September 17, 2025 • 45 mins
WordPress powers more than 60% of the internet—but that doesn’t mean your site is safe, stable, or even well-built. In this episode, we pull back the curtain on the most common mistakes made by DIY site builders and inexperienced developers: outdated plugins, bloated themes, security gaps, and more. You’ll learn why that “beautiful” theme might be a house of cards, why regular updates aren’t optional, and how to spot the warning signs of a WordPress site built to fail. Whether you’re a business owner or a designer, this episode will help you separate good builds from bad—and make smarter decisions about who you trust with your site.
Over The Bull is brought to you by IntegrisDesign.com. All rights reserved.
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Episode Transcript
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SPEAKER_00 (00:00):
Let's talk about WordPress on this episode of
Over the Bull.
Hi, I'm Ken.
I'm with Integrous Design.
And, you know, this podcast isbased on real-world experiences
that our agency has week in andweek out.
And one of the things that'sreally popped up on the radar of
(00:22):
late is WordPress development.
Now, we've been developing inWordPress, got for over 20 years
now, I guess.
And the thing is, is thatWordPress can be a powerful tool
for your business, or it can bean incredibly frustrating part
(00:44):
of your business.
Now, WordPress, what I'd like todo is kind of talk to you about
what WordPress is.
And if you've had a negativeexperience with it, I want to
share maybe why you've had thatnegative experience and kind of
walk you through exactly thenuances of WordPress.
(01:05):
Now, WordPress being the mostpopular content management
system on the planet, in myopinion, is the best solution
for most businesses out theretoday.
Period.
Now, the reason that I say thatis because it gives you
unparalleled freedom and it alsogives you unparalleled control
(01:29):
of your website if done theright way.
Now, there is a cost to workingwith WordPress correctly, and
there's a lot of dangersassociated with WordPress when
it comes to your business, yourtime, and frankly, your sanity.
So we're big believers inWordPress.
(01:50):
So first, well, what isWordPress?
Well, if you could imagine,WordPress is, well, basically
what's known as a contentmanagement system.
Content management system meansyou can manage your content on
your website.
What it does is give you like aneasy interface where you can
(02:10):
make changes, additions, ordeletions to your website
without having to know a lot ofcoding.
Pretty much that's whatWordPress is.
Now, within WordPress, there isa ton of things that you can do.
So, as you can imagine, beingBeing the most popular content
(02:32):
management system on the planet,it will attract really solid
development solutions, and it'salso going to attract
not-so-good practices.
So I really couldn't believe, tobe honest with you, some of the
stuff that I have seen latelywhen it comes to WordPress.
(02:55):
It's kind of staggering tobelieve that there are people
out there who are actuallybuilding websites that are,
frankly, they're volatile.
I mean, it almost feels likeyou're playing pickup sticks.
So when we analyze them, it'shard to even touch them because
of some of the practices thatare going on.
(03:17):
And so it's understandable,especially in this crazy world
we live in.
And when something is readilyavailable like WordPress, you
can definitely see more thanever the that unqualified people
are building WordPress sitesthat are just outright bad.
(03:38):
Now, this doesn't mean WordPressis the problem.
It means that the developers andthe tools that are going into
WordPress are the issues.
So let's kind of talk aboutWordPress for a little bit.
There are really two mainflavors of WordPress.
(03:58):
There's one at wordpress.com.
And there's another one atWordPress.org.
So WordPress.com is kind of likea controlled version of
WordPress.
And WordPress.org is what wecall open source.
That's where you can downloadall the code natively and have
(04:20):
everything at your disposal oryour design team or developer's
disposal.
So think of it like this.
If you develop at WordPress It'skind of like leasing a vehicle
and not being able to see underthe hood of the vehicle.
If you get WordPress.org, thenyou have full control over
(04:42):
everything.
And to my knowledge, everydeveloper that we've ever worked
with prefers to useWordPress.org.
Now, the reason being is it'sgood for the business because
you have all of your codenatively.
And it's also good for thedeveloper because we can
literally get to anything.
(05:02):
But this is also the rub withWordPress because since it's
open source and it's really easyto install and then you tie in
development strategies, this iswhere really things can get off
the rails really quick.
(05:22):
So, for example, if we were toequate it to, say, building a
deck, you You know, you couldbuild a deck using the exact
same tools and exact same, youknow, wood or whatever.
And that deck could either bereally well built or it could be
(05:43):
extremely poorly built basedupon the decisions and the
people that are putting ittogether.
And this is exactly what's goingon for us worse than ever.
OK, it is absolutely staggering.
The stuff that I am seeing fromWordPress developers these days.
I don't even know if I'd callthem developers, to be honest
(06:05):
with you.
So let me justify the statement.
So let's peer into WordPress alittle bit.
So when you get into WordPress,because you can get into all the
code and all the stuff in it,there are really two main groups
of elements that impactWordPress other than your
(06:28):
hosting.
Matter of fact, let's talk abouthosting just for a second.
So when you look at hosting, youcan get hosting really cheap.
I mean, really, really cheap.
I'm talking probably under fivebucks a month.
Now, with cheap hosting, therecomes a lot of issues that are
(06:51):
associated with it.
And the price tag is veryappealing because as far as you
as an owner of a business, yousee websites in one location,
website in another location.
But there are a lot of nuancesthat go into high-quality
hosting that impact how well aWordPress environment is.
(07:13):
Everything from the security ofthat website to being able to
update that website to beingable to do certain things like
make duplicates of that website,work on the duplicate, and then
push it to the live environment.
And so one of the most commonmistakes people make, and
especially certain freelancers,is they go get really cheap
(07:36):
hosting.
Now, on the good end, theyrecommend that you get cheap
hosting, which when I'm sayinggood, not good for you, but it's
like the best of the worst.
And then you basically pay forit.
But the other thing is that theymay buy cheap hosting and then
(07:56):
sell that to you for a premiumcost.
Now, this happens, believe it ornot, this happens with big
agencies.
You will see them buy somereally bad hosting and then sell
it as proprietary hosting orinternal hosting or something
like that.
In reality, they're just reallymaking a lot more margin by just
(08:20):
selling it to you as that.
And so if you've not looked intoit, I would definitely look into
asking your developer exactlywhere you're being hosted at.
And I wouldn't acceptproprietary or internal or stuff
like that.
I'd ask, well, where is it?
And then once you find thatanswer, then what you want to do
(08:42):
is cross-reference it.
And I really recommend you lookinto something called EIG
hosting.
You'll be surprised at thenumber of companies that are
actually under the umbrella ofthis larger organization.
It's kind of like the sameproduct sold under different
labels that they had acquiredfrom my understanding over the
(09:05):
years.
So you want to look into thatwhen it comes to hosting.
But the idea is that people whobuy premium hosting are not just
Fortune 500 companies and theselarger companies.
There are people that take theirbusiness seriously and want to
make sure that they have astrong foundation for their
website.
(09:25):
And so if you're using cheaphosting, I would strongly
recommend you take a strongsecond look at that.
Now, let's dive back intoWordPress.
So, WordPress, there are twomain areas that most people deal
with with WordPress.
One of them is called the themesarea, and another one is called
(09:49):
the plugins area.
So, a theme is basically adesign, so to speak.
Plugins are features.
Now, when some people develop awebsite, you really need, let me
say this, you really need tostart thinking about the
(10:11):
developers and designers as abusiness and not as a friend or
a technical group that's doingeverything correctly.
You need to look at them as abusiness and you need to assess
what their business is like.
So let me give you a forinstance.
When it comes to themes, you cango through and you can find a
(10:34):
WordPress theme.
Remember, this is the mostpopular content management
system on the planet.
So you're going to have a lot ofpeople developing all these
themes and plugins, somereputable, some not.
But a lot of agencies, they willdownload a theme, say for, you
know,$29,$39, and then they'llresell it to you as a custom
(10:58):
development for of thousands ofdollars.
Now, if you're using WordPress,one way you could find out what
theme you're using is if you goto the homepage of your website
and right-click on the homepageitself and then go to View and
Source, you'll see a bunch ofcode come up.
(11:21):
Now, don't stress out about thecode.
