WP Builds

It’s the 18th episode of our “Thinking the Unthinkable” series and our topic is "Who needs a Content Management System (CMS) anyway?" Have you noticed how you obsess about all the amazing things that you can do with your client websites? Imagine if they did this, or, you know what would double your revenue... you could do this. A few months after launch you realise that they're using none of the functionality that you painstakingly built! WordPress is a truly capable Content Management System (CMS), but do most of our clients really need it? Can they make use of all that's possible, or should we be pointing them towards other options, like static sites. We talk about our history with CMS's as well as when we think that WordPress is the 'best fit' for clients.

The WordPress news from the last week which commenced Monday 16th October 2023.

On the podcast today we have Jason Cross. He's an experienced tech executive with a diverse background in the industry. Currently serving as the SVP of product at Bluehost / Newfold Digital, and he's been there for over a year and a half. He is responsible for overseeing their WordPress, commerce, and proprietary products across multiple global brands. Before joining Bluehost / Newfold Digital. The basic premise is this... WordPress website hosts experience quite a lot of customer churn, and so Bluehost are seeking to reduce this by delivering websites as efficiently as possible, aiming to keep users satisfied with their WordPress experience from the moment they first log in to their account. This endeavour is called WonderSuite, and later in the episode we unravel the wonders of WonderSuite (did you see what I did there!), a series of unique experiences curated to cater to the needs of agencies, professionals, and small business owners, irrespective of their WordPress familiarity.

The WordPress news from the last week which commenced Monday 9th October 2023.

It’s the 17th episode of our “Thinking the Unthinkable” series and our topic is  “Don’t make websites for friends and family”. Do I even need to explain this episode?!?! If, like David and I, you stumbled into working on the web, then it's likely that friends and relations played some part in getting your career off the ground. Back-in-the-day there were no 'pros' and clients were just after someone who had a pulse and knew how to turn a computer on to build their site. This was nice. Now, the industry is highly skilled and professional, so is there any space for someone to work for their friends when there's more 'legitimate' places to find work? We discuss this and more on the podcast today.

The WordPress news from the last week which commenced Monday 2nd October 2023.

Today we're joined by Dan Knauss, a technical content generalist at SolidWP (formerly iThemes). The episode focuses on the importance of hardening WordPress websites for enhanced security. Dan discusses their approach to security, which includes targeted security measures rather than trying to cover every potential vulnerability. They emphasise the need for timely updates and advocate for working with a reliable host that provides hardware and software firewalls. Dan also addresses the limitations of traditional security plugins, referring to WordPress malware scanners as "fundamentally flawed" and proposing an external line of security through application firewalls. The conversation highlights the upcoming rebranding of iThemes to SolidWP and touches on their premium security product, Solid Security, which prioritises tried and tested features over added "bolt-ons".

The WordPress news from the last week which commenced Monday 25th September 2023.

This is the 16th episode of our "Thinking the Unthinkable" series and I think we have come up with our catchiest title ever... “Is browser interoperability a threat to page building?" - truly inspirational! Remember the good old days when no two browsers renders anything in the same way? You don't? You're lucky! It used to be the case that all of the browsers went their own way. The result was a spaghetti of code, with little variations for each of the browsers. This was a waste of our time, but it also held back the innovation with HTML and particularly CSS, for a decade or more. Thankfully though, that's behind us, and the browser vendors seems to be speaking the same language. This means that in the future the browsers will do so much more, with far less complexity. How much of a threat are browsers to Page Builders? Find out today on the podcast…

The WordPress news from the last week which commenced Monday 18th September 2023.