looking at who we think our idea WordPress clients might be and where we might find them. There's more to this subject than meets the eye! for a start, when are the people who we're trying to engage as clients actually receptive to our messages? It might not be at the times that you think are suitable. Perhaps they work late into the evening, or the team is dotted all over the globe? In terms of the who, this can be really hard - trying to work out exactly who we are going to target and therefore the kind of messages that they're likely to resonate with. Should we push towards word of mouth, or perhaps use social media channels to get some traction? What should those messages sound like, controversial, a debate, riding a common theme? It's all in the WP Builds podcast this week...
165 – Creating your own managed WordPress service, and keeping all the margin with Patrick Gallagher
On the WP Builds WordPress Podcast today with have Patrick Gallagher from Gridpane. We talk about their mission to save you time and hassle when you build and host WordPress websites. They have a unique product which is being discussed a lot right now. We talk about how the company got started and how it is that they go the extra mile so that you don't have to. It's little things like not making you repeat work that you perhaps don't need to every time your set up a new site. Build a site, save it as a bundle then reuse it over and over again. Pretty much all you need to do it is to name the site, tell Gridpane where you want it to be hosted and click a button, that's literally it. Of course you can bring your own hardware like Digital Ocean, Linode, Google, Amazon etc, or point to an IP address of a box in your house! WordPress installs created, managed, backed up in the least time possible! Go check it out...
164 – The how and where of marketing
So many places to post your marketing messages and so many forms that they can take. What options are there and are any more useful than the others? We're taking another dive into the 'Watertight Marketing' book by Bryony Thomas, and exploring an area that neither David or I (Nathan) are particularly experienced at. We go over as many ways as we can think of for getting your (or your client) messages out there and think about what they might look or sound like. It's a surprisingly long list and it's changing all the time. What looked cool 3 years ago, might look foolish today and the platform of choice seems to change with alarming regularity! Have a listen to us chat this all through on the WP Builds Weekly WordPress Podcast.
163 – How to create content with WordPress that people really want to engage with
Creating content on your WordPress website that attracts people can be hard if you don't have a plan. Miles Beckler has a system to create content that people want to read. It's a simple system too. It might be something that you've implemented in the past, but it might be completely new to you. The approach is about creating content that you know that people are searching for, and for that you need a keyword tool (see the show notes).From there you write content that you are certain that people are actually going to want to read. You make it the best that you can, and you get better and faster at doing it. The beauty of this being held within WordPress is that it's going to be around for years to come and you can alter it should your data show that's it's in need of a tweak. You're not going to get rich over night, and that's not the point, but if you're willing to engage with Miles' process, you might find a new and interesting way to get paid. Fun listen...
162 – Information Overload
You know how this goes... You have an inbox and it's overflowing. You have almost no time in the day to deal with nonsense, but you do read your emails... some of your emails. But which ones? Which emails make the cut and get opened and which ones fall by the wayside, their only purpose in life was just to add a tiny amount to the carbon footprint? Building WordPress websites, you need to advise your clients about ways that they can interact with their customers or audience. They need to have a little understanding in terms of how they can market to the world. Perhaps you're not the person to teach them all of this, and yes, there might be people out there who are heaps better at marketing than you are (this is certainly true for myself and David), but that should not stop you thinking about this subject and offer your clients some thoughts as to what might work, and certainly what does not work anymore. Check out the podcast to hear our thoughts on this...