WP the Podcast | WordPress, Business, & Marketing tips for the WordPress Web Design Professional: Recent Episodes
David Blackmon & Tim Strifler
The Best Beginner Course for WordPress UnveiledRead the full episode transcript below: 00:28 David Blackmon: Welcome to another episode of WP The Podcast, my name is David Blackmon.
00:35 Tim Strifler: And i’m Tim Strifler
00:38 David Blackmon: Today on episode 838, and you’ll be happy to know, this is the last episode of Airpod. So the audio will improve going forward. Today we’re going to talk about the best beginner course for WordPress unveiled. Drumroll please… Tim i’m gonna let you tell the name of the course and then we’ll talk about why it’s the best beginner course for WordPress.
01:06 Tim Strifler: Yeah uh the best beginner course for WordPress is The WordPress and Divi Beginner Course over at wpgears.com and yes that is our site, that is our course. But here’s the thing, we’re allowed to be incredibly biased because this is our podcast. But yeah we really, it really is an amazing course. Like we’re just wrapping up the recording we already have students going through the content, we got a lot of great feedback. But um the reason why i think it it really is the best course is because we start down here but we go up here right like a lot of uh basic courses they stay down here and they teach you just the real basics, but we’re giving you so much. And so yes we do start at the beginning, so you don’t need any prior experience but the stuff we’re covering is uh it goes pretty in-depth. Um and so I’m, i’ve been super excited with the recording process because it’s like holy cow like this is ending up being so much better than we anticipated. Right, which has been a lot of fun so..
02:20 David Blackmon: Yeah totally. You know, um oh what was i going to say and then my it just left my brain let me see if i can bring it back real quick. Um yeah i think what what sets this course apart from a lot of other courses is you know beginner courses is people do tend to stay at that very basic level and stuff, and i think because Tim myself and Corey have come from a such an organic background in building a WordPress business online, we’ve learned a lot over the last decade and i do think that the fact that we are also plug-in and theme creators for WordPress, has accentuated and helped that as well. Because we know the pain points that new people go through and stuff. Now we’ve built very successful WordPress businesses and that matters and stuff. We’re not just somebody who’s randomly picking a topic and you know trying to sell you a course, we actually have done all of the things that we’re teaching, we’re experts at it, we are technically the gurus in in doing this and stuff. And i can say that because because we have been successful in building very successful long sustaining WordPress companies does that mean that other people aren’t absolutely not there’s a lot of people that are very successful and it could probably teach you a lot about you know. How to build a WordPress company or how to learn how to build WordPress websites and stuff. It’s just not where they’re at Tim and i have discovered you know in Cory a few years ago that we really really enjoyed the teaching aspect and we found out that our students tell us we’re pretty good at it. So um you know, we are kind of it’s hard to talk about yourself you know as a really awesome but the reality is, is we’re pretty freaking awesome you know. We just are you know we’ve got a lot of knowledge we’ve got a lot of experience we love to share it and we give away about 10 000 times more value than most people do when they’re teaching and stuff, because we love to share our knowledge and stuff. So go check out the course wpgears.com if you’re beyond a beginner and you want to learn how to take your business to six figures beyond that we have that course that’s been around with a lot of students who have gone through it over the last few years and it’s helped them build amazing WordPress companies and stuff. So don’t be afraid to come on over if you have questions shoot us a message you know. Tim and i answer anything whether or not you feel like the course is right for you and stuff and the best part about this course is that it’s 100 percent guaranteed . So oh yeah you know it’s it it you know you go through the course and you you know this course didn’t do what it said it was going to do, guess what? We’re giving you your money back.
05:50 Tim Strifler: Within six months too. So it’s not just like oh 14 days like no no you have plenty of time to go through everything multiple times even if it still doesn’t achieve what we promised then boom money back.
06:04 David Blackmon: Yeah, boom! There you go. All right folks go check it out WP Gears . Tim until tomorrow, we’ll see you then.
06:13 Tim Strifler: Take care, bye.
Did you Enjoy this Episode? Will you consider sharing it online? Just click one of the share buttons below! * Will you leave us a review? 🙂 * Have a question, or a topic request? Let us know in the comments below! Want to Connect with David & Tim? David: + Aspen Grove Studios + Divi Space * Tim: + TimStrifler.com + Divi Life The post The Best Beginner Course for WordPress Unveiled | EP 838 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about Do You Need an SEO Plugin for WordPress
The post Do You Need an SEO Plugin for WordPress | EP 837 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about Do You Need an SEO Plugin for WordPress
The post Do You Need an SEO Plugin for WordPress | EP 837 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about Is WordPress Difficult to Learn if you're not a Tech Person?
The post How to Get Web Design Work When Business is Slow | EP 836 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about Is WordPress Difficult to Learn if you're not a Tech Person?
The post Is WordPress Difficult to Learn if you’re not a Tech Person? | EP 835 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about I want to Build Websites for Clients on WordPress, Where Should I Start?
The post I want to Build Websites for Clients on WordPress, Where Should I Start? | EP 834 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about Do I need to know how to Code to Build a WordPress Website?
The post Do I need to know how to Code to Build a WordPress Website? | EP 833 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about How Often Should I Change Themes?
The post How Often Should I Change Themes? | EP 831 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about How Often Should I Change Themes?
The post How Often Should I Change Themes? | EP 831 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about The difference Between a Theme and a Child Theme
The post The difference Between a Theme and a Child Theme | EP 829 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about The difference Between a Theme and a Child Theme
The post The difference Between a Theme and a Child Theme | EP 829 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about I'm New to WordPress Where is the Best Place to Start?
The post I’m New to WordPress Where is the Best Place to Start? | EP 828 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about The Best Free Tool to Build a Website
The post The Best Free Tool to Build a Website | EP 827 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about The Fastest Way to Launch a Website
The post The Fastest Way to Launch a Website | EP 826 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about Is WordPress The Best Platform To Launch a Course?
The post Is WordPress The Best Platform To Launch a Course? | EP 825 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about The Fastest Way to Build an Audience Online
The post The Fastest Way to Build an Audience Online | EP 824 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about Is WordPress Still Popular in 2022
The post Is WordPress Still Popular in 2022 | EP 822 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about Is WordPress Still Popular in 2022
The post Is WordPress Still Popular in 2022 | EP 822 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about The Best WordPress Backup Plugins in 2022
The post The Best WordPress Backup Plugins in 2022 | EP 820 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about Are Meta Descriptions Important for SEO
The post Are Meta Descriptions Important for SEO | EP 819 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about The Top Page Builders in 2022
The post The Top Page Builders in 2022 | EP 818 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about The Best Way to Acquire Users
The post The Best Way to Acquire Users | EP 816 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about How Many H1 Tags Should You Have Per Page
The post How Many H1 Tags Should You Have Per Page | EP 815 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about Do you need to be on social media to get web design clients?
The post Do you need to be on social media to get web design clients? | EP 814 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about The Best WordPress Backup Plugins in 2022
The post The Best WordPress Backup Plugins in 2022 | EP 820 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about Do you need to be on social media to get web design clients?
The post Do you need to be on social media to get web design clients? | EP 814 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about Should I use WordPress to build my website in 2022?
The post Should I use WordPress to build my website in 2022? | EP 813 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about Should you be using AI for your website?
The post Should you be using AI for your website? | EP 811 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about How to Win During a Recession
The post How to Win During a Recession | EP 809 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about 5 Ways to Add Automation Into Your Web Design Business
The post 5 Ways to Add Automation Into Your Web Design Business | EP 808 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about The Best Free SEO Tools for Beginners
The post The Best Free SEO Tools for Beginners | EP 807 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about The Importance of Adding Automation Into Your Business
The post The Importance of Adding Automation Into Your Business | EP 806 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about Why consistency is important in the online world
The post Why consistency is important in the online world | EP 810 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about How to Win During a Recession
The post How to Win During a Recession | EP 809 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about How to Backup Your WordPress Site to Google Drive (Free and Easy)
The post How to Backup Your WordPress Site to Google Drive (Free and Easy) | EP 805 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about how to Make Blog Post Comments Searchable in WordPress
The post How to Make Blog Post Comments Searchable in WordPress | EP 804 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about YouTube vs Vimeo for Video Hosting
The post YouTube vs Vimeo for Video Hosting | EP 803 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about How to Create a Custom WordPress Dashboard for Clients
The post How to Create a Custom WordPress Dashboard for Clients | EP 801 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about How to Create a Custom WordPress Dashboard for Clients
The post How to Create a Custom WordPress Dashboard for Clients | EP 801 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about The Difference Between Outbound and Inbound Marketing
The post The Difference Between Outbound and Inbound Marketing | EP 799 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about The Difference Between Outbound and Inbound Marketing
The post The Difference Between Outbound and Inbound Marketing | EP 799 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about A Simple Tactic To Help You Get Local Web Design Clients
The post A Simple Tactic To Help You Get Local Web Design Clients | EP 798 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about: Can Your WordPress Host Do This?
The post Can Your WordPress Host Do This? | EP 797 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about The WordPress SEO Plugin Basics That You Should Know
The post The WordPress SEO Plugin Basics That You Should Know | EP 796 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about How & Why You Should Declare Email Bankruptcy
The post How & Why You Should Declare Email Bankruptcy | EP 794 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about How & Why You Should Declare Email Bankruptcy
The post How & Why You Should Declare Email Bankruptcy | EP 794 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about How to Indirectly Advertise Your Business
The post How to Indirectly Advertise Your Business | EP 793 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about How to Design Simple Images and Graphics Without Photoshop It
The post How to Design Simple Images and Graphics Without Photoshop | EP 792 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about My Bookkeeping Process and Why I Don't Outsource It
The post My Bookkeeping Process and Why I Don’t Outsource It | EP 791 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about Our Biggest Mistakes We Made When We Were New to Web Design
The post Our Biggest Mistakes We Made When We Were New to Web Design | EP 790 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about 5 Ways to Sell Things Online With WordPress
The post 5 Ways to Sell Things Online With WordPress | EP 789 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about How to Utilize a Stand Up Desk to Create Good Habits
The post How to Stand Out From the Majority of Web Designers | EP 788 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about How to Utilize a Stand Up Desk to Create Good Habits
The post How to Utilize a Stand Up Desk to Create Good Habits | EP 787 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about The Best Way to Build Email Opt-In Forms on WordPress
The post The Best Way to Build Email Opt-In Forms on WordPress | EP 786 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about Do THIS For Your Clients If You Want to Be Successful
The post Do THIS For Your Clients If You Want to Be Successful | EP 785 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about The Real Reason You Need Your WordPress Websites to Load Quickly
The post The Real Reason You Need Your WordPress Websites to Load Quickly | EP 784 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about How to Get Web Design Clients When You Are Brand New
The post How to Get Web Design Clients When You Are Brand New | EP 783 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about The #1 Way to Become More Efficient at Building Websites
The post The #1 Way to Become More Efficient at Building Websites | EP 782 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about How to Learn to Build Websites with WordPress When You Are Brand New
The post How to Learn to Build Websites with WordPress When You Are Brand New | EP 781 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about The School of YouTube vs a Paid Online Course
The post The School of YouTube vs a Paid Online Course | EP 780 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about What's the Best Email Marketing Provider?
