Articles
1624 posts
Managing WordPress timed content by membership levels
If you talk to people about scheduling and managing timed access to content in WordPress, people will often talk to you about scheduled posts. It's the idea that you write something and then give it a date for when you want it published. Alternatively, sometimes people will talk to you about dripping content--the idea that...
Restrict Content Pro is worth every dollar!
If you don't know me, I'm the guy that's been saying plugins are priced too low. Today I was on the phone with a software engineer that works in a company where they're running a WordPress online store, but also a store powered by Oracle / ATG Dynamo. Somehow we got onto the topic of pricing...
WordPress Gamification: A key LMS plugin feature
The other day my son was working on math at our kitchen table. My wife incentivized his progress with skittles--one for each problem he got right. This, of course, did the trick and he was motivated to get his whole worksheet done. Maybe a bit too fast though. He made two or three mistakes and...
Should I use the WordPress Jetpack plugin on my site?
Other than which host to use, the only other question I hear most from both beginners and advanced users is whether using the WordPress Jetpack plugin will help or hurt their site. Should you use the WordPress Jetpack plugin? There's an old Chris Rock comedy sketch (Cheap Pete--not suitable for children) where Chris is trying to buy an Audi. The...
Hiding the coupon code box: why hiding the discount field may help you
Should you hide your discount field? Most online shopping carts, including WooCommerce, show a coupon code or discount code option in the shopping cart. It's so common that I almost never see a WooCommerce site without it. And yet, I wonder if the people who designed / developed the site have had extensive conversations with...
Should I use the Genesis Framework by StudioPress?
It all started with a tweet... The other day I tweeted that I'd migrated a site over to Liquid Web. Someone saw the tweet, clicked the link, visited the site and noticed it was using the Genesis Framework by StudioPress. Their next question was similar to one many people have. Should I use the Genesis...
If you spend a year developing a WordPress theme, are you wasting your life?
This is an open letter to the developer who spent a year developing a WordPress theme and couldn't sell it anywhere. An Open Letter to Chris Dear Chris, My name is Chris too. And that's not the only thing we have in common. I've been in the exact same spot you've been in. And the...
If you need a new WordPress site, skip the middle man
Are you looking to get a new WordPress site built? Have you seen the television show, The Wire? It's an incredible show - great visuals, great story, great everything. And it's intense. But mostly, what stood out to me when watching was that there was so much stuff that was regularly hidden from so many people. That...
Why Choose WooCommerce?
Einstein once said, \"What is right is not always popular and what is popular is not always right.\" Does this hold true for WooCommerce? Should you pick this popular WordPress eCommerce plugin? Every few days on Clarity, I am asked about eCommerce and WordPress. Can WordPress handle eCommerce? Will it scale? Isn't WordPress just for...
Understanding network effects helps you build better products
For more than eight years, I was lucky enough to work at a software company focused on vertical markets. I didn't step into the company with any expectation that it would be any different from any of the software companies where I'd worked before that. I was wrong. It was a software company, like many others. And...
Want to talk about what you just read?
Every great conversation starts with a single question.