On today’s episode, we are going to talk about the essential gear that you need for running a WordPress business right here on Your Website Engineer podcast Episode No. 368.

Hello and welcome to another episode of Your Website Engineer podcast. My name is Dustin Hartzler. I’m exciting to be here with you this week and we’re going to talk about some of the gear that you can purchase this holiday season to get yourself ready to have a WordPress business. Maybe that’s one of your goals in 2018 or maybe you want to level up your game and do a little bit more in 2018. And so, we’ll talk a little bit about some of the tools that you need, some of the software pieces, some of the office equipment and whatnot that you need to run a business.

But first, I’ve got three announcements and a plug-in to share with you. The first one is an announcement that I want to talk about and it’s not necessarily related to WordPress itself, but it is related to the dot-dev extension. This is one that a lot of people use when they use Desktop Server or Local by Flywheel. They’ll create a website called YourWebsiteEngineer.dev, and then, that way it can run locally on their website and whatnot.

Well, Google has purchased this TLD or this top level extension and now they’ve forced Google Chrome to give the error that says “this site cannot provide a secure connection.” So, it’s kind of a bummer if you try to use this on Local that it gives you this error. You can get past that in Chrome if you type “bad idea” all on that same page. It will get you past that – the SSL page – but it’s really not the best practice.

There are lots of different things that we’ve talked about, but one of the big things is that you can change this top level domain if you’re using Local. They recommend using dot-local as the top level extension. And there are some other work-arounds that you can do as well. It is something that’s kind of new in the news week and it has happened if you’ve updated Chrome in the last few weeks or so. So, that is the first piece of news that I wanted to share with you about dot-dev domains.

The second thing I want to share with you this week is a point release to Jetpack – Jetpack 5.6.1 – and this gives contact forms, security updates, and other plug-ins. So, extra security has been added to the contact form. They’ve limited – or they have extended the Twitter limit count to 280 – just like Twitter has now. And they fixed a bug that disabled saving widgets when removing a widget from the visibility room. So, those are a few things that happened. And if you’re running an outdated version of Jetpack, I recommend updating to the latest version today.

And then, the other piece of news that’s out there in the WordPress space is BackupBuddy is now up to Version 8.2. It’s here with new, improved WordPress staging and development – or deployment – features. And so, basically, some of the things that they’ve been working on are deployment speed improvements. You can now deploy up to 15 times faster when changing pushes to your staging site and they’ve worked to reduce file transfer overhead by 37 percent – saving up each file transfer by 37 percent or more.

They now have an ability to exclude or include folders and files from the deployment. And so, that’s built in now. And now, they also have a setting for the default search engine visibility – that setting that’s inside of WordPress – now you can deploy that on whether you’re deploying from a local site to a development site on a server somewhere or to a live production site. You can say what that setting – what you want it to be on your WordPress site.

And there are lots more things they’ve got – some changes to the API to make just speed and reliability much better. They’ve got better support for file names. They’ve got a lot more improvements for Rackspace if you’re using Rackspace for hosting. And lots of things – so, if you’re using BackupBuddy, I recommend updating to BackupBuddy 8.1.2.

Now, today, I have a plug-in I want to share with you and it’s very similar to a software piece that I talked about last week in the show about – it’s called Bartender. And I use Bartender to hide a bunch of menu items in my menu bar so I’m only seeing the things that I really need to see and it just keeps things nice and clean and uncluttered.

But this is called Admin Bar Menu Packer. And it’s essentially the same thing. You can make sure that your customized admin bar across the top doesn’t span and have too many items. In the preview for the plug-in, it has like – it’s got the link to get to the dashboard. It’s got the customized link. It shows how many updates are available, how many comments need to be approved. It shows news so you can add a new poster, a new page, or new media. You can edit page. You’ve got the – to purge the cash – you can use the debug tool.

It just spans the entire length of that upper section. And what you can do is you can take menu items and put them into a little hamburger menu. And so, it’s easier to – you can get to them easier when you need them, but when you don’t need them, they’re there and they’re out of the way. A very cool plug-in – it is something that I’m going to start experimenting with on all of my websites just to keep that appearance at the top very clean and uncluttered. So, that is called Admin Bar Menu Packer. You can find a link in the show and it’s for Episode No. 68, or as always, you can search the WordPress repository for Admin Bar Menu Packer.

