Follow along with me as I document all of the tools I've used to find success in the WordPress ecosystem!

1. SUCCESS IN
WORDPRESS
Do you have it?
By: Thomas Griffin
Twitter: @jthomasgriffin
Website: http://thomasgriffin.io

2. HOW DO YOU
DEFINE SUCCESS?
What matters most to you?
No one person has the same idea of success, but everyone
can use WordPress to find their version of it.
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3. TOOLS TO GET
YOU THERE
Because, well, I’ve been there!
To get a more in-depth overview of the tools I use, you can sign up to receive
them free. Just head here: http://thomasgriffin.io/wordpress-toolbox/
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4. WHO AM I?
CTO and Partner at Awesome Motive, Inc.
I’ve built many things in WordPress, including: OptinMonster, Soliloquy, Envira
Gallery, TGM Plugin Activation and more. I’ve contributed to WordPress core and
the Genesis Framework. As for success in WordPress: a 6-figure consulting
business, 7-figure product business and lots of happy customers!
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5. TOOL
CATEGORIES
Different tools for different things.
1. Necessities
2. Web Hosting
3. Website Backups
4. Themes
5. Performance
6. SEO
7. Lead Generation
8. Miscellaneous Tools
9. Helpful Resources
10. The Most Important Tool
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6. NECESSITIES
My “must-haves”.
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7. 7
(just kidding..but really..kidding)

8. Freshbooks - Accounting Made Easy
Freshbooks makes it stupid easy to invoice and keep track of clients, and I
guarantee you will get paid faster if you use it.
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Link: http://bit.ly/griffinjt-freshbooks

9. Github - Online Software Collaboration
Host your code on Github. Keep track of changes,
and put your work out for the world to see!
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Link: http://bit.ly/griffinjt-github

10. Evernote - Keep Notes on Everything
Never forget that quick snippet or workflow again. Keep track of changes. I love
the checkbox list feature - it’s the best!
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Link: http://bit.ly/griffinjt-evernote

11. WEB HOSTING
The foundation for all you do.
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12. WordPress Hosting - At Scale
Don’t skimp on your foundation. Put your site on the host built to scale. All of my
products trust Pagely to deliver when we need it most. Plans start at $24/month.
Bonus: their support is highly competent and helpful!
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Link: http://bit.ly/griffinjt_pagely

13. WEBSITE
BACKUPS
Protect your investments.
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14. VaultPress - Because Life Happens
Life happens. You botch an update. You accidentally delete your database. Don’t
get caught red-handed by your mistakes (like me). Get real-time, incremental
backups with VaultPress.
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Link: http://bit.ly/griffinjt-vaultpress

15. WP Migrate DB Pro - Quick DB Backups
Sometimes you just want a quick, local backup of your database before making
an upgrade. WP Migrate DB Pro is the best tool for this. It handles lots of complex
scenarios and even supports remote backups!
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Link: http://bit.ly/griffinjt_wpmigratedbpro

16. THEMES
Your value presentation.
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17. StudioPress & Genesis - Framework Workflows
I used (and even contributed to!) Genesis by StudioPress to create websites FAST.
Like $1,500 projects in one day fast. You can really benefit from the workflows
that come from learning a powerful framework like Genesis.
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Link: http://bit.ly/griffinjt_studiopress

18. Underscores - Bold Start, Complex Finish
Underscores (_s) is the perfect theme to use for highly complex projects or
projects that require a lot of different custom templates. It has sensible defaults,
some useful helper functions and a good scaffolding for large projects.
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Link: http://bit.ly/griffinjt-underscores

19. PERFORMANCE
Reduce friction between visitors and information.
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20. W3 Total Cache - Everything You Need (Almost)
W3 Total Cache allows you really optimize the speed of your site with things like
page, database and object caching, minifying assets, browser caching and more.
The two most important items: page caching and browser caching.
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Link: http://bit.ly/griffinjt-w3totalcache

21. MaxCDN - Global Asset Delivery
Reducing latency between your visitor and website assets is crucial to load times.
MaxCDN serves assets like CSS, JS, media files, etc. from globally distributed
server networks. Plain talk: it loads stuff fast.
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Link: http://bit.ly/griffinjt_maxcdn

