WordPress-photography-podcast-episode-59
The WordPress Photography Podcast
The WordPress Photography Podcast
Episode 59 - A Rock And A Hard Place







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Episode 59 - A Rock And A Hard PlaceWhat do you do if your photography website was built by someone who disappeared?

They left you with a WordPress website, without teaching you how to use it to the best of your ability.

What do you do when you’re just starting with WordPress and building your own website from scratch through a theme and plugins.

What do you do when your website host forces you to use WordPress for the blog part of the site (instead of the entire site which makes more sense)… When you are just learning their platform and now have to also learn WordPress?

Here are 6 suggestions

  1. Go to WP101 and take their beginning course to WordPress
  2. Go to Facebook and join the WordPress for Photographers Facebook group
  3. Listen to all the previous episodes of the podcast
  4. Ask questions!
  5. Use premium themes and plugins where you know you can get support
  6. Use quality hosting who understands your business and WordPress

Transcription:

Transcription was done by Rev.com

Welcome to Episode 59. This is going to be a shorter episode where I just want to give you some advice for all the newer people to WordPress. In 58 episodes we've been talking to more business people in the photography industry, photography business owners. That's who we've been talking to, and I think it's important that this podcast stays talking to business people, because as a photography business owner, you're more a business owner that you are a photographer, and hopefully you're learning that as you grow your photography business.

So, in today's episode though, I want to talk to the person who is brand new to WordPress, and here's what I have to say about that. What do you do if your photography website was built by someone who disappeared? They left you with a WordPress website without teaching you how to use it to the best of your ability. What do you do when you're just starting out with WordPress and building your own website from scratch through themes and plug-ins? What do you do when your website host, the platform that you're using, forces you to use WordPress only for the blog portion of the site instead of the entire site, which makes more sense? When you're just learning their platform, and now you have to learn WordPress? Talk about overload, right?

So those are three different situations that a lot of people might be in that I kind of want to address with six suggestions. First one, go to WP101 and take their beginner course to WordPress. All right, fantastic education, fantastic videos, and they will teach you the ins and outs of WordPress. And they're always up to date, which is good.

Two, go to Facebook and join the WordPress for Photographers Facebook group. It has over 1,700 members right now, each of which range from beginners to advanced and everybody's there to help each other.

Number three, listen to all the previous episodes of this podcast, because we talk about a whole wide range, and there's even video content to go with it. Whole wide range of different topics on WordPress that can help you as a beginner.

Number four, ask questions, whether it's in the Facebook group, whether it's to somebody else that you know that uses WordPress, whether it's to WP101 when you take their course, whether it's to us for the podcasts. Ask questions.

Number five, use premium themes and plug-ins where you know you can get support. So, for example, a lot of photographers are using X Theme. A lot of them are using ProPhoto. A lot of them are using Imagely themes and the Photocrati theme, and Graph Paper Press themes, whatever you're using, use one that offers support. Most free themes do not offer support, so if you were using a free theme, which I understand why, you're on a budget, whatever, I get it. But you're not going to get support. In order to get support, you've got to pay for it. That's the name of the game. So support for free themes and plug-ins. You need a plug-in to sell your images, to proof your images. Don't just use a free one. Use one that you know you're going to get support with, if you have any questions or problems that come up.

Number six, use quality hosting who understands your business and WordPress. You could go to GoDaddy or Bluehost or Host Gator, or any of those companies, who ... they know WordPress. They install WordPress. They may not give you the support that you want specifically, or you can go to a company like Imagely who does hosting, and not only do we know photography and photographers and photography business, but we also know WordPress in and out. We are the WordPress photography people.

So go to people who know you and what you need, all right. So those are six tips. I know that it's still a little overwhelming. I totally get it. We were all there once. I started with WordPress now almost 15 years ago when it first was released, and it's come a long way, and it's getting better. WordPress 5.0, which is coming out at some point hopefully in the next year, is going to get even easier, so I'm looking forward to it. But know that you're not alone. There's people that are there to help. There's people who want to help you.

The WordPress community just has this great mindset of helping others, so don't feel ashamed to ask questions. There are no stupid questions. There are stupid answers, are no stupid questions, so thank you for listening to this episode. I will put all of the links to everything I mentioned in the show notes at Imagely.com/podcast/59. See you next time.

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