The Kadence Beat covers WordPress, blocks, and strategies for effective websites. Hosted by Ben Ritner, Hannah Ritner, and Kathy Zant, The Kadence Beat launches at the perfect time. As the WordPress block editor becomes more mainstream and site owners look to do more with WordPress, the beta of full-site editing lands in WordPress administrative dashboards around the world. Making sense of these developments and finding what works towards the goal of effective websites is a big part of The Kadence Beat.
Meet Ben Ritner, Founder of Kadence, Hannah Ritner, Customer Success Manager, and Katy Boykin, Director of Marketing.
We record The Kadence Beat bi-monthly as schedules allow. Show links are below.
Episode 38: Unpacking Digital Advertising Strategies with Drew Griswold
In episode 38 of the Kadence Beat podcast, Katy and Ben chat with Drew Griswold, Director of Outbound Marketing for Stellar WP. Drew shares his journey from running a retail business to mastering digital ads. He discusses key tips for online advertising, setting effective goals, and choosing the right platforms like Facebook and Google. Drew…
Episode 37: What we Learned From an SEO Audit
The Kadence website just got an SEO audit done by Ellipsis. In this episode, Ben, Katy, and Hannah talk about what we found on the report and what we’ve been doing to improve our SEO. There are lots of nuggets of wisdom we share regarding SEO, website speed optimization and more. You don’t want to…
Episode 36: Building a Thriving Business with Katy Boykin
In this episode of the Kadence Beat, we sit down with Katy Boykin, the latest and greatest addition to the Kadence team. As our newly appointed marketing director at KadenceWP, Katy shares her journey of discovering her passion and from it, building a successful business. Additionally, we delve into the exciting developments on the horizon…
Episode 35: Finding Your Motivation
Learn about everything coming on the Kadence roadmap, including improvements to Kadence AI, Kadence White Label, Advanced Navigation and Headers, and Kadence AI Pages. Kathy Zant joins us to discuss what she’s been up to at Motivation Code. We talk a bit about various personality tests and how advances in AI uncover what fulfills you in your own stories.
Episode 34: Strategic Design Decisions for your Website
New tools for WordPress, like Kadence, are making it increasingly easy for anyone to build more effective websites without ever touching a line of code. And yet, it’s still critical to make strategic design decisions towards a goal of engaging your audience rather than driving them away.
Episode 33: The Future of WordPress, Kadence and 100 Year Legacies
After checking out WordCamp US, Ben, Hannah and Kathy share some of their impressions on both the future of WordPress and Kadence, as well as what the legacy of Kadence might be. Ben shares his observations on the progression of full site editing (FSE) and the things he thinks need to happen before FSE becomes widely adopted. Ben also shares what’s dropping in Kadence updates this week. Kathy shares her thoughts about WordPress.com’s plans to offer 100-year domains and website hosting and puts Ben on the spot: what do you think the legacy of Kadence will be?
Episode 32: Creating the Digital Living Room & Freelance Marketing with Liberty Fleming
Liberty Fleming of The Freelance Market joins Ben and Hannah to talk about marketing, the challenges and benefits of freelancing, and why saying yes to the work that sings to your soul can lead to some of the best experiences. Liberty shares her perspective on “the living room theory” and how you can use it to create a connecting experience for your audience.
