SUCCESS IN WORDPRESS

Do you have it?

By: Thomas Griffin Twitter: @jthomasgriffin

Website: http://thomasgriffin.io

HOW DO YOU DEFINE SUCCESS?

What matters most to you?

No one person has the same idea of success, but everyone can use WordPress to find their version of it.

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TOOLS TO GET YOU THERE

Because, well, I’ve been there!

To get a more in-depth overview of the tools I use, you can sign up to receive them free. Just head here: http://thomasgriffin.io/wordpress-toolbox/

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WHO AM I?CTO and Partner at Awesome Motive, Inc.

I’ve built many things in WordPress, including: OptinMonster, Soliloquy, Envira Gallery, TGM Plugin Activation and more. I’ve contributed to WordPress core and

the Genesis Framework. As for success in WordPress: a 6-figure consulting business, 7-figure product business and lots of happy customers!

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TOOL CATEGORIES

Different tools for different things.1. Necessities 2. Web Hosting 3. Website Backups 4. Themes 5. Performance 6. SEO 7. Lead Generation 8. Miscellaneous Tools 9. Helpful Resources 10. The Most Important Tool

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NECESSITIESMy “must-haves”.

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( just kidding..but really..kidding)

Freshbooks - Accounting Made Easy

Freshbooks makes it stupid easy to invoice and keep track of clients, and I guarantee you will get paid faster if you use it.

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Link: http://bit.ly/griffinjt-freshbooks

Github - Online Software Collaboration

Host your code on Github. Keep track of changes, and put your work out for the world to see!

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Link: http://bit.ly/griffinjt-github

Evernote - Keep Notes on Everything

Never forget that quick snippet or workflow again. Keep track of changes. I love the checkbox list feature - it’s the best!

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Link: http://bit.ly/griffinjt-evernote

WEB HOSTINGThe foundation for all you do.

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WordPress Hosting - At Scale

Don’t skimp on your foundation. Put your site on the host built to scale. All of my products trust Pagely to deliver when we need it most. Plans start at $24/month.

Bonus: their support is highly competent and helpful!

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Link: http://bit.ly/griffinjt_pagely

WEBSITE BACKUPS

Protect your investments.

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VaultPress - Because Life Happens

Life happens. You botch an update. You accidentally delete your database. Don’t get caught red-handed by your mistakes (like me). Get real-time, incremental

backups with VaultPress.

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Link: http://bit.ly/griffinjt-vaultpress

WP Migrate DB Pro - Quick DB Backups

Sometimes you just want a quick, local backup of your database before making an upgrade. WP Migrate DB Pro is the best tool for this. It handles lots of complex

scenarios and even supports remote backups!

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Link: http://bit.ly/griffinjt_wpmigratedbpro

THEMESYour value presentation.

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StudioPress & Genesis - Framework Workflows

I used (and even contributed to!) Genesis by StudioPress to create websites FAST. Like $1,500 projects in one day fast. You can really benefit from the workflows

that come from learning a powerful framework like Genesis.

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Link: http://bit.ly/griffinjt_studiopress

Underscores - Bold Start, Complex Finish

Underscores (_s) is the perfect theme to use for highly complex projects or projects that require a lot of different custom templates. It has sensible defaults,

some useful helper functions and a good scaffolding for large projects.

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Link: http://bit.ly/griffinjt-underscores

PERFORMANCEReduce friction between visitors and information.

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W3 Total Cache - Everything You Need (Almost)

W3 Total Cache allows you really optimize the speed of your site with things like page, database and object caching, minifying assets, browser caching and more.

The two most important items: page caching and browser caching.

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Link: http://bit.ly/griffinjt-w3totalcache

MaxCDN - Global Asset Delivery

Reducing latency between your visitor and website assets is crucial to load times. MaxCDN serves assets like CSS, JS, media files, etc. from globally distributed

server networks. Plain talk: it loads stuff fast.

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Link: http://bit.ly/griffinjt_maxcdn

SEOMake yourself known to the world.

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WordPress SEO by Yoast - Enough Said

This is the king of SEO plugins. It does two of the most important SEO functions very, very well: title/meta tags and XML sitemaps. You can also do keyword analysis, search engine previews, canonical URLs, 301 redirects and more.

