Why “WordPress Expert” is Not a Real Title?

Why “WordPress Expert” is Not a Real Title?

While discussing the WordPress industry and the rest of the business world, my friend Ajay reminded me of why “WordPress Expert” is not a real title.

Experts Everywhere

His comment made me think about the misconception of “expertism” that seems to be getting popularity around the WordPress experts who offer their services:

The issue with the WordPress industry is that anyone can be an expert because more often than not, they are dealing with those who aren’t experts or regular users wanting a blog.

Let’s take a step back and think about WordPress.

What is WordPress?

WordPress started as a blogging platform more than 10 years ago, and the active community grew it to be a platform that powers about 24% of the World Web. Nowadays WordPress is being used as a CMS, and even as an application platform. In a few months the WordPress Restful API will probably get in the WordPress Core, which would make it incredibly easy to run all sorts of applications – even mobile apps and ones not written in PHP – interacting with WordPress as a separate platform.

There are plenty of use cases for WordPress, which is what makes it one of the most powerful web platforms that have ever been built.

What Can You Do With WordPress?

There are lots of WordPress driven websites serving different needs. Some examples:

  • blog
  • magazine
  • small business website
  • eCommerce store
  • membership site
  • Q&A site
  • forum
  • LMS
  • CRM
  • Real estate portal
  • Marketplace

In addition to building a website itself, it’s a great way to start any venture.

How to Make $100,000 a Month Within 1 Year

Neil Patel challenged himself with a tough goal – making $100,000 a month from an entirely new business within one year.

Neil is a recognized marketing expert with a lot of exposure, but some of his business ideas are not closely related to his popularity.

Let’s see how is WordPress applicable in the three niches that he suggested.

  • Nutrition blog – since WordPress emerged as a blogging tool, this is a logical platform to start a nutrition blog. Neil’s suggestion is running ads and affiliate services, both are totally possible with WordPress and a number of popular plugins that run out of the box.
  • Mastermind group – creating a mastermind group includes some internal resources, probably a forum or another internal system for communication, payments and a basic membership functionality. bbPress, random membership plugin and PayPal integration can be bundled in no time.
  • A software company – given the fact that WordPress is a platform that could be turned into almost anything, that’s a great way to build any type of web software on top of the framework.

These are completely different ideas that target different niches, different skill sets, types of promotion or income. Yet, all of them could be launched with WordPress.

DigitalKidZ And WordPress

wordpress-awesome-xkcd

I’m speaking at a conference in May for kids. Since kids are now born in the Internet world and start using technology from day one, there is a lot of potential for each one of them to grow and develop itself in a given area.

My talk would be focused on WordPress and the endless possibilities to develop a skill with the platform. The lack of proper education means that the children can share their experience from school or their online discoveries with the other students. They can improve their grammar and the way they write, think and formulate their opinion in a way that’s entertaining and informing.

Some of them can show potential for copywriters.

Others can spend more time promoting their content to social networks, or dig into Google Analytics, and figuring out ways to get more kiddos communicating with them.

Another group can dig into building massive platforms, installing numerous plugins to their small websites. They may be interested in moving blocks around, or changing some technical bits and get their first lessons in web programming.

Or start designing a logo, then a background for their website, or even a complete theme.

There is so much potential in WordPress and it will likely become a necessity for everyone working online – just as the basic bits of HTML are often needed even for non-technical people working on content and minor changes.

How Does One Measure an Expert?

So, as per Ajay’s suggestion:

The issue with the WordPress industry is that anyone can be an expert because more often than not, they are dealing with those who aren’t experts or regular users wanting a blog.

I tend to disagree with that statement for one specific reason.

  • If I understand cars better than you, that does not make me a mechanic expert.
  • If I can play piano and someone else can’t, I’m not necessarily an expert musician.
  • If I can draw better apples than you, I’m nowhere near Picasso or Michelangelo.

The “Expert” title is applicable within a given niche. Experts are established after the recognition of other experienced people in a given industry.

That’s why technical conferences are crowded with experienced developers or administrators, willing to find out what the big guys in Google or Amazon do with their architecture. While there may be better, more experienced people with a longer track record of successful projects than the speakers, they have been recognized as experts by the vast majority of people working in the same industry.

What is a WordPress Expert?

If WordPress is so powerful and we could do anything with it – even beyond the technical aspects – then what is a WordPress Expert?

It’s just as vague and meaningless as Internet Expert. Or Newspaper Expert. Food Expert. Real Estate Expert.

If you’re an Internet Expert, what exactly are you supposed to know and do on a daily basis? Browsing websites and YouTube videos? Knowing when the Internet was created? Build the global network of cables transferring the traffic around the Internet? Writing articles about it?

Except that small business owners have no idea what is WordPress and they have a narrow expectation about the field. Therefore, with their limited knowledge of the platform, they’re looking for someone experienced in it.

Funny thing, though, since it’s so undefined in practice, a client can look for an experienced developer, marketer, content writer, customizer or VA – anything they need and believe that it’s all that WordPress does.

Last week I stumbled upon a great article – 9 truths that computer programmers know that most people don’t. My most favorite quote was the third fact:

“A programmer is not a PC repair man.” – Ritesh Kumar Gupta

A programmer is one who deals with algorithms and design principles, not the one who repairs a computer. We may know how the internal workings of a computer work, how code fits together (or rather hacked together as I explained in Fact #1). But, that does not mean we know how to fix hardware. That does not mean we know how to fix that issue you’re having with chrome that makes it crash every time you open it, or why your computer is always overheating and the battery dying. Computers programmers, at the least know how to program computers, not fix them.

Just as with the WordPress experts, people outside of an industry can easily fool themselves and hire a “WordPress Expert” for something completely outside of their skill set. And while the experts often blame the clients for being ignorant, it’s their fault for representing a vague set of skills that does not define their experience in a clear and unambiguous way.

And a fair share of the blame is to be put on clients for asking the wrong people for the wrong type of services.


My name is Mario Peshev, a global SME Business Advisor running digital businesses for 20 the past years.

Born in Bulgaria, Europe, I gained diverse management experience through my training work across Europe, North America, and the Arab world. With 10,000+ hours in consulting and training for organizations like SAP, VMware, CERN, I’ve dedicated a huge amount of my time to helping hundreds of SMEs growing in different stages of the business lifecycle.

My martech agency DevriX grew past 50 people and ranks as a top 10 WordPress global agency and Growth Blueprint, my advisory firm, has served 400+ SME founders and executives with monthly ongoing strategy sessions.


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