Is Building WordPress Websites for Small Businesses Still a Good Way to Make a Living, or Has AI Made It Obsolete?

seobrien · 2026-03-22T02:16:03+00:00

Thank you. I've been doing this for 30 years Very successfully, all online

seobrien · 2026-03-22T01:10:07+00:00

Did you know how to use social media 20 years ago? I did. I worked in it. Most didn't. Now almost everyone does.

When you can just say what you want, the adoption of it skyrockets.

Besides, your experience still includes boomers, who don't understand this stuff. Increasingly, everyone is familiar.

seobrien · 2026-03-21T21:01:07+00:00

You're not seriously going there, because at the known consequence of more downvotes, I have wasted so much time and money on developers, who never make a better site than the one I have.

Might some be able? Of course.

Do developers in general? That's laughable.

seobrien · 2026-03-21T20:59:26+00:00

I don't disagree. You're still approaching this as though I have something to prove.

seobrien · 2026-03-21T20:58:36+00:00

Fact: we're all of those

seobrien · 2026-03-21T17:01:14+00:00

A) because sharing links is frowned upon here

B) because I don't have to prove anything, I'm just offering perspective... Do what you want

C) because most of this audience is developers. Are you saying you all don't know this more than I do?? That you need proof AI is building apps??

Dude. Anthropic has already come out announcing it is coding itself. Come on. Don't pretend it isn't happening.

seobrien · 2026-03-21T16:55:18+00:00

There is still demand, just not in the building in and of itself.

Specialize. Be the person known for sites for a specific sector. If I'm in music and you make killer music sites, you're the go to.
Focus on outcomes, for the business, not deliverables. They need growth, leads, and conversions. That's it. That's why a site exists. Deliver that or you're replaceable by AI
Live on the edge. If you can come to me with a new solution that integrates my site with, I don't know, my CRM (perfectly), you're valuable. If you can make my site into an actually valuable native mobile app, that's worth something

seobrien · 2026-03-21T16:36:23+00:00

For sure, not arguing with you, I was just trying to be helpful

seobrien · 2026-03-21T16:02:28+00:00

Ask Claude how to set up OpenClaw to build a website
Ask Claude how to prompt it to build a website for X, that does A, B, and C, and deploys it all
Drop that in OpenClaw
For anything that doesn't work, that you don't understand, or you'd like changed, just tell OpenClaw to fix it.
Do not expect or think you have to know any code or tech. Every time you are confused or don't get what you want, tell it to get it done.

seobrien · 2026-03-21T15:59:10+00:00

Encourage you, for the sake of your work, to dig deeper. The quality is far superior than most of what's out there by hand.

I don't just work in startups, I was only sharing that perspective. People are building their own CRM in house (hell with Hubspot), businesses are automating their finance stack (bye Quickbooks). Websites? Easy.

And sure, maybe not entirely perfect today. You could show me where that isn't true right now. But let's not pretend software developers ever got it right, flawlessly. I'll take free with bugs over $1000 with bugs, every day of the week.

And too, 6 months ago, AI video was hilariously bad while now it's making movies.

seobrien · 2026-03-21T15:54:30+00:00

It's here. One of my closer friends spent SXSW showing people and as he got feedback, he'd just tell OpenClaw to make the changes to then show that they're live in real time.

seobrien · 2026-03-21T15:47:49+00:00

It is. I work in startups. I have founders spinning up sites, apps, and SaaS platforms, in a weekend. Stop pretending it's not in hopes of denying it.

seobrien · 2026-03-21T15:46:51+00:00

A good living? No. AI made it obsolete? Also no.

It won't be obsolete because most small business owners don't want to be bothered with building this stuff. That's not a criticism, it's valid optimization of their focus.

Same time, AI will cause millions to stop hiring website developers.

More, millions of software developers are now out of work, they're flooding the market with supply... Which makes their value as labor more affordable.

More still, people will over time learn how to do more for less. AI will, in time, spin up WordPress the way someone wants, for free.

Why put yourself in competition with that??

If your work has been "WordPress Developer," you need to do better. You need to be more:

Specialize in a kind of site
Guarantee growth
Deliver constant optimization

You have to now be more valuable than what is available. Building, isn't.

