Tips Tuesday – Holiday Deals End Soon, SiteGround Migrations, Gutenberg Theme Builder

Hello Happy Site Owners and Webmasters!

Tips this week include:

• Time’s running out fast on the BlogAid Holiday Deals – we’re down to the final days so get your goodies before Santa MaAnna packs her bag and they’re gone!
• An invitation for you to give a little input on whether you’d listen the livestream from Tuesday evening as a podcast.
• What’s in my tell-all post for the 2019 year in review for my hobby to money-making site
• What’s in the 2019 year in review for BlogAid post and what’s coming for 2020
• Why you’ll be receiving less emails from me
• Why I was banned from a scrollsaw Facebook group
• Why I got so mad in another Facebook group that I’m on a mission to do something about it
• The surprise migrations happening at SiteGround with very little notice and what you need to change
• The awesome perks my site audit clients get for free, like help with what’s happening at SiteGround
• Why the WP devs are asking designers to rethink themes with Gutenberg
• Why all designers need to follow the Make WordPress Design blog now
• An update on progress with the new Block Directory and why I’m excited about it
• And when I’ll be flipping more of my sites to Gutenberg

Listen to the Podcast

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Join me Live to Discuss Tips Tuesday

And yes, there will be a show tonight as I don’t think most of my peeps will be out partying.

I hope you’ll join for tonight’s livestream at 7pm ET / 4pm PT on the BlogAid Facebook Page. It’s a great way to get the deeper story on what’s reported in Tips Tuesday. And, I almost always have breaking news for the day too. So come join us live for the party.

Replay

BlogAid Happenings

Last Days of BlogAid Holiday Deals

This is it, y’all!!! We’re down to the final days of the awesome BlogAid holiday deals.

Today is the last day to get a discount on a site audit request.

And Jan 5 is the last day to get course discounts on:

• Gutenberg Ninja
• DIY SEO
• Webmaster Training

So, go jump on the savings before Santa MaAnna packs her bag of goodies and heads north.

Would you listen to a podcast of the Tips Tuesday livestream?

Would those of you who listen to the podcast like an audio version of the livestream we do on Tuesday night?

I was reading a post from Denise Wakeman on how to quickly repurpose your live Facebook videos.

And it got me to thinking that I share breaking news and answer questions and such during those lives that never make it into the Tips Tuesday post.

So do let me hear from you if you’d like it as a podcast or if you just watch the replay of the livestream. If we have enough folks say they want the podcast, I’ll put it into my schedule.

2019 Year in Review for My Hobby to Money-Making Site

I know many of you have been closely following the progress with flipping my hobby carving site into a money-making woodworking site. 

I hope you saw the tell-all post I did over the weekend with all of the costs, stats, and the goals I accomplished and missed getting done for the year.

I’m very proud of all I was able to do with it. I’m disappointed that I could not get Pinterest working for me or the site monetized sooner. But then, when I look at all that I did, and realizing it was a side hustle, I’m still happy with it.

More than anything, I know I have the solid foundation so many site owners miss, and it costs more in time and money to go back and lay that foundation later. 

Plus, I know I’m not missing any of my traffic over it either.

Folks aren’t leaving the site because it’s slow or has other issues.

I’m most proud of getting my SEO started from day one with both posts and videos. That’s the longer game and the sooner you start it, the better. And I did.

That included the research I did for what folks want to know and making the editorial calendar before I even started blogging. 

2019 Year in Review for BlogAid and What’s Next in 2020

I also hope you saw my 2019 review for BlogAid and what’s coming in 2020.

And if you didn’t get an email for it, don’t worry. That was on purpose.

One of the major goals for 2020 is to make more content – LOTS of it.

That includes: 

• revamping old content
• Updating old tutorials and videos
• Shorter news brief posts

I won’t be sending you emails for every new post, as it would overwhelm your inbox.

I will be sending you emails on news that you haven’t seen before.

And of course, you’ll still get Tips Tuesday as that will act as what everybody thinks it is anyway, which is my weekly newsletter.

That also means Tips Tuesday is a must read even more than it already is!!!

And, I’ll still be posting everything on my social media platforms, so make sure you are following me on your favorite one.

I was banned from the Scrollsaw for Beginners woodwork forum & projects Facebook group

Did you hear? I was banned from a scrollsaw Facebook group for bringing up stolen images on Pinterest and potentially ripping off scrollsaw pattern creators.

I didn’t do it as an attack. 

I just asked if folks who generically credited Pinterest as the source of their pattern thought about it being a stolen pin and whether they checked to see if that pattern were truly available for free.

That started a discussion about copyright. 

And that led to one very ignorant person aggressively arguing that everything posted on social media falls into public domain.

There were only 3 other folks in the group besides me that tried to educate him on the difference in copyright, Creative Commons license, and public domain. 

And since I got banned before any more education could happen, I wrote a post about it with that education in it.

Plus, I added a list of all the ways creators are knocked out of revenue over this.

Go see it and the comments, as a few folks that do scrollsaw and create patterns left comments too. 

It’s really a shame that Pinterest doesn’t do more about stolen pins. It’s really a major issue there more than anywhere else.

Mad enough to do something about it

And that’s not the only group where I spoke out. 

In my BlogAid 2019 review, I also mentioned that I’ve been very active in several blogger groups this year.

Now that I’ve established myself as a trusted source of site tech answers, I’ve started directly refuting others who are not site techs and give THE worst advice about hosting, plugins, speed, and security.

I’ve been gentle about it so far, but Sunday I called it out for what it was, directly. And those two folks got their noses bent out of shape over it.

I honestly don’t want to fight with anyone. But I do want to educate. And sometimes that includes correcting misinformation directly, especially when I have the data to back up correct, up-to-date info.

