Special thanks to Nectarblocks for sharing their story and providing insights into how InstaWP supports their beta testing and demo processes.
When building cutting-edge WordPress tools, efficiency, and seamless experiences are key to our workflow, which is why Nectarblocks turned to InstaWP.
InstaWP is a platform that allows Nectarblocks to create on-demand WordPress instances via API. Nectarblocks used InstaWP to automate beta testing for their theme and plugins and provide live demos of Nectarblocks to their customers.
“If you’re running a similar service, I highly recommend checking out InstaWP. Whether for beta testing, demos, or just simplifying your development workflow, it has been a game changer for us. It has saved us money and countless hours.“ – Nectarblocks
What is Nectarblocks?
Nectarblocks is a block-based, design-first, Gutenberg-based WordPress plugin that provides custom blocks, advanced block options, and pre-built designs for enhanced web designs. They provide custom support for Rows, Columns, Flexbox, Paragraph/Headings and many more. Their animation integration is near the top of the industry.
Some of the more complex blocks that they offer include:
- Scrolling Marquee Block – Allows you to add scrolling content to your page. You can add text and images that will loop continuously at your choice of speed and direction. The font, colors, and size of your marquee are all customizable.
- Video Lightbox – This block lets you enhance your page with a dynamic visual feature, displaying a video in an overlay lightbox that opens when activated.
- Carousel – Showcase your content in a dynamic and interactive format with the Carousel block. Effortlessly cycle through items with smooth horizontal scrolling, perfect for highlighting featured content, images, or testimonials.
- Image Gallery – The Image Gallery block allows you to add an engaging and dynamic image showcase for your users. The block settings give you options to tailor your content into an immersive gallery
Key Features of NectarBlocks
1. Block Collection
NectarBlocks provides more customizable building blocks and elements with numerous customization options, making it capable of achieving highly impressive designs.
2. Responsive Editing
With NectarBlocks, you can switch screen size and adjust the settings for blocks from the page builder. The responsive editing experience is simple and makes it easy to ensure that your site looks great on every device.
3. Design Library
NectarBlocks provides a rich library of section templates and presets, empowering you to build beautiful pages faster.
4. Pre-built Websites Templates
NectarBlocks offers several beautifully pre-built websites that can be imported with a single click, making it easy to get started on a new website.
5. Animations and 3D Transforms
Animations and 3D transforms add a fun, eye-catching element that boosts customer engagement. Unfortunately, the default Gutenberg editor doesn’t offer these features. Nectarblocks bridges this gap, enabling you to create complex animations like those seen on award-winning websites featured on awwwards.
6. Unsplash Integration
NectarBlocks offers excellent Unsplash integration, providing quick access to millions of royalty-free images directly from the editor.
7. Color Palettes and Typography
NectarBlocks provides a collection of pre-designed color palettes as well as several typographical fonts and rules that can be used throughout your website to ensure consistency and branding.
8. Performance and SEO Optimization
Block-based editors are expected to be fast due to their clean and minimalist code. NectarBlocks doesn’t fall short in this aspect. NectarBlocks is optimized for speed and SEO, giving you an advantage in search engine rankings.
Automating Nectarblocks Beta Testing Pipeline with InstaWP
By integrating InstaWP into their process, Nectarblocks was able to automate the entire deployment pipeline.
Without InstaWP, manually spinning up environments for beta testing can be a time-consuming endeavor. Each new version required a dedicated instance to ensure everything worked as intended per person.
For beta testing, for each release, beta testers could receive login credentials for their very own WordPress instance, pre-loaded with the latest versions of Nectarblocks. This automation has allowed us to cut down on setup time, freeing our team to focus on improving our products.
The Magic Login Liink feature of InstaWP allowed Nectarblocks to streamline the sign-in process for their less technical beta testers. This led to increased beta participation and customer satisfaction.
API Integration
The InstaWP API made it incredibly easy and pain-free to build these workflows. The InstaWP API allows Nectarblocks to control every aspect of the WordPress instance creation. InstaWP has been a game changer for both their internal processes and their users’ experience. It was integral to saving time and money.
Also, using the API, Nectarblocks is able to spin up multiple environments with different PHP and WordPress versions for each new version of their Plugin and Theme.
Creating multiple versions and configurations allows Nectarblocks to test against realistic groups of deployments, which helps catch potential bugs before they reach customers.
Hosting the Nectarblocks Live Demo
One of the most powerful features of InstaWP is its ability to host live demos. Nectarblocks used this to let our users experience our theme and plugin firsthand without needing to download or install anything. With just a click, users can spin up their own instance of our service, fully configured and ready to go. It’s an effortless way for them to see the full range of functionality we offer and explore how our tools fit their needs.
With InstaWP, Nectarblocks only has to manage a single WordPress instance while doing custom branding, collecting emails/leads, and tracking demo creation.
The demo metrics have allowed them to track the effectiveness of our demo service with sales. With InstaWP, supercharged demos spin up in seconds. Every second counts in the sales funnel, and by decreasing friction, you can increase sales.
Each demo is sandboxed in an isolated environment, where the user gets a fresh installation of WordPress and Nectarblocks. Users are able to test Nectarblocks before committing to their purchase.
Final Statements
InstaWP has enabled Nectarblocks to streamline its beta testing but also to offer a hands-on demo experience for potential customers.
By removing barriers and offering a no-installation-required demo, we’ve made it easier than ever for users to explore our theme and plugin, which has resulted in more sales. The InstaWP API allowed Nectarblocks to save time and money by saving them from having to manually build demo instances for testing.