WordPress Mistakes I’ve Made13

Laura Eagin | WordCamp North CantonMay 4th 2013

I’m Laura Eagin

•Detroit Michigan

•Custom Theme Developer

•Volunteer and teach @ Girl Develop It

•Tweet @choolaura

• lauraeagin.com

What We’ll Cover

•Tips to go from Beginner to Intermediate

•Tips for site administrators and themers

•Custom Theme Development = a lot of CSS

•Get to know WordPress really well

•Sayyes,andfigureitoutasyougo

Fail Harder, Weiden + Kennedy, by Jerry Helm studiojelly.com

Jumped to the fun part too soon.1

I like to theme it, theme it.

First I Should Have:

•Set permalinks

•Changed blog tagline

•Get rid of default posts, categories, links

I rushed when uploading media.2

Input data in all of the fieldsmarkedred.

I dated bad plugins3

Bachelor #1

Bachelor #2

Bachelor #3

Few ratings

Hasn’t been updated

No documentation

Right name, wrong tool

Widget vs. Plugin

Slows down site

Warnings pop up

Breaks my site

Levels of Plugin Hell

Plugin Support is your friend, look at it.

I was cheap4

Gravity Forms cured me of my cheapness. It’s worth it.

Don’t Forget to Get Client on Board

• Include price of plugins in contract

•Annual cost vs. one-time cost

•Or, roll cost into your maintenance fee

If this is your own site, think about the value of the plugin overtime. Consider upgrading to Developer version so you can use on your site and others.

I edited code in the appearances editor5

Oh snap!

Highlighted Syntax with Sublime Text 2

Much better!

Version ControlBitbucketGitHub

Work LocallyMAMPWAMP

I didn’t use the theme folder6

wp-content /themes/mytheme/images

I pretended to be a system admin7

Just say no.Refer them to an expert

Consider managed hosting providers ($)

Open support tickets early and often

One Click Install Is Your Friend

I didn’t set up a staging/dev site8

Without a staging site

With a staging site

I forgot about those robots9

When you are not ready to launch your site, discourage search engines from indexing it.

Then, don’t forget to uncheck this setting when you do launch the site. It’s easy to forget.

Plugin “Under Construction” sets up a nice splash page to prevent anyone seeing the site while you’re working on it.

Plugin “Under Construction” even allows you to use your own HTML as a splash page.

I didn’t track trafficfromday110

I didn’t hold their hand.11

Tutorials and ResourcesFor your clients, because it’s their site after you launch it.

Wordpress.org “Getting Started with WP”

WordPress.tv

Meetup.com

Bonus: isitwp.com

Manage User Access

- Members Plugin- Role Scoper Plugin

Hand holding (It’s necessary!)

+ Make it easy for them to log in

+Walkthemthroughitfirst,secondtime

I assumed client would write.12

Contentisdifficulttoget(oy!)

While the Theme is being designed & built, the writing should also be happening.

This is a forever a struggle for me with client sites... Any solutions?

Thank you!

... but wait, there’s more.

@choolaura

I didn’t get to know all of you.13

Community is so important. You’re at WordCamp... So don’t leave this room without meeting at least one new person!