Episode 31: Growing with Remote Work & Global Teams
The Kadence Team is in the midst of summer glory, and we’re also getting Kadence Blocks 3.1 Beta ready for testing. Listen in to learn what new features are coming to Kadence Blocks as well as a new licensing system and Kadence AI. We also talk about the benefits of working on a remote team…
Episode 30: Adventures, Experiments and Doing New Things
In this episode of The Kadence Beat, we hear about Adventures with Hannah, Ben’s Productivity Experiments, and Kathy’s newsletter writing cohort class. Kathy shares a haunting conversation with a Lyft driver that has her thinking about how WordPress could be more effective in a sea of numerous ways to get a website online. This leads…
Episode 29: Creating Clarity in Your Landing Pages
In this episode, Ben gives an update on the upcoming features in both Kadence Blocks Pro and Kadence Blocks 3.1, and an overview of the teams working on new blocks as well as Kadence AI. As well, the team looks at the purpose of landing pages, elements that make a landing page effective, as well…
Episode 28: How Kadence AI Will Change the Way We Build with WordPress
It is impossible to be anywhere in tech news and not hear about artificial intelligence and how ChatGPT has changed the world as we know it. In this episode, Shane Pearlman from Modern Tribe joins Kadence Founder Ben Ritner and Kadence Marketing lead Kathy Zant for a discussion about AI and the emerging world of…
Episode 27: Strategies for Creating Content that Connects
In this episode, Ben, Hannah, and Kathy talk about what’s new with WordPress 6.2 and the future of full site editing and new changes in the Kadence Design Library before diving deeper into strategies for effective content creation. Where can WordPress site owners find ideas for great content that connects with their audience, ranks well…
Episode 26: How Kadence Helped Shelley Marmor Grow Her Brand Through Blogging
Through serendipity, we stumbled upon a podcast with one of our community members, Shelley Marmor, who runs some very successful travel blogs and teaches others to do the same. Shelley switched her blog’s theme to Kadence and began finding greater success online. Through both affiliate marketing and a successful advertising network, Shelley’s business focuses solely…
Episode 25: Cultivating Mindset & Motivation Through Challenges
When we’re just starting a project, we often have to provide our own motivation to keep moving when challenges arise. In this episode, Ben, Hannah, and Kathy talk about how they work through challenges, set goals, and achieve more through mindset, surrounding themselves with supportive people, and keeping their “why” in mind through difficult times…
Episode 24: Trust-Based Marketing in the Era of Social Media
Humans are social creatures and we rely on the advice of trusted influences in our life to make purchasing decisions more than we often realize. In this episode, we check in with Ben on updates on Kadence development, and we review examples of trust based marketing with some ideas on how small WooCommerce store owners…
Episode 23: How to Leverage Customer Support Excellence to Build Your Brand
In episode 23 to kick of 2023 of the Kadence Beat, we take a look at how exemplary customer support affects our perception of a brand, whether it is an airline, fast food, or clothing company. We talk about Kadence’s philosophy on customer support and how it began from an empathetic perspective when founder Ben…
Episode 21: Start Blogging & See Where Building with Blocks Can Take You with Jake Pfohl
Jake Pfohl has been one of the most active members of the Kadence community since the early days of Kadence as an innovator in building effective websites with blocks. Jake started his blog, StartBlogging101.com and evolved into a full library of design solutions with StartBloggingBlocks.com. In this episode of The Kadence Beat, Hannah and Ben…
Episode 20: The Kadence Community and Influence with Maestro Stevens
Kadence is so much more than a theme. With a suite of plugins that help anyone create more effective WordPress websites, Kadence also provides opportunity for empowerment for developers looking to create additional streams of income. In this episode, Kathy and Hannah are joined by Maestro Stevens, a WordPress developer who has created a set…
Episode 19: What Makes Someone a WordPress Developer
With the era of new no-code tools including those found in the Kadence suite of solutions, we discuss the question of what makes someone a WordPress developer. We also talk about some ways to get started in WordPress, how to set yourself up for success, and ways to stick with problems in order to really…
Episode 18: How to Easily Win with Google’s Helpful Content Update
In this episode, the Kadence team takes a look at a recent algorithm change that Google released that they are calling the Helpful Content Update. This new change is targeted towards elevating “people-first content” in Google’s search engine result pages. Once you’ve got the fundamentals of the technology in place with WordPress and Kadence, how…
Episode 17: The Benefits and Challenges of Remote Work
The Kadence team is entirely remote and works from home, the beach, coffee shops and various locations around the world. Remote work is a big part of freelancing, agency work, and many in the WordPress community have found ways to do remote work right. Ben, Hannah, and Kathy talk about their own unique remote work…
Episode 16: Building a Personal Brand by Being of Service to Others
In this episode, we talk about Ben’s experience at WordCamp US in San Diego, California, and how building a personal brand is good for both entrepreneurs as well as employees. But just how do you go about building a reputation and a personal brand? We determine that being of service to others and helping others…
Episode 15: Finding your Beat: Brand Building Fundamentals
Whether you’re just starting a business or you’re looking to improve your business’ marketing, naming and branding your business can make or break your efforts to grow revenue. In this episode of The Kadence Beat, we look at the challenges of naming a business, coming up with logos, color schemes, and of course why this…
Episode 14: Best Practices in Hiring Help for WordPress
We all need a little help getting things done on our WordPress sites sometimes. Maybe that involves hiring a designer, a developer, or maybe you want to hire someone to handle it all for you. In this discussion about best practices for hiring WordPress help, the team talks about everything from deciding when you need…
Episode 13: Demystifying WordPress Tech: Where can curiosity take you?
