You Need a UX So Good It Gives Users Goosebumps

One of the primary signs that you need a Headless WordPress website is if you desire to provide an exceptional user experience. Headless architectures allow developers to utilize modern frontend technologies like React, Vue.js, or Angular to build highly interactive and responsive user interfaces.

Decoupling the frontend from the WordPress backend allows you to create faster, more engaging websites or applications that deliver a seamless user experience across multiple devices that’s so shockingly good you’ll think a wizard is in control.

Complex Content Delivery

An enterprise-grade site that demands complex content delivery across various channels or platforms is a compelling sign you need a Headless WordPress website. This was recently the case with the website project we completed for NBA G League.

Data from various APIs were integrated throughout the Headless WordPress Multisite Network of websites. Retrieving and displaying data from various sources becomes less complex with a decoupled frontend.

Hosting a decoupled frontend on the JAMstack virtually eliminates the threat of a WordPress server or database hack, since hackers don’t even know WordPress is installed in the first place. The backend, or admin dashboard in WordPress, can be hosted on a separate platform with unique authentication, keeping the separation between the public website and the admin dashboard disconnected.

When a traffic spike occurs, as is often the case during NBA games, they can rest assured that their site won’t go down because the frontend is nothing more than HTML, CSS, and JavaScript served by highly capable CDNs. There are no server-side rendering or database calls to slow things down.
Scalability and Performance

As your website grows, scalability becomes a crucial factor. Headless WordPress offers superior scalability compared to traditional WordPress setups. Since the frontend and backend are decoupled, you can independently scale each component based on its specific needs. Generally speaking, your admin dashboard will have less traffic, as only team members who need to manage the website and content will have access. The public view of the website, which all visitors see, handles the bulk of the load.

This flexibility allows you to handle high traffic volumes, optimize server resources, and ensure a smooth user experience even during peak times. Additionally, you can improve page load times and overall performance by offloading the frontend rendering to specialized systems or CDNs.

Customized Frontend Experiences

Headless WordPress is an excellent choice if your website demands a highly customized frontend experience. It enables developers to create tailored frontend interfaces without constraints imposed by traditional WordPress themes.

By leveraging modern frontend frameworks, developers can design unique, interactive user interfaces that align perfectly with their brand identity. Headless WordPress empowers developers to think beyond the traditional blog-style layouts and craft innovative and engaging digital experiences.

With headless CMS, your hands are free, and you are not locked to a specific framework or a library. You can build your frontend with React, Svelte, or anything that fits your requirements. You build the headless infrastructure once, and then you can tweak and use it in the future.
Integration with Third-Party Services

A sign that you need Headless WordPress is if your website relies heavily on third-party services or APIs. A headless WordPress setup can streamline integration processes. With the separation of concerns, developers can easily connect WordPress to various services or data sources, such as e-commerce platforms, CRM systems, payment gateways, or external databases.

This flexibility lets you leverage the best tools available in each domain while seamlessly integrating them into your WordPress-powered website.

When a Headless WordPress Website Might Not Be Ideal

Simple Content Publishing

A traditional WordPress setup might suffice if your website primarily focuses on content publishing and you don’t require complex frontend interactions. WordPress offers built-in themes and plugins that can cater to most content publishing needs without the complexity of a headless architecture.

Limited Development Resources

Headless WordPress, with its decoupled nature, often requires additional development resources. If you have limited time, budget, or technical expertise, opting for a traditional WordPress setup could be more practical.

Headless architectures generally involve more complex setups, custom development, and ongoing maintenance. You’ll need the help of an experienced team. Contact WebDevStudios.

Conclusion

A Headless WordPress website offers numerous advantages, such as enhanced user experience, flexible content delivery, scalability, and customization options. There are definite signs that indicate when you need a Headless WordPress website. However, it’s essential to carefully consider your specific requirements before embracing a headless approach.

If your website focuses primarily on content publishing without complex frontend interactions or if you have limited development resources, a traditional WordPress setup may be more suitable. By understanding the signs that indicate the need for a Headless WordPress website, you can harness the power of decoupled CMS to unlock new possibilities for your online presence. When you see the signs, contact WebDevStudios.

The post Spooky Signs That You Need a Headless WordPress Website: Unlocking the Potential of Decoupled CMS appeared first on WebDevStudios.

What began as a small WordPress website development business operating from a coffee table has now evolved into a robust website design and development agency building amazing websites for big brands. Today, our client roster includes NBA, Care, Campbells, Paramount, and more. Our staff comprises over 50 talented team members from around the world.

As the co-founders of WebDevStudios (WDS), we are excited to celebrate not only our 15 years of WordPress experience but also our dedication to open-source technology, discovering customized solutions to meet specific needs, and the success of our clients.

Starting from Nothing

In April of 2008, Brad sold his house in Indiana and moved to the great state of New Jersey; thus WebDevStudios was born as an official company. We started with a few small clients and grew organically from there. Early on, we had a few key clients that really put their faith in us and helped us grow, including Margaret Roach and Pam Kueber.