The post What’s the Best Email Marketing Provider? | EP 779 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about Is SMS an Effective Marketing Tool?
The post Is SMS an Effective Marketing Tool? | EP 778 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about How to Build Landing Pages with WordPress
The post How to Build Landing Pages with WordPress | EP 777 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about How to Avoid Blog Comment Spam?
The post How to Avoid Blog Comment Spam | EP 776 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about Should I Use an Appointment Scheduling Tool for Prospective Web Design Clients?
The post Should I Use an Appointment Scheduling Tool for Prospective Web Design Clients? | EP 775 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about What Payment Processor Should I Use?
The post What Payment Processor Should I Use? | EP 774 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about Where to Get Good Stock Images for Web Design
The post Where to Get Good Stock Images for Web Design | EP 773 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about The Best Ways to Get Website Traffic in 2022
The post The Best Form Plugins With Conditional Logic | EP 772 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about The Best Ways to Get Website Traffic in 2022
The post The Best Ways to Get Website Traffic in 2022 | EP 771 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about How to Work Remotely From Anywhere in the World
The post How to Work Remotely From Anywhere in the World | EP 770 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about The Best Way to Get Started Creating Content Online
The post The Best Way to Get Started Creating Content Online | EP 768 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about The Best Way to Get Started Creating Content Online
The post The Best Way to Get Started Creating Content Online | EP 768 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about The Two Different Types of Traffic
The post The Two Different Types of Traffic | EP 767 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about The Best Places to Host Videos Online
The post The Best Places to Host Videos Online| EP 765 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about The Best Places to Host Videos Online
The post The Best Places to Host Videos Online| EP 765 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about What is Conditional Logic in Forms & Why You Want It
The post What is Conditional Logic in Forms & Why You Want It | EP 764 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about The Best Learning Management System for WordPress
The post The Best Learning Management System for WordPress | EP 763 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about The Best Ways to Migrate a WordPress Website
The post The Best Ways to Migrate a WordPress Website | EP 762 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about How to Prevent Companies From Selling Your Email Address
The post How to Prevent Companies From Selling Your Email Address | EP 759 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about How to Set Up Google My Business
The post How to Set Up Google My Business | EP 759 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about The Best Way to Handle Plugin and Theme Licenses for Client Websites
The post The Best Way to Handle Plugin and Theme Licenses for Client Websites | EP 759 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about Should You Add Social Media Login Options for Your WordPress Website?
The post Should You Add Social Media Login Options for Your WordPress Website? | EP 758 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about How to Keep Bots from Contacting You
The post Stop Selling Web Design Features to Your Clients, and Do This Instead | EP 757 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about How to Keep Bots from Contacting You
The post How to Keep Bots from Contacting You | EP 756 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about How to Make Your Website Fully Accessible
The post Helpful Software to Use When Creating Social Content | EP 755 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about How to Make Your Website Fully Accessible
The post How to Make Your Website Fully Accessible | EP 754 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about How to Build a Multilingual Website in WordPress
The post How to Build a Multilingual Website in WordPress | EP 753 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about Google Search Console vs Google Analytics
The post Google Search Console vs Google Analytics | EP 752 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about The Best Event Plugins for WordPress
The post The Best Event Plugins for WordPress | EP 751 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about The Best Password Managers
The post The Best Password Managers | EP 749 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about How to Create a Multi Step Contact Form
The post How to Create a Multi Step Contact Form | EP 748 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about The Best Password Managers
The post The Best Password Managers | EP 749 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about What Tools to Use for Your Blog Content Calendar
The post What Tools to Use for Your Blog Content Calendar | EP 747 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about How to Plan Out Blog Posts for Your Website
The post How to Plan Out Blog Posts for Your Website | EP 746 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about How to Know if Your WordPress Website is Hacked (and how to fix it)
The post How to Know if Your WordPress Website is Hacked (and how to fix it) | EP 745 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about What is CSS and How it Works with WordPress
The post What is CSS and How it Works with WordPress | EP 744 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about The Basics of On-Page SEO
The post The Basics of On-Page SEO | EP 743 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about How WordPress Stores Content and Why It's Important To Know
The post How WordPress Stores Content and Why It’s Important To Know | EP 742 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about Facebook Groups vs Discord for Online Communities
The post Facebook Groups vs Discord for Online Communities | EP 741 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about How to Get Your First Web Design Client
The post How to Get Your First Web Design Client | EP 740 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about WordPress Plugin Highlight: Connect Sendgrid for Emails
The post WordPress Plugin Highlight: Connect Sendgrid for Emails | EP 739 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about How to Keep Bots from Contacting You
The post How to Keep Bots from Contacting You | EP 7378 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about How to Sell Web Design Services Effectively
The post How to Sell Web Design Services Effectively | EP 737 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about What is Site Architecture and Why It's Important When Building a Website
The post What is Site Architecture and Why It’s Important When Building a Website | EP 736 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about The Most Crucial Pages that Every Website Needs
The post The Most Crucial Pages that Every Website Needs | EP 734 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about Our Favorite Email Clients to Use for Business
The post Our Favorite Email Clients to Use for Business | EP 734 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about WordPress Plugin Highlight: Regenerate Thumbnails
The post WordPress Plugin Highlight: Regenerate Thumbnails | EP 733 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about The Best Ways to Learn WordPress in 2022
The post The Best Ways to Learn WordPress in 2022 | EP 732 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about Our Top 5 Recommended WordPress Hosting Companies
The post Our Top 5 Recommended WordPress Hosting Companies | EP 731 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about The Best Live Streaming Software to Use
The post The Best Live Streaming Software to Use | EP 730 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about How to Use TikTok to Grow Your Business
The post How to Use TikTok to Grow Your Business | EP 729 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about Why You Should Set Up SMTP for Your WordPress Website
The post Why You Should Set Up SMTP for Your WordPress Website | EP 728 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about WordPress Plugin Highlight: User Role Editor
The post WordPress Plugin Highlight: User Role Editor | EP 727 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about Do you Need an iPad for Your Web Design Business
The post Do you Need an iPad for Your Web Design Business | EP 726 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about what is Discord and Why You Should Use it for Your Business
The post What is Discord and Why You Should Use it for Your Business | EP 725 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about Our Favorite Productivity Tools for 2022
The post Our Favorite Productivity Tools for 2022 | EP 724 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about Do You Need a Physical Office in 2022
The post Do You Need a Physical Office in 2022 | EP 723 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about Should You Keep Your Business Local or Grow National and International
The post Should You Keep Your Business Local or Grow National and International | EP 722 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about The Basics of SEO for WordPress
The post The Basics of SEO for WordPress | EP 721 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about WordPress Plugin Highlight: User Switching
The post WordPress Plugin Highlight: User Switching| EP 720 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about Should You Host Your Email with Your Hosting Company
The post Should You Host Your Email with Your Hosting Company | EP 719 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about What is Coming in WordPress 6.0
The post What is Coming in WordPress 6.0 | EP 718 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about The Best Code Editing Software for WordPress Websites
The post The Best Code Editing Software for WordPress Websites | EP 717 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about The Best LMS Plugins for WordPress
The post The Best LMS Plugins for WordPress | EP 716 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about How to Search Any WordPress Website
The post How to Search Any WordPress Website | EP 715 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about How to Stay Focused When Working from Home
The post How to Stay Focused When Working from Home | EP 714 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about WordPress Plugin Highlight: Safe SVG
The post WordPress Plugin Highlight: Safe SVG | EP 713 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about Why You Should Invest in Your Business Growth This Year
The post Why You Should Invest in Your Business Growth This Year | EP 712 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about The First Person You Should Hire When Growing Your Web Design Business
The post The First Person You Should Hire When Growing Your Web Design Business | EP 711 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about How to Set Communication Boundaries With Clients
The post How to Set Communication Boundaries With Clients | EP 710 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about What Do You Need to Start a WordPress Business?
The post What Do You Need to Start a WordPress Business? | EP 709 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about What Social Platforms Should You Use to Promote Your Business?
The post What Social Platforms Should You Use to Promote Your Business? | EP 708 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about Should You Raise Your Prices for Inflation?
The post Should You Raise Your Prices for Inflation? | EP 707 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about The Three Best Ways to Save Time When Building a lot of WordPress Websites
The post The Three Best Ways to Save Time When Building a lot of WordPress Websites | EP 706 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about Our 5 Best Tips for Being as Productive as Possible
The post Our 5 Best Tips for Being as Productive as Possible | EP 705 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about Do you need a .com domain for your business to be successful?
The post Do you need a .com domain for your business to be successful? | EP 704 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about How to Distribute Your Podcast Once You've Recorded It
The post How to Distribute Your Podcast Once You’ve Recorded It | EP 703 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about 5 Streams of Recurring Revenue You Can Add to Your Web Design Business
The post 5 Streams of Recurring Revenue You Can Add to Your Web Design Business | EP 702 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about Should You Use YouTube to Promote Your Business?
