Learning PHP was most relevant to my professional experience as a online marketing consultant. My business model as an online marketing consultant relies heavily upon the ability for the clients website to be in great shape that converts well for its specific industry. My efforts on social media, pay-per-click campaigns, blog writing, email marketing, and display ads only work correctly if a website is functioning properly.

A bad website that is hard to navigate only reduces the effectiveness of my campaigns. When I have to show the client the data behind the campaign and there seems to be huge bounce rates, then it makes me look ineffective and I can’t justify my consultant rates.

What I have started doing is offering website redesigns to companies that have really archaic websites. I’m by no means a web designer or web developer; I am, however, really resourceful. I purchase WordPress themes that match the look and vision of my client’s organization. I offer that service which really just allows me to properly execute my online marketing services. It brings their website to the modern age at a small price and really solidifies the client relationship. The themes often require a little alterations to really fit the needs of my clients depending on the industry. Being able to understand the different file types, formats, and plugins from the WordPress codex entries really helped me comprehend the structure of WordPress and how to effectively run my business. I had not known about child themes until these codex entries, and I can absolutely say that they have changed my process. I had been delaying updating to the new theme version because I didn’t want to lose my edits to the PHP files.

You can say that I’ve learned a great amount over this week. From writing PHP in Codecademy, to the different WordPress Codex entries to better understand the structure. It has literally made an impact on my business. When asked “You down with PHP?” I’ll respond with “Yeah You Know Me!”