One of my favorite TV series is Game of Thrones (GoT). I’ve also read the first 5 books from the series ‘A Song of Ice and Fire’ by George R. R. Martin (GoT is an adaptation of these books).

In my opinion the things learned from the movie/books can be applied to different areas of life, even WordPress, why not 🙂

So, here are 14 WordPress tips I learned from GoT:

Power is Power just like WordPress

Just like Cersei Lannister (one of my favorite characters) says ‘Power is Power’, in web development such power is WordPress. It cannot be simply ignored if you have to choose a Content Management System (CMS).

Even if you plan to run an online store, the combination between WordPress and the WooCommerce plugin could be all you need.

So, if you intend to use a CMS for your website and WordPress is not your choice, in my opinion you should have very strong arguments for doing so.

2. Have a Clear Purpose like Sitting on the Iron Throne

When you start a website or blog, you should have a clear purpose about it. For example, if you plan to sell Premium WordPress themes, you should create an online store where to sell them.

If you don’t have a clear purpose, and you simply want to create a website, just for the idea to have one, it will lead to nowhere.

Once you have a clear target about the purpose of your business and your WordPress site, you can think about different strategies how to achieve your goal. Of course, some of the strategies may work for you, others may not. You can always change some of the strategies, but the main target should remain unchanged.

3. Have a Remarkable Site Title and Slogan like the Noble Families in Westeros

‘The Winter is Coming’, ‘Hear me Roar, ‘Fire and Blood’ we all know and remember the different mottoes of the Noble families in Westeros.

It’s not much different with the website title and slogan. If they are memorable, your visitors will easily remember them which is important for your website’s brand.

So, navigate to Admin Panel -> Left Menu -> Settings -> General and enter an awesome Site Title and Tagline, i.e.

4. Winter is Coming, So Backup

The warning and constant vigilance meaning behind the motto of House Start is a good advice always to be prepared for the worst case scenario for your website.

Unfortunately, there’s no 100% guarantee that your WordPress website won’t become hacked. Especially, if you use a nulled premium WordPress theme or bad Plugins.

Of course, there are steps that you can perform to reduce that risk, but you cannot eliminate it. So, the solution is to back up on regular basis.

5. Knowledge is the Key of Survival Even if Your Business is as Small as Tyrion

I think the main reason Tyrion to survive in the brutal world of GoT is that he is smart, that’s his main advantage:

My brother has his sword, King Robert has his warhammer and I have my mind…and a mind needs books as a sword needs a whetstone if it is to keep its edge. That’s why I read so much Jon Snow.

So, if you want your WordPress website to survive for many years, my advice is to spend as much time as possible for reading and learning new things.

6. Don’t Apply Any Advice You Get (ref. Stannis Baratheon and Melisandre)

Stannis Baratheon was one of the major characters. He could win the game of thrones, but he made the mistake to apply any advice by Melisandre.

If you have a website, you probably will receive many advices by different people: your friends, colleagues, other people via online forums on social sites. However, you should be very careful before applying some advice, because if things go wrong, you will pay the price, not the person who gave you the advice.

7. Your Products or Services Should be as Awesome as the Daenerys Dragons

I think the three Daenerys Dragons are a great example of having an awesome product, it gives you the unfair advantage over your competitors.

Simply having a WordPress blog (without selling anything) is not a different story. In that case, your efforts should be to create a unique and interesting blog in your niche that most of the readers to prefer reading it over other blogs in your niche.

8. Adapt to the Changing Market Unlike Eddard Stark

Eddard Stark was a cool guy (Personally I didn’t like him, but most of the people did), but he made a critical mistake. In the end, he hadn’t any idea about the real situation in King’s Landing.

In the same way the market is changing. There are too many different websites and if you play the game of websites, you win or you lose traffic 🙂

If there’s no market for you to sell your product or offer your services, then your business will end up like Eddard Stark.

9. Don’t Concern Yourself Too Much with the Opinion of Others

My favorite character was Tywin Lannister, because he was focused to do what had to be done without wasting too much efforts in talks, emotions, thoughts what other people think about him, etc.

If you start a WordPress website or blog, there will be people who like it and other people who don’t like it. Someone will like your product, but someone else will hate it. That’s Ok. The hard part is to keep moving forward.

Even if everyone says your product sucks, but you believe in yourself and your work, just keep moving forward, whatever happens.

10. Your WordPress Site is Your Responsibility. Don’t Make the Mistake of Lysa Tully

Lysa was one of the most naive characters in my opinion, she married to Lord Petyr Baelish (the Littlefinger) and she gave him the entire power to rule her kingdom. She ended up falling from the Moon Door.

In the same way with WordPress, you should rule it as you rule your own kingdom. Of course, you may combine your efforts with other team members, but you cannot totally ignore your business and rely on other people to do the entire work, because if you do so, you will become redundant.

11. Winning All Code Battles Doesn’t Guarantee Success in War

The young wolf Robb Stark (the son of Eddard Stark) won all his battles against Lannister, but he lost the war (You probably remember the Red Wedding), because he underestimated other factors.

If we think for battles as coding (i.e. staying late at night developing could be a battle with yourself) then you can make the mistake to put all your efforts on it.

If you have a strong technical background and you start a WordPress site, you probably will be able to make different changes and improvements to your site, i.e. applying changes in your theme, or even writing your own WordPress Theme or a Plugin.

That’s fine, but my point is do not concentrate only on the technical part of the things. There are many other factors for your success i.e. marketing, driving traffic to your website, make then your visitors your customers, etc.

12. Don’t Overestimate Yourself like Theon Greyjoy

We all know the story of Theon Greyjoy, he tried to keep Winterfell without having enough people to defend the castle. As a result, he lost almost everything he had, even his …., it’s a sad story.

So, the advice here is to know your strength and your weakness. Then think about ways how to fix the weak parts of your online business, i.e. if web development is not your strength, you’d better don’t waste your time trying to develop a WordPress theme, you can purchase a premium one and focus on other areas of your online business.

13. Do something. Don’t be like Sansa Stark

I think one of the weakest character is Sansa Stark. Let’s admit it, for so many series she did almost nothing, except crying.

So, the worst thing you can do for your WordPress website and online business is doing nothing. There’s so sad to open a blog and the last post to be older than several years.

14. Hating Others is as Expensive as Wars in GoT

If you hate some company or some person and you try to cause some damage to it/him by writing negative comments, blog posts, forum threads, it’s like beginning of a war like Stannis attack over King’s Landing. The result will be that you won’t win anything even if you succeed to cause some damage to the company you hate.

Instead of wasting your time, you’d better focus on your online business. The good news is that you can spend every free minute on it, i.e. you can always write a new blog post, you can improve your products, you can read some useful article or book, etc.

Conclusion

Well, that was the WordPress tips I think could be applied to WordPress form GoT. I’m waiting for the new book from the ‘A Song of Ice and Fire’ series – ‘The Winds of Winter’ and the new season of the TV series. Once they are release, I hope to be inspired to update the article with even more tips. I hope you have enjoyed the tips above.