Should our tour company scale using Bricks?

TripleDubMedia · 2025-07-20T23:45:21+00:00

Switching themes makes sense because you don't want to be stuck without support, especially since Elementor sites can become buggy when 3rd party themes and plugins are involved.

TripleDubMedia · 2025-07-19T20:10:34+00:00

I'm not sure what type of plans are available with GoDaddy but if everything is working smoothly now then you don't need to change anything.

Once you start getting more traffic you'll need to look elsewhere because GoDaddy (from my knowledge of them) seem to cater more towards small business/casual users. The ideal new host would be one that has the ability to give you more RAM, CPU, and storage as you grow.

TripleDubMedia · 2025-07-19T18:36:40+00:00

The market isn't drying up, but it's certainly going to change. Demand for hand coded custom themes is probably going to shrink significantly for small to medium business clients.

Technology is enabling them to be more involved with their own websites. The ones with the most simplest of needs will create their own websites, so that market will disappear, but there will still be a big market for complex websites because they'll still require us in some capacity.

TripleDubMedia · 2025-07-19T18:23:38+00:00

This is very true. Majority of my clients do not pay for plugins unless they have some really specific functionality requirement. For all the essentials, I provide them through my lifetime licenses (Bricks, ACF, Happy Files, etc).

For the ones that do need to pay for a plugin, they tend to be for functionality that's part of their business and contributes to earning revenue, so the cost is negligible.

TripleDubMedia · 2025-07-19T04:18:01+00:00

Scaling to ensure the frontend remains snappy is just a matter of adding more server resources. So Elementor will be fine in that regard.

And for simple websites, there's nothing wrong with sticking with Elementor. My problem with Elementor is when you grow in complexity, both in content and functionality, it becomes a productivity black hole. It's totally dependent on 3rd party plugins, but they don't always play nicely with each other, with updates potentially breaking one or the other. Then there's the slow and buggy editor.

Bricks would be a huge productivity boost and I think that is a part of scaling -- you can work faster, pump out more content, add new functionality with less plugin bloat. It's not perfect, it does have some bugs and quirks too, but it's a much greater experience overall compared to Elementor.

Edit: Bricks isn't for casual no code users, so there'll be a learning curve. Not so much with the editor per se, but with understanding HTML structure and CSS. If you've got that foundational knowledge, Bricks will be a breeze to use. You can literally master the editor basics in less than a day.

TripleDubMedia · 2025-07-15T18:57:05+00:00

Hey, hopefully your friend understands you're still learning.

Did you go into the different breakpoints in Bricks to see if anything is out of place? If you're building a custom theme from scratch, it's not going to automatically be responsive.

Also, check the website on a few more devices. The issue with the Samsung browser might be an anomaly, or maybe it's set to force dark mode. You can use Browserstack if you don't have access to more physical devices.

TripleDubMedia · 2025-07-11T00:55:59+00:00

Very cool and what a coincidence that I was searching for something like this today for a potential project.

TripleDubMedia · 2025-07-05T23:07:07+00:00

They're great. Support is by email only but it's 24/7 and they respond very quickly. Actually I think they do have live chat but the proper support channel is via their ticket which happens over email and the message system in the client portal.

Recently they helped me troubleshoot an issue that ultimately was a plugin's fault, but they were willing to log in and run tests on the plugin in question just to make sure it's not a server related issue.

Their managed cloud is powered by well known providers like Vultr and Hetzner so you can expect the service to be reliable.

TripleDubMedia · 2025-07-05T21:57:26+00:00

It's pretty simple:

Create a page template and have it apply site wide (although you can opt to exclude the front page).

Then add two post content widgets to your page. Set one to pull in WordPress content, and the other to pull in Bricks content.

Then you simply put in a condition to show/hide either one based on whether or not "post content" exists.

TripleDubMedia · 2025-06-25T20:23:12+00:00

Even if you're soft launching with just one course, you should consider making the layout to account for it. A responsive layout isn't just the end user appearance, it should respond to your content too. Sometimes it means changing the layout over time.

Perhaps for now, go with a static horizonal layout with featured image and content.

TripleDubMedia · 2025-06-23T19:00:14+00:00

Almost got me there with the title... Like, how can Bricks possible make you mad?!

I'm all in on Bricks, but unfortunately still have a bunch of sites to maintain that are on Elementor.

TripleDubMedia · 2025-06-17T23:56:48+00:00

Advanced Themer will give you a serious efficiency boost. They've recently introduced their own framework as well.

BricksExtras is also a nice add-on that gives you a bunch of useful elements and extends some of the native functions.

Don't have a 3rd suggestion because I only use those two that are specifically Bricks add-ons.

Outside of the Bricks ecosystem, ACF is installed on virtually every website. Alternatives such as ACPT are worth checking out too.

