I have a confession to make. I’ve been hiding something from you for months. You are entitled to the truth.
WPMarmite has a little brother!
It’s called BeautifulPress. Here is a picture I took recently:
Let me reassure you, the newborn is doing well. Actually, he is 8 months old as I write this. Everything is going well.
So why did I hide this fact from you all this time? It’s a family member after all!
Well, I wanted to take the time. That’s all.
To tell you the truth, I have a lot of ideas for websites, plugins and projects in my head.
So when I set out, I try to do it right. I want to make sure I present you with a quality project.
And today, I feel it’s time to present BeautifulPress to you.
Overview
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BeautifulPress, a source of inspiration for WordPress website builders
If you couldn’t help but click on the link in the introduction, you must have understood that BeautifulPress is all about showcasing the best WordPress websites from around the world.
It’s a gallery or “showcase” of everything you can do with WordPress.
There are dozens of graphic inspiration sites. The best known is Awwwards. We can also mention OnePageLove or SiteInspire.
However, there was no gallery dedicated to WordPress worthy of the name.
That is to say, with a minimum of style, a regular update and which allows to find sites with a theme or a specific plugin (for example, sites based on Astra, designed with Elementor, WooCommerce stores, etc.).
With this in mind, I decided to embark on the BeautifulPress adventure! 🤠
Other reasons also pushed me to launch this project. We’ll talk about them by the end of this post. But first, let’s go back to…
The genesis of BeautifulPress
Few years ago, I launched a similar project with the difference that it targeted only French websites.
At the time, I was crusading against the famous “WordPress is for blogs”. My goal was to highlight the most beautiful WP sites, made in France.
Nevertheless, the project was abandoned due to lack of resources to keep it afloat.
After all, it takes a lot of work to maintain this kind of site. You have to find quality sites, take screenshots, write descriptions, integrate them with the right classifications…
Anyway, I couldn’t follow it. I even almost sold it at one point, but it didn’t happen.
That’s how WPdeFrance joined the graveyard of the web. This allowed me to devote my time to other projects (WPMarmite and the design of the WPChef WordPress training).
This abandonment bothered me but I had to move on.
With the success of WPMarmite, the idea of relaunching WPdeFrance was more and more tempting.
At that time, the English version of WPMarmite was already on the way. One thing leading to another, I said to myself:
Why limit yourself to France when you can target the world?
So I went for it and started working on a project for a website gallery dedicated to WordPress, entirely in English.
At the beginning of 2020, I was up like a cuckoo! That’s when I bought the BeautifulPress.net domain.
A lost year
My plan is going smoothly except… March comes. Covid-19 and all, you get the idea.
Anyway, I decide to play it safe and focus on WPMarmite.
By the end of December 2020, I’m boiling inside. I can’t take it anymore.
I have a lot of ideas and I don’t do anything with them…
If I continue like this, in 10 years BeautifulPress will still not be launched!
So I mobilize my team to put the project together:
- Keyword research for the SEO strategy.
- Website architecture.
- Design of mockups and logo.
- Building the website with Elementor Pro.
- Some custom development.
- Creation of social media profiles.
- Search for freelancers to help us.
Little by little, the machine is set up and the first sites are published in March 2021.
Since May, we manage to present more than 100 new WordPress websites every month on BeautifulPress. We should reach 1,000 references by the end of 2021.
The 3 other reasons for BeautifulPress
Earlier, I shared with you my desire to create a graphic inspiration site dedicated to WordPress.
This is one of the reasons I decided to launch BeautifulPress but not the only one.
Let’s look at the others.
1. Creating a network of sites
When you look at media companies, you realize that they don’t rely on a single site.
They owe their power to their network of sites.
In the WordPress ecosystem, Awesome Motive publishes WPBeginner and has launched/bought several WordPress plugins.
Within a network, each site can help the others to grow. Whether it is in terms of SEO, reputation, popularity or authority.
The more the network grows, the stronger it gets and the harder it is to compete with. It’s a virtuous circle.
In the long term, my goal is to create such a network within the WordPress ecosystem with:
- WPMarmite to offer tutorials and tests for the general public.
- BeautifulPress to inspire site builders around the world.
- And more sites in the future to cover other aspects of WordPress.
I’ll tell you about the new members of the WPMarmite family in due course. 😉
2. Adding a revenue stream (eventually)
We’re not going to lie, WPMarmite is a commercial company. Launching a project like BeautifulPress also has a business interest.
At least for now, it’s more of a wasteful investment! 😵
Getting a site off the ground is not easy, even with a site the size of WPMarmite behind it.
A seed has been planted and we are watering it. A little flower has just bloomed but it is still fragile.
We still need to take care of it before it can grow to great heights.
Cute metaphors, aren’t they?
On a more serious note, BeautifulPress can be monetized in several ways:
- Affiliation: on products and services related to WordPress and site creation. Today, this only concerns Bluehost but it is anecdotal.
- Paid site submission: the day we will be overwhelmed by free submissions.
- Sponsored posts: if one day we add a blog dedicated to web design.
- Selling digital products: why not help the readers to learn web design like SmashingMagazine does?
Nevertheless, you should not miss any steps. Before looking at these tracks, BeautifulPress has to develop.
And for that, we need to gain positions on Google, convert visitors into subscribers to our newsletter and grow our audience on social media.
Quite a program, isn’t it? Which brings me to the last point.
3. Starting from scratch (or almost)
Launching a website, ranking it, making it known… What a thrill!
It reminds me of my beginnings in 2011. At the time, I didn’t know much about the web. I was a student trying to make a living from my blog.
Today, I want to feel that again.
BeautifulPress will allow us to experiment, test our knowledge and most importantly… learn new things!
Now that we have the team behind BeautifulPress in place, we’ll be able to shift gears to gain top 3 positions on a number of requests.
What’s next for BeautifulPress
What’s going to happen to BP (that’s its code name) in the coming months?
First, you guessed it, the official promotion has begun. 😎
Today, we present it to the WordPress community.
Still, we’ve got a lot to do. Here’s an overview of what’s ahead of us to make BP a must-have site:
- Reach the 1,000 sites milestone by the end of 2021.
- Continue our link acquisition strategy (by the way, you can talk about BP on your site/blog to give us a hand).
- Change the site submission form to ask people for a little more information (we only ask for URLs to limit friction at first).
- Automate and delegate tasks to save time and move the project forward without me.
- To rank on our target queries in order to obtain a constant flow of visitors.
- Converting visitors into newsletter subscribers (and then onto our social media).
If BeautifulPress could get 100 visitors a day and 1,000 newsletter subscribers in the next 6 months, that would be a great accomplishment.
To be honest, I’m putting these numbers totally randomly. We’ll see what it actually looks like at that point. 😬
Anyway, I’m curious to hear your thoughts on this. Seeing a new member arrive in a family, that doesn’t happen every day!
Tell me all about it in the comments.
In the meantime, head over to BeautifulPress to start an inspirational quest. 🔥