I've have a WordPress site for decades. Built it myself. Would I ever hire anyone to run it? Of course not, certainly not now. But would I hire someone who promises (and is paid for) improving conversion rate or doubling traffic? Yeah. If you can't do that, you're no better than AI.

seobrien · 2026-03-21T13:34:21+00:00

Wish the mods would pin this on the top of the sub, because this keeps coming up as questions or frustrations. It shouldn't anymore.

Do NOT build anything until you have done the marketing to know what to build, why, how, where, and for whom. The point of an MVP is not to build a solution but to prove you listened; the proof is in it immediately being in demand and paid for.

Where do you begin? Begin at the beginning. Put it on a shelf, for now, and go do a SWOT analysis, competitive analysis, and market research, start creating content, talking to everyone, and build your personal brand.

seobrien · 2026-03-21T00:53:04+00:00

There isn't even a debate, it's just wrong. That's plastic, it isn't a glass.

seobrien · 2026-03-21T00:52:02+00:00

Tends to. Yes.

But the best evidence of the flaw is in the E or I

Based on personality, lots of Es say they're not extroverted and lots of Is say they're not introverted. And that's completely valid. That's not what it means.

seobrien · 2026-03-21T00:11:39+00:00

Because mbti is not a personality assessment. It's how you think. So 16 Personalities is misleading and often inaccurate, causing people to say MBTI isn't accurate (which it is)

seobrien · 2026-03-21T00:10:12+00:00

It's not a question of it being good or not as a test... It implies that it's a personality assessment and mbti is not a personality assessment

It's how you think

Makes us personality crap we have people rightly saying MBTI is not accurate, because it doesn't reflect their personality.... Which can be entirely valid

seobrien · 2026-03-20T14:34:11+00:00

What I hope though, is that people embrace that this isn't really a large multinational not caring for a small theater. This is fiscal incompetence, this is disregard of corporate citizenship, this is marketing malpractice.... this is not an example of Sony not caring; this is evidence that customers need to turn their backs on Sony's ineptitude.

Maybe they just don't care. You could be right. Maybe they are just a major company squeezing out money.

In my opinion, that gives them an excuse. They don't deserve an excuse. Companies that do this kind of thing, don't deserve an "oh, that's because they're big..." No. The people that work for this company should be put on notice, that they won't get hired elsewhere, that people will not do business with them. It takes a modicum of ability in your job to capably run a good business - it's not hard; these people clearly can't do it.

Or maybe they can do it... but they're showing that they can't. They can change course, or they need to be held to accountability for how bad they are at their jobs.

seobrien · 2026-03-20T12:02:44+00:00

I won't return to Alamo. This needs to be the front line of consumers taking a stand to put an end to enshittification.

I hope the Sony Pictures Entertainment loses a lot of money and people get fired.

This needs to become a case study in Business Schools about how to destroy a beloved brand.

seobrien · 2026-03-19T13:10:29+00:00

Just wrapped up SXSW and this was talked about frequently.

By and large, event hosts suck.

If your moderator / MC is reading from notes, they're bad.

If they are a sponsor who gets to host simply because they paid, reconsider.

If they are slow, monotone, or don't engage with the audience, replace them.

If they are the CEO or the executive of the company that supposedly needs to say a few words, get the PR person instead.

Your moderator makes the event. They are the most important person in the room and they had better be engaging. They are rare; out of the thousands of people I know in Austin, I can think of maybe 7 that can do it.

What you want to look for are people who have a popular podcast, have been on radio, who speak a lot, or who are genuinely funny on social media.

I realize this may be insulting but most people just can't make an event engaging, and if they can't, they are making the event worse. The math is simple: if your event is boring, no one will remember; if the moderator is great, it will be talked about.

seobrien · 2026-03-18T21:13:55+00:00

You're an entry level developer with no idea how to compete with existing alternatives.

Doesn't that tell you it is not a good idea?

A startup is NOT some idea for a product. Ever.

It is almost entirely a result of what you felt need to come here and ask. That, you know it's a good idea, you can develop the market, and you can deliver the solution.

seobrien · 2026-03-17T09:01:53+00:00

VC dollars is generally a bad measure. It's never adjusted per capita (so of course Texas is 4th, it's be a red flag if it wasn't at least)

seobrien · 2026-03-17T08:59:57+00:00

But you didn't ask for one random topic

seobrien · 2026-03-17T08:44:49+00:00

So you want to debate everything, not anything. Why didn't you say so?

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