Choosing WordPress Multisite set us on a path, where we overcame negative hosting companies and developers whose reaction to multisite was laced with suspicion. But with the help of friends and suppliers from within the WordPress community globally we overcame the challenges and now look back and know we made the right choice

1. WordPress Multisite
Why it was the right choice for us
WordPress Meetup St Petersburg
January 2017
Doug Lawrence
douglawrence.com
Copy with attribution

2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monomyth
Stories like ‘The Hobbit’
often fit into a style called
The Hero’s Journey

3. Our journey
• Though not heroic our use of WordPress
Multisite was a journey too
• In that journey we needed the help of friends
and overcame obstacles
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4. Before we started our journey
• We used Dreamweaver and Drupal
• Dreamweaver
– Didn’t have the functionality we needed
– Upgrades weren’t cheap
– Dreamweaver forums seemed to have strict rules that
discouraged us from seeking help
• Drupal
– Seemed complicated
– Wasn’t supported very well by our hosting company
– We also failed to implement updates until eventually the site
was unstable
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5. wordpress.com
• We started using wordpress.com as a blog platform
• Entry costs were very low
• Community support was great
• We moved to .org self-hosted for more flexibility
• We started attending the Manchester WordPress
Meetup led by WordPress co-founder Mike Little
(https://mikelittle.org/)
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6. Copyright © Amicus TransTec Limited 6

7. The beginning
• Started attending the Manchester WordPress User Croup
– https://mwug.uk/
• Moved to ISP hosted WordPress
• Attended Mike Little’s WordPress training courses
https://mikelittle.org/wordpress-training/
• Initially used Theme forest and Udesign
• Attended WordCamp UK where Mike Little and Peter
Westwood https://profiles.wordpress.org/westi/ helped
me move to Multisite
• After problems with Arabic locale Mike Little wrote a
‘Must Use’ Multisite locale plugin
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8. The middle
• We moved to Genesis and StudioPress buying all
the themes (http://my.studiopress.com/pro-plus/)
• Soon discovered many plugins, developers, and
even ISPs saw Multisite as complicated and often
didn’t support it
• Attended more WordCamps, spoke at a few,
swapped t-shirts and swag from WordPress events
• Moved to unmanaged VPS at the request of our
hosting provider
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9. Where we are now
• We selected http://www.verytwisty.com/ as a developer
– International and social media navigation
– Language settings such as hreflang
– Many implementations such custom post types
– Presented together at WordCamp Birmingham UK
https://2015.birminghamuk.wordcamp.org/
http://www.slideshare.net/DougLawrence/mind-your-language-
doug-lawrence-belinda-mustoe-20150221
• Moved to https://pressjitsu.com/ after existing hosting
company couldn’t solve our Multisite problems
– As a WordPress only hoster Pressjitsu solved all our problems the
day we transferred to them. They took away all our worries and
because of their amazing support continue to do so
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10. Mistakes
• We have focused on functionality and therefore
have some unfinished content
• We need to review our content and draw a line
between ‘under construction’ and completed
content
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12. The future
• Woocommerce Sensei for online courses
• Detailed development plan
• More content, especially blog posts
• Image library
• More integration with other technologies we
use
• Events plugin
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13. Other WordPress presentations
• http://www.slideshare.net/DougLawrence/wor
dpress-multisite-20150815 WC Russia 2015
• http://www.slideshare.net/DougLawrence/min
d-your-language-doug-lawrence-belinda-
mustoe-20150221 WC Birmingham 2015
• http://www.slideshare.net/DougLawrence/dou
g-lawrence-
wpukgoingglobalwithwordpress20130708-
24417260 WC UK 2013
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14. What should you do?
Contribute to the WordPress community
Use Multisite – or at least don’t be afraid of it!
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15. Спасибо!
douglawrence.com
douglaslawrence.ru
https://vk.com/douglawrence
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