Hello Happy Site Owners!
Tips this week include:
- Invitation-only webinar for BlogAid News subscribers this Thursday
- Caching and CDNs for Non-Geeks – BlogAid Live Show
- Tests on the free Ninja Forms plugin
- Yoast SEO cached sitemap checks
- Why sliders on sites suck, and so does parallax
- Changes to my Video Marketing courses
- The power of testimonials with super tips on getting them
Listen to the podcast
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BlogAid Happenings
It’s been a mixed bag of duties around here this week with site audits, getting a training client’s new site ready to launch, a site revamp client ready to make the switch in themes, checking out new contact form plugins, which I’ll tell you more about in a moment, making a new video tutorial, and troubleshooting a MailChimp auto subscription issue on one of my member sites.
Whew! And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
Invitation-Only Webinar
On Sunday I ran a private webinar test on using Thrive plugins and YouTube Live to stream a live webinar from my own site.
I want to thank Kim Wende, Barb Tomlin, and Larry Snow for helping run that test.
This Thursday evening, I’ll be conducting a similar webinar to show you the results of that test, as well as the other options it opened me up to, and the caveats I found with using that method for setting up an entire webinar funnel and streaming it from your own site.
BlogAid News subscribers will be the only folks invited to this demonstration. Invitations are going out tonight, so make sure you’re on that list.
If you’re thinking about creating lead pages with Thrive, or running a webinar, or streaming from your own site for anything, you definitely want to attend.
This is a free, zero-pitch, all help, no hype webinar.
Upcoming BlogAid Live Show
Caching and CDNs for Non-Geeks
Wed Oct 12
1pm ET / 10am PT
on the BlogAid Facebook page
As y’all know, I’m currently running tests on caching plugins and I’m sure many of you have questions about why you need one and how they work.
Plus, you want to know what is the difference between a local caching plugin and a CDN service like CloudFlare.
In this show, I’ll laying that all out for you in non-geek speak.
And I’ll be taking your questions too. So, do come join me for the live show.
That’s all the news from around here. Let’s jump into this week’s tips.
Plugin Tips
Ninja Forms Trial
I installed my first two simple contact forms using the free version of the Ninja Forms plugin. And, I made a tutorial on it for you too. You’ll find it in the WP Advanced section in the Site Success Courses membership.
The paid version of this plugin is a good alternative to the more expensive Gravity Forms, if you need special customizations and integrations.
However, I don’t think the free version of it will make the cut for my recommended plugins list because it was glitchy during the customization process. And, it automatically creates multiple database tables even if you turn saving to the database off. Plus, when I tried to remove the plugin, it did not come out cleanly. In fact, it left something on my test site that I can’t find that’s holding the settings from the previous installation. And I’m definitely not in favor of that!
I’ve met the devs of this plugin and they are great guys. And I’ve heard folks rave about the paid version. But, I will have to pass on recommending the free version for setting up a simple form. There are lighter plugins to use for that.
Yoast SEO Cached Sitemaps
This tip is for my webmasters I ran across a GitHub post complaining about a bug in earlier versions of the Yoast SEO plugin leaving lots of old cached versions of the XML Sitemap in the database, like over 700 of them. That can really bulk up the database and slow the site down.
I checked all of my databases and didn’t see the problem, but you may want to check yours too, just in case.
Theme Tips
The folks over at Thrive Themes have a super post on why sliders on a site cost you money. And he brings in the case study data to back it up, plus examples from super high earners to show what they are doing on their sites instead.
Honestly, I think parallax type sites are the new version of this and cost you conversion too. Yeah, they’re cool and all, but if that cool factor is impacting your bottom line to the tune of losing 75% of your business, you might want to rethink your design choice.
And even if you are earning money from a site like that, how do you know how much your loosing without doing and A/B split test?
Video Marketing Tips
The time has come for me to make a business decision about whether or not to continue the Video Marketing section of my Site Success Courses membership.
The Blab course sold like hotcakes. The Facebook Live course sold a little. And the FireTalk course ended up being a waste of everyone’s time, it seems, including mine.
Watching this market tells me that it has become, and will remain, extremely volatile. I can’t build a side business on that kind of shifting sand, especially when there are other folks like the awesome Krishna De who specialize in covering that industry. I can’t do the same kickass job with it as a sideline.
So, I’m going back to my core offerings with strictly website help. Look for an email announcement from me to current members in the coming weeks about how I’ll be restructuring the membership. And don’t worry, your courses will still be there!!! I just won’t be making them available for new purchases anymore.
And, I’ll be expanding some of my core offerings, especially in the SEO course, so you’ll still be getting more than your money’s worth, especially if you are in the VIP level, and that includes more live webinars.
I’ll have more on all this in the coming weeks as I finalize everything.
Business Tips
Are You Taking Advantage of the Power of Testimonials?
As I reported previously in Tips Tuesday, I’m testing the Thrive Ovation plugin for displaying testimonials on my site. I’m really liking it. But, it has a feature that has me a bit hung up, which is the ability to ask specific questions. It’s a lot harder to come up with questions that lead to in-depth answers than I thought.
One of my webmasters, Terry Green has a post on this very topic that is well worth the read.
She shares two ways she is making it easier for her clients to leave testimonials. I’m not going to give it away here, you’ll want to read the post.
But I will tell you that I’ll be using both of these methods and believe they will be far more powerful than an intake form.
The Thrive plugin will help me input and display them and I think it’s worth the price just for those features, and to be able to tag them for the types of projects, which will also help with the display choices.
Wrap Up
That’s a wrap for this week’s Tips Tuesday.
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