Tips Tuesday – Printify and Shopify Guides, Security and WP Plugins

Tips this week include:

• Printify Pop-Up Store Setup Guide
• Shopify Starter Store documentation
• More tutorials that are underway
• How cyber security is worsening every minute
• Why you need to consider your credentials stolen
• Why to rotate your passwords
• New Cloudflare settings tour
• New Leaked Credentials check
• Why we’re moving to 6 month security checkups
• More plugins moving off WordPress.org
• Security concerns with plugin updates from multiple locations
• WP 6.7 RC1 expected today
• Done-for-you services offered at BlogAid
• More VA type services available

BlogAid Happenings

I’m back to being a tutorial making maniac again.

Printify Pop-Up Store Setup Guide

Thanks to everyone who purchased the Halloween shirt in my new Printify Pop-Up store!!!!!!

That shirt is no longer available, but I’ll be making a couple of new holiday themed ones soon that will be for sale.

Those sales helped me finish documenting how to set up the Printify Pop-Up store.

And I will be making that guide available for sale in my Shopify Starter Plan store soon.

It cost me $0.00 to create that Pop-Up store on Printify. And there is no extra middle man taking out money either, like extra transaction fees.

So, I’m definitely going to use it for my printables for now, and forgo putting them in the Shopify store.

Shopify Starter Store Documentation

But what I will be putting in my Shopify Starter store are downloadables.

Last week I researched a whole bunch of Apps to connect Shopify with Google Drive, which is where I’ll be storing my files for download.

I was super disappointed that Shopify discontinued their own free app for it, and even more disappointed that they didn’t make mention of that in their tutorial for it.

There are a few other Apps that have a free plan, and one of them is a bit better than the others, so that’s the one I’m setting up this week. There’s a LOT to it and I can’t imagine folks getting through all of this without some guidance. That’s exactly why I’m making these tutorials.

The Printify Pop-Up Store Setup Guide will be for sale there, as will my Google Docs Templates that I teach you how to make in the EZ Digital Designs course.

I did find one caveat with the Shopify settings, but it only affects the fulfillment status. It’s stuff like that which they don’t tell you, and why you’ll want some help with setup.

Once I have that documentation finished and tests run, I’ll be sending a workbook to one of my clients who is chomping at the bit to get her Shopify Starter store set up.

She’ll be giving me feedback on the process so that I can perfect the workbook and service.

And then I’ll make that available to everyone.

More Tutorials Underway

I designed the Printify Pop-Up Store Setup Guide in Google Docs, and I’ll be making a tutorial for that in the EZ Digital Designs course.

I’ll also include a tutorial for the Shopify Starter Workbook when I finish that.

And of course, I made my own images for both, and the other templates I have in that course using Midjourney.

So, I’ll have new tutorials with those prompts in my AI Images for Profit course soon too.

For the Printify Pop-Up Store, I created a new GA4 Property to track hits. 

I’ll be setting up a new report page for it in my EZ Metrix. And that’s when I’ll be diving back into the new things for GA4 to track conversions too. And then I’ll bring those new tutorials over to EZ Metrix and offer to modify and/or create new report pages for folks who purchased that.

It’s All Coming Together

I’m thrilled to have created all these courses and guides to help creators get into e-commerce and track their hits and sales!!!!

I’m doing my best to make the things that get you into the money fast and do it the easy way!!!!!!

If there is anything else that you want me to help guide you through, please let me know.

And if you’re ready to jump on the e-comm train, holler at me and let’s do a consult or chat about whatever you need to get you going.

Security Tips

Cyber Security is Worsening Every Minute

This year I’ve received 5 letters from vendors telling me that my account has been hacked, and all offering a free year of a security monitoring service.

Last year I signed up with all of the major credit services to put a freeze on my info so that no one can run a credit check to get a card or loan or such. It’s a free service and I suggest you do it too.

Consider Your Credentials Stolen

At this point, you should consider every online account you have to be compromised either in the past or in the future.

And you should consider every email and password you’ve ever used in the past to be in the hands of hackers.

Rotate Your Passwords

I change the passwords on every online account I have at least once a year.

When we finish all the fixes from site audit checkups, one of the wrap up procedures is that they change all of the passwords for the accounts connected to their site.

For your passwords, use a minimum of 16 characters of gobblty goop.

Cloudflare Settings Tour

I used to make a full tour video of all Cloudflare settings every 4-6 months for my Webmasters.

Now I’m making them monthly because the changes are coming rapidly to keep in top of the worsening security situation.

I just posted a new one last week.

New Leaked Credentials Check

Cloudflare has a new security rule for checking login credentials on your site against a database of those known to be stolen.

