‘Ultimate WordPress Handbook’

McCombs marketing faculty member captures more than 15 years of WordPress experience in comprehensive new guide

Before his career took a turn into digital marketing two decades ago, Daniel Bisett, marketing lecturer at Texas McCombs, traveled the world translating and teaching English in Barcelona, Beijing, and Buenos Aires.

During the years since, Bisett has brought his love of teaching to the digital marketing world with a popular McCombs Digital Marketing Boot Camp and, these days, a Principles of Marketing course. His latest teaching effort comes in the form of a 350-page book: “Ultimate WordPress Handbook: An Essential Guide to Designing Stunning WordPress Websites, Driving Traffic, and Boosting Revenue.”

Bisett co-authored the guide with Tricia Elizabeth Ulberg, his business partner in We Rock DM, a boutique web development agency in Austin. The book was published in November by Orange Ava and is available in paperback and ebook on Amazon.

A comprehensive guide

In 14 chapters over 343 pages, the book addresses new and intermediate users of the WordPress content management system. It covers a broad spectrum of topics: installation, themes and plug-ins, advanced customization, managing pages and posts, strategies for higher search rankings in a rapidly evolving SEO landscape, maintenance and performance tips, online sales, analytics, troubleshooting, security, and UX/UI principles for an intuitive user experience that boosts engagement.

“As a digital marketer, I believe websites are an extremely valuable element in just about every aspect of digital marketing,” Bisett says. “WordPress dominates the market — so many people use it. So, we wanted to create a comprehensive guide that would help users work through any kind of technique, question, or troubleshooting they run into when they’re using it.”

WordPress started 20 years ago as a blogging platform. Today, it powers more than 40% of active websites. Not surprisingly, the internet is crowded with commentary on how to use it. With their years of experience, Bisett and Ulberg cut through the noise and help streamline what can be an overwhelming learning process.

“It’s not just telling people, ‘Here’s how you do this thing with WordPress.’ It’s, ‘We recommend you do it this way, and here’s why,’” Bisett says.

Bisett is a WordPress expert (he handcodes WordPress themes from scratch), and his marketing courses always include a component on the popular content management system. When the publisher approached him on LinkedIn to write the book, Bisett saw an opportunity to share what he teaches and reach a wider audience.

The handbook stands out in two major ways, Bisett says.

“One is that we’ve been building in this WordPress space for 15-plus years, and that we lean pretty heavily into our preferences. We use our best practices and embed them throughout the lessons.”

The book covers only themes and techniques the authors have used with success in their business or otherwise recommend. A well-designed website always provides an intuitive experience for users, Bisett says. Some of the most popular WordPress themes may look elegant but fail in usability; he doesn’t highlight them in the book.

“There are some themes out there that are super prominent in the WordPress space, and, frankly, they’re terrible. They’re full of bloat. They’re super slow,” Bisett says. “These builders create beautiful, aesthetically pleasing websites, but from a UX perspective, they’re horrendous.”

WordPress has tens of thousands of themes and plug-ins, but most designers use just a handful of their favorites. The book can serve as a reliable one-stop resource that expands the range of services they provide, Bisett says.

Companion website

Bisett and Ulberg also took the unusual step of creating a website with detailed, visual instructions that correspond to the book. While the website’s blog and workshops are available to anyone, buyers of the book have password access to tutorials with step-by-step screenshots of topics in the chapters. Readers can click through to learn the simplest to most advanced techniques. For example, Writing Your First Blog Post covers 165 steps, from creating page one to publishing. Rank Math Installation and Setup offers visual details in 23 steps.

“It walks you through that entire process so you can see what it is you’re reading about. It’s interactive and explanatory. This is a major differentiator for the book,” Bisett says.

Screenshots and instructions on the website are quickly updated to reflect WordPress upgrades.

Bisett hopes the book and website help digital communicators of all experience levels — from side-gig creatives to solo business owners to marketing teams — expand their reach.

“The book takes all kinds of users through the intricacies of WordPress, from our perspective as experts who use it and have helped develop it,” Bisett says. “We just hope it helps many others who want to build a stronger online presence.”

Story by Sally Parker