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This week on the WP-Tonic Podcast, host Jonathan Denwood interviewed Scott Bollinger of AppPresser. The two talked about Scott’s business, and the WordPress ecosystem. Scott got the idea for AppPresser (https://apppresser.com/) when he went to WordCamp San Francisco and heard Matt Mullenweg talk about WordPress moving into the Aapp market. He thought of WordPress sites as mobile apps and set out to create a product that would allow you to create a mobile app from your WordPress website. There were many technical hurdles to cover and he partnered with the team at Web Dev Studios (https://webdevstudios.com/)to build the actual product. One of the big concerns was that they would build the app, and that Apple might reject it from the App Store. When it was accepted, they knew they had something to package and use. Scott felt that they were fortunate with this product because the idea was different and quickly gathered interest. He said, “We didn’t have to do a a lot of marketing. When we launched, we had an audience.” He attributes this to articles written and buzz created because it was something different and something people saw as valuable. From other product launches he as done, he finds that much buzz to be abnormal. In the initial launch, they did not have trouble converting people to paid users. Again this is unusual. Frequently product sales are slow to build. From the beginning they made a lot of sales. They are moving to a SaaS product. They still have plugins but now have a cloud-based app builder which is much smoother than what they had. They can host push notifications, and provide a better user experience for their customers building apps. Aside from discussing AppPresser, Jonathan and Scott talked about the WordPress ecosystem and a post Scott wrote after attending an eCommerce conference where WordPress wasn’t mentioned. Scott explained that the conference was a marketing conference and that all of the eCommerce discussions covered selling on Amazon and Shopify. Although WooCommerce is the largest eCommerce platform on the Internet with more stores than Shopify, it may not appeal to a non-technical market. He wrote Perspective on WordPress (http://scottbolinger.com/perspective-on-wordpress/) on his ScottBolinger.com blog to show that while we know that WordPress runs over 20% of the Internet, those of us in the WordPress community think that everyone knows and cares about WordPress. Actually, this isn’t the case. He feels WordPress is best for agencies and developers building for clients. If you’re not technical, it can be incredibly difficult. Companies like Squarespace and Shopify are often popular with non-technical audiences because they are easier to use out-of-the-box. Of course, he points out that the benefits of WordPress are the large ecosystem of plugins, the fact that it is Open Source, and can be customized to almost any requirement. It’s just that the general audience may not see that or understand its value.

We have a great show here with our special guest John James Jacoby who helps us discuss how to setup and use WordPress Multisite. John over the years has been a WordPress core contributor and lead a developer for both the BuddyPress and bbPress projects plus he was Director of Web Engineering at 10up. John also recently has taken up being the co-host the popular weekly WordPress podcast WordPress Weekly. We in the first half of the show discuss these leading WordPress new stories. 1 - WordPress 4.9 Will Support Shortcodes and Embedded Media in the Text Widget https://wptavern.com/wordpress-4-9-will-support-shortcodes-and-embedded-media-in-the-text-widget 2 - WordPress 4.9 Beta 4 Removes ‘Try Gutenberg’ Call to Action https://wptavern.com/wordpress-4-9-beta-4-removes-try-gutenberg-call-to-action 3 - A New Themes Experience in the Customizer https://make.wordpress.org/core/2017/10/24/a-new-themes-experience-in-the-customizer/  

In this episode, Justin Busa Lead Developer at Fast Line Media (http://www.fastlinemedia.com/) the company that makes Beaver Builder, joined host Jonathan Denwood to discuss what’s in the works for Beaver Builder and Beaver Themer. Justin is co-founder of the company. Along with discussing the future of the company’s products, the talked about the fact that Beaver Builder will be four years old in April. Sometimes it’s hard to realize it’s been around that long. Currently the Beaver Builder team is focused on the release of Beaver Builder 2.0 which should drop in the next one to two weeks. Some of the highlights for version 2.0 include: Improved user experience allowing the user to move between options like rows and content. Speed improvements based on the fact that much of the User Interface is now Javascript. This allows it to render instantly on the page and not have to return to the server. This version also adds more options for users to customize their dashboard experience allowing them to resize the settings boxes, pin them where desired, and save workspace settings to keep this experience each time they login. After this launch, they will return to Beaver Themer, which hasn’t been updated much since its release in order to focus on making changes based on customer feedback. They will also be taking time on the Beaver Builder Theme. This received quite a bit of work in the first several years of the project, and is now being revisited based on customer feedback. Overall, the company listens to feedback and takes a customer-centric approach to solving problems and improving their software going forward.

