I'm excited to share that I'm starting something brand new. I'm joining Xero Shoes as a Sr. eCommerce Engineer. 🎉
Continue Reading…Joining Xero Shoes
Search Results for: woocommerce
Seek Opportunities to Cut Your To-do List
We live in a world where there's always incentive to do more.
- Write more blog posts for organic SEO
- Tweet daily
- Create Tiktoks to promote your products
- Write unique content for your premium email list
And after a while it just adds up and you're paralyzed with an unending to-do list. I've found that the more on my todo list the less I actually get done. The more I can focus my attention with a clear priority for the day the more productive I am.
Recently I've been looking for ways to cut down my to-do list. Not by evaluating each individual task, that takes a ton of time, but by preventing tasks from getting on my list in the first place. I want to create rules so I know where I should spend my time.
Continue Reading…What I Learned From Nexcess
It's almost the end of 2021 and I moved on from Nexcess. I created a new LinkedIn Learning course about Speeding Up Your WordPress site and then I joined Paid Memberships Pro. That's a lot of new work things in a year.
But before I get into why I joined PMPro I want to share some of the things I learned at Nexcess. Because I learned a lot of valuable lessons:
- I dove deep into the technical aspects of speed with WordPress & Magento
- I created new onramps to the product
- I ran some A/B tests on pricing & product pages
- I learned how corporations look at numbers
WordPress Plugins: Quality over Quantity
When I worked at Nexcess we had a 15-day performance challenge. You would submit your site & admin credentials. We’d take your site and optimize it for you on Nexcess servers and then show you the results. This was a fantastic program because we'd almost always convert the user into a customer. It also helped us understand our customers & where they often get stuck while speeding up their site.
Continue Reading…Optimizing Static Vs Dynamic Sites
I love talking about speeding up WordPress websites. But before we go any further it's important to know that there are two broad types of sites:
- Static
- Dynamic
And before we optimize things left & right you should know that some techniques work really well for one type of website and won't work for the other type.
Continue Reading…Announcing the Quantity vs Quality SEO Challenge
I’ve been working in the WordPress and online marketing world since 2009. In that time, I’ve seen little blogs and individual posts blow up and become big deals.
I’ve also seen a more organized SEO research-driven approach at Nexcess, LinkedIn Learning, and WooThemes.
Their process involves finding the perfect:
- Keywords
- Article Length
- Images
- Linking strategy
The goal is to increase a piece of content’s SEO value and draw more traffic — and the bigger the organization, the more strategies and tools are used.
Continue Reading…Product Marketing Manager for Nexcess
It's a new year and I have a new job.
I'm proud to say I'm joining the Liquid Web / Nexcess team as a Product Marketing Manager for WooCommerce.
What A Product Marketing Manager Does
If you're in the IT space you might know what that person does – but more than likely you don't. So let me explain why I'm so excited.
A product manager (which is a different role) decides what to build and they make sure the engineering team does so. So after a product manager you will have a list of features.
- Feature 1
- Feature 2
- Feature 3
- Feature 4
Of course some features are more important than others so what a product marketing manager does is figure out which features we want to talk about, which ones we need to highlight, and which ones we need to highlight multiple times.
- Feature 1
- Feature 2
- Feature 3
- Feature 4
- and don't forget Feature 2!
In short a product marketing manager helps with the strategy about how you speak about a thing. And I'll be talking about our Managed WooCommerce hosting.
Why I Got On Board
I've had a few conversations with hosting companies over the years and I've been tempted but never pulled the trigger. With Liquid Web / Nexcess they're doing something I'm really excited about and that are their new Managed WooCommerce hosting plans.
It's my 3rd week on the job and at the end of my 2nd week we launched our brand new plans.
Managed WooCommerce Hosting
In the WordPress world we've have Managed WordPress hosting for quite some time. I think I got my first managed hosting account back in 2012 or 2013. And they're great.
- They update your plugins
- They update WordPress
- They proactively remove or patch plugins with security vulnerabilities
- They optimize the speed & performance of your site
- and a whole lot more
They turn WordPress from something you have to maintain into something that just works. And that's magical.
Liquid Web announced a Managed WooCommerce plan back in 2018 and they focused exclusively on speed & performance. They were amazing for established stores that have a bit of money to spend.
What's new is they just announced a $19/month entry level plan. This means for $20 a month you can run your own WooCommerce store and have Nexcess manage it for you. That means you can focus on your business while we take care of the boring updates.
What's the Deal with Nexcess / Liquid Web
You're probably a little confused about the difference between Nexcess and Liquid Web. The short story is Nexcess is now a Liquid Web brand and they're putting their Managed WordPress & Managed WooCommerce hosting under that brand.
In 2020 you'll see Liquid Web / Nexcess promoted at WordCamps and moving forward you'll likely see just Nexcess promoted at WordCamps.
New Challenges
I've been working for myself for 3 years and it's been great. I now get to work more closely with awesome people on the Liquid Web / Nexcess team. And I get to focus on what I do best.
I love articulating what people want and trying to write messaging for them. So I'm very excited for this next challenge.
WooSesh 2018 Wrap Up
Earlier this year there was a week where I was a bit depressed. I've helped plan or organize every single WooConf from the very first event in San Francisco back in 2014:
#WooConf – ship your idea! (@ The Village at 969 Market – @thevillage969) https://t.co/uYzL2XzTlk pic.twitter.com/wQietuZtc3
— Patrick Rauland (@BFTrick) November 3, 2014
All the way to Seattle in 2017
Every 100ms delay costs 1% of your sales. @mindsizeme #WooConf pic.twitter.com/KsdY8YOHju
— Patrick Rauland (@BFTrick) October 20, 2017
So in early 2018 when I heard that there wasn't going to be a WooConf I was really sad. After all this is something I fought for and loved.
Schedule a USPS Pickup At Your House or Business
Learn how to schedule a USPS pickup at your house or business.
When I'm talking about WooCommerce, Shopify, or some other eCommerce platform one of the most challenging aspects is fulfillment. Store owners always want to know how you can efficiently and affordably ship products.
USPS is one of cheaper options, and with both WooCommerce & Shopify you can get live shipping rates during checkout. And you can print out the shipping labels on your home printer. This automates a lot of the boring work.
The last step is scheduling USPS to come by to your house (or business) to pickup the packages. And the best news is that it's easy, free, & you don't even have to get out of your PJs.
What I Learned Organizing Three Events This Year
Now that the wrap up post for WooConf is out the door I can finally relax. WooConf was the latest event I worked on this year and by far the most intense. Working on three different events – all at different levels of complexity – taught me a few things about running events.
I'm going to share some lessons but first let me give a little context:
1. Lift Off Summit – I designed this summit to help people develop a marketing strategy for their online store. It's a virtual summit so you can tune in and watch ~20 hours of content for free and you can pay to watch the sessions whenever you want.
Event cost: free to stream / $97 for recordings
2. WordCamp Denver – I've always loved helping my local WordPress scene. I've helped organize several meetups and WordCamps in the past. This is my third year organizing this particular conference and it was one of the best we've done.
Event cost: $40
3. WooConf – I've been heavily involved with WooCommerce for years as a customer, developer, product manager, and now educator. So when they asked me to help them plan the content I couldn't say no.
Event cost: $500 early bird / $700 regular