Standardizing WordPress Workflow

Standardizing

WordPress Workflowby Tony Zeoli

WordPress Coach, Trainer & Consultant

@tonyzeoli

linkedin.com/in/tonyzeoli

facebook.com/tonyzeoliwp

https://tonyzeoli.com

Background• 23-year digital media career

• Web 1.0 - read only

• Web 2.0 - read, write, publish

• Web 3.0 - semantic

• Web 4.0 - mobile

• Web 5.0 - AI

• Lived through innovation and the evolution of software products

• We didn’t have the connective tissue with APIs we have today

• Slack is really just an AOL Chatroom on steroids

Innovation• Evolution causes Innovation

• Innovation fueled by problem

solving

• Problem solving spawns ideation

• Ideation creates solutions

• Solutions adopted by tribes

• Tribes coalesce around solutions

to solve problems

Tribes• Tribe, in anthropology, a notional form of human social organization

based on a set of smaller groups (known as bands), having

temporary or permanent political integration, and defined by

traditions of common descent, language, culture, and ideology. -

Encyclopedia Britannica

Source: https://www.britannica.com/topic/tribe-anthropology

Today’s Tribes• “…despite the years of evolution and technology that have created

the foundation we currently stand on, there is one common

denominator that has remained unchanged, even after centuries of

growth: The inherent desire to form tribes.”

• “Historically speaking, a tribe was a community of families that

bonded over one goal – to survive and raise their next generations.

Today, however, we can define tribes as something less critical, like

individuals who are linked by their social interests.”

Source: https://blog.hubspot.com/insiders/what-are-marketing-tribes

WordPress Tribes• WordPress

• Plugin Developers

• Theme Developers

• SEO Experts

• Social Media Managers

• Bloggers

• Form Builders

• Analytics Analysts

• Digital Marketers

• Podcasters

• Videographers

• Photographers

Common Traits• Leadership

• Trust

• Community

• Economic

• Shared Knowledge

• Accountability

• Support

• Security

• Context

• Popularity

Competing Tribes

Organizational Behavior

• Your perception is your reality.

• Storming, norming, and

performing

• Joharis Window

Overload

Competition for Attention

Even more competition

WP Elevation

Workflow

Build Your Own Toolbox

Avoidance1. But I always use this one…

2. But my friend said…

3. You’re going to use this one…

4. This one seems okay…

5. Oh, I use Theme “Black

Forest…

6. Let’s just install it…

7. Conflicts

8. Going down that road…

9. Let’s use email or just text me,

okay?

10. Do what you want!

Lead Your Tribe• Be the leader of your of your

tribe

• Exude confidence

• Explain why your method(s)

works for your business and

their brand

• Potential Cost (+/-)

• Ease of use

• Simplicity

• Duplication

• Hard conversations

• Education

Their toolbox

• But we already use…

• Sometimes you’re stuck, and that’s okay. You’re joining their tribe.

• Be flexible, but firm in your convictions.

• Other times, remove and replace, as long as it works and doesn’t

increase costs or client (internal/external agrees to pay costs

(time/labor/deadlines) if necessary.

`• Basecamp for simple project

collaboration with clients with tasks

and timelines. Store project assets.

• Trello for agile sprints with card’s for

product backlog items

• HarvestApp for project time tracking

• Evernote for note taking

• Slack for team communication

• Team Viewer, appear.in, join.me,

Skype, GoToTraining for,

FreeConferenceCall.com

• Google Calendar for online meetings

• Drop Box for sharing large files

• Cloudup, Cloudapp for screenshots,

screen records

• Camtasia for screen records

• Email (the last resort!)

My Toolbox: Invoicing

• Generate and send invoices from Harvest

• Take payments through Stripe

• Deposits sent to bank

• QuickBooks connected to bank and Stripe for reconciliation

My Toolbox: Themes

• Bet the farm on Make by The Theme Foundry

• Make Plus companion plugin

• Page builder functionality

• Developed great rapport with support team who are responsive and

help with code snippets and suggestions to solve problems

My Toolbox: Plugins• JetPack

• Akismet

• All in One SEO Pack

• Gravity Forms

• WooCommerce,

Cart66

• The Event Calendar

• OptinMonster

• WP Smush

• Cloudflare (free SSL)

• Adsanity

• Edit Flow

• Co-Authors Plus

• Blubrry Powerpress

• Google Analytics

Dashboard

• Video Background

Plus

• Featured Video Plus

• WP Charitable

• Open Menu

(restaurants)

My Toolbox: Hosting

• Got off of cheap shared hosting plans with CPanel

• Moved to WordPress managed hosting with WP Engine

• Daily Backups, Staging, Git connectivity, SFTP, 24-hour chat

support, multisite, free SSL, push storage to Amazon, and more…

• Bill clients monthly for hosting, or get referral fees through affiliate

program

GSuite

• Moved email to Google GSuite

• Better Spam protection

• Other integrated services, like Hangout

• Email, Docs, Calendar, Drive, Sheets, Groups

• Better team collaboration

Agreements

• Adobe Sign

• DocuSign

• Or, I just set up terms in Harvest App, client accepts estimate and

accepts the terms.

Use Cases - Client 1

• Removed Ninja Forms in favor of Gravity Forms

• Client didn’t even know how they got Ninja Forms, nor did they know

where their license key was

• Rebuilt and launched new forms in Gravity Forms

Use Cases - Client 2

• Client using unsupported theme from Theme Forest

• Switched to Make theme framework by Theme Foundry

• Now client has support for theme and a page builder

• Easier for me to manage

Use Case: Client 3

• Client using Yoast SEO

• Was not using to full extent

• Switched to All in One SEO Pack Pro

• Export/Import Data

• No cost to client; hour of my time to work in tool I know

Questions

Links• Slides:

• https://slideshare.net/tonyzeoli

• https://tonyzeoli.com

• Sites:

• https://tonyzeoli.com

• https://digitalstrategyworks.com