The plugins used to fulfil the wishlist for the new Matt Keegan Music Hub website, by Cath Beaton of Phase Creative

1. WordPress Plugin Case Study
mattkeeganmusichub.com
www.phasecreative.com.au

2. Client Brief:
“To clearly represent and advertise all aspects of my various
musical endeavours in one place”
Requirements:
• Clear information
• Great pictures and images
• Integration with Bandcamp
• Purchase/download charts and PDFs
• Relatively easy to update and manipulate
• Simple clean layout
• Video players embedded
• Purchase/download album
• Links to Facebook etc
• Contact/mailing list
www.phasecreative.com.au
Website Functionality
Website
Functio
rly repres
for?
nality
ent and
place.
ad
What is
What is this website for?
this
• nt clea
• To clearly represeTo and adverti website
place.
se all aspects of my various musica
l endeavours in one
verti
Wh to get
What do I wantat do across abou se all aspects of my va
I want to
t myse
rious mus
• Great m
• Great musician/bandleader/arranger/com et
ical ende
g acro lf?
usic
poser
avours in
ss abou
• In
• Inspiring teacher
spiring te ian/bandleader/a
one
t myself
rranger/c
ac
• Profes
omposer
• Professional attitude
sion her
?
al at
tit
• Cool pe
• Cool person to be involved with
ude
rson
• Clarity of and
• Clarity of strong concept st to be involved w
ideas
ith
rong conc
How d feel
How do I want too I wheneptthinkeas
want to I and id about my website?
• Proud of the • Proud of thand functions. el w
fe
way it looks e
hen I thin
• More send way it looks
• More than happy to than people there and
k a what
functions
Im
• In creative happy to sendto find out about me and bout do.y we
.
• Informative andformativespace that best op
pe le thnts me and
bsite?
represe ere
and crea
my music.
tiv spac
Who is g
Who is going to be visitingethe site?be to find out about
e that
oin
me and
st represen
• Other mdleade g to be v
what I do
• Other musicians/ban usic rs
ts me an
isiting th
.
ians/ban
d my mus
e site?
dleaders
• Students
• Students
ic.
• Journalists•
Journalists
• Festival
• Festival producers
prod
uc
• Fund
• Funding bodies
ing bodi ers
es
• Ve
• Venue ownersnue owne
rs
• Fans
• Fans
Why a going
Why are they re the to this webs
ite?
y
• Sussing • Sussing out m foroing to th
out my credentials g potential gig is
as band leader for club or festival.
y creden
website
tia
• Looking • Looking foand informationls for po
for pictures
?
tent
• Inmy ig r pictures and in for press.
ial gig as
vest ate lity
• Investigate
credibi y cr an artistformatio applica
ba
m as ib
for grant for
tions.
nd leader for
ed ility
• To find
press.
• To find out aboutout ab a teacher findan ar n
as teachin
club or fe
me as t
ou
tis g resourc
st
• To lis
buy
• To listen to myten to mal asme as a teache t for grant es,plic charts and music.
ival.
potenti y po a sideman or horn section ap at
r fin
arranger.
To music
• To hear• my hear mand us tential as aperform d teaching reso ions.
y m find out about sideman
urces, bu
ances and buy music and charts.
ic and fin
or horn se
Wh t do
y ch
ou abou
What do IaneedI people todbet able pe
ct
t to access easil er.
arts and music.
need
rformance ion arrang
• Clear in
y?
s and
• Clear information rmatio whatpeoand to
fo about
I do plehow bdo a
I e it.
le
n
b to ac buy music and charts
• Great • Greatspicturimages.
out what I do
picture and es an ab
cess ea
.
and how
Music an
I do it.
• Music•and Charts toha d images.
sily?
d C buy.
rts
• g
• InspirinInspiring sounds to buy.
sounds to hear.
to hear.
What fu
What functions are most important
nctions
?
• Rel
are mo
• Relativelyativelyto update and manipust im
easy
me!
• Simple cl easy to update an late forportan
• Simple clean layoutlayo
t?
ean
d manipul
ut
• Fast to
ate for m
• Fast to load
load
e!
•
• GreatGreat music play
music players embedded
ers embe
• Video pl
dded
• Video players embedded
ayers em
bedded
• Si
• Simplemple Caler/events/blog
Calland
• Purchase lander/e
• Purchase/dow/downloa vent
s/blog
nload albums
• Pu
d
• Purcharchase/downloa albums
se/download charts and PDFs
• Li
d
• Links nks to Facebook charts and PDFs
to Facebook etc
• Contact
etc
/mai list
• Contact/mailingling lis
t

