In less than a week, I’ll be in front of a crowd of WordPress enthusiast at WordCamp Sacramento 2019. I am a mix of more excited than I’ve been in a long time (or ever) with a touch of nervousness about speaking in front of a room full of people.
I’ve fended off much of the nervousness with a healthy dose of preparation, though. My session is on Saturday, September 21 at 10:40 Am in the Dagobah room. This year WordCamp Sacramento is all Star Wars themed.
If you’re coming to WordCamp Sacramento and have nothing planned for this session, come. Hopefully, I’ll deliver a healthy blend of information and entertainment. I couldn’t help but throw some entertainment in there given the topic of mine is WaaS. Say it aloud.
Here’s a brief overview of the topics I’ll be covering in my talk.
But first! Here’s the official name and description of my talk from the WordCamp Sacramento page for my session:
Use WordPress Multisite To Create Your Own Website As A Service (WaaS)
And the description:
You will learn what Website as a Service (or WaaS) is, everything to consider before starting one, and the beginning steps of starting your own WordPress.com-like site. You’ll learn a few options for setting up WaaS with WordPress multisite and a few plugins options.
Now for some of the overview for my talk and the slides too. There’s not a whole lot of value in the slide notes without my talk so I left those out.
I’m going to cover the following:
What’s WordPress Multisite
Without knowledge of this at a basic knowledge my session falls flat. So, I started by covering it briefly.
What’s a SaaS?
Again, this is extremely important to understand in order to know what a WaaS is.
What the heck is a WaaS?
Finally, I smush the two together into what a WaaS is. Website as a Service in case you’re still wondering. It’s what you get when you combine SaaS with WordPress multisite.
The Biggest WaaS
I can’t mention WaaS without mentioning WordPress.com which is the biggest WaaS in the world.
Why Build A WaaS?
Why would you build a WaaS instead of separate WordPress installations? Here are some great reasons.
- Consistency
- Central control
- Updates
- Fast delivery
- Productize offerings
- Simplify training
- SLA (Service Level Agreement)
- Automate more
- Lower support costs
Examples of WaaS’s
I did a survey of some of the WaaS community for people OK with me sharing their WaaS.
Domain Structure
There are three different domain structures for WordPress multisite and a WaaS. Subfolders, subdomains, and top-level domain.
Managing Users
It’s easier to manage users in WordPress with one account for all sites.
Important Considerations
- Whitelabel
- License
- Register in every site
- Register in wp-config file
- Register in network admin dashboard
- Is it legal?
- WordPress repository GPL license
- Not sure? Ask!
- Are plugins multisite compatible?
The Fine (Legal) Line
What separates a WaaS from a host? In some cases not much but for others quite a lot.
Whitelabel
Do you want people to know you’re using WordPress or the plugins? If not, think about whitelabel options.
Client Experience
- Manual
- Automated
- Hybrid
WaaS Challenges
WaaS can be easier for something and more complex for others. These are things that could be made more complex and you need to think about how to deal with them for clients.
- DNS
- Hosting
- Database
How I built my first WaaS
I go over how I built my first WaaS, the hard way.
How to automate a WaaS
There’s an easy plugin to create your own WaaS like WordPress.com. I’ll cover it briefly and what it lets you do.
Facebook Group
There’s a great Facebook group dedicated to the topic of all things WaaS. You can check out the WaaS Facebook group here.
Closing
That’s it for what I cover in my talk. You can check out the slides on my website and the talk will be this Saturday at WordCamp Sacramento. If you haven’t purchased a ticket yet then you better get busy because they’ll surely be gone soon.