What performance tips would you give to other pros (as related to speed, scalability, security, plugins, backup, etc.)?

Website Speed
Speed seems like a small issue to worry about, right? The speed of your website affects every metric you care about. Bounces, rankings, conversions, usability and most important, MONEY in your clients bank account.

Backups
How often should you be backing up your website? What is the maximum acceptable of data loss after a disaster?
It is easy to forget about the risks that face your website until you are obviously hacked and your defaced homepage reminds you that you should have backed up recently.

The ability to fully recover your websites and the process to restore websites are often not thought about in business or web companies.

Confess to us your biggest moment of WP fail?

This is a success story, with an unexpected failure and direct quote from a client:

“Thanks to all your hard work, we had so much traffic last week that OSC server had to shut my site down, something with the bandwidth. Our IT guy said that was because too many people were entering the site and said I needed to update my hosting, more data etc., I don’t know all the lingo… But anyway we canceled service with OSC and went with Amazon server.

I have been the on the first or second spot on the first google page consistently ever since you started working your magic dear & I have to say that we are so impressed with your ability.”

Favorite plugin?

Better WP Security, and WordPress SEO by Yoast.

If you could change one thing today about WP, what would it be?

Security:

There is a plethora of security advice for wordpress websites to prevent them from being hacked. It is very important to realize that website security is a process and not a single task, and that the only completely invulnerable site is one that is offline. I feel these best practices need to start in the community, and an easy place to find vulnerable plugins.

If you were interviewing another WordPress developer for a job, what is the first question you would ask and why?

Q: Do you prefer to work alone or on a team?

At watchful.li, our work environment requires team-oriented developers. Our projects include close interaction with other developers, project managers, and marketers. There are many developers that prefer to work solo, and it works for them. Make sure every developer you interview fits your work environment needs.

What WP consultants deserve more love than they get? Who should we be paying attention to?

Michelle Schulp is doing amazing things for the community (WordCamp Chicago organization) and building some beautiful sites with her company Marktime Media.

Becky Davis is another wonderful developer and giving community member with a huge love for teaching. There’s nothing more valuable than those willing to help share the “”Word“”!

Kari Sharp is another up and coming developer who is also giving a ton to the community (Foundation Friday organization for WordCamp Chicago) and is building a very client services oriented business that will continue to help many small business owners in IL and WI.

What’s your favorite theme or theme framework? Why?

Lately I’ve really enjoyed doing theme modifications to Theme Trust themes and WooThemes. They serve as a very solid base for clients that don’t have the funds for full custom development, as they stick to WordPress good development practices (generally speaking).

What do you think is the biggest challenge that WP consultants will face in 2013?

Our company’s biggest challenge will continue to be keeping up with the demand for outstanding development services. We can’t keep up with all of the requests and often refer the business out, but even the companies I refer to are often too full. We need to continue to meet new developers, build efficient processes, and still ensure we offer top notch services to existing clients.

When I was able to put up my very own website in a matter of days, with no prior development experience, I was REALLY excited about WordPress. That was 4 years ago now, and I continue to be excited about the platform – the community is unmatched, the functionality continues to expand and simplify processes, and it is generally easy to use for clients.

Where do you go first to get your WP news, insights, and updates?

The people I follow on Twitter usually post the most up-to-date news and updates.

What WP consultants deserve more love than they get? Who should we be paying attention to?

Gilbert has a lot of quick tutorials on not only PHP/MySQL but also WordPress development. He made the Nivo slider which is famous, but I never heard of Gilbert until I ran into his blog.

What performance tips would you give to other pros (as related to speed, scalability, security, plugins, backup, etc.)?

Use WP cache in a live environment ALWAYS and when developing themes, make sure all resources are included correctly.

Confess to us your biggest moment of WP fail?

Hardcoding the AJAX url into my plugin and making my own AJAX handler which completely broke my OOP structure. Never thought that WordPress would be awesome enough to handle these requests by itself and make life easy 😉

If you were going to spend this weekend creating a plugin that doesn’t exist, what would it be?
Make a plugin that creates articles out of bullet point notes so I don’t have to waste time with filler. Kind of sci fi, but with a smart enough algorithm, possible.

