Today’s announcement marks the culmination of months of planning and development. It represents a seismic shift in what the ManageWP blog can offer you – WordPress enthusiasts and ManageWP users alike. And it means everything to us here at ManageWP.
With that in mind, in this post I have decided to give you a completely uncensored view of what we felt we weren’t doing well enough with the old ManageWP blog, and why we feel that the launch of our new blog represents a huge step in the right direction.
If you’re at all interested in WordPress, ManageWP, or creating a successful blog that can act as an effective referral machine for your business, keep reading.
Inception
I’ve been part of the ManageWP team since November 2011, when Vladimir (our CEO and all-round visionary) hired me as a writer for this blog.
Since then I have taken on the role of editor-in-chief and have worked with a number of different writers over the years (as well as doing plenty of writing myself). I have grown with the role, and this new blog represents the culmination of that growth.
Near the end of 2013, Vladimir told me that he wanted to re-launch the blog. He wanted to create something that was far more useful to the WordPress community and served as a better referral machine for ManageWP itself. I agreed to take on the responsibility immediately. The blog had largely followed the same path since I joined the team in 2011, and I was excited at the prospect of wiping the slate clean and starting afresh.
The first reason for my excitement was that I felt the old blog wasn’t everything that it could be for you – the ManageWP blog reader. Here’s what I said in my proposal to Vladimir for the new blog:
To be frank, the ManageWP blog is at the moment “just another WordPress blog” (albeit a pretty big one).
It’s not an issue of poor quality content (as I think we are publishing some of the best WordPress-related content available) – it’s an issue of how we frame that content (i.e. with our brand).
There’s little in the way of cohesion between our articles. We just write about different aspects of WordPress. The blog doesn’t have a “personality.” People can’t really identify with it.
Harsh words perhaps, but I’m not one for mincing my words when it comes to improvement 😉
Moving on from that rather damning summary, I revealed my vision for the new ManageWP blog.
The ManageWP Blog: Your Champion
When Vladimir told me that he wanted to reinvigorate the ManageWP blog, I immediately knew what I wanted to do, and I revealed my plan to him in my proposal:
Here’s what I believe the ManageWP blog should be: A champion of “cottage industry” WordPress developers.
I’m talking about theme/plugin developers, web designers and SEOs who operate out of their bedrooms, home offices, co-working spaces and small offices – perhaps they work in their spare time with the hopes of quitting, or are already fairly well-established and do it full time.
In my mind, by following the above tack, we could appeal to two key segments of WordPress users:
- The developers (by championing their cause)
- All WordPress users (by featuring developers’ plugins and themes)
By featuring WordPress developers’ work, we would also be creating valuable resources for all WordPress users. After all, WordPress developers’ work is the fulcrum to WordPress’ success. Where would we be without all of the free premium themes and plugins available to us, the WordPress developers who create them, the designers who craft beautiful websites, the SEOs who optimize our content, and so on?
I put it another way in my proposal:
The blog will act both as a celebration of WordPress developers and as a means of helping WordPress users find everything WordPress-related they need to succeed in their goals.
To conclude, if you work in WordPress, we want to help you – by promoting your excellent services and products and by providing you with the very best guidance on how to build a profitable online business with WordPress as a key component.
What Next?
I recognize as much as anyone that the launch of a blog represents only the very beginning in terms of determining its success. Ultimately, the success or failure of such an endeavor comes down to the content – the success of which can only be proven over time.
We start tomorrow, with a truly epic post that celebrates the very best that the WordPress community has to offer. It’ll be full steam ahead from then on, with an exclusive guest post on Thursday from a highly talented and successful WordPress developer, followed by a compelling opinion piece on Friday that could mean everything to you. And believe me, we’ve got a lot more to come beyond this week.
If you’re involved in WordPress, you’ll want to stay tuned. Ultimately, our aim with the new blog is to help everyone who uses WordPress succeed in their endeavors. After months of planning, it’s time to put our money where our mouth is. Sign up to the blog by your chosen method by entering your email address or following one of the links at the top of this post. We can’t wait to start helping you.
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