Hello Happy Site Owners and Webmasters!
Tips this week include:
- The BlogAid Holiday Specials are here!
- The end of the Tips Tuesday live recap
- Bugs in the new FireFox Quantum browser that will affect webmasters
- Details on WordCampUS coming up in December
- Whether it’s safe to update to WordPress 4.9 or not
- What’s up with all the internet connection issues
- What popular theme builder doesn’t convert to HTTPS
- Why the Really Simple SSL Pro plugin is a rip off
- An open survey on what you want to learn most about SEO
Listen to the Podcast
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Since it’s a short and busy holiday week for my U.S. peeps, we’re going to keep the tips short today.
BlogAid Happenings
Holiday Specials Are Here
Big holiday discounts on:
- DIY SEO course and live Workshop
- Webmaster Training Level 6
- Site Audits
- Hosting at SiteGround and A2 Hosting
- Genesis and StudioPress Themes
BlogAid News subscribers got an email Sunday with even deeper discounts on the DIY SEO course. So, be sure to use your special link for that, and it’s only good through Cyber Monday, so don’t wait.
No More Live Tips Tuesday Recap
Getting feedback on your online promo efforts is so critical.
It tells you what content is effective and where you need to be spending your time.
My analytics tell me that the livestream recap I do of Tips Tuesday is actually hurting my YouTube stats. And, it’s not getting enough extra reach on Facebook anymore either.
I truly appreciate all the folks who join me live. But I think a lot of folks just don’t have time for a :45 minute to 1 hour video, even in replay and even if it has extra info not in the post or podcast.
What I do see folks watching are the much shorter BlogAid Today tips and breaking news. So, that’s what I’ll be doing more of now.
So, look for more bite sized snippets from me, including highlights from Tips Tuesday.
FireFox Browser
I updated to the new FireFox Quantum browser this past week.
They rebuilt the browser from scratch. It’s way faster.
But I found 2 bugs with it.
It knocked out a few of my browser add-ons, specifically the one for measuring things on screen and the one for checking IP addresses.
And then when in cPanel File Manager, it knocks out the top menu bar, which is a real pain. So, I’m using Chrome for any hosting side chores for now.
Have you switched yet? What do you think of it? Leave us a comment.
WordCampUS Dec 1-3
I got my WordCampUS ticket this past week.
It’s Dec 1-3 in Nashville this year.
I’m looking forward to hearing Matt Mullengweg’s State of the Word address live and hearing his vision of WordPress’ future. This is a critical turning point for the CMS. With so many people’s livelihoods depending on it now, we really need clarity of vision for what’s going to change.
I’m also looking forward to meeting up the the StudioPress folks right after the keynote address, and then maybe getting to meet Matt at the after party too.
Plus, I’ll be going to Contributers Day on Sunday and meeting with devs and other community leaders. And maybe even getting to meet up with the folks who are starting the new women’s speaker group I mentioned last week.
I’ll have a full report for you after the event.
Are you going? Holler at me and maybe we can meetup IRL.
If you can’t travel, you can still get a ticket to livestream all events.
That’s all the news from around here. Let’s jump into this week’s tips.
WordPress Tips
Is it safe to update to WordPress 4.9 yet?
I’ll be updating my minor sites this coming week, as well as one of the member sites to see if everything works with WP 4.9.
It does goof with Layerslider and Form Generator, I’ve been told.
Other than those, I haven’t been hearing of any widespread issues, so I’m ready to give it a whirl.
Have you updated yet?
Please let us know how that went or what you’re hearing.
And definitely do go ahead and update your plugins, as there have been several new security patches lately in some popular ones, and you want to ensure they are ready for the WP 4.9 changes too.
New Widgets in WP 4.9
Have you tried the new widgets in WP 4.9 yet?
See my video with 5 ways to create image widgets that won’t slow down your site.
And then see the What’s New in WP 4.9 video for all of the changes to the Text Widget. I’m really excited about those!
And now would be a good time to change over your Text Widgets that only have code to the new Custom HTML Widget too.
Connection Tips
Widespread internet connection issues are still happening.
We are into week 3 of this.
It’s not your host or CloudFlare.
But it may be your ISP (Internet Service Provider).
I’ve even been hearing stories from some of my clients that their desktop connection is allowing them to access the backend of their sites, but not their wifi connection, and vice versa.
On one, we discovered that the wifi was spitting out an IPv6 that Login Lockdown was having issues with. I saw that issue in the PHP error log at the host.
On other, we didn’t have time to catch the gremlin, but it was throwing odd errors from different login attempts too.
So, just bear with it and/or contact your ISP to get it squared out.
HTTPS Tips
Thrive Themes Don’t Convert to HTTPS Well
This past week we discovered that Thrive Themes don’t do well with full HTTPS conversion.
Many of the page builder themes don’t because they don’t keep their theme settings in the database and they use too many shortcodes in the content areas too.
My clients who have run into that issue during a conversion attempt have all opted to switch over to Genesis and get away from the page builders.
That’s a good move, especially with the revolution that is coming to the core of WordPress in 2018.