As WordPress grew in popularity, so did WebDevStudios.

Lisa began working with WordPress in 2003 and started eWebscapes, a design and development shop, in 2005. By 2012, she was in over her head with her work in the WordPress space, including working for some large enterprise companies as a solo freelancer.

Lisa knew she wanted to continue doing this work for a long time. However, she was no longer able to do it alone. She could either hire a large team and grow her freelance shop into a full agency or look for another emerging agency which she could bring her portfolio of clients and skills to.

That’s when Lisa approached Brad to see if he would be interested in combining efforts. Both of us were heavily focused on the WordPress platform. In fact, as a freelancer, Lisa used to outsource some of her more advanced development needs to WebDevStudios because her background was primarily that of UX design and frontend development.

The two businesses merged with Lisa focusing on UX/UI design, and the WebDevStudios team focused on development and engineering. This move rounded out the service offerings we are very proud of today.

Making a Name for Ourselves

Early on, we learned the best way to bring in new business was to put ourselves out there. We started attending events, which led to speaking at events, which led to organizing events.

We founded the New Jersey and, eventually, Philadelphia WordPress Meetup groups and the WordCamp Chicago event. This helped grow local WordPress communities where we lived.

We spoke at events nationwide and helped spread our knowledge and experience in web development and design. Over time our name spread and the projects grew in size and complexity.

Why WordPress

From the beginning, we were fans of open-source software. The idea of a community that was focused on building and supporting the software’s growth aligned very closely with our own path.

We decided that open-source software would be our primary focus. This included WordPress and other popular open-source systems like Drupal, ZenCart, Magento, and a few others.

It quickly became apparent that WordPress was our platform of choice. Not only for its endless flexibility, but WordPress was a more intuitive system for our clients to learn and manage.

User experience has always been at the forefront of WordPress, which was very apparent when training new users on how to manage their websites and content.

Very early on, we decided to go all in on WordPress. It would become our platform of choice, which at the time wasn’t as obvious as it is today. WordPress was still very much a blogging platform, and more advanced CMS features we use every day didn’t exist back then.

What seemed like a risk at the time quickly became a massive strength for us. We rapidly built one of the first agencies dedicated to expert-level WordPress design and development!

Partnerships

Over the years, we have partnered with amazing companies that truly help WebDevStudios and our clients succeed. This includes hosting partners like WP Engine, Pagely, and WordPress VIP, and plugin partners like Gravity Forms and Yoast SEO, to name a few.

Project Highlights

We’ve enjoyed working with a wide range of amazing clients over the years. There are a few project highlights that really stand out over our past 15 years of WordPress experience.

First WordPress Site Launched Under Microsoft.com

WebDevStudios proudly designed and launched WordPress sites for:

• Microsoft Office
• M365
• Bing
• Surface
• Windows
• Microsoft News Center
• Microsoft Europe

First WordPress VIP Launch for TIME

WebDevStudios built TIME Healthland on WordPress VIP using a customized Twenty Ten child theme.

First Web App / iPad Application Built Using WordPress As the Framework

Our client projects for YMCA and DMA were the foundations for the AppPresser plugin used for building apps with WordPress. AppPresser is a premium plugin WebDevStudios built in partnership with Scott Bollinger and then sold in 2017.

HEB Central Market

HEB Central Market was the largest online grocery store at the time, with over 70,000 products in daily circulation. This particular client project included creating customized features for curbside pickup, online catering orders, and cooking schools, with an eye toward online ordering for delivery. This was all powered by WordPress and WooCommerce.

Intranets Built with WordPress

Not everyone understands that WordPress is powerful enough to use for an intranet system. Our largest and most impressive intranet client projects are:

• The Starbucks training platform
• Chaparral Energy’s internal team platform
• The United States National Park Service’s internal training and resource repository for park rangers

Projects That Make an Impact

WebDevStudios values all clients, but those that make an impact are especially memorable. Not only is our team proud to be a part of the team behind the scenes that fuel their mission, but the work that goes into building their platforms is also challenging and rewarding.

Some nonprofit organizations we have been proud to partner with over the years, helping them bring their digital strategy goals to fruition, are featured below.

DrugFree.Org

On a mission to transform how our nation addresses addiction by empowering families, DrugFree.org is advancing effective care, shaping public policy, and changing culture.

Integrity House

Integrity House is building and transforming lives, families, and communities. This nonprofit group is known as the leading provider of integrated mental health, physical health, and addiction services.

Rebuild Texas

A fund started by the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation, Rebuild Texas was born to support families and communities impacted by Hurricane Harvey in Texas.

Company Highlights

Any company that has been in the business of WordPress for 15 years will likely experience a period of rapid growth followed by a period of stability. As such, it’s no surprise that WebDevStudios has changed our services and products, target market, and business model over the years. We’ve faced challenges and setbacks along the way, but we have also learned and grown from every experience.

