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Voiceover Artists 0:00<\/span><\/p>\nWelcome to web and beyond cast were small business comes to learn about marketing and managing on the web and beyond with your hosts Tracy Smith Hello their<\/span><\/p>\nRay Sidney-Smith 0:10<\/span><\/p>\nsmall business owners and entrepreneurs and economic development agents. Welcome to Episode 005 Episode Five which is part of our five part series of web and beyond cast. I’m Ray Sydney Smith and I am joined here today with Rene Marissa which who is a freelance WordPress developer based in pittsburgh pa a techie at heart. Her passion lies in the database and code but she loves the creativity and execution of the whole website lifecycle from planning to launch. So welcome to the show. Rene and I also have with me Kevin W. Hoffman. Kevin is a WordPress engineer at WordPress where he is part of the team behind plugins such as give and WP business reviews. But we’ll learn a little bit more about those plugins today. He is an active volunteer and speaker in the WordPress community where he co organizes word camp Pittsburgh. Welcome to web and beyond cast Kevin. Hi, Ray.<\/span><\/p>\nKevin W. Hoffman 1:06<\/span><\/p>\nThanks for having me. Great. I’m<\/span><\/p>\nRay Sidney-Smith 1:07<\/span><\/p>\nglad to have both of you aboard for this expert panel. And what we’re going to be talking about regarding building a website today is actually something called WordPress, which many of you may have heard maybe you even have a website that’s based on WordPress, maybe you have thought about launching a WordPress website but you’re really not quite sure what WordPress is today. What I’d really like to do is to talk about some of the fundamentals around what WordPress is what are themes? What are plugins and and how do you hire someone to design or develop a WordPress website? So I wanted to start off the conversation with you both with with the very fundamental question of what is<\/span><\/p>\nKevin W. Hoffman 1:48<\/span><\/p>\nWordPress, this big behemoth of an animal that runs a quarter of the world’s websites? What is WordPress? So WordPress is a content management system that allows you to manage your digital content, whether that is blog posts, articles, images, anything that you would normally host on a website WordPress gives you sort of a visual interface to manage that content. But one of the key concepts and when you first start to look at WordPress solutions is to understand this difference between WordPress dot org and wordpress. com. So WordPress dot org is an open source content management system which I worked in every day. And it’s a really flexible option for those of you who may be looking for e commerce solutions that want to extend their website with plugins and a large list of themes. wordpress. com is what we call a software as a service. So if you’re looking to just get a website up as quickly as possible and have your hosting and support all provided for you WordPress dot com can be a great solution, you need to understand that your options will be far more limited. The dot com side but as far as my day to day experience, it’s on the dark side<\/span><\/p>\nRene Morozowich 3:05<\/span><\/p>\nWordPress started as a blogging platform. And I think that maybe some people think that it’s only still for blogging and maybe your business doesn’t have a blog or doesn’t need content like that. However, I think it has evolved greatly in the past few years. And now it’s fully customizable and you can really use it for almost anything now.<\/span><\/p>\nKevin W. Hoffman 3:26<\/span><\/p>\nYeah, absolutely. I started working with WordPress, you know, almost eight years ago when it really was focused on blog centric websites. And I’ve seen it sort of evolve into a more full fledged content management system. It started with the introduction of custom post types, which allowed you to add content outside of just blog articles and to really manage your content in an organized fashion that any small business owner would be looking for who needs something a bit beyond just a small collection of pages or blog posts so it’s a really full fledged content management system these days. Fantastic points. In our last episode, we discussed Squarespace and other website builders very similar to WordPress dot com. So for those of you who are listening and listen to the last episode, basically the sense of software as a service using Squarespace as both your website software and website host and all those other pieces in between WordPress dot com is kind of that for you. Whereas WordPress dot org is what you would consider what we typically call self hosted. Right, exactly. And I would say even though I love the WordPress community and love it as a tool, there are definitely times in places when some of those Software as a Service solutions make more sense. Like I alluded to earlier, if you’re trying to get a website up as quickly as possible and don’t need a whole lot of flexibility. Those are certainly options to look into that are really low budget provide a lot of the support and maintenance that you would need that kind of comes along with a WordPress site. So those are some of the concerns and we’ll look into today in addition to a lot of the benefits and the flexibility of WordPress and so<\/span><\/p>\nRay Sidney-Smith 5:12<\/span><\/p>\nwhy would a small business owner use WordPress over another content management system or website builder or straight coding the website themselves? I know there are probably some industrious listeners out there who are thinking, well, I’ll just I’ll just write my own code and I’ll I’ll throw up a website. And that will just be good enough because it’ll be an informational or brochure type website. And I really don’t need something like WordPress or another content management system. And there are several other open source content management systems, correct? Yeah, definitely.