So, if you’re using a builder, you definitely want to consider getting onto a solid theme before you have to do it under duress.
Holler at me if you want some help with that process.
Me and one of my designers are making the switch super easy on my clients by putting their site in a sandbox and going through the database with scripts to find all the shortcode that needs to come out.
We’ll replace the existing live site with the newly redesigned one.
That minimizes down time and really cuts down on the stress factor enormously too.
Really Simple SSL Pro Doesn’t Work
As y’all know, I’ve been helping a lot of clients undo their free HTTPS switch and do a full conversion instead.
One of the biggest issues we’ve found is that they purchased the Pro version of the Really Simple SSL plugin to get the HSTS security header needed to qualify for the Chrome preload list.
This is the header that Google insists you have.
Well, it doesn’t work.
The plugin doesn’t have all of the settings needed in that header to qualify for Chrome standards.
So, if you purchased it, you just wasted your money.
And I’m pretty ticked at the hosts who are recommending it too, like SiteGround and others.
I told you doing the free switch would bite you in the butt later. This is just one example.
There’s still time to get out of that and do a real conversion on your site before the Chrome warning hits fully for everyone. After that hits it’s going to cost more to do.
SEO Tips
What do you need to know about SEO?
I’m busy revamping the live SEO Workshop that is coming in January and I want to hear from you about what you need help with the most.
I already know that folks want help with ranking and keyword research, which are part of the 3rd phase of SEO and aren’t covered in the course.
We cover the first two phases, which include the foundation all of your SEO is built upon.
Without that, all the keyword research in the world won’t help you rank.
So, what is it that confuses you, or you need to understand at a deeper level?
Let me know here in the comments.
Wrap Up
That’s a wrap for this week’s Tips Tuesday.
Find these tips helpful? Share them with your peeps!!!!
Listen and Watch
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Be sure to visit BlogAid.net for more tips and resources and I’ll see you online.
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Hi MaAnna,
I have updated a few websites to WordPress 4.9. No problems so far.
It’s been years since I have not used Firefox… My bad, but Chrome is better.
As far as I am concerned, I do not have the time to watch your weekly videos, but enjoy reading this blog article.
MERCI again for the great tips!
Have a sparkling week :-)
Greetings from France!
Thanks for letting us know your WP 4.9 updates have gone well, Olivier.
I’m thinking more folks like the podcast and scanning the post at this point too.
My wordpress 4.9 is working fine. I don’t have those features that are buggy though. Wondering if I should update my Yoast plugin? I remember you saying last week we should hold off. Thanks.
Good to know your WP 4.9 is working well Tammy. I took the chance and updated Yoast and it’s working too. But they haven’t released a 5.8.1 version that addresses those issues mentioned last week. Guessing I didn’t have those conditions either.
I updated to 4.9and it went smoothly. I did write to Yoast support about 5.8 and they said no promblem unless I was running a yoast comment remove plugin. When I did update, I briefly got a red popup that said I had a new problem with my SEO. It doesn’t seem to have returned or caused an issue. Yoast support said not to worry and just keep an eye. I will definitely be doing that!
Good to know Marilyn, especially about what Yoast said.
Hi MaAnna,
If there’s something not working with Really Simple SSL pro, you can always submit a ticket, support is included! We can usually track down the issue, which in this case might be your server configuration. The HSTS header is correct, following OWASP standards, and checked with the people at preloadlist.org. I have thousands of sites working fine with the HSTS headers as set by the plugin. And of course I’ll refund you if it’s not working on your specific server configuration.
Rogier, all of the client sites I’ve checked on SiteGround are not getting the proper configuration. Have heard same reports from folks on GoDaddy Linux.
I didn’t check into settings or try to troubleshoot as my clients opted to go for a full conversion that doesn’t rely on any plugins or settings at any host.
I hope others who plan to stick with the plugin read your comment and get some help with the settings/configuration.
Hi MaAnna, thanks for your reply, I always appreciate any feedback.
Just curious, what is the issue you were getting on those sites with HSTS? And in what way does your solution for HSTS differ from the OWASP accepted standard solution?
In my experience, adding a .htaccess rule is the most reliable method. And if the hosting company doesn’t support that, I’m interested how you would work around it!
By the way, I’ve just re-checked some Godaddy sites I manage, the HSTS is working fine. Does the .htaccess file on those setups have writing permissions for WP?
As mentioned, Rogier, I didn’t get into the troubleshooting, since I don’t offer a service for fixing free ways of switching to HTTPS. I don’t do it via .htaccess either. Have different methods that I teach my webmasters, so not revealing those here.
I think most folks are not taking the extra step to manually submit to the Chrome preload list and have no idea if their settings are correct or not.
I also do a lot of SSL migration services for users, and always check the HSTS settings of course. Additionally we get a lot of questions about HSTS and as a matter of course help users set it up and test it. So I would definitely know if there would be something wrong. And as it’s implemented according to OWASP best practices, it doesn’t seem likely to be an issue in the plugin. But if you have any evidence otherwise I welcome the feedback of course!