Just know it's a bunch ofgobbledygook, but it's the
gobbledygook that makes up yourwebsite.
And if you're on a PC, you canhit Control F as in Frank.
And if you're on a Mac, you canhit Command F as in Frank.
And then just look for the wordtheme, T-H-E-M-E.
(11:42):
And then after that slash,you're going to see the name of
a theme.
And then you can Google thattheme.
And in a lot of cases, you'regoing to find out that you were
charged a lot of money forsomething that was quickly
downloaded, applied to yourwebsite and used.
So you may say, well, what's thebig deal?
(12:04):
Well, there's a lot of big dealswhen it comes to that.
The first big deal is, remember,our second bucket is called
plugins.
Now, people who develop themes,most of those themes, well,
let's just say a large portionof those themes, are using those
plugins or features that aredeveloped by other people.
(12:26):
So just because the theme ispretty and you buy that for$29
or$59, it doesn't mean all theplugins were developed by the
same person.
And remember, they're trying tosell you eye candy, not
function, because they want youto buy their theme.
And so the problem is when youinstall those themes, a lot of
(12:47):
times those features or pluginsare maybe not maintained or
developed with the bestpractices possible.
So what that means is thosethemes could break.
Those plugins could break.
And what that would mean is thatyour website has a limited shelf
life.
(13:07):
Now, I'm not saying that's truewith all of them, but I am
saying I do see it quitefrequently where these themes
are not using plugins that arethe best built.
They've not been researched themost.
They're actually out there foreye candy purposes.
Now, from an agency perspective,It's kind of the best world when
(13:31):
you do that because they can buyit for$29, put a little bit of
design work into it, add somecontent, and then they can sell
that to you at a premium price.
Now, when you look at that, yougo, you know, well, consider if
you're an agency and you go,well, would I rather build a
(13:53):
website with cheap hosting andmarket up a whole lot by a cheap
theme that looks good, installit on it, have a few bucks a
month, and then charge premiumprocess for that.
Most agencies do that.
I keep using the word most, butthere's a lot of agencies who do
(14:13):
that.
Now, when you look at themes andyou look at plugins, the thing
is that you want to controlexactly how much of that or what
you use or how you use it.
So pretty themes will get you introuble.
(14:34):
Having someone who just installsa WordPress site, which
literally can be done inprobably five minutes, some
hosting companies havepush-button WordPress, and that
opens a whole other series ofissues.
We're working with a site thatwas a push-button WordPress
(14:55):
site, and when you look underthe hood of that site, site
after transferring it over, itis a nightmare.
Um, so the push button WordPressstuff, I'm not real crazy on
unless it's a company thatreally understands it.
There's a couple of them thatare out there.
Uh, unfortunately, a couple ofthe real big WordPress hosting
(15:18):
platforms, um, have failed a lotof our test and, and, uh,
they're, they're not that great.
Um, from my opinion, uh, Butanyway, let's move on here.
So you have your theme, and youneed to go look at your theme
and cross-reference it.
And then understand that if acheap theme is being used,
(15:39):
you're actually having a poorprocess developed, and you're
paying a premium price for it.
And looking at cheap themes, orI'm not going to tell you where
to get them, because frankly, Idon't want to get into any kind
of weird issues with it.
But when you look at them andyou see where they are and how
(15:59):
much they cost.
It gives you an idea of reallyhow serious that agency is when
it comes to building yourwebsite.
Now, let's move to plugins for asecond.
So if you use a theme that'scanned, then it's going to come
with some required plugins orfeatures like maybe a gallery or
(16:22):
maybe things for social media orsomething, you know, blog posts
or whatever.
There's just a ton of pluginsthat do different Now, some of
them are aesthetic and some ofthem are technical.
And those plug-ins, you canimagine it's like packing your
car up to go on vacation.
You know, you put one bag in thecar, you got plenty of room,
your gas mileage is going to bebetter and all that jazz.
(16:45):
Why, if you completely pack upyour car with everything and tow
a bunch of stuff behind it, yourgas mileage is going to be much
worse.
Well, the more plug-ins that youincorporate into a WordPress
site, the more Technically, mostof the time, there's more
overhead associated with it.
So it'll get more and moresluggish.
(17:05):
And also, if you could imaginethat each feature that's
installed on a WordPress site,they can also create conflicts
because they're developed bydifferent entities.
And if some of those entitiesare not using best practice,
then it's setting itself up tobe a disaster.
(17:26):
So just like you have reallycheap themes, you also have free
plugins.
Now, free plugins, there aresome out there that are
fantastic.
They have a great history.
There are others that areabsolutely disastrous.
But if you go back to thementality of the agency,
(17:46):
remember, they want to makemoney.
And so the idea is, do they makemoney where they're investing in
really high quality plugins thatgo into the site, coupled with a
high quality design process?
And do they couple that withreally good hosting?
Or are they just trying toinstall whatever they can
(18:09):
install for free in order to getover the goal and collect a
paycheck?
And this is a very, very seriousthing when it comes to
WordPress.
And you will be surprised at notonly the number of free plugins
that are on a lot of websitesthat really could be
(18:31):
problematic.
And I'm not saying free is bad.
Okay, so there are some outthere that are good.
But, you know, like everythingelse, if you're a hacker, are
you going to try to hack a freeone or a premium plug-in that
costs?
You know, there's all theselittle things that go into it.
But you can imagine that if theyconflict and then they have
(18:51):
problems and then maybe thedeveloper quits supporting those
plug-ins, you can imagine thatthings go sideways quick.
Now, there's another thing aboutplugins and themes that's really
important.
And that is they have to beupdated on a regular basis.
And so the challenge in that isthat if you have a designer that
(19:17):
turns your WordPress site overto you and they say, well, just
hit the update buttonperiodically or something like
that, they're reallyoversimplifying something that's
much more complicated.
complicated, especially if poorpractices were introduced.
So, for example, I have had anenergy company come to me and
(19:38):
they had a problem because theyhit that update button and it
blew their site up.
It just stopped functioning.
And the reason being was thatthe update, basically their
plugins were causing someconflicts and there needed to be
a little troubleshooting to getthat thing back live.
And so the idea is when you havea a competent WordPress
(20:00):
developer, typically they willalso have a process where
they're updating plugins and thethemes and the overall
infrastructure.
Even WordPress itself needs tobe updated.
And they'll typically includethat in a regular monthly
subscription.
That way you truly are onautopilot in the best way.
(20:22):
The worst thing that couldhappen is you install WordPress
yourself or have a A freelancerdo it.
They install a bunch of thisstuff, build your website, give
you the keys to the castle, andthen they leave you.
And then they leave you withsome very basic fundamental
instructions.
(20:43):
This is horrible.
Now, the next step up is theyhave really cheap hosting and a
lot of bad processes.
And then they do, you know, alittle bit of maintenance.
So as you can imagine, you cankind of see where WordPress can
can go sideways pretty quick.
On one end of the spectrum, youcould have a team that uses
(21:05):
premium processes, premiumstrategies, and they build the
website where it works.
On the other end, it doesn'twork.
And so now you can kind of seeif you've had a problem with
WordPress historically, you cankind of see maybe why you've
gotten that.
Now, there's another thing thatwe need to talk about as well.
(21:28):
And I get it.
I get it.
I mean, you own a business andyou're trying to save money.
And the next temptation is tooutsource work.
Now, at Integris, we don'toutsource anything to another
country.
We're actually pretty muchsolely in-house with how we
design and develop.
(21:49):
We're more of a boutique-styleagency that gives personal, you
know, we talk to our customerspersonally.
We don't run them through abunch of AI systems and things
like that.
And we just feel that that'snecessary in order to be
successful to truly understandtheir business.
But a lot of businesses willthink, well, if I outsource it,
they work for less money an hourand I can have a website that
(22:11):
does this.
So you can imagine that whatyou've just done was you've
opened the floodgate for some ofthe worst practices in WordPress
development.
And what happens then is thingscan go sideways quick.
So we have a couple ofsituations where we've worked
with people and they're reallykind of jaded and are really
(22:34):
serious.