The post Should You Use YouTube to Promote Your Business? | EP 701 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about Do You Need an Adobe Membership to be a WordPress Web Designer
The post Do You Need an Adobe Membership to be a WordPress Web Designer | EP 700 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about The Easiest Way to Create Email Optin Forms in WordPress
The post The Easiest Way to Create Email Optin Forms in WordPress | EP 699 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about The Most Important Thing to Know When Trying to Close a Web Design Client
The post The Most Important Thing to Know When Trying to Close a Web Design Client | EP 698 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about How to Get Found on Google
The post How to Get Found on Google | EP 697 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about The Best Email Marketing Platforms to Use
The post The Best Email Marketing Platforms to Use | EP 696 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about WordPress Plugin Highlight: Yoast SEO Breadcrumb Shortcode
The post WordPress Plugin Highlight: Yoast SEO Breadcrumb Shortcode | EP 695 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about Does Email Marketing Still Work in 2022
The post Does Email Marketing Still Work in 2022 | EP 694 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about Is Divi a Bloated WordPress Theme?
The post Is Divi a Bloated WordPress Theme? | EP 693 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about How to Easily Change http links to https in WordPress
The post How to Easily Change http links to https in WordPress | EP 692 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about How to Ensure Deliverability for Contact Form Emails
The post How to Ensure Deliverability for Contact Form Emails | EP 691 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about How Long Should Your Blog Posts Be?
The post How Long Should Your Blog Posts Be? | EP 690 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about How to Backup Your WordPress Site.
The post How to Backup Your WordPress Site | EP 689 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about Do I need to Use the WordPress Menu System?
The post Do I need to Use the WordPress Menu System? | EP 688 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about Should I Use WooCommerce for my eCommerce Website?
The post Should I Use WooCommerce for my eCommerce Website? | EP 687 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about How to Add Facebook Pixel to Your WordPress Website
The post How to Add Facebook Pixel to Your WordPress Website | EP 686 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about How to Add Google Analytics to Your WordPress Website
The post How to Add Google Analytics to Your WordPress Website | EP 685 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about How to Make Sure Google Indexes Your WordPress Website
The post How to Make Sure Google Indexes Your WordPress Website | EP 684 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about How to Add Two Factor Authentication to Your WordPress Website for Free
The post How to Add Two Factor Authentication to Your WordPress Website for Free | EP 683 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about WordPress Plugin Highlight: Simple URLs
The post WordPress Plugin Highlight: Simple URLs | EP 682 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about How to Find Who Actually Owns a Domain Name
The post How to Find Who Actually Owns a Domain Name | EP 681 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about How to Track and Redirect 404 Pages in WordPress
The post How to Track and Redirect 404 Pages in WordPress | EP 680 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about The Best SEO Website Analyzer Tools
The post The Best SEO Website Analyzer Tools | EP 679 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about Why You Should Add Domain Privacy
The post Why You Should Add Domain Privacy| EP 678 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about How to Create a Referral Program in WordPress
The post How to Create a Referral Program in WordPress | EP 677 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about How to Start a WordPress Side Hustle
The post How to Start a WordPress Side Hustle | EP 676 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about WordPress Plugin Highlight: One Signal Push Notifications
The post WordPress Plugin Highlight: One Signal Push Notifications | EP 675 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about How to Get an eCommerce Store Online Fast with WordPress
The post How to Get an eCommerce Store Online Fast with WordPress | EP 674 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about How to Build an Email List on Your WordPress Website
The post How to Build an Email List on Your WordPress Website | EP 673 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about How to Get a WordPress Website Online Fast
The post How to Get a WordPress Website Online Fast | EP 672 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about Why Customer Avatars are So Important in Business
The post Why Customer Avatars are So Important in Business | EP 671 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about The Best Image Optimization Tools for WordPress (and Why You Need Them)
The post The Best Image Optimization Tools for WordPress (and Why You Need Them) | EP 670 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about WordPress Plugin Highlight: Duplicate Post
The post WordPress Plugin Highlight: Duplicate Post | EP 669 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about How to Collect Client Payments and Get Signed Contracts Remotely
The post How to Collect Client Payments and Get Signed Contracts Remotely | EP 668 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about 5 web design resources You should be using.
The post Email Marketing for Web Designers – Does it Work? | EP 667 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about the How to Build a Brand as a Web Design Freelancer or Agency
The post How to Build a Brand as a Web Design Freelancer or Agency | EP 666 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about the Best Way to Make Your Business Stand Out
The post State of the WordPress Page Builder — Which Page Builder We Recommend | EP 665 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about the Best Way to Make Your Business Stand Out
The post The Best Way to Make Your Business Stand Out | EP 664 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about 5 web design resources You should be using.
The post We’re Back with New Episodes! What we’ve been up to the last couple years! | EP 663 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about WordPress Plugin Highlight: Advanced Custom Fields
The post WordPress Plugin Highlight: Advanced Custom Fields | EP 662 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about 5 web design resources You should be using.
The post 5 Web Design Resources You Should be Using | EP 661 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about Page Cacheability and why it matters for WordPress page speed.
The post Page Cacheability and Why it Matters for WordPress Page Speed | EP 660 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about why we install Cloudflare on every website we build.
The post Why We Install Cloudflare on Every Website We Build | EP 659 appeared first on WP Gears.
In this episode, David and Tim talk about WordPress 5.5 - What's New.
The post WordPress 5.5 – What’s New | EP 658 appeared first on WP Gears.
Virtual Studio Series – The Video Live Streaming Software that David and Tim Use and Why 1. Ecam Live 01:54 2. Ecam Community 03:39 3. Zoom 04:17 4. Restream 06:34
Read the full episode transcript below: 00:25 David Blackmon: Hey everybody. Welcome to another episode of WP The Podcast brought to you by WP Gears. I’m David Blackmon.
00:35 Tim Strifler: And I’m Tim Strifler.
00:37 David Blackmon: Today in episode 657. We’re going to talk about. Our well, we’re going to continue our virtual studio series. If you’ve joined us over the last few weeks, you’ll notice that we started the virtual studio series, where Tim and I go over the equipment and the tools we use to do live streams, to record podcast episodes, and to pretty much work on a daily basis. Because we get a ton of questions inquiring about this stuff today. We’re going to talk about the video and live streaming software that we actually use and what we’ve kind of settled on. Obviously, there are lots of choices out there. There’s lots of people in the game and there’s probably going to be even more companies getting in the game as people are working more from home because of COVID-19 and the pandemic. Um, lots of things that we’ve talked about have been sold out. You can’t even get them for an extended period of time because everybody and their grandma. Is doing live streams and video type kind of content. And so, so they wanted to talk about the software that we use and, uh, I’m going to let my good buddy and partner, mr. Tim Strifler for get us kicked off.
01:54 Tim Strifler: Yeah. Yeah. And before we do, I do want to mention, uh, if you haven’t listened to the other episodes in the virtual studio series, we definitely recommend it. So, uh, episode 646, 649, 652. 655. We talk about cameras, lighting, microphones, desks, everything that we use. Uh, and it’s all the stuff that we get. As David mentioned, we get a lot of questions for, so we thought it would be helpful. Um, so the on today’s episode, the video and live streaming software that we use, uh, in terms of live streaming, we use Ecam. Ecam live is live streaming software, and you can basically, uh, set up a virtual, uh, experience that will be pushed out to the interwebs. Uh, and so it’s really, really powerful. You can turn on overlays, you can program scenes. So when you change scenes, it will change the overlay and the camera angle. You know, if you have multiple cameras and, uh, if you can do picture and picture, you can do screen sharing. It’s very, very powerful, but it’s also very intuitive software as well. Uh, I’ve used other. Products, such as OBS, which stands for open broadcasting software as well as Wirecast, which is, uh, from ScreenFlow. I think same company that does ScreenFlow, uh, both are very powerful software, but very, very hard to use. Very overwhelming, huge steep learning curves, where E cam is, is very intuitive. It’s powerful. Uh, but it’s probably not as powerful as the other ones, but you can do everything you’ll need to do. Um, and the learning curve is a lot simpler. Once you dig into it.
03:35 David Blackmon: And their community is just awesome. Tim and I have joined the E cam live community on Facebook and they’re constantly all of the members in there are people just like Tim and I, and as they learn something new, they share it. So there’s very much a open source feel to it, even though it’s a SAS product. Um, like Tim said, he cam is fantastic. So check it out. Wirecast cast, cave, my brain in when Tim and I used that long once upon a time. As a matter of fact, I just let Tim handle it all and kind of gave up now with Ecam. Even Dave can handle.
04:17 David Blackmon: Next to what we’re going to talk about is Zoom. And Tim and I are actually on a zoom call right now, as we’re recording this episode. And occasionally we go live behind the scenes, WP, the podcast I’m recording, and we’ll go live to Facebook and YouTube and show you what it, what it’s like when we record these episodes behind the scenes and we use zoom.
Zoom for that as well. Um, SIM is really easy, obviously it’s, it’s exploded because of COVID-19 all the teachers, students, schools, um, everybody around the world is using zoom. It seems like. And. We have noticed some, some, uh, you know, kind of loss in signal strength, but not a tremendous amount. I think it’s mainly because of the fact that more and more people are on zoom and their servers are just overloaded for whatever. Uh, but zoom is a great product for virtual calls for video conferencing with clients, for doing webinars, for doing live streams, even, uh, As we mentioned, we use we’ve transitioned over to Ecam for our live streams and stuff, but Zoom, we used to do our live stream through zoom as well. There’s just no customization. We want our company’s branding. We want our companies, um, you know, colors, all of the stuff that. We want to do, we can do an Ecam. We can’t do assume. So. That’s one of the reasons why we transitioned away from using Zoom, but Zoom is a fantastic platform. Guess what? There’s a free version, a free version that allows you to do zoom calls, live streams, anything. And. You know, it capture it 40 minutes at 40 minutes. It’s going to cut you off. So if you’ve got more than a 40 minute call, you can’t use hymns free version. So check it out.
06:06 Tim Strifler: Yeah. Can you do live streams with the Zoom free version, like go on from a zoom call to Facebook live and stuff like that, or is that only on the paid?
06:18 David Blackmon: Well, Tim, I just said it. If I just said it, if they don’t do it, they need to add it into the free version. What the hell? Honestly, I don’t know. We have, we’ve had the free paid version for so long. I honestly don’t remember if the free version has live stream or not. So I could be wrong.
