WP Builds

When you sell your WordPress websites to your clients, do you push the logical or the emotional? Do you talk about technical details or how easy and beautiful it will be? It's so easy to go down the route of the technical details, the SEO and caching that you'll put in place - this will all be good, but maybe your clients want to hear about cool it's going to look and how it's going to make people...

This weeks WordPress news - Covering The Week Commencing 25th March 2019

Do you post your content to multiple social platforms? If you do, I'm almost certain that this task is a little bit on the dull side. Is it isn't it? It takes time and is repetitive. Social Web Suite is a WordPress plugin that hooks into your social media accounts just waiting for your to publish something. As soon as you do, it gets to work making the social media posting nightmare evaporate - it...

This weeks WordPress news – Covering The Week Commencing 18th March 2019: WordPress Core WordPress Ends Support for PHP 5.2 – 5.5, Bumps Minimum Required PHP Version to 5.6“WordPress has officially ended support for PHP 5.2 – 5.5 and bumped its minimum required PHP version to 5.6. The plan announced last December was to bump […]

If you're a WordPress user then you've used heaps of plugins in the past. They enable WordPress to do anything don't they? That's WordPress' greatest strength and it's largest curse! There are so many to choose from, and all that choice leads to plugin fatigue. You never quite know if the plugin that you're using is 'the best' and so you're constantly on the look out for a newer, shinier plugin. T...

This weeks WordPress news – Covering The Week Commencing 11th March 2019: WordPress Core WordPress 5.1.1 Patches Critical Vulnerability“WordPress 5.1.1 was released yesterday evening with an important security update for a critical cross-site scripting vulnerability found in 5.1 and prior versions. The release post credited Simon Scannell of RIPS Technologies for discovering and report...

Email marketing is usually the domain of expensive SaaS apps. Well, not any more. With the Groundhogg WordPress plugin you can automate all-the-things from inside your website! It's got lots of customisation options and works with a visual builder, just like the services that you're currently using. Adrian comes on to tell us about how it all got started and how the plugin works and what scenarios...

This weeks WordPress news – Covering The Week Commencing 4th March 2019: WordPress Core Introducing the WordPress Triage Team“As WordPress has grown, the volume of tickets in Trac has naturally increased. While the number of open tickets on its own should never be the sole metric of software health, a large number of open tickets […]

There are so many ways you can get paid for building WordPress websites, and if you've been in this industry for any length of time, then you've perhaps tried a few out? Do you charge on-off fees or use a model which judges the value that you add to the client's business? Perhaps you perfer to work on the basis that the website is an ongoing cost and the recurring revenue is really where you shoul...

WP Builds Newsletter #52 - Blocks management, image creation and free videos

It's all the rage isn't it? Set up an online course and teach the world about the things you know! You've seen the Facebook ads. You've sat down and thought about all the great content they you'll teach to your students, made some videos, created some handouts, even devised some tests that the students will have to complete to graduate. But then the daunting question arises... how do I actually ge...

WP Builds Newsletter #51 - WordPress 5.1 released, plugin updates and AI gets really scary

Do you glaze over when someone talks about internet security? Well, you're not alone - it's quite a difficult subject to understand. Thank heavens then that there's people like Oliver Sild who will understand it all for you. His company, WebARX has built a product which get all of your WordPress websites secured. They have one central dashboard which shows you all of the activity on your sites. Th...

WP Builds Newsletter #50 - WordPress 5.1 RC, multiple vulnerabilities and AI gets scary

Are you the type of person who always does what your clients ask of you, or do you get angry with them? It's hardly a binary answer is it, but it certainly feels like it is sometimes! We've all been there... you've worked really hard on their WordPress website and you think that you've done everything right, but then the client comes back to you with a difficult email and your serenity is blown ou...

WP Builds Newsletter #49 - New Gutenberg blocks, Wordfence Central and DuckDuckGo rising

Adam has been on the podcast before, but on that occasion he was talking about his life as a freelancer, not as the owner of a SaaS app! He's founded a company called 'Split Hero' which is laser focussed upon one thing - split testing your WordPress website pages and gain meaningful data back about which one wins! Hang on a minute though... what is a 'split test'? Well, I'm glad you asked...

WP Builds Newsletter #48 - WordPress 5.1 Beta 3, Plugin updates and Google dominates

Should we be available on the phone to deal with client issues for our WordPress website business? I have had this conversation so many times in the past with so many people! We all know that, in the right hands, a phone can be one of the best ways to engage with your clients. But, in the wrong hands, the phone can be a scary thing that wastes your time and causes you stress and anxiety. See what...

WP Builds Newsletter #47 - WordPress 5.1, Gutenberg and Page Builder updates and new Google Search Console features

Phil Singleton is one of those guys who seems to do 15 things all at once, and doing them really well. His background, like many of us is not web design and development. He started in finance and insurance and hated it. Now he's an SEO specialist with a projects under his belt. We chat about the fact that SEO has changed over the years and what strategies you can employ with your WordPress website...

WP Builds Newsletter #46 - Automattic announces Newspack, WordPress 5.1 feature and Gutenberg layouts

In this discussion episode with David and I, we discuss an idea called "The Magic Email". It's a really simple email that you can send to get something... anything back from a client who has gone AWOL. Simply, the email is designed to be deployed with the minimum of effort from you, but in return you'll get clarity if the email is replied to as well as if the email is not replied to! It's 17 words...

WP Builds Newsletter #45 - WordPress 5.0.3, we're no longer bloggers and free GitHub

Today we have not one but two people on the podcast. Baptiste Debever and Francois Forest are WordPress plugin and theme developers based in France. During this podcast we discuss two of their products, a WordPress theme called WOffice and a SaaS app called Feedier. They both do completely different things, one is a WordPress intranet and the other is a feedback SaaS app... so let's get started...