Top Benefits of Opting for WordPress Development

There’s no shortage of articles across the internet which supposedly tell you what to stand to gain from custom WordPress development.

This post isn’t like them. 

Instead of raving on about the ‘SEO benefits’ and ‘responsive design’ and ‘cross-platform compatibility’, which, let’s face it, are standards features you can get from thousands of good themes and plugins, this post will seek to come straight to the point.

What exactly do you as a business/agency owner stand to gain from bespoke WordPress solutions?

What “Custom WordPress Development” means:

To clear some notions; WordPress development usually includes one or both of the following:

• Custom Theme Development

Editing/rewriting the code of your existing theme or creating a custom theme from scratch

• Custom Plugin Development

Installing/implementing existing plugins (free or premium), editing the code in those plugins so for error-free performance, and creating a custom plugin from scratch

WordPress customization is for creating a website that you want, without errors and issues. That translates to remodeling the look, feel, and functionalities.

There are additional services your WordPress development company could provide. None of them would include “conversion rate optimization”, “competition assessment”, “better content” etc. Those are nothing but meaningless rehashing of your business goals which a development company will have nothing to do with anyway.

WordPress customization: A Metaphor

So instead of buying a suit from, say, Walmart, you are getting a ‘tailor-made’ suit created specifically for your ‘measurements’.

Here’s where it gets interesting: You are the one who has to create a strategy for online success; the development company only implements it on your website. Basically: The developers will lead the horse to water, but you’ll have to make it drink.

Benefit of WordPress Development:

You get exactly what you pay for; nothing more, nothing less.

Although WordPress can be customized with themes and plugins, a vast majority of them are created to appeal to a broad range of users for simple commercial viability. Let me give you an example:

Example: Suppose you want to integrate the live chat feature on your website, and for the same ends you find a plugin you like. You will then need to see if it has:

• Required features: Less means it’s not of use to you, More means it’s needlessly complicated
• Payment Plans that don’t put a strain on your pocket
• Team-player: Only after you have bought, installed, and run the plugin will you know if it’s even compatible with the rest of your site

You bypass all those considerations with a custom solution: Same functionality, components with those features that you specify and need, and it’s made to be compatible with your WordPress setup.

Scalability, performance, SEO-benefits, and everything else are just icing on the cake. You shouldn’t have to be reminded of those. WordPress packs these ‘features’, it’s only fair that your solutions pack these too without you having to ask for them.

Endnote

To adapt a website to your needs, not the other way around: Custom WordPress Development solves problems that are specific to you.

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Keeping up with the Community: WordPress 4.5 Beta 2

After a whole armada of patches released with WordPress 4.5 Beta 1 just last week, the team of developers working tirelessly on core has already come up with new patches and fixes.

In an attempt to ease the non-coders and beginners into our awesome community, here is a brief overview of major fixes and patches in the latest 4.5 Beta 2 release:

1. strip_meta() fatal error on resize in ImageMagick

There was a fatal error when users uploaded images and resized it via ImageMagick (RCIG plugin: aka, responsive images). This occurred due to incomplete meta stripping during resize.

The patch (33642) resolves this error by changing default quality from 90 to 82. Further patches added new thumbnail and image resize functions. The patch also removes all image profiles except ICC, ICM, and EXIF set as image property. 

2. “Horizontal Rule” in WYSIWYG editor (TinyMCE)

New inline patterns are being added to core. The Horizontal Rule <hr> patch is for TinyMCE text editor in WordPress.

The purpose, for those unfamiliar with this HTML tag, is to create a line break that separates content. The Horizontal rule (<hr>) has been tested on iPhone, Mac, and Chrome and behaving well.

3. “Paste as Text” notice is now dismiss-able (TinyMCE)

Another patch added to 4.5 Beta 2 makes the oft annoying “Paste as Text” warning modal permanently dismiss-able after second time. This should improve editorial workflow.

The development on this feature is now closed. It is now set to be released with WordPress 4.5.

4. Selective Refresh support enabled in core themes

This customization feature gives users the ability to preview titles and taglines while a core theme (like Twenty Eleven) is in use.

Users can now shift + click to focus on control areas and test the PHP filters which will be applicable once you publish.

All said, there are a little over 100 changes and fixes that have been made within the week since last beta release.

Endnote

The version is still under development, so it’s not meant for live or production websites.

You can do your part as a budding WordPress developer by downloading the nightly builds, downloading the beta zip, testing it yourself, and suggesting (or maybe even making) improvements.

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