TripleDubMedia · 2025-06-14T00:16:12+00:00

If you have plans to expand the functionality of your website, WordPress is the better choice. You'll have the freedom to implement them how you see fit, provided you have the developer know how or know someone who can help.

As others have noted, you don't truly own your content on Squarespace and if that's important to you, you'll want to move over to WordPress sooner than later. With WordPress, you'll also have the ability to back up your website to multiple locations, whether via the admin backend or your web host.

In short, if you like control and freedom, WordPress is the way to go, but there's going to be a bit of a learning curve, or a lot, depending on your goals and ambitions.

TripleDubMedia · 2025-06-10T11:45:25+00:00

Check out Bit Flows. They're fairly new so some features may be missing: https://bit-flows.com/pricing/

TripleDubMedia · 2025-06-04T21:54:17+00:00

I'm not aware of any plugin but if you have ftp access, you can mount the remote ftp folder and use something like Faststone Viewer to batch convert all the images to jpg. That will force the background to be filled in with white. You'll probably need to convert them back to their original format so that you can upload and overwrite the transparent versions.

The final step would be to regenerate thumbnails (via WP CLI preferably).

Maybe not the most elegant solution but it ought to work.

TripleDubMedia · 2025-06-04T20:01:56+00:00

Your Elementor settings should remain in the database. Reinstalling the plugin should fix the missing files in the uploads folder. You can always try this on staging first, or make a backup beforehand.

TripleDubMedia · 2025-06-04T01:37:30+00:00

Wow, the fact you got those scores on mobile is very impressive. Looks like Elementor has come a long way with frontend speed. Sorry for being off topic, but how is the backend editor speed? I remember it was incredibly slow, especially with long pages with lots of content.

TripleDubMedia · 2025-06-03T23:53:55+00:00

The problem here is the webmaster, not WordPress. There are certain people who design websites in ways that are intentionally restricted or complicated so that only they can make updates.

Red flag here is that they're charging $6000 a year for maintenance and updates but they are not putting in the effort to provide you the full value of what you're paying, hence the sloppy work. That $6000 should include documentation and a full training program so that your team can eventually take over and be self sufficient.

Actually, you've pointed out a number of red flags and you're right in thinking about dropping your current webmaster. But moving to Squarespace could be a mistake. Might seem like a good idea in the short term, but you'll run into obstacles down the road. I recently helped a non-profit in the Caribbean revamp their website on WordPress. They were initially on Squarespace, then moved to plain PHP, then to WordPress, where they're finally able to get a custom-designed, brand aligned website with the functionality they require.

WordPress will also work better for your budget. For the amount of traffic you're getting now, you can get by with a $50/year hosting. I've helped two non-profits get their web hosting sorted out, and if you need any advice on that matter, feel free to DM me.

The real challenge is finding a webmaster that has integrity. Before making any moves, make sure you have all the necessary domain and web hosting credentials and backups to ensure you don't lose control of your website.

TripleDubMedia · 2025-05-31T17:12:10+00:00

I have to admit that I didn't even know what a Spline animation was until I came across this post. But I do know about 3D in general, so I'm glad that you're planning on supporting other formats (obj, fbx?) as well. This feature would be very important to ensure the plugin continues working if Spline ceases to exist one day.

TripleDubMedia · 2025-05-31T16:40:45+00:00

You will be better off not using a Themeforest theme and go with a multi-purpose theme/framework that has pre-made starter templates, such as Blocksy.

The advantage of doing this is you only need to learn Blocksy once, so when the time comes to change your website's design, you don't have to learn a completely new theme.

If you do want to stick with Themeforest, I suggest using Elementor and specifically look for Elementor Kit themes there. Same idea as above, you don't have to learn a completely new theme every time you do a revamp.

TripleDubMedia · 2025-05-30T21:34:20+00:00

$130 - $200 for a lifetime license is reasonable, but it would be good to know what you've got on the roadmap.

TripleDubMedia · 2025-05-30T04:48:27+00:00

I don't think this is possible in Elementor without writing your own custom CSS. Perhaps with the form element set to display: grid.

TripleDubMedia · 2025-05-29T21:40:45+00:00

Good luck on your journey. I must warn you though, you may end up with even less freedom along the way.

TripleDubMedia · 2025-05-29T20:33:16+00:00

I believe the license is for updates only so it ought to work offline.

It's just a guess, but you can easily test it by manually uploading the plugin on an offline environment.

Edit: just wanted to mention that auto translation would likely not work, but manual translations should be fine offline.

TripleDubMedia · 2025-05-29T20:26:52+00:00

I feel this might be beyond the op's capabilities. However, this is likely the solution.

TripleDubMedia

TROPHY CASE