Tips Tuesday – E-comm is Big, TikTok and Instagram Lives, Make WordPress Faster

Hello Happy Site Owners and Webmasters!

Tips this week include:

• An update on the E-comm coalition coming together
• More evidence that the E-comm movement is huge
• What’s in the proposal to make WordPress faster
• More issues with CleanTalk
• Vulnerabilities in WP Fastest Cache quickly patched
• Why I can’t sleep without being on the Cloudflare Pro plan
• A reminder that all sites on your account need to be secured
• Instagram adds practice mode and scheduling for live videos
• Why TikTok lives are BIG and what I’ve seen on them

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Spill the Beans Livestream tonight

Do join us live tonight at 8pm ET / 5pm PT on the BlogAid Facebook Page. We spill the beans on this week’s news, breaking stories for the day too, and special info just for those who watch. And the replay is available here on this Tips Tuesday post later too. But the live party is so much more fun.

Replay

Who I Help

All BlogAid posts and tutorials are intended to assist business-minded, hands-on bloggers and webmaster designers who are serious about making money and who want to stay up-to-date with site changes. And our BB Hub is a private member site and Facebook group for my site audit clients that has lots of extra perks and support.

BlogAid Happenings

I sure hope you’re having a good week and maybe enjoying the change of season.

I’ve been super busy with client work this week and picking up new tips and tricks on several items. There’s always something new to learn, isn’t there?

Site Services Update

Speaking of the change of season, I’m way past ready for a break and I’ll be taking off this Thursday to meet up with my brother and sister-in-law for a visit out of town. It will be a nice day trip for me through the woodsy back roads and I’m really looking forward to it.

And I’ll be working half days Fri-Sat and then hopefully off on Sunday, as usual.

I’ve got some yard stuff that needs doing before the cold hits, but it’s been raining so much that I haven’t been able to get out to the back meadow to do it. So, I’m taking as much time off through the end of the week as I can to get that done.

Y’all bring the marshmallows because I’ll have bonfires going every day with all of the brush and dead limbs that I’ll be clearing.

And for the last few weeks I’ve been at quadruple of my normal load of clients to help get caught up from the delays earlier in the year.

We’re back on track now for the times I had guesstimated we would be bringing new projects on, so I’m ready to let it naturally return to my normal client load and I won’t be bringing new folks on until enough currently open projects finish.

If I’ve already been in touch with you about onboarding dates, those will still hold.

And, we’re still holding for February at this point for any new requests – best guess.

Intake form update

It used to be that most folks found BlogAid on Google when they were searching for help with something. And they became readers of Tips Tuesday for 9 months to a year and then they hired me for their next site service.

Most all of those turned into perfect fit clients that I have enjoyed working with for years.

But, I haven’t been posting much on BlogAid for the last 3 years and instead have been super active in some blogger groups.

Unfortunately, an increasing number of folks in those groups are no longer properly vetting who they hire and they literally pull the trigger quickly on the person who had the best answer to their question.

Or, folks find out about me in those groups, even ones where I am not active, but my clients are, including a competitor’s SEO course group, and once again, they don’t vet who they hire, they just pull the trigger on the recommendation.

The other issue that is growing now is that many site owners have already had another tech work on their site for speed before finding me, or because they didn’t want to be put on a waiting list.

And now the junk fixes they got are breaking, or they weren’t completely happy with the fixes in the first place, or the tech has stopped responding to them.

I do my best to weed out folks who really don’t want to be hands-on site owners, or who are in other ways not a good fit for the “done with you” service that I offer.

And I’ve been adding more questions to my intake form for it, but need to add a few more, like asking folks to share with me a little about their DIY site ownership experience and why this service is a good fit for them.

I don’t mean for it to be an interrogation, but I do mean to help both of us see if this is the best service for you or not before you even sign up, and especially before we get started.

So, for my BB Hub folks who are returning for a checkup or a migration/audit combo, I’m sorry for all the extra questions, and you can be super brief in your replies, you don’t have to take them so literally.

Are you moving to the new HOA hosting?

For my repeat site audit clients, if you have an audit checkup coming up, please fill out the Site Audit Request Form. 

But if you are also wanting to move to the new boutique hosting, please fill out the Migration Audit Request Form.

Ecomm Coalition Update

Last week I mentioned that I was bringing together a new coalition of vendors to help clients with consults and solutions for setting up digital downloads and member sites.

A LOT came out of that first meeting and we’re all busy checking into ideas that came up, as well as putting together packages of coordinated services that will be the best fit for what you want to sell online.

Those packages include choices for digital downloads, all the way through courses and communities.

And it became very clear to us which platforms were best for DIY, hands-on site owners and which were best for those who don’t want to do anything but focus on their products.

I’m positive that we’ll be able to save my clients a TON of money, as my peeps are all DIY.

The E-comm movement is HUGE!

I joined one of Mari Smith’s Facebook courses a couple of years ago mainly to get access to her private FB support group for it. And boy, am I ever glad I did that!!!

Recently she has been asking for feedback on what course and group services we use, and she listed out 20+ course providers and about 10 group services.

From the replies, it’s super clear that site owners are all over the place with both. And that many of them who were currently using FB for group support of the courses were rethinking that after the FB shutdown last week.

It also let me know that I am taking BlogAid, and y’all down the right path, with moving our focus away from blogging for ad money and into selling content, info, and products as our main revenue source.

I also jotted down a bunch of notes for new things I want to bring to the DIY SEO course and Video SEO Booster course because of it too. 

