He is an avid blogger and an ambitious individual. A WordPress plugin and theme developer par excellence, he is a true advocate of WordPress. In his own words, “I have always tried to spread the word and convince people to use WordPress.” He loves to travel and meet people of different cultures. He started blogging in 2007, and has never looked back since then. He eats, he breathes, and he lives WordPress.
Today, we have Peter Nilsson, the owner of WP Daily Themes, with us. He shares his candid views about the current standing of WordPress within the market, the need for improvements within WordPress core, his interest in traveling and meeting people of different cultures, and his ambitions about the year 2015.
Enjoy reading!
Cloudways: Based in Sweden, indeed one of the most beautiful countries of the world, you are involved in WordPress for more than 7 years. How was your overall experience? When did you realize to start your own business?
Peter Nilsson: I started blogging with Google’s blog platform, Blogger back in 2007, and I quickly saw the potential of blogging and realized that I wanted so much more. Blogger was no longer an option so I switched to WordPress with self-hosted installation.
A new world opened up and since then I have been working with one of the best and most popular (CMS) Content Management System in the world: WordPress. In the year 2009, I started my own business and has been working with WordPress, and I really love it.
Cloudways: You are now a WordPress enthusiast and also encourage others to use it. When you started blogging, there were many platforms. What made you opt WordPress to work on?
Peter Nilsson: I liked the flexibility of WordPress because there are no limits for what you can do and create with WordPress. You can create a personal blog, e-commerce site, social networking site, directory, forums, etc. And there is always help available through forums, tutorials or you can simply search on search engines for tips or solutions.
As long as I’ve been using WordPress, I have always tried to spread the word and convince people to use WordPress. I still do!
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Cloudways: What was the thought behind WP Daily Themes? How did this blog start? What is your content strategy and how often do you post on this blog? What are your plans for next five years?
Peter Nilsson: I have always been interested in WordPress themes and plugins. Unfortunately, I’m not a web designer, so I did the next best thing and started to write about themes and plugins. One thing led to another and I started WP Daily Themes in hope the website would be a useful resource for WP users.
The content is focused on themes, plugins, and everything related to WordPress. I have big plans for WP Daily Themes next year and I am really looking forward to a great 2015.
I am a frequent blogger and publish about 5 to 6 articles every week. My plan for the future and the next 5 years is to continue working with WordPress in every possible way.
Cloudways: You also enjoy reading articles from other WordPress influencers. I also write for WordPress. I wish some day, I will be in your list too. From whom do you get inspired the most? Name any five people.
Peter Nilsson: You are definitely on my list. Other great people who write about WordPress and I really enjoy reading are: Sarah Gooding, Kevin Muldoon, Tom Ewer, Raelene Wilson, Joe Fylan.
Cloudways: You love the WordPress community, and there is no doubt about that. Being a WordPress blogger and community guy, where do you see WordPress in the next five years?
Peter Nilsson: I think WordPress is a great platform and I am convinced that WordPress’ popularity will increase and we should also hope for an increase market share as well.
But I also think WordPress (self-hosted) must innovate, improve and simplify things like the whole process for users from creating database to installation. If possible, I think more people will start using WordPress as application platform rather than a CMS.
Another thought I have is, do we really need a new default theme every year? Why not as an alternative, build a drag-and-drop framework in the core so users themselves can create frontpage and pages exactly as they want it!
Cloudways: Tell me something about your life. What do you do other than writing and reading about WordPress? What are your daily activities? Any interests like music, traveling, etc.
Peter Nilsson: Besides working with WordPress, I love to travel and experience new countries, culture and people. My wife is from Thailand so we try to go there every Winter to get away from the cold in Sweden.
Another of my favorite countries is Australia. Other interests include: exercise, walking, running and outdoor sports.
Cloudways: WordCamps are so important nowadays in the WordPress community. Did you get a chance to attend any? What are your views about these events?
Peter Nilsson: Unfortunately, I haven’t had the opportunity to attend a WordCamp. But if a WordCamp is arranged in Sweden, or neighboring countries, I will definitely attend. I think WordCamp is an amazing concept to meet other like-minded people who share the same interest.
Cloudways: WordPress groups on Facebook and Google+ are growing day by day. There are many communities that have thousands of members and you get response to your WordPress issues right away. What do you think about these communities?
Peter Nilsson: Personally I think it is really great with all kinds of communities where you can discuss, share ideas, get help with everything related to WordPress. But it is almost impossible to participate in all forums and groups on various social media. So you have to be selective and choose the groups you appreciate and find interesting.
Cloudways: You have a great experience of using themes and plugins. Tell us which theme and plugin you like the most and why?
Peter Nilsson: When it comes to WordPress themes, I have no personal favorite. But I like themes with simple design, look and feel. Regarding WordPress plugins, there are many great plugins for different purposes and depending what your type of site you run, you really need a combination of plugins to create a perfect solution for your website.
To name a few plugins I must-have on my website are:
- Akismet to protect my blog from spam comments
- VaultPress to make secure backups
- WP Rocket to boost the performance and speed
- WordPress SEO by Yoast to improve my site’s SEO
- Sucuri AntiVirus service for malware detection and protection
Cloudways: We offer a 1-click WordPress installation on our Cloud Hosting Platform. What are your views about the speed and infrastructure? What other steps can be taken to make this platform even better?
Peter Nilsson: I tried a DigitalOcean plan on Cloudways and launched a server with WordPress in minutes. Very impressive. Very easy to setup and manage. All possible features that you need are built-in, and I’m pleasantly surprised that it worked so well.
Everything loads very fast even with low memory size. I played around and tested a lot of features such as backups. It works perfectly. This is really great product that I really can recommend.
You can follow Peter Nilsson on Twitter.
Owais Khan
Owais works as a Marketing Manager at Cloudways (managed hosting platform) where he focuses on growth, demand generation, and strategic partnerships. With more than a decade of experience in digital marketing and B2B, Owais prefers to build systems that help teams achieve their full potential.