Tips Tuesday – Will Plugins Go Paid, Money from Content, Cloudflare Turnstile
Hello Happy Site Owner!!
Tips this week include:
- AI bots are cracking ReCaptcha now and what to use instead
- LastPass vaults cracked, and what to use instead
- Google removes how-to and FAQs rich snippets from search
- Will all plugins go to private, paid models?
- Why I think we should pay for all plugins
- Why it’s alarming that the PHP coding standards team may end soon
- Are you working for free too much?
- Why I switched to making videos
- Making money directly from content
- Why you need an AI assistant and how to get one
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Today’s tips revolve around working for free. That includes you and the software you depend on for running your site.
But first, let’s get some security and SEO news taken care of.
Security Tips
AI Bots Cracking ReCaptcha Now
You know those little ReCaptcha challenges with the images – either fuzzy text or grainy photos where you have to click all the boats?
Well, AI image recognition tools can successfully complete those 96% of the time, on average.
Me and my clients are now using Cloudflare Turnstile to protect our contact forms, comments, and login pages.
It’s free and easy to set up.
But, you do need your site on Cloudflare to use it.
I can help you with getting that done well. There are over 30 settings that need to be configured, and I’ve yet to meet a host who does any more than point your IP to it.
Cloudflare will make your site faster and more secure.
LastPass Vaults Cracked
Back in August of 2022, LastPass notified customers that they had observed some unusual hacker activity, but that no personal data, passwords, or vaults had been breached.
Then in November of 2022. LastPass disclosed that there was a second, bigger attack and this time personal info and some vaults were stolen. That’s when I suggested we leave and switch to another service.
It appears that the hackers were finally able to crack the vaults, and there has been a steady trickle of six-figure crypto heists amounting to $35 million stolen so far.
These were very secure accounts and the only common thread they can find is that the customers stored their long-term storage device’s seed phrase on LastPass.
If you are still using LastPass, you can move to Bit Warden or Roboform. Those are the ones I see recommended the most.
And be sure to change all of your passwords.
Then ask LastPass to wipe the account and cancel it.
My Crypto Update
Y’all may remember that I jumped into trading crypto a couple of years ago. I made a little money the first year. But then the crash happened to every market.
And I discovered that the crypto tokens issued for a crypto or blockchain related company had nothing to do with the company. It’s not like stock. When the company did well, the crypto would just sit there. It used to go up with good news, but not after the crash.
So, I spent this year divesting of those holdings and did enough day trading to get my seed money back.
I’m out for now, and likely will stay out as that world is just full of drama now. And I have more stress than I need with site stuff as it is.
I still believe that blockchain technology has practical uses. And if those companies go public, I’ll buy stock in them.
SEO Tips
Google Removes How-to and FAQs Rich Snippets from Search
Google reported that placing rich snippets from the how-to and FAQs sections of a site that have schema markup for those things is radically underused, meaning that those snippets don’t get many clicks.
So, Google has decided to remove them from search results.
I don’t think many of my DIY SEO peeps are using FAQs pages that are marked up with that schema because I warned them against it. There was just too much spammy SEO abuse of it and Google was penalizing those sites.
But, I believe all of my foodie blogger clients are using plugins that provide how-to in the schema markup of how to prepare the recipe.
So for those bloggers, you may now see a decrease in the how-to section of Google Search Console because those snippets will no longer appear and Search and therefore cannot be clicked.
Google says to keep the schema markup on the page/post, though. It still helps them understand the content better.
So, I don’t expect that there will be any change in our SEO or recipe or video plugins for schema markup.
I don’t think this change will affect my clients too much, but please let us know if you see an increase or decrease in clicks from Search.
Plugin Tips
And now on to our working for free news and tips theme for this week.
Will All Plugins Go to Private, Paid Models?
There’s a bunch of hoohaa brewing between plugin developers and Matt Mullenweg directly.
If you don’t know, Matt is the co-creator of WordPress and is often referred to as “our benevolent dictator” because he makes WP software available for free.
