Hello Happy Site Owners!
Tips this week include:
- New UpdraftPlus how-to series launching this week
- How to setup an Amazon S3 account and bucket tutorial
- How the new Chrome Ad Blocker will affect your income
- WordPress 4.8 launching this week
- Why you need to pay attention to the new JavaScript framework being considered for WP
- What you need to do about the OneLogin breach, even if you don’t use it
- How often you should blog for max return on investment
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BlogAid Happenings
UpdraftPlus How To Series Launching
The UpdraftPlus suite of plugins has officially become my new backup and migration recommendation for small to medium sized sites. For sites bigger than that, you’re better off using a cloud based backup service like VaultPress or BlogVault.
I think a good rule of thumb to measure by is whether you are on shared hosting or something bigger. If you’re still got headroom to work with on your shared hosting resources, then UpdraftPlus will be a good choice.
Any local backup plugin is just going to be too taxing on the host for larger sites, or even smaller ones that have a ton of non-optimized images.
I’ll be releasing how-to tutorials all this week for both the free and premium versions of the UpdraftPlus backup plugin as well as for the Migrator plugin.
Level 2 of the Webmaster Training courses will see them first.
And, look for new posts with comparisons and reviews of the different plugins too.
Setup Amazon S3 Account for Backup and Media Storage
You need to store your backup files off your hosting account. In case your site or account get toasted, you sure don’t want your backup files to get toasted too!
Amazon S3 is my storage option of choice.
Since they changed their interface, and so much has changed with security in the past couple of years, I made an updated tutorial on how to acquire an S3 account and set up a bucket.
Even if you already have an S3 account set up, be sure to see this post for the new security measures you’ll want to take like creating an IAM user just for your backups and setting up Versioning so your files can’t be tampered with.
That’s all the news from around here. Let’s jump into this week’s tips.
Content Marketing Tips
How Will the New Chrome Ad Blocker Affect Your Income?
Huge news for those who generate income from ads on their site.
By year’s end, Google will roll out an ad blocker in the Chrome browser.
I’m definitely staying on top of this news as I know it radically impacts a lot of my clients who run ads on their sites.
I sent out a call for volunteers to help test the new ad review tool I mentioned in the post and so far, no one has had their site reviewed.
Please do let us know if your site gets reviewed. I’d like to set up a live session with you to see what Google has to say about your site.
And do jump over and read the post to see what’s up with all of this.
WordPress Tips
WordPress 4.8 Releases This Week
The next major release of WordPress is slated to release on Thursday of this week.
They’ve already made a bunch of bug changes to the first release candidate and rolled out a second release candidate a few days ago. I’m poking all over it already.
Look for a video sneak peek and post from me on that day, with a preview of all the new features, plus existing elements to check after you upgrade.
And because there were so many core changes hurriedly pushed into this release, we’re going to hold off a bit with updating to this version.
WordPress to Select New JavaScript Framework for Use in Core
We likely won’t see this change for another year or more, but it is significant and worth mentioning because when it does hit, there will be major changes to everything connected with WordPress.
As you may recall a few Tips Tuesdays ago, I mentioned that the WP core devs have started meetings for switching the base program language of WP from PHP to Javascript.
Those meetings have led them to consider switching to an entirely different base for the Javascript framework.
Right now, WordPress, as well as just about every plugin, uses the Backbone Javascript framework.
The devs are now leaning heavily toward the React framework.
And guess why?
Because “it is already used with several major WordPress projects such as Calypso, Gutenberg, and Jetpack.”
And guess who’s behind that?
Yep, Matt Mullenweg.
And guess who is the lead dev on WordPress right now.
Yep, Matt.
Here’s why I’m pointing this out to you, and why you need to pay attention.
The .org version of WP is moving into alignment with the .com version.
That’s both good and bad for self-hosted site owners, as we’ve already seen with how VaultPress has changed. The prices dropped, but it requires JetPack. That’s not an issue in the WP.com world, or on Pressable hosting, which is also owned by Automattic, the parent company of all things connected to WP.com. But it is a significant issue for folks on other hosting.
As I said, this is going to take time, like a year or two, at least.
And I’ll definitely be keeping my eye on it for you, and keeping you way ahead of the curve, as always.
Security Tips
OneLogin Breached
If you use the OneLogin service, be aware that it has suffered a security breach.
And if you use another similar service, like LastPass, be aware that nothing is 100% secure. You still need to rotate your passwords for all accounts at least yearly. And rotate them even more often for your critical accounts, like your bank and site and even social media accounts. Security folks tell me that every 3 months should be the norm, but I know most of us are not going to do that. It’s a chore, but so is getting hacked.
And please, don’t use the same password for multiple accounts!!!!!
In fact, never use a password on more than one account.
Content Marketing Tips
How Often Should You Blog?
Are you in a routine with your blogging? Or do you feel like you’re on a hamster wheel with it, feeling the need to keep cranking out posts on a regular, self-imposed schedule?
All bloggers will find this nice guest post by Ali Luke on ProBlogger helpful. It may help you reconsider how often you blog.
Honestly, I’m not sure the frequency matters as much as the promotion.
I’ve heard for a long time that you should blog little and promote more.
In fact, I know some very successful businesses that only blog once a month, but they promote the ‘ish out of it, as Ana Hoffman from Traffic Generation Cafe often says. And she’s got the traffic to prove that her methods work, too.
Wrap Up
That’s a wrap for this week’s Tips Tuesday.
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