Do you use Themes & Child Themes, Roll your own, or both?

Always custom.

What’s your favorite theme or theme framework? Why?

I like the 2013 theme that comes with WP 3.6 (the beta version). It’s responsive and slick.

Favorite plugin or least favorite plugin?

“Favorite plugin: WP Super Cache
Least Favorite Plugin: WP Super Cache

I guess it depends if it’s on the machine I’m developing on or a live site. It can be the smoothest plugin or the most frustrating.”

What’s the coolest thing you’ve ever done with Custom Post Types?

Nothing too spectacular. On a custom home slider, I combined custom post types while extending them with meta boxes which is pretty common I guess.

What do you think is the biggest challenge that WP consultants will face in 2013?

How to handle all the custom developments and plugin/theme combinations.

If you could change one thing today about WP, what would it be?

A setting to change the terminology if using WP for a site compared to a blog. Post could be Article and Taxonomy could be category or something else of that sort depending on use.

Where do you see WordPress going in the next 2-3 years?

I see WordPress staying about the same, but adding more functionality for plugins and theme development to make it feel more towards a Website CMS.

Tell us a story where you saved the WP day for yourself or on a client project. What made the difference for you?

We were transferring a WPMU network and ended up not fixing one of the database fields where the new domain would be. All we had to do was adjust the URL and we were good to go.

What’s the biggest misconception you encounter about WordPress, and how do you clear it up for your clients?

Trying to explain when to use a Post or a Page. To clear it up I try to explain it in an order of a hierarchy.

If you were interviewing another WordPress developer for a job, what is the first question you would ask and why?

How did you learn WordPress development? If they answer by reading the Codex and going to the forums, I will respect them way more than if they took a class and claim to know the content.

When was the first time that you really got excited about WordPress OR at what point did you decide to make it your career?

I first got excited about WordPress when I made my first plugin. It was a few years ago and that’s when I saw the potential to make WordPress more than just a blogging engine.

Where do you go first to get your WP news, insights, and updates?

Getting information is a lot easier now then it was when I first started learning WordPress. My only options then were WordPress.org, Google and a few WordPress books. Now there are so many site that offer information on best practices, tutorials, conversations and forums. Some of my favorite learning channels are WP Water Cooler & WP Candy for current news, WordPress TV for WordCamp presentations, and as many WordCamps I can attend. Last year you could find me in the Dev track at 5 WordCamps across the Midwest and NYC. It also depends on what I want or need to know for a client site or if I want to just keep abreast of the evolution WP core.

Do you use Themes & Child Themes, Roll your own, or both?

I have done it all! Themes before the Parent/Child era, Child Themes and now designing/developing my own. Over the years I have worked with quite a few frameworks – Thematic, Hybrid and Genesis. Having framework experience has given me a great foundation for development.

What’s the coolest thing you’ve ever done with Custom Post Types?

Custom Post Types Cool Factor! I don’t know if the subject matter was that cool but I do enjoy developing the site architecture for Custom Post Types. First analyze the best user experience for finding the right mix of names and custom taxonomies to aggregate the information efficiently on large sites. My first CPT venture was an international conference site with 60 presenters and numerous sessions. Fun stuff!

What do you think is the biggest challenge that WP consultants will face in 2013?

I think the expanding Long Tail of WordPress Users is one of the biggest challenge. During my WordCamp 2011 session on Improving Support Docs for Themes and Plugins, I presented my Long Tail of WordPress Users – the infinite number of people using WordPress who have no or limited skills. New and non-tech users have a big learning curve including the admin UI, theme functionality, options page, widget areas and plugins. This multiple learning layer is huge. You can find this presentation on WordPress.TV.

When was the first time that you really got excited about WordPress OR at what point did you decide to make it your career?

I have been excited about web development since 1997! Working with WordPress was a natural progression. I first heard about WordPress from Peter Merholz (he coined the word Blog) at an Adaptive Path User Experience 2006 workshop. I started to develop sites and teaching WordPress in 2007. Those were the days of hacking away at themes, hard coding navigation and pre-child themes!

