Tips Tuesday – Sales Event, Content Money Maker, PHP 8 Tests, Captcha on Forms

Tips this week include:

• Super Summer Sales Event is live – and has limited time discounts, so jump on it
• Blog Content SEO workshop is this week
• New Gutenberg tutorials posted
• PHP 8 tests are underway and several things are broken
• PHP settings are borked at most hosts
• WP 6.0.1 was finally released and update instruction emails went out
• What the host caching proposal from the WP Performance Team means
• A new plugin I’ll be testing to add CAPTCHA to all forms, not just the contact form
• 5 tips to write the most clickable headlines and my challenge to you
• The difference in hooks and click bait
• DDoS attacks are up 109% and how to protect your site
• 5 first steps to move from content creator to content entrepreneur mindset

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BlogAid Happenings

Have you ever had a throw away week? One where you had big plans and none of it went like you planned and you ended up not getting any of your projects done?

Yeah, that’s what this full moon cycle was like for me last week.

But, things turned around as I worked a bit over the weekend to get caught up and I took that momentum right into the regular week and am plowing through my to do list like crazy.

Super Summer Sales Event

I’m slashing prices to their lowest levels EVER in this year’s Super Summer Sales Event!!

• Get $100 off courses
• 33% off consults
• 20% off site services like site audits and migrations

Details and discount codes are on the blog post.

And some of these deals are limited to the first 5 folks who jumped on them.

I actually had to lower that already from 10, as I’ve already had folks contact me for the consults. So they are going fast!!

BlogAid News subscribers got first dibs and have already scooped up some savings.

So, put this on a front burner and get your savings before they’re all gone.

BlogAid Course Happenings

Blog Content SEO Workshop this week

On Thursday, we meet for our final regularly scheduled live workshop in the DIY SEO course.

And we saved the best for last.

This week we’ll dive into all the things Google crawls and considers for your blog posts.

There are well over 20 SEO opportunities on each post and we’ll cover how to take max advantage of all of them.

Plus, we’ll cover what not to do on posts that makes Google and readers cringe.

It’s never too late to get into this course. If you’re serious about getting your SEO working hard for you and ranking high in search engines, and going way beyond just keywords and such, then take advantage of the sales event and get in now.

New Gutenberg Ninja Tutorials 

Tutorials for the new WP 6.0 features have been published to the Gutenberg Ninja course.

And email was sent to course members on Sunday with links to all the new tuts.

BlogAid Village Happenings

PHP 8 Tests Update

Me and my BB Hubbers and my Webmaster Training folks have all been reporting in what we’ve found in our PHP 8 tests.

We found several plugins that are not PHP 8 ready.

We did find a simple fix for a very popular plugin, though.

We’re still testing and I’ll be sending out a status report to my peeps as we go.

PHP 8 Borked at Most Hosts

I can tell you for a fact that you will run into issues at many popular hosts when they take you into the forced upgrade to PHP 8 in November.

Their PHP 7.4 settings are not right now.

And their PHP 8.0 settings are even worse and will cause:

• Your site to be down
• Whitescreen of death on the login page
• Mix of PHP directives from both cPanel and CloudLinux
• Increased risk of running into resource overages because settings are too high
• Slower site speed due to critical extensions not being turned on
• Slower server performance for everyone due to bad settings

The 2 hosts where we have seen the most issues are A2 Hosting and NameHero. I have zero faith that either one of these hosts know how to set up a server correctly now.

Move to Better Hosting

(Thank you for using my affiliate link to help support the free and helpful info I deliver to you each week!!)

That’s why me and most of my site audit clients have moved to Iridium Hosting.

Nobody there has had any issue whatsoever with any PHP level they are on.

The servers are configured correctly and optimized for both speed and security.

Get an audit with your migration and save money on both.

That’s all the happenings around here. Let’s dive into this week’s tips and news.

WordPress Tips

WordPress 6.0.1 Finally Released

There were 13 core bugs and 18 bugs in the editor that got fixed in this release.

And what took so long to fix were the issues with FSE (Full Site Editing) that none of us need or want. I’m betting we can expect all bug releases through the next year to be held hostage by those FSE fixes too.

BlogAid News subscribers got special update instructions last week and I’m happy to report that all is well.

WP Performance Team Proposal for Better Host Caching

Remember when I said that popular hosts have borked PHP settings?

Well, part of that involves their server-side cache settings, more specifically, the lack thereof.

One of the groups in the WP Performance Team wants to introduce a new check that will show in the WP Health module on your dashboard for the status of your host’s server-side cache settings.

This is going to cause a LOT of site owners to finally be aware of just how poorly their host is performing. So, I’m all for it.

But, there will be a setting in this thing that hosts can turn off.

And since Bluehost is one of those poorly setup hosts, but is also such a major financial contributor to the WP Foundation, my bet is that these bottom-dollar hosts will make sure that their clients never see the truth.

So, good idea by the Performance Team, but I don’t expect budget hosts to let this thing see the light of day.

More Block Accessibilities Documentation in the Works

Andrea at Team Yoast is one of the many contributors to WordPress and she is currently working to beef up the Accessibilities documentation for Gutenberg Block devs, including the WP core devs.

Right now we are having to use a plugin to help us with Blocks that are not fully compliant, like the Buttons Block.

It would be so nice to have more documentation so the devs can get things like this fixed in core, plus help for devs who make specialty block plugins like Spectra Blocks (formerly UAG Blocks) and Kadence Blocks and such too.

And thank you to Team Yoast for all the corporate sponsorship they donate to pay folks to dedicate themselves to helping improve WordPress for everyone.