We have one person right nowwho's asking us a lot of
questions about, you know, wherewe develop and how we develop
because the burn, I think, wasbad.
And that's a real problem.
And, you know, I go back even,this was years ago, but
unfortunately, this is a yearsago thing, but actually the
(22:55):
WordPress, from what I'm seeing,it looks like it's gotten more
worse.
But I'll never forget, I wassitting at a Denny's.
There was one open on PattonAvenue in Asheville, and a
friend of mine invited me to gomeet this person.
And I'll never forget himsharing the story of how he said
he would do this exact sameprocess.
(23:18):
Use cheap hosting, throw up abunch of stock photographs on a
website, throw in a And Iremember I was just stunned even
then.
And I said, you know, this isactually the worst thing that
you could do for a business.
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And without missing a beat, helooked at me and said, yeah, but
how else can you make a couplethousand bucks this easy?
And I was shocked at the time.
But now I've seen so much thatit's like, well, it's just
general practice.
So you really need to have adeveloper.
or a designer that works in atleast your country.
(24:04):
And really, they shouldunderstand your demographics and
a lot about your geo so thatyour product resonates with your
customers.
And so if you're trying to cheatand you think you've got some
kind of ways to sidestep properdevelopment, you really haven't.
All you've done is set yourselfup to either be not successful
(24:25):
or have a problematic website orworse, both.
But that's a real problem inthis world of WordPress, where
you have your pros and you haveyour cons.
So when it comes to features,features can be enticing, like
that slideshow or that galleryor one of those things that just
(24:50):
really just scratches thatproverbial itch.
But when you look at thosefeatures, there's a lot more
that goes into it.
into it, like how well is itmanaged?
Is it supported?
Is it a premium?
Is it not a premium?
Those kind of things.
And so when you're looking atthe factor, believe it or not,
(25:11):
when we develop WordPress, wehave a system that we've been
using for a long time and it'sbeen really successful for us.
It gives like reallyunparalleled stability,
security, an easy way forcustomers to edit their websites
and And it's just been a reallynice experience for our
(25:32):
customers.
But it's taken a long time tokind of iron out all the
details.
And we're constantly movingthings around.
Like, for example, we've had toswitch hosting with a lot of
websites several times in thelast five to six years.
And it's because even thehosting companies, they start
(25:55):
off sometimes really good.
But then what happened is whenthey start to move to go public,
you know, their IPO orsomething, they start worrying
more about margins and lessabout their customers.
At least that's my opinion.
And so then what happens is asthey grow, they start cheating,
(26:17):
in my opinion.
Now it could be called whatever,you know, cutting things back or
whatever.
But then what you find is thatthings go not so well with their
hosting platform.
And so we're constantlyadjusting and fine-tuning our
process as we go.
And this is kind of part of theequation.
So if I shared you with some ofthe places we've hosted, you
(26:39):
would probably be surprised.
And I think I want to do one.
I'm going to send a letter toour current host and basically
just inform them of what I'mgoing to talk about.
And then I'll make a decisionabout sharing that with you in
the future.
So the idea is that properWordPress development I'll see
(27:03):
you next time.
(27:28):
Well, this is exactly the samething.
If you're serious about yourbusiness, then get serious about
it.
If it's a side gig, then usethe, you know, even then, gosh,
those do-it-yourself systems.
And you know the ones I'mtalking about.
Most of those systems are justso problematic and so limited in
(27:51):
scope.
They exaggerate what they'recapable of doing, and they make
you think that somehow you'reyou're cheating the system.
Well, one of the big thingsabout the do-it-yourself systems
versus WordPress, because thismight be where you're thinking,
is, well, why not just go to thedo-it-yourself systems then and
just let them manage it?
(28:12):
Well, there's a real big problemwith that.
One of those is limited growth,and they're not as flexible as
you may think.
Remember that car analogy that Ishared earlier.
You want to have that freedom.
Now, here's the other thing.
Even if you started it And yougrow your business using those
systems.
At some point, you're going tooutgrow them.
(28:33):
And it's going to be extremelypainful because their systems
are proprietary.
So once you learn their systemsbut ready to go to something
that's full-fledged likeWordPress, you're going to have
to relearn all that stuff.
And you have to take all thatcontent you put into it and then
put it into another solution.
(28:53):
Now, we've quoted out projectswhere the main part of the
project– is just moving stufffrom one place to the other.
And so the moving process can bevery cumbersome and very costly,
which makes you feel stuck withit.
And then if you've got theeducation or the learning curve
on top of it, and you havepeople in your team already used
(29:16):
to using it, you can imagine howdifficult that would be to go
away from it.
While if you start off withsomething like WordPress, you
can learn WordPress, and thenyou don't have to go through
that relearning phase.
And if you get tired of yourdeveloper, the pro side is that
you can find other WordPressdevelopers that can assume the
(29:38):
project, assuming that they'recompetent.
Now, again, competency isabsolutely the biggest issue
with WordPress.
So let me give you an idea ofthis.
I remember years ago, there waseither a roofer or something.
I forget what he used to do, butthen what he did was he got into
the WordPress, and he startedselling these webinars where you
(30:02):
could become a selling WordPresswebsites after about a week's
worth of training.
Now, it may have been a littlebit longer than that.
And then I had a client of minewho was in holistic medicine,
and he wanted to get intoWordPress.
He took a six-week course andsays, okay, I'm ready to go.
Now, I've been at WordPress forover 20 years, and I can tell
(30:26):
you there are still things thatyou learn.
Now, we get under the hood.
We get into a lot of the stuffbehind the scenes to make it
work out.
But a person who goes to asix-week course or a week course
or, you know, whatever, and thenthey start promoting themselves
as a professional, you couldimagine the amount of problems
(30:48):
you could get into by simplyusing poor practices or lack the
experience to make properdecisions.
And so all this kind of bundlesup.
And so it's kind of like whenyou look at WordPress, it could
be the most powerful, strongthing that you could have that
could grow with your business.
And you may never grow out ofit.
(31:10):
Like I've never had a clientgrow out of WordPress.
And that could be your home basemoving forward.
Or it could be an absolutedisaster where you're jumping
from person to person to person.
Now, I can tell you that I'veseen both poor practices and and
poor development.
(31:30):
And I want to share one otherthing with you.
I've run across this lately.
I was doing some coaching with areally, really good business,
well-meaning business.
And there were some things thatI was able to show this company
in just a few steps.
And one of the questions aswe're doing this was, well, why
(31:53):
didn't the other person tell methis?
And to pair They said, are theyincompetent or were they just
trying to cheat us?
And, you know, my gut instinctwas incompetence.
You know, they got somethingthat works for them.
They're kind of just, you know,that company's just kind of, you
(32:16):
know, they're stymied in limitedknowledge.
But it could be both.
Now, when it comes to WordPress,the other thing, too, is, you
know, we have white gloveexperience.
but we also teach our clientshow to use our system.
And we do that really on acase-by-case basis.
So if you could imagine, maybethis person wasn't teaching that
(32:41):
company what to do because theywanted to charge for that
service.
And sometimes those charges arecrazy.
I mean, like$85 to change aphone number on a contact page
or something like that.
And then, of course, the otherside of the scenario is they
give you complete access toeverything, and then it creates
a whole other set of issues, asyou can imagine.
(33:04):
But as you look at when thesepeople develop, it could just be
that they're trying to pocketthe money and want you to be
completely dependent upon them.
So there's a lot of thosenuances.
Now, for us, we have a hybridsolution.
We can white glove it, but weprefer to teach you how to do it
because we want our customerswith us long term.
(33:25):
So what we do is we teach them,but if they need us, we're here.
So there's a lot that simplygoes into even the admin of the
website.
So WordPress is not WordPressalways.
It's not because you findsomebody who's going to do cheap
and you think, you know,because, you know, I keep going
(33:46):
back to the idea of how businessthinks.
Why am I paying this much forhosting when I should be paying
that much?
And, you know, why should I payyou to develop this when I can
do this.
It all sounds really good.
On a topical level, it soundsreally, really good.
But when you get into the weedsof it and you understand that
(34:09):
using premium licenses for aserver and then managing those
premium licenses for the clientand then just charging them a
percentage of what thatserver-wide license is, is good
for everyone.