06:34 Tim Strifler: Yeah, I have a feeling it’s in the paid version, but yeah, don’t quote us on that. So the third piece of software that we use for video and live streaming is Restream. Now Restrain is, is a software that you don’t really use. On its own, you, you use it with a different other software. And so for example, we actually use Restream with both Ecam live and Zoom. And so for example, restream is, uh, well, let me tell you what it is before I give you the example restream basically is a tool that allows you to stream to a bunch of different, uh, live streaming platforms all at once. And so, uh, The way we use it is we connect it to cam and you can basically broadcast the live stream to Restream and then Restream then takes it to, uh, YouTube Facebook, um, Facebook groups, uh, you know, different Facebook channels. So we’ve done like different channels at once. Whereas like all of David’s Facebook and YouTube channels, all on my Facebook and YouTube channels and then our joint Facebook and YouTube channels. And so we do that through. Restream and so we can connect Restream to Ecam live. We can also connect restream to Zoom. Uh, we, David and I are also part of a podcast, a weekly podcast called Divi chat, which is like a round table live discussion. And we do that through Zoom, uh, via Restream cause we’re live on YouTube and Facebook, the addition to Facebook’s Newark, but we it’s powered by, by Restream as well as Zoom. So, uh, very, very powerful. And those are the three that we use. Ecam live, Zoom and Restream.
08:12 David Blackmon: Boom. Well, that concludes our virtual studio series on our video live streaming software that use, I think it concludes our video studio series are our virtual studio series as well. Am I wrong, Tim?
08:29 Tim Strifler: That’s it.
08:30 David Blackmon: Is that kind of wrap up everything we wanted to talk about?
08:32 Tim Strifler: Yeah, absolutely.
08:34 David Blackmon: I think it was a ended up being what, a five part series…
08:37 Tim Strifler: I think so. Yeah.
08:38 David Blackmon: Where we’ve talked about the different tools, desks, you know, lighting, cameras, gear. I want to say it’s a five part series and you know what, we’re going to do a Roundup post. You know, if you’re not on our email list, come on over and jump on our email list. We’re going to do an email blast where we do a Roundup of, uh, of our virtual studio series. So you can have it all in one place and stuff. Um, but yeah, come on over and join it. Hope. This has been a great episode for you tomorrow. We’re going to discuss WordPress 5.5. It’s common. We want to talk about what’s new and we’re going to focus on the key features that Tim and I think are important to look at. Tim until tomorrow. We’ll see you then.
09:20 Tim Strifler: Take care Bye. Bye.
Did you Enjoy this Episode? * Will you consider sharing it online? Just click one of the share buttons below! * Will you leave us a review? 🙂 * Have a question, or a topic request? Let us know in the comments below!
Want to Connect with David & Tim? * David: + Aspen Grove Studios + Divi Space * Tim: + TimStrifler.com + Divi Life
The post Virtual Studio Series – The Video Live Streaming Software that David and Tim Use and Why | EP 657 appeared first on WP Gears.
How to Juggle Work Life and Home Life When You Work at Home with Family 1. Separate work area 02:09 2. Dedicated working hours 03:49
Read the full episode transcript below: 00:25 David Blackmon: Hey everybody. Welcome to another episode of WP The Podcast brought to you by WP Gears. I’m David Blackmon.
00:35 Tim Strifler: And I’m Tim Strifler.
00:37 David Blackmon: Today on episode 656, we’re going to talk about how you can juggle work life and home life. When you work at home with your family, obviously Tim and I have been working from home for quite a few years, so nothing really new to us, but the world, unless you’re living under a rock, has changed drastically with COVID-19 in the last six months where pretty much everybody’s working from home or a large majority of them are now. And guess what kids aren’t in school spins working from home, wife’s working from home, or I guess I should just say spouse is working from home. Cause you never know. Um, So everybody’s in the same place. So, and I know that Tim has said that, you know, it was an adjustment for him to have Courtney at home all the time, while working he’s typically used to having, you know, his time, his space is working. She’s a nurse practitioner, you know, working at the doctor’s office or the hospital. And it was even an adjustment for Tim, you know, and it’s Tim, Courtney and Murphy soon to be. Tim junior or, you know, they’re going to have a baby really soon. We don’t know I’m calling it, Tim jr. Tim, I’m going to call it…
01:56 Tim Strifler: That’s funny. Well, even if it’s a boy, it will not be Tim jr.!
02:03 David Blackmon: Well, we’re excited for the new edition regardless, so yeah.
02:08 Tim Strifler: Yeah, definitely. Yeah, no, it, it has been adjustment. Um, My wife had a maternity leave now and stuff. And, um, and as David mentioned, being working from home for five years, I have fully adjusted to that, but I’ll also, I’ve been able to adjust, having all the space to myself. And so having, uh, my wife here and then soon to be baby here, it’ll definitely be an adjustment. Um, And so I’ve been kind of thinking through some ways, cause my office is on, we have a two story house, but my office is on the first floor and that’s where we’ve spent all of our time. That’s where the family room is. The kitchen is and everything. And so my office is like right here where everything else is. And so I’m like, should I soundproof the door? Or, you know, so I can get work done. Cause my door it’s like my wife could be watching TV in the next room. And even though my doors are shut. They’re French doors and there’s like a huge gap in between them and, uh, or not in between them, uh, between the door and the floor and stuff. So I think I might look into some ways to soundproof, but yeah, I think really when know, talking about this episode, how to juggle work life and home life. When you work at home, I think something that’s really important is having a separate area that you work and you only do work and you don’t use it for personal space, you know, for, uh, relaxing. Um, and so when you’re in that area, you’re working, your family knows you’re working and that’s like your area. Preferably if it’s a separate room that you can shut the door, but that’s not always a lecture that everyone has, but if you can still have some area off to the side and a room, that’s not. You know, as crowded when you have your family at home, that can be hugely beneficial.
03:49 David Blackmon: Absolutely. I think another thing that’s really, really important is have dedicated working hours, you know, letting your, your spouse, significant other kids, uh, to know that, you know, Hey, this is, this is when I work. This is when I can’t be disturbed, unless it’s an emergency, you know, everybody kind of gets used to, you know, Oh, it’s work time now for dad, you know? Um, and. He’s got to go into his office and he’s got to do his thing. Cause I’ll tell you, um, recently my 24 year old came back to live at home with me. You know, I invited him, he’s going to be working with my company is going to be learning how to do some things with online marketing and video editing. He may even be doing some. Editing for our show, who knows, you know, with things that Tim and I do in the future and stuff. But anyways, I can tell you, it was an adjustment for me. It’s my son. We bond we’re really close. We like to hang out out and do things together. Uh, but you know, when you’re used to having that space all to your self and kind of doing your own thing, which is. That’s how I was just the same as Tim, you know, I had no one here during the day time. Well, when you have someone else is an adjuster, it, it did kind of, you know, kind of set me back a little bit until I, you know, Figuring out what I needed to do. And for me, it was just setting good, healthy boundaries, you know, uh, setting up the expectations of what’s. Okay. What’s not okay. Cause like right now we’re recording a podcast episode. I’m in my office, my door is closed. That’s one of my rules, you know, Hey, if the door’s closed, that means please don’t disturb me because I’m doing something like recording. Product videos, podcast, episodes or something where I can’t really focus on a person if they come into my office, unless it’s an emergency. If my doors open, which typically I leave my door open, my office is soundproof. It is on the other side of the house. And I don’t typically have to worry about hearing the TV and stuff because it’s on the other side of the house. So they know that if my doors open. I’m accessible. It’s okay. They can come in, they can interrupt me and stuff and they can ask questions or do whatever needs to be done, but going to have to figure out what works best for you as far as like setting those boundaries, those expectations. Um, Dedicated office space, dedicated, working time and stuff. And you know, don’t be a workaholic and work all the time, you know, because guess what your family needs you to, you know, especially if the kids are home, you need to realize that their lives are disrupted. Their lives have been disrupted. They’re not in school. They’re used to hanging out with their friends and stuff, and they’ve not been able to, especially the last few months with all of the lockdown stuff. So. It’s been a huge adjustment, not only for you, but yeah. It’s also been a huge adjustment for them. So try to remember that, you know, try not to get frustrated, try to understand that their lives for the most part have been turned upside down as well, you know, and they’re there, they’re having to make adjustments too. So I think working together communication is really, really important. Um, and just, you know, good old fashion, you know..
07:10 Tim Strifler: Yeah, great advice…
07:12 David Blackmon: Golden rule, you know, treat, treat others as you’d like to be treated, you know, that, that kind of thing. So..
07:18 Tim Strifler: No, I don’t think so. I think, uh, just expect that there is a, a season of adjustment, right? It doesn’t happen overnight. It will take time as does any major life transition. And so be flexible. So yeah!
07:34 David Blackmon: And if worst case worst, do what I did. And I’m trying to talk my 24 year old son into starting a father, son, YouTube channel with me, turn it in something fun. You know, y’all do something fun together where it’s outside of the scope of work and stuff. So, yeah. Alright. Tomorrow we’ve got another great episode. Tim until tomorrow. We’ll see you then.
07:59 Tim Strifler: Take care. Bye. Bye.
Did you Enjoy this Episode? * Will you consider sharing it online? Just click one of the share buttons below! * Will you leave us a review? 🙂 * Have a question, or a topic request? Let us know in the comments below!
Want to Connect with David & Tim? * David: + Aspen Grove Studios + Divi Space * Tim: + TimStrifler.com + Divi Life
The post How to Juggle Work Life and Home Life When You Work at Home with Family | EP 656 appeared first on WP Gears.
Virtual Studio Series – The desk mounting setup that David and Tim use and why 1. The desks 01:20 2. The mounting system 05:58 3. Protip about iMac mounting 09:24 4. Let’s talk about chairs 10:09
Read the full episode transcript below: 00:25 David Blackmon: Hey everybody. Welcome to another episode of WP The Podcast brought to you by WP Gears. I’m David Blackmon.
00:35 Tim Strifler: And I’m Tim Strifler.
