xneelo Managed WordPress

Business goals

The current control panel was designed and built over 20 years ago. Both the design and the BE infrastructure were out of date. The idea of user experience did not even exist 20 years ago. Nor the concept of mobile-first rule in the product design.

The company visions to have the product on a new platform that would take the company forward for another 20 years. It would provide a supported, full-featured, modern and easy-to-use experience on any device to anyone who needs to build and manage a secure website. The company wants to become the market leader and continue to be customers' trusted partner in hosting.

Project goals

The latest data show that as the world's largest CMS (content management system), WordPress is used by about 43.2% of websites on the internet in 2022. Moreover, over 25% of xneelo customers installed WordPress on their web hosting plan. Therefore the company decided to add a managed WordPress service to the product offerings.

It would also be the jumping-off point for xneelo to contribute to the WordPress community and be more actively involved in the community.

Market research

The marketing team conducted two rounds of interviews. Based on the results, we identified the following user groups.

Hobbyists - This is a person who pursues a particular hobby and would like to have a website to showcase their work and connect with like-minded individuals. Usually has little to no technical skills and limited knowledge on hosting or creating websites. However, they are willing to put time into creating a website and try a few site builders to see what works for them, as it is just a side hustle and not their primary source of income.

Freelancers - Freelancers understand the hosting concept and can often independently build a website using a CMS or a site builder without knowing much coding. They are more tech-savvy than Hobbyists and have discovered a few flexible WordPress themes that can help them get the work done quickly.

Small to medium business owners - This type of user owns a stable business seeking new revenue streams and expects a more extensive online presence to make them look professional. They would be happy to pay for Freelancers or Resellers to make the website and would want to manage themselves once it is up. The website is their primary source of income, so it is important to get it correct.

Resellers/Agencies - The core business for resellers or agencies are designing, developing, and maintaining websites. Hosting is essential but not primary in their business. They look for automation features to free them up and instead spend more time building websites for their clients. They would also appreciate white label solutions and would like to have the ability to allocate resources and quotas for sites manually.

We have also conducted competitor analysis with both direct and indirect competitors to help us better understand the market. Moreover, with that understanding, we determined the necessary features a Managed WordPress customer would be looking for in the product in order for us to even compete in the international market in the future. 

Solution

Hobbyists, Freelancers and Resellers/Agencies are all direct customers, whereas small to medium business owners are more likely xneelo's indirect customers. We decided that Hobbyists would be our target persona for MVP(minimum viable product) as it has a relatively more minor feature set than the other user groups. Moreover, providing the service to empower others to bring their dreams to life is where our brand stands.

For Hobbyists, the process should be as straightforward as possible. They would play around with the control panel and would not mind some education on what each feature provided can do. However, they would want to have more support on creating the website than how to host it. User flows were created, tested, and constantly iterated with that in mind.

Design

Testing

The product has gone through both alpha testing and beta testing. We have received more positive feedback than expected. The customers were happy:

• Quick and easy process to set up and build WordPress sites

• This is a managed WordPress solution hosted locally in SA and uses local currency

• Provides a one-click-install staging environment for customers to test different plugins and themes

• SSL certificate is automatically set up with all managed WordPress websites

The product was successfully launched in the SA market last year. Since then, we have reached over 20% conversion rate, and we are planning to add more advanced features for other user groups to the product as it has proved its value.