<\/span><\/p>\nUnknown 5:45<\/span><\/p>\nAnd WordPress is by far the largest and most popular content management solution when it comes to those open source options. But I would say that the fundamental reason to choose WordPress rather than coding your own site from scratch scratch is although it may be a short term time investment up front, it will save you so much time in the long term in terms of anytime you want to add a new article Edit page content, you’re not digging through HTML source code. To do that you’re simply logging into your website and a visual interface that you understand that you don’t need to know a lot of that code in order to manipulate editing and updating and adding new content over time becomes a much simpler process as a result.<\/span><\/p>\nRene Morozowich 6:31<\/span><\/p>\nI think too, that because it’s such a popular solution, it’s very easy to find help in the form of another person, the WordPress community or even just online resources. There’s tons of blogs and other articles that you can search for any problem that you have with WordPress and find a solution relatively quickly.<\/span><\/p>\nRay Sidney-Smith 6:50<\/span><\/p>\nThere’s a huge community that supports WordPress, it’s very easy to find someone at a at a reasonable and affordable rate to come help you with WordPress, whereas with some other country content management systems, those that’s not so easy to find. Like, I guess the internet makes people closer. So you are able to find Sega Juma or another or Drupal developer other than some other open source content management systems. But if you need someone to help you with a WordPress website, it’s pretty easy to find. Do you find that to be the case? I think<\/span><\/p>\nRene Morozowich 7:20<\/span><\/p>\n\n- I think that it’s easy to find someone at a meetup online. There are word camps all over almost every weekend. It’s definitely easy to find someone.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
Kevin W. Hoffman 7:32<\/span><\/p>\nI think that WordPress is definitely your best bet in terms of finding help elsewhere. But I do I have seen that we are in kind of a transition period where small business owners especially are still a little bit hesitant to work with developers remotely. So even though you might be based in Pittsburgh, and you’re opening your shop and looking for a website developer, I would encourage you to open your possibilities to developers are across the country or around the world, even if they can prove that they they have what it takes to provide the type of solution you’re looking for. I will say that in my<\/span><\/p>\nRay Sidney-Smith 8:10<\/span><\/p>\nthree years, as a single developer freelancer, I worked almost exclusively with remote clients. So there are most certainly developers out there that can serve your needs without ever having to share the same office space with you or even be in the same city Agreed. Agreed. And I think it’s also really important to take heed to finding the right person and fit and we’ll talk about this a little bit later in terms of finding the right fit in terms of your work style. And and if you’re going to have someone who is going to be doing ongoing maintenance and improvement to your website that you know how they best work with you in that process. But for the most part, you can really find someone who can help you with WordPress pretty easily nowadays, I wanted to move us forward into something that I think confuses a lot of people more than just what is WordPress? I think most people can understand WordPress is software that helps you build a website. But then you decide to use WordPress and designers and developers tell you immediately. Okay, well, you’re going to have to decide on a theme and plugins so that we can get your website launched. And I wanted to dig in a little bit here to what is a theme? And more importantly, what is the differentiation between a theme and what’s called an at least in the industry of framework? Why do but small businesses need these what what what are the reasons for having themes and, and how are they separate from WordPress, the software itself,<\/span><\/p>\nUnknown 9:44<\/span><\/p>\nthe primary purpose of the theme is to determine the visual appearance of your website. So it’s actually separate from your content, which allows you as the business owner has the person managing your WordPress site to completely change the visual appearance of your website without actually affecting the underlying content. So you can have a series of blog posts and pages and click through the WordPress theme repository and activate different themes to see how your website might look if you were to install and activate that theme for the long term. So it’s an easy way to kind of preview what your website could look like, without actually changing the content that you put a lot of time and effort into developing.