Custom Post Type UI – The Crown Jewel of Our Plugins

Believe the hype. Custom Post Type UI is the most popular custom post type plugin. We can prove it.

• Over 1 million active installations
• Over 14 million lifetime downloads
• Ranked the 50th most popular plugin

Five for the Future Agency Participant Since Inception

We didn’t wait for Five for the Future to become a trend before we joined the initiative. We got involved the moment it was announced in 2014. Since then, WebDevStudios has contributed just shy of 12,000 hours to this important WordPress effort.

Charity Challenge

Every year during the winter holidays, our website agency gives back to select charities chosen by our team members. Over the years, we have raised thousands of dollars for different nonprofit organizations.

Other Noteworthy Highlights

• Founded AppPresser
• Merged with eWebscapes, which brought Lisa on as a partner, co-founder, and COO
• Acquired Maintainn in 2012, which was sold in 2022

The Future of WebDevStudios

Fifteen years for any business is a long time. Our longevity and success are a true testament to the amazing WebDevStudios team members, past and present.

Their passion and dedication toward client success shine through in every project. We are very fortunate to work with some of the brightest minds in WordPress development and design.

To all of our team members, clients, partners, friends, and family, thank you for your support over these past 15 years. We truly wouldn’t be here without you.

The future for WebDevStudios is bright! Our team will always be at the forefront of WordPress and web innovation.

We are constantly exploring new technologies and pushing the boundaries of what WordPress can do. We look forward to many more years of building the best WordPress experiences alongside amazing brands. At WebDevStudios, your success will always be our mission for years to come!

The post WebDevStudios Celebrates 15 Years of WordPress Experience appeared first on WebDevStudios.

The truth is that a customized WordPress plugin built to represent your brand requires a team that is dedicated to:

• Ongoing support via the WordPress Support Forum
• Updates and maintenance
• Performance
• Security
• Quality assurance and testing for compliance

WDS receives many inquiries requesting plugin development, some of which come from folks who don’t understand the complexities of WordPress plugin development. Here’s what you need to know.

A Brief Background on Plugin Development

WordPress plugins are a vital part of the overall WordPress ecosystem. The official WordPress Plugin Directory features over 60,000 freely available plugins that can be installed and used on any WordPress website.

A plugin could be as simple as a few lines of code, or as complex as an entire eCommerce system, there really is no limit! WordPress is also used on more than 43% of all websites on the internet. So, if your company or services can interact with a website, you absolutely need an official WordPress plugin, to expose your business to almost half of the internet!

Plugin development requires understanding the “WordPress way.”

For many, the idea of building a simple plugin may not seem like a tough task. The reality is that so much more goes into plugin development than most realize.

Genuinely understanding the core WordPress software, and the proper ways to integrate your plugin is critical in building a solid plugin foundation that can grow as your users and services grow. If you aren’t building your plugin the “WordPress way,” it will likely be rejected by the Plugin Directory review team.

Working with a company that understands the correct way to build a WordPress plugin is essential. We even wrote the book!

Do you know how to get your plugin listed?

Listing your plugin on the official WordPress Plugin Directory also takes some experience. All plugins are reviewed by the plugin review team, and if they aren’t up to spec will be rejected.

That’s why it’s imperative you work with experts who specialize in not only building powerful WordPress plugins but also someone who understands the process for review and acceptance to the directory.

Compliance is key.

WordPress continues to grow as a platform, and as such new major versions are released approx four times a year. Point releases, or minor updates, occur, on average, about once a month. As new versions are released it’s crucial your plugin is tested and confirmed to work as expected.

There are also notices within the Plugin Directory that indicate your plugin is fully compatible with the current version of WordPress, giving new and existing users confidence that your plugin will continue working as expected when they upgrade WordPress.

Every brand must keep their WordPress plugin compliant with the most current version of WordPress. If it’s not, WordPress lets users know. Such a warning can be embarrassing and looks terrible for your company.

While compliance is key, the keys to achieving compliance are testing and quality assurance. Besides having a dedicated developer ready to respond to WordPress Support Form requests, do you also have one responsible for consistently and constantly testing your brand’s WordPress plugin? It’s vital that you do.

Safe, Secure, and Performant

Security and performance should be at the forefront of everything when developing a WordPress plugin. Our team is trained on and follows WordPress security standards.

We verify all codes are as secure as possible using the proper WordPress hardening methods within the code. Your team should do the same, and if you don’t have one, find professionals who can do that for you.

Performance is another critical area of focus for all plugins we create. How will your plugin handle five users vs five million? You better have a plan for that.

Your plugin users expect access to support.

No matter how much documentation you provide for your brand’s WordPress plugin, your users are bound to encounter errors or simply misunderstand instructions. That’s normal.

However, they expect help. They want to be able to interact directly with the plugin developer and have their issues resolved in a timely manner.

Once you have launched your plugin, have a developer assigned to respond to tickets in the WordPress Support Forum. Be ready to deliver the same kind of customer service for your plugin that your brand normally offers for your other products and services.