In this episode, the team talks about how they got into WordPress, coding, and technology, and they ask some deeper questions about the difference between technical and non-technical people. Is WordPress too technical for some people? Can agency and freelancers can help their clients succeed by encouraging them to try to break their sites? How…
Episode 12: Resources to Make Publishing with WordPress Better, Easier & Faster
WordPress is an amazing tool for sharing your content with the world, but it can’t do everything. (Yet?) In this episode, the Kadence team talks about some of the tools we use to make publishing with WordPress better, easier and faster. We not only discuss tools to help you create content, but how to determine…
Episode 11: How Shop Kit Provides the Foundation for WooCommerce Innovation
Kadence Shop Kit 2.0 is currently in beta, and it promises to change how WooCommerce sites engage with their audiences. With new methods of providing shoppers engaging experiences with products, we expect to see a new wave of innovation in the eCommerce space. In this episode, we talk about the benefits WooCommerce has over other…
Episode 10: Building Design Prototypes in WordPress with Kadence
Every new design starts somewhere, and tools like Figma, Invision, Axure, or Adobe XD provide designers with innovative ways to create visual representations of web design. However, in the WordPress world, innovations in the block editor make creating designs natively, in the space closest to implementation, even easier. In this episode we get real about…
Episode 9: Attracting Website Traffic: Don’t Be a Rainbow in the Dark
There’s nothing more frustrating than building a beautiful site that no one visits. At Kadence, we’re committed to helping our customers build beautiful sites that are effective, and attracting website traffic is a huge part of that. In today’s episode, we talk about attracting traffic to your site through everything from social media and influencers…
Episode 8: Effectively Using Popups as a Part of the Customer Journey
Marketers use popups because they are so effective at gaining a user’s attention, however, they can create a user experience nightmare if implemented wrong. We review some of the best ways that popups, modals, and even slide-ins and banners can be used effectively in a way that supports your business objectives while being useful and…
Episode 7: The Money is in the List: Using Email Effectively
Once you’ve encouraged your site visitors to interact with your brand, it’s time to get a little more personal and get them on your email list. In this episode, we talk about email marketing strategies, both from the perspective of site owners and digital marketers, but also as consumers. We discuss ways to connect with…
Episode 6: Website User Experiences That Drive Users Insane
Most website owners attempt to create user experiences that they would want to experience themselves, but sometimes business and/or marketing goals create experiences that drive users insane. In today’s episode, Hannah, Ben and Kathy bring their grievances to The Kadence Beat, but also provide some alternative solutions that could potentially help site owners avoid pitfalls…
Episode 5: Building a Passionate Community Around Your Brand
Building a passionate community around your brand is a powerful part of growing your business, but it can seem daunting in the beginning and isn’t without pitfalls. Hannah and Ben talk about the early days of Kadence and how a Facebook group helped support the brand’s growth. We also answer a listener’s question about dynamic…
Episode 4: How 3 Sites Create Unforgettable Experiences
An effective website creates an immersive experience that audiences want to revisit. What are the secrets to creating experiences that uplift your brand and sell your products? This week, Hannah, Ben, and Kathy review three sites that make impressions and unpack why these experiences worked for them. There are definitely some lessons that all site…
Episode 3: Designing the Perfect Home Page
Everyone’s looking for the best content for their home page that engages their target audience and converts them into customers. On this episode of The Kadence Beat, we look at how to find the right content that turns site visitors into your customers on your home page by using a midwifery practice as an example….
Episode 2: Multi-use Multisites and Evolving as a WordPress Freelancer
This week Ben, Hannah, and Kathy discuss the fixes in WordPress 5.9.1, the usefulness of WordPress multisite installations, how the evolution of web development requires freelancers to evolve with the needs of the market, and a security update pushed out by the WordPress team to patch a vulnerability in UpdraftPlus. We also talk about the…
Episode 1: Our Mission to Help People Create Effective Websites
Welcome to episode 1 of our new podcast, The Kadence Beat. This podcast will cover topics related to WordPress, blocks, and most importantly thoughts on creating effective websites. In this initial episode, meet Ben Ritner, the founder of Kadence, Hannah Ritner who drives customer success for Kadence when she’s not bringing new people into the…