But Matt also owns Automattic, which runs WordPress.com and all manner of free plugins, plus hosts and other plugin companies – see a list of acquisitions over the years here.
So, Matt has dual interests here – as a dev leader and as a private business owner.
And that’s the rub.
Nearly a year ago, a decision was made to remove download stats from free plugins listed on the WordPress.org Plugins repository. Plugin devs have been up in arms since and they have renewed their push to get those metrics reinstated.
Many of these devs offer freemium plugins, meaning that the free verison is their foot in the door to their paid version.
The plugin version on WP.com says free only. On the WP.org repo they can list that there is a paid version available.
On top of that, WP.com site owners have extreme restrictions on the plugins they can use for free. They have to pay WP.com to add other plugins.
So, WP.com is making money on the backs of these plugin devs and cutting them out of money for inticing users into the paid version.
I honestly don’t know what may become of this mounting frustration the plugin devs are feeling.
My experience in the dev community is that they are bunch of passionate people.
Too many of them are also socially immature, as evidenced in the X threads going back and forth with this, and the personal attacks on Matt to the point that he had to block someone for the first time ever.
The devs may revolt and move to a private, paid model for their plugins. But in many cases, that would be cutting off their nose to spite their face. However, I would not put it past them if they are fed up enough with this.
I Think We Should Pay for All Plugins
I am VERY well aware of just how much non-billable time I donate with running a business in the WordPress ecosystem.
The freemium model, with regard to plugins, has been complained about by devs for years.
This latest hoohaa doesn’t help. It hurts them.
Years ago I called for a change – that all “free” plugins should require a $5/yr “donation” – the same way that Akismet, made by Automattic requires that “donation” if that plugin is used on a for-profit site.
I think doing this would solve 2 issues:
- Support and encourage plugin developers
- Make site owners pause a minute and consider whether they really need that plugin, or whether they just need to get educated on how to do a thing without a plugin
Until such time as the model is changed to something more equitable for all, I hope you will take a moment to have a look at your installed plugins and realize that 80% of them, or more, are free and don’t have a paid version available.
Somebody is working long hours for free to make that possible, as well as all the free support they provide.
Some plugins have a donation button. Consider finding it on their sites and giving them a small thank you for all of their hard work.
Or at least give them a review. Often there are pop ups in our WP admin dashboard that make it easy to do.
What do you think?
Would you be willing to pay $5/yr for each of your free plugins?
PHP Tips
PHP Coding Standards Team May End Soon
Y’all know about all the PHP upgrade hoohaa we have been through in the past year.
The upgrade to PHP 8.0 back in Novemeber broke some sites. That’s mainly because some older themes and plugins did not keep their wares current with WP coding standards. And the jump from 7.6 to 8.0 was a big change in the underlying code.
The recent upgrade to PHP 8.1 didn’t break much, as it was not as big a leap up from 8.0.
But, when some folks did the WP 6.3 update, some things did have issues if they were still on PHP 8.0. Moving up to 8.1 fixed it.
Do you ever think about what it takes to ensure that info is gathered about the PHP changes and then check what WP code might be impacted?
Somebody has to let plugin and theme devs know about those changes too.
That job has fallen to one volunteer, who has part-time help from two other volunteers – sometimes.
Well, she’s had enough of working for free.
She is demanding funding and a bigger team.
I don’t blame her.
The fact that the main code in WP, themes, and plugins is PHP, and that there is not a paid team dedicated to PHP/WP compliance is alarming.
WordPress has a 5 for the Future initiative program that encourages corporations to pay for volunteers to work on the WP core contributor team.
I sure hope some of that funding makes its way to the coding standards team.
Blogging Tips
Are You Working for Free Too Much Too?
ROI – Return on Investment.
That’s what all of this is about.
You’re in this game to make money, right?
The pitch to newbie bloggers is that you can work in your spare time and make at least enough income to cover the expenses and effort required to have a site.
