Longtime readers of my blog know I’ve been publishing a roundup of web professionals’ Advent Calendars for the past 10 years.
Focused on web design, user experience, web development, PHP, content strategy, accessibility, and more, the roundup has been one of my most popular annual posts.
As I was doing research this year for the Advent calendar roundup, I noticed there were no WordPress Advent calendars for 2021.
Looking back at my Advent calendar collections, I discovered there hadn’t been a WordPress-focused Advent calendar for a few years.
Which frustrated me. I use WordPress daily for my own site as well as clients’ sites.
I waited a few days after December 1 to see if anyone might publish a calendar.
When I didn’t find one, I decided to take the leap and publish one myself!
Announcing the WordPress Advent Calendar 2021
Focused on already-published articles, videos, and podcasts, the goal of the WordPress Advent Calendar 2021 is to provide useful WordPress posts, tips, and resources.
Helpful information and resources that fall into the category of “I didn’t know that” or written by people who may not be well-known or don’t have a large audience.
My hope is to introduce WordPress users to people and organizations who are active in the community.
To make things easy for me (since I started so late), I created the WordPress Advent Calendar 2021 using an accessible-ready theme on a free WordPress.com plan.
Planning and Organizing the Calendar
With such a late start (the first three Advent posts were all published on December 3), my first tasks were to
- Find authors publishing WordPress-focused content in 2021
- Review the content
- Identify a platform for publishing the calendar quickly, without needing to learn something new, or having to maintain the application over time
For the authors, I hoped to find a range of authors from around the world.
I felt it was too late to set up an online form, ask for recommendations, and review all the submissions.
When I began looking for authors of recently-published WordPress content, I quickly discovered:
- Many WordPress professionals haven’t blogged much this year
- Those who did blog often don’t date their posts, making it impossible to know if the technology/resources recommended in their posts is recent. Or 10 years old.
- Videos and podcasts weren’t accessible, lacking captions and transcripts
I contacted friends and colleagues to tell them about my plan for the calendar. They were excited!
When I asked if they had suggestions for the calendar, I learned they had similar issues finding and following WordPress professionals. Fewer people were blogging regularly about WordPress.
Thanks to the recommendations from Elizabeth Klaar, Eric Karkovack, and Nancy Seeger who shared some of their favorite WordPress authors, I was able to fill out the calendar.
Choosing how I would publish the Advent calendar was a faster decision than finding Advent calendar articles.
I’m already familiar with WordPress.com hosting plans, I use them for several of my clients.
Choosing a free WordPress.com plan allowed me to:
- Get started quickly
- Keep it simple
- Not worry about multiple decisions about the calendar look and feel (themes offered through the free plan have limited customization options)
Once I gathered all the posts and identified the publishing platform, I organized the posts randomly and began writing and publishing the daily Advent posts.
Wrapping Up
Thinking about and publishing the WordPress Advent Calendar 2021 took less than a day.
Which wouldn’t have happened without the support and recommendations from my colleagues and friends. And using WordPress.com.
During this holiday season, I hope you find the daily WordPress resources and tips in the calendar helpful! Follow it and share it with others who use WordPress.