And it increases the stability.
So I think one thing I want todo is circle back around on
(34:32):
security and let's talk a littlebit about marketing.
So security, as you couldimagine, the bad guys are
constantly trying to break intoyour website.
Now, if you're not doingfinancial transactions on your
website, that does not mean theydon't want your website.
They love to hack your websiteand send spammy emails from your
(34:54):
website rather than their ownresources.
And so that's just one reasonthat they'll do it.
They'll kill your reputation toprotect their reputation.
So you want to make sure thatyour website is secure if you
care about your businessreputation.
They love to get in there.
They love to cause problems.
And in the world of artificialintelligence, that's becoming
(35:17):
more and more of a challenge.
And so you can imagine that ifyour developer is using a cheap
theme with plugins and they'renot being updated on a the
security issues that you wouldrun into just from that practice
alone.
You're basically opening thedoor up and you're becoming low
hanging fruit for the bad guys.
(35:42):
I mean, just think like, youknow, you got one home that's
got a security system andeverything's set up.
You got another home that's gotthe front door wide open and
says, welcome, come in and takemy stuff.
You know, they're going to gofor the low hanging fruit.
And there's so much low hangingfruit in the world of WordPress
that a lot of times they'll justbypass you up unless they have
(36:03):
some kind of grudge against youor your calls if you're in a
polarizing sector or somethinglike that.
So by using best practices, youalso solve a lot of the
security.
And there's advanced securitysystems you could put into.
And for some of our clients, weput more advanced security in
those websites.
(36:23):
So going back to it, and if youlook at agencies Let's talk
about agencies for a second.
I've seen quotes from some ofour competitors, and there are
four or five X while we charge.
Now, I'll argue that we're oneof the most accredited web
design creative agencies in thestate of North Carolina.
(36:46):
Now, I may be exaggerating that,but I've not seen one yet that
holds more credentials than wehold.
And so the idea is that a lot ofthese agencies, even though they
look polished on the outsidewith their particular situation.
Internally, they're usingamateurs.
I remember this nonprofit.
They were a nonprofit.
(37:07):
We actually started helping themout pro bono years ago because
we believed in their calls.
And I remember at one point theygot suckered in.
They went to a trade show andgot suckered in with this agency
that claimed to be a specialistin their market.
And oh my goodness, the logos,the creative I mean I can still
(37:31):
remember them labeling thecolors in this weird way like
for example when you use colorsprofessionally you typically use
something called a Pantone bookand it has a numeric system that
references different colors andthat's kind of how you look at
it and there's a whole technicalthing into colors and all that
(37:55):
and I still remember themchoosing names and they were
They were giving this to ourclient, and they were using
words like soothing salmon.
I wish I was lying to you.
And it was the most horriblelogo.
Oh, my gosh.
It was a disaster.
And I'll never forget howactually horrible that was.
(38:19):
But the point is, this was anagency that served a lot of
businesses in the sector of whatthis company was.
And they They just kind of rodethat storm and just assumed that
they were whatever.
And anyway, it was aninteresting situation.
So the idea is that when you seestuff like this or you see
(38:41):
agencies that are claiming to bemarketing companies like the one
out of Nashville I run into, andthey're basically using a
product on autopilot, you evensee that the marketing is kind
of squirrely.
So the point is this.
You can't go with an agencybased on the size of the agency.
You can't really go based on thesmallness of an agency.
(39:03):
You can't take it under your ownwing.
And so the idea is you've got tobe very careful with who you put
on your team and who you trustand don't go by price and
definitely don't go based onjust on if someone gives you a
referral.
I mean, because then you'retrusting that that company is
not just liking that person orwhatever, but they could still
(39:25):
be incompetent.
So you've got to to really thinkthrough that, and especially
when it goes full circle toWordPress, it is a very strong
discipline.
Now, the reality is WordPress islikely where you need to be.
You go in and look at thedifferent sites that are there,
but you need to find a reallygood person to develop it.
(39:50):
And you need to probably have anindependent party audit your
website.
And so part of what you could dois you hire an independent party
to do a couple high-levelquestions you could ask them to
investigate is, one, where isthis website hosted?
Number two, are they using anyfree or cheap plug-ins or
(40:11):
plug-ins that don't have astrong history of regular
updates?
Three, are they installingmultiple plug-ins that perform
the same function that couldoverlap and cause issues?
The next one is, well, whattheme are they using and where
did they get it?
And why did they choose that?
And then you could have someperformance metrics perform too.
(40:34):
Now, of course, if you hire anindependent party, you got to
remember that they have a dog inthe fight because they want to
find the worst possible thingswrong with your website and make
the best possible calls ifthey're in the business.
So you got to weigh all thatstuff.
But that would be some of thevery high level things you could
do.
We do that all the time forcustomers where they want us
(40:55):
just to audit and just find outif the website's healthy or not.
And that's part of what we dohere at Integris.
So I do recommend that you dothat at the very least.
I would recommend also you lookat credentials, how long they've
been in business.
Are they a true business?
Are they a DBA?
(41:16):
What's their infrastructure looklike?
Ask them to walk you throughtheir development processes.
If you're concerned that theyoutsource, ask them to put it in
the contract that they don'toutsource to anyone.
You know, you going to have toget really tough with this and
serious about it if you'reserious about running your
business.
Because again, WordPress canabsolutely be the strongest tool
(41:37):
and asset for your company, orit could be the biggest anchor
for your company.
So hopefully this will help younavigate the world of WordPress
a little bit and help youunderstand exactly what goes on
behind the scenes of WordPressand understand why you see
things that are So, I don't knowthe word.
(42:01):
They vary so much is what I'mtrying to say from agency to
agency and freelancer tofreelancer.
And, you know, talking a goodgame versus being able to
deliver something.
Oh, marketing.
That's what I was going to talkto you about real quick.
You can also set up yourWordPress site in a really good
way for marketing, like thewords like search engine
(42:25):
optimization, paid advertising,landing pages.
conversions, things like that,you can also really blow it up.
And so here's a quick tip.
If you're interested in SEO whenyou have a website developed,
the first thing that you shouldbe talking about is not picking
out a theme and not picking outplugins and not doing all that.
(42:47):
You really should be doingplanning on the front end.
Like, what are you trying to doand what are your goals?
And then the wholeinfrastructure of your website
should be built around thatpremise.
If you've had your websitedeveloper, they say, hey, send
me your about page info, send meyour contact page info, send me
(43:08):
a list of services for yourbusiness, and hey, don't worry
about it, we'll use clip art forwhat we don't have.
Not that Adobe Photo and stuffisn't, because we use that
stuff, but it's like it stillhas to be used in the right
portions, just like not puttingtoo much salt in a a soup or
(43:28):
something like that.
But when you look at marketing,there are certain things that
have to be set up correctly.
And again, that's a whole otherlevel that we focus on before we
ever start development.
So if you want to really zoomout and you want to really look
at if your person has done theirhomework, ask yourself this.
(43:49):
Did they run a competitiveanalysis?
Did they ask you specificquestions about what you're
trying to accomplish?
Did they show you actualkeywords that are defined by
Google as being effectivekeywords, and then they build
your website around thoseeffective keywords?
Or did they just put thingstogether with links to basic
(44:12):
pages and basic content based onwhat you fed them?
So as you can see, that'sdramatically different.
And so you never want to have awebsite developed and then go
hire an SEO person.
I mean, because a good SEOperson is going to say it's
built wrong and you've got tochange all this stuff.
Now, of course, there's tons ofin and outs with that because,
(44:33):
you know, I won awards on SEOand there's a lot of nuanced
stuff that goes into searchengine optimization.
But this is absolutely the bestpractice.
And so that's another clue towhere if you just hired someone
who installed a theme or wasserious about building you a
plan that's going to besuccessful.
(44:56):
So in essence, maybe Make sureyou get the right person.
Make sure that they team up withyou.
Make sure you got a plan wherethey manage it and keep things
updated.
Make sure they got a plan towork with you and grow your
business and massage thatWordPress site as you go.
And then make sure that whatthey're using is not a cheap way
(45:16):
of building WordPress, but aneffective way of building
WordPress.
