Vikas Kanoongo

Senior Recruiter @AwesomeMotive | Hiring #WordPress Developers

[Vikas Kanoongo @vikaskanoongo]

🚀 Exciting Job Opportunity! 🌟

Join our @AwesomeMotive team as a #WordPress #eCommerce Developer. Looking for experience in billing/payment systems, preferably with Easy Digital Downloads (https://t.co/OtVCNqkyQk). 100% Remote. Please DM me.

📢 #Hiring

[Syed Balkhi @syedbalkhi]

WPBeginner turns 17 today!

It's wild to think about that number. The 19-year old me college student would have never imagined the impact and scale.

I had no roadmap or plan of where the journey would lead. The goal was simple: write WordPress tutorials for non-techy beginner users.

Fast forward to today, our products are used by over 30 million websites, and this is only possible because of our incredible community who have supported us every step of the way.

I've been lucky more than anything else, and I want to say thank you to our community ❤️

To celebrate the milestone, we're giving away $10,000 in prizes as a small thank-you.

https://t.co/DS5EOeEGTR

Grateful for every one of you. Here's to an incredible next year :)

[Syed Balkhi @syedbalkhi]

Translating my brands with leading SaaS translation tools would have cost us 7 figures annually!

For WPBeginner alone, six figures.

So last year I tried every well-known WordPress translation plugin instead.

Every single one slowed our admin to a crawl. Our post editor was practically unusable.

On our WooCommerce / EDD stores, the lag hit the entire checkout. Bad for conversions. Worse for revenue.

I kept thinking: why is this so hard?

In 2026, AI is good enough that small businesses shouldn't have to choose between site speed and going global.

So I asked our team to build the translation platform we actually wanted to use.

Today I'm sharing it with you. It's called Universally.

AI translates your entire website in minutes. Translations live on our cloud, not your database. So your site stays fast. Often faster, because we deliver from edge servers worldwide.

Multilingual SEO is fully automated. Hreflang tags, translated metadata, clean URLs, RTL support. All of it.

We've already translated 250M+ words during our private beta.

WordPress is live today.

Shopify, Wix, Webflow, and Squarespace are next coming very soon.

The free plan is genuinely free. No credit card required. You can have your site running in a second language in under 10 minutes.

If you've put off translating because it felt too expensive, too technical, or too fragile, this is for you.

Try it → https://t.co/SiawXsLo6m

[Syed Balkhi @syedbalkhi]

Introducing AI Quiz Builder for WordPress

Simply describe the quiz you want in plain English, and WPForms AI will build it.

Questions, scoring, outcomes, everything.

You can use it to create:

- Graded Quizzes - automatically score with instant feedback. Great for courses, certifications, trainings, and trivia.

- Personality Quizzes - great for lead generation. This is the typical "What's your Leadership Style" or other similar quizzes.

- Weighted Quizzes - great for product recommendations, lead scoring, risk assessments, etc.

My team at WPForms (@easywpforms) took the pain out of building Quizzes and made it EASY.

No need to pay for the expensive SaaS tools that limit the # of leads you can collect per month from your Quizzes.

WPForms allows for Unlimited Forms, Unlimited Submissions, and Unlimited Leads.

Super proud of our team and the incredible work they're doing.

More exciting stuff coming soon ❤️

[Syed Balkhi @syedbalkhi]

You asked for it, and it's finally here 😍

WPForms (@easywpforms), the leading WordPress form builder now integrates with n8n (@n8n_io)

Now you can:

- connect your website to over 500+ apps

- build smart AI-powered workflows for your business

- have a cost-effective solution that works for you

Currently, our integration works on self-hosted n8n since it's a Community Node.

I'm hopeful that n8n team will soon add us in their official repository for the hosted customers as well.

Really proud of the work @jaredatch and the WPForms team is doing :)

[Syed Balkhi @syedbalkhi]

Excited to share that @WPConsent is now being used by 100,000+ websites 🥳

I launched this product in March (just 8 months ago) because I wanted to make privacy compliance easier for WordPress site owners.

But most importantly, I wanted to make it affordable.

Most other popular plugins were acquired by hosting companies or SaaS providers and had raised their prices.

So there was a void in the space.