The setting is in 2 places and I’m still checking with Cloudflare about how to tweak the rules to better match our needs, which is to be secure enough to protect us, but not to go over the edge with that protection and introduce a hassle.

But this is why changing all of your passwords on every online account at least annually is a good thing to do.

If your credentials are in the hands of hackers, you don’t want to get blocked from logging into your own accounts.

Moving to 6 Month Checks

Because of how fast the security situation is changing, starting in November, I’m adding a second security check for all of my site audit clients.

We already have annual audits. But the security changes are coming so fast now that we can’t wait a whole year to implement some of them.

I’ve been sending my site audit Hub clients and Webmaster Training members emails every few months for changes they need to make right away on anything they can do themselves.

But there are some technical things I need to do for them, like update code in critically important files at the host, or certain Cloudflare changes.

So, I’m adding a second check at the 6 month mark to ensure everyone has 2 checks a year and their security is up to par.

Get Protected

If you are not getting these updates, or you’re under a maintenance program with someone who is not doing these updates, your site is at risk. 

Plus, the bots are chewing up your hosting resources to the tune of 10k-30k hits a month.

If you are a designer, contact me to audit your site or one of your client’s sites so we can ensure that they are fully protected.

Or get in my Webmaster Training program to ensure that you know all you need to know about protecting your client’s sites.

Plugin Tips

More Plugins Moving Off WordPress.org

Due to the hostile takeover of the free version of the Advanced Custom Fields plugin last week, several more devs have moved the free version of their plugin off the WP Plugins repo. Updates will now be served from their own servers.

WP Tavern has a list of the plugins that have moved.

Plugin Updates from Multiple Locations

X posts have been flying for weeks with more devs and enterprise-level site owners talking about mirrors of WP.org plugin repo as well as getting plugin updates straight from GitHub.

All of this gives me security concerns because we will now have more different APIs from more IP locations trying to access our site to notify us of updates and deliver them.

And I don’t know if any of them have a way built in to put a notification on our admin pages that they cannot connect.

I just went through setting up a custom rule to allow for updates from a theme that one of my clients is using which has its own built in speed code.

Cloudflare rules tightened to the point that it was blocking their API connection.

I’m afraid that may happen with more plugins with this move, but we’ll have no notification there is a problem, like we did with the theme.

This is also why I added a new check earlier in the year to site audits, to ensure we go to the dev site on premium plugins and ensure we are running the latest version. One client found that her license had expired and she had not been getting updates and was 3 versions behind.

That is not only a security issue, but a functional issue as well, as the plugins need to keep pace with security and WP core changes.

This is just one more reason you need to have a full audit check up yearly.

And here’s another article from Patchstack which laments the impossible security situation caused by this mess.

Like I said, I’ve already started checking more plugins for update status in site audits, and I’ve strongly suggested that my webmasters training members do the same for their clients.

I’ll be keeping my eyes open for more plugins that get moved by their devs.

WordPress Tips

WP 6.7 RC1 Expected Today

The RC is the Release Candidate, meaning no new features will be added, just bug fixes.

I’ll start my testing on it this week or next.

The final release will be in early November.

I’ll have a What’s New post for you then.

Done For You Services

Services Offered at BlogAid

Here’s a sample list of some of the done-for-you services that I offer:

• Business email – proper secure setup of domain-related emails for ensured delivery, including all DNS records (DKIM, SPF, and DMARC) for Workspace, Zoho, and Outlook.
• Email list service – proper secure setup to ensure delivery, including all DNS records
• Digital downloads – start small with Gumroad or move up to a Shopify Starter plan that integrates with your site, or a full Shopify store.
• Membership/Courses – turnkey setup and training for MemberPress – this one does it all including courses, digital downloads, coaching program, and more!
• Integrations – connect 3rd-party platforms to your site
• Rebranding – change your site’s domain name
• Backups – get a fully secure backup setup
• Secure site setup – for new and existing sites
• Sunset site – properly close it down

More VA Type Services Available

One of my clients had a BUNCH of pages still using the Spectra plugin. 

And although she made a dedicated effort to swapping them over to native WP blocks or even Kadence blocks, her business started taking off and there was just no time to dedicate to it anymore.

I offered to do the swaps for her at a rate consistent with VA work, as this is not technical.

And she jumped on it because she knew she could trust me with her site and do things in a way that protected her SEO from having mass updates on the site.

Need a Little Help?

Do you have a site task that you’d love a little help with, or things you’re just not comfortable doing on your own?

Contact me.

Depending on what it is, we may just do a live session with me looking over your shoulder, or you could just turn the project over to me if that’s a better fit.

Let’s get it done already!