Plugin Tips

Add CAPTCHA to All Forms

You may recall a few weeks ago that I reported I was getting rid of CleanTalk and would be testing the combo of Antispam Bee for spam comment filtering and then adding the improved version of Google’s reCaptcha v3 keys to my Formidable Forms contact forms.

That seems to be working pretty well.

But, we all have way more forms on our sites than just contact forms, including:

• The comment form itself
• Optins
• Logins for members
• E-comm checkout pages

Well, there’s a new plugin called CAPTCHA 4WP that can protect all of them.

I’ve got it on my test list and will let you know how it goes.

Content Marketing Tips

5 Tips to Write the Most Clickable Headlines

Let’s face the facts, if your blog headline doesn’t immediately hook a potential viewer, they are never going to read your content.

A catchy headline piques interest.

And this post from the nice folks over at WPExplorer is chock full of tips and examples to help you come up with THE best headline for your post.

The Difference in Hooks and Click Bait

You are not going to catch a fish if you don’t have a hook.

And no fish is going to bit just a hook. You must have bait on it.

Click bait is a derogatory term that is now equated with bait and switch tactics.

The headline tells you one thing to get you to click on it, but the post is a dud and is more about advertising than satisfying the desire to get new info that you came for.

But you don’t bait and switch.

You deliver the goods in your content.

I want to challenge you to get over your aversion to click bait.

I want you to write the most sensational or provocative headline you can – for your post and for the email subject line in your newsletter and see what happens.

When you suddenly start catching more fish, you’ll get over your aversion quickly.

And you’ll never know if you don’t take a step past your comfort zone with it.

So go read this article and just try it.

You’re not going to lose anybody over it because your content delivers and satisfies what your readers came to your site for.

Security Tips

DDoS Attacks Up 109%

Has the internet been acting wonky for you lately?

There’s a reason for that.

Network Layer attacks have increased 109% this year according to Cloudflare’s latest quarterly report.

So, what does this mean for your site.

Attackers hit whole servers and router hubs the most, not just individual sites.

But, once they find your domain on those servers, they begin to target it.

They are looking for unsecured sites that they can break into and get through the back door to the host server itself. And then they have access to every site on that server, and all of those server resources that they use to attack other parts of the internet.

That’s what a DDoS attack is. It’s a Distributed Denial of Service.

Hackers get a hold of anything they can that’s attached to the internet and use it as fodder to clog up the lines and overwhelm things like host servers and internet routers and such.

The attacker stuff they have control of is coming from every kind of source. It’s distributed.

That makes it a whole lot harder to mitigate because it’s not coming from just one source or one IP or even one country.

How to Protect Your Site from DDoS Hacks

The very best thing you can do to protect your site is to mitigate a DDoS attack before it ever hits your host, much less your site.

That’s what being on Cloudflare does for you.

It’s a 3rd party WAF (Web Application Firewall). And it stops the attack out there, before it hits your host. And it never touches your site.

But, to work effectively, you need 30+ settings configured properly on Cloudflare. And I have yet to see a host, or many site techs for that matter, know anything about configuring all of that properly.

Setting up Cloudflare is one of the first fixes me and site audit clients do. We secure the site immediately.

That alone brings a speed boost because now all of their hosting resources can be put to use for human visitors instead of chewed up by bad bots.

More importantly, it defends your site from attacker bots even being able to try to hack through your site to the back door to get to the host server.

Now, if the attacker is hitting the IP address of the host server itself, then the host has to mitigate it. And good hosts have good mitigation to ensure your site speed is not affected as much as it would be on cheap hosting.

But, you need to have your own, hard-coded security setup on your control panel too in an effort to block the most bad bots possible from opening an instance of WordPress.

Here’s the thing. Hosts can only block just so much. They don’t know where your legit traffic comes from. So they can’t get as specific about the blocks as you can. For instance, if you don’t do business with China, then there’s not need to let the Baidu search engine bot crawl your site. It is the Chinese version of Google Search. Nor do you need the Yandex bot, which is the Russian version of Google.

Nor do you need 10,000 other bots from all the SEO agencies trying to crawl your site and give that info to your competition who is paying that agency to help them beat you.

The security measures I put in place for my clients drops those bot hits by 70%!!!!!

Think about it.

For most bloggers, that’s between 10k-30k hits a month that they don’t have to pay for extra hosting to handle.

I saved one client $2400/mo in hosting just by adding proper security to the site.

It took me less than an hour to do.

That one fix paid for itself 100s of times immediately.

And her site got way faster immediately too.

Plus her spam comments dropped to near zero, as did spam contact form submissions.

Think about how much time you would save not having to deal with that junk!

Now add in how much peace of mind is worth to you.

Are you ready to get your site audit now?

Monetization Tips

5 First Steps To Move from a Content Creator to a Content Entrepreneurial Mindset

For the past few months I’ve been helping you move from a creator of passive content into an online business owner who is paid directly by your followers.

The nice folks over at The Tilt have a super duper article to help you get going in that direction.

The first step is to create your personal mission statement.

This is so super important because it will help you redefine yourself and your goals.

My mantra is, “I’m in business to make money helping people – in that order.”

I invite you to write down your new personal mission statement.

It will help you focus everything you do connected with your site and its goals.

It will impact the content you write and how you write it.

And, it will point your mind into new creative avenues and free you up to try new things.

That’s the joy in it.

And we can all use a joy reset now and then, right?

Let me know what you wrote down on paper as your new mindset and how it is opening you up to joy.

Feel free to leave a comment on the blog, or anywhere you see this post online, or in one of our groups.

Wrap Up

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

Thanks for sharing this podcast and post with your blogging buddies, and for leaving comments and reviews too.

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