Today is July 4th which means WPBeginner is officially 11 years old. We’ve come a long way 
Like every year, I want to take a few minutes and do a quick recap of all the major things happening in business as well as my personal life.
Bonus: I’m also doing a Website Toolkit giveaway which includes a Macbook Air, Free domain + Hosting, and my favorite premium WordPress plugins.
Since this is a long article, you can easily skip to the section you’re most interested in:
WPBeginner Story
I started using WordPress when I was 16 years old and started WPBeginner at age 19 with a single mission: make WordPress easy for beginners.
Since then WPBeginner has become the largest free WordPress resource site for beginners.
For those of you who’re new, you can read the full WPBeginner story on our about page and use the Start Here page to get the most out of WPBeginner.
Personal Updates
My son, Solomon, is now 3.5 years old. He’s growing up fast, and he now even suggests keywords that I should mention in my email newsletters to WPBeginner audience.
Since the last WPBeginner anniversary post, we travelled to Turkey, Germany, Austria, Bahamas, Pakistan, Mexico, and several places in US.
Of course all of our travels came to a stop in February due to COVID-19. We’ve been staying home and spending a lot of family time.
I’ve also been working a lot during this lockdown – focusing on creating more content as well as revamping various product features.
If you didn’t get a chance to read my 2019 recap, I highly recommend checking it out on my personal blog where I share lessons learned from last year.
WPBeginner Updates
Thanks to our awesome community, WPBeginner has continued to grow in double-digit (year over year). Aside from tons of amazing WordPress tutorials on our blog, there have been several notable updates from last year, that I’d like to highlight.
1. We launched Three New Free Business Tools
Since last year, we have launched 3 new free business tools to help you do more with WordPress.
The first is a smart business name generator to help you find brandable company name ideas with available domains, so you can start your online business idea.
The second is a WordPress theme detector that helps you find out what WordPress theme your competitor’s website is using. Simply put, if you have ever wondered what WordPress theme a website is using, this tool can help you find that.
Last but not least, we launched a free WordPress Call Button plugin to help you easily add a click to call button on your website.
2. WPBeginner Engage Facebook Group is now Over 48,000 Members
To celebrate our 10th anniversary, we launched the WPBeginner Engage Facebook group to offer WordPress help for non-techy users.
This was something that a lot of you had been asking for, and I’m extremely pleased with the progress thus far. We now have over 48,000+ members in our Facebook group, and I believe it’s now the largest WordPress user group on Facebook.
For those of you who’re not members yet, the goal of this group is to share and learn WordPress tips while getting to know other motivated website owners like yourself.
Aside from peer-to-peer support and knowledge sharing, we also do monthly giveaways, have exclusive video content from myself, and our WPBeginner experts are also there answering questions (for free).
What are you waiting for? Go ahead and join the WPBeginner Facebook Group. I look forward to connecting with you
3. WPBeginner YouTube Channel Now Has 191,000+ subscribers
Our WPBeginner YouTube channel passed 191,000+ subscribers, and I believe we will pass 200k goal by end of this year.
We have hundreds of free WordPress video tutorials, and we have also been creating a lot of YouTube exclusive content.
For example, you can watch our playlists to learn how to Make Money Online, learn WordPress SEO, and more.
We are also doing monthly State of WPBeginner videos where we share what’s happening in the WordPress ecosystem, summary of Awesome Motive products, and more.
Also I’m personally making more appearances on the channel in the interview style videos.
If you’ve not subscribed to our YouTube channel yet, it’d mean the world to me if you can subscribe and hit the bell button, so we can pass the 200,000 goal.
4. We switched our WordPress hosting to SiteGround (Google Cloud)
Last year, I was extremely excited about our private cloud hosting platform that we built, but it led to many complexities.
That’s why earlier this year, we switched WPBeginner hosting to SiteGround Enterprise (which is powered by Google Cloud).
I wrote about 6 reasons why we switched to SiteGround.
If you’re looking to switch hosts, I highly recommend SiteGround – their customer service and new tech platform is really robust.
5. New Acquisitions & Investments (All in One SEO, Smash Balloon, & more)
As you know, two years ago I created the WPBeginner growth fund to invest in WordPress focused companies.
This past year, I’m proud to welcome the following companies to our family of products:
All in One SEO Pack is the original WordPress SEO plugin used by over 2 million websites. In January, we acquired AIOSEO to bring it under the Awesome Motive umbrella, and I’m working with the team to build tons of amazing SEO features to help you rank higher.
If you’re looking for a SEO plugin, try AIOSEO – there’s a free version available here as well.
Smash Balloon offers the most popular social media feeds plugin for WordPress. Over 1.3 million websites use Smash Balloon plugins to display their social media content.
If you’re looking to create and display custom Instagram photo feeds, Facebook feeds, Twitter feeds, and YouTube feeds, then there’s no better plugin that Smash Balloon. There’s a free version for all four plugins that you can try.