3. Client Budget:
“Friend-of-your-mates rates”
Incentive For Me:
• True PSD to WordPress job
• Happy for it to take longer than normal
• Happy for me to experiment a little
• Portfolio piece
• Crack into the musician market
• Possible referrals
www.phasecreative.com.au

4. Audio
• Protected audio to buy:
Pasted Bandcamp embed code (3 options)
• Native audio in WordPress for straight uploads
[audio mp3=”/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Lullaby.mp3”][/audio]
www.phasecreative.com.au

5. www.phasecreative.com.au

6. Video
• Native YouTube links for easy video embeds
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-e64FqQ2h0
www.phasecreative.com.au

7. Purchasing Sheet Music
• Easy Digital Downloads by Pippin Williamson and Friends.
https://easydigitaldownloads.com/
• Free to download and use (basic support)
• Easy. Derr. See name.
• Had simple interface
• Testing using PayPal Sandbox account
• Also used 3rd-party extension for this:
Easy Digital Downloads - Free Download - to bypass the
payment gateway for free downloads
• Simple reporting and customer purchase emails
www.phasecreative.com.au

8. www.phasecreative.com.au

9. www.phasecreative.com.au

10. www.phasecreative.com.au

11. General Notes:
• Theme: Custom made using Dynamik / Genesis
• Forms: Gravity forms
• Blog: used as a ‘News’ section
• Host: WP Engine
• Social links: Simple Social Icons
• Slider: simple Meta Slider with custom CSS
• Newsletter signup: Mailchimp / Gravity form
• 4 hours training client
• Bandcamp ‘skinned’ to look like site
• Responsive design
www.phasecreative.com.au

12. Learnings
• Factor in time to research the solutions,
including testing initial (later rejected) ideas
• Allow extra testing time
• Be prepared to train your client AND
support them through the early stages
• No solution is good if it’s too hard
• Video and Audio should be hosted
elsewhere if possible
• If you bang on about SEO enough, your
clients wife might hire you for their
site too!
Keep it simple for the client!
www.phasecreative.com.au

13. Full List of Plugins Used
Akismet
Used by millions, Akismet is quite
possibly the best way in the world to
protect your blog from comment and
trackback spam. It keeps your site
protected from spam even while you
sleep.
Black Studio TinyMCE Widget
Adds a WYSIWYG widget based on the
standard TinyMCE WordPress visual
editor.
Genesis Simple Edits
Genesis Simple Edits lets you edit the
three most commonly modified areas
in any Genesis theme: the post-info, the
post-meta, and the footer area.
Under Construction
Settings | Makes it so your site can only
be accessed by users who log in. Useful
for developing a site on a live server,
without the world being able to see it
Gravity Forms
Settings | Easily create web forms
and manage form entries within the
WordPress admin.
Video User Manuals
A complete video manual for your
clients
Easy Digital Downloads
Serve Digital Downloads Through
WordPress
Gravity Forms MailChimp Add-On
Integrates Gravity Forms with
MailChimp allowing form submissions
to be automatically sent to your
MailChimp account
Easy Digital Downloads - Free
Download
Bypass Checkout Mechanism For Free
Download
Meta Slider
4 sliders in 1! Choose from Nivo Slider,
Flex Slider, Coin Slider or Responsive
Slides.
Easy WP SMTP
Settings | Send email via SMTP from
your WordPress Blog
Simple Social Icons
A simple, CSS and icon font driven social
icons widget.
Genesis Easy Columns
Easily add Genesis column shortcodes
to your WordPress editor.
www.phasecreative.com.au
WordPress SEO
The first true all-in-one SEO solution for
WordPress, including on-page content
analysis, XML sitemaps and much more.
WP BandCamp
Embed the Bandcamp Player into your
website pages using a widget or the
post editor shortcode.
WP Help
Administrators can create detailed,
hierarchical documentation for the site’s
authors and editors, viewable in the
WordPress admin.

14. Thank you :-)
www.phasecreative.com.au