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9seeds Improves WordPress as WordCamp Los Angeles Sponsors

Supporting WordPress Locally as WordCamp Los Angeles Sponsors

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We love watching the WordPress community grow as well as help facilitate that this year as WordCamp Los Angeles sponsors. Attending the camp this year, we were pleased to see record numbers of attendees in workshops, sessions and conversation. The WordPress community has developed quickly in the last decade. We are grateful to have watched and contributed to that growth.

Although our donation, as WordCamp Los Angeles Sponsors, builds community in California, it also benefits WordPress users globally. Were you aware that each WordCamp forwards excess, unused sponsorship funds to the next camp? That means that our sponsorship changes lives in Los Angeles and also benefits newer camps, such as WordCamp Ahmedabad in India. How amazing is that?!

9seeds is dedicated to supporting open source software and are grateful that WordPress makes it easy to do.

It is gratifying to watch a community grow. Through years of WordPress involvement we’ve witnessed many individuals start new, build knowledge, contribute and emerge as leaders in their local WordCamps. We’ve seen it happen all over the world.

This happens because WordCamps deliver to the needs of every skill level. This year WordCamp Los Angeles offered two half-day workshops, a pre-camp Beginner Day and an Advanced Development Track. An on-site networking after party concluding the first full day of the camp, which gave attendees a chance to further discuss topics on all levels and connect informally.

We Enjoy Being WordCamp Los Angeles Sponsors

2017 provided many opportunities for involvement in the open source community. In June, I personally helped organize WordCamp Orange County. Throughout the year I’ve attended and spoken at many WordCamps, as did many of our 9seeds team members. We actively participate in the communities where we live because we know that our involvement makes a difference.

We’ve learned from one another and seen how our contributions and the efforts of others have improved WordPress. We value each community member and every experience and hope you do, too.

 

 

 

Custom Theme Design Offers More Choice in WordPress

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Clients often come to us with ideas and excitement requesting certain website functionality. We believe virtually everything is possible with WordPress. Due to this, defining our scope of work is really about determining the development hours necessary to accomplish the client goals. Clients may not understand the complexity of their requests and explanation and education is required for us to work together.

We strive to provide flexible, high functioning websites that deliver maximum value.

Achieving our clients’ business goals is always at the forefront. That means that while we present options in website development, sometimes the best solutions is custom theme design, while others times the best solution may be to use an existing theme with some slight tweaking to suit.

Regardless, we start any website development project the same with the following considerations:

  • What is the overarching goal and purpose of the website?
  • What are the functional requirements to achieve those goals?
  • What is the available budget?
  • How long is the timeline?

Once we’ve determined the answers to those questions, we delve a little deeper.

  • How can we achieve the stated goals while being good stewards of the project budget?
  • Will making modifications to an existing theme deliver the desired result?
  • If so, which theme should we choose? There are 10’s of thousands but we have favorite starter themes for these types of projects.
  • Will the ultimate solution meet all of the needs of the client?

When an existing theme is not the answer, we discuss custom theme design.

Custom Theme Design – What Is It?

In a word, flexible.

Functionality, design and features are limitless in custom website development. If you can think it, we can create it. We outline the project, define the specifics, determine the cost and happily get to work putting it all together to serve your needs.

However, on a practical note, time equals money, so budget is often a reason that custom theme design may not be the answer that best meets the need of the client.

Another reason custom theme design can be challenging from a cost and timeline perspective is that we are often not using an “out-of the-box” solution for site features and functions as well. We will always try to keep costs down by leveraging existing open source software. Asking detailed intake questions is critically important as these features must be specifically determined during the project outline phase. Bespoke custom functionality can always be added, but it will increase the overall cost of the website.

If the budget is limited, it may make sense to discuss the possibility of using an existing theme to achieve a goal that closely meets client expectations.

This method can reduce the amount of time needed in development and therefore reduce the overall cost of the new website. Functionality requests may require custom coding, even when using an existing theme. However, the total hours needed are fewer than the requirements for custom theme design.

