Nat Miletic is our guest in the WP-Professional of the Month series. He is the founder of Clio Websites, a Calgary-based web design company. He has made a name for himself in the SEO and WordPress fields.
He is very active in the Twitter community and often shares WordPress and SEO tips and motivational quotes with his 41K followers. He has recognized and harnessed the power of social media and shares his experience in growing his agency.
Today he shares with us his early WordPress days, concerns about FSE, and thoughts about acquisitions.
You can connect with him on Twitter and via his website.
You are well known in the WordPress circles. How did the journey start? How did you get introduced to WordPress?
I started working with WordPress in 2011 just to tinker and learn about the platform. It didn’t offer much in terms of functionality in those days, so I got bored and moved on. In 2016 I got reintroduced to it when a client asked me to help them with their existing website. I discovered the power of the platform in 2016 and fell in love. We decided to start utilizing it more and more for projects.
Where are you based? Does your location influence your work?
We are based in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. I don’t think that the location influences our work since we have international clients and WordPress is popular across the globe.
Please share some projects you are currently involved with.
We are working on several projects at the moment. Some of the notable ones include autofi.com and thesquareball.net
You own a successful WordPress agency. Can you share some marketing tips?
We utilize our website as the main marketing vehicle. Organic SEO is the most successful way to market to clients, followed by Google Ads. Our social media presence on Twitter also leads to a lot of new contracts and clients.
What makes WordPress so special to you?
I love the fact that WordPress is open source and supported by the community. I also appreciate that it’s widely used so there are many ways to solve problems and come up with creative solutions to client needs.
What is your favorite a) plugin b) Theme c) Hosting and why?
a) Elementor because we use it for all of our projects
b) Hello Elementor because it’s fast and efficient
c) Cloudways – fast, efficient, and cost-effective hosting
What do you think about the future of WordPress and Gutenberg? Also which one do your clients prefer to enter data – Classic Editor or Gutenberg?
I like Gutenberg and think that it has a bring future. My clients prefer the Classic Editor 🙂
There is a talk that WordPress is becoming more and more complicated. What do you think?
I think that this is true. With so many different ways to create a website or a blog using WordPress, it makes it very complicated for new users trying to get into it and learn the platform. This is getting even more complex with FSE.
What would you like to see implemented to WordPress as a Core feature?
Advanced Custom Fields configuration or features
We had so many acquisitions in WordPress in recent times. What are your thoughts on it?
This is a natural path/progression for an established platform such as WordPress. I believe that we will see more of this in the near future. Some of the acquisitions will make WordPress even better while others threaten the whole ecosystem. The recent trend in acquisitions may inspire more innovation from developers which is a good thing. They might get some motivation by seeing that their products could be sold and monetized.
You are very active on Twitter and even hire talent through it! Please share some points on networking and using Twitter to target your user base.
Sharing knowledge for free is an underrated strategy for social media growth. Most companies are afraid that others might steal their intellectual capital or knowledge but showcasing your work and experience is the best way to attract new clients. When we hire or outsource to individuals on social media, we are looking for people who do the same. Show your work and results, and you will go a long way!
Which are the most common SEO mistakes website owners make today?
The biggest mistake we see is not having a plan for SEO and creating content blindly that doesn’t have relevance to the business or what the potential clients are looking for. Doing keyword research is one of the most important aspects to ensure that your efforts are not wasted.
What was the most ridiculous requirement you ever received from a client?
All of my clients are great and I really don’t have too many examples of this but meeting requirements is usually the most frustrating. We would rather be creating than meeting 🙂
Life has both success and failure. Please share one mistake that you made early in your career.
Not marketing my services soon enough. I relied on word-of-mouth referrals for way too long.
What is Nat like away from WordPress? What are your ways of chilling?
I love playing sports with my kids and being active. Family time is priority #1 for me and it’s my way to unwind and relax.
The WP-Content team wishes him all the very best for his future endeavors and hopes to see him make more contributions to WordPress.
Meet our previous WP-Professionals of the Month – Jason Tucker, Aurooba Ahmed, Rich Tabor, Lesley Sim, Chris Lema