00:37 David Blackmon: Today at episode 655, we returned to our virtual studio series. This is part four first three parts we discussed. Cameras lighting and microphones today. We’re going to dive in to our actual desks, set up the physical desks that Tim and I bought. We have the same one, and we’re going to talk about it, mounting systems and stuff. What we have our lights mounted to and our cameras mounted to, and computer’s mounted to and so on and so forth. Cause it can get pretty dang crowded on this desk. If you don’t have an organized system and way to go about doing it. So Tim. Drum roll, please. What desk did we choose to go with?
01:20 Tim Strifler: Yes. We chose to go with the standing sitting desk by uplift desk. And I say standing, sitting because it’s motorized and it has hydraulics or something to automatically press a button and automatically goes from standing to sitting or vice versa. And, uh, one thing I do want to quickly say is if you’re starting out, you don’t have to get all this high end stuff that David and I use. It’s just that we have been working at home for. Five six plus years. And so it’s like, are we spend a lot of time at these desks and using this gear and stuff like that. So like we’ve, we’ve upgraded right over the years to, to what we have now, but by no means is you need to go out and buy a, you know, a really expensive, uh, standing desk, unless you can afford it and see the value. But we’re going to talk about kind of why we chose this setup. Um, first of all, I will say. Standing desks are huge in terms of health benefits. Uh, their studies have been shown that sitting for long periods of time is terrible. It’s just absolutely terrible for you. But here’s another thing that a lot of people don’t realize is standing for long periods of time is also not good for you. And so really the most ideal is being able to change positions and move and stuff. And, uh, the, the standing sitting at desk, uh, allows you to do that. Um, Because it’s motorized and you can quickly with the touch of a button raise or lower your desk and go into stand mode or whatever. So, um, hugely, hugely beneficial for health purposes. Um, and there’s some, you can definitely get some cheaper ones. We got kind of a higher end one and that’s because I believe in paying for quality and having it last. Um, and so. You know, there’s ones you can probably find on Amazon or stuff that are maybe cheaply made and, um, you know, it might work for a year and then it stops working and yeah. We didn’t want to mess with that. We thought spending a lot of money on the front end to get something that lasts. And we’ve had these wet three, three plus years now. David’s still going strong?
03:20 David Blackmon: At least. Yeah. Yeah. It’s been three plus years. And, um, I’ll tell you, mine still looks brand new. I mean, I’ve put it through hell. It’s been through a couple of moves, cross country. I traveled in an RV, you know, “digital nomad” for five years. And two of those years were with this desk in the RV. So as I went down the road, traveling all throughout the continental US, this desk went along with me and, uh, I got tell you the quality is superbe, you know, for three years old. This thing looks like it just came from the factory.
03:54 Tim Strifler: Yeah, no, it really did. The quality is great. The mind survived a move from Texas to California as well. Uh, and yeah, I think they start around $500. Um, but depending on the, the wood that you get, the size that you get. And then there’s a bunch of different add ons to it. It goes up from there. So, you know, be prepared to spend the money. But, um, I like this is, has been a fantastic purchase and I have zero regrets. I’ve been very, very happiness. As I know, David has to obviously.
04:26 David Blackmon: Yeah. I want to talk about couple of things. Cause I think Tim and I have different size. And when we say size, we mean the length of the desk. How wide the desk, how much desk space we actually have. I purchased what I thought was the 60 inch. It’s a five foot desk and I actually bought the 72 inch. And which is really big. Now I gotta tell ya. I love the 72 inch. I have a ton of room on this desk. Now you got to have place to put this bad boy, cause it’s, you know, six feet wide, you know, and uh, most rooms will fit and stuff, but, um, that’s typically not an issue, but, um, I didn’t realize how much I would really enjoy the extra 12 inches of desk space. So Tim, am I wrong in thinking that you have the 60 inch?
05:22 Tim Strifler: I have, I can’t remember which one it is, but it’s, it’s definitely the smaller one than you have. And I’m actually that’s, I guess would be my one regret is I wish I would have gotten the wider one like you did, because it, I mean, I’m not like cramped, but because like now, which at the time we weren’t doing as much of the. You know, the hardcore video stuff. And now that we’re getting into a lot more of the video stuff for the courses and everything in live streaming, there’s more gear that’s getting added to my desk. And so I’m wishing I would have had a little bit more desk space. And then it’s also nice just to have more room in general as David mentioned. So I would say if you’re not sure, go bigger. If you, if you have the space for it.
05:58 David Blackmon: All right. Well, let’s talk next about our mounting system. Obviously we’ve got quite a few things mounted to our desks and I’ll talk about everything that we’re mounting to our desks. And Tim can tell you which one we went with. So, um, on our desk, we have our cameras, our lighting. Our computer monitors, um, our microphone stand, you know, so pretty much everything that we’ve covered in our virtual studio series is sitting on this desk, man, that sounds like a crowded desk. How the heck do we make it all work, Tim?
06:42 Tim Strifler: Yeah, so we, we have a mounting system. I’m trying to find the exact product name in my Amazon orders…
06:49 David Blackmon: “Wally” it’s w a L I is the Wally. Desk Mount system, I guess is, I don’t know if I’m pronouncing it right. Wiley Wally. I say, “Wally”, my mind says “Wally”, even though it’s one L it’s w a L I is the actual name of the, um, you know, the company that manufacturers these, you know, this mounting system.
07:15 Tim Strifler: Yeah, exactly. And so basically, uh, We followed a YouTube video that kind of walks you through. So we use that Wally system, as David mentioned that you can get on Amazon. Um, and then we. They’re they’re really meant to be monitor arms, but we configured them to be able to Mount other things to them. And so, for example, my camera, my Sony A6400 camera is mounted to one of those, uh, like monitor arms. That’s been reconfigured with a tripod. Um, what’s it called? The camera? Tripod camera. Mount ball. Head..
07:53 David Blackmon: Ballhead. Yeah. It’s like a, it’s like a “ballhit”.
07:56 Tim Strifler: Exactly. And so, so then I can basically, I can move my camera from left to right up and down if I want, I have it right where I want it now. So typically don’t move it. Um, And it works great. And then I have another camera coming off of that, uh, main Mount, uh, that has my secondary camera that has an up and down arm as well, as well as the tripod ball mount. Um, and so yeah, it works out really great. Um, I originally wanted everything mounted to that system, including my iMac. Um, but the iMac really, really. Can’t be mounted. Cause it has a permanent stand. You cannot take your iMac stand off of it. Um, it like it, they didn’t make it, you get to be able to be removed. And so I have my secondary monitor, which is that old Thunderbolt display that, um, Apple no longer makes that. Stand was able to be removed. And so I have that mounted and it’s on a swivel arm and I can move it up and down and side to side and everything. Um, but, but yeah, I mean, it’s, it’s great. Having everything mounted actually frees up a lot of space so I can have, you know, the different things that I need, uh, like our, uh, Scarlet, uh, audio interface. And then, um, we both also have a stream deck, which, uh, hooks up to the live streaming software and you can press the button to change different scenes and stuff like that. So, um, having everything mounted, frees up the other part of your desk to be able to have other stuff.
09:24 David Blackmon: Absolutely. Yeah. I’ve got a similar setup, same setup and stuff. Uh, and, and it’s just been, uh, A life saving, you know, thing to have, you know, I’ve got my monitors on, um, on the mounting arms and stuff, and I have an iMac also that’s sitting on the desk, but you know, when I purchased the iMac, it gives you an option when you buy the iMac, if you want to have that mounting system, as opposed to just the arm. So yeah. Pro tip. If you’re looking at buying an iMac and you want to futurize, you know, maybe Mount it on an arm system, like the Wally system that we’re talking about, you’re going to need to make that purchase. When you buy the Mac. Um, so just it’s …
10:08 Tim Strifler: Visa Mount Addon..
10:09 David Blackmon: Yeah. Visa Mount Addon. Thank you, Tim. So yeah. Uh, all right. Well, that kind of takes us, you know, from our desk, I’m going to give a little bonus out there cause we don’t have a chair series, but Tim and I, you know, obviously if you’re working at your desk for long hours, you need something comfortable to sit in. And I copied Tim, you know, I was buying at least two office chairs a year and they were cheap office chairs from Office Depot. I’d go, I’d spend 50 bucks, you know, and I’d, I’d get a new chair. And then eventually, because it was a cheap chair, the padding would wear out. And you know, when you’re sitting in it, the majority of the day and stuff, just after six months of use, it just kind of got uncomfortable, well, wear out. So. You know, I noticed one day that Tim had this really bad ass looking chair in a video call we were doing. And, um, it was DXRacer and he looked, it looked like a gaming chair, cause I’m a gamer from way back. And actually that’s what it was. It was a gaming chair, funny that, uh, also had an office chair, which I, you know, even actually purchased and stuff. And I gotta tell you, I’ve had this chair. When we bought the desks and stuff. So I’ve had it for about three years. I know you you’ve had years longer than me. And this thing is still rock solid. Hadn’t worn out a bit, you know, and it’s like the day of on it. So even though it was, you know, quite a bit more expensive, like a five, $600 chair. It’s more than paid for itself. Cause I’m not buying a couple of chairs a year anymore.
11:48 Tim Strifler: Yeah, exactly. And I agree. I highly recommend the chair and I think I got mine quickly after moving to Texas. So that was in 2015. Um, and now I’m back in California, but, um, So, yeah, it’s been, I’ve had mine for, for almost five years now and it’s, it’s great. Now I’m looking at the DXRacer website. And so they, as David mentioned, they make gaming chairs and they also, they had a, they called it there. So whole chair, small office, home office chair, but I don’t think they carry it anymore. Um, but if the game chairs are, I mean, they’re very, very similar than the ones we have. And so you can’t go wrong because basically. Gamers are sitting in chairs for hours and hours. And so that was my thought process. Well, if this company is making chairs for people that are sitting gaming for hours and hours, then it’s probably a great chair to sit in and, uh, having a. Really high quality chair is, is huge. If you work from home full time, you’re gonna spend a lot of time in that chair. Now we talked about the standing desk and how important that is, and it is hugely important, but you can’t stand all the time nor should you. And so you’re going to be sitting for at least half the time, more than likely. And so yeah, you need a really good high quality chair. Otherwise, if you’re like me, I don’t think I mentioned this yet. I also had the cheap chairs like David talked about. Yeah. And I was, it was literally giving me neck problems and I was having a lot of, uh, neck pain that was turning into really bad headaches and everything. And so once I got this chair, like, this is no exaggeration, like my headaches were gone because it was a high quality chair that gave me the posture and support that like my spine and neck needed and, uh, Yeah, it was, it was literally a life changer. Like I know that sounds dramatic, but it’s true.
