5. why we love WordPress Eight Reasons We Y WP! (in no particular order) Price Date-ability It’s slick Plugins Monkey simple CMS Easily SEO’d Flexible & scalable Mobile
20. Did You Know? The WordPress logotype is set in a font called "Mrs Eaves”, a revival of the typefaces of 18th century English printer and punchcutter John Baskerville.
With roots dating back to 2001, WP officially launched in 2003.MattMullenweg - www.ma.tt is the founding developer of WordPress while working at CNET. Left in 2005 and launched Automattic, the company behind WordPress and many other cool technology companies.Stable, mature and used by millions globally.Open source, FREEOriginally designed for blogs it has grown into a fully operational website platform with easy to use CMS and a myriad of plug-ins/add-ons
- I kind of like to think of WP in terms of the Boy Scout’s famous “Pinewood Derby”. Everyone starts with the same foundational elements, but it’s what you bring to the table in terms of creativity, decoration, functionality and performance that makes each WP site unique. I’ve seen stellar, world-class websites powered by WordPress …and then are some that look like a 12yo in need of a role model made them. - All you need is a domain name and a hosting account with PHP and MySQL installed. Go-daddy is super WP friendly.
When working with small to medium sized businesses (like we do at my company), clients often don’t have exorbitant digital marketing budgets – if any at all. They know they need a slick web presence, but a $30,000 site is out of the question. This is why we like WP. We can provide a great looking website with all standard functionality (CMS, contact forms, e-com, job boards and more) with one simple FREE platform. - There are tons of theme foundries out there creating amazing themes, most of which can be pruchased for a pittance (ranging from $50 - From the development side, so much that WP has to offer is baked-in or available via a plug-in or add-on that we don’t need to recreate the wheel and build code from the ground up every time. Naturally if your client’s budget allows for more bells & whistles, then you can add them or, or offer “value pricing” to them….aka “more margin drops to your agency’s bottom line”.
Secure, mature & stable: Just like dating – if you’re going to get into a relationship, make sure it’s with someone (or something) that is secure, mature and stable. To run a successful agency, you’re looking for a LTR! It might be very alluring to flirt with danger, go out on a limb and try something wild, but in the end – is it worth it for you, or your client?Case in point, WP is a top pick, IMHO, because:- it’s free (no hidden costs, no limits on usage, no hidden agenda – you wont get pinged as the site’s presence & traffic increase.The code is secure. Te guys over at Automattic write solid, open source code. They’re committed to fighting spam and with VaultPress, security from hackers or hosting issues is not an issue.
- From a Look & Feel perspective, WP is a winner. It’s easy to make small guys look big with a slick, functional website.- Themes galore – There are literally hundreds of thousands of theme designers and foundries. Easy to find a theme that meets the client's brand, personally, prod/service offering and your content plan. Personally I love the full-screen imaged themes, but that’s just me. Some fave sources are included at the end of this preso.-Hero images - -unlike what you might expect from a text-heavy “blog platform” many WP themes contain slick “hero” image areas to visually feature the client’s products, services or promotions. The hero images can rotate in a number of ways with sliders, fades or flips.Galleries - -same with galleries – there are a number of visually stunning galleries and gallery plug-ins to create rich, visually engaging website.- AdSense ready-themes (just link up your Google AdSense account and start serving up ads!)- Super fancy!
I’m not talking about electric air-fresheners, although it’s practically as simple as connecting one to an outlet. There are hundreds of thousands of plug-ins developed for WP that can be easily added on as “plug & play” functionality. They typically cost very little ranging form maybe $25 to $150…cheaper than an hours of coding time. For example, - SEO (All-in-One SEO pack) Events calendars ecommerce job boards social sharing -- integration for every major social media site- Gravity forms (contact form builders)- auto-reply responders (thank you for signing up for our newsletter…etc)- widgets – pop in a sidebar widget- galleries- feedburner circulation- affiliate programs-- Just about any piece of functionality you might need on a website -- someone has developed an open source, WP compatible plug-in
Monkey simple CMSIf you can use MS Word, you can use WP.- WYSIWYG editor or HTML- easy to add links, video and images- easily add navigation and update the site- Always preview before posting to QA your work!
- Easily SEO’d- Baked in meta- XML sitemap- Change it on the fly based on testing- Google’s voice of SEO, Matt Cutts thinks it’s great, and so does “The Big G”
As with many small business, they have business objectives that they cant afford today. Any good marketing partner will work with them as they grow and as you make them more profitable, hopefully they’ll re-invest in your agency. WordPress is great from this perspective as it’s Flexible & Scalable !grows with clientEasy to add PPCpromo landing pages- SEO- add functionality & plugins as you go
We hear it all the time – “awesome, but what about a mobile site?” With the simple addition a of a plug-in – your clients site is now mobile. No need to build separate sites, just pop in the plug-in, configure it and you’re good to go cross mobile platforms.
WordPress says it’s as easy as 1,2,3…but there are actually two ways:InstallHosted
WordPress.com vs. WordPress.orgThe distinction between WordPress.com and WordPress.org can cause some confusion for people. Let’s clear it up. WordPress.com is brought to you by some of the same folks who work on WordPress, the Open Source blogging software. WordPress.com utilizes the same WordPress software which you can download at WordPress.org. With WordPress.com the hosting and managing of the software is taken care of by the team here atAutomattic. With WordPress.org you need to install the software on your own server or with a 3rd party provider.
Many companies use WP -- from NASA to Old Spice to Best Buy, Pepsi to the WSJ to UPS, Fischer-Price, Nikon, Ford and more. You can see some great executions at:http://wordpress.org/showcase/tag/fortune-500/ (also included in the links section at the end).
- The WordPress logotype is set in a font called "Mrs Eaves”, a revival of the typefaces of 18th century English printer and punchcutter John Baskerville. The "Mrs Eaves“ font is a transitional serif typeface designed by ZuzanaLicko (pronLitchko)in 1996, and licensed by Emigre, a typefoundry run by Licko and husband Rudy VanderLans. - It is also used for the titles (but not author names) on the covers and spines of the current Penguin Classics from Penguin Books.
Question: Is Meat really murder?Answer: Yes, but it’s very tasty murder.Question: Where can I find skilled WP/PHP developers?Answer: Your local Art Institute, Craigslist, eLance.com, Creative Connect, GangPlank, CO-HootsQuestion: What has been your biggest challenge with WordPress?Answer: Probably cleaning up a mess of a hacked WP theme that we inherited when signing a new client. The developer didn’t know what he was doing and their site was a mess. We started from scratch and they were thrilled with the new outcome.Question: Josh, you seem like a huge proponent of WP, but is there a time when WP is not appropriate?Answer: Unless you don’t have the dev resources or environment to handle the coding, not really. Things can get kludgy if you add too many plugins and they sometimes require manual updates, but for the most part I’ve not encountered a business need or objective that we’ve been unable to answer/support with WP.Question: Where can I get more Josh Yeager?Answer: I’ll be speaking at the WACVB Conference in Tempe, March 23-24. I’ll be at BOLO 2011 in October. I’ll be doing my stand-up act at the Pepperpot Playhouse in Schenectady, NY with shows daily at 3, 6 and 9pm.