Each month Miramedia hosts a WordPress MeetUp at our offices at The House in Tunbridge Wells. These free sessions are open to anyone with an interest in WordPress, from designers to developers to marketers.

Our March Meetup was all about WooCommerce, the leading WordPress plugin for ecommerce sites.

Top-line figures show the impact WooCommerce has on the market, and it’s extensive reach

Launched on September 27, 2011
May 2015, WooThemes and WooCommerce were acquired by Automattic
Over 1,500 themes
Powered by Extensions
The CodeCanyon marketplace sells 1,348 WooCommerce plugins

42% of online stores use WooCommerce in 2018

WooCommerce is many, many times more popular than any of its competitors. It’s 6 times more popular than Magento or Shopify

Source: https://barn2.co.uk/woocommerce-stats/

Case Study: Puddlez

Puddlez is a “standard” online shop with all the expected shopping features. We used a purchased theme and a number of purchased plugins to handle the specific functionality required by the client.

Challenges:

The client wanted to migrate the site from a different platform. We therefore had to match the previous site’s functionality.
The existing site had hundreds of products on the previous platform that needed to be migrated to WooCommerce. We therefore had to carry out a data migration project.

Extensions used:

Weight Zone Shipping (different shipping prices based on how far and how heavy)
WooCommerce Add countries (Allows you to add extra counties to the country list)
WooCommerce Checkout Add-Ons (Add additional options e.g. next day delivery)
WooCommerce Helper (Helps manage woocommerce subscriptions and licences)
WooCommerce Print Invoices/Packing Lists
WooCommerce UK Counties (Adds UK counties list of American states for checkout)
Woocommerce WorldPay

Case Study: SignUK Showroom

FHG events company wanted to offer a showroom website to a number of key exhibitors. Visitors to the site would request PDF digital assets from the exhibitors: brochures, discount vouchers and other goodies. Once we collected the order, emails were sent out the various exhibitors to fulfil.

Challenges:

The client wanted no references to payment
Emails needed to be sent to a different group of exhibitors based on the order.

Extensions used:

– Advanced Notifications

Case Study: Win Chun Online University

The client wanted to run a membership scheme where visitors pay a monthly fee for content released within the month. The visitor can trial the site by viewing a number of pieces of free content.

Challenges:

Full online training system
Paid gateway for some courses.

Extensions Used:

wp_courseware
Sensei
Memberpress
Groups (group products I think)
Subscriptions

Case Study: Peavey

Working in partnership with copperleaf.media we helped complete the project.

The site is used as a picking list for high end entertainment hardware. Once selected the order is printed or emailed to the user.

Challenges:

Our main part of the project was to remove all references to price and shopping.

Extensions used:

Group Attributes
Product Bundles
Compare (products)
Social media share buttons

For more information, please visit wptw.co.uk, which also includes a video of the talk given by Miramedia’s Dominic Johnson.

New for 2018, we are updating our support offerings for all our clients. We aim to provide a consistent, easy to use support service across all sites, with a range of packages to suit your needs.

We have developed a 3 tier support system and believe that each package will meet the different requirements of our clients. These range from a free basic level with minimal handholding, through to a monthly retainer with full support.

What are the Support Packages?

Bronze

This is the free, entry-level pack for all sites except Bespoke sites. This is most recommended for our basic, level one Teal sites.

Silver

This includes a block £100/ 1.5 hours of support time, which can be used as needed. This package is included in the site license fees for all Byzantium sites and is the minimum requirement for Bespoke. Additional blocks can be purchased as needed.

Gold

Regular monthly invoice of a minimum of £100 per month for 1.5 hours time which is reviewed monthly. This is our recommended support package for Bespoke sites.

How will the Support Packages be Rolled Out?

All support packages will start when you launch a new site or at renewal of your existing site. When we speak to you about a new or renewed site, we will recommend the support package for your needs. In addition, we will also make some ideas for improving or upgrading your site, for example increasing site speed or look and feel.

If you would like to take advantage of a paid for support plan now, these are available for £100 for 1.5 hours (Silver) or £100 per month (Gold). Please contact us if interested.

What Kind of Site Do I Have?

If you’re not sure which kind of site you have, Teal, Byzantium, Bespoke or other, please contact us to find out.

You can read more about the support plans in this document here or contact us with any queries

If you’re a website owner it can be easy to take site security for granted, especially if you are more of a web user rather than a developer. WordPress Tunbridge Wells hoped to show us why security is so important and steps to take at their most recent meetup.

