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Comments Posted By Kevin Muldoon

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Yoast On Why Some Themes Hurt Your SEO

He makes a good point though I agree that the whole post sounded very self promotional.

“StudioPress first hired me and later on my good friend Greg Boser of BlueGlass, one of the best SEOs in the world, to make sure their themes were SEO friendly. They, unlike others, have earned the right to say their themes are SEO friendly.”

» Posted By Kevin Muldoon On March 7, 2012 @ 8:17 PM

WP-Snippets Launches Newly Designed Site

One thing that I’ve noticed is that the site doesn’t ever give credit to the websites it’s getting the code from.

» Posted By Kevin Muldoon On January 17, 2012 @ 12:41 PM

Automattic Makes Second Investment – WPEngine

@Carl Hancock – Sorry if it came across that I was trying to twist your words. That’s not what I’m trying to do.

The thing is, millions of people rely on WordPress for their business. I think very few businesses will actually be paying $50 a month as the page view limit is so low. The majority of businesses will be paying at least $199 a month to use their service.

I’ve had my websites hacked in the past and had databases corrupted too. For 5 or 6 years I had my own dedicated server which cost me around $300 a month. So I know first hand how important back ups are and protecting your website against malware etc.

Even small blogs and websites will generate more than 50,000 page views and be charged $199 per month. I’d say that most websites between 50K and 250K page views per month should be considered small-medium (certainly those around 50k-100k page views). For those websites, $199 can be a big expense, particularly if their website has yet to bring in income.

I appreciate that these services are targeting those who can afford it i.e. ecommerce websites who turn a big profit, business websites that are for clients etc. And many people who run these types of websites aren’t that experienced using WordPress.

Perhaps the best way to look at WP Engine is that the price can be broken down as 10% hosting costs, 30% back up costs and 60% management/support costs.

» Posted By Kevin Muldoon On November 17, 2011 @ 7:07 AM

So I’m doing something wrong because I don’t want to be ripped off for my hosting costs? That makes no sense ( for the record, my monthly hosting costs are more than $100 a month but I don’t think that’s relevant to whether I’m doing something right or wrong).

I’m happy that you found a reliable hosting service but you need to realise that there are a lot of cheaper services that offer reliable hosting. And just don’t because they aren’t focusing solely on the WordPress market does not mean that some companies don’t have some very capable WP guys in their team.

As I noted before, I’ve used dozens of hosting services over the years. I experienced terrible support and downtime from a hosting company that was twice as expensive than its competitors – a company that promoted its good brand name and reliability heavily.

I’m not disputing wpengine or any of the companies you mentioned offer poor service but you need to recognise that their prices are high.

High prices need to be justified in my opinion. I pay less than $10 a year for my domains. Some uk domain companies charge £30 a year and charge you extra for features that should be free. Since they are charging 5 times more – does that make them better? I know you are not suggesting this but I’m trying to illustrate my point. Suggesting someone is doing something wrong because they don’t want to be charged 3-4 times what competitors charge is ridiculous.

» Posted By Kevin Muldoon On November 16, 2011 @ 11:09 PM

@donnacha of WordSkill.com – You make some very good points. Obviously my views are coming from someone who has used a lot of hosts and has some experience with WordPress. I do still feel what they offer in their plans is a bit stingy though I understand some businesses will pay anything for good support.

I really do feel for anyone who pays two hundred bucks a month for a website with only 2,000 page views per day (page views, not visitors). In kind of curious as to what type of website can justify paying this amount with such low traffic. Their conversions must be high.

Again, great comment. I’m replying via my phone so I can’t go into as much detail as I would like :)

» Posted By Kevin Muldoon On November 16, 2011 @ 10:14 PM

@donnacha of WordSkill.com – Well the basic backup plan of vaultpress is $15. If you compare the $199 package with 250,000 with a $50 VPS with the $40 VaultPress premium service you would get a better deal.

Are you suggesting that WP Engine will not have the occasional glitch or performance issue? I’ve used dozens of hosts over the last 12 years and price is never a guarantee of reliability or service.

Also, I think it’s a disservice to hosting companies with reasonable price plans to assume that they don’t help with WordPress related issues. I had a dedicated server with WiredTree for years and they were great with WordPress. My current host, ServInt, know WordPress inside out and have managed to resolve all issues/problems I’ve had (even ones not related to hosting) within 20 minutes of raising a support ticket.