Your brand’s WordPress plugin should continually be updated and maintained to perform well.

A plugin that is not continuously updated and maintained is a plugin with poor performance. Your users will hate that and stop using it. What’s even worse, your users could very well leave negative reviews of your plugin. Let’s avoid that.

After launch, continue to update and maintain the health of your plugin. This commitment will show in the performance of your plugin, which will impress your users. The performance of your brand’s WordPress plugin must complement the quality of your brand’s reputation.

WebDevStudios Plugin Development for Brands

It’s essential that your plugin scales as your success does. Our team can help advise and recommend performance techniques, including advanced caching methods, transients, performant SQL database queries, and more. Your plugin will be capable of handling any amount of traffic and growth!

WebDevStudios literally wrote the book on WordPress plugin development. As a co-author of “Professional WordPress Plugin Development, 2nd Edition,” the WDS team and I have valuable experience and expertise in the subject matter.

Your success is our mission. That means that when we develop the official WordPress plugin for a client, we don’t abandon them after launch.

Our dedication to their plugin continues after. We provide ongoing support, including interacting with users at the WordPress Support Forum, maintenance, security, updates, quality assurance, and testing. Every plugin we customize for our clients complies with each WordPress release.

Are you ready to have a customized WordPress plugin built for your brand? Then contact us. Let’s talk about launching your brand’s WordPress plugin.

The post Your Brand’s WordPress Plugin Requires More Than Development appeared first on WebDevStudios.

Amazingly, these potential clients were surprised to learn that their requests were last-minute. In their minds, one month or so is plenty of time to build a brand-new website or complete a website redesign. It’s not.

We feel pretty bad about not being able to accommodate these requests. If we could, WebDevStudios would have the capacity to help everyone who comes to our virtual door.

The reality is we can’t. Here’s why:

• Working Hours: Like most any company, WebDevStudios (WDS) does not operate 24/7. We keep the usual 9-5 business hours. We close our offices during the usual holidays. A healthy work-life balance is very important to us and will always result in higher-quality work.
• Ongoing Clients: WDS is very lucky to have a group of clients who require ongoing development and keep us busy. Their projects are already booked on our calendar.
• New Client Projects: Most of the potential clients who contact us to build a website do so in advance. That allows them to be placed in our work queue, guaranteeing that their projects will launch by their selected deadline.
• Contracts and Legal: Paperwork always takes more time than anticipated. It can generally take two weeks just to finalize the language in agreements and prepare the documents for signature. We can’t kick off your project until we have an agreed-upon signed contract.

Now that I’ve clarified that our ongoing clients and clients who contact us with plenty of lead time receive priority and that our team builds websites during the usual office hours, you can understand why last-minute requests are not accommodated.

Having explained that, I hope that the following information guides you to plan ahead so you don’t find yourself being turned away from a website agency.

How much lead time do you need?

Lead time varies depending on the scope of work. My best recommendation is to begin contacting website companies at least 3-4 months ahead of your desired launch date.

This is the point when you’re collecting quotes and interviewing prospective website partners. If your key stockholders of this project require a lot of time to debate and decide on a partner, you may want to build in another two weeks of lead time, especially if you have a legal team involved.

Once you have chosen your website partner, it could take 3+ months to build a website.

Why does building a website take time?

There are all sorts of factors that affect the amount of time needed to build a website. These are only a few.

• The website project is complex. We love website projects that require customized solutions. WDS excels at those. Still, big websites require a lot of time. WebDevStudios places a great deal of importance on coding standards. We want to make sure we get it right. That will take an investment of time.
• In order for a website project to be successful, it cannot be rushed. At WebDevStudios, we make thoughtful decisions about your projects. We don’t believe in rushing to meet an unrealistic timeline. Do you want your new website project rushed or done correctly?
• New requirements were uncovered during the project. Adding more tasks to the website project means adding more time, too.
• Limited work hours influences a project. I can’t think of a single website agency that operates 24 hours a day. Like I said before, our team works the usual business hours. We don’t believe in overworking our staff. If we did, we probably wouldn’t have one.

When should you plan for your next website project?

Are you looking to build a website with a spring launch date? Contact us now.

Want to launch in the summer? You can reach out to us in March. If you’re looking to launch over the 2023 holidays, I hope we’ll hear from you in August.

Planning ahead is just smart. WebDevStudios wants to make your website project a priority and get you in our queue. We can’t wait to talk to you soon.

The post Why Building a Website Takes Longer Than You Think appeared first on WebDevStudios.

Additionally, we believe that by sharing these insights, you learn more about us. Whether you’re researching WebDevStudios (WDS) because you’re considering hiring our website agency to build your next big project or you’re interested in joining our team, the more you know about us, the better.

We all know 2022 was an eventful year for everyone. For WDS, it was a year that included many changes and required strong adjustments. WDS made modifications, rearranged, and fine-tuned as needed and where needed. And, we did so gracefully. That’s something we’re especially proud of.