We launched WPConsent and our users loved it. Here's why:

- 100% self hosted
- Customizable Cookie Banners
- Website Cookie Scanner
- Automatic Script Blocking
- Secure Consent Logs
- Google Consent Mode
- Automatic Translations
- Geolocation Display Rules

... and Dozens of integrations to help compliance easier for you.

Best part is that it's affordable ... no per pageview prices.

And for agencies, very affordable price for your clients. Basically $2.99 / YEAR / site ... yup less than a cup of coffee.

If you haven't tried it out, then you should.

We're running a sale to celebrate this incredible milestone.

I also want to thank the entire @wpbeginner community for always supporting us in this journey ❤️

[Syed Balkhi @syedbalkhi]

For years, this was the #1 most requested WPForms feature!

"Can you generate PDFs from Form Submissions?"

The problem? Every business needed something different. Simple copies, contracts, invoices, certificates, etc...

We just solved ALL of it in our NEW update 👇

[WPBeginner @wpbeginner]

Today, WPBeginner turns 16 years old. 🥳

It feels like just yesterday that I was a college kid starting this website. Time really does fly!

If WPBeginner was a person, it would be old enough to get a driver's license. How wild is that?

I'm feeling so full of gratitude today. This journey is incredible, and it's all because of YOU. You're the heart and soul of this community. You're our guiding star. ✨

To celebrate you, I'm doing something huge. I'm giving away over $20,000 in prizes.

We’ll be selecting 87 lucky winners who will get access to premium WordPress plugins and tools to help grow their websites.

Looking back, I'm just blown away. This little site I started has become a worldwide family. Over 30+ million people use our plugins, and we have team members in over 50 countries!

On a personal note, it's been amazing to see my own son Solomon grows up so fast. It melts my heart to see him getting interested and even speaking at our company events. ❤️

We've been working on some cool new things for you this year.

We launched free live workshops to answer your questions directly. Plus we also added some great new tools to our family, like @BuddyBossWP and @athemesdotcom, to help you build incredible websites.

From the bottom of my heart, thank you. Thank you for trusting WPBeginner and for being on this ride with me. 🙏

Your support lets us keep all our tutorials free for everyone. You make it all possible.

Here's to another amazing year together.

Talk soon,
Syed Balkhi

[Syed Balkhi @syedbalkhi]

Got some BIG NEWS to share!

We have acquired aThemes (@athemesdotcom), a popular WordPress theme company known for building beautiful website templates that are optimized for speed and performance.

Over 130,000+ websites use aThemes' WordPress themes and plugins to build an online presence, launch online stores, and grow revenue.

Their flagship themes Sydney and Botiga both maintain an impressive 4.9 out of 5-star rating on WordPress 🏆

Sydney is a powerful multipurpose WordPress theme used by over 100,000 websites.

It comes with:

• Professional starter site templates
• Easy-to-use template builder
• Multiple header presets
• Flexible blog layouts
• And more!

Botiga is a lightweight WooCommerce theme designed for optimal performance while boosting conversions.

It lets you:

• Customize every part of your online store in real-time
• Create a fly-out mini cart to show cart details at a glance without interrupting your customers’ browsing experience
• Quickly customize the checkout page for high conversions

This acquisition is particularly special because it directly addresses a long-standing request from our @wpbeginner community - to provide a FREE WordPress theme that makes it easy to create stunning websites.

See the full background story here: https://t.co/eDbDFi8mgp

While we already offer premium solutions like @ThriveThemes and @seedprod, I'm excited to now have high-quality FREE theme options for our community.

Our software today powers over 30 million websites, and we're helping shape the web for billions worldwide. With aThemes joining the @AwesomeMotive family, we're taking another step in making professional website design accessible to everyone.

My goal is to create the best WordPress themes on the market while keeping them affordable and accessible. We have an exciting roadmap ahead.

If you're looking to create a professional website or online store, check out Sydney and Botiga themes. Both available for free on https://t.co/X7QTOvdNXL 🚀

Thank you Charlie Livingston (@LCharlie) for trusting us to carry forward your legacy.

[Syed Balkhi @syedbalkhi]

Want to clean up your WordPress media library?

