Tips Tuesday – New Shopify and Printify Guides, Site Security Updates

ByMaAnna Stephenson
Tips Tuesday – New Shopify and Printify Guides, Site Security Updates

Tips this week include:

  • Clients are already making money with their new stores
  • Keeping your site safe is my top priority
  • A plumber’s tale
  • Why prevention is always cheaper
  • List of tutorials coming for the rest of the year
  • Are share buttons obsolete?
  • The Shopify Starter for digital Downloads Course is open to all!!!
  • New Shopify and Printify Integration Guide is available
  • Printify Pop-Up Store Setup Guide is getting rave reviews
  • Integrate Shopify with WordPress Guide in the works
  • Shopify for Drop Shipping course coming soon
  • Clarification about e-comm stores and your WP site
  • Confused about which e-comm platform is right for you, read my new article
  • What are you waiting for? Folks are already making new e-comm money
  • SSL certificate update at Cloudflare
  • Random issues with custom cron not working
  • Midjourney and Ideogram – new features to our fave AI image generators
  • WP 6.7 due on November 12

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BlogAid Happenings

Already Making More Money

WOOT!!!!!!!!!!

I am THRILLED at how many of y’all jumped right on the e-comm train and are already making money from it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Doing a happy dance here :-) 

More on that in a minute.

Keeping Your Site Safe is My Top Priority

It’s not all about e-comm around here! 

I’m still doing client site work every day too.

This month we will have both the clients who are due for their annual site audit checkup plus a batch of folks getting their first 6-month checkup.

And I’m so glad that I went to the quick 6-month check as there are already 10 things to update, especially with Cloudflare, and we can’t wait a whole year for you to get those changes.

I also have a shorter intake form for my returning clients now too. 

I sent emails at the first of the month to folks who are on my list to get either your annual audit checkup or your 6 month one. So, look for that email and fill out the shorter form linked in it, please.

A Plumber’s Tale

Last week one of my toilets started screeching when filling the tank.

The hard water we have here deposits scale on the fluid master and that build up makes it noisy and slow when filling the tank back up.

Of course, y’all know that I would naturally keep parts for the toilet tank innards on hand so I can replace them anytime. And that’s a cheap, easy fix.

Well, the job got bigger than just replacing the fluid master this time, which normally takes about 10 minutes.

The supply line was original to the house. It was one of those thin, solid metal tubes. And the gasket at the fluid master side was corroded and nearly gone.

Plus, the shut off valve spewed a bit of black water out the stem when I shut it off. I knew that meant the gasket in it was pretty much dissolved.

I got a new, braided supply line and replaced that and the fluid master. And I finally got the shut off valve to stop dripping. But I knew that was a problem waiting to happen.

With a compression nut over a copper pipe fitting, I also knew that I didn’t have the tools and expertise to fix that valve myself. And not fixing it right would mean the water would have to stay shut off to the whole house.

Nope, just nope. Not going to even try it myself. 

So, since I was going to call a plumber anyway, I decided that it was time to get all new shut off valves and supply lines to both bathrooms and the kitchen sink. And while we were at it, I got those faucets changed out too, as all of them had some type of super minor leak, and just looked old and cruddy anyway.

Prevention is Cheaper

Yes, all of that changeover was a bit expensive. But it’s like a 30-year buy kind of thing, sort of like a new roof.

And I sleep better knowing that I don’t have an emergency flood situation waiting to happen.

That’s the same way my clients feel about getting an audit and then being taken care of with updates and news.

Some of my clients have been with me for 15+ years now.

The initial audit and fixes are a bit of an expense.

But once they see what I find in the audit, it scares them silly. 

They had no idea things were that bad.

And they quickly realize just how insanely affordable an audit and all those fixes are compared to the business they are losing due to speed, and the hours they are losing due to breaks, and the higher hosting prices they’ve been paying for no reason other than lack of security.

For whatever the plumber charged me for the fixes, it was WAY cheaper than an emergency call and the cost of a supply line flood, not to mention the loss of business and working hours dealing with all of it in an unscheduled manner.