Please join us as we review our 2022. We hope it gives you a deeper understanding of our website design and development company, how we grow, and how we sustain our ability to make your dreams a reality.

Remember, your success is our mission. Here’s how we accomplished that this year.

Organizational Changes

Since 2008, WebDevStudios has built robust solutions for our clients. We have experimented with different organizational setups, workflows, and methodologies for project delivery depending on available technology, staff, and types of projects.

However, as our client base and team expanded, we identified the need for changes and advancements. We go over this more in our WebDevStudios 2022 year-in-review, while also touching on upcoming transformations.

Team Restructuring

2022 brought many changes to how our teams are structured, which required necessary changes to our communications. Up until the summer of 2022, WebDevStudios had been structured in a hierarchical format with our CEO/COO at the top, followed by directors for each department, then managers, and so on.

This format served us well for many years as we were growing and placed reliable processes and policies in place to ensure serviced our clients in the best ways. Growth brought the need for improved communication and transparency. We found that the hierarchical structure, even in a small company like ours, created a layer of bureaucracy that stifled innovation and siloed communications.

After a lot of thought and research into the type of structure that would serve our teams and clients, we found the best solution was a team-based structure that focused on problem-solving, cooperation, and gave employees more control of their day-to-day. This helped us increase productivity, performance, and transparency. It also fitted well with our team scrum format and agile goals.

We eliminated the director-level roles and opted for team managers in the areas of account, delivery, and engineering management-level roles that collaborate with project teams. Additionally, we adopted a pod structure for project teams where each pod has its own sales, strategy, design, development, project management, and QA talent.

This allows each pod to operate independently and is responsible for certain aspects of the product. They own all tasks involved, from sales to launch, and also provide a good deal of redundancy around tasks and projects.

The results were near immediate! Communication at all levels became much more transparent, visible, and collaborative, more so than ever before. Teams and their members are working toward common goals and it is allowing us to move towards a much more agile delivery.

Scrum Masters, All

In the year 2023, our company has committed to investing in the professional development of our delivery managers and project managers. By the end of Q3, all of them will have obtained their Scrum Master Certification (CSM).

The purpose of this investment is to enhance their knowledge and understanding of scrum and agile methodologies. This, in turn, will improve their ability to lead scrum teams. The ultimate goal is to improve overall team performance as our scrum masters become more effective leaders, resulting in better performance and outcomes.

Strategy and Design Growth

In late 2022, we added positions to our strategy and design teams to account for the increase in client work we’ve had the good fortune to take on moving into 2023. In the pod structure, mentioned above, each pod has a UX strategist and UX designer who work together with our delivery manager during the strategy phase of a project in gathering requirements, defining goals, and producing solutions for client projects.

Maintainn Acquired by SiteCare

In 2014 WebDevStudios acquired Maintainn, a WordPress Support and Maintenance company. Bringing Maintainn under the WDS banner of brands and services was a perfect match to enhance the ongoing support of our clients.

As the projects at WebDevStudios became more complex, so did the support requirements for those projects. As such, the Maintainn level of support and service no longer fits what many of our clients required.

Earlier this year we decided to sell our support and maintenance company Maintainn. We needed to find a buyer that would fully support our Maintainn clients and give them the level of service and support they expect.

Enter SiteCare, who was the perfect fit for Maintainn. SiteCare offers WordPress maintenance and support services very in line with the Maintainn offerings. We knew Maintainn would be a great fit at SiteCare and the rest is history!

Pluginize Makes a Comeback

WordPress plugins and products have always been a passion project for WDS. Our most popular plugin, Custom Post Type UI (CPTUI), has over 1 million active users and over 13 million lifetime downloads!

We also continue to expand the features on our WP Search with Algolia plugin and have grown that user base to over 5,000 active installs and 80,000 downloads. While you might be familiar with CPTUI and WP Search with Algolia, many people are not familiar with our product brand Pluginize.

One of our goals for 2023 is to revamp and recharge our commitment to products through Pluginize. We are actively working on a new premium plugin with hopes of releasing it in Q1 2023.

In 2022, we retired our older plugins, updated our current plugins, relaunched the Pluginize blog, and rebuilt Pluginize to be a block-based theme with more modern technologies. All of this work sets the stage to supercharge Pluginize in 2023 and beyond.

WebDevStudios 2022 Year-in-Review by the Numbers

Data is impressive, isn’t it? Here is how our achievements measured out in 2022.

1,350+ Hours Contributed to  Five for the Future

We talk about it a lot, but there are still many who don’t know about Five for the Future. An open-source technology designed to democratize publishing, WordPress fuels more than one-third of the web. As such, WordPress needs all of us to contribute.

Five for the Future is an initiative that allows the WordPress community to contribute to the platform’s growth. WebDevStudios actively participates in this effort by dedicating the last Friday of every month to giving back to WordPress in a myriad of ways. Overall, our team proudly contributed more than 1,350 hours to the initiative in 2022.