And if you feel like helping support that effort, email me and I’ll give you the name of the group. Or, you let me know what group you’re in where you need support and I’ll be there for you.

Let’s see if we can drown out ignorance with facts and experience and all enjoy better groups for doing it!!!

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

Hosting Tips

SiteGround moving folks with short notice near the holidays

One of my site audit clients posted in our private Facebook group that she received an email from SiteGround on Dec 27th that they were moving her site on Dec 30th to a new server.

After the move they would send the new DNS info, which she would have to manually update.

For one, that’s extremely short notice, especially considering it’s around the holidays when folks are not available to work on their sites.

Second, her site is protected by Cloudflare, and that will impact the change of IP address.

Third, there was only a mention that the new server would have new software. They didn’t say if that also included being on their new custom control panel.

I sent an email out to all of my site audit clients asking them to let me know if they have received an email like that. I wanted to plan to do a mass tutorial for everyone, if needed.

Only 3 folks were hit in that first batch of moves but more are starting to come in for moves planned for later this week. And I expect this to continue for a few more weeks to come.

Site Audit Client Perks

And this is where being a BlogAid site audit client really pays off.

All of these folks are getting free help to make this change the right way the first time. 

No panic, and no guessing.

All free!!!!

Wouldn’t you like to have a reliable place to turn when something with your site hits like this?

Well, come get your audit, get in the know with your site, and get all of the extra perks that come with it too.

Ready to Leave SiteGround?

When the news came out this year that SiteGround would be changing to a new custom control panel and dropping cPanel, coupled with my reports of other goofy stuff SiteGround is doing some of my clients elected to leave that host immediately.

Some decided to wait until their next renewal, and I understand and respect why you can’t throw that money already spent away.

But now with these internal moves, even folks who did not get that email are wanting to leave before they have to go through this.

If you are ready to move to better hosting, contact me for help with your migration.

There are 30+ goofy SiteGround things that have to be made inert and then removed from the new host. 

Plus, you want to ensure that everything about your site gets deleted at SiteGround. That’s way more than just your WP files and database.

You can also see my Migration Checklist for all of what’s involved with moving to a new host these days. It’s not as easy as it used to be back in the day when most all hosts had the same server environment.

Also keep in mind that I’m booked 6 weeks out.

So if your renewal is coming up even in March or later, you need to get on my wait list now.

Gutenberg Tips

Rethinking Themes with Gutenberg

Designers – heads up – this is a must-read post from a Gutenberg Times panel about Phase 2, which is how Gutenberg will become a full site builder.

I’ll be reading it this week too, and will have my own post out about what I see coming down the pike for both designers and end users over this.

I’ll also be closely watching how Genesis and Astra themes react to these changes.

Basically, Gutenberg devs are focusing on theme items that are currently styled in the Customizer.

That includes:

• Menus
• Widgets
• Site-wide settings

If end-users are going to have a standardized way to style their own themes, that’s a game changer for everyone.

And I suggest designers start seriously looking into how they will need to pivot their business to stay viable and deliver a modern theme based on Gutenberg instead of the popular current page builders.

Webmaster Training for Designers

If you are a designer, you also need to get on the ball with site security and speed.

That’s especially true if you carry the liability of maintaining client sites.

And that’s exactly what I teach you in my Webmaster Training course.

Gutenberg Ninja Course

Plus, my webmasters get an insane discount on the Gutenberg Ninja course that will get you up to speed on using it in a hurry too.

You’ll see exactly why I say page builders are dead.

And I believe you’ll get super excited about learning to style Gutenberg blocks.

The faster you jump on this train, the easier it will be for you to get in the know, especially while Gute is still being developed and info about it is being freely shared everywhere.

It won’t be long before all of the design info starts getting locked into paid courses and there will be so much to learn that it will take you months to get it all.

Now is the time to invest in your future.

Follow the Make WordPress Design Blog

One of the best ways designers can keep on top of Phase 2 with Gutenberg is to follow the Make WordPress Design blog. 

They share their meeting notes and you get to see exactly what they are working on.

Right now, that’s the navigation menu. 

So, it’s a great way to learn at a steady pace and then stay current on what’s coming next.

Block Directory Project Update

I’m very excited about the progress being made on the new Block Directory.

This thing is very much like the Plugins directory in that you’ll be able to search for Gutenberg Blocks from within your WP admin area.

This also gives Block developers some standardization with quality control and checks to ensure blocks meet certain standards in order to be listed in the directory, just like plugins have to do. 

And all of this is great for end users.

While in hindsight we can all say that WP should have created this even before Gutenberg was released, I don’t think anybody could have foreseen just how fast developers would embrace Gute and just how many blocks would be created in the first year.

Yes, it’s all moving that fast.

And it won’t be long before regular plugin devs wake up to the fact that they better start making their functions work in Gute or get left in the dust of that bullet train.

Flipping BlogAid to Gutenberg

I very much want to flip BlogAid and my 2 member sites over to Gutenberg. But, I’m waiting on a couple of critical functions to come to Blocks first. They are specifically for tech sites and out of the norm for regular blogging sites. But I think that will happen in 2020, so I’m making room in my calendar for late spring to research progress on those functions and see if I can finally flip the sites, or at least flip BlogAid.

I have to tell you, the more I work in Gute on Heartwood Art, the harder it is to work on BlogAid without it!!!!

And all of the Gutenberg Ninjas who have flipped their site over to the new editor say the same thing. 

They love Gute!!

Wrap Up

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

Gimme some love!!

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Be sure to visit BlogAid.net for more tips and resources and I’ll see you online in 2020.