That’s perfect ROI.
How’s that working for ya?
Why I Switched to Making Videos
Blogging stopped working for me a few years ago.
Video started working better.
It’s been nearly 3 years since I stopped blogging on Heartwood Art. But the videos still give me a wee bit of income. That’s the power of evergreen content. Not so with the technical things I cover on BlogAid.
Video tutorials I created for BlogAid are still the #1 source of potential new clients. But they are aging out. Things change and I should remake some of them, and just remove the rest.
Answering questions in blogging groups was the #2 source, but I’ve stopped doing those. The ROI is just not there anymore, as I’m now turning down 3-4 service requests I get from folks in those groups. The sites are nightmares from other techs working on them, and it’s stressful to try to find all of the trickery and hidden code those techs used.
Repurposing Content
I never blogged on AI Discover Hub until recently. Yes, I have blog posts, but those posts are just transcripts of my videos, with the video embedded, or the newsletter. I don’t consider that blogging. I consider that repurposing my content.
However, I did make a couple of posts that don’t have videos because I needed a few AI image example posts that relate to the AI Images for Profit course. And posts like that are super hot on Medium too, where I also cross-posted them.
Make Money Directly from Content
And I plan to do more posts that are exclusive to Medium. It’s a bigger fish, smaller pond thing where I have the opportunity to make posts exclusive to paid members on that platform and I get paid for writing them. I may even attract more folks to my course too, but that’s icing on the cake.
Keeping My Focus on Video
Same with videos. I had to stop making them for AI Discover Hub for a bit. (If you want to know why, see the AIDH newsletter/post from this week.)
I’ve also spent all of last week, and likely will spend most of this week, learning and setting up what I need to know to make videos that will get seen by millions of viewers and bring in direct money from the video itself. These are the Faceless YouTube videos I mentioned in recent Tips Tuesdays. And they are a stepping stone to one of the three new AI business models I’m building.
What’s Your ROI?
Let me ask you something.
When you write a blog post, are you sure you’re going to get paid for doing it?
How many blog posts have you written that aren’t getting any traffic?
Why are they still on your site?
Are you spending any time in analytics to see what’s working and what’s not?
Are you spending any time looking at what’s working for your competition, or in your niche?
Are you paying attention to your ROI and ensuring that you are getting paid for the time you spend and the expense that it takes to have a site?
I think you can make blogging a profitable part-time thing – if you are careful to ensure that every piece of content is a money maker and that you’re not spending time on content that isn’t, or marketing efforts that are not actually bringing you the traffic or money you need.
Some of my clients are making $10k+ a month and they spend most of their time in their analytics, and promoting the posts they have, not writing new posts.
It really is a part-time job for them and they have superior ROI.
It can be that way for all bloggers, but you have to invest in knowing what you’re doing with your content creation and marketing, and have a site that is clean and fast and properly SEO’d all over, not just the individual content pieces.
And you need to spend some time in the analytics.
AI Tips
Why You Need an AI Assistant
As mentioned, I have 3 new business models that I’m stepping my way into.
One of the new businesses will be a specific combo of the other two businesses and it will target a specific industry.
And all 3 will rely heavily on AI tools.
One of those AI toolsets is exactly what is taught in the AI Success Club by my friend and colleague, Denise Wakeman.
It goes way beyond just using ChatGPT for blog post ideas.
I’ve been in it for months and I can tell you right now that I’m going to be spending time looking deeper into some of the prompts and techniques that they were teaching in the first few weeks as I have new needs for new projects where they apply even more than they did for BlogAid.
I’m betting everything in the instructions will apply to you right off the bat if you do evergreen content.
And now the AI Success Club has a 3-month access pass available.
It’s a whale of a bargain.
And it will improve your ROI.
It has improved mine.
And I believe many of the tips and techniques taught there are going to make these new business models possible. There’s just too much research and marketing work to do without an AI assistant to make it go faster and easier.
