Why i built Peadig, my own WordPress framework

Peadig • http://peadig.com/ • http://twitter.com/peadig • http://fb.com/peadig

Why I Built Peadig, my own

WordPress Frameworkby Alex Moss, Co-Founder of Peadig

(also Director at FireCask)

http://firecask.com/

http://twitter.com/peadig

http://fb.com/peadig

http://alex-moss.co.uk/

http://peadig.com/



Evolution of Me

Working with HTML ~15 yearsWorking in Search ~8 yearsWorking with WordPress ~5 years









WordPress: The Winner of the CMSI tried a few other CMSs, and

WordPress won the battle. Reasons included community support, range of plugins and themes.

Also, it powered more websites than the others combined. Today it powers ~20% of the web.









WordPress Core is great, but there are a few disadvantages, especially to the novice:

● Not enough out-of-the-box for what I needed● Too much choice of similar plugins● Some of those plugins were developed by morons

I started by developing small plugins that worked, because others didn’t. My first was Twitter Feed and my second was Facebook Comments. These 2 plugins made me known.


How I started Developing with WordPress




http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2277422/How-to-Choose-Trustworthy-WordPress-Themes-Plugins





I Started to Get AttentionI was approached by Facebook to build part of what would later become the official Facebook WordPress plugin. I provided code, none went in. The finished product didn’t get a great response.


Official Facebook Plugin My Plugin








The Fruits of my Labour...650,000+ downloads from 20 pluginsOver 1 million inbound links to peadig.comBetween 500 and 1,000 visitors dailyOver 5,000 mailing list subscriptions

6 months later, we’re just shy of 1,000 sites using Peadig, and over 5,000 sites using our combined premium products





Back to the FrameworkOnce I found my feet with plugins, I found myself with the same issues for themes that I did with plugins. In 2010 had one of 2

framework choices...


Thesis Genesis

I chose Thesis. I was clearly unhinged, but it was the best of a bad bunch.








Thesis was ok… but was short livedFrom what began as a few minor tweaks, Thesis turned into another

theme that I had to fork to do what it should be doing, not what I wanted it to do.


● Not good SEO best practice● Reliant on their own code,

both frontend and backend● Was slow on future-proofing● I needed more and more

features as time passed, and technology improved.








I decided to Create My Own FrameworkI wrote the specification of a framework on a coach in Croatia in

August 2011, and spent a lot of my spare time developing a spec that included:


● Easy and extendible options pages● A shed load of shortcodes for customisation● Hooks for ease of development and design● All the nice features I wanted from multiple plugins merged

into one● Respect for WordPress theme requirements

and one more thing...








Social Structured DataWhy are people still ignoring this?! This includes large scale

publications where context is completely inaccurate...









So I created Peadig (with @shanejones)...I took all the options I’d want to see both as a webmaster as well as

an SEO and combined it all into one mahoosive options panel.

I also needed to choose a popular HTML framework. Luckily there’s one that powers 1% of the web...


● Mobile-first responsive

● Made by 2 developers at Twitter

● Fast, trustworthy, future-proof and much better than any internal CSS framework that any WordPress framework can offer

● Free access to CDN’s




https://twitter.com/shanejones





All sites FireCask develop are Peadig Child Themes...and other faces are developing child themes (click avatars for

links)...


Rhys has also developed a “coming soon”, complete with lead gen, theme called Peacoming.

Developed on trains/busses in less than 20 total hours. Easy peasy!







http://winwar.co.uk/themes/peacoming/


Some sites now using Peadig

Factory Youth Zone

Expedia EAN BrightEdge

The Poke 123Reg FireCask




http://www.thefactoryyz.org/


http://blog.expediaaffiliate.com/

http://www.brightedge.com/blog/

http://www.thepoke.co.uk/

http://www.123-reg.co.uk/blog/


http://blog.expediaaffiliate.com/


http://www.123-reg.co.uk/blog/


http://www.thepoke.co.uk/

http://www.brightedge.com/blog/


Here’s a Discount Code for 20% off everything at Peadig…

FJ450GJ(also Peacoming is offering 33% off with the code

MANCSAS)

*Valid until 9th June 2014




Small Business & Entrepreneurship

Why i built Peadig, my own WordPress framework