Looking forward to my first #5FTF day with @webdevstudios and #WordPress pic.twitter.com/pxFB3jJ2Tv

— Matt Ryan (@MattRyanCo) October 28, 2022

38 Active Clients

From education to media, eCommerce to consumer packaged goods, our 2022 was jam-packed with some amazingly interesting projects for big brands. Our roster of clients includes some impressive brands and names, such as Campbell’s, George School, Monster, Wall Street Journal, and Care.

One of our newest clients kept us especially busy with the launch of five separate websites under the brand and an ongoing retainer. That client is the NBA.

27 New Hires

We were no strangers to the Great Resignation this year. Some people left WDS that had been here a very long time; others only a few years or less.

At the beginning of the year, it was challenging to replace people quickly, making sure we hired the right people for the team. Thankfully, our culture, authority in the WordPress community, and genuinely supportive teammates were the key selling points for us to get such good talent.

“I’m pretty proud of the people we added to the team this year,” says Julie Sarnik, Employee Experience Coordinator. “Our diversity is up, which was a big goal for us. We have an impressive amount of female engineers and our team has expanded globally. It’s amazing to be able to work with people all over the world and learn from them!”

13 Lunch & Learns

It was a baker’s dozen of lessons and internal webinars for our team this year. Topics ranged from personal interests to technology and development, such as “DIY LEDs,” “Remix vs NextJS,” and a panel discussion on accessibility for all.

“WDS Lunch & Learns are a great way for people to share their expertise in a work-related area or just something fun,” says Justin Foell, Engineering Manager. Justin coordinates, schedules, and promotes every single Lunch & Learn event. “It helps the team level up and connect with each other at the same time.”

23 WordPress Talks, Podcasts, Webinars, Interviews, and Media Mentions

Face it. WebDevStudios is everywhere. When WordCamps and WordPress meetups call for speakers, our team submits their ideas.

When WordPress and tech media publications need experts on hand, we volunteer. WDS team members love to lend a hand and share their expertise. Then, we like to brag about it via our Company News blog posts.

26,197 Tacos Given

This WebDevStudios 2022 review wouldn’t be complete without talking about tacos. We use a variety of methods to keep our remote work company culture engaging. One of our favorites is HeyTaco rewards.

HeyTaco is our internal reward system that allows coworkers to thank and recognize fellow teammates. It’s our way of saying, “Hey, I appreciate you. Here’s a taco.” Collected tacos are redeemed for gift cards and PTO.

Take a look at our top taco givers and recipients.

Coming Up

Looking forward to 2023, our commitment hasn’t changed: Your Success is Our Mission! As always, we are committed to learning new technologies, building amazing building experiences for our clients, and continuing to give back via our various open-source contributions. Our team is laser-focused on helping our clients meet and exceed their online goals in 2023 and beyond.

The post WebDevStudios 2022 Year-in-Review appeared first on WebDevStudios.

At that time, it included a number of major new features, such as a new default theme called Twenty Ten (Kubrick was the default for years prior to this). Also featured was the merging of WordPress MU and WordPress. This ultimately led to WordPress Multisite. Plus, WordPress 3.0 included the ability to create custom menus.

Those features alone would make an amazing release for WordPress, but it doesn’t stop there. WordPress 3.0 also introduced custom post types (CPTs) and custom taxonomies. These two new features helped WordPress grow to a full fledged content management system (CMS). They also eventually inspired the creation of the WordPress plugin Custom Post Type UI.

See, CPTs allow you to easily register unique content types within WordPress. Doing so helps you organize your content beyond the default Post and Page post types.

Custom taxonomies work the same way, giving you the ability to register unique taxonomies for content organization. It’s easy to see how powerful these new features would be in WordPress, but there was one small problem.

The only way to register custom post types and taxonomies was via code. There was no dashboard user interface for administrators to manage CPTs and taxonomies.

Enter light bulb moment…

I immediately saw an opportunity to build a simple plugin to help register and manage CPTs and taxonomies directly in the WordPress dashboard. I worked on the first version of Custom Post Type UI (CPTUI) over a few days. It was released on February 25, 2010, which was approximately four months before WordPress 3.0 was even released.

One of the most exciting things about open source software is it is largely planned and created in the open. At the time, I was actively joining the WordPress developer chats and learning what was coming to WordPress before official announcements were made. I saw the opportunity coming to CPTUI and wanted to make sure my plugin was released and ready when 3.0 dropped.

Fast forward to today, 12 years later, and Custom Post Type UI is one of the most popular WordPress plugins in the world. With over 1 million active installations and over 10 million all-time downloads, it’s safe to say that CPTUI is a hit and will continue to be an important and widely-used plugin for WordPress development!

The post The History of Custom Post Type UI appeared first on WebDevStudios.

We onboarded a number of high-profile clients. WDS joined a very exclusive club as a Gold Agency Partner on WordPress VIP. We continued to lean into Headless WordPress with the launch of our Next.js Starter Framework and our first-ever, free Headless WordPress Webinar.