The biggest drawbacks to non-custom theme use include:

  • Theme Bloat – Existing themes may utilize less efficient code and reduce the speed of your website. Every switch and toggle a theme includes adds some overhead that can result in longer load times that affect the overall health of the site.
  • Overwhelm – While it may be possible for your website to have a switch and toggle to be adapted to every whim, it is never advisable. We prefer to keep both the code and interface minimalistic to avoid confusion and conflicting functions.
  • Limited Options – Adapting an existing theme to specific requirements can be even more work than having created it from scratch. The chosen theme may use a methodology that is not intuitive to the end user and is difficult for developers to customize.

The bottom line boils down to a satisfying end user experience and remaining within budget requirements. Our job is to deliver a website that meets the vision of our client using the best technology. When a website vision is achievable through an existing theme, we determine a workable solution. Otherwise, we move to custom theme design and guide clients through the process.

Either way we meet our clients’ business goals by providing flexible, high functioning websites that deliver maximum value to our clients. In the end, that is the best fit for all involved.

Do you want to talk more about your theme design needs?  Reach out to us. We’d be happy to talk further.

Sponsoring WordCamps like Lehigh Valley.

Sponsoring WordCamps in Leigh Valley and Worldwide

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Sponsoring WordCamps is one of our favorite ways we give back to the greater WordPress community. With so many WordCamps happening ALL around the world, we can’t sponsor them all. We generally focus on sponsoring the ones where 9seeds has someone attending or speaking. However  there are times when someone reaches out and asks us to sponsor. In these cases, we gladly pitch in.

WordCamp Leigh Valley was an example of that. Ken Kramer whom has long helped out in the Web Savvy Marketing theme support forums, and now 9seeds theme support forums. He is one of the organizers for WordCamp Lehigh Valley. He reached out to ask if we would sponsor and I jumped at the opportunity!

“We started sponsoring WordCamps when they were all “small camps,” and those are still my favorites to sponsor. First, small camps tend to have the most trouble finding sponsors, but also I’m nostalgic and miss the intimate community feel one can get at a smaller camp. ” – Jon Brown, Founder, 9seeds

Review the schedule or click on a session title to review the information shared at this special WordCamp.

We weren’t able to attend the actual WordCamp Leigh Valley, but I’m hoping to stop by their local meetup group the next time I’m in Pennsylvania visiting friends in the area.

WordPress Triple Threat: Custom Development, Plugins and now Themes too!

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Since 9seeds first sprouted, building and selling WordPress products has been part of our DNA. We launched our first plugin in 2009 shortly after forming our company. Since then there have a been many plugins we’ve built for ourselves or clients, sold as products and supported, and we have even sold plugin code bases to other maintainers when we no longer were the best fit for them.

Over the years, however, most of our time has been spent building custom WordPress sites for clients. Principally building bespoke themes (design) as well as custom functionality (plugins). We’ve helped hundreds of clients take an idea they had for a site that did something unique and turn it into a living, breathing website customized to just their needs.

We’ve learned a lot about what works, what doesn’t, and how to avoid what might not be a problem today or tomorrow, but might show up as a problem next year and the year after. We still actively work for an maintain many of the sites we built in the first year. Granted, most of those folks have opted for full rebuilds since then.

One thing we’ve never done in all our years is to sell WordPress themes as a product, until now.

Building WordPress Products on the Side

As much as we’ve wanted to pursue building and selling WordPress themes, the immediacy of building custom websites for clients tended to take precedence over the long game of building and selling products.

Speaking of long games, 9seeds’ 8th anniversary is right around the corner. That may not sound like a long time but it’s a lot longer than most agencies focused on WordPress have been in business.

Since the beginning, the majority of sites we’ve built from scratch have been built on the Genesis Framework from StudioPress. That is not to say we’re exclusively a Genesis shop. We havee built sites on everything from Thesis to Headway, to Underscores, to Roots, to just rolling our own themes. We’ve always approached site development by choosing the foundation that is best for each individual client, but most of the time that is Genesis.

We’ve also built sites a huge range of sites from classic WordPress blogs to high traffic publishing sites like The Good Men Project. We’ve built membership sites like LendingMemo and 40DayJoyChallenge. We’ve built e-commerce sites like PowerPhone and Cardsmiths Breaks. We’ve even built private intranets and a bunch of sites we’re not allowed to talk about ;).

