Thinking Outside the WordPress Box

Most people, when they discover WordPress, start on the challenging and rewarding path of developing themes, plugins and similar products. I decided to think outside the box.

My name is Alexander, and my WordPress journey began in 2009. I’m from Chisinau, Republic of Moldova. I originally discovered WordPress while looking for a content management system for one of my projects. Intrigued by how it worked, I started like many others do — learning how WordPress works through developing WordPress websites.

I started using what I knew to provide development services on freelance platforms. For the next decade, I mostly concentrated on the lesser known, yet still critically important parts of WordPress: particularly security and search engine optimization.

For many people building up a freelance business in the WordPress world, these are the parts that are important to do, but are often thought of as secondary to deeper development. Theme and plugin authors in particular, get the lion’s share of the spotlight when it comes to WordPress development.

Speed and Sophistication

I soon learned that after a decade of polishing my skills, that what the world needed wasn’t more WordPress theme developers or plugin authors. What it needed were people who could take care of the kinds of tasks that seemed simple on the surface (like protecting a WordPress site from hackers or optimizing it for search engines), yet were very involved and continued to get more complex over time.

Contrary to popular belief, you can’t just install a plugin or two and think your site is secure or well-optimized for Google and other sites. Sure, there are plugins which can help the process, but when disaster strikes and your site gets hacked, or you find that your site is loading sluggishly compared to your competition, or worse, your site disappears from the search rankings — you know you need help, and FAST.

A Dandy Idea!

In 2019 I decided to turn my love for WordPress into full-time work through WPDandy. Rather than marketing myself strictly as a WordPress developer or theme designer (although I also do development and design work from time to time), I decided to think outside the box and offer the kinds of services I knew that people needed, but didn’t know how much they needed them, until it was too late!

Through WPDandy, I focused on WordPress maintenance, management and support services. These include but are not limited to: WordPress speed improvements, security, search engine optimization, backups, etc.

How WPDandy Has Changed My Life

WPDandy has changed my life in many ways. It has enabled me to enjoy the freedom and flexibility of working for myself, doing something that I love. Today, I lead a team of highly professional and passionate WordPress developers from around the world.

Through my online work, I’m able to help clients reach their business and personal goals, and grow their WordPress sites without worrying about keeping everything up to date (which can be a full-time job in itself, especially if there are multiple sites to run!). My company allows me to help others, and that brings me immense satisfaction!

Contributing to the Future of WordPress

Although I’m immensely proud of what I’ve built with WPDandy as well as thankful to all of the clients who helped me to discover and master the art and science of WordPress, I felt like I also owed something to the WordPress community itself.

That’s why I’ve also signed on to be a WordPress contributor. I routinely offer suggestions, advice and share code that can help make managing and maintaining WordPress easier, as well as keep it more secure and less vulnerable to hacking and suspicious attacks.

Beyond that, I’m overjoyed to be a WordCamp speaker as well. I love sharing knowledge with others and collaborating with like minds on powerful new ideas that can help shape WordPress and make it even better than before.

Shaping the Future of Content Management

It continues to amaze me how what once started as a small, ordinary blogging platform has blossomed into an absolute content management powerhouse. WordPress can become so many things: an e-commerce storefront, a message board, a membership site, and of course a blog. But I feel that, by and large, we’ve only scratched the surface of what WordPress can be.

I look forward to continuing to be able to provide outstanding WordPress development, maintenance and management services for all of the many iterations of WordPress that exist and will be created in the future. It’s going to be an exciting ride, and I can’t wait to see what’s next.