I also invested in Rymera Web, the parent company behind Wholesale Suite and Advanced Coupons for WooCommerce. These are extremely useful plugins for WooCommerce store owners.
Product Updates
One of the questions that I often get asked via our contact form is what is WPBeginner’s income, and how does WPBeginner make money by giving away all WordPress tutorials for free.
Well, we make money indirectly through our suite of premium WordPress plugins that are now running on over 15 million websites.
WPForms
WPForms is our drag & drop WordPress form builder plugin that’s now being used by over 3 million websites.
Since last July, WPForms has launched numerous exciting features including integrations for Authorize.net (payment forms), ActiveCampaign (CRM), WPML (translations), smart access controls (security), and improved Entry management.
Aside from that, they also added many powerful form fields like multiple file uploads, number slider, text limits, improved reCAPTCHA, etc.
You can download the free version of WPForms or get WPForms Pro to unlock even more powerful features.
MonsterInsights
MonsterInsights is the most popular WordPress analytics plugin. Over 2 million website owners use MonsterInsights to see the stats that matter right inside the WordPress dashboard.
Since last July, MonsterInsights has added smart analytics features such as Email Summaries, PDF export for reports, smart date range, multi-site network wizard, improved Pretty Links integration, and more.
You can download the free version of MonsterInsights or get MonsterInsights Pro to unlock more powerful features.
WP Mail SMTP
WP Mail SMTP is the most popular SMTP plugin for WordPress. Now over 1 million website owners use this plugin to fix the WordPress not sending email issue.
It’s a must have plugin on all our websites. Simply put, this plugin fixes WordPress email deliverability issues by letting you send emails using Amazon SES, MailGun, G Suite, and other more reliable email platforms.
We launched the premium version last year to add smart features like Email Logs, Email Control, Pro integrations, and a White Glove Setup for business owners.
You can download the free version of WP Mail SMTP or get WP Mail SMTP Pro to unlock more powerful features.
OptinMonster
OptinMonster is the best WordPress plugin to convert website visitors into subscribers and customers.
Simply put, it helps you get more email subscribers.
This year we added several exciting features into OptinMonster including: new personalization workflow, A/B testing for campaign types, mobile exit-intent, new integrations for email providers, and more.
OptinMonster truly is the #1 most powerful conversion optimization toolkit in the world. It will help you instantly boost leads and grow revenue by converting and monetizing your existing website traffic.
This is my not-so secret website tool that I use on all our websites because it just works!
RafflePress
RafflePress is the best WordPress giveaway and contest plugin. It’s a new product that we launched last year to unlock viral growth on our sites.
We’ve been using it on WPBeginner and our products to grow our email list, increase engagement, and generate more sales.
RafflePress helps you turn your visitors into brand ambassadors. As a result, you get more website traffic, email
subscribers, and social media engagement FASTER without buying any paid ads!
You can download the free version of RafflePress or get RafflePress Pro to unlock more powerful features.
WPBeginner Birthday Giveaway
To celebrate the 11th birthday of WPBeginner, we are offering an Ultimate Website Toolkit to one lucky reader.
The prize includes a Macbook Air, free domain + 1 year GoGeek hosting from SiteGround, 1 hour Zoom call with Syed (me), and pro licenses to all our premium WordPress plugins: WPForms, OptinMonster, MonsterInsights, WP Mail SMTP, SeedProd, RafflePress, TrustPulse, All in One SEO, Smash Balloon, MemberPress, Affiliate Royale, Thirsty Affiliates, Pretty Links, Formidable Forms, Wholesale Suite, and Advanced Coupons for WooCommerce.
Winners will be chosen randomly using a random generator script.
All you have to do is enter the giveaway using the widget below:
* No purchase is required to enter this giveaway.
Giving Back (Opportunity)
As you know that WPBeginner is a 100% free resource, and I don’t really ask for much in return. Your kindness and generosity in supporting our premium WordPress plugins make this business sustainable for us.
A big priority for Amanda and I is to help others, and we do a ton through our Balkhi Foundation.
Since it’s our family foundation, we don’t ask for donations there. However if you’ve ever found WPBeginner to be helpful and want to give back, then I would appreciate you supporting some of my favorite charities below:
- Animal Welfare Institute
- Cancer Research Institute
- Environment: The Conservation Fund or National Park Foundation
- Hunger: Action Against Hunger or No Kid Hungry
Thank You Everyone
I want to say thank you to everyone who has supported us in this journey. I really do appreciate all of your retweets, personal emails, content suggestions, and the in-person hugs / interactions at the events.
You all are AMAZING and without you, there is no WPBeginner.
I look forward to another solid year ahead of us.
Syed Balkhi
Founder of WPBeginner
P.S. We’re hiring for several roles as our company grows. If you or someone you know would be interested in being part of our fast-growing team, then please apply here.
The post WPBeginner Turns 11 Years Old – Reflections and Updates (+ Giveaway) appeared first on WPBeginner.
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