Text me if you can! – How to build a website when your client’s business is to run a business, not a website

Micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises (MSME) make up for 90% of all firms globally, provide 70% of employment, and account for 50% of the world’s GDP. Also, 60% of small businesses don’t have a website. Getting, and maintaining, a website is too complex, too expensive, and too time-consuming for many. The arguable solution to this problem are 80 million Facebook pages, but running a Facebook page has been ruled basically illegal in Europe by the European Court of Justice until Facebook up their game in providing page owners better insights into the processing of visitor data.

WordPress prides itself to power 33% of the top 10 million websites, however, when you do the math, that’s 3.3 million sites rated by an algorithm owned by an Amazon company (Alexa). Shouldn’t we be more concerned of those 90% of the world’s economy almost two thirds of which are not represented on the open web?

This talk explores an idea, an experiment, a rudimentary proof of concept, and a dream: To really and truly simplify the process of keeping a website up to date down to the every-day digital stack of an every-day person. That is: to really and truly democratise publishing on the open web.

Transcript

1. @glueckpress #TextWP CC BY-SA 4.0 TEXT ME IF YOU CAN! BUSINESS IS NOT A WEBSITE YOUR CLIENT’S How to build a website when to run a business, BUSINESS IS NOT A WEBSITE YOUR CLIENT’S
2. wclx.glck.be wclx.glck.be +49 157 359 910 87 #TextWP @glueckpress CC BY-SA 4.0 +49 157 359 910 87 Watch your SMS fees! Images Markdown ‛ “
3. wclx.glck.be wclx.glck.be #TextWP @glueckpress CC BY-SA 4.0 #TEXTWP Tweet for free ‛ “ #TEXTWP Images Markdown
4. #TextWP @glueckpress CC BY-SA 4.0 Micro, small, and medium- sized Enter- prises S ME M ME S M
5. MSME: 90% of firms 70% of total employment 50% of GDP GLOBALLY #TextWP @glueckpress CC BY-SA 4.0 Formal and informal micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises reduce poverty. United Nations (@UN) World government (of some sorts)
6. 60% of MSME globally don’t have a website. #TextWP @glueckpress CC BY-SA 4.0 Getting a website is too complex, too expensive, too time-consuming.
7. #TextWP @glueckpress CC BY-SA 4.0 Eighty million Facebook pages Facebook pages are illegal until Facebook give page owners proper insights into the processing of visitor data.* European Court of Justice (@EUCourtPress) Press release no 81/18, 5 June 2018
8. #TextWP @glueckpress CC BY-SA 4.0 Ralf, Cross Media Cloud Steph Torsten Ralf Wiechers (@drivingralle) Cross Media Cloud In all my years as a web agency, I have had about two clients who would actually use their CMS.
9. #TextWP @glueckpress CC BY-SA 4.0 Torsten, freelance WordPress dev Ralf Steph Torsten Landsiedel (@zodiac1978) Freelance WordPress developer Most of my clients don’t have the bandwidth to think about, and execute, 
 a full content strategy. They text all the time, tho.
10. #TextWP @glueckpress CC BY-SA 4.0 Tap. Type. Take a picture. PUBLISHING Democratise ✌ PUBLISHING Democratise ✌ (I know, I know)
11. #TextWP @glueckpress CC BY-SA 4.0 Feature Phones and Smartphones together make up for 97% of all mobile connections world-wide. Even low-end Feature Phones come with a pre-installed text messenger. There are over 5 billion unique mobile users: 67% of humanity potentially know how to use this UI. + + =
12. TOP elling WordPress ? STOP elling WordPress ? S #TextWP @glueckpress CC BY-SA 4.0 What if we
13. #TextWP @glueckpress CC BY-SA 4.0 1 2 3 4 5 6 BUSINESS IS NOT A WEBSITE YOUR CLIENT’S How to build a website when to run a business, BUSINESS IS NOT A WEBSITE YOUR CLIENT’S
14. Study they do WHAT WHAT #TextWP @glueckpress CC BY-SA 4.0 Do not ask they want. Study they do 1
15. #TextWP @glueckpress CC BY-SA 4.0 S EYEBALL SELL S EYEBALL SELL Do not websites. 2
16. CONTENT CONTENT TEACH TO TEACH TO #TextWP @glueckpress CC BY-SA 4.0 USE WORDPRESS USE WORDPRESS Do not teach your clients to use WordPress. your clients’ 3
17. partnerships #TextWP @glueckpress CC BY-SA 4.0 MAINTAIN MAINTAIN Do not code. partnerships 4
18. #TextWP @glueckpress CC BY-SA 4.0 *clears throat*
19. PLATFORM #TextWP @glueckpress CC BY-SA 4.0 CLIENT CLIENT PLATFORM Do not spread thin between fragmented client projects. base Unify your into a 5
20. #TextWP @glueckpress CC BY-SA 4.0 Noel Tock (@noeltock) CGO and Partner at Human Made We don’t have enough consumer- or business-first WordPress platforms in the ecosystem. Strong on-boarding, strong UX, an extremely well curated marketplace of third-party plugins for core businesses and marketing needs – these are the opportunities if you want to reach customers directly.
21. #TextWP @glueckpress CC BY-SA 4.0 Kundai Gwatidzo (@epicpewpew) Security consultant, Harare, ZW The majority of makers of WordPress sites barely put in decent security measures. A well curated platform for makers is long overdue. Ngoni Mhuruyengwe (@ngonimhuru) Developer, Harare, ZW The idea of using text messages to update a local business or news website might be for a small niche, but the impact could be widespread.
22. FORM FORM S ALLIANCE ALLIANCES #TextWP @glueckpress CC BY-SA 4.0 Do not go on your own. 6
23. For real, now… @glueckpress #TextWP CC BY-SA 4.0 TEXT ME! +49 152 28 75 50 28 +49 152 28 75 50 28 WhatsApp Telegram Signal