Category: WordPress

WooCommerce Workshop: DCU 2018 Slides

I had the pleasure to speak at the Dublin City University Business School in April 2018. I was kindly invited by Grace Fox, a lecturer who looks after the Masters in Digital Marketing.

The workshop title was “WooCommerce Workshop. INSTALL. SET UP. PUBLISH. SELL.”, aimed at helping students build an ecommerce enabled website with WordPress and WooCommerce.

During the 4 hours workshop we covered the following topics:

  • 1. Introduction: Things You Should Know Before Installing WC
  • 2. DEMO: How to Install WC
  • 3. DEMO: Walk-Through of the Most Important Settings & Payment Gateways
  • 4. DEMO: How to Publish Your Products & Test Checkout
  • 5. WooCommerce A.M.A. & Intro to Customisation

Here are the slides of the live demonstration I held.

Continue reading WooCommerce Workshop: DCU 2018 Slides

WooCommerce: How to Sell ANYTHING with WordPress (WP Dublin 2018)

I had the pleasure to speak at the Dublin WordPress Meetup in March 2018. The presentation title was “How to Sell A-N-Y-T-H-I-N-G with WordPress + WooCommerce”, aimed at both beginners and more advanced designers.

Some of those who are only starting with WordPress didn’t know you can transform ANY WordPress install into an Ecommerce website in a matter of minutes.

Those who are pretty familiar with it, on the other end, they’re maybe entrepreneurs who want to set up a Marketplace, a Membership site, a Classified Ads platform or implement some of those Ecommerce features only Amazon and Ebay seem to be able to code with their million dollar budgets. Continue reading WooCommerce: How to Sell ANYTHING with WordPress (WP Dublin 2018)

WordPress: The 10 Commandments of Content Marketing (WC Rome 2017)

I had the pleasure to speak at WordCamp Rome 2017. Yes, the very first WordCamp in my hometown (I left Rome in 2007 to move to Ireland)!

I was super happy to present a talk called “The 10 Commandments of Content Marketing” (OMG how difficult it was to speak in English in front of my Italian friends…).

The talk covered my 5 years of content marketing, and how I’ve seen it all while creating content on my WordPress website: during the first 2 years I wasted time and energy to write blogs no one would read. Then I found my inspiration, my path, my content strategy – and in the last 3 years website traffic has risen from 0 to 15,000+ users (and still growing) per week. Now my blog is my only source of sales leads.

I first and foremost described what mistakes (sins) I made. What about saving 2 years of your life?

Then I listed the “10 Commandments of Content Marketing” – 10 simple tips you can take away to increase your website traffic and focus on the only purpose of content marketing: teaching.

In the final part of the talk, I recommended a few WordPress plugins and email marketing strategies to implement the whole system. Continue reading WordPress: The 10 Commandments of Content Marketing (WC Rome 2017)

WooCommerce Customization Masterclass: WordCamp Dublin 2017 Slides & Video

I had the pleasure to co-organise the very first WordCamp Dublin this year. We welcomed 26 amazing speakers, 250 attendees, incredible sponsors and enjoyed a great venue and tasty food.

Just because organising, MCing, managing speakers and writing website content were not enough, I also decided to run a 45mins workshop titled “WooCommerce Customization Masterclass” and I have to say I received great feedback despite the lack of voice, sleep and energy (thank you)!

I spoke briefly about WooCommerce customization, my WooCommerce visual hook guides, the difference between snippets and plugins and finally demoed a few snippets to add, remove and move WooCommerce content to/from the Single Product Page.

Continue reading WooCommerce Customization Masterclass: WordCamp Dublin 2017 Slides & Video

WooCommerce: My Take on WooCommerce.com Switching to 100% Renewals

WooCommerce.com is dropping its 50% extension renewals, and moving to a 100% renewal business model.

I found this out at WCEU 2017 and then via WP Tavern. Unfortunately, this announcement is not on WooCommerce blog, on its social media channels or even Automattic.

And yes, this is retroactive – we are now all paying 100% renewals. So, let’s see what I think about this “still not official” news. Continue reading WooCommerce: My Take on WooCommerce.com Switching to 100% Renewals

WordPress: Top 20 “Customizer” Frameworks

Customize WooCommerce colors

WordPress Customizer allows users to tweak their website and let them see a live preview of the changes. It uses the WordPress Customize API introduced in WordPress 3.4. You can easily access the WordPress Customizer interface from Dashboard -> Appearance -> Customize.

Customizing WordPress themes for end users was starting to become a nightmare. There was no unified approach to customizing a theme. Each developer chose what they were comfortable with.

WordPress contributors wanted to introduce a default editing experience. So, on 2015, April 22 it was made mandatory to all WordPress.org themes to use Theme Customize API for theme options.

Continue reading WordPress: Top 20 “Customizer” Frameworks

10 Things Nobody Tells You About Working for Yourself

I’ve been working online while travelling throughout South America for almost 3 months so far and I’ve had a lot of time to think about solopreneurship. After 5+ years as a sole trader, it’s now the right time to write my thoughts. I really hope to give you at least one idea, one tip you can take away.

