Looking back on 2019 at the ManiWP blog
When the ball drops in your part of the year and the calendar turns over to 2020, what will you be doing?
Most years, I’m in bed. You?
I am thinking about going to a New Year’s Eve party this year and listen to some Blues music.
As we approach the end of the year, we often start looking back on the year we are completing. It’s good to look back and see where things went wrong and right.
Since we are a few days from the end of December and I thought I would take a look back at some of the articles we published on the MainWP blog.
Getting started in 2019…
From the beginning of the year, we were talking about having a better new year. Sebastian Moran got us going with an article about Staying Positive.
“With 2019 upon us, now is the time to focus on the new year. One of the best ways to have a healthy mental attitude is to keep a positive outlook. Life will throw you a few curveballs, and how you deal with those really does improve how you can stay driven and happy in the year ahead while maintaining a positive mental attitude.”
Two other articles that the first month that fit the bill. First, I talked about Finding your purpose: What is your why, and how does it help your business?
“It all comes down to learning what drives us individually. When we learn what drives us individually, we can determine what drives our business.”
Next up, Sebastian reminds us of the importance of taking breaks.
“Your natural self, coming from hundreds of millions of years of evolution, is in the Alpha state. It is in the Alpha state that you can have gamma spikes or A-Ha moments. Gamma waves move from the back to the front of the brain. Alpha precedes Gamma. When you’re relaxed and in a creative state of being, the best ideas come through.”
Sebastian followed that up with the importance of having good self-esteem.
“As human beings, we have a primal need for positive self-esteem; to feel good about ourselves. As people, we are strongly motivated to maintain a sense of consistency among the different belief systems and self-perceptions that make us who we are.”
So, that’s how we got started. We wanted to make sure you were ready to tackle your year because, ultimately, we know that adversity will set in at some point.
Moving over to MainWP…
We had a lot of new members of the MainWP community in 2019. Welcome!
Sebastian made sure you could efficiently migrate your website management to MainWP.
First, he helped users migrate from ManageWP to MainWP. Next up, he wrote an article for those migrating from InfiniteWP.
Not be left behind, he wrote articles for those migrating from Ithemes and Icontrol.
The articles and links are below in case you need to re-read them 🙂
The state of MainWP and WordPress
We stay on top of things in the WordPress kingdom. Whether it’s one of my World of WordPress roundups or a specific article dealing with a specific issue, we try to keep the audience informed.
We have addressed Jetpack issues as well as WooCommerce issues. We have talked about the Hummingbird Plugin and how to safely remove the W3 Total Cache plugin.
We have also talked about the acquisitions by Automattic (there were quite a few).
Over the past year, we have seen MainWP reach 1500 5-Star review and launch version 4.0. Additionally, you may have noticed that the MainWP website has had a facelift. The team made some significant changes behind the scenes.
Additionally, MainWP added a new member to its support team, Keith Crain.
Earlier this year, during the month of International Women’s’ Day, I wrote an article talking about some significant women influencers in WordPress. As a result, the initial tweet caught fire, which led to an article by Bob Dunn documenting women in eCommerce. The tweet also sparked a broader discussion on Twitter.
I talk about ten women influencers in #WordPress in my latest at @mymainwp — Who is in your list?
.@JosephaHaden
.@hellofromTonya
.@meherbala@Ana_Segota
.@jpalmes
.@naokomc
.@maryojob
.@ginnymcinneny
.@pollyplummerThis is far from a conclusive listhttps://t.co/734OpjXz0X
— Todd E. Jones (@tejones) March 28, 2019
Aside from all of the WordCamps, WordPress saw two significant summits. First, Lee Jackson and the Agency Trailblazers launched the Agency Transformation Live event. Our own Raj Zore was one of the speakers.
In December, Jan Koch hosted the WP Agency Summit featuring sponsorship by MainWP and presentations by Ivica Delic and myself.
The Interview articles
One of my favorite types of articles to do is interview articles. I love it because I get to ask people questions about what they do, their dreams, and what they want to see in the future.
This year we talked to several different Makers in the WordPress space.
In the Spring, we chatted with Adam Lacey, who launched SplitHero to help developers split test landing pages that are built with page builders. Next up, we interviewed Vito Peleg from WPFeedback. WPFeedback has become a popular tool for many of us for more direct and easier feedback from our clients.
We also had a chance to interview the ladies from the Women in WP Podcast. This was another opportunity to highlight the excellent work being done in our space by women.
We interviewed Matt Davies and Mel Fallon to talk about their Funnel Packs and how they started creating those.
Other WordPress makers we interviewed include Mor Cohen, who created a popular design course, John Locke, a WordPress and SEO specialist, Carrie Dils, who is a teacher of all things WordPress, and the legendary podcaster and teacher Bob Dunn.
I feel grateful as I got to interview some people who were at the top of my list. I hope you get as much from the interviews as I do.
Wrapping it up
I hope you had a great year in 2019, and I wish you a great 2020. Remember to stay positive, take breaks, stay confident, and maintain your focus no your purpose.
What are your plans for 2020? Let us know in the MainWP Users Facebook Group.
