While digital marketing agencies excel in their domain, they are not specialized WordPress experts or managed WordPress hosting providers, leading to various issues that can severely impact website performance. Keep reading to learn that your WordPress website is best left in the hands of industry professionals specializing in WordPress.

Why It’s a Bad Idea to Depend on a Digital Marketing Agency for WordPress Services and Hosting

Digital marketing agencies are excellent at helping companies improve their overall online presence—from ad campaigns to working with online influencers. Where they fail is in WordPress design, development, and hosting. The best digital marketing agencies are self-aware and refer their clients to WordPress agencies like us instead of taking on your WordPress needs. Why should more digital marketing agencies send their clients to WordPress agencies instead of taking on the tasks themselves? The answers are below.

Lack of Specialized Expertise

Digital marketing agencies typically lack specialized WordPress design, development, and hosting knowledge. Their focus is primarily on marketing strategies rather than the technical aspects of website management, which can result in subpar website performance, security, and scalability.

Performance and Speed Issues

Digital marketing agencies often do not invest in high-quality hosting solutions, leading to slower load times and poor overall performance. Shared hosting environments can also result in resource contention, negatively impacting your website’s speed and reliability.

Security Vulnerabilities

Security is another critical area where agencies may fall short. Without prioritizing regular updates and best practices, your website becomes vulnerable to attacks. Outdated plugins and themes can create significant security risks.

Limited Scalability

As your business grows, your website needs to scale accordingly. Digital marketing agencies may not provide scalable solutions capable of handling increased traffic and data, often using hosting solutions that are not flexible or easily upgraded.

Slow Response Times

Marketing agencies juggling multiple clients may not offer timely support and maintenance, leading to longer downtimes and unresolved issues. Your website’s needs might not be prioritized, especially if the agency is focused on higher-paying clients.

Inadequate Backup Solutions and Recovery Challenges

Agencies may not implement robust backup solutions, putting your data at risk. In the event of data loss, they might not have the expertise to restore your website effectively, leading to prolonged downtimes and potential data loss.

The Impact of Poor Digital Marketing Practices

Poor digital marketing practices can negatively affect website performance and user experience. Slow-loading websites frustrate users, leading to high bounce rates and low conversions. Additionally, slow website speed negatively impacts SEO, as search engines like Google prioritize faster websites in their rankings. Ultimately, a poorly performing website reflects negatively on your brand, eroding customer trust and damaging your reputation.

How WebDevStudios Saves Your WordPress Website

When a potential client approaches WebDevStudios with a myriad of mishaps, we set up a call with them to discuss what they’re seeing go wrong and offer some possible solutions. These are the most common.

Identify the Problems with a Website Audit

Saving your WordPress website can begin with a comprehensive website audit to evaluate performance, security, and functionality. A client can only know so much about what looks to be wrong with their WordPress website based on the frontend. However, a website audit allows our team of WordPress experts to get under the hood for a thorough investigation.

Common signs of poor website performance include slow load times, high bounce rates, and low conversions. We often find typical issues such as outdated plugins, bloated code, and poor hosting, which most marketing agencies miss.

Optimize Website Performance

Once we uncover the difficulties with a website audit, we can focus on cleaning up and optimizing code and removing unnecessary plugins and scripts that slow down your site. Enhancing security measures, such as implementing SSL certificates, regular backups, and security plugins, ensures your website is protected from threats.

Implement Best Practices

We ensure your website has a responsive design for all devices and optimize images and media for faster load times. Implementing caching solutions and CDNs improves performance, while regular maintenance and updates keep your website running smoothly.

Recommend Managed WordPress Hosts

Improving your managed WordPress hosting is crucial. WebDevStudios has established partnerships with the best options. Based on your specific needs, we recommend managed WordPress hosting providers and facilitate the necessary introductions to ensure you receive the best hosting solution.

Prevent Future Issues

To prevent future issues, WebDevStudios offers ongoing WordPress support services. Our team becomes your team, helping you maintain optimal website performance and emphasizing the importance of regular audits and performance checks.

Does Your WordPress Website Need Saving?

Rescuing and optimizing your website is crucial for maintaining a robust online presence. At WebDevStudios, we specialize in identifying and resolving performance issues, ensuring your website runs efficiently and effectively. Contact us for a comprehensive website audit and performance improvement plan.

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Working at a WordPress agency requires us to be on top of the trends happening in our direct space as well as be cognizant of the direction the web as a whole is going. I try to keep our team ahead of the curve by taking advantage of in-person events that provide opportunities to obtain new knowledge, putting us on the cutting edge, as well as make key relationships that could help us grow the business.

I consider these to be the top digital and WordPress events for 2018 because either I’ve attended them myself in the past and/or our team is planning on attending this year. Think I missed one of your must-attend events? Comment below!

WordCamps
Dates and locations vary.

Considered the pinnacle of WordPress events, WordCamps are community organized, allowing each local WordPress community to make their event unique and tailored toward their specific city and culture. For example, if you work in the music industry or media industry (or your target clients do), WordCamp Los Angeles might be a prime one for you to check out in order to connect with that type of experience. At these events, you’ll find freelancers, agencies, marketers, IT professionals, and a whole range of other experts—all of whom have questions to ask or a desire to share their expertise with others. You can learn more about WordCamps and see their full schedule of events at Central.WordCamp.org. 

