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If you missed it watching it live, which you would have as they had technical issues with the streaming, here’s the recorded video: State of the Word 2026.

It’s two hours long. I’ve viewed about half of it, starting with Matt Mullenweg’s keynote. My main takeaway is that the project is laying the foundation for AI and is on track with delivering core functions.

The Repository has published a great roundup:

State of the Word 2025: AI, Education, and a Community Holding Steady Through a “Rollercoaster” Year

You can currently get Partner Membership for $99/year instead of $499 — and that rate is locked in for life.

The Partner tier is designed for organizations that want more visibility on WP BizDev and the opportunity to network and learn from other growth-focused professionals in our private community.

Partner Membership includes:

• A Partner Profile in our Directory
• Unlimited announcements
• Unlimited job postings
• Monthly online meetups for Partners
• Access to our private Partner Community
• Partner-only discounts

Plus, you’ll receive three free Pro Memberships for your team (normally $99/year each).

Get the deal here.

Rodolfo Melogli is organizing Checkout Summit; the “first independent IRL conference for WooCommerce Makers” – if you work with WooCommerce or Ecommerce more generally, this is one for you.

You should attend just to experience Palermo, which is a great city. I’m Italian, so can vouch for that 🙂

What struck me in the interview is that Rodolfo mentions that AI has killed his business. He’s referring to the publishing side 0f Business Bloomer, which he grew over the years by publishing very high quality content… that no doubt that AI has scraped to ‘learn’ more about WooCommerce and provide answers directly.

(An aside before I forget, if you’re a publisher or publishing is a key Marketing strategy, you should follow State of Online Publishing)

In the interview Rodolfo mentions that there haven’t really been any in-person WooCommerce events for a while. He’s fixing that with Checkout Summit. He also mentioned the growing number of independent (non-WordCamp) events that are being organised, and I think we can all agree that a reason for that is that online has become noisy, busy and often ineffective as a grow driver.

You can listen to the interview here – I highly recommend it.

If you can, go to the event. It promises to be great for content, connecting and stuffing your face with the best food Italy offers 🙂

James works for WordPress VIP and neck deep into the WordPress for Enterprise space, which is very different from what most folks in the ecosystem know. He blog post – Enterprise Doesn’t Doubt WordPress. They Doubt Us – highlights a couple of important points:

“WordPress is ready for the enterprise moment ahead, but our ecosystem isn’t telling the right story.”

and…

“Enterprise Doesn’t Need Another CMS Pitch. They Need A Vision.”

and…

“Agencies are on the Front Line of What Comes Next”

and… many more great points. Read the article, already! 🙂

I also agree that the project is well placed for the AI-future, whatever that is. The platform is structurally ready for it, and the very nature of its open development model means it can iterate faster than closed and commercially-driven propriety systems.

James also makes a critical point that agencies serving any market segment (so not just Enterprise) should consider:

We have the credibility. We have the track record. We have the logos and the scale and the years of proof. What we need now is the mindset shift; to operate more like GSIs and less like implementers. To walk into enterprise environments not with a list of WordPress features, but with a point of view on how to solve the problems that sit across the martech stack.

Teams want full-pipeline thinking. They want integration strategy. They want help navigating governance, orchestration, data flow, and collaboration. They want someone to understand how their content interacts with the rest of their systems and how it ultimately contributes to business outcomes.

WordPress fits into that world far more naturally than most people realise. It’s flexible, it’s interoperable, it’s structured when you need it to be and open when you want to innovate. But it only reaches its potential when we position it as part of the martech ecosystem, not standing apart from it.

I talked about something similar at this year’s Agency Summit in the context of AI and businesses needing to integrate and orchestrate solutions together.

And even in my recent interview of Shoaib Khan Khattak of  CyberPanel, discussing how agencies can package a WordPress + n8n offering.

I’m looking at this from the point of view of a small agency or a freelance dev. If you think with a more “Enterprise mindset” you’ll end up with a stronger and more appealing offering for smaller businesses. And eventually land Enterprise clients too. Not only that, you’re doing WordPress a favour, helping change the ‘free is crappy’ perception.

One final point.

James says that the ecosystem is not telling the right story. I agree with 100%. But I also think that the project should lead this endeavour.  The project needs Marketing.

There are, like, 300 WordPress businesses dropping Black Friday deals.

They all feature a Black Friday deals page like this one.

So we have 300 of such pages linking to 300 deals.

That’s a fair amount of work for Marketer on any one of these brands. Is it worth the hassle?

I might run a similar exercise for WP BizDev to find out.

I interviewed Brian Jackson, ex Kinsta (CMO) and co-founder of forgemedia, makers of Perfmatters.

Brian is the Godfather of Content Marketing in the WordPress space, and his efforts were foundational to Kinsta’s success.

I interviewed as part of the Excerpt Talks series I am doing at WPBakery.

It was an interesting talk, as you can imagine.