While a healthy portion of our clients opt to have custom themes designed from scratch, a good portion are also well served by leveraging existing commercially available themes. When clients do thier own them shopping we always guide them to one of two places – StudioPress’ own theme store or Web Savvy Marketing’s theme store.

The reason is simply that we’ve never had a problem taking themes from those two sources and using them out of the box, or heavily customizing them to suit. We have never had a problem with either which is more than I can say for the majority of themes we see from other marketplaces.

A match made in WordPress Heaven

While I’ve know Rebecca Gill from Web Savvy Marketing professionally and by her stellar reputation for many years. I didn’t get to know her well personally though until just the last year. We’d certainly cross paths WordCamps and across the interwebs but she tended to frequent the east coast camps while I frequented the west coast camps.

Internally 9seeds had often talked about building and selling themes on the Genesis framework specifically and about a year ago I sought Rebecca’s sage counsel on whether she thought 9seeds pursuing building Genesis themes was still a worthwhile business venture. WordPress is a fairly unique business culture filled with an atmosphere of friendly competition where asking a question like “What do you think of me going into the Genesis child theme business head to head with you?” just isn’t as bizarre as it might be in other contexts. Regardless, when I asked her this questions it had never occurred to me she’d even have considered letting go of the amazing theme store she’d built up over all these years.

It took a bit more time of getting to know each other personally before I came to hold the same feelings that others had shared about her. I felt deeply that this was a person I not only wanted to be friends with but wanted to be in business with.

It became apparent to both of us that this was a perfect fit.

9seeds would take over the store starting with support and new theme development that had slowed to a trickle. Rebecca would counsel me on getting our SEO and marketing skills up to the level excellence she’s achieved with WSM.

It’s a win for 9seeds by giving us a springboard into a market we’ve long had our eye on accompanied by the best trail guide in the business showing us the path.

It’s a win for WSM by freeing Rebecca and her team up to align with where her focus now is on larger custom site builds and SEO consulting.

Exciting Times Ahead

For me personally, this is my most exciting business step forward yet. We already have a theme in development that will be releasing once the store merge is complete.

We’re still working out the technical and design details of moving the support forums and theme store over from the WSM domain to 9seeds without interruptions or downtime. That’s a pretty daunting task given how long both stores have been around and that one is built on WooCommerce while the other is on Easy Digital downloads.

I know all of WSM’s loyal fans are going to be thrilled with what we’ve got in store. You can guess with 9seeds’ strong background in web publishing, memberships sites and more a bit what we have planned for the next year, but we’d love to hear from you all what you’d like to see in the comments.

Sponsoring Another WordCamp, Orange County 2017 #WCOC!

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Once again 9seeds is honored to be one of the many awesome sponsors of WordCamp Orange County 2017 happening this weekend in Orange County, California.

At 9seeds we’ve all long been avid attendees, speakers, sponsors, and even organizers of  WordCamps around the world, from Las Vegas to Bangkok. WordCamp Orange County, however, has a very unique and special place in all our hearts and in particular Jon Brown’s WordPress history.

For 9seeds there are a lot of first and milestones that have occurred at this long-running cornerstone of the WordCamp Community.

9seeds sponsored the first ever WordCamp Orange County in 2010 and it was where Jon Brown first met John Hawkins and Todd Huish!

9seeds sponsored WordCamp Orange County again in 2011 and this year, 2017, but that doesn’t mean we haven’t been involved in every WordCamp Orange County in between!

Jon Brown and John Hawkins have both spoken at WordCamp Orange County multiple times over the years: 2010, 2013, 2014, 2016 (both of us taking a turn in 2016).

WordCamp Orange County was huge for me personally as well.  As mentioned above it was the first camp I ever attended and that years organizers Brandon Dove and Jeff Zinn of Pixel Jar have been friends and mentors ever since. It was where I did my first talk on my journey from freelancer to agency owner while being a remote worker and digital nomad in 2014.

Oh, and Jon Brown is helping organize this year as well.