<\/span><\/p>\nKevin W. Hoffman 10:28<\/span><\/p>\nNow we go from themes which you can think of as specific implementations of a of an aesthetic look on your website. And we also transition into the thought of the theme framework, which is not so much a specific implementation, but a methodology. So there are various theme frameworks. And WordPress, probably one of the most popular is called Genesis. And the important differentiator is that a theme framework can spawn an unlimited number of themes. It’s just a way of approaching that theme. And building it to a certain specification. One that I worked with for a long time was the roots Sage starter theme. And that is more of a developer heavy implementation of a theme within WordPress. And it kind of determines the entire approach you take when you’re developing and, and building out a theme. And that can limit the potential developers down the road that can help you with your website. So that’s I think the most important thing to consider when you’re when you’re looking at a theme framework is that as the business owner, it may not mean much to you up front, but it could determine who’s able to help you with your website down the road. And Rene,<\/span><\/p>\nRay Sidney-Smith 11:45<\/span><\/p>\nI know that you’re more the database coder. And so what’s what’s going on under the hood of WordPress when it comes to themes. What’s what is what is the theme, fundamentally doing to the workplace code, because the WordPress code is is pushing PHP, right? It’s pushing this, this this web language and it’s it’s has to be rendered in HTML for our web browsers to be able to view and so the theme, as Kevin said, is giving us the visuals, what what’s what’s happening there, how do those to sort of connect in layman’s terms,<\/span><\/p>\nRene Morozowich 12:24<\/span><\/p>\nso you can think about it in about three different layers. So you have the database where all of the data live. So all of your images, all of your menu options, your post your titles, your users, everything lives there, then you have that PHP code that goes into the database and pulls out the appropriate information. And combined with your HTML and CSS, it determines how your pages will look when they’re displayed on the screen. So basically, the theme is keeping your pages consistent. So each of your posts looks the same way. Each of your pages, you know, looks a similar way, your homepage looks a certain way. So all of these things are tied together to present consistent cohesive website. I was thinking that one way that you might understand a theme is if you’ve ever use PowerPoint before, so when you go into PowerPoint, you have the basic generic template. So you could think of that maybe like a theme framework. And under the options you can apply a styles and layouts and designs and that would be similar to a theme so for people have used PowerPoint before. And maybe that might make a little bit more sense<\/span><\/p>\nRay Sidney-Smith 13:39<\/span><\/p>\ndefinitely, that’s a great analogy. it renders the front end of your website in the way in which you believe you wanted to look what what are the challenges that business owners face when it comes to themes? And and I want to talk a little bit here about what should business owners really know about the themes they’re attempting to choose them? How do they choose the best thing for their business and what should they know about it. For example, I frequently talk to clients about how much functionality should be present within a theme because many WordPress theme developers now try to put a lot of functionality into themes and there’s a there’s a debate over how much functionality that we’ll talk about when we get to plugins very shortly should be in the theme verses that which should be present in your WordPress plugins and and in the functionality of the WordPress core. How do you explain that to people in terms of, you know, what they should, what they should look for, and what they should avoid when it comes to themes. Yeah, Ray, what you’re referencing, in terms of what you need to look out for is becoming more and more important these days, especially because we’re seeing the rise of these all in one themes. I remember when I was starting out and WordPress, you could find themes from any number of developers all across the web, there wasn’t much of a concern as to how popular it was, or whether it would be around for a long time it was just that you found a great looking theme and you wanted to throw it on your blog and you are set for the time being<\/span><\/p>\nUnknown 15:15<\/span><\/p>\nthese days, I feel at least that the theme ecosystem is kind of shrinking in terms of the number of players involved we’re seeing themes like divvy technically plugins but page builders like Beaver Builder, these are really taking over what used to be kind of a niche driven theme ecosystem where you would seek out a theme that fit your business specifically. Whereas what we’re seeing nowadays is Multi Purpose themes, which can really become the website for any type of business. So the the risk that you run and going with those multipurpose teams is exactly what you mentioned, Ray, that you might get way more functionality that you need, which results in something we refer to as theme, boat bloat can slow down your website, if it’s not coded in the proper way, because it’s loading a lot of resources you may not even be using. But it could also just complicate the user experience unnecessarily.