Tips Tuesday – 2026 Predictions, Get in on the Brand Spend

Top of the year, y’all. Let’s do this!!

And I have some predictions for you too.

Tips this week include:

• WordPress predictions for 2026
• The next big hack attack vector for 2026
• The big cleanup for 2026 – to get ahead of the new attack vectors
• Turnstile plugin update
• Make or check your contingency plan
• What will matter most in 2026
• Creator brand spend increases
• Video blooms for AI brand mentions
• Can you do brand mentions? You may already be doing it
• My new youTube Channel update
• My woodworking YouTube channel update

WordPress Tips

WordPress in 2026

The nice folks over at The WP Minute did a panel discussion on their WordPress predictions for 2026.

Jump over to read their highlights summary. 

FYI, much of it is either technical or political, so it may not be clear how it will affect you.

The main thing is, no matter what comes down the pike for us, I’ll be here to help guide you through it!!

The Next Big Hack Attack Vector in 2026

Cyber security has become harder every year. And AI has escalated the pace.

AI bots are scraping more than content. 

They are getting every tidbit of info from sites that they can, including the underlying code, what plugins are in use now, and orphans of those used in the past too.

They throw all of that into a custom AI chatbot and ask it to find a way to hack the site.

A LOT of those hacks are silent, meaning you’ll never know they are there, and they are hard to detect too.

The Big Cleanup for 2026

In site audits, I already look for orphaned files, folders, and database tables of plugins and themes that were used but later deleted.

This year, I’m going deeper to do updates on WP core files and clean the wp_options table of ghosts.

Those old, unused things are already being scanned for vulnerabilities in some hack attacks.

This is a task that you most definitely need a seasoned webmaster to do for you!!!!!!

Non-techie folks can very quickly bork their sites doing it, and have no idea how to recover it.

Contact me if you’re ready for a deep audit that gets your site fast and secure.

Plugins

Turnstile Update

Google’s reCaptcha is okay, but not necessarily the best way to secure your logins and forms.

Me and my clients are using Turnstile from Cloudflare.

The folks who make the plugin for it have just updated for a fallback failsafe to switch to Google’s reCaptcha should Turnstile become unavailable, like it did a few weeks ago when CF did an update that brought the service to its knees.

I’ll be making a tutorial update for my site audit Hub clients and webmasters soon. 

Business Tips

Make or Check Your Contingency Plan

If you became unavailable to run your online biz, your spouse or best friend or such wouldn’t have a clue where to start with it.

The first of the year is a great time to check your Contingency Plan to ensure it is up to date.

Don’t have one yet?

See: Make a Contingency Plan for Your Website

It will help you gather the info you need and remind you of things you probably didn’t even consider.

Plus, it has tips for short and long term absences too.

What Will Matter Most in 2026

Showing up as human is what will make or break businesses now.

Creating content in ways that AI can’t will matter.

The nice folks at The Tilt have a post on Four Non-Obvious Predictions for 2026 that addresses the massive change we’re in with regard to AI and how you can stand out.

Here’s a segment that caught my attention:

“As AI removes friction from creation, the scarce resources become trust, belief, purpose, and alignment. Reach becomes cheap. Consistency becomes automated. Scale becomes table stakes.

What remains valuable is what makes us human. Replies instead of clicks. Relationships instead of reach. Alignment instead of optimization. Clear bets instead of endless options.”

Creator Brand Spend Increases

And this is exactly why brands are offering more money to more creators – and that will only grow this year.

They NEED real people talking to folks.

See this post from The Publish Press about What to Expect in 2026.

The creator brand spend will include video, social media, and written content too.

Video Tips

Video Blooms for AI Brand Mentions

As I’ve recently reported several times in Tips Tuesday’s, brands are scrambling to get as many online mentions as they can now.

That’s the key for them to get citations in AI Search.

Guess what?

YouTube videos are turning into a major player for them!!!

There are all kinds of AI tools to scrape or summarize YouTube transcripts now, and LLMs like OpenAI and Perplexity are scraping that content too.

I saw a post from one pro SEO that they are dropping 10k videos a month and they zoomed to the top of AI Search because of it. No amount of written content can catch up to them.

You don’t have to do 10k videos to get seen.

Creators, who don’t have huge followings, are getting brand deals from just 1 video – ask my client who did it!!

Can You Do Brand Mentions?

I’ve been telling y’all for months, hawking brands on video is a great way to make money now.

Brands are not looking for select influencers with millions of followers. They are going for volume.

And that means that we can get brand sponsored deals and do more social selling too.

I’m most definitely looking into this hard for 2026, as I had already expanded Heartwood Art to review tools that appeal to homeowners.

What kind of brand mentions can you do?

C’mon! You have Amazon affiliate links all over your site – you’re already doing it, you’re just not getting seen for it in a way that could get you a brand deal.

Seriously think about how you can tweak what you do to attract the billions in ad spend that’s flowing out for 2026.

My New YouTube Channel Update

Thanks to everyone who has let me know how encouraging it has been to follow my YouTube adventures!!!

Here’s update on the newest channel.

After 2 solid months of YouTube promoting my new channel, the honeymoon period is over.

The impressions and views metrics have leveled off.

The watchtime has actually stalled on the long-form videos. The Shorts have been driving the new growth.

All of this is normal for a new channel.

For the first half of January I have 3 Shorts a week scheduled. But I’ll be backing that down to 2 a week until they run out sometime in March.

I’ll flip back to making a new long-form video series by the end of January.

I’ll continue to share the monthly metrics in the DIY SEO course’s Facebook group, as well as more video tips in the new workshops this year.

My Woodworking YouTube Channel Update

Here’s an update on the channel that has been making me money for years now, and I hope to double my revenue on in 2026.

I’ve been plugging away over the holiday weeks with recording the new CAD program tutorials.

I’m starting with a Tips playlist of videos that focus on how to do just one thing in the program, like how to make an Object a Component so that it is a solid thing. And then how to move it or rotate it. And how to do things like use the measuring tape to mark lengths for joining boards or such.

These 10 Tips videos are under 3 minutes, but I’m doing them in landscape, not vertical, because I don’t want them to be Shorts. They are going to get big hits over time and I get paid more if they are not Shorts.

After that, I’ll start recording the two full build models that I’ve scripted. Both are workbenches, which are great beginner projects.

I plan to have all of them either published or scheduled for publishing before January is out.

And I took a snapshot of my December metrics for this channel and posted in the DIY SEO Facebook group so folks can follow along with how this new series performs. That snapshot includes my revenue too.