Okay, let’s go ahead today and dive in and talk about some of the essential gear or some of the things that most WordPress developers are using or people that are running a WordPress business. I use the phrase developer as, you know, you’re building things, but you don’t necessarily have to be like a developer-developer and creating things directly from scratch. You know, you can be a WordPress developer and you can run your own business by having a limited knowledge of PHP, a limited knowledge of JavaScript, and taking a theme and modifying it to what the client needs and then shipping that as the final product.

But today, I want to talk a little bit about – as we get ready to wrap up for the new year – just some equipment that you could purchase to make sure that you are up and running and you can start a business if you wanted to or continue working or continue to build on your business in 2018.

So, the first thing – we’ve got a couple categories here we’re going to dive into – categories of hardware, office supplies, software, and other businessy things. So, the first thing in the hardware category is a computer. You obviously need a computer. I think you could do a lot of it on a tablet, but for the most part, I think it’s going to be best to have a computer so that you can actually use a bunch of the software features that we’ll talk about and just to have – I feel like developing websites is much, much easier on a computer. You can probably do it on a tablet, but you’ll save a lot of time, headaches, and whatnot by using a computer.

You’re also going to need Wi-Fi. And this is – I’ve kind of implied these days that, for a WordPress professional, you need a trusty Wi-Fi connection. And that’s mainly to be connected to a server so you can upload and download files and that’s so you can talk to your WordPress installation and so you can get into the C pen or whatnot – anything that you may need – that’s to research how to fix certain bugs – like you need Wi-Fi for pretty much anything when you’re developing websites. So, that’s something to think about as well.

So, computer, Wi-Fi – the next one is – and I like this one. I do this for every new computer that I buy – is to buy an extra charger. I have a charger for my Mac Book Pro right here on my desk. It’s always there. It’s always plugged into my desk. But I have one in my backpack as well. I bought a different one than the normal standard Apple one that came with my computer. I have a separate one in my backpack that’s a little bit smaller.

And then, that way it’s always there. It’s really nice to be able to go out – just grab my computer and go. And then, if my battery’s maybe not fully charged or if I’m out for a long time and need to charge the battery later, I have that ability. So, I like having an extra charger packed and always ready to go.

I recommend also having a tablet or smart phone. A tablet’s really nice just in order to see what a website looks like on a different device. I know that there are simulators out there and there are ways that you can look up websites and what they look like on a mobile device or this type of tablet or this type of tablet, but sometimes, you just have to have it in your hands.

I was doing some debugging for a WooCommerce site this past week and there was an issue with the menu. In the menu, you weren’t able to click on the item. Once the website got down to tablet view and the hamburger menu got there, you couldn’t click on it. You couldn’t tap on it. But I could do it just fine on my computer with the browser resized to a smaller size. So, it was really interesting that it was only happening on mobile and I wouldn’t have been able to tell that if I didn’t have a mobile device. So, that’s something to think about.

I also recommend upgrading your computer or having a computer that has solid state drive. What’s a solid state drive? This is a – it’s a newer piece of technology. It came out many years ago, and finally, the prices are coming down, so it makes a little bit more sense to add to your computer. But basically, it is – a solid state drive is a hard drive that doesn’t have a spinning disk in it. And I don’t think I’ve had a spinning disk in my computer since probably about 2011. Maybe 2012 is when I went to SSD and it is so much faster. Just everything loads faster. The software applications like instantly turn on and it’s super, super nice. So, think about investing in a solid state drive.

And you probably also want to invest in a surge protector – I know this sounds silly, but it means that, if you’re trying to jam a lot of electronics into one little space, it’s probably good to have a surge protector just in case something happens and you get that surge of electricity and it doesn’t fry all your equipment. It may ruin the surge protector, but replacing a surge protector for $20.00 or $30.00 is a much better investment than all of your hard drives and all of your other equipment that you may have in your office.

So, those are the hardware things I thought of that you probably will need when you’re starting a WordPress business.

So, let’s move on over to the office supplies. I think that every person that is dedicated to doing some sort of work on the computer needs to have a desk. I know that we can work from anywhere whether that be a coffee shop at a table or it’s out on a couch – it’s out on an hammock – you know, it’s a lot of places that we can work and that we can use our computers. But it really makes sense to have a home base – a place where you can work – and whether this is a standing desk or a sitting desk, I think you just need to have a place where you can kind of get into the mindset.