Our team continued to push the boundaries of WordPress. As we kick off a new year, we are continuing to stay laser focused on client success.

Staying Ahead of Technology

It’s critical our engineering team stays ahead of technology trends in the web space. WebDevStudios clients rely on our expertise in the field and know they can trust us to be at the forefront of web technology.

We want to make sure we’re bringing the best solutions to the table to help our clients meet and exceed their online goals. Our engineering team dedicates time for continuing education and research towards those goals, and that will continue to increase in 2022.

Exploring Web3

Our team is passionate about the web and love exploring new technologies. The WDS Lab is where R&D time is spent exploring new trends and tech on the web. One area that has us all very excited is Web3.

Blockchain and smart contract technology allows for the development of decentralized apps. Web3 has the opportunity to truly disrupt the internet as we know it. So, it’s natural that WDS will be on the front lines of this exciting new technology.

Getting a New Look, Going Headless

WebDevStudios is one of the oldest and most respected agencies in the industry with a focus on WordPress. We’ve worked hard over the years to grow our brand organically.

As such, we realized it was time for a refresh. We’re extremely excited to launch a completely overhauled website and refreshed WDS brand in early 2022!

While our logo and branding refresh is subtle, our new website will be anything but. Starting from the ground up, our Strategy and Design team took on the challenge of a completely new design for the WebDevStudios website.

But we’re not stopping there. Our talented Engineering team also decided on a full decoupled setup. That means we are relaunching WebDevStudios.com as a Headless WordPress website!

More info soon.

Experimenting with Marketing

When it comes to marketing we’re a small but mighty team. We love experimenting with new marketing channels including a recurring Twitter Spaces event every Friday dedicated to WordPress.

One marketing goal we have for 2022 is a bigger focus on video media. We love contributing back to WordPress, so creating more videos could be a fun an interesting way of doing just that.

It’s a new year at WDS and our core remains the same. Your success is our mission!

The post WebDevStudios 2022 Goals and Resolutions appeared first on WebDevStudios.

WebDevStudios has a long rich history of building extremely complex WordPress websites. Our WordPress agency is also known for pushing the boundaries of what WordPress can do. Many of our clients seek us out because we’re extremely good at solving complex problems.

As you would expect, WebDevStudios is very familiar working with agencies that complement the work we do. These agencies specialize in areas like search engine optimization, content analysis and creation, design and marketing firms, among others.

What might surprise you is that we also partner with competing WordPress agencies for many of our larger clients. Competing agencies working together? You bet, and there are many benefits to doing so!

Benefits of Working with Another WordPress Agency

So, why would a client want to work with multiple WordPress agencies?

Areas of Expertise

One of the primary advantages is requiring specific areas of expertise. See, no two agencies are the same. We all have different experiences and approaches to problem solving.

Another big advantage is availability. Enterprise clients generally manage multiple websites, sometimes in the hundreds. So, partnering with multiple agencies can greatly increase the amount of resources available for various website projects. It also gives the client options when an emergency arises or last-minute request comes in.

Having a pool of talented developer resources available will only strengthen your technology team and really set up your projects for success.

Maintain Established Relationships

Enterprise organizations should not be forced to cut off one relationship in order to accommodate another. Doing so does not benefit your company.

Instead, rely on the strengths of one WordPress agency to meet the requirements of particular aspects of a project, while utilizing the talents of another to serve the needs of other elements of that project. To accomplish this, you’ll want to work with agencies who are enthusiastic about working together.

Knowledge

Each agency brings different levels of experience and knowledge to the table. When partnering up on an intricate enterprise project, we can each learn something from one another. Teams can bring their best talent and team members to the dais and work together to meet and exceed a client’s goals across the board.

Agencies and teams will certainly vary in their approaches to problem solving, and so will the solutions they bring to the project. Analyzing multiple approaches to the same problem will likely result in the best overall solution to the problem.

Considerations

While on the surface it may sound easy, having multiple WordPress agencies working together on the same project does have its challenges. Agencies and teams need to be very receptive to working in a larger group of technologists.

Regardless of what decisions are made, it’s important all team members focus on the success of the project. It’s not a competition between agencies, but rather a collaborative effort toward making the best decisions for project success.

Expand your technology team with WebDevStudios. We are already familiar with and enjoy working with other agencies. Please reach out when you need someone like us behind your next website project.

The post Why Our WordPress Agency Works with Other Agencies appeared first on WebDevStudios.

What is a CPT?

At the time, WordPress shipped with Posts and Pages for all of your content. There was no way to customize or add new content types, so every piece of content was either a Post or a Page. Thus, the idea of Custom Post Types was born, allowing site admins the ability to register any types of content in WordPress.

This was a huge step towards WordPress becoming a full-fledged content management system, but there was one catch. The only way to register a CPT was directly in the codebase. I immediately saw this as an opportunity to build a simple user interface (UI) to register, and deregister, CPTs directly in the WordPress Dashboard. The final challenge was coming up with a really unique name that would make it crystal clear what the plugin did… Custom Post Type UI!