We have a great WP-Tonic Friday round-table show here with a great panel of WordPress experts we discuss this week's WordPress news stories and one main topic. For this week main discussion topic was “The Future of WordPress Page Builders Connected to WordPress.” With Gutenberg dominating the WordPress news over the last couple of months we thought it would be a good discussion topic for this week round-table show. We also had a great news section and here's a list of the news stories which were discussed during the show.   News Stories 1 - Google Chrome v62 Adds Support for OpenType Variable Fonts, Expands HTTP Warnings https://wptavern.com/google-chrome-v62-adds-support-for-opentype-variable-fonts-expands-http-warnings 2 - AMP Project Turns 2, Automattic Partners with Google to Improve WordPress Plugin https://wptavern.com/amp-project-turns-2-automattic-partners-with-google-to-improve-wordpress-plugin 3 - WordPress 4.9 Protects Users From Fatal Errors Created in the Theme and Plugin Editors https://wptavern.com/wordpress-4-9-protects-users-from-fatal-errors-created-in-the-theme-and-plugin-editors

This week Benjamin Ilfeld from 10up.com joined Jonathan Denwood and his co-host Kim Shivler to discuss Google Analytics. Benjamin is the Lead Audience and Revenue Strategist at 10up. They focus on the audience and revenue side of the business for their customers. Benjamin explained that while Google Analytics is a tool to provide insights into traffic visiting your site, it’s like a Swiss Army Knife that isn’t specific to one need. It’s generic and to get the most from it, you need to configure it to meet your needs. For example, if you are running an eCommerce store, you want to filter out bot traffic to make sure anyone visiting is a potential customer. Ben also recommended configuring views and filters in order to fine tune what you see. He always recommends creating a test view that is your sandbox. Use this like a test or staging area before putting anything into a live view. Once it’s live it will show up in your reports. Google Analytics and other tools give you insights into your data, but what is really important is to set goals and have a measurement plan. The tools them provide the measurements, but if you don’t know your goals and what you want to measure, the numbers don’t matter.

This week’s roundtable gathered to discuss Design Elements for your WordPress website including selecting a color scheme, and fonts. Sallie Goetsch, Adam Preiser, Kim Shivler, and special guest Amanda McCoy joined host Jonathan Denwood for a lively discussion with plenty of links to resources to help you with your own site. Amanda McCoy spoke at WordCamp Sacramento 2017 on color palette selection, so we invited her along to share some insights. She works in both web and print design, and likes to select colors that fit the project. If you take a look at her website, you’ll see what she means. Her portfolio shows plenty of examples where the colors set the tone of her message. She also says to keep it simple for your website. You only need a few colors. Adam has several tutorials on fonts and colors. One of his pet peeves is when he can tell, at a glance, what WordPress theme people are using because they haven’t taken the time to change default fonts and colors. The group also covered the difference between free fonts and copyrighted professional fonts. Make sure that you are using a free font or have paid the licensing fee if you are using a professional font. Resources to help with fonts and color palettes: Type wolf - a site dedicated to what’s happening in the world of type. https://www.typewolf.com/ Font pair helps designers pair Google fonts. http://fontpair.co More Meaningful Typography by Tim Brown is an article explaining how to successfully use typography. It is published on the site A List Apart. https://alistapart.com/article/more-meaningful-typography The Elements of Typographic Style Applied to the Web. A practical guide to web typography. http://webtypography.net/ Practical Color Theory for People Who Code https://tallys.github.io/color-theory/ Color in UI Design: A (Practical) Framewory by Erik D. Kennedy on Medium https://medium.com/@erikdkennedy/color-in-ui-design-a-practical-framework-e18cacd97f9e Color Theory 101: A Beginner’s Guide to Complementary Colors, RGB, and More by Caroline Mercurio on Storyblocks https://blog.storyblocks.com/tutorials/color-theory-101-a-beginners-guide/ Open Color - an open-source color scheme https://yeun.github.io/open-color/

We have Adam Preiser joining us as our special guest this week. The founder of WPCrafter one of the most popular YouTube channels around giving training and reviews connected to WordPress themes, plugins or anything else that's connected to WordPress. WPCrafter channel has over 30.000 subscribers!!!

