Wp Builds

Welcome to another in the Business Bootcamp series where we relearn everything we know about building WP sites and running a web design business from start to finish.  We are on the third episode of Season 3 where we are looking at The Technical Build. And today we are discussing 'Performance testing during the build'. Here we are primarily thinking about front and back end technical performance, but we will also touch on things related to the design technical issues too. So what things do we do to test performance and what tools have we come across to help with this vital job. Find out by listening to the podcast.

The WordPress news from the last week which commenced Monday 20th June 2022.

So I'm going to keep this brief, as this podcast was a little bit of a scoop, which we don't often get! Last week it was announced that Elementor (the page builder) had bought Strattic (the headless hosting company). I thought that this was an interesting purchase and I wanted to know more. Very quickly I was able to get hold of the co-founder of Strattic, Miriam Schwab, and Amitai Gat, the product organisation lead at Elementor. This episode is all about this recent news. How did it come about? What's in it for both parties? What happens next? It would be good to point out that the day after this episode was recorded, the news of Elementor laying off some employees broke, but as this had not yet happened, this is not covered. Go check out the podcast...

The web designer’s tech stack. We last talked about the website building platform we might use for this project. Here we are widening this and look at the basic essential hardware and software we might need to start our business. So it's all the 'stuff' that you have around you, both physical objects like a computer and a phone, as well as the software that you might be using. When you get into it, it's pretty amazing just how much stuff there is that you 'need'. Way more than I thought. It's also interesting what you don't need; either because it's not essential, or because it got replaced over time with something else. It's a fun episode, and if any of the things that we discuss resonate with you, please leave a comment on the site...

The WordPress news from the last week which commenced Monday 6th June 2022.

DEAL ALERT - there's a deal mentioned in the podcast - do NOT miss out on this one, as it's truly fabulous, not only in what you get, but in the way that you get it! It's running until 23rd June 2022. So this plugin (If-So) is such a powerhouse, I don't even know where to start. It's a WordPress plugin designed to allow you to create content on your site which will display based upon a whole heap of conditions. Wait... what does that even mean? I'm glad that you asked. Let's say that it's Christmas, and you want to show something additional during the run up to the holidays, you can do that with a date condition. What about an offer only available to Android users? That's a device condition. A part of the site only visible to people who came from a specific website? That's a referral condition. You set a condition and then you specify what ought to happen. Simple in principle, enormously powerful in reality. Josef Carmeli is on the podcast today to talk about what the plugin can do, how it can transform your

The WordPress news from the last week which commenced Monday 30th May 2022.

So, we've made it to series three of the WordPress Business Bootcamp and this is perhaps a little more where the rubber meets the road. Now we're going to be thinking about the tools that we use to build a website and keep it going for the client. We're split the 'tools' topic up into two episodes. This weeks it's all about WordPress and next week it's all the other things that you need which are not related to WordPress. What WordPress tools do we need then, and does the way that we build our sites need to have anything to do with our clients, or is it just for our (the website builder) convenience. Listen to this episode to see what we've ended up with as our basic stack, and if you think that we've missed anything, be sure to let us know in the comments.

The WordPress news from the last week which commenced Monday 31st May 2022.

So you've tried Gutenberg, and you might like to or you might not! But one thing that you cannot really argue about is that it's got some room for improvement. During the last few release cycles there's been more and more talk about block patterns and how they're going to make WordPress website building more straightforward. Block patterns are a collection of blocks that have been built and saved away for future use. So think about a typical use case, you have a hero section of your website that you might use over and over again. You build it one time, adding in a variety of blocks, and once you're happy, you save it and then later you can add it into any other part of your website with the click of a button. But here's the problem. The block editor is still a little but, how shall we say it... fun to use. It's got some quirks and you might not find it as easy as you'd wish to get pixel perfect patterns. Step in Extendify. They have a suite of pre-made block patterns which you can use. It's really all about m

Another episode of the WordPress Business Bootcamp where we try to go right back to the start and unpick the process of building sites for clients. Today we're on to the tricky subject of 'Design Aesthetics'! Aesthetics affect a brand's credibility and perception. The look and feel is probably the thing that first hit us first and is most important to our clients. But the problem is that aesthetics are subjective, there is no agreed way to deliver such things and we have to find some way to avoid design by committee (the client seeking outside parties) or the loudest voice winning without reference to the overall goals. So how we might do this is the subject of the podcast today. Remember that there's a dozen other episodes in this series prior to this, but we'd love to get your thoughts on this one... tell us where you get your inspiration and how you handle this with your clients.

This week's WordPress news for the week commencing Monday 9th May 2022.

So there's loads of WordPress tools out there that will help you create your WordPress websites. Chances are that you've tried out a few and have some favourite which you use most of the time. New tools are coming out all of the time and this episode is about one of those new tools... Builderius. I can already here you starting to sigh. You're thinking that there's no need for another tool, there's already too many and they all do pretty much the same thing. Well Volodymyr Denchyk is here to try to explain why Builderius is different. And, well, he's got a point. This is not a Page Builder like you might have used before. It's more... what's the word... technical. It needs more from you, the website builder, and it return it promises that it'll give you almost unlimited possibilities back. It's it point, click, drag and save? No. Does that mean that it's not worth looking at? Also, no. I think that it's got a place, especially if you want to make everything exactly as you want it. So, a technical episode, but

This week's WordPress news for the week commencing Monday 2nd May 2022.

So today we're talking about UI and UX, user interface and user experience, and it's a really huge topic. We start off by what these crucial concepts are and how they differ and then we get into the weeds of how they can be broken down into more manageable components, so that both our clients and ourselves can understand them better. What makes for 'good' UI and UX? How can we test for all of this? Does the client need to be sold all this, or is it just a part of our job? How do we convince them that any of this is even relevant for their, as of now, unvisited website? As always we try to keep it simple and break it down into more manageable parts. Check out the episode and please leave comments to let us know how we're doing...

This week's WordPress news for the week commencing 25th April 2022.

So online courses are all the rage. We know that. Especially since Covid struck, people have been looking for ways to create extra revenue from the knowledge that they have, and well, courses are a good way to do that. Wishlist Member has been around for years, in fact I think that it's right up there with a few others as one of the oldest membership site solutions for WordPress. We talk about the history of the plugin; how it got started, why they decided to take a punt on a small but growing CMS, and how it's been going for the last decade. We then get into the courses add-on which allows you to create courses and link them to memberships. Check out the podcast...

This week's WordPress news for the week commencing 18th April 2022.

Welcome to another in the Business Bootcamp series where we relearn everything we know about building WordPress sites and running a web design business from start to finish. We are on Season 2  where we are looking at The Design Process. Today we are discussing  "Creating a brand". With so much to take in, we needed to split the subject up into seven, easy to understand, sections. So take a listen to the podcast and hit up the comments if you think that we missed anything.

This week's WordPress news for the week commencing Monday 11th April 2022.