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.
danny
Hey Tom
Glad to see whats being done here, and without coming across a little stalkery iv been a follower of yours for some time – enjoy your LWB stuff too 🙂
Iv now signed up to ManageWP (just a few sites for now) and its really good, I really hope this new approach to the blog yields all the success in the work for you guys.
Thanks – Danny
Tom Ewer
Thanks Danny, appreciate the kind words!
Clint
Hey Tom, Congratulations for your planned efforts of creating a new WordPress Blog. I would definitely like to be a part of your blog to get myself updated on WordPress based issues.
Tom Ewer
Thanks Clint 🙂
Dragan
Tom,
Congratulations on the ultimate hub for all WordPress fans. It took a lot of planning and work, I know, but you have a chance to create something magnificent here – a go-to place for everyone involved in WordPress.
Tom Ewer
Thank you Dragan!
puurchoco
Congratulations man!
Tom
Thanks!
Sean
Awesome news!!!
Tom
Thank-you!
scott
Well done, and congrats on Editor in Chief. Keep up the excellent writing that I find valuable.
Tom
Thanks Scott!
Jose
Love the ManageWP Blog! Is the old blog going to still produce articles or remain for search engines but not fresh content?
Good luck and looking forward to it!
Tom Ewer
All the old stuff’s still there Jose 🙂
Adam W. Warner
Looks like a very focused plan Tom and Vladimir, looking forward to consuming more great content and being involved in the conversations.
Congrats on the relaunch!
Tom Ewer
Thank you Adam! I just sent you guys an email about featuring Foobar in the 50 Finest WordPress Creations post – congrats!
Brin
Yup – this will be interesting and I hope it does well! The new design looks ace too – just checking it out on mobile now. Exciting stuff from ManageWP! Consider me tuned in!
Tom Ewer
Thanks Brin!
Vladimir Prelovac
As many have noticed the blog has undergone a radical makeover. And with the help of our amazing team – Maya, Christina and Tom leading the effort – we are finally here!
Over the four years this blog build its reputation in the community and with the new look and strategy behind it we hope to take that a step further.
The new look is oriented more towards emphasizing content, with less distractions. Tom has many surprises in store for everyone and I’d like to invite every WordPress lover to stick around and get engaged!
Robert
sounds really interesting, would be interested in participating…looking forward to your updates!
Tom Ewer
We’d love to have you contribute to the site Robert! I’ll be putting out an official callout for guest posts from quality developers like you on Monday so stay tuned…
Robert
thanks Tom!
Robert
BTW: email notifications on comment replies would be great 😉
Tom Ewer
Good idea – leave it with me!
Bob Dunn
This sounds pretty cool. Will be anxious to see where this goes, where it leads the community and what you have in store for all of us. Cheers!
Tom Ewer
Thank you Bob, appreciate you stopping by!
Lorelle
Exciting stuff. Can’t wait to see how this turns out. The WordPress Community is a diverse and powerful one that I celebrate daily. In this case, “it takes a village” has a whole new meaning. 😀 Thanks for taking this on!
Tom Ewer
Thank you for stopping by Lorelle! It’s my pleasure to take on this challenge – I hope that this blog can prove to be a really valuable addition to the WordPress community.
Thando Mantsha
Hey Tom. Loving the new look. In terms of ux, it is a little weird that you can click the menu button, after you’ve scrolled, and a menu doesn’t appear. It just shifts the content down.
Tom Ewer
You’re right – that definitely is a little weird! A categories menu should appear. We’ll get that fixed ASAP. Thanks for the kind words!
Maya
Tom, congratulations on the successful launch! I want to thank you for the amazing teamwork. For those of you who don’t know, I am one of the developers who works on ManageWP, and I worked with Tom very closely to craft this relaunch. Right now it may be just a sleeker, cleaner look, but I’m excited to see what our writers will have to offer the WordPress community.
Tom Ewer
Thank you for all of your hard work Maya! The design looks great 🙂