Over the past couple of weeks, we’ve been writing about why WordPress development can be lonely, and how a learning community makes everything easier. Last week, we announced the WPShout Pro Community as a solution to these problems.

Does any of this sound familiar in your WordPress work?

We’ve been thinking a lot about how people learn WordPress, and what drives success in WordPress development learning.

People get into WordPress freelancing for lots of reasons. Some that come quickly to mind: for fun, for a career, to learn, to help out, or to make a little extra cash. All of these are great things. One common reality that doesn’t come up as much around WordPress freelancing: loneliness. It’s bound to come up, even though it’s an affliction that many people dare not speak of.

Just last weekend, I was one of the co-organizers of WordCamp Denver. (Not a lead, those people did more work. I just made a website and helped a bit with sponsors and recording videos.) It was my first time doing it, and to commemorate the occasion, I thought I’d share an invitation and recommendation that you speak at a WordCamp.

A couple of months back I wrote a really long (sorry!) and really impassioned article about:

One of the first topics I ever wrote about on WPShout, I kind of thought that the topic of “theme creep” had died long ago. But a few times in the last few months–once with someone I’m mentoring in WordPress development, once with someone who was asking how to buy themes–I felt a need to mention this idea. So I’m revising and updating the original essays.

WordPress is a wonderful technology, but most small business website owners are not having wonderful experiences with it.

 This article reviews the four biggest WordPress page builders: WPBakery Page Builder, Divi Builder, Beaver Builder, and Elementor.

Earlier this week we announced the upcoming Third Edition launch of our critically acclaimed “learn WordPress development” course Up and Running. This new Edition adds new Gutenberg content, and updates the course for 2018.