Wordpress is a great platform to develop websites with. Discover the difference between Themes & Plugins & my MUST HAVE's for any developer.

1. Websites With Wordpress
Building A Quality Product

2. Agenda
• Who is this for
• What is WordPress
• What is a Theme
• What is a Plugin
• Theme Frameworks & Child Themes
• Must Have Plugins
• Other Resources

3. Who is this for
• Virtual Assistants who wish to create
Websites for their clients
• Virtual Assistants who wish to support and
maintain client websites...
• Anyone who is interested in using
Wordpress as a website

4. What Is Wordpress
• Wordpress is a Content Management
System
• Using Themes & Plugins, a designer
controls the look and feel of the site
• Using the built in editing function, non
Technical people can enter and update
content without breaking the design.

5. What is WordPress
• All content (text, links to images etc) are
stored in the database
• The physical files for images, documents
etc are stored on the web server or
Content Delivery Network

6. What Is A Theme
• A Theme controls the “look & feel” of the
site
• Similar to a Word Document Template
• Controls
– Font styling
– Look of images
– Colours
– Number of Columns
– Heading Styling
– How “widgets” look

7. What Is A Plugin
• A Plugin adds functionality to a website
• Similar to a Macro Function in Word or
Excel (like Save As PDF)
• For example:
– Duplicating Posts and Pages
– Contact Forms
– Shopping Carts
– Video Player
– Audio Player

8. Themes & Plugins
• There can be cross over between Themes
& Plugins
• Themes can include „plug in‟ like
functionality
• Plugins can provide „template‟ functions

9. Theme Frameworks
• A „drop-in‟ code library that is used in
Theme development
OR
• A stand-alone base/starter Theme that is
used to create another Theme, or used as
a Parent Theme template
• Both provide pre-defined functions that
developers can use....

10. Why Choose A
Premium Theme
• Support! Woo Themes and StudioPress
have awesome Community Support
Forums
• Documentation
• Updated regularly
• Reduced support time for you...

11. Child Themes
• The professional way to modify
WordPress themes.
• A child theme can use all of the functions,
CSS and design features from a parent
theme. The child themes only needs to
contain modifications for the changes.

12. Why Use A
Child Theme?
• The Parent Theme can easily be updated
and the customizations not lost
• Adding functions and styling is much
easier

13. My FAVE theme
frameworks
• WooThemes Canvas
– AskCharlyLeetham.com/recommends/woothemes
– Provides an awesome menu system to allow you to
customize your theme
– Uses WooThemes Actions & Filters (Woo
Framework)

14. My FAVE theme
frameworks
• StudioPress Genesis
– AskCharlyLeetham.com/recommends/studiopress
– Already provide a number of Child Themes for
you to work with
– Create Your Own look...

15. Must Have
Premium Plugins
• Backup Buddy
– Backup and Restore
– Full or Database only backups
– Excellent for developing & migrating websites
– Offsite Storage of backups (S3, DropBox, FTP)
– AskCharlyLeetham.com/recommends/backupbuddy

16. Must Have
Premium Plugins
• Gravity Forms
– Contact Form builder on Steroids
– Records entries in Database
– Use for Surveys, Questionnaires... More
– AskCharlyLeetham.com/recommends/gravityforms
• Video User Manuals
– Reduce ongoing support costs
– Video training in Wordpress dashboard
– AskCharlyLeetham.com/recommends/videousermanuals

17. Must Have
Premium Plugins
• Easy Custom Content Types
– Add Custom Post Types
– Custom Metaboxes
– Custom Taxonomies
– EASILY
– AskCharlyLeetham.com/recommends/ecpt

18. Must Have
Free Plugins
• Duplicate Post
– wordpress.org/extend/plugins/duplicate-post/
• Post Type Converter
– wordpress.org/extend/plugins/post-type-converter/
• Media Elements JS
– wordpress.org/extend/plugins/media-element-html5-video-and-audio-player/
• Blubrry PowerPress
– wordpress.org/extend/plugins/powerpress/
• Username Changer
– wordpress.org/extend/plugins/username-changer/

19. Must Have Plugins
For SEO
• Wordpress SEO by Yoast
– wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wordpress-seo/
• cbNet Ping Optimizer
– wordpress.org/extend/plugins/cbnet-ping-optimizer/
• Google XML Sitemaps
– wordpress.org/extend/plugins/google-sitemap-generator/
• Robots Meta
– wordpress.org/extend/plugins/robots-meta/
• Analytics360
– wordpress.org/extend/plugins/analytics360/

20. Too Many Plugins...
• You CAN have too many plugins
– Impact on the memory allocation (particularly
on shared servers)
– May slow performance
– Time to maintain
– Interoperability issues

21. Summary
• Use a Premium Theme & Child Themes to cut
development & Support Time
• Some Crossover between Themes & Plugins
• Premium Plugins save time & support costs
• Video User Manuals reduce your support costs
• Too many plugins can affect site performance

22. Connect With Me
@charlyjl
askcharlyleetham