Getting traffic to your site is great, but what happens once people arrive? This week, the group discusses conversion rates of site visitors to email subscribers and explores ways to improve conversions. Special thanks to our sponsor IntelligenceWP. IntelligenceWP is a WordPress plugin that extends the functionality of Google Analytics and provides real-world insights into your analytics right from your WordPress Dashboard. It was a full house this week on the WP-Tonic Friday Roundtable with plenty of ideas shared for improving conversions. Step one, of course, is to get the traffic to your site. Once they are there, to convert them to subscribers, the key is to create valuable content. Tom explained education pieces of content and attraction pieces of content. Content has different roles some pieces are meant to attract like wikipages, and blog posts. White papers and other premium pieces of content are meant to educate, and can be delivered in exchange for an email address. Put CTAs (Call to Action) on Blog posts pointing people to premium content. Have them sign up to receive premium content. Have relevant testimonials. For example, if you are doing something about security, put case studies and testimonials about security on the site. Creating a sales funnel in WordPress is easy. You don’t need ClickFunnels. A sales funnel flows from the Top through the Middle to the Bottom. Top - The top of the sales funnel consists of small lead magnets like a checklist or two minute video. Middle - At the middle of the funnel, you’ve nurtured relationship. Now you offer something more like a free course or a premium podcast series Bottom - The bottom of the funnel is a higher value, bigger piece like a live webinar. Note that some people might move right to the bottom. Call to Action - people sometimes forget to ask - or even “Tell them to do it.” Click this, I promise you’ll like it. Having analytics is more important than AB Testing. Know what’s working. AB Testing good for landing pages to understand the right copy. When you start looking at the entire Attract > Engage > Convert chain more robust things with analytics helps. Track page attributes what topics, what tone did we take, what hooks did we use and see how they work across multiple posts. Create profiles for your audience - who are they - and tag your content that way. Check page attributes. See what hooks you used and see how it converts. The biggest key is to get the tracking (data collection with Google Analytics) started. You don’t have to jump in and decide to become an expert. Just get it started and as you go you can grow. You need the data, so start collecting it now. Tools for Sales Funnels, Conversions and Engagement Management Zapier - zapier.com IfThisThenThat (IFTTT) - ifttt.com IntelligenceWP - intelligencewp.com SendGrid is a mail sending service - sendgrid.com Zoho has a $35.00/month option for all of their tools - zoho.com Drip - drip.co Active Campaign - activecampaign.com Mautic - https://www.mautic.org/ This Week’s Roundtable: Tom - IntelligenceWP.com Adam Preiser - youtube.com/wpcrafter or wpcrafter.com Matt Ingot - freelancetransformation.com Adam Fout - bluesteelesolutions.com Sallie Goetsch - wpfangirl.com Chris Badgett - lifterlms.com (podcast LMSCast.com) Jonathan Denwood - WP-Tonic.com Kim Shivler - kimshivler.com

This week, Jonathan Denwood and Kim Shivler interviewed Nancy Lyons, CEO of Clockwork, an award winning, interactive design agency. Clockwork is known as one of the best places to work in Minneapolis, and Nancy shared insights on how to create a people-centered corporate culture, and why it's important to consider that different employees work and process in different ways and how allowing this increases engagement. Nancy is co-author of the book Interactive Project Management, Pixels, People, & Process which takes a people-centered approach to delivering outstanding digital products.

This week, the WP-Tonic Roundtable featured Sallie Goestch, Lee Jackson, John Locke, Kim Shivler, and special guest Larry Swanson along with host Jonathan Denwood to discuss WordCamp Seattle and WordPress Hooks: Actions and Filters. Larry, of EllesMedia (https://ellessmedia.com/), is a content strategist who is co-organizer of WordCamp Seattle, so we kicked off our session with an peek at what this year’s WordCamp Seattle features. Four tracks including a WP 101 Setup track are available with a speaker list that includes frequent Roundtable contributor Morten Rand-Hendriksen presenting Gutenberg & the Future of WordPress. WordCamp Seattle will be held November 4-5, 2017, and tickets are on sale (https://2017.seattle.wordcamp.org/). The discussion of Hooks focused on explaining them and providing resources for learning to use them. Think of a hook as a place to hang something - the same way you would think of a physical hook - not a piece of software. When looking at WordPress, a hook is a place where you can hang your code into the WordPress code. Actions and Filters are each a type of hook. These are used in the development of both plugins and themes. Actions allow you to add or remove code, while Filters let you modify or replace specific data. At it’s core, this is actually all PHP programming, so an “Introduction to PHP: course is recommended for anyone wanting to develop WordPress themes or plugins. Not sure what actions and filters are being used on a WordPress page? Simply Show Hooks (https://en-gb.wordpress.org/plugins/simply-show-hooks/) is a plugin that will show all hooks on a page making it easy for developers to find where they can hook into. Resources for Using Hooks and Creating Plugins: WordPress.org Codex Writing a Plugin (https://codex.wordpress.org/Writing_a_Plugin) WordPress.org Codex Hooks Reference (https://codex.wordpress.org/Plugin_API) Simply Show Hooks (https://en-gb.wordpress.org/plugins/simply-show-hooks/) Envato Tutorial (https://code.tutsplus.com/articles/the-beginners-guide-to-wordpress-actions-and-filters--wp-27373) Pippin’s Plugins tutorials on Plugin Programming (https://pippinsplugins.com/learn/)