What’s your favorite theme or theme framework? Why?

I’m a huge fan of the Genesis Framework. When I work with WordPress, my goals are more design-orientated, and I appreciate having Genesis there to cover the more technical aspects, from proper HTML to SEO.

If you could change one thing today about WP, what would it be?

Better image management. At the moment, its the one large downside I have with WordPress. Many of my clients have often requested ways of archiving or categorizing image files to make them easier to find, and I’m inclined to agree with them.

Where do you see WordPress going in the next 2-3 years?

Coming from its blog roots, I really see WordPress maturing into a content management system. Blogs have progressed from a simple list of posts to so much more these days and I think WordPress will be leading the charge.

What’s the biggest misconception you encounter about WordPress, and how do you clear it up for your clients?

The largest misconception I hear is that all WordPress websites look the same. While many WordPress websites can take on a particular look or style, showing clients my portfolio usually clears it up when they see the variety in my design.

When was the first time that you really got excited about WordPress OR at what point did you decide to make it your career?

I started using WordPress as a personal blog around 2005. At the time, I hadn’t really put any focus on my website as a designer and it was simply a playground for me to try new things. I was quickly impressed with the built in functionality of the time. It wasn’t long after that I was working it into more client projects!

Evan Solomon

The 10up team has a lot of great people. In particular, I really like the tools and knowledge that Jeremy Felt and Eric Mann are working on lately.

If you were going to spend this weekend creating a plugin that doesn’t exist, what would it be?

Last week I had an idea to write an automated version of the WordPress theme unit tests using CasperJS. I haven’t done it yet and I’m not sure if/when I’ll get to it, so hopefully someone steals it from me and does it first. This is kind of cheating since it’s not actually a plugin, but it seemed in the spirit of the question.

Favorite plugin or least favorite plugin?

I tend to like (making and using) small, specifically-focused tools. My favorite plugins are the ones that make annoying tasks easier for me. A couple that I really like are Markdown On Save (Mark Jaquith) and Batcache (Andy Skelton).

What do you think is the biggest challenge that WP consultants will face in 2013?

As an outsider (I’m not a WP consultant) it seems like it’s really hard to distinguish yourself from the mass of people who have no idea what they’re doing. I think it’s really hard for customers of WP consultants to figure out who to choose, and often end up choosing based on bad price expectations.

If you could change one thing today about WP, what would it be?

I’d like to see WordPress use more modern technologies. I think the community, to the benefit of an easy learning curve, has been really slow to adopt new tools. I’d really like to see WordPress move its static files to preprocessed languages. I’m a big fan of CoffeeScript, and would happily support a move to either SASS or LESS. Unfortunately, most people in the community are somewhere between indifferent toward and strongly against that change.

If you were interviewing another WordPress developer for a job, what is the first question you would ask and why?

What have you worked on that has nothing to do with WordPress?

WordPress is a great tool, but I am skeptical of people who don’t know any other tools/technologies/languages/API’s/etc. Aside from the fact that learning about other tools will probably even help your WordPress work (see ThemeFoundry’s Forge or 10up’s Vagrant config), I think it’s a good indicator of people who like to learn and can pick up new things as needed. It learning new tools helps you build much better, more well-rounded opinions and ideas about the things you already know, including WordPress.

Confess to us your biggest moment of WP fail?

Once my .htaccess file got hacked, no doubt through my own fault. I probably installed some crappy plug-in that got hacked, and for about 96 hours, I couldn’t log in to my own site to do anything. To the outside world, all looked normal. To me, I was FREAKED OUT!

Do you use Themes & Child Themes, Roll your own, or both?

Themes and child themes, all the way. I have no time to roll my own, and the frameworks out there are AWESOME starting points!

What’s your favorite theme or theme framework? Why?

I love StudioPress for the nearly done child themes they offer. It makes it super easy for someone like me (a marketer) to create awesome looking sites.

Where do you see WordPress going in the next 2-3 years?

I see there being a paid version where everything is done for you except NOT hosted on the WordPress.com platform, with a good e-mail service that integrates into your site.

