Editor’s note: Today, we are extremely proud to present the new exclusive interview with Devesh Sharma. Being the founder of the WordPress blog – WP Kube and successful entrepreneur, it’s a great pleasure for us to ask him a few questions about his life, undertakings and experience with WordPress. Moreover, it is really interesting and advantageous to look at his extremely fast professional growth.
Especially for all aisite blog followers Devesh is sharing his knowledge about WordPress CMS, and presenting the secrets of gain such success. Interesting… Keep reading, and you’ll be armed with useful tips and tricks from Devesh Sharma about his life experience and advice of how to manage WordPress.
1. Your blog is fully dedicated to WordPress related things. Moreover, you have said that you love to write about this CMS. So, Devesh, tell us when and how did your WordPress story begin?
I came across WordPress in 2008, when I was looking for a free site builder and was so pleased with how easy it was to use. At that time there were not as many sites dedicated to WordPress as we have now, but the community support was great.
Since then, I have been using it every day and never looked back.
2. WP Kube is a WordPress resource site and your great project. How did you come up with the idea to start this website?
Before starting WP Kube, I used to run an Internet marketing blog called Technshare and WordPress was the subject that I frequently blogged about.
The site was only a few months old but was getting good traction. So, I started improving the site functionality to make it look more like a serious business blog, and was spending a lot of my time modifying the design and searching for new free plugins to use.
And after a few months, I started providing WordPress related services, and I found myself working more and more with the platform.
In 2010 I finally sold Technshare, to focus more on WordPress and started a site all things related to WordPress.
3. Definitely there was a period when you met WordPress for the first time. What were your mistakes and difficulties when you started to work with this CMS?
I faced a ton of difficulties when I first started using WordPress, and made many mistakes along the way. And my biggest mistake was not taking daily backups, the hosting company which I was with at the time got hacked and their whole data was wiped out. Luckily, it was a warez website but I did end up losing a few hundred dollars.
4. It is a well-known fact that WordPress is one of the most popular CMS platforms all over the world. But nevertheless, there are thousands of them and here is the question: What other CMS would you choose to write about apart from WP?
Ghost 🙂
5. Your blog is very informative, well-structured and it even can be called a godsend not only for the newbies but for all WP users. What is your blog-running secret? Please, share it with our readers.
It took me around 2 years to get where I am currently.
In the beginning, I started with producing short news and review articles. It did well but not great, so I changed the direction of the site to focus more on in-depth guides.
Since then the site has grown to 40,000 visits / month. As far as promotion goes, I did nothing except producing quality and guest posting on a few authority sites.
My secret is that I do not try to do everything by myself. I only focus on marketing and technical side of things. I normally try to outsource the writing part to other talented writers who have more experience and knowledge then me.
6. Everyone knows that WordPress is a user-friendly CMS. That is why more and more people tend to manage their sites on this platform. So, what will be your pieces of advice for those who are new to WordPress? What are the first 5 things everyone has to do after the launching the website?
- Don’t download WordPress theme unknown sources. There are plenty of sites that allow you to download premium themes for free and it will work without any problems. However, they are packed with malicious code, which opens your site up to hackers and spammers.
If you want to use premium theme, then purchase it from the official site. And if you don’t want spend money, then download themes from WordPress.org.
Things that everyone should do after launching the site:
- Install a Backup Plugin – There are plenty of backup plugins. Easily Backup Your Site with These 9 Top Backup WordPress Plugins. I mention some here available that will allow you to create complete backup of your WordPress site (including files and database). Personally, I prefer to use Backup Buddy as it has a lot of great features.
- Make your site secure – Install security plugins such as WP Security plugin and WordFence.
- Install Akismet plugin – This is one of the best anti-spam plugins available for WordPress. Without Akismet, it is quite likely that you will be spending a good amount of time dealing with spam comments. You can combine it with Conditional Captcha or GASP to make it more effective.
- Start building an Email List – Email list is one of the fastest ways to grow your site. It allows you to directly engage with your audience.
To build an effective email list, you will need to provide free products or some kind of offer to get attention. You can also use a list building plugin such as OptinMonster WordPress Plugin, which adds a popup box to your site to boost the number of subscribers and help you get more targeted leads.
- Start Promoting – Here are some great sites that you can use to generate traffic.
- Triberr – One of the most popular social media site for generating retweets.
- ViralContentBuzz – This is a new site started by Ann Smarty and Gerald Weber. This site helps you get more retweets, pins, Facebook likes, and Stumbleupon shares.
- SocialBuzzClub – To attract more retweets.
- JustRetweet – Helps to get more retweets and followers.
- Inbound.org – Mostly for Inbound and SEO related stuff.
- Blokube – Most active social site for bloggers and amp; internet marketers.
7. Devesh, as an experienced blogger, author, serial entrepreneur, an affiliate marketer and just a person who loves WordPress, have you ever dealt with the problem of the website migration? What is your opinion about using an automated tool during the site switch?
It really depends on the type of site you are moving. It might not be a good idea for complex sites that require specific checks.
Personally, I never tried automated tool for site migration, but have heard good things about it.
8. Being aware of all the latest news about WordPress themes, plugins, modifications, etc, tell us what are your predictions about this CMS in the nearest future?
I think we will see more apps being built on top of WordPress. Restaurant Engine and Happys Tables are two great examples; both sites are using WordPress as the core and custom design for admin area.
Devesh we are so grateful to you for sharing your benefits of experience. Talking to you, our followers, if you have some additional questions on the article, we’d be happy to see them in the comments below.
P.S. If you are willing to start your WordPress site, don’t wait up, a aisite migration service performs the transfer in a blinks of eyes. So, run free demo to make your final decision.
