We could have tried to eke this one out. According to one online crossword solver there are 378 Words Starting With X, but I imagine X for xeroxed - how to copy your WP website, might be going too far! So we just decided to end with a pathetic whimper! (We should have had a Family Fortunes styled game show thing. "Let’s see if it’s on the board! You said, flush your permalinks. Our survey of 100 WordPress experts said’ Uh - Urrr! I’m afraid you’ll not be going home with the Goblin TeasMaid and bone china cup and saucer set). You have to be British and of a certain age to understand that! Instead... X is for what not to do with WordPress (according to the fine people of the interwebs) as in X for cross out / delete. Y for why we should still use WordPress (seems more relevant with such changes going on). Finally lots of Zzzz's is for, got to sleep... it’s time to put this series to bed.
Writing is such a complex process. When we started to think about this topic, we thought that it would be really straightforward, but after some reflection, it turns out that there's a lot to say. Are you writing for yourself, for prose, for business, for a third party? Your relationship with that writing will be dramatically altered by the 'why' of the writing. What about this interface? Do you like it plain and simple, or perhaps you like all the bells and whistles so that you can get in the weeds of sizing and fonts? Perhaps writing is becoming a dying art. With social platforms promoting short, disposable text, are we dumbing down on what we write, as well as destroying our attention spans for reading? And what about AI? Perhaps there's going to be no need to write in the future; you'll just suggest things to some SaaS app and the writing is done for you? As I say, there's lots to discuss here and I hope that you enjoy the podcast...
This week's WordPress news for the week commencing 30th August 2021
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...
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...
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.
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...
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...
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...
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!
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.
This weeks WordPress news - Covering The Week Commencing 30th December 2019