Pro Tip: Attending WordCamp Europe or US is like attending the mega version of local WordCamps. They are the main annual events, respectively.

WooConf
Both date and location are TBD.

This event is dedicated solely to WooCommerce, one of the top eCommerce platforms on the market today, and the one that integrates seamlessly with WordPress (whose parent company Automattic acquired in 2015). At this event, expect to hear from their team about new features, as well as hear success stories from top developers and store owners using the platform. Generally, agencies that do a lot of eCommerce business, as well as their development teams, will be in attendance. Store owners who operate their stores or would like to operate WooCommerce stores should check it out. And for brands, it’s a great place to find developers or an agency to work with on their next eCommerce project. 

Social Media Marketing World
February 28-March 2, San Diego, CA

Social media is no longer just a buzz word, and out of all the events that touch on social media, none quite compare to the greatness of Social Media Marketing World. You’ll hear from leading experts like Gary Vaynerchuk and Guy Kawasaki, experience workshops, and walk away with actionable results that you can apply to your business immediately. Social media isn’t going away anytime soon, and if you’re marketing your business at any level, leveraging social media correctly can unlock a wealth of opportunities for your business. Out of all the social media events, this is the one to attend if you want to hone in and learn as much as you can, plus have the opportunity to connect with leaders in the social media space.

SXSW
March 9-18, Austin, TX

What started out as a humble music festival has now expanded to cover technology, health and wellness, education, film, as well as music. SXSW has been responsible for helping boost many notable brands today like Twitter, Foursquare, and Meerkat, which opened up live streaming on social media platforms. The who’s who of the music and film industries show up. If you’re lucky, you’ll catch a secret show somewhere amazing. And in total, over 150,000+ attendees descend upon Austin from all over the world. Yes, it can be chaos to manage, but lots of major brands attend, making it prime for the networking.

IRCE
June 5-8, Chicago, IL

Internet Retailers Conference & Exhibition (IRCE) is a premier eCommerce event. Depending on what you’re doing with eCommerce, IRCE could be invaluable for you. Expect to find vendors with whom you could partner, as well as brands who operate successful eCommerce and retail stores to be in attendance, sharing tips and tricks. With over 130 sessions, there is bound to be something for everyone who is in the eCommerce space.

Adobe Conferences (Summit and Max)
Adobe Summit: March 25-29, Las Vegas, NV; Adobe Max: October 15-17, Los Angeles, CA

Adobe offers two events: Adobe Summit, which is targeted at digital marketing, and Adobe Max which is targeted at creatives. What makes these events stand out is the production element. Every single detail of the event is thought out and you truly feel inspired and creative while you’re there. The exhibition hall isn’t overcrowded. The talks are high-quality, and the type of attendees it attracts is pretty targeted. Thinking how accessible and respected Adobe products are, the brands that leverage these tools end up sending their teams to these events, which makes for a great opportunity to network with brands like Coca-Cola, Disney, and Canon. It’s truly an event aimed at digital creatives and I think lives up to its expectation.

MozCon
July 9-11, Seattle, WA

Operated by Moz, the company who creates smart marketing tools for SEO, this brand knows a thing or two about creating great content. MozCon has become known for providing state of the art information as well as experiences for conference attendees that make connecting in person super easy. You’ll hear from leading brands as well as digital marketing experts. Because of the brand that Moz has built, their conference is usually one not to miss.

Inbound
September 4-7, Boston, MA

Geared for the sales and marketing side of the house, Inbound is operated by Hubspot. The event’s purpose is to provide the inspiration, education, and connections you need to grow and transform your business. I’ve followed along with Hubspot’s growth as a company and think that their expertise shines when it comes to Inbound. They gather all the right people who are at the top of their game to share insight and inspiration, and sometimes that’s the magic you need to take your business to the next level.

Content Marketing World
September 4-7, Cleveland, OH

They say content is king, and as such, Content Marketing World always provides juicy insight into the world of content. As the largest event of its kind, this event aims to inspire you to do your own epic content marketing and network with some of the brightest in the business! In a world where pretty much everything is at your fingertips thanks to the internet, creating engaging content that resonates with your audience and grows your business is on everybody’s mind as an imperative element to be considered.

BlogHer
Exact day in August TBD, New York City, NY

BlogHer is often described as a movement to empower women to find their voices digitally. It’s the type of event that content creators can use to connect with brands, but also for brands to really learn from and connect with the content creators. They have a main event, but also will host smaller niche events focused on health or food, so depending on your industry, it might make sense for you to look into one of those. The type of attendee ranges anywhere from someone interested in starting a blog to seasoned six figure making bloggers. If you’re a brand looking to connect with that audience, it’s a great event to participate as a sponsor. Sponsors get a lot of great face-time with the attendees, versus having a presence in a huge exhibit hall where you’re just one of many booths.

Circles Conference
September 19-21, Dallas, TX

This event is geared for designers, tech junkies, and makers. I always find that events centered around design usually net out to be the most beautiful, but aside from the amazing graphics and presentation of the event, Circles Conference actually draws together visionaries from the design world. While it’s a relatively new conference, only founded in 2014, it still attracts an inspiring group of attendees and speakers who only have highly positive things to say about the conference. It’s one that’s on my radar for this year to finally attend.

The post Top Digital and WordPress Events to Put on Your Calendar for 2018 appeared first on WebDevStudios.