Hello Happy Site Owners and Webmasters!
Tips this week include:
- Why you need to get your site audit request in right away
- Why my contact form got knocked stupid for a few days
- Clarifying more advanced settings at Cloudflare for increased security and speed
- What’s in the newest Webmaster tutorials
- Update to the WP Fastest Cache tutorial
- The next DIY SEO Workshop on Categories and Tags
- Why you need to hold off on using AMP
- Whether it’s safe to update to Genesis 2.6
- Whether it’s safe to update the Yoast SEO plugin
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BlogAid Happenings
Shorter Podcast Today
Today’s Tips Tuesday is a little shorter than normal.
Guys, I’m slammed with work and absolutely dedicated to keeping all my speed tests a top priority.
So, something has to give this week due to my days being filled with client meetings.
And, there will be no live recap tonight, either.
But, I do have important updates for you, so let’s dive in!
Get Your Site Audit Request in NOW!!!
Good golly, Ms. Molly!!! I told y’all that the backlog was coming, and it’s here.
I honestly thought it would be mid April before I started getting a waiting list for site audits, but I’m already at capacity and booked with projects through April.
So, if you want a site audit get your request in right now!!
As we draw closer to July when the new Google deadline goes into effect for speed becoming a ranking factor, the waiting list is only going to get longer.
Keep in mind that I can only take just so many projects at a time. And the site clean up and fixes after an audit take a little while. So that means I have to delay doing new audits. I’ll bring them on as current projects complete.
It’s All About Speed
As y’all know, I’ve been doing deep speed tests for over 2 months now.
And I’m on the last phase and starting to do some of the tests on BlogAid, as that’s where I have the paid version of Cloudflare.
There are a few extra settings available on the Pro plan for both security and speed.
One of those security features knocked my contact forms stupid for a while.
It makes Contact Form 7 think everything is spam.
So, I’ve backed down on that security setting and will be getting a Pro plan for one of my testing site domains and finishing up there. I can’t afford to have the contact forms on BlogAid down!!!
At least, the settings at Cloudflare are what I think is causing the problem. It could also be the contact form plugin, my spam filter plugin, or the local caching plugin. So, that’s why I need to break it off to the testing site to be sure.
Help from Cloudflare Support
The nice folks at Cloudflare have been super generous with their support time to help me clarify advanced settings there, and in combo with premium caching plugins.
In fact, I sent them my whole settings list and they approved it and added a few tips to help me get even more performance and security without potentially interfering with the functions on my site.
So, I’m feeling very confident to start putting these settings into action on BlogAid.
And then I’ll be doing them on a selection of my site audit clients who volunteered for ultimate speed tests.
New Webmaster Tutorials
I’ve been adding new tutorials to the Webmaster Training Level 4 courses too.
I know that everyone is super pleased with the new Cloudflare tutorials, where all the settings are in one place.
I’ll be adding these advanced Page Rule settings, that I’m doing right now, soon too.
And I hope all of my webmasters have seen the new WebPage Test tutorial series, as well as the new caching plugin tutorials for all the jargon and overview of settings.
If you need to learn how to make sites faster for your clients, or even how to do site audits in general, my Webmaster Training teaches you the most in-demand skill set you can have right now.
This is the stuff that pays for itself over and over!!
WP Fastest Cache Settings Updated
And yep, I’ve updated the settings in my WP Fastest Cache tutorial yet again.
I’ll have a tutorial soon for Webmasters on the paid version too.
And let me tell you, it and WP Rocket are definitely worth paying for.
And I can definitely see situations where you might want to consider one or the other, depending on your site needs and restrictions.
DIY SEO Workshop on Categories and Tags
I’m really looking forward to meeting live with my DIY SEO peeps again this week.
We’ll be covering the SEO of categories and tags.
Categories are one of the most powerful features of WordPress.
They are like the Queen in chess.
So, knowing how to make the most of them can not only boost SEO, it can also get you way more clicks once folks come to your site too.
That’s all the news from around here. Let’s jump into this week’s tips.
SEO Tips
Hold off on AMP
If you haven’t implemented AMP on your site yet, don’t.
In typical Google fashion, they make something that’s hard to implement, then get disappointed when more folks don’t use it, then tweak it to death trying to make it easier to use.
The last part of that is the phase we’re in now with AMP.
They’ve finally decided to bring it closer to typical web standards instead of having their own little system for everything.
You can read more about it in the SEO Roundtable post.
But honestly, I don’t trust that this will make AMP good enough for most site owners to not keep losing revenue.
And, to tell the whole truth, I’m scared this will be like so many other things they launch, tweak, and then eventually drop.
So, until I can see that most of my clients won’t lose money on it, I’m still recommending that we hold off, no matter what Google does with it.
Theme Tips
It’s Safe to Update to Genesis 2.6
Genesis 2.6 was released last week, and I’m hearing good reports from site owners and webmasters that caused no issues.
So, I’m calling that it is safe to update now.
Plugin Tips
Hold Off On Updating Yoast
Last week Yoast made a major release of version 7.0 on the SEO plugin.
We’re already up to version 7.0.3 and I’ve heard all kinds of rumors about bugs.
I haven’t checked into how common any of them are, though.
But, I’ll be waiting at least another week before updating my production sites.
For my DIY SEO peeps, I’m waiting for us to get through this initial bug fix phase and then I’ll make a quick overview tutorial for you that shows the new features and what things are called.
I’ll make a more in-depth tour for the public after things settle down a little more with it.
Wrap Up
That’s a wrap for this week’s Tips Tuesday.
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Speaking of speed, anyone using Pressable hosting or other managed WordPress hosting services, may not have the option to run caching plugins like WP Fastest Cache. I use Pressable for a majority of my web hosting and found out a couple of weeks ago that I can’t use caching plugins. According to Pressable they already do that for you but don’t explain what exactly that means. So I’m doing the best that I can with what I can manage to keep the speed optimal.
I suspect that a lot of folks on managed hosting can’t use some of the ultimate speed tweaks either, due to plugin restrictions, or lack of access to the backside.
I assume Pressable is doing what I’ve seen at some managed hosts, which is server-side cache. It saves a lot of bandwidth and resources on the host, but is not the fastest thing for sites, at least on the ones I’ve tested.
Another great post MaAnna and Yippee for me that I got my site audit done! For all of you who haven’t gotten your site audit done, get on MaAnna’s list. Even if you have to wait a while it is so worth it!!!
Thank you so much for your kind words, Tipper!!!! Glad you got in early too!!