And that's going to be yourfirst steps in making sure that
you have a tool that's going tohelp you grow.
Thanks so much for attendingOver the Bull.
I look forward to seeing youagain.
Why I said attending, I don'tknow.
Thank you for listening, and youhave a blessed day, and good
(45:37):
luck.
Let's talk about WordPress on this episode of
Over the Bull.
Hi, I'm Ken.
I'm with Integrous Design.
And, you know, this podcast isbased on real-world experiences
that our agency has week in andweek out.
And one of the things that'sreally popped up on the radar of
(00:22):
late is WordPress development.
Now, we've been developing inWordPress, got for over 20 years
now, I guess.
And the thing is, is thatWordPress can be a powerful tool
for your business, or it can bean incredibly frustrating part
(00:44):
of your business.
Now, WordPress, what I'd like todo is kind of talk to you about
what WordPress is.
And if you've had a negativeexperience with it, I want to
share maybe why you've had thatnegative experience and kind of
walk you through exactly thenuances of WordPress.
(01:05):
Now, WordPress being the mostpopular content management
system on the planet, in myopinion, is the best solution
for most businesses out theretoday.
Period.
Now, the reason that I say thatis because it gives you
unparalleled freedom and it alsogives you unparalleled control
(01:29):
of your website if done theright way.
Now, there is a cost to workingwith WordPress correctly, and
there's a lot of dangersassociated with WordPress when
it comes to your business, yourtime, and frankly, your sanity.
So we're big believers inWordPress.
(01:50):
So first, well, what isWordPress?
Well, if you could imagine,WordPress is, well, basically
what's known as a contentmanagement system.
Content management system meansyou can manage your content on
your website.
What it does is give you like aneasy interface where you can
(02:10):
make changes, additions, ordeletions to your website
without having to know a lot ofcoding.
Pretty much that's whatWordPress is.
Now, within WordPress, there isa ton of things that you can do.
So, as you can imagine, beingBeing the most popular content
(02:32):
management system on the planet,it will attract really solid
development solutions, and it'salso going to attract
not-so-good practices.
So I really couldn't believe, tobe honest with you, some of the
stuff that I have seen latelywhen it comes to WordPress.
(02:55):
It's kind of staggering tobelieve that there are people
out there who are actuallybuilding websites that are,
frankly, they're volatile.
I mean, it almost feels likeyou're playing pickup sticks.
So when we analyze them, it'shard to even touch them because
of some of the practices thatare going on.
(03:17):
And so it's understandable,especially in this crazy world
we live in.
And when something is readilyavailable like WordPress, you
can definitely see more thanever the that unqualified people
are building WordPress sitesthat are just outright bad.
(03:38):
Now, this doesn't mean WordPressis the problem.
It means that the developers andthe tools that are going into
WordPress are the issues.
So let's kind of talk aboutWordPress for a little bit.
There are really two mainflavors of WordPress.
(03:58):
There's one at wordpress.com.
And there's another one atWordPress.org.
So WordPress.com is kind of likea controlled version of
WordPress.
And WordPress.org is what wecall open source.
That's where you can downloadall the code natively and have
(04:20):
everything at your disposal oryour design team or developer's
disposal.
So think of it like this.
If you develop at WordPress It'skind of like leasing a vehicle
and not being able to see underthe hood of the vehicle.
If you get WordPress.org, thenyou have full control over
(04:42):
everything.
And to my knowledge, everydeveloper that we've ever worked
with prefers to useWordPress.org.
Now, the reason being is it'sgood for the business because
you have all of your codenatively.
And it's also good for thedeveloper because we can
literally get to anything.
(05:02):
But this is also the rub withWordPress because since it's
open source and it's really easyto install and then you tie in
development strategies, this iswhere really things can get off
the rails really quick.
(05:22):
So, for example, if we were toequate it to, say, building a
deck, you You know, you couldbuild a deck using the exact
same tools and exact same, youknow, wood or whatever.
And that deck could either bereally well built or it could be
(05:43):
extremely poorly built basedupon the decisions and the
people that are putting ittogether.
And this is exactly what's goingon for us worse than ever.
OK, it is absolutely staggering.
The stuff that I am seeing fromWordPress developers these days.
I don't even know if I'd callthem developers, to be honest
(06:05):
with you.
So let me justify the statement.
So let's peer into WordPress alittle bit.
So when you get into WordPress,because you can get into all the
code and all the stuff in it,there are really two main groups
of elements that impactWordPress other than your
(06:28):
hosting.
Matter of fact, let's talk abouthosting just for a second.
So when you look at hosting, youcan get hosting really cheap.
I mean, really, really cheap.
I'm talking probably under fivebucks a month.
Now, with cheap hosting, therecomes a lot of issues that are
(06:51):
associated with it.
And the price tag is veryappealing because as far as you
as an owner of a business, yousee websites in one location,
website in another location.
But there are a lot of nuancesthat go into high-quality
hosting that impact how well aWordPress environment is.
(07:13):
Everything from the security ofthat website to being able to
update that website to beingable to do certain things like
make duplicates of that website,work on the duplicate, and then
push it to the live environment.
And so one of the most commonmistakes people make, and
especially certain freelancers,is they go get really cheap
(07:36):
hosting.
Now, on the good end, theyrecommend that you get cheap
hosting, which when I'm sayinggood, not good for you, but it's
like the best of the worst.
And then you basically pay forit.
But the other thing is that theymay buy cheap hosting and then
(07:56):
sell that to you for a premiumcost.
Now, this happens, believe it ornot, this happens with big
agencies.
You will see them buy somereally bad hosting and then sell
it as proprietary hosting orinternal hosting or something
like that.
In reality, they're just reallymaking a lot more margin by just
(08:20):
selling it to you as that.
And so if you've not looked intoit, I would definitely look into
asking your developer exactlywhere you're being hosted at.
And I wouldn't acceptproprietary or internal or stuff
like that.
I'd ask, well, where is it?
And then once you find thatanswer, then what you want to do
(08:42):
is cross-reference it.
And I really recommend you lookinto something called EIG
hosting.
You'll be surprised at thenumber of companies that are
actually under the umbrella ofthis larger organization.
It's kind of like the sameproduct sold under different
labels that they had acquiredfrom my understanding over the
(09:05):
years.
So you want to look into thatwhen it comes to hosting.
But the idea is that people whobuy premium hosting are not just
Fortune 500 companies and theselarger companies.
There are people that take theirbusiness seriously and want to
make sure that they have astrong foundation for their
website.
(09:25):
And so if you're using cheaphosting, I would strongly
recommend you take a strongsecond look at that.
Now, let's dive back intoWordPress.
So, WordPress, there are twomain areas that most people deal
with with WordPress.
One of them is called the themesarea, and another one is called
(09:49):
the plugins area.
So, a theme is basically adesign, so to speak.
Plugins are features.
Now, when some people develop awebsite, you really need, let me
say this, you really need tostart thinking about the
(10:11):
developers and designers as abusiness and not as a friend or
a technical group that's doingeverything correctly.
You need to look at them as abusiness and you need to assess
what their business is like.
So let me give you a forinstance.
When it comes to themes, you cango through and you can find a
(10:34):
WordPress theme.
Remember, this is the mostpopular content management
system on the planet.
So you're going to have a lot ofpeople developing all these
themes and plugins, somereputable, some not.
But a lot of agencies, they willdownload a theme, say for, you
know,$29,$39, and then they'llresell it to you as a custom
(10:58):
development for of thousands ofdollars.
Now, if you're using WordPress,one way you could find out what
theme you're using is if you goto the homepage of your website
and right-click on the homepageitself and then go to View and
Source, you'll see a bunch ofcode come up.
(11:21):
Now, don't stress out about thecode.
Just know it's a bunch ofgobbledygook, but it's the
gobbledygook that makes up yourwebsite.
And if you're on a PC, you canhit Control F as in Frank.
And if you're on a Mac, you canhit Command F as in Frank.
And then just look for the wordtheme, T-H-E-M-E.
(11:42):
And then after that slash,you're going to see the name of
a theme.