22. SEO
Make yourself known to the world.
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23. WordPress SEO by Yoast - Enough Said
This is the king of SEO plugins. It does two of the most important SEO functions
very, very well: title/meta tags and XML sitemaps. You can also do keyword
analysis, search engine previews, canonical URLs, 301 redirects and more.
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Link: http://bit.ly/griffinjt-wordpressseo

24. LEAD
GENERATION
Create a consistent funnel for leads.
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25. Gravity Forms - Contact Forms Made Easy
Create a simple contact form to encourage visitor interaction. When I say simple,
I mean simple. Like, 3-4 fields simple or it will hurt conversion rates. You can do
more powerful things, too, like connect to your MailChimp list, build quizzes and
much more.
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Link: http://bit.ly/griffinjt_gravityforms

26. OptinMonster - Visitors to Subscribers
70% of your abandoning visitors will never return. Think of how much money that
could be for you. OptinMonster helps you convert those visitors into leads with
ballin' optin forms (and exit intent!). Profit.
Disclaimer: I built this, so I’m slightly biased, but others agree.
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Link: http://bit.ly/griffinjt-optinmonster

27. MISCELLANEOUS
TOOLS
Important, non-categorized tools.
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28. Easy Digital Downloads - Digital Product Lifeblood
If you ever think you want to start selling digital products, use Easy Digital
Downloads. It has tons of functionality and extensions to make your product
payment and account workflows a success.
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Link: http://bit.ly/griffinjt_edd

29. Soliloquy - responsive WordPress slider (I built). This jump-started my career into
products. Key takeaway: if you find yourself building things over and over for
clients, it might be a good product fit.
!
Envira Gallery - responsive WordPress gallery (I built). This came to be from
efficiencies and workflows from Soliloquy. Key takeaway: one product may be
the scaffolding for a complimentary product.
!
Help Scout - make your customers/clients happy. I love the automated workflows,
customer tagging, and reporting. Key takeaway: Help Scout makes customer
management 1000x better than Gmail.
!
MailChimp - beautiful email marketing. Don’t neglect the power of a well-timed
email. Key takeaway: You never know when an email is just the push someone
needs to generate new business with you.
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Links
http://bit.ly/griffinjt-soliloquy
http://bit.ly/griffinjt-envira
http://bit.ly/griffinjt_mailchimp
http://bit.ly/griffinjt_helpscout

30. HELPFUL
RESOURCES
Places and people you should know!
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31. Make Blogs - All Things WordPress
Designer? Developer? Customer Support? Community?
The Make Blogs are where you need to go to learn about all the new
developments with WordPress. If WordPress is your business, know WordPress’
business.
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Link: http://bit.ly/griffinjt_makeblogs

32. WP Tavern - WordPress News
You should be following WordPress news to learn about the latest trends, plugins,
community resources and other things that help give you an edge over your
competition.
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Link: http://bit.ly/griffinjt_wptavern

33. WPBeginner - Getting Started with WordPress
If you are new to WordPress or want to look up a quick tutorial, WPBeginner likely
has it. It’s a great resource to point beginners to (including clients new to
WordPress).
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Link: http://bit.ly/griffinjt_wpbeginner

34. Tom McFarlin - WordPress Development
Tom writes great content about WordPress development, including outside of the
box thinking, ideas and approaches to development.
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Link: http://bit.ly/griffinjt_wpbeginner

35. Chris Lema - WordPress Thinker and Talker
Chris provides some great content on his blog about WordPress, products, pricing
philosophies. He loves to talk and has a lot of good things to say
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Link: http://bit.ly/griffinjt_wpbeginner

36. THE MOST
IMPORTANT TOOL
The other tools hinge on this.
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37. EXECUTION
If you can’t execute, nothing else matters.
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Tools are great at collecting dust, not at building successful businesses in
WordPress. Execution is the driving force that makes these tools shine and (in my
opinion) the key to finding success in WordPress.
Are you executing?
Are you executing well?
Are you executing on the things that matter?
Speaking of things that matter…

38. PEOPLE MATTER
WordPress is a community. Success relies on it.
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People + tools + execution = success.
Your homework: spend 2 minutes after this talk to meet somebody. They are
here because they want to find some sort of success with WordPress, too.
Maybe their success can be part of yours!

39. THE END
Here’s to your continued success with WordPress!
By: Thomas Griffin
Twitter: @jthomasgriffin
Website: http://thomasgriffin.io
Slides: slideshare.net/griffinjt/