My dad was also in the service business. He owned a Heating and Air company. I heard tales every night about the emergency services his crew performed, and how much more expensive they were than if the customer had just done the regular maintenance.

I learned real fast that prevention is ALWAYS cheaper.

Come get an audit and let’s get your site into shape and keep it that way.

The peace of mind it will give you is priceless.

Tutorials Coming For the Rest of the Year

My list of tutorials to make has gone through the roof.

I’m doing it all day, every day, even weekends at this point – wherever I can fit it in with my client work, which is the top priority.

Here’s a short list of what’s coming for you from the BlogAid family of sites, not necessarily in this order:

I hear y’all saying, “Geez, MaAnna, aren’t you trying to cover too much?”

Not really.

These are all the things site and shop owners and the techs that help them need to know.

And I’m here to help you be successful doing all of it!!!!!

Visibility Tips

Are Share Buttons Obsolete?

Yes – have been for a few years.

NOBODY shares blog posts using those buttons much anymore – except maybe on Pinterest. And even then they use some type of Pin It button on the image itself.

So, if you’re paying for a share button plugin just to get a Pin It button, reconsider that choice.

There are several stand-alone Pin It type plugins that are free.

And removing those share buttons from your site will make it a wee bit faster loading too.

If you still want to keep sharing buttons, seriously consider the Scriptless Social Sharing plugin.

(Thanks to my site audit Hub clients for asking about this!!)

E-Commerce Tips

I’ve got 2 new launches for you!!!!

Shopify Starter for Digital Downloads Course

Start selling your digital downloads today!!!!!

The Shopify Starter for Digital Downloads course is live on eCreators Hub with a fantastic launch discount.

It will regularly be $97, which is actually a steal, but you can get it on holiday special for just $47!!!!

That’s half price, y’all.

My beta testers just raved about how easy I made it for them to get through all of the settings.

And they already have their products listed for sale.

Shopify and Printify Integration Guide

Woot!!! 

The new How to Connect Printify and Shopify Guide is ready on the eCreators Hub Shopify Store.

You’ll have your stores connected and products displayed in about 30 minutes!!!

And it works with your Printify account and with your Pop-Up store – it connects both of them to Shopify.

It’s perfectly okay to have your products listed on both and on your site.

Printify Pop-Up Store Setup Guide

Thanks to everyone who jumped on the Printify train immediately!!!

They picked up this little Printify Pop-Up Store setup guide in my Shopify Starter store when I announced it last week and they are already selling printables and merch!!!!!!

It’s that fast and easy to set up with the help of this guide.

Integrate Shopify with WordPress Guide in the Works

The links I gave you above for the 2 Printify guides go to the sales page for them on the eCreators Hub site.

And the checkout is right there, in a pop up, that is the same checkout as on my Shopify store.

There are at least 3 good ways to do this integration.

I’m currently working on a new Guide that will cover all of them.

For my page, I used the Shopify Buy Button simply because it is free and super fast.

But, if you have a bunch of products, that’s not going to be the way to go. There are other WordPress plugins that you’ll like better and I’ll have all of these detailed in that Guide so you can make an informed choice and get it set up the way that suits your needs.

It shouldn’t take me too long to finish that Guide, so it will be out soon.

And y’all cut me some slack as I haven’t had time to make that a pretty sales page with a bunch of extra info about the Guides yet.

Shopify for Drop Shipping Course Coming

I have a client who wants to set up a drop-shipping store before the month is out. 

She’s got a FANTASTIC product and I can’t wait to help her get her new Shopify store online.

And this will be on one of the upper paid plans that has more features too.

So, I’m really looking forward to seeing the extra settings for that and getting everything tested and documented.

Shopify and Printify are Separate Stores from Your Site

I do want to clarify something about using Shopify and Printify with your WordPress site.

Both are separate stores. 

It’s like putting Amazon affiliate links on your site. When folks click on it, they go to Amazon to purchase. 

