How Large Companies Use WordPress for Publishing

Anil Gupta, CEO and Co-Founder multi dot.

With 64.2% market share, WordPress is the most popular content management system. It is highly rated for its simplicity, scalability, and Google affinity.

Large companies like Microsoft use the same open source WordPress CMS as hobby bloggers and small businesses. However, there are significant differences in publishing workflows and overall WordPress usage among these user groups.

So what’s most important for enterprise brands using WordPress to manage their websites?

If you’re a WordPress expert looking to work with high paying clients, you need to know the answer to this question.

This article summarizes the WordSesh workshops we were honored to conduct in May 2022. With his 10 years of experience, I can pinpoint the 7 key ingredients that make up a successful enterprise WordPress setup.

structure

Large companies often have complex business structures with multiple product lines, divisions, and international operations. This complexity also leads to complex website structures.

So a standard single WordPress instance that works well for small websites may not work well for enterprise websites.

We recommend that you consider two implementations.

multisite

You can create multiple websites (one master WordPress setup with multiple child websites) and decide how you want to configure control and resource sharing between them.

Ask Media Group, for example, leveraged WordPress’ multisite architecture to host web properties (including Ask.com), gaining the flexibility to easily update content, design, and user sharing across them. I’m here.

headless

A basic website creates and publishes content within the same WordPress backend. In a headless implementation either of these activities occur elsewhere.

For example, Sneaker News has four WordPress websites and their branded mobile app. They use a headless architecture, maintaining a central repository of sneaker-related content (not WordPress) and aggregating the same into a web property using REST APIs.

compliance

With a huge customer base across continents, we have to comply with various web regulations. For example, if a client operates in his EU, he must comply with GDPR, one of the toughest web privacy laws in the world.

CCPA, AODA, and ADA are examples of compliances that must be addressed when operating a corporate website.

Advise clients to make their websites accessible to all user groups, even if they are not legally obligated to do so. This is correct.

Plugins like accessiBe and CookiePro help tick all the boxes to meet accessibility, GDPR and cookie compliance requirements. You can also use this handy list from W3C to find the right tool for your client’s compliance needs.

speed to publication

Massive amounts of data, such as editorial team size, monthly visitor numbers, and page counts, complicate the publishing process for companies.

Publishing speed is a critical success metric for enterprise editorial teams in the media and news industry (a time-sensitive industry). In fact, 80% of the companies I’ve worked with cite speed of publishing as their biggest frustration with other CMSes.

So how can you improve your publishing speed?

We encourage you to simplify your content creation experience as much as possible.

For example, Wonderwall.com, a well-known celebrity news website, uses a custom drag-and-drop Gutenberg interface for its media library, allowing users to select the images (celebrity biodata) they need to publish their work faster. ) can be quickly found, including meta information such as

Another effective way to reduce publish time is to use reusable blocks in Gutenberg.

performance

Every brand needs a fast-loading website. This is because site speed has a huge impact on user experience and Google rankings, which in turn has a huge impact on conversion rates and revenue.

However, the impact of a slow-loading website is far greater for businesses. Also, the complexity of his corporate website makes it difficult to achieve optimal performance.

In particular, media websites (such as TechCrunch) serve a global audience with advertising revenue as their primary monetization strategy (meaning there are a lot of resource-wasting ad integrations). .

While the usual speed optimization best practices apply to corporate websites, we recommend paying special attention to three key areas:

• Follow all coding standards to write clean and optimized code.

• Invest in a managed hosting platform built for enterprise websites, such as WordPress VIP.

• Use fast content delivery networks for multimedia-intensive websites.

safety

Corporate websites process sensitive user information. It is their responsibility to protect user privacy.

Since these websites are well-known brands, they are obviously easy targets for hackers. Security is therefore an important issue for enterprise clients.

We recommend approaching security with two approaches: protecting the system and protecting the user. Also this:

• Follow coding best practices when developing custom themes and plugins.

• Implement a secure WordPress configuration using plugins such as Wordfence.

• Use a reliable hosting server with the highest level of security, such as WordPress VIP.

• Enforce two-factor authentication (2FA) and strong passwords for all user logins.

• Provide cybersecurity training to users on how to use WordPress safely.

integration

Corporate teams use a variety of third-party tools to monitor various business KPIs.

You often need to integrate your tech stack with your WordPress website to streamline things like:

• Paywall

• Digital Asset Management (DAM)

• User analysis

• Marketing

• Safety

We recommend solidifying your knowledge of the REST API and writing custom plugins to integrate tools that don’t have them.

support

Your company runs a mission-critical business. When a website experiences an error that leads to downtime, it can cause serious damage in terms of brand reputation, lost revenue, and more.

Reliable support and maintenance is therefore essential for enterprise WordPress clients. As a WordPress professional, your client service strategy should include:

• Training material for editorial teams on correct usage of the WordPress backend.

• SLA-level support, including 24/7 technical support in the client’s time zone.

If you’re working on getting an enterprise client, or if you’re already working on several large WordPress websites, make sure you and your team focus on these 7 key areas.

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