My team at WPCode has built a new feature called: Remove Unused Media for WordPress.

It's part of our Search & Replace Everything plugin.

With 1-click, it automatically scans your files & database to see which media files aren't being used.

After that, you can easily remove the unused media files and save storage space.

https://t.co/fArEEH2RoT

This is going to be a huge time saver 😀

[Syed Balkhi @syedbalkhi]

Celebrating 30 million+ websites using our software 🎉🥳

It's truly an incredible feeling to see the impact our software is making on the web and the lives of our customers.

Thank You for your continued support ❤️ of @wpbeginner and my team @awesomemotive.

Excited about 2025 and what's to come 😍

[Syed Balkhi @syedbalkhi]

This Black Friday, TENS OF MILLIONS of dollars will be generated by websites using @OptinMonster popups to:

📈 Convert abandoning visitors into customers
💰 Increase Average Order Value (AOV)
✉️ ... and Grow their email lists

Get a LIVE view of the impact of OptinMonster on Black Friday in our 2024 Black Friday Dashboard!

Link below 👇

* Actual revenue generated is likely much higher. This is only a small subset of customers who have Revenue Attribution feature turned on.

[Syed Balkhi @syedbalkhi]

WPForms + Slack = Streamlined Workflow 😎

Super proud of my @easywpforms team for launching the brand new @SlackHQ Integration for your WordPress forms built with WPForms.

Now when a lead is submitted, you can instantly receive notifications in Slack, so your team can act fast!

No need for Zapier or any other third-party tool.

https://t.co/njcSzkFfTG

Seamless productivity, Simplified Workflow, and Enhanced team communication made easy ♥️

It's perfect for:

- Lead Forms
- Recruitment forms
- New work order forms
- Enterprise customer support forms

You can have WPForms send a DM, send a message to a channel, or even set a Slack reminder for you.

Great work @jaredatch and team!

[Syed Balkhi @syedbalkhi]

From Launch to 300,000+ websites in 18 months 🚀

Here's the story of how we built a simple WordPress plugin to solve our own problem ... and the lessons learned 🧵

The tool is called https://t.co/FeE28BPmwS ... and it's a clone of Hotjar Surveys except it costs 90% less.

I was pretty annoyed that users have to pay Hotjar $59 per month to collect only 500 responses 🤯

This is not rocket science - it's literally a simple survey tool.

So I had my team build a basic version for FREE and released to all WordPress website owners.

https://t.co/IWcAAWmKKG

To my surprise, there wasn't a good solution that existed already.

I searched for the keyword: "feedback" in the plugin directory and nothing showed up.

That was the AHA moment.

We priced the Pro version of the survey tool at a fair price -- $49 for the first year which is 90% less than Hotjar.

And then I promoted it to our audience on @wpbeginner and @monsterinsights.

Now fast forward ~18 months, we have passed 300,000+ websites using this survey tool and growing FAST ♥️

We are now ranked #302 out of the 59,000+ WordPress plugins that are in the directory.

The UserFeedback plugin is great for getting really high quality feedback from your users at the right time:

- eCommerce website owners using @WooCommerce
- course creators using @memberpress
- digital product creators using @eddwp
- SaaS companies for their pricing pages
- and so much more

Think post-purchase survey, pricing page survey, returning customer surveys, and basically every other type of qualitative insight.

We use it across many of my own companies because insights are extremely valuable in us making the right decisions.

Here are some lessons / key takeaways from this product launch (1/2)

[Syed Balkhi @syedbalkhi]

WordPress Drama Explained (and How it May Affect Your Website)

It’s weird to receive texts like “is this WordPress drama crazy or is it being blown out of proportion”.

In the 15 years of running @WPBeginner, I never thought I would have to write a blog post covering any WordPress industry drama. My focus with the blog has always been to provide high quality free WordPress tutorials.

But unfortunately, we are at a point where a lot of misinformation and fear is being spread about WordPress.

This is causing panic among some website owners, agencies, as well as people in enterprise companies.

In this post, I want to explain what this latest WordPress drama is about, who it impacts, and what you can do to protect your websites.

https://t.co/YpPf7fouQF

TLDR: No, this is NOT the end of WordPress, and your websites are safe.