13:37 David Blackmon: No, it’s not. Seating is important. It’s just like shoes, people under estimate the value of really, really good shoes. Especially if you’re on your feet all day, it’s no different a salesperson working in retail that is standing for eight hours a day. What’s the most important thing that they’re going to need? Support shoes. Well, we’re sitting at a desk all day. We need a good chair. So do not underestimate the value. I love shoes too. So I said, I said, but shoes. Oh, but shoes. Yeah, these are our, but shoes. I thought you said you love shoes. I love shoes too. So I’m a, I’m kidding. I’m kind of a shoe, uh, a female version in a male’s body who has lots of shoes, you know? So, yeah. Alright. Well tomorrow we’ve got another great episode, episode, six 56, how to juggle work life and home life. When you work at home with your family, man, that can be tough. Sometimes. Tim. Until tomorrow. We’ll see you then.
14:39 Tim Strifler: Take care. Bye. Bye.
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Want to Connect with David & Tim? * David: + Aspen Grove Studios + Divi Space * Tim: + TimStrifler.com + Divi Life
The post Virtual Studio Series The Desk Mounting Setup that David and Tim Use and Why | EP 655 appeared first on WP Gears.
The Foolproof WordPress Update Process to Avoid Disasters 1. Do a backup! 01:42 2. Quick revert 03:10 3. Test on staging environment 04:07
Read the full episode transcript below: 00:25 David Blackmon: Hey everybody. Welcome to another episode of WP The Podcast brought to you by WP Gears. I’m David Blackmon.
00:35 Tim Strifler: And I’m Tim Strifler.
00:37 David Blackmon: Today this is the Tim’s show because we’re going to talk about the full proof or press update process to avoid disasters. If you’ve ever updated your WordPress website without a backup, and your site’s crashed, you’ll know what I’m talking about. So we’re going to dive deep into this. Tim has written. A great article over at Divilife.com, which is his Divi product business that he, we will link in the show notes as well, but I’m pretty much to sit back, relax and listen to Tim, teach you how to not make dessert masters. What’s your WordPress website.
01:14 Tim Strifler: Yeah. Definitely a nd actually this right here, the steps that I’m going to outline here is exactly why you need to communicate to your clients that a professional should be handling their website, uh, updates and everything. And so you can let them know, like there’s all these different steps that. That you have to follow to avoid bringing your website to a screeching halt, uh, or, you know, or having something else go wrong.
01:42 Tim Strifler: And so, um, you can let them know, like these are the steps I follow, and this is why you should hire me to do it for you. And so the actually, before you even do a backup of a live site is you test the update staging environment. Now you don’t always have this luxury depending on what hosting we have. But if, if you can, we highly, highly, highly recommend it. So for example, WP engine and Flywheel hosting both have one click staging. And so, uh, you basically can copy your live site to a staging environment and you want to do that. So you have the most up to date, version of your site in the staging environment, and then you can test everything without. The fear of messing something up. And so you can do the updates. Um, you can, and, you know, go through update WordPress, update your theme, update, you know, whatever it is that you need to update. And then you can test everything in the staging environment, looking at the major pages and testing out the functionality. So functionality being like forms or the eCommerce checkout and. Different things, looking at it in different devices and you can do that all on the staging. Right? So it’s so say everything goes correct on that end. Now the next thing you do is you go and actually do a current live, a backup of your live website. And so you want to make sure that the backup is fully done. Uh, and so depending on how you’re doing your backup, whether you’re using the backup, uh, at the hosting side of things, or you’re doing a plugin and everything, you want to make sure you have a solid backup.
03:10 Tim Strifler: Now, one thing that’s kind of an. Optional step that sometimes I recommend, depending on what you’re you’re updating is download the version you have of the theme or plugin that you’re updating in order to do a quick revert. So say for example, you are doing a update to WooCommerce. And, uh, it’s a major update, um, and that will commerce is a major part of your site. Or say, for example, you’re updating your theme or page builder. That’s a major part of your site. Um, well, what you can do is download a current version, the version that you have that works so that you can quickly revert back without having to do a full, like backup revert. And so it’s a little bit quicker process, especially if you have a lot of traffic and everything, um, So like, for example, David and I, with our eCommerce stores, we can do an update, but we’ll say we have to revert back. Uh, if someone buys something or leaves a comment or does something on the site, and then we revert that backup.
04:07 Tim Strifler: Well, we might have just lost whatever just happened in that time. And all of a sudden their purchase has nowhere to be found. And so, um, depending on the site, I try to use. The, the backup revert as kind of the last, like, that’s like the last line of attack, basically to revert back to what I need. And so, um, what I prefer doing is having, uh, you know, whatever major plugins and stuff, having those handy. And so if I need to revert back to the current version that I know works, I can do that quickly. Um, and so again, it’s optional, but it can, it can be really helpful. And so then after you do that, you have the, the backups different types of backups. Well, then you actually do. The update on the live site and then you test some more, right? So you, even though you did all the testing in the staging environment, you want to do the testing and on the live site too, because for example, staging sites typically don’t have caching, um, Going on it. And so you might have some sort of a cash conflict, uh, with the new versions of the software that you just updated. So if you follow those steps, you can avoid disasters and you’ll have the necessary things to revert back if there is a disaster. And so those are the steps that, that we, uh, follow, uh, with our companies. Um, now, as I mentioned, David and I, we have eCommerce sites, we get decent traffic, we have sales coming through customers using our products. And so there’s not a lot of room for air, uh, compared to maybe a small website, a mom and pop, uh, brochure style website that doesn’t get a lot of traffic. There’s no advanced functionality. Well, you know, you can maybe get away with not testing on the staging environment first, but you always want to have a backup for sure. Before you do any type of updates. So those are kind of the steps, David, anything to add to that?
05:45 David Blackmon: I don’t think so, man, then you’ve pretty much covered it all really well. Like I said, we’re going to link in the show notes to a blog post article that, uh, Tim wrote kinda outlining the steps in this process. And I agree, take it to your customers. You know, security updates and backups are huge needs to be done by a professional. Go create a new recurring revenue stream for your business tomorrow and episode 655, we return to our virtual studio series. We’re going to talk about our desks and mounting setup and why we chose the ones we chose, Tim. Until tomorrow. We’ll see you then.
06:30 Tim Strifler: Take care. Bye. Bye.
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Want to Connect with David & Tim? * David: + Aspen Grove Studios + Divi Space * Tim: + TimStrifler.com + Divi Life
The post The Foolproof WordPress Update Process to Avoid Disasters | EP 654 appeared first on WP Gears.
How Working with NonProfits Can Bring You More Clients 1. Small business community 00:37 2. Networking potential 02:58
Read the full episode transcript below: 00:25 David Blackmon: Hey everybody. Welcome to another episode of WP The Podcast brought to you by WP Gears. I’m David Blackmon.
00:35 Tim Strifler: And I’m Tim Strifler.
00:37 David Blackmon: Today in episode 653. We’re talking about how working with nonprofits can bring you more clients. Most people don’t realize they automatically think nonprofits have no money. And. Guess what a lot of them don’t have a lot of money, uh, but some of them do and some of them are willing to pay for work. That’s not what the intended purpose of this episode is. We wanted to talk to you about why it’s so valuable and working with nonprofits. Uh, the main reason is because a lot of nonprofits are made up of boards and they’re made up a voluntary volunteering boards, you know, unless it’s a Red Cross or something like that. The board is not making money. Most of these people it’s local, they’re in it to give back to the community that supports their own businesses in some shape, form or fashion. So a lot of times these. Nonprofit boards are made up of small business owners in the community that are giving back. So, you know, when you go in to work with these nonprofits, the connections that you get in the networking is second to none.
01:48 Tim Strifler: Yeah, absolutely. So one thing I do want to say in addition to that, uh, David talking about the, uh, People that are on the boards and, and, and connected to other companies and stuff. But in addition to that, a lot of nonprofits are, it’s a small circle, like nonprofits have like kind of a tight knit community of other nonprofits and people doing other work. Uh, That they’re connected to. And, you know, it’s kind of, for example, like you start doing a website for lawyers will a lot of lawyers know a lot of other lawyers. And so then all of a sudden the next thing, you know, you’re getting referrals from other lawyers, but a lot of nonprofits too. Um, No, a lot of other nonprofits and they’re connected and they do work together and different things like that. And so then you get referred to, right. I actually have a close friend and colleague who did that, where he started doing some work for nonprofits. And then all of a sudden these other nonprofits, uh, you know, were referred to him and stuff. And then, um, Similar to what David described, where, uh, the, the people that are on these boards, the nonprofits that own these companies and stuff. And it’s like all of a sudden this one project led to like 20 more projects and stuff.And so you see that happen a lot. It’s, it’s very, very common.
02:58 David Blackmon: Yeah. And I think it’s just an underrated, um, you know, Market that, you know, business owners, you know, stay away from when they really, really shouldn’t. I mean, they’re thinking, Oh man, they don’t have any money. I don’t want to go waste my time, you know, and energy and stuff. And what you, don’t, what they don’t realize is just the networking potential. That’s a great example, Tim. I mean, one project being helpful to a nonprofit, which opened the door to 20 other projects and that’s been my experience. So don’t underestimate the power. Of, you know, working with nonprofits because it can benefit you greatly personally and professionally, the personal side, is not to be underrated because you’re going to feel good for putting a little bit of good back out into your community and stuff. So, yeah, tomorrow we’ve got another great topic. Episode six 50 for the full proof WordPress update process to avoid disaster. You got to come listen to Tim. He’s going to knock it out of the ballpark, Tim, until tomorrow. We’ll see you then.
04:12 Tim Strifler: Take care. Bye. Bye.