With your Shopify and Printify products, you can list those on your site, but when folks click to buy, they will go to your Shopify or Printify store to purchase.

For Shopify, there are Buy Now buttons that you can include on your site, but I’m testing an issue with the cart tracking. If folks jump around on your site after they put something in their cart, then it could lose track of it.

So for now, it’s best to send folks to either the product page for that thing, or to your store home page where they can see all of your products.

See – this is why you need help from someone like me with setting this stuff up – you KNOW I’m going to test it all!!!!!!!!

I’ll also be getting with Shopify support over this because we really do want that Buy Now button on our site to hook into our Shopify cart.

Shopify vs Printify vs Etsy

Still confused about which online store is the right fit for you?

See this article on eCreators Hub for Shopify vs Printify vs Etsy.

It lists the main differences for each online store provider.

Let’s Go!!!!

What are you waiting on?

The Printify Pop-Up Store Guide is ready for you. And the store is free.

The Shopify Starter for Digital Downloads course is ready for you. And the store is only $5/mo.

The Connect Printify with Shopify Guide is ready for you.

The Integrate Shopify with WordPress Guide will be ready for you very soon.

Let’s get your store set up so you can start making sales for the holidays.

I’ve already got the bulk of the Shopify tutorials done that will be the same for any store.

And now I can quickly build new courses that are an exact fit for your needs.

Just tell me what you want to do and let’s do it!!!

Security Tips

SSL Certificate Update at Cloudflare

Your host provides a Let’s Encrypt SSL certificate. That encrypts the data between it and Cloudflare.

And then Cloudflare issues its own SSL certificate that encrypts the data between it and your visitor’s browser.

And now Cloudflare wants to ensure that you have the highest level of encryption possible, so they have a new scanner for the connection to your hosting.

I sent my site audit Hub clients and Webmaster Training members a :45 second video to do a custom setting that is at the new highest level of encryption so it will stop scanning and sending them emails about it.

Random Issues with Custom Cron Not Working

The cron job is the internal clock for WP to run all of the scheduled events. And why oh why they made it so that it only gets wound up when a visitor hits your site is beyond me.

Sites that get very little traffic don’t keep the clock wound, and sites with too much traffic keep it over wound.

So, for those 2 situations I create a custom cron job that has a set interval.

But, all this year it has been randomly not working, but just on some sites and not others.

Me and Dustin Hyle, the top dev at Iridium Hosting, have been pulling our hair out trying to find the cause. 

He finally found one of the causes, and it’s not on the site or hosting.

I’ll have a new tutorial for my Webmasters as soon as I can get it done. In fact, there will be several new tutorials as there are multiple things that can impact the cron and I’m testing another one of them out this week.

I would prefer for all of my clients to have a custom cron, and now I think I may be able to give them one that randomly doesn’t work on some sites.

AI Image Tips

Midjourney and Ideogram – New Features

Both of these AI image generators are closing in on Adobe AI features.

They now have more inpainting for tweaking and removing things in an image.

And both of them work better than what I can tweak or change in Photoshop AI.

But, I still like other Photoshop features, especially the upscaler.

I can make images print-ready for shirts quickly.

And then of course, the full image editor features are superior to any AI generator.

I don’t create too many AI images that I don’t want to tweak a bit. But I’ll be able to do more of that right in Midjourney and Ideogram, which are my 2 fave AI generators.

Get in the AI Images for Profit course and see all the fun stuff you can create – I use them practically every day.

And see the new tutorials with these new features.

WordPress Tips

WP 6.7 Due on Nov 12

I’ve got my test site on the 6.7 Release Candidate and I’m going through all of the changes we can expect next week.

I’ll have a What’s New post for you, likely on Monday.

But, we will not be the first to update due to changes in the core.

I’ll send special update instructions to my Hub and Webmaster members when I feel it is safe for us to do so.

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MaAnna is a geek who can still speak in plain English. She helps DIY site owners plus webmasters and designers create sites that are secure, perform well, and get noticed by search engines and readers.