And then you can Google thattheme.
And in a lot of cases, you'regoing to find out that you were
charged a lot of money forsomething that was quickly
downloaded, applied to yourwebsite and used.
So you may say, well, what's thebig deal?
(12:04):
Well, there's a lot of big dealswhen it comes to that.
The first big deal is, remember,our second bucket is called
plugins.
Now, people who develop themes,most of those themes, well,
let's just say a large portionof those themes, are using those
plugins or features that aredeveloped by other people.
(12:26):
So just because the theme ispretty and you buy that for$29
or$59, it doesn't mean all theplugins were developed by the
same person.
And remember, they're trying tosell you eye candy, not
function, because they want youto buy their theme.
And so the problem is when youinstall those themes, a lot of
(12:47):
times those features or pluginsare maybe not maintained or
developed with the bestpractices possible.
So what that means is thosethemes could break.
Those plugins could break.
And what that would mean is thatyour website has a limited shelf
life.
(13:07):
Now, I'm not saying that's truewith all of them, but I am
saying I do see it quitefrequently where these themes
are not using plugins that arethe best built.
They've not been researched themost.
They're actually out there foreye candy purposes.
Now, from an agency perspective,It's kind of the best world when
(13:31):
you do that because they can buyit for$29, put a little bit of
design work into it, add somecontent, and then they can sell
that to you at a premium price.
Now, when you look at that, yougo, you know, well, consider if
you're an agency and you go,well, would I rather build a
(13:53):
website with cheap hosting andmarket up a whole lot by a cheap
theme that looks good, installit on it, have a few bucks a
month, and then charge premiumprocess for that.
Most agencies do that.
I keep using the word most, butthere's a lot of agencies who do
(14:13):
that.
Now, when you look at themes andyou look at plugins, the thing
is that you want to controlexactly how much of that or what
you use or how you use it.
So pretty themes will get you introuble.
(14:34):
Having someone who just installsa WordPress site, which
literally can be done inprobably five minutes, some
hosting companies havepush-button WordPress, and that
opens a whole other series ofissues.
We're working with a site thatwas a push-button WordPress
(14:55):
site, and when you look underthe hood of that site, site
after transferring it over, itis a nightmare.
Um, so the push button WordPressstuff, I'm not real crazy on
unless it's a company thatreally understands it.
There's a couple of them thatare out there.
Uh, unfortunately, a couple ofthe real big WordPress hosting
(15:18):
platforms, um, have failed a lotof our test and, and, uh,
they're, they're not that great.
Um, from my opinion, uh, Butanyway, let's move on here.
So you have your theme, and youneed to go look at your theme
and cross-reference it.
And then understand that if acheap theme is being used,
(15:39):
you're actually having a poorprocess developed, and you're
paying a premium price for it.
And looking at cheap themes, orI'm not going to tell you where
to get them, because frankly, Idon't want to get into any kind
of weird issues with it.
But when you look at them andyou see where they are and how
(15:59):
much they cost.
It gives you an idea of reallyhow serious that agency is when
it comes to building yourwebsite.
Now, let's move to plugins for asecond.
So if you use a theme that'scanned, then it's going to come
with some required plugins orfeatures like maybe a gallery or
(16:22):
maybe things for social media orsomething, you know, blog posts
or whatever.
There's just a ton of pluginsthat do different Now, some of
them are aesthetic and some ofthem are technical.
And those plug-ins, you canimagine it's like packing your
car up to go on vacation.
You know, you put one bag in thecar, you got plenty of room,
your gas mileage is going to bebetter and all that jazz.
(16:45):
Why, if you completely pack upyour car with everything and tow
a bunch of stuff behind it, yourgas mileage is going to be much
worse.
Well, the more plug-ins that youincorporate into a WordPress
site, the more Technically, mostof the time, there's more
overhead associated with it.
So it'll get more and moresluggish.
(17:05):
And also, if you could imaginethat each feature that's
installed on a WordPress site,they can also create conflicts
because they're developed bydifferent entities.
And if some of those entitiesare not using best practice,
then it's setting itself up tobe a disaster.
(17:26):
So just like you have reallycheap themes, you also have free
plugins.
Now, free plugins, there aresome out there that are
fantastic.
They have a great history.
There are others that areabsolutely disastrous.
But if you go back to thementality of the agency,
(17:46):
remember, they want to makemoney.
And so the idea is, do they makemoney where they're investing in
really high quality plugins thatgo into the site, coupled with a
high quality design process?
And do they couple that withreally good hosting?
Or are they just trying toinstall whatever they can
(18:09):
install for free in order to getover the goal and collect a
paycheck?
And this is a very, very seriousthing when it comes to
WordPress.
And you will be surprised at notonly the number of free plugins
that are on a lot of websitesthat really could be
(18:31):
problematic.
And I'm not saying free is bad.
Okay, so there are some outthere that are good.
But, you know, like everythingelse, if you're a hacker, are
you going to try to hack a freeone or a premium plug-in that
costs?
You know, there's all theselittle things that go into it.
But you can imagine that if theyconflict and then they have
(18:51):
problems and then maybe thedeveloper quits supporting those
plug-ins, you can imagine thatthings go sideways quick.
Now, there's another thing aboutplugins and themes that's really
important.
And that is they have to beupdated on a regular basis.
And so the challenge in that isthat if you have a designer that
(19:17):
turns your WordPress site overto you and they say, well, just
hit the update buttonperiodically or something like
that, they're reallyoversimplifying something that's
much more complicated.
complicated, especially if poorpractices were introduced.
So, for example, I have had anenergy company come to me and
(19:38):
they had a problem because theyhit that update button and it
blew their site up.
It just stopped functioning.
And the reason being was thatthe update, basically their
plugins were causing someconflicts and there needed to be
a little troubleshooting to getthat thing back live.
And so the idea is when you havea a competent WordPress
(20:00):
developer, typically they willalso have a process where
they're updating plugins and thethemes and the overall
infrastructure.
Even WordPress itself needs tobe updated.
And they'll typically includethat in a regular monthly
subscription.
That way you truly are onautopilot in the best way.
(20:22):
The worst thing that couldhappen is you install WordPress
yourself or have a A freelancerdo it.
They install a bunch of thisstuff, build your website, give
you the keys to the castle, andthen they leave you.
And then they leave you withsome very basic fundamental
instructions.
(20:43):
This is horrible.
Now, the next step up is theyhave really cheap hosting and a
lot of bad processes.
And then they do, you know, alittle bit of maintenance.
So as you can imagine, you cankind of see where WordPress can
can go sideways pretty quick.
On one end of the spectrum, youcould have a team that uses
(21:05):
premium processes, premiumstrategies, and they build the
website where it works.
On the other end, it doesn'twork.
And so now you can kind of seeif you've had a problem with
WordPress historically, you cankind of see maybe why you've
gotten that.
Now, there's another thing thatwe need to talk about as well.
(21:28):
And I get it.
I get it.
I mean, you own a business andyou're trying to save money.
And the next temptation is tooutsource work.
Now, at Integris, we don'toutsource anything to another
country.
We're actually pretty muchsolely in-house with how we
design and develop.
(21:49):
We're more of a boutique-styleagency that gives personal, you
know, we talk to our customerspersonally.
We don't run them through abunch of AI systems and things
like that.
And we just feel that that'snecessary in order to be
successful to truly understandtheir business.
But a lot of businesses willthink, well, if I outsource it,
they work for less money an hourand I can have a website that
(22:11):
does this.
So you can imagine that whatyou've just done was you've
opened the floodgate for some ofthe worst practices in WordPress
development.
And what happens then is thingscan go sideways quick.
So we have a couple ofsituations where we've worked
with people and they're reallykind of jaded and are really
(22:34):
serious.
We have one person right nowwho's asking us a lot of
questions about, you know, wherewe develop and how we develop
because the burn, I think, wasbad.
And that's a real problem.
And, you know, I go back even,this was years ago, but
unfortunately, this is a yearsago thing, but actually the
(22:55):
WordPress, from what I'm seeing,it looks like it's gotten more
worse.
But I'll never forget, I wassitting at a Denny's.