Despite everything that’s going on right now, I still love WordPress, and I believe in our amazing WordPress community.

I have spent more than half of my life in the WordPress community, and I will continue to do everything in my power to support the community and our users ❤️

[Syed Balkhi @syedbalkhi]

NO, I'm not leaving WordPress!

I believe in the amazing WordPress community ❤️

I believe that open source is one of the most powerful ideas of our generation.

We need to stick together & continue building cool things.

Share what you're working on in the comments below👇

[Syed Balkhi @syedbalkhi]

Perspective from my 18 years WordPress journey, why I contribute to WordPress, and how you can too.

Let’s continue to work together in contributing to WordPress and helping democratize publishing & commerce across the world ❤️

https://t.co/UtyooYDWqP

[Syed Balkhi @syedbalkhi]

NEW: Events & Ticketing Made Easy in WordPress 🤩

My team completely revamped the Sugar Calendar plugin, and the updates are exciting!

Check it out: https://t.co/73urz5CVcE

This plugin lets you:

- Create & organize events on your site

- Display an events calendar on your website (multiple layouts)

- Sell event tickets (seamless Stripe integration + @woocommerce support)

- Automate your events workflow with @zapier to save time

- Add a calendar feed subscription (syncs with Google Calendar, Apple Calendar, Microsoft Outlook, and more)

- Bonus: Allow others to submit events on your website using the front-end (great for events aggregator type website)

You can try the free version here: https://t.co/PkRpjR7S78

Or check out the Pro version: https://t.co/O3hfWtygxR

[Syed Balkhi @syedbalkhi]

As I hinted recently – Got some BIG NEWS 🔔

We have acquired BuddyBoss (@BuddyBossWP), an all-in-one online community and social learning platform for WordPress.

BuddyBoss Web platform gives you everything you need to create your own private social network and online community including features like User Profiles, Activity Feeds, Groups, Forum Discussions, Member Connections, Direct Messages, Events, eLearning (LMS) integrations, eCommerce support, and more.

BuddyBoss App platform makes it easy for you to create your own custom branded native Android and iOS apps for your brand without hiring a developer. You can customize your app layout, choose your branding, upload your content, and keep it in sync with your BuddyBoss web platform & courses right from inside your WordPress dashboard!

You can also translate your app in multiple languages, add gamification features to boost engagement, introduce micro-learning experiences, add in-app purchases, and more to tap into the $80 billion mobile learning market.

Over 50,000+ creators, businesses, and universities use BuddyBoss to create online communities and custom branded mobile apps to deliver superior social learning experience.

I’m really excited to be welcoming BuddyBoss to @WPBeginner and @AwesomeMotive family of brands.

See the full background story here: https://t.co/WRsZ0dfZuJ

Online communities have always been a critical part of the web, and I believe their role is going to be more important than ever in the future.

The web is going through a massive transformation when it comes to content discovery, engagement, and monetization.

This is creating a new frontier where those who adopt will reap the benefits, while those who don’t will pay the ultimate price.

I strongly believe that adding a private community with premium content and a branded mobile app is going to help make businesses more resilient in the long-term because it helps you build your own distribution moat.

My goal with BuddyBoss is to help usher in a new era of online communities where independent creators and businesses have full control over their data and content distribution.

I have asked Blair Williams (@BlairWilli), founder of MemberPress, to join the advisory board and help guide the vision of the product.

Like all of our brands, BuddyBoss team will remain independent with a dedicated focus on innovation and delivering the absolute best community platform for YOU.

If you’re thinking about creating your own online community + mobile app for your brand, then you should absolutely check out the BuddyBoss platform.

Link for the platform and done-for-you service below 👇

[Syed Balkhi @syedbalkhi]

My team @wpbeginner has launched Spotlight where we share the coolest things happening in WordPress.

If you are a WordPress product company and want to get featured, let us know by filling out the form with your news 😁

[Syed Balkhi @syedbalkhi]

Super excited to share WPCode AI ✨

The best WordPress code snippets plugin just got even better!!

Now you can use A.I. to write custom code snippets and add custom functionality to WordPress.

https://t.co/dYKFY7rLmy

Really proud of our team at @wpcodelibrary and what @mircea_sandu is building.