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Link: http://bit.ly/griffinjt-wordpressseo

LEAD GENERATION

Create a consistent funnel for leads.

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Gravity Forms - Contact Forms Made Easy

Create a simple contact form to encourage visitor interaction. When I say simple, I mean simple. Like, 3-4 fields simple or it will hurt conversion rates. You can do more powerful things, too, like connect to your MailChimp list, build quizzes and

much more.

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Link: http://bit.ly/griffinjt_gravityforms

OptinMonster - Visitors to Subscribers

70% of your abandoning visitors will never return. Think of how much money that could be for you. OptinMonster helps you convert those visitors into leads with

ballin' optin forms (and exit intent!). Profit. Disclaimer: I built this, so I’m slightly biased, but others agree.

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Link: http://bit.ly/griffinjt-optinmonster

MISCELLANEOUS TOOLS

Important, non-categorized tools.

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Easy Digital Downloads - Digital Product Lifeblood

If you ever think you want to start selling digital products, use Easy Digital Downloads. It has tons of functionality and extensions to make your product

payment and account workflows a success.

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Link: http://bit.ly/griffinjt_edd

Soliloquy - responsive WordPress slider (I built). This jump-started my career into products. Key takeaway: if you find yourself building things over and over for

clients, it might be a good product fit. !

Envira Gallery - responsive WordPress gallery (I built). This came to be from efficiencies and workflows from Soliloquy. Key takeaway: one product may be

the scaffolding for a complimentary product. !

Help Scout - make your customers/clients happy. I love the automated workflows, customer tagging, and reporting. Key takeaway: Help Scout makes customer

management 1000x better than Gmail. !

MailChimp - beautiful email marketing. Don’t neglect the power of a well-timed email. Key takeaway: You never know when an email is just the push someone

needs to generate new business with you.

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Links http://bit.ly/griffinjt-soliloquy

http://bit.ly/griffinjt-envira http://bit.ly/griffinjt_mailchimp http://bit.ly/griffinjt_helpscout

HELPFUL RESOURCES

Places and people you should know!

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Make Blogs - All Things WordPress

Designer? Developer? Customer Support? Community? The Make Blogs are where you need to go to learn about all the new

developments with WordPress. If WordPress is your business, know WordPress’ business.

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Link: http://bit.ly/griffinjt_makeblogs

WP Tavern - WordPress News

You should be following WordPress news to learn about the latest trends, plugins, community resources and other things that help give you an edge over your

competition.

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Link: http://bit.ly/griffinjt_wptavern

WPBeginner - Getting Started with WordPress

If you are new to WordPress or want to look up a quick tutorial, WPBeginner likely has it. It’s a great resource to point beginners to (including clients new to

WordPress).

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Link: http://bit.ly/griffinjt_wpbeginner

Tom McFarlin - WordPress Development

Tom writes great content about WordPress development, including outside of the box thinking, ideas and approaches to development.

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Link: http://bit.ly/griffinjt_wpbeginner

Chris Lema - WordPress Thinker and Talker

Chris provides some great content on his blog about WordPress, products, pricing philosophies. He loves to talk and has a lot of good things to say

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Link: http://bit.ly/griffinjt_wpbeginner

THE MOST IMPORTANT TOOL

The other tools hinge on this.

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EXECUTIONIf you can’t execute, nothing else matters.

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Tools are great at collecting dust, not at building successful businesses in WordPress. Execution is the driving force that makes these tools shine and (in my

opinion) the key to finding success in WordPress.

Are you executing? Are you executing well?

Are you executing on the things that matter?

Speaking of things that matter…

PEOPLE MATTERWordPress is a community. Success relies on it.

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People + tools + execution = success.

Your homework: spend 2 minutes after this talk to meet somebody. They are here because they want to find some sort of success with WordPress, too.

Maybe their success can be part of yours!

THE ENDHere’s to your continued success with WordPress!

By: Thomas Griffin Twitter: @jthomasgriffin

Website: http://thomasgriffin.io Slides: slideshare.net/griffinjt/