Every month, Miramedia host WordPress Tunbridge Wells (#WPTW), a free meet up held at The House on Monson Road. The sessions are split into two to three sections aimed at beginners to those with more technical experience.

The first session was aimed at beginners and was all about why security is so important and why your site might be vulnerable. Dominic Johnson, MD of Miramedia, led the talk and focused on simple steps site owners can take to secure their site, such as usernames and passwords, and suggestions for WordPress Plugins.

The second talk was by Spencer Nash of SGN Media, a practical guide which showed us how to secure our sites in under ten minutes. Steps included changing the login URL, creating editors not admins and installing JetPack, which limits login attempts. Further steps included hiding key files (wp-config.php and .htaccess) and using diable file editing.

The final slot was with Andrew Dixon of MSO was a more technical presentation on SSL certificates. These are used to create the https:// on websites, which shows users they are secure; this is especially important for any sites taking money or capturing user data. Andrew explained how they worked, and why they’re important, and the different types available. He then went on to cover other aspects such as which back up plugins are available, server security and how to configure the free version of Wordfence.

The talks always generate lots of discussion amongst the attendees and it was a great informal and friendly atmosphere, helped along by free pizza, beer and soft drinks. Many people are regulars, but there are always several new faces at each meet up.

If you want to learn more, all the talks can be found on the (fully secure!) WordPress Tunbridge Wells website and you can register for future #WPTW meet ups here.

GTR Connect

Intelligent Transport

New home pages for GITEX and ERTC

Supply Chain and Logistics Americas

Design in Mental Health

Our Site of the Month, Alternative AI for Professional Services, was built on our easy to use Teal theme, providing a simple to manage site for all users.

We’re pleased to launch a new visual composer element for our WordPress Conference Websites.

Previously, options to display a conference agenda, with speakers and seminars, were limited to a basic table layout. Functional, but not pretty OR user friendly.

We’ve been working on a new, easy-to-implement element which expands your ability to list out different tracks, speakers and time slots over multiple days. Users can view each track to see the variety of speakers, topics and breakout sessions over the course of the day.

Alternatively, if you have users who would like to see what is available at a particular time during the event, you can view all available sessions across different tracks at a chosen time.

This functionality is now available as a visual composer element on our Byzantium theme, replacing the need for bespoke design and build.

Want to know more? Please contact us!

BYZANTIUM THEME

Meet our new theme – BYZANTIUM

Examples:

https://www.sclsummit.com/
http://foodfraud.mira.cx/
http://www.scandinavianraildevelopment.com

The first step is to setup your site on Google Search Console (used to be called Google Webmaster tools).

Setup an account on Google Search Console.
Validate your site – here’s how to validate your conference website on google webmaster tools.
Add your site map – see below.
We have recently moved our sitemap plugin from BWP to Yoast. You’ll only have one installed:

Option 1: Using BWP Sitemaps, for Conference-Websites.co.uk

GOTO: Dashboard > BWP SiteMaps

Enable: Site Address

Disable: Posts

Your sitemap is <Event website URL>/sitemapindex.xml E.G. http://demo.conference-websites.co.uk/sitemap.xml

This will allow you to have a much better understanding on how Google and Google Users will interact with your site.

Option 2: Using Yoast, for Mira.cx

GOTO: Dashboard > SEO

Features: Switch on Advanced Settings pages

Dashboard > SEO > XML Sitemaps > Post types
– Turn off posts and media > Save changes

Your sitemap is <Event website URL>/sitemap_index.xml E.G. http://www.tech4health.co.uk/sitemap_index.xml

Q. I have a chairman and some panellists for a particular seminar session. How is the best way to display these different contributors?

A. Using Speaker Roles within the seminar system.

Q. But How do I do that?

A. Simple. Just follow these instructions:

1. Add 2 Speaker roles: Chairman & Panelist

ADMIN > SEMINARS > Speaker Roles

2. Set the order you want the roles to appear. E.g. Move the Chairman above the panelist.

ADMIN > SEMINARS > Speaker Role Order

3. Then assign the speaker roles for each seminar session with a chairman and a panelist. Edit the session, and select a panelist and a chairman.

ADMIN > SEMINARS > [Select a seminar] > Select Panelist in this Seminar

4. And the final result:

Switch to a Mobile version of a page

All mira.cx sites are responsive and so will be optimised to fit nicely onto a mobile device, be it phone or tablet.

However it might be that you want to write specific content for the user to see when they view the site on mobile – or more often than not, a cut down version of the page content.

To do this, open the page editor on the page you want to edit, and scroll to the bottom of the page. There is a field there labelled Mobile URL.