CPTUI

The first version of Custom Post Type UI was released on February 26th, 2010, almost four months before CPT support was released in WordPress 3.0. Fast forward to today, and CPTUI officially has over 8 million downloads and 1 million active installs, making it the 59th plugin on all of the WordPress.org Plugin Directory to achieve this prestige! The momentum of the growth in popularity of CPTUI doesn’t seem to be wavering, as it’s common to have the plugin and its useful mentioned in tutorials, presentations, and nominated yearly in Plugin Madness.

Evolution of CPTUI

Over the years, we’ve invested thousands of hours building and supporting the plugin, with our Plugin Czar, Michael Beckwith, taking the lead. In 2016 we released our first premium add-on called Custom Post Type UI Extended, which allows anyone to easily display their CPT content on their website. We have also continued to grow the base feature set of the plugin including registering custom taxonomies, generating the PHP code needed to register your CPTs/taxonomies, and even custom labels for all of your content. Additionally, we just developed CPTUI to support WPGraphQL, which comes in especially handy for Headless WordPress projects.

Open-Source Opportunities

The beautiful thing about open source software is that it is created in the open! By observing dev discussions and realizing the opportunity CPTs had before their release, I was able to create an extremely valuable plugin for the community that has not only helped millions of users, but also helped promote our company as we grew into one of the top WordPress agencies in the world.

Opportunities are everywhere if you look for them.

The post Custom Post Type UI Hits 1 Million Active Installations appeared first on WebDevStudios.

It’s with great pride that we announce WordPress VIP, the leading provider of enterprise WordPress, has added WebDevStudios (WDS) to its prestigious listing of Featured Gold Partners. WDS is one of only 14 partners in this prestigious group and the first agency in several years to enter this significant partnership at the Gold level.

As the experts in enterprise WordPress, WordPress VIP provides a fully managed WordPress cloud platform for unparalleled scale, security, performance, and flexibility; as well as end-to-end guidance and hands-on support. Some of their enterprise clients include Spotify, Capgemini, Facebook, Microsoft, CNN, and others.

The WebDevStudios journey began 13 years ago, and it is a storyline that is filled with milestones, prominent client projects, extensive WordPress core and community contribution, and the curation of a talented team of technologists who are passionate about making the web a better place.

From the learning management system WDS built for Starbucks and the United States National Park System, to the multitude of projects we have built for Microsoft and the consumer packaged goods powerhouse, Campbell’s, and every project in between, our work continues to be exciting, innovative, dynamic, dependable, and most of all, rewarding for all of us.

Yet, WDS continues to make time for giving back to open-source technology. This has always been a huge part of our company culture and reputation, which remains pertinent as we dedicate one workday a month to Five for the Future, the WordPress initiative that encourages agencies and developers to donate 5% of company time to giving back to WordPress.

Now, as we join forces with WordPress VIP as a Featured Gold Partner, WebDevStudios focuses our attention on Headless WordPress and decoupled technologies. The future is bright for WDS as a WordPress VIP Gold agency partner.

“This is exciting for our company because we have operated in the WordPress space for 13 years.  In fact, over the years, we’ve worked on several projects on the VIP platform already; TIME, MSNBC and MSNBC Latino are projects we built and launched on VIP a decade ago – so I guess you could say we’ve been VIP from the beginning.  Cementing our partnership now, in 2021, is kind of like coming home for us.”

~ Lisa Sabin-Wilson, COO – WebDevStudios

Key criteria for agency partners include clear product understanding and innovative go-to-market strategies. VIP vets every partner to identify agencies with a proven track record of successful and forward thinking implementations of WordPress at scale.

“WordPress VIP is experiencing significant growth and we’re poised to deliver transformational results for brands who require best-in-class digital experiences,” said WordPress VIP CEO Nick Gernert. “We’re excited to welcome new agencies alongside our existing partners to help us deliver on the most demanding implementations of enterprise WordPress.”

As the CEO and COO of WebDevStudios, we’re excited, too. We look forward to the promise this partnership brings for our agency and clients. For more information about WebDevStudios’ partnership with WordPress VIP, please visit our WordPress VIP Agency Partner page.

About WordPress VIP

WordPress VIP is the leading provider of enterprise WordPress. VIP’s platform provides enterprise-grade digital marketing and publishing platforms with WordPress at their core. VIP supports flagship digital marketing platforms for some of the best-known brands, including Capgemini, Hachette Book Group, and Facebook. Our digital publishing clients span the media landscape, from focused outlets such as Quartz, Tech Crunch, and FiveThirtyEight to some of the biggest publishers and sites in the world, like News Corp, Rolling Stone, and Abril.

With its unparalleled power, flexibility, and interoperability, WordPress is the best digital experience solution at scale. Together with VIP’s expert support, best-in-class infrastructure, and exceptional partner network, it’s an unbeatable combination.

The post WebDevStudios Named WordPress VIP Gold Agency Partner appeared first on WebDevStudios.