Did you Enjoy this Episode? * Will you consider sharing it online? Just click one of the share buttons below! * Will you leave us a review? 🙂 * Have a question, or a topic request? Let us know in the comments below!
Want to Connect with David & Tim? * David: + Aspen Grove Studios + Divi Space * Tim: + TimStrifler.com + Divi Life
The post How Working with NonProfits Can Bring You More Clients | EP 653 appeared first on WP Gears.
Virtual Studio Series The Lighting Setup that David and Tim Use and Why 1. Lighting is super important 01:22 2. Hardest thing to learn 03:07 3. The setup 04:11 4. Features 07:35 5. Mounting 11:34
Read the full episode transcript below: 00:25 David Blackmon: Hey everybody. Welcome to another episode of WP The Podcast brought to you by WP Gears. I’m David Blackmon.
00:35 Tim Strifler: And I’m Tim Strifler.
00:37 David Blackmon: Today in episode 652, we’re going to continue our Virtual Studio Series. This is a series that Tim and I started a couple of weeks ago, where every few episodes we discuss our setup, our cameras, our desk, our lighting or mikes. And we get a lot of questions asked. So we decided why not sprinkle in throughout WP The Podcast? You know what it is that we have truly use them, why we use them. Uh, if you haven’t listened to that series, go back to episode 646 and. 649. That’s. Those are two that we started, where we talked about our cameras and our microphones. Today. We’re going to jump into the lighting setup that Tim and I have and why we chose it.
01:22 Tim Strifler: Yeah, absolutely. And lighting is something that’s super, super important and kind of gets overlooked, like the obvious stuff. Uh, if you’re, you’re trying to up up your quality of recording videos or doing virtual meetings and that sort of thing, the obvious things is the camera. And the microphone, but lighting off often gets overlooked until you to the point where you have a nice camera, but it still doesn’t look that great. And you’re wondering why, well, it’s probably the lighting and so lighting is incredibly important. Um, and let me just tell you how important, when I first started getting into creating videos, I was creating custom videos for my Divi plugins. This is back in 2017 when I started, well, I didn’t have a nice camera. And so I. Uh, what I did use was my iPhone camera, which is really great. Um, but the, how I was able to get it good enough to be able to use and, and promote these videos and stuff was because of lighting. And so I used, uh, eight tutorial from Wistia, the video hosting, uh, platform. Uh, they had a. I think it was called like the down and dirty lighting down and dirty lighting kit. And basically they taught you in this tutorial how to go to Home Depot or another hardware store and pull together for like under a hundred bucks, a whole lighting kit. And then they taught you how to, you know, basic positioning and stuff like that. That was how I created my first videos. And yeah, those lighting setup is great. I’ve definitely upgraded since then for some specific features and David and I will talk about that. Um, but, but yeah, I mean, if. If you’re just getting started, that can be a great thing to do. And so using my iPhone, which at the time wasn’t even 4K video and then this lighting kit, I was able to create some really great looking videos.
03:07 David Blackmon: Yeah. And I will go ahead and just out myself here quickly, uh, most people would think, Oh, audio. Um, video, you know, the camera is the hardest thing to learn and stuff, but I’m going to be honest. The hardest thing for me to learn so far has been how to properly. Take care of the lighting. You know, it just, I don’t know why maybe it’s because I don’t have a photography background That’s not kinda my, my wheelhouse, I’m learning how to get the lights set up properly is so important. And it’s something that I’ve struggled with the most. So if you have any great tips on lighting, setups and stuff for, um, Shooting video, please leave them in the comments. Let us know if you’ve got a great tutorial that you love. That’s that’s knucklehead proof. Like for me, knucklehead proof, you know, uh, please send it over. I’d love to hear it. So, Tim, what do we have? What kind of lighting? Do we have.
04:11 Tim Strifler: Yeah. But before I reveal that, David, I want to say you are absolutely correct. And lighting is incredibly hard, uh, on a film set. Uh, they have, what’s called a director of photography and, uh, and I’ve kind of learned what that means in the recent years. And basically a big part of that is, is they are in charge of, of, of lighting and, and making sure everything looks good on the film camera. And so. Like, it’s like that’s a whole field, you know, mastering lighting and stuff. So it is really, really tricky and stuff. And so, um, Now, one thing that David and I have mentioned, you might notice a trend here with our virtual studio series is we have a lot of the same equipment it’s because one of us will do the, do all the research, find something, get it, and then tell the other one about it. And we go out and buy it. We kind of flip flop. And so like David got the audio equipment. I went and bought that. And then I got the desk, he went and bought the desk and stuff like that. And so we copy each other. Because we basically benefit off of each other’s research and testing stuff out. And, um, and yeah, w we want to stay competitive with each other in terms of, of having a good quality gear. And so the lighting that we both have is something off of Amazon and we upgraded what probably wasn’t lasts like two months, David? Yeah. And, uh, yeah, it’s from Amazon and these are not fancy lights. You can get it for about $200, they Mount directly to your desk. So they’re meant for what we use him for, which is like a desk video studio type of scenario. And I pulled it up in my Amazon order and the seller is I VC it’s. I V I S I, and so it’s IVC Tupac led video light, a dimmable by color, 3000 Kelvin, uh, 5,800 Kelvin led panel. Um, Right. So this isn’t like a specific, I mean, I guess it is as a brand, it’s a brand I’ve never heard of. It could just be like a brand that sells exclusively on Amazon. Um, but they’re really good lights and there’s a couple key features I want to talk about. Um, as I mentioned previously, I, when I was starting out, I was using the down and dirty lighting kit. Right. It was like really cheap thrown together from Home Depot Lighting kit and it worked, um, it didn’t look pretty, so it’s not something I wanted out all the time and it wasn’t convenient. Um, but also there’s a couple key features that these lights have that is really, really useful. One is the ability to change the brightness. As well as the temperature. So how bright you have it, that’s pretty obvious the temperatures, the color. So if you want it really, really white like daylight, or if you want it more warm, uh, like a inside, you know, type of lamp, uh, look to it, then you can, you can adjust that. So being able to do that is. Huge. And then a second thing that’s really, really important is these lights have a remote control and you might think, okay. Yeah, that’s convenient, but it’s not really needed. However, I’ve come to learn that it really is needed because. If you are making adjustments to the brightness and temperature, you want to be able to do that while you’re seeing how it looks in the camera, um, on, on your screen. And so being able to do it remotely without having to walk around and adjust the lights is, is, is, is really important. So, um, anything to add to that, David.
07:35 David Blackmon: Absolutely. I’ve got a couple of my favorite features that I think are kind of game changers. And, um, I’m going to be the first to say this. I don’t, these were my first professional lights that I’ve bought, you know, Tim and I invested in a Lighting green scheme, green screen kit kind of a long time ago when we were first starting out with our videos and stuff. And it basically was some tripod poles, some very, um, cheaply made, uh, umbrellas and, uh, fluorescent lights that they sent in the bag and stuff. So these are kind of our first, or at least for me, my first professional quality lighting. And I love all the features that Tim mentioned, but. What he did mention that is also, um, it’s lights come with and I’m looking around my desk from my remote. I can’t find it. So I’m just gonna shoot it from the top of my head is it will allow you to program different settings for the lights. So like for example, You can program, um, you can have, you know, your left lights set on a and your bright lights set on B and then both lights set on C, which are programmable, you know, like.Settings in the remote groups, you can, it allows you to group different settings. So if you’re shooting, you know, let’s say a live stream and you’ve got the lights coming on and right in front of you and you’re, you’re just going live. But you’re, you’re doing something different with a different scene where camera position changes and stuff. You can program that in with these. So you don’t have to keep kind of trying to dial it in and stuff, you know, once you get it dialed in and you figure it out, set it. To those specific groups and then boom, I mean, come on. That’s huge. It’s, it’s just like a huge time saver and stuff. So, uh, very powerful. I felt very inexpensive for what you get as well. I love the warm and the cool and stuff, and I honestly had no clue about Kelvin and how lighting works and, you know, cool. Warm, You know, that kind of stuff, but I’m starting to learn and stuff and, uh, and believe it or not, it makes a big difference. It’s a big changer for both of our, uh, videos.
09:54 Tim Strifler: Yeah, definitely. And being able to dial in the temperature, the Kelvin setting is huge because there’s not a one size fits all light because every room is different. Um, you know, uh, for example, I have overhead lights that I turn on there, like the recess lighting that are just in my office. And so I can basically match, I don’t perfectly match it, but I’d match it. Plus I make it a little bit cooler, um, of what my overhead lights are so that it, it looks natural. Right? You don’t want it to be, you know, you have warm lights all around you and then super, super cool lights right on you. That’s not going to look natural, but if you have a. For example, like a lot of natural light coming in. Well, then you want the light that’s shining on you to be more natural. You want it to, to Brighton and, uh, you know, focus on you, but you want it to match the surrounding light. And it’s kind of the general rule of thumb. It’s a, being able to dial in those settings is huge. And so that’s why these lights are great. Uh, I’m looking at the Amazon page. They’re currently unavailable as is most, uh, video gear right now in 2020, everyone is trying to do virtual stuff and. Video production and all of that. And so all of these different lighting kits and stuff. And as we’ve talked about in the other episodes of this video, uh, studio series, um, a lot of stuff is sold out, but there are other kind of comparable, uh, lighting kits on Amazon. But basically you want to make sure you can change the brightness, change the Kelvin temperature, uh, as well as have it remote. And then also, um, Have it mapped to your directly to your desk. So those are probably the big things I would look for.
11:34 David Blackmon: Yeah. The, you know, I didn’t realize how big the mounting to the desk was versus it being on a tripod and stuff, the awkwardness of that tripod and trying to get it properly when you’re, when you’re at a desk setup is huge.
12:08 Tim Strifler: Yeah. Especially if you, you have a, he standing desks like David and I, where it’s motorized and it goes from, uh, you know, the down position to the up position. Will you want it all attached to your desk? So even if you have that tripod behind your desk, it’s not like on top of your desk, uh, Well, if you have a standing desk, then now your lights are all out of position. And so everything stays the same, whether it’s opera down or whatnot.