There was one open on PattonAvenue in Asheville, and a
friend of mine invited me to gomeet this person.
And I'll never forget himsharing the story of how he said
he would do this exact sameprocess.
(23:18):
Use cheap hosting, throw up abunch of stock photographs on a
website, throw in a And Iremember I was just stunned even
then.
And I said, you know, this isactually the worst thing that
you could do for a business.
(23:40):
And without missing a beat, helooked at me and said, yeah, but
how else can you make a couplethousand bucks this easy?
And I was shocked at the time.
But now I've seen so much thatit's like, well, it's just
general practice.
So you really need to have adeveloper.
or a designer that works in atleast your country.
(24:04):
And really, they shouldunderstand your demographics and
a lot about your geo so thatyour product resonates with your
customers.
And so if you're trying to cheatand you think you've got some
kind of ways to sidestep properdevelopment, you really haven't.
All you've done is set yourselfup to either be not successful
(24:25):
or have a problematic website orworse, both.
But that's a real problem inthis world of WordPress, where
you have your pros and you haveyour cons.
So when it comes to features,features can be enticing, like
that slideshow or that galleryor one of those things that just
(24:50):
really just scratches thatproverbial itch.
But when you look at thosefeatures, there's a lot more
that goes into it.
into it, like how well is itmanaged?
Is it supported?
Is it a premium?
Is it not a premium?
Those kind of things.
And so when you're looking atthe factor, believe it or not,
(25:11):
when we develop WordPress, wehave a system that we've been
using for a long time and it'sbeen really successful for us.
It gives like reallyunparalleled stability,
security, an easy way forcustomers to edit their websites
and And it's just been a reallynice experience for our
(25:32):
customers.
But it's taken a long time tokind of iron out all the
details.
And we're constantly movingthings around.
Like, for example, we've had toswitch hosting with a lot of
websites several times in thelast five to six years.
And it's because even thehosting companies, they start
(25:55):
off sometimes really good.
But then what happened is whenthey start to move to go public,
you know, their IPO orsomething, they start worrying
more about margins and lessabout their customers.
At least that's my opinion.
And so then what happens is asthey grow, they start cheating,
(26:17):
in my opinion.
Now it could be called whatever,you know, cutting things back or
whatever.
But then what you find is thatthings go not so well with their
hosting platform.
And so we're constantlyadjusting and fine-tuning our
process as we go.
And this is kind of part of theequation.
So if I shared you with some ofthe places we've hosted, you
(26:39):
would probably be surprised.
And I think I want to do one.
I'm going to send a letter toour current host and basically
just inform them of what I'mgoing to talk about.
And then I'll make a decisionabout sharing that with you in
the future.
So the idea is that properWordPress development I'll see
(27:03):
you next time.
(27:28):
Well, this is exactly the samething.
If you're serious about yourbusiness, then get serious about
it.
If it's a side gig, then usethe, you know, even then, gosh,
those do-it-yourself systems.
And you know the ones I'mtalking about.
Most of those systems are justso problematic and so limited in
(27:51):
scope.
They exaggerate what they'recapable of doing, and they make
you think that somehow you'reyou're cheating the system.
Well, one of the big thingsabout the do-it-yourself systems
versus WordPress, because thismight be where you're thinking,
is, well, why not just go to thedo-it-yourself systems then and
just let them manage it?
(28:12):
Well, there's a real big problemwith that.
One of those is limited growth,and they're not as flexible as
you may think.
Remember that car analogy that Ishared earlier.
You want to have that freedom.
Now, here's the other thing.
Even if you started it And yougrow your business using those
systems.
At some point, you're going tooutgrow them.
(28:33):
And it's going to be extremelypainful because their systems
are proprietary.
So once you learn their systemsbut ready to go to something
that's full-fledged likeWordPress, you're going to have
to relearn all that stuff.
And you have to take all thatcontent you put into it and then
put it into another solution.
(28:53):
Now, we've quoted out projectswhere the main part of the
project– is just moving stufffrom one place to the other.
And so the moving process can bevery cumbersome and very costly,
which makes you feel stuck withit.
And then if you've got theeducation or the learning curve
on top of it, and you havepeople in your team already used
(29:16):
to using it, you can imagine howdifficult that would be to go
away from it.
While if you start off withsomething like WordPress, you
can learn WordPress, and thenyou don't have to go through
that relearning phase.
And if you get tired of yourdeveloper, the pro side is that
you can find other WordPressdevelopers that can assume the
(29:38):
project, assuming that they'recompetent.
Now, again, competency isabsolutely the biggest issue
with WordPress.
So let me give you an idea ofthis.
I remember years ago, there waseither a roofer or something.
I forget what he used to do, butthen what he did was he got into
the WordPress, and he startedselling these webinars where you
(30:02):
could become a selling WordPresswebsites after about a week's
worth of training.
Now, it may have been a littlebit longer than that.
And then I had a client of minewho was in holistic medicine,
and he wanted to get intoWordPress.
He took a six-week course andsays, okay, I'm ready to go.
Now, I've been at WordPress forover 20 years, and I can tell
(30:26):
you there are still things thatyou learn.
Now, we get under the hood.
We get into a lot of the stuffbehind the scenes to make it
work out.
But a person who goes to asix-week course or a week course
or, you know, whatever, and thenthey start promoting themselves
as a professional, you couldimagine the amount of problems
(30:48):
you could get into by simplyusing poor practices or lack the
experience to make properdecisions.
And so all this kind of bundlesup.
And so it's kind of like whenyou look at WordPress, it could
be the most powerful, strongthing that you could have that
could grow with your business.
And you may never grow out ofit.
(31:10):
Like I've never had a clientgrow out of WordPress.
And that could be your home basemoving forward.
Or it could be an absolutedisaster where you're jumping
from person to person to person.
Now, I can tell you that I'veseen both poor practices and and
poor development.
(31:30):
And I want to share one otherthing with you.
I've run across this lately.
I was doing some coaching with areally, really good business,
well-meaning business.
And there were some things thatI was able to show this company
in just a few steps.
And one of the questions aswe're doing this was, well, why
(31:53):
didn't the other person tell methis?
And to pair They said, are theyincompetent or were they just
trying to cheat us?
And, you know, my gut instinctwas incompetence.
You know, they got somethingthat works for them.
They're kind of just, you know,that company's just kind of, you
(32:16):
know, they're stymied in limitedknowledge.
But it could be both.
Now, when it comes to WordPress,the other thing, too, is, you
know, we have white gloveexperience.
but we also teach our clientshow to use our system.
And we do that really on acase-by-case basis.
So if you could imagine, maybethis person wasn't teaching that
(32:41):
company what to do because theywanted to charge for that
service.
And sometimes those charges arecrazy.
I mean, like$85 to change aphone number on a contact page
or something like that.
And then, of course, the otherside of the scenario is they
give you complete access toeverything, and then it creates
a whole other set of issues, asyou can imagine.
(33:04):
But as you look at when thesepeople develop, it could just be
that they're trying to pocketthe money and want you to be
completely dependent upon them.
So there's a lot of thosenuances.
Now, for us, we have a hybridsolution.
We can white glove it, but weprefer to teach you how to do it
because we want our customerswith us long term.
(33:25):
So what we do is we teach them,but if they need us, we're here.
So there's a lot that simplygoes into even the admin of the
website.
So WordPress is not WordPressalways.
It's not because you findsomebody who's going to do cheap
and you think, you know,because, you know, I keep going
(33:46):
back to the idea of how businessthinks.
Why am I paying this much forhosting when I should be paying
that much?
And, you know, why should I payyou to develop this when I can
do this.
It all sounds really good.
On a topical level, it soundsreally, really good.
But when you get into the weedsof it and you understand that
(34:09):
using premium licenses for aserver and then managing those
premium licenses for the clientand then just charging them a
percentage of what thatserver-wide license is, is good
for everyone.
And it increases the stability.
So I think one thing I want todo is circle back around on
(34:32):
security and let's talk a littlebit about marketing.
So security, as you couldimagine, the bad guys are
constantly trying to break intoyour website.
Now, if you're not doingfinancial transactions on your
website, that does not mean theydon't want your website.