I know that there are some things that I can be browsing with my computer on the couch, but I just can’t really get into work mode while I’m sitting on the couch. So, sometimes it’s like, okay, I’ve got to pick my computer and go take it to my standing desk and then my brain somehow gets in the mood – okay, now I’m ready to work and now I can get going. So, that’s a desk.

I also recommend, if you are using a sitting desk rather than a standing desk, that you have some sort of ergonomic chair. You could spend a lot of time in this chair and make sure that everything is ergonomically adjusted – whether that be the arm rests go up and down, whether the back rest comes in or out, or whatever the case may be – make sure that you have an ergonomic place to sit because you probably will be sitting a very, very long time.

I recommend having somewhere close to you a notebook of some kind – whether that be like a fancy stationary book or a Molskine or any of these fancy notebooks – or maybe even just post-it notes – but, every once in a while, you may get a call, you may be trying to think through something, and you just want to jot it down. I use a dry-erase board for most of these things – or most of my jotting down of things so I don’t have to have paper everywhere.

And it’s really nice – like I was trying to design like how am I going to do this and how am I going to do that – and kind of like laying it out and drawing measurements and different things – and it’s really nice to have just that. As much as we love technology, sometimes it just doesn’t work as good as pen and paper. So, always have a notebook available to you.

I also recommend having a storage space or some sort of storage area to keep your desk clean. I know that sometimes this happens to me – I’ll get to my desk and there’s some paper that I’ve brought down – maybe it’s mail that I haven’t organized or files or whatnot – and it’s just like when I see those, that makes me discouraged, and I’m not ready to work because I see things that need to be done around the house.

And the same thing – so, if you have a storage area and you can put everything away so your desk is clean and, you know, there’s nothing on the surface, that’s going to just help you focus a lot more. And it probably goes without saying, but we should talk about having a clean desktop as well – whether that be getting rid of all the icons on your desktop – just kind of turning off all the web browsers that you’re not needing – closing all those tabs and whatnot – just kind of helps that mental energy to not be distracted with all kinds of things.

I also recommend having a wall calendar. I have had a wall calendar – one of the dry-erase big three foot by two foot calendars – in my office for probably the last four or five years. And it’s really great to kind of lay out different things – like I like to lay out the theme of Your Website Engineer shows each month. I like to put in big bold and highlight when I’m not going to be in town. So, when I go out of town on a business trip or if I’m traveling for a Word camp or if I’m traveling on vacation, I like being able to see that.

It’s really nice and handy when you’re on a conference call or you’re talking and you can just do a glance to a big calendar somewhere rather than trying to figure out where your calendar application is and trying to open that and get everything all synced up and whatnot. So, that’s another “office supply” that you should need.

I also recommend having some music. Music is also a good thing. I use a service called Brain-dot-fm. And it was a – I found it somewhere and got a lifetime license for $35.00. It is – I mean it’s a little bit expensive. You have to pay for it or you can listen to a few rounds of music for free. But how it works is it basically gets you in the mindset. You hit go and then it just will play music and it’s scientifically engineered music so that you can –so it can help you get into the focused state much, much quicker.

There’s also one out there called focus@will and I was using that for a few years as well. And that one was a really great way to kind of get into the mood of work. And to listen to this music, I recommend headphones, especially if you’re in a household like mine that has small kids running around. Headphones are really, really great. Put the headphones on, turn a little bit of music on, and you cannot hear anything else that’s going on in the world. It’s really nice and it just helps you, again, get into that mode of focus.

One of the hardest things that I find about doing stuff with WordPress and working on WordPress is, if you have a 30-minute project and you only get 10 minutes in, like it takes a long time to kind of focus and figure out where was I and how can I get back into the rhythm of things? So, if you can get into the rhythm and stay in the rhythm, I find that I’m very, very much more productive.

And then, the other thing that I recommend and I have a little basket here in my office – it’s part of my storage area – but I do have a few healthy snacks in there. I usually have almonds or cashews of some kind – maybe some raisins – just something that, in case you get hungry, you want to be grabbing for good snacks rather than grabbing for whatever’s in the pantry or having to leave your office and walk up to the pantry. And then, you get distracted with, oh, the dishwasher needs unloading. I need to throw a load of laundry in, and, oh, my bed’s not made – and all these things that you could run into – then it’s really nice to just have those healthy snacks right there available and easy to grab when you are hungry.

