Howdy from Montana! How’s it going?

Sitting here looking at a notepad filled with action items to bring WPauditor back to life. WPauditor is a project kicked off in April 2016 knowing it would benefit many including myself. A place I could offer all my experience and expertise in WordPress to help the most people possible. I’ve always been passionate about launching this project but was taken away with other opportunities and obligations as a freelancer and in my roles after being hired by Codeable where I resigned from earlier this year. So now this project is back on the main stage.

I’ve put a lot of thought into what I want this project to be, but it will always remain just that, a project, that will evolve. I’ve got a pretty clear vision where I want to go and what that looks like but even that can change based on where I’m seeing success with it. I’m super excited to relaunch this project with my full attention so long as I can keep other opportunities from preventing that.

You can see from the image above, this project has never really got off the ground. That’s easily explained as after buying the domain I was almost immediately hired in-house by Codeable and that took my full-time attention away. You can see as I write this we are on track for the worst month ever in performance of this website. I have every intention and a plan to turn that right around.

Where WPauditor Started

It all started with the checklist. I wanted to build this whole site around free resources that any WordPress site owner or manager or anyone helping with WordPress in general could use. Although I more or less abandoned this site for 5 years, the checklist was produced and has been downloaded and helped hundreds of people.

I used a similar checklist when I performed WordPress website audits for clients to help them know where to focus to improve, mitigate costly oversights and identify low hanging fruits. I offer this as the Audit Preview which was also downloaded while this site sat unattended showing folks examples of what the checklist helped to identify when executed.

I even had 33 people Request an Audit, a service I hoped and still hope to provide for those who don’t wish to do-it-themselves with the resources provided on this website.

I started this site with a passion that turned into set it and forget it. I left it in the dust and it still performed with no supervision. There is absolutely some regret for not sticking with it but that’s how it went and I’m more looking forward to where it’s going.

Where WPauditor is Going

It all starts with giving The Checklist an overhaul. It’s been 5 years and in internet/WordPress time, that’s a long time. A lot has changed and the items that were important then, are not as important now. So each section will be getting audited and brought up to date with everything I’ve seen change in WordPress over the past 5 years and how to be successful with it, no matter what kind of WordPress site you are running.

The new checklist will be published absolutely free again and will roll out as on the blog as individual post for the various sections… WordPress site speed, security, analytics, UI/UX, design, content… ect… Making sure you can cover all your bases. Also available as PDF download of course.

The goal is to provide massive value for free, for those willing to work for it. Empower the do-it-yourselfers.

For those who need a bit more coaching, I plan to add exactly that… an online course to easily coach you through running an audit according to our checklist on any WordPress website. Providing you all the resources to execute a WordPress website audit on your own for yourself or someone else who owns a WordPress website. This will likely be a very affordable course offered through this site and/or a platform like Udemy where I’ve got 3 other successful courses. e-Commerce WordPress website auditing will be another offering, But I’ll be putting focus first on smaller WordPress sites just getting started but with principles that apply to big WooCommerce stores as well.

For those looking for a done-for-you service, to have a WordPress website audited, that’ll be the top-tier offering on this site where myself or a personally trained professional at my level with Audit your site for you and provide all the answers you need to be successful and know where to focus. I aim to offer a handful of these a month as a premium done-for-you service. Much like a home inspector I’ll point out what is wrong, and go even further by providing trusted solutions where you can easily get help fixing any identified areas of improvement.

It’s a pretty simple business model. My competitive edge is my vast experience in the WordPress space and extreme familiarity and relationships with the solutions and success of many websites as a freelancer. I want to channel all that into WPauditor to help the most people possible. This site has yet to bring me any measurable income but I do plan to follow through with making this an income generating projects through those I help.

My priorities for executing all the above will be first on the do-it-yourself solutions over the done-for-you service which will be based on availability and only offered for very few customers at first.

That’s it, in a nutshell. Plans for this site open-sourced.

How it’s Going

I’ve recently completed my move from Washington State to Montana and I’m living the life of my dreams. I’m living 10 minutes from the chairlifts at Whitefish Mountain Resort where I work 4 days a week on the mountain. I’m working a seasonal job as a mountain bike patroller and trail crew member and couldn’t be happier to be spending so much time outside using my body not sitting hunched over at a computer desk burning out my eyeballs, back and wrists.

I cannot abandon my experience with WordPress and this is how I’m planning to put that expertise back to work. Looking ahead to winter my hope is I can properly launch WPauditor as I originally planned and as mentioned above to help more people with WordPress once again on my own terms.

As I’m recovering from a decent burnout experience, this site makes me feel the passion again and takes me back to my WordPress entrepreneur past which is why I got into it in the first place… So easy & free to start something from nothing and improve as you go.

Please follow @wpauditor on twitter or subscribe to our emails in the footer of any page on this website for updates on where it’s going.