They love to hack your websiteand send spammy emails from your
(34:54):
website rather than their ownresources.
And so that's just one reasonthat they'll do it.
They'll kill your reputation toprotect their reputation.
So you want to make sure thatyour website is secure if you
care about your businessreputation.
They love to get in there.
They love to cause problems.
And in the world of artificialintelligence, that's becoming
(35:17):
more and more of a challenge.
And so you can imagine that ifyour developer is using a cheap
theme with plugins and they'renot being updated on a the
security issues that you wouldrun into just from that practice
alone.
You're basically opening thedoor up and you're becoming low
hanging fruit for the bad guys.
(35:42):
I mean, just think like, youknow, you got one home that's
got a security system andeverything's set up.
You got another home that's gotthe front door wide open and
says, welcome, come in and takemy stuff.
You know, they're going to gofor the low hanging fruit.
And there's so much low hangingfruit in the world of WordPress
that a lot of times they'll justbypass you up unless they have
(36:03):
some kind of grudge against youor your calls if you're in a
polarizing sector or somethinglike that.
So by using best practices, youalso solve a lot of the
security.
And there's advanced securitysystems you could put into.
And for some of our clients, weput more advanced security in
those websites.
(36:23):
So going back to it, and if youlook at agencies Let's talk
about agencies for a second.
I've seen quotes from some ofour competitors, and there are
four or five X while we charge.
Now, I'll argue that we're oneof the most accredited web
design creative agencies in thestate of North Carolina.
(36:46):
Now, I may be exaggerating that,but I've not seen one yet that
holds more credentials than wehold.
And so the idea is that a lot ofthese agencies, even though they
look polished on the outsidewith their particular situation.
Internally, they're usingamateurs.
I remember this nonprofit.
They were a nonprofit.
(37:07):
We actually started helping themout pro bono years ago because
we believed in their calls.
And I remember at one point theygot suckered in.
They went to a trade show andgot suckered in with this agency
that claimed to be a specialistin their market.
And oh my goodness, the logos,the creative I mean I can still
(37:31):
remember them labeling thecolors in this weird way like
for example when you use colorsprofessionally you typically use
something called a Pantone bookand it has a numeric system that
references different colors andthat's kind of how you look at
it and there's a whole technicalthing into colors and all that
(37:55):
and I still remember themchoosing names and they were
They were giving this to ourclient, and they were using
words like soothing salmon.
I wish I was lying to you.
And it was the most horriblelogo.
Oh, my gosh.
It was a disaster.
And I'll never forget howactually horrible that was.
(38:19):
But the point is, this was anagency that served a lot of
businesses in the sector of whatthis company was.
And they They just kind of rodethat storm and just assumed that
they were whatever.
And anyway, it was aninteresting situation.
So the idea is that when you seestuff like this or you see
(38:41):
agencies that are claiming to bemarketing companies like the one
out of Nashville I run into, andthey're basically using a
product on autopilot, you evensee that the marketing is kind
of squirrely.
So the point is this.
You can't go with an agencybased on the size of the agency.
You can't really go based on thesmallness of an agency.
(39:03):
You can't take it under your ownwing.
And so the idea is you've got tobe very careful with who you put
on your team and who you trustand don't go by price and
definitely don't go based onjust on if someone gives you a
referral.
I mean, because then you'retrusting that that company is
not just liking that person orwhatever, but they could still
(39:25):
be incompetent.
So you've got to to really thinkthrough that, and especially
when it goes full circle toWordPress, it is a very strong
discipline.
Now, the reality is WordPress islikely where you need to be.
You go in and look at thedifferent sites that are there,
but you need to find a reallygood person to develop it.
(39:50):
And you need to probably have anindependent party audit your
website.
And so part of what you could dois you hire an independent party
to do a couple high-levelquestions you could ask them to
investigate is, one, where isthis website hosted?
Number two, are they using anyfree or cheap plug-ins or
(40:11):
plug-ins that don't have astrong history of regular
updates?
Three, are they installingmultiple plug-ins that perform
the same function that couldoverlap and cause issues?
The next one is, well, whattheme are they using and where
did they get it?
And why did they choose that?
And then you could have someperformance metrics perform too.
(40:34):
Now, of course, if you hire anindependent party, you got to
remember that they have a dog inthe fight because they want to
find the worst possible thingswrong with your website and make
the best possible calls ifthey're in the business.
So you got to weigh all thatstuff.
But that would be some of thevery high level things you could
do.
We do that all the time forcustomers where they want us
(40:55):
just to audit and just find outif the website's healthy or not.
And that's part of what we dohere at Integris.
So I do recommend that you dothat at the very least.
I would recommend also you lookat credentials, how long they've
been in business.
Are they a true business?
Are they a DBA?
(41:16):
What's their infrastructure looklike?
Ask them to walk you throughtheir development processes.
If you're concerned that theyoutsource, ask them to put it in
the contract that they don'toutsource to anyone.
You know, you going to have toget really tough with this and
serious about it if you'reserious about running your
business.
Because again, WordPress canabsolutely be the strongest tool
(41:37):
and asset for your company, orit could be the biggest anchor
for your company.
So hopefully this will help younavigate the world of WordPress
a little bit and help youunderstand exactly what goes on
behind the scenes of WordPressand understand why you see
things that are So, I don't knowthe word.
(42:01):
They vary so much is what I'mtrying to say from agency to
agency and freelancer tofreelancer.
And, you know, talking a goodgame versus being able to
deliver something.
Oh, marketing.
That's what I was going to talkto you about real quick.
You can also set up yourWordPress site in a really good
way for marketing, like thewords like search engine
(42:25):
optimization, paid advertising,landing pages.
conversions, things like that,you can also really blow it up.
And so here's a quick tip.
If you're interested in SEO whenyou have a website developed,
the first thing that you shouldbe talking about is not picking
out a theme and not picking outplugins and not doing all that.
(42:47):
You really should be doingplanning on the front end.
Like, what are you trying to doand what are your goals?
And then the wholeinfrastructure of your website
should be built around thatpremise.
If you've had your websitedeveloper, they say, hey, send
me your about page info, send meyour contact page info, send me
(43:08):
a list of services for yourbusiness, and hey, don't worry
about it, we'll use clip art forwhat we don't have.
Not that Adobe Photo and stuffisn't, because we use that
stuff, but it's like it stillhas to be used in the right
portions, just like not puttingtoo much salt in a a soup or
(43:28):
something like that.
But when you look at marketing,there are certain things that
have to be set up correctly.
And again, that's a whole otherlevel that we focus on before we
ever start development.
So if you want to really zoomout and you want to really look
at if your person has done theirhomework, ask yourself this.
(43:49):
Did they run a competitiveanalysis?
Did they ask you specificquestions about what you're
trying to accomplish?
Did they show you actualkeywords that are defined by
Google as being effectivekeywords, and then they build
your website around thoseeffective keywords?
Or did they just put thingstogether with links to basic
(44:12):
pages and basic content based onwhat you fed them?
So as you can see, that'sdramatically different.
And so you never want to have awebsite developed and then go
hire an SEO person.
I mean, because a good SEOperson is going to say it's
built wrong and you've got tochange all this stuff.
Now, of course, there's tons ofin and outs with that because,
(44:33):
you know, I won awards on SEOand there's a lot of nuanced
stuff that goes into searchengine optimization.
But this is absolutely the bestpractice.
And so that's another clue towhere if you just hired someone
who installed a theme or wasserious about building you a
plan that's going to besuccessful.
(44:56):
So in essence, maybe Make sureyou get the right person.
Make sure that they team up withyou.
Make sure you got a plan wherethey manage it and keep things
updated.
Make sure they got a plan towork with you and grow your
business and massage thatWordPress site as you go.
And then make sure that whatthey're using is not a cheap way
(45:16):
of building WordPress, but aneffective way of building
WordPress.
And that's going to be yourfirst steps in making sure that
you have a tool that's going tohelp you grow.
Thanks so much for attendingOver the Bull.
I look forward to seeing youagain.
Why I said attending, I don'tknow.
Thank you for listening, and youhave a blessed day, and good
(45:37):
luck.
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