I understand that people are willing to pay more for support – I myself am happy to pay more for good support and good service as I really don’t want to spend time solving problems. Though I still think that their hosting packages are very limiting for what you pay.

» Posted By Kevin Muldoon On November 16, 2011 @ 8:46 PM

I have to disagree. If you only have a small business site, why not just pay $5 a month with a site like HostGator. I appreciate that automatic upgrading and back ups is a nice addition but I’d rather just get a reliable host that was cheaper and back it up using vaultpress. I honestly can’t see what they’re doing to justify that ridiculous price.

Their next package is $199 a month and only allows 250,000 views and one multi-site. You can get your own dedicated server for that price.

Seriously, maybe I’m missing something, maybe they do something that other hosts do; but I don’t feel they do anything to justify these prices.

» Posted By Kevin Muldoon On November 16, 2011 @ 8:12 PM

@Andrea_R -$50 a month for 50,000 page views is very expensive though. Even low traffic sites can exceed this if they get a surge of traffic from a social networking site.

» Posted By Kevin Muldoon On November 16, 2011 @ 7:39 PM

WPMods Relaunches Their Forums

Thanks for the write up Jeff. I wrote a follow up post earlier today :)

» Posted By Kevin Muldoon On November 2, 2011 @ 10:08 PM

WooThemes Has And Will Continue To Get Credit

@John Myrstad – Yes. Obviously any such list would have to be randomated.

Kudos to WooThemes for providing the framework. A lot of companies wouldn’t have.

» Posted By Kevin Muldoon On June 3, 2010 @ 1:06 PM

I think a thank you link in the admin area would go along way. Both to thank those who have contributed and to encourage others to do so.

» Posted By Kevin Muldoon On June 3, 2010 @ 10:32 AM

Jason Schuller Did It – I Can Do It To

I think you’re being too hard on yourself Jeff. I also think that you have a quite negative outlook on a lot of things. These two factors are always going to hold you back.

Firstly, consulting is not out of your league. You have proved this many times with the articles you have written here. Believe me, there are a lot of people who know less about WordPress than you who are charging a few hundred dollars for consultation.

Don’t let a lack of skills in a certain area hold you back either. For example, you could sell themes. You could pay someone else to design them and then release them yourself and provide the support. It’s not like guys like Shoemoney or Darren Rowse etc are doing everything themselves. They spend most of their time managing others.

I started making websites in 2000 but didn’t make enough to go it alone until 2004. But I didn’t just sit back and hope for the best. I started going to nightschool after work in 2002/2003. I also saved enough from working that I was able to take a year out in 2001/2002 and go back to University for a year to do a post grad. Perhaps college isn’t for you. But what I would say is that it opens doors. It would certainly give you more options for your main job.

I think you would be able to get a much better paying job than a grocery store. I don’t know your work experience or educational background but no one could possibly build a site such as this unless they were competent with computers and a competent writers.

I admit. It can be very hard to juggle work, online work, the wife and your social life. So it comes down to how much you want it. And that’s something no one can teach. Unless you get the drive to go forward and the positive attitude to make it happen you’ll never change your current situation.

Again, I think you just need a more positive outlook on things and believe yourself a bit more. And if you are unsure about where to go next, why not buy some books on making money online etc to give you some ideas.

On a side note, I’d love to chat with you about working on a new project. I’m sure we could come up with a good side project between us. :)

Good luck,
Kevin

p.s. I think I speak for everyone when I say that I admire your complete honesty in your post. You have been up front about a lot of personal details and asked for help and that’s never easy to do.

» Posted By Kevin Muldoon On May 10, 2010 @ 9:22 PM

Personal Blogging Theme By BloggingTips.com

The theme is available in 10 colours. One of which is black :)

» Posted By Kevin Muldoon On December 7, 2009 @ 7:41 AM

Glad you like the theme Jeff.

You made a good point about the admin sections being closed after saving. I’ll be honest, that’s not something I noticed during development. I’ve made a note to address this in a future version.

With regards to plugins, unfortunately the more you customise a theme and give options to the user, the more likely the theme will clash with a plugin out there as you are adding functionality that some plugin out there does too. But it’s impossible to add functionality to a theme and be 100% certain that it won’t clash with a plugin because there are thousands out there and more are released every day. There doesn’t appear to be any problems with any major plugins though (apart from page navigation, which is built into the theme itself).

» Posted By Kevin Muldoon On December 6, 2009 @ 7:56 PM