<\/span><\/p>\nUnknown 16:13<\/span><\/p>\nSo<\/span><\/p>\nUnknown 16:14<\/span><\/p>\none of the key points that I recommend to business owners when they’re looking for theme is to first define your content, I know that it’s really tempting to go to WordPress dot org and immediately start browsing the theme repository. But you need to know and understand what content is going to be on your website so that it can then fit into the right theme. and not vice versa. A lot of times, you may see a pretty layout or a theme or a color scheme that appeals to you, and you install that theme. And before you know it, you’re so far into the process that you realize, hey, this theme isn’t really right for the content that I need on my website. So content first approach would be my biggest tip to business owners.<\/span><\/p>\nRene Morozowich 16:58<\/span><\/p>\nI think another thing to look for for is a theme that has been maintained, so one that the developer is still working on and continually making changes themes that have more than just a few users, kind of like road tested by other people. And instead of you just basically doing a bit of research, and I totally agree to with them, define your content first, and choosing a design that works for your content. So when<\/span><\/p>\nRay Sidney-Smith 17:27<\/span><\/p>\nyou go to the to the theme directory, or you find these marketplaces for themes, like involved, oh, has theme forest and there are several others out there, woo, themes, and I’ll have shows, I’ll have links to these in the show notes. The<\/span><\/p>\nthere’s just so many choices. And it becomes a Paradox of Choice in terms of deciding on, you know, what kind of theme you want, do you have any just quick tips, tricks hacks that you have used in the past, and being able to narrow down the number of themes that are to be chosen either from the WordPress theme directory, which are the free themes that are available, or one of these private for purchase themes themselves, because<\/span><\/p>\nlike you, I think it’s really important like you both I think it’s really important to define your content, figure out what your audience is going to need, and then have that drive the decision for what kinds of themes you would even want to choose. And then you go to the theme store, and it’s just pages upon pages upon pages of options,<\/span><\/p>\nUnknown 18:37<\/span><\/p>\nwhat what do you do to narrow that down when you’re first looking for theme, and you’re kind of overwhelmed with those options. One of the great things about WordPress is that any of the free themes that are available in the directory can actually be installed and activated on your site. Without any long term commitment, you know, you don’t have to pay anything, you just click install an action eight, or even preview, and you can see what your site would look like without having to make a commitment that you feel locked into over a long period of time. And that can be great if you’re in the market for a free theme. And there are some great free themes out there, especially if you have a certain type of site in mind. For example, if you’re in the market for an e commerce site, using a plugin like woo commerce, there’s a great free theme called storefront that is sort of specifically developed to work with e commerce sites. So I know I said earlier, you know, don’t feel like you need to be locked into a theme that’s specifically for your niche industry, but do look for themes that are matching the functionality that you’re looking for in your site. So if its e commerce, there are certain themes that certainly play better with web shops. On the On the flip side, if it’s more of a magazine site, or a online journal, there are other themes that are more suitable for that purpose. So again, identify your content and your functionality, and then look into the aesthetic appearance of your theme. Most sites<\/span><\/p>\nRene Morozowich 20:06<\/span><\/p>\nallow you to filter also on functionality features, other things like that. So you can go in and instead of just looking at all the WordPress themes at once, page after page after page, you can use the filter feature to determine things that you do care about or don’t care about. You could also rely on recommendations for other people. So it’s, you know, some other small business owners who are happy or not happy with the the theme that they’ve chosen. Or you could read reviews online, you can get some feedback that way also to try to narrow your choice down<\/span><\/p>\n