All right, on to the software – we talked about some of these things last week on some of the software that I use. But some of the pieces of the puzzle you may need as a business owner and that I don’t necessarily use, but one of the things I recommend everybody have is some sort of password manager – whether that’s 1Password and or LastPass – anyway, to manage passwords, especially if you’re managing passwords for clients, this is something that can get really, really dicey really quick.

When I was in business, I would normally use my 1Password and create the 1Password password for myself – you know – for the client – and put all the credentials and whatnot into a note. And then, I would tag those as clients or inside of one password itself. So, that way, I could go in and I could easily see all of my client’s information. You can also do searches inside of LastPas and 1Password as well.

I also recommend a To Do list and just insert your name with a To Do list here. I’m not going to list off all of the ones. I’m a big fan of OmniFocus. I’ve been using them for years and I love being able to put in a project – okay, here’s all of the things that I need to do and you can also create templates of projects. And so, you can say, oh, on a normal project, I have to do this, this, and this. These are all intro things. I’ve got to send out the invoice. I have to do this, this, and this – or the estimates and all this kind of stuff. So, you can set all of this stuff and have a really good To Do list to make sure that you’re managing things well and that you know exactly what the next task is that you need to do.

I also recommend FreshBooks. FreshBooks is one that I found for accounting software. There are a lot of them out there. There are tons and tons and tons, but FreshBooks is one that I used a lot and it just made it really easy to put in the hours that you’ve worked or invoice clients. You can see when clients actually click on the invoice, so they can’t say, oh, I never saw the invoice and all that good jazz. So, that is FreshBooks.

You need some sort of Google suite for email or for docs for some way to communicate with your clients. That one’s kind of a given in these days. And you also need a code editor and an FTP client. Both of these you may or may not need as much, but I recommend that everybody has a code editor of some kind. I’m using Sublime Text these days and that’s what I use to open things up, but every computer comes with a default text editor that you can use that’s just perfectly fine.

And occasionally, you may have to access files on your computer. Maybe you’ve broken a website or you’ve updated a plug-in and that went wrong and now you can’t log into your website. You know, you’ll need a FTP client of some kind to log in and get the information that you need or delete what you need to to be able to restore access. So, that’s something to think about as well. So, those are kind of the essential software pieces that you may or may not need.

And then, in the category of other businessy things, I recommend having a professional email address. So, you know, if you’re going to start this as a WordPress business, maybe you’ve got to have a website and that’s probably a given as well. So, you find a domain for your website. Mine was hartzlerdm.com and then I created from the website dustin at hartzlerdm.com. And so, you have that professional email address that people can see, get connected with and be able to say, oh, your email address is at hartzlerdm.com. Let me go ahead and check that website out.

You will need business cards. I know that we are in a non – or we’re getting to be more in a technical world where business cards don’t matter, but the last couple Word camps and events that I went to, people were like, oh, do you have a card? Oh, do you have a card? And, of course, I never do – like they’re always in my backpack or my other bag or whatnot. So, that’s something that I need to get better at is carrying business cards with me.

But people want to connect with you. They want to have physical – something tangible that they can hold so they can remember who you are because you’re going to meet a bunch of people. So, just have some sort of business card. And you can get these – you know – VistaPrint – you can print a couple hundred of these for just a few dollars. And so, it’s not a big deal. It’s not a big investment, but having something that you can hand to somebody else is truly a big deal.

And then, you probably also will need a car or some sort of access to public transit. This is so you can get to clients’ places – unless you are renting an office space – which is not essential. It’s something that you can do. I think you need to be able to get to clients’ locations so you can have in-person meetings if necessary, especially if you’re working with local clients or local businesses, to showcase some of your work and say, hey, here’s what I did and here’s how I can teach you how to do this and all that good stuff.

So, those are some other businessy things that you may need for your WordPress business. And I’m sure I forgot tons and tons of things because I’m not in this space as much anymore, but those were some of the things that I wanted to share with you this week that you can go and think about and say, okay, these are maybe some things I need to invest in in 2018 as I get ready for the new year and get ready to kind of ramp up and launch my WordPress business.

So, that’s what I wanted to talk with you about this week. We’re getting really close to Christmas, and until I come back next week, it will be past Christmas time. So, I wish everybody a very Merry Christmas and we’ll say Happy New Year next year. So, take care and we’ll talk again soon. Bye-bye.