I would love if you could spend some time to think about it, and leave your comment below to tell me what your thoughts are.

Continue reading 10 Things Nobody Tells You About Working for Yourself

WooCommerce: “uploaded file exceeds the upload_max_filesize” Error

upload-max-file-size wordpress

You may have seen this error at least once, if you have used WordPress. When installing a theme, plugin or uploading a image or file, you may find this dreaded message on your screen.

Well, it has nothing to do with themes or plugins. The issue is with your server settings which limit the maximum size for uploaded files.

It’s a common error and it can be easily fixed. This error message is an indication of that the file you are trying to upload is larger than your web host allows (WordPress default file upload size is 2 MB).

Continue reading WooCommerce: “uploaded file exceeds the upload_max_filesize” Error

WordCamp Belfast 2016: From 0 to 208,838 Website Visitors

I had the pleasure to present at #WCBelfast 2016. My 45mins presentation was titled “Content Marketing: How to Turn your WordPress Website into a Traffic Generation Tool” and I have to say I received great feedback (thank you!).

I really hope to keep appearing at WordCamps all over the world to teach my knowledge to as many WordPressers as possible – but for now, here are the slides and here’s the video on WordPress.tv (not available yet). Continue reading WordCamp Belfast 2016: From 0 to 208,838 Website Visitors

WordPress: 11 Things to Consider When Selecting a Theme

With seemingly thousands of Free and Premium WordPress themes out there, it can be tricky to pick the right WordPress theme for your business.

While launching a website seems easy, hardest part is finding a theme that meets your content requirement. There is not a single WordPress theme that would meet all the needs of all website owners. Every theme is built for a specific purpose and has its own strengths and weaknesses. Your job is to find the theme that meets your business’s needs.

While there are themes that do it all, they tend to be heavy and bloated because they are designed to meet the requirements of a wide range of website owners. In other words, they do everything but specialize in nothing.

Choosing these resource-consuming and feature-heavy WordPress themes is like getting operated on by a surgeon who has nothing but a Swiss army knife to perform all surgical tasks.

Finding the right WordPress theme requires more than just picking a theme based on look. In this article, we will provide some tips on what to look out for when choosing a WordPress theme. We will also recommend some free tools to help you check a theme’s credibility.

Continue reading WordPress: 11 Things to Consider When Selecting a Theme

CustomizeWoo: a WooCommerce Online Course for Aspiring Developers

It’s live. And it’s alive and kicking.

#CustomizeWoo, my flagship Advanced WooCommerce Online Course for designers and DIY store owners, is now live.

In this post, I’m about to show you why I invested 151hrs 39mins 1secs of my time to build #CustomizeWoo and another 50+ hours to publish the updated version in June 2019, who I’m willing to help, and what the course looks like from the “inside”.

So, here’s the story. Here’s why #CustomizeWoo was born. Continue reading CustomizeWoo: a WooCommerce Online Course for Aspiring Developers

WordPress: 15+ Best Premium Portfolio Themes

These WordPress Portfolio Themes are recommended for photographers, graphic designers, web designers, artists and whoever has something cool to show on a website!

If you didn’t know, a portfolio website is an essential tool that should be able to generate more business and increase your personal brand awareness. There is no doubt that TODAY, a portfolio website is definitely more important than a CV, no matter what creative industry you work in.

Portfolio websites (and therefore themes) usually have a striking image-based and categorized portfolio section, from where each project can be accessed and studied. Besides, huge importance is given to the “about me” page, where the artist should be able to display her skills, abilities, photo and social media feeds. They should also focus on the most important call to action: “contact us”.

Well, we hope you like our collection of WordPress Portfolio themes. Enjoy 🙂

 

Continue reading WordPress: 15+ Best Premium Portfolio Themes

WordPress: 10+ Best Premium Recipe Themes

If you have a passion for cooking and want to showcase your recipes (or even turn your hobby into a profitable business!), here are 15+ WordPress Professional Themes you should take a look at.

Whether you plan to build traffic to your recipe blog, set up a membership-only website or even sell your own creations, a ready-made WordPress theme might help you go live fast and concentrate on what you can do best: cooking awesome stuff!

Here’s my selection of recipe themes – look at their demos and see if any of them fits your purpose. Remember, it’s a little investment as opposed to getting custom website development – start small and easy and once you start monetizing you will have more time to grow and add sections to your website 🙂  Continue reading WordPress: 10+ Best Premium Recipe Themes

WordPress: 10 Free Themes you Can Really Use!

Sometimes it’s easier (and cheaper) than you think. WordPress Theme Development companies do offer some of their themes for free to build their reputation (and increase their premium sales of course).

Here’s a collection of Free Themes for WordPress that you just can’t miss. From portfolio websites to furniture sales, from business to personal brochures, you’ve got a wide choice. Download for free, install, set up quickly and go live with $0…

Following themes are completely free of charge, as well as documentation and support. When you encounter the term “Lite” or “Light”, it might be a freemium model i.e. the theme is free but if you upgrade to premium you can get extra features.

Enjoy, and if you can leave a comment below 🙂 Continue reading WordPress: 10 Free Themes you Can Really Use!