When was the first time that you really got excited about WordPress OR at what point did you decide to make it your career?

March 9, 2009 – I switched my main website from a TypePad blog to a self-hosted WordPress installation, with the help of my dear friend Jesse Petersen. OK, Jesse did most of the work. I just helped a little.

What performance tips would you give to other pros (as related to speed, scalability, security, plugins, backup, etc.)?

Attend my talk and find out 😉

Confess to us your biggest moment of WP fail?

I’ve never had any WP epic fails

Do you use Themes & Child Themes, Roll your own, or both?

I use child themes a lot. I have a ton of custom themes too.

Favorite plugin or least favorite plugin?

Favorite plugin: Jetpack
Least favorite: Anything other than jetpack

What’s the coolest thing you’ve ever done with Custom Post Types?

Campus course catalog (catalog.uwgb.edu)

Where do you see WordPress going in the next 2-3 years?

More towards a CMS than a Blogging platform

What’s the biggest misconception you encounter about WordPress, and how do you clear it up for your clients?

WP is for bloggging, not a CMS. It’s a difficult concept to get over. On a lot of my WP as a CMS sites, I hide the ‘Posts’ admin panel. Once the client starts to use the backend, they start to enjoy wordpress more.

When was the first time that you really got excited about WordPress OR at what point did you decide to make it your career?

The first time I play with WordPress, I was in middle school. Ir was pretty cool (back around WP2.0). WP and I drifted apart for a while. Then in college, I got back on the WP band wagon. Haven’t looked back since.

What performance tips would you give to other pros (as related to speed, scalability, security, plugins, backup, etc.)?

Security: pick a few plugins that you know and trust – find your favorite hard-core-nerd-php programmer and ask them to take a look at them. Tell them to look for holes? 🙂 Then, provide beer.

If you were going to spend this weekend creating a plugin that doesn’t exist, what would it be?

I would like to create a plugin that was more of a ‘setup’ wizard – to be used after the first install. It would hijack the entire site after install, and give the user some choices: just blog, blog + products, etc. Then it would give some common themes to install, and some plugins. I’m sure similar things like this already exist, but I think a system that had new choices automatically updated and retrieved from the internet would be awesome.

If you could change one thing today about WP, what would it be?

I would want to develop a better system for each plugin, theme, etc, to register its external resources. Never again would you see a site load jQuery 1.9 and 1.8. Common ‘problems’ would be brought up with the plugin – and those plugins would not be accepted into the community until they worked with the resource management.

Tell us a story where you saved the WP day for yourself or on a client project. What made the difference for you?

I had to make a website for a friend that was just purely informational – showcasing a few products. He sent me some sketches and asked for that special favor… you know… its 5p.m. – and I’m going to be showing this tomorrow. What can you get by 8a.m? I’ll tell you what he got: a great, slightly modified theme with product slide show and contact form – and then I went and watched some TV before I went to bed.

If you were interviewing another WordPress developer for a job, what is the first question you would ask and why?

I would ask them to describe their favorite PHP or open source toolkit besides WordPress. I’d want to know that they have experience using other tools besides WP: this way they can be truly certain that WP is the best tool for the job – instead of using it because that’s all they know.

Confess to us your biggest moment of WP fail?

All my sites on one shared hosting plan with one ftp login; every one got hacked and I had no back up. Took me an entire day to fix all of them and then I fixed all the security holes I found as well.

Do you use Themes & Child Themes, Roll your own, or both?

I build all my sites on the iThemes Builder framework and then customize one of their child themes to match the look and feel my customers want in their sites and integrate in all the functionality they need.

Favorite plugin or least favorite plugin?

BackupBuddy from iThemes – I set it to automatically backup all my sites and stores them in a secure location.

When was the first time that you really got excited about WordPress OR at what point did you decide to make it your career?

About 5 years ago there was a course called Blog Evangelists created by Kelly McCausey. The course taught how to modify WordPress these and build a business using WordPress. As I worked through the lessons I really got excited to learn everything I could do and I saw a need for this type of website for small local businesses in my area. I switched the focus of my business from virtual assistance services to website design and have seen a lot of growth doing this for the past 5 years.