That’s all the happenings around here. Let’s jump into this week’s tips.

WordPress Tips

Proposal to make WP faster

In recent Tips Tuesdays I’ve mentioned how much I’ve enjoyed reading the new weekly blog series from Team Yoast and that it contains a ton of great info on the work they have been doing with WP core development too.

Well, now they have written a new proposal to create a new team for WP core dev that is dedicated to performance.

They want speed improvements for both the front and backside of WP.

I find that kind of funny since the Yoast SEO plugin is bloated with 3rd party integrations and internal analysis features that make it super slow on the backside. FYI, those things cause zero speed drag on the frontside, and most all of my folks in the DIY SEO course turn all of that stuff off anyway.

I also think their comparison of WP to other CMS platforms is wholly unfair, including platforms like Wix and Squarespace.

Those 3rd party platforms have

• One optimized hosting setup
• Limited plugin/add on options
• Limited styling options

WP is fast already.

The issues for us are hosting, plugins, and themes.

Who knows, maybe they are wanting this performance team for enterprise level sites or such, as they also mentioned headless WP as a focus, which is something none of us use.

I’ll be keeping my eyes on this.

And if a team is developed, I’ll be joining it, if for no other reason than to see what the focus is and to see if there is room on the team for someone to represent the voice of us bloggers and the big issues we face.

I’ll keep you posted.

Plugin Tips

Issues with CleanTalk

Y’all know that I’ve been testing CleanTalk as a better antispam plugin that protects both our contact forms as well as our comments.

And boy, does it ever catch a bunch of stuff that other plugins don’t!!!!

But in the 2-3 months I’ve had it on all of my sites, I’ve had two major issues with it that required uninstalling and then reinstalling the plugin anew to fix. I’ve heard that these types of bugs are not uncommon with this plugin.

So, while I think it does a superior job of anti-spam control, I’m still on the fence about whether I want to widely recommend it or not.

If you are using it, log into your site and look in the admin bar that runs across the top.

There may be a CleanTalk tab there. If there is, and it has an exclamation point, then hover over it to bring up the drop-down menu and then click on Settings.

You will see an error message at the top of the page. Follow whatever instructions it says to do.

Sometimes that will just be clicking the button to synchronize with the Cloud service to bring your spam list up to date.

Otherwise you may have to click on the link there to be taken to their support forum. And then go back to your site and copy the error message and put it into the search field for the forum to see the fix.

For me, it took uninstalling the plugin and then installing anew from the link they gave to download it.

I’m going to continue to use it and see if the benefits outweigh the glitches and I’ll keep you posted. Right now they do.

WP Fastest Cache Vulnerabilities Patched

The Jetpack Scan team found a couple of security issues in the WP Fastest Cache plugin.

They reported it to Emre, who is the dev, and he had a patch out in short order.

I let all of my BB Hub members know to update immediately, but because we have auto updates for minor releases turned on for that plugin, many of us found that it had already been done for us.

Security Tips

Why I can’t sleep without being on the Cloudflare Pro plan

15 plugins a day have the same 2 common security issues that happened to the WP Fastest Cache plugin.

Many of the popular plugins we use have these issues at least once a year, that’s just how common they are.

And this is also why I can’t sleep without having my sites on the $20/mo Cloudflare Pro plan.

It has a VERY robust set of security measures in the Web Application Firewall (WAF) and OWASP settings that bridge us across those 2 common vulnerabilities, and more, until a patch for the plugins, or even WP itself, can be released, and us have time to do the update, if needed.

There are about 30 settings in Cloudflare that need to be configured properly for max speed and security.

And then there are about 10 settings in the WAF that need to be configured once you upgrade to the Pro plan too.

So, if you are a site audit client and you want to upgrade your plan, contact me for a live session and we’ll get it set up for you. It will only take about 10-15 minutes.

All sites need to be secured

Quick reminder that if you want to add a new site, you need to contact me to set it up securely for you in the first place.

Don’t think that because it’s new, or that because you’re already on a reseller account that the new site doesn’t need to be secured.

Every site on the account must be secured else all sites, and the account, are at risk.

That is especially true if you are on VPS where all resources go where they are requested.

The new, unsecured site could hog all of the covers.

There are ways to limit that, but those things need to be setup properly too.

Video Tips

Instagram adds practice mode and schedule for live

Y’all know that I’ve been checking out TikTok pretty heavily for the last month or so.

But, I’m still keeping my eyes on what’s happening with Instagram, especially with lives and Reels, as they have been making some big changes.

One of those big changes was Facebook allowing you to post your IG Reels to your FB feed.

Another big change has been IG adding a practice mode and the ability to schedule for your live events.

I’ve also seen changes in Facebook’s Producer for promoting your live events too.

These are great for ensuring your followers know about your livestreams so they can attend.

TikTok lives are BIG!

Livestreams are getting great watch time over on TikTok too. I watched one the other day where someone was kayaking on a fairly calm mountain lake. It was stunning. And they had 1.5k viewers watching it too. And most folks viewing live were not followers of the channel yet either.

I’ve been following a few other folks doing TikTok lives several times a day for news and she is about to quit her day job because her following has grown so large.

In fact, several folks have had new careers get launched.

So, I’m definitely making plans to do BlogAid lives there, and closely watching what’s going on with Reels and IG lives to see how I can make better use of them too.

Wrap Up

That’s a wrap for this week’s Tips Tuesday.

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