Brian Jackson on Content Marketing, Brand Building & WordPress in the Age of AI

I should also add that I’ve been using Perfmatters on this website for a couple of years now and I couldn’t recommend it more.

Great write up by Jamie Marsland about an important dynamic in B2B Sales, that your brand will not be considered if it’s not already known.

He’s referring to an article published by the Harvard Business Review in 2022: What B2Bs Need to Know About Their Buyers.

If this statistic scares you consider this other one too: Only 1% to 5% of your total addressable market (TAM) is in-market to buy right now.

So, if your brand is not known, your chances to be considered are very very small.

Read Jamie’s article: 90% of Buyers Won’t Shortlist You Unless They Know and Trust Your Brand – Research Reveals

I’ll be joining Miriam Schwab and Bogdan Condurache at the Atarim Web Agency Summit on a panel to discuss the shift to no-code and what it means for agencies.

📅 April 8, 2025 8:00am EST / 10:00pm AEST
🎟️ Register for free

It’s a 5-day event packed with interesting talks an discussions, as well as networking lounges and sponsor booths where you can play spin the wheel to win prizes 🙂

The event takes place on Tuesday, April 15 at 10:00 am  – Americas (CDT) | APAC (AEST) | EMEA (GMT).

A couple of interesting talks for Marketers:

10:00 AM-10:15 AM – Our commitment to the community, by Heather Brunner, WP Engine’s CEO

View the full agenda and register here: WP Engine Decode 2025 – Agenda

Great article on Backlinko for those looking to start a blog and researching a topic to cover.

Shannon Willoby, the author, provides a ton of detail for each of these topics:

1. Artificial Intelligence (AI)
2. Digital Marketing
3. Cybersecurity
4. Meal Prep
5. Wellness
6. Home Remodeling
7. Debt Management
8. Pet Health
9. B2B Sales
10. Weight Loss
11. Skincare
12. Productivity
13. Real Estate Investment
14. Financial Management
15. Self-Care
16. Career Development
17. Green Technology
18. B2C Sales
19. Consumer Tech
20. Health
21. Books
22. Cryptocurrency
23. Remote Work
24. Web Design
25. Passive Income

Read the post here: 25 Best Blog Niche Ideas (Data Study)

SEO is not dead, it seems.

A couple of interesting points:

• ChatGPT is by far the most used AI tool
• It’s used about a third as much as DuckDuckGo

Here’s the link: New Research: Google Search Grew 20%+ in 2024; receives ~373X more searches than ChatGPT

Post your questions about growing a WordPress business here.

Just so you know, you’re not allowed to promote your products or services.

Don’t forget to read the Community Rules too.

Justin Arnold, Head of Content Marketing at Atarim, covers an important topic for both product businesses and agencies: when and how to raise prices.

Here’s an interesting observation:

When you’re landing a new client, there should always be a negotiation about the prices.

If you don’t experience this, and your clients agree very quickly, it may be a sign that your rates are low – and you need to increase them.

Read the full article here: How To Plan & Execute a Successful Price Increase

Another great article on WinningWP: How YouTube’s Evolution is Reshaping Content Creation and Traditional Publishing

If you’re a publisher or run a blog, like I am, it’s time to re-consider your content strategy and see how video can play a central role.

How folks are consuming content has changed dramatically in the last couple years, and that’s not even considering how AI is disrupting search. I’m seeing this in my Google Analytics and will have to adapt too.

Great piece by WinningWP on what the big changes we’re seeing with Google and AI mean for WordPress website.

The Death of Google Search: A Looming Crisis for WordPress Websites

We’re discounting Pro and Partner Membership pricing for those living in regions where market and economic dynamics are different: South America, Africa, Middle East, Oceania (except ANZ).

• Pro Membership: $49 / year, instead of $99
• Partner Membership: $299 / year, instead of $499

Community Membership remains free, of course.

For more information about what each tier offers, see our Join For Free page

Introduced as: Exploring WordPress through conversations with leading developers and creatives.

The latest episode is an interview with Jessica Lyschik, a developer at Greyd:

Building a Block Theme for 1 Million Users ft. Jessica Lyschik

Subscribe via your favorite Podcast player.

He’s looking for sponsorship too.

Here’s the playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLCE-YSAYYVd4d6H6pXV_xvPbyg8EzYiUd

WordCamp Asia 2025 organizers have announced the first batch of speakers:

• Katie Keith of Barn2 Plugins (EMEA)
• Nirmal Desai of CreedAlly (APAC)
• Riad Benguella of Automattic (EMEA)
• Jo Minney of House Digital (APAC)
• James Giroux of WordPress VIP (Americas)

I’m going to keep track of where speakers are from as well as where their companies are from too, as I did for WordCamp Asia 2024.

The organizers are aiming to have 60% of local representation, which would be just about twice as much as the previous event (27%). This would be a great result.

It seems like everyone’s giving Bluesky a go, which is great news. Good to have more choice.

If you’re on Bluesky feel free to connect: https://bsky.app/profile/wpbizdev.bsky.social

If you’re not, give it a go!