12:33 David Blackmon: Yeah. Huge, huge. That’s so that’s, that’s a huge factor. So I hope this video series has helped. I think the lighting one is probably the longest one we’ve talked about so far. So, um, obviously. It’s very, very important. So, um, I’m going to throw this out there before we close this episode out, you know, maybe wondering why in the heck does Tim and David even need all this awesome video equipment and stuff? Well, Tim and I are also course creators and we’re product creators specifically for the Divi Theme, which is put out by Elegant Themes. Um, but we’ve got a new course coming out and it is, you know, if you’re. A Divi listener user. And you’re listening to this podcast. We have a lot of Divi users because Tim and I are pretty well known in the Divi community and we’re product creators for Divi. We’ve got a Divi, you know, beginners course how to build a website with Divi that takes you straight through from. Not knowing how to do anything with WordPress, to being able to build a full blown website. By the time you’re finished with this course, I’m saying that because you’re going to be seeing a lot more live streams, a lot more tutorial type kind of stuff, where we’re helping people out on YouTube on Facebook, and we want to look good and we want it to look, you know, Professional quality and stuff, you know? So that’s one of the reasons why we’re doing it. If that’s a course that’s of interest to you, head on over to WPGgears.com, we’re going to be launching the presale for this here really, really soon. So you’re going to get an early bird discount. It’s going to be the best deal that you’re going to be able to get on this course, period. So head on out, it’s going to be launching soon and check out WPGears.com Tim. Did we miss anything?
14:25 Tim Strifler: I think that’s it.
14:26 David Blackmon: Alright, Tim, until tomorrow, we’ll see you then.
14:29 Tim Strifler: Take care. Bye. Bye.
Did you Enjoy this Episode? * Will you consider sharing it online? Just click one of the share buttons below! * Will you leave us a review? 🙂 * Have a question, or a topic request? Let us know in the comments below!
Want to Connect with David & Tim? * David: + Aspen Grove Studios + Divi Space * Tim: + TimStrifler.com + Divi Life
The post Virtual Studio Series The Lighting Setup that David and Tim Use and Why | EP 652 appeared first on WP Gears.
4 Things You need to install on every WordPress website for marketing purposes 1. Google Analytics 01:35 2. Facebook Pixel 02:35 3. Search Console 04:41 4. Email Subscription tool 06:05
Read the full episode transcript below: 00:25 David Blackmon: Hey everybody. Welcome to another episode of WP The Podcast brought to you by WP Gears. I’m David Blackmon.
00:35 Tim Strifler: And I’m Tim Strifler.
00:37 David Blackmon: Today in episode 651 we’re going to talk about four things you need to install on every WordPress website for marketing purposes. Obviously there’s a lot of things that you’re going to need to do to your website to optimize it and make it awesome. And most effective but there are four tools that Tim and I believe you need to make sure are installed on every single one of your websites. And it’s for marketing you know, regardless of whether or not you’re selling products on your website, currently or you know booking events or clients through your website, you’ll want to have these things installed, because if you don’t have these things installed nothing is retroactive. But if you’re capturing data and all of a sudden one day you decide “hey I want to start selling my services on my website”, these tools are going to help you dial that in optimize it and be the most effective that you can be. So Tim get us kicked off.
01:35 Tim Strifler: Yeah and that’s exactly right this is not a super extensive list because that’s going to depend on what you’re trying to do, but these are the four things that we’ve identified, that no matter what you’re doing you need to do and the first one on the list is install Google Analytics. Now, as David mentioned, it’s not retroactive. So you have to install it from day one in order to get the data from day one, and so in order to track who’s coming to your site, what pages they’re looking at, how they’re getting to your site. All those sorts of things are very very
important and it’s not just about knowing those things, but it’s also about helping you to make decisions on things you do in the future too. Using your analytics to be able to make marketing decisions moving over or moving forward. And so if you don’t install that from day one well then you’re just putting yourself at a disadvantage because you’re losing out on data, so even if you don’t plan on opening it up, or looking at it you want to put it on day one. So it’ll start tracking and gathering all that really important website analytic data.
02:35 David Blackmon: Yeah absolutely, you want to know where your where your website viewers are coming from, you know. Where is your audience at, who they are, and stuff.. And it’s really important. Number two on our list is the Facebook Pixel. If you’re not familiar with that term Facebook, the Pixel it is a tracking code that you put on your website, which is going to allow you to retarget people on Facebook. So if you’ve ever visited a Website looking for a new car for example and then you go hop on over to the Facebook and all of a sudden you see a lot of car ads in your Facebook feed. Well guess what’s happening? You’re being retargeted to by that car company that you were looking at cars on their website and stuff, and they’re basically trying to get you to buy their products and services, and that’s okay it’s just part of marketing and stuff, but that’s how it’s done? You want to have that Facebook Pixel on all from the beginning as well just like Google Analytics. So that you can start capturing that data you may not use it immediately you may never run a Facebook ad in your business career and that’s okay, but should you choose to you’ll at least have that data to know who came to your site looking for you, or your services, or products, and you can start marketing to them whenever you decide to do that. If you choose to.
04:00 Tim Strifler: Yeah exactly. Because they a Facebook Pixel that has weeks or months or better yet years of data. Your ads are going to be so much more effective than a Facebook Pixel that’s brand new. So if you decide to do Facebook out of the blue, and you have no Pixel no data well you’re starting from complete scratch on every level. But if you have a Facebook Pixel has a ton of data it’s going to be smarter and so it’s going to know what type of website visitors will what types of people visit your website and what types of people buy and all sorts of things, and so you can literally tell Facebook “go find me more people like the people that have purchased already”. And Facebook is that smart, but if you don’t put that Pixel on there you can’t do it.
04:41 Tim Strifler: The next one on our list is a a site map tool. So this kind of goes hand in hand with Ggoogle Analytics. You want to set up
a sitemap tool and then submit it to Google Webmaster tools, or is it Google Site Console now Site Console..
05:01 David Blackmon: Search console..
05:40 Tim Strifler: …Search console! Man they always change the names of all their products! G-Suite, Google apps, Search consoles… uh Webmaster Tools all those things.. It’s currently called Search Console and basically that is your connection to Google. And so you submit your sitemap there, and then Google can start indexing your website more effectively and then anytime you add more content to your site, your Sitemap updates automatically. And then Google has that index so it knows “oh hey there’s a new web page on this site” and they don’t have to, you know, find it. From some other way they’re finding it directly uh through you and so the way you do that is through an SEO plugin, David and I are big fans of Yoast. Always had good success using Yoast there’s other plugins like All-in-one SEO and SEO Framework and all that I’m pretty sure they all have the site map built in too, but that’s how you do it and then you just take that sitemap url plug it into the search console and then. . Yeah that’s something that you need to do on every WordPress website for marketing purposes.
06:05 David Blackmon: Yeah and I will throw this out there as a bonus tip. In august WordPress 5.5 is going to be released that is an update to WordPress. One of the default features that are going to be put into WordPress is a sitemap tool you’re going to be able to do your sitemap from directly within WordPress because it’s so important. I’m surprised that it’s taken this long for WordPress to actually put it into the basic you know the core product itself. So um look forward to that in august you won’t even have to use an SEO plugin to do it. Should you not choose to fourth on our list and definitely not least for marketing purposes is some type of email subscription tool. The de facto go-to for most WordPress websites when they get started is Mailchimp. Mailchimp is free up to the first 2 000 subscribers, so most people that build a website they don’t have a tremendous email list, but you want to start building this list from day one. Because you want to be able to market to those customers I can tell you and I think Tim’s going to agree with me, email marketing is by far the still the most effective marketing that you can actually do. People think “oh I don’t read emails anymore, who the heck uses email? Slack is an email killer, you know we don’t even use it anymore!” Well let me tell you if we could send an email every hour, guess what we’d send an email every hour because every time we send an email regardless of the fact that it’s a sales email or a tutorial or any type. Whatsoever our Sales go through the roof. So email marketing is still extremely effective. People still read emails. I still read emails, so you want to start building that email list immediately! So get yourself set up with something like Mailchimp. It easily integrates with WordPress, just about any WordPress theme in the world. And it’s free for up to the first 2000 subscribers which is huge. By the time you get to 2 000 subscribers you can probably start making enough money off of that email list to cover the cost of Mailchimp’s paid plan.
08:22 Tim Strifler: Yep absolutely email marketing is extremely effective, and just like we said previously, even if you don’t plan on really doing a lot of marketing right away, if you start kind of building those emails and stuff like that, you can, you know, save yourself a lot of time later when all of a sudden you want to send an email, but you don’t have anyone on your list. However one thing I recommend is if you’re not gonna be actively sending emails least set up an autoresponder or welcome email when someone responds, just saying “hey thank you so much for
subscribing to my, list I’m not going to be sending emails actively yet, so you might not hear it from me for a while, but if you have any questions reach out type of thing”. That way people you kind of like setting that expectation so then later if when you do emails and start email marketing they’ll remember “oh yeah he said he was going to be emailing me for a while and then now he is it doesn’t seem” so out of the blue because you warned them that you weren’t going to be sending him an email right away.
09:20 David Blackmon: All right! Well this concludes episode 651 for things you need to install on every wordpress website for marketing purposes. We hope you’ve gotten a lot out of this. Tomorrow we’ve got another great topic for you. Tim until tomorrow we’ll see you then.
09:38 Tim Strifler: Take care bye-bye.
Did you Enjoy this Episode? * Will you consider sharing it online? Just click one of the share buttons below! * Will you leave us a review? 🙂 * Have a question, or a topic request? Let us know in the comments below!
Want to Connect with David & Tim? * David: + Aspen Grove Studios + Divi Space * Tim: + TimStrifler.com + Divi Life
The post 4 Things You Need to Install on Every WordPress Website for Marketing Purposes | EP 651 appeared first on WP Gears.
How a Local Small Business Meetup Can Help Grow Your Business 1. Share some of your free knowledge00:37 2. Start planning now!01:27 3. Engage their intrest. 02:56 4. What you’re putting into the universe, you’re gonna get back..04:02 5. Be helpfull. 05:28
Read the full episode transcript below: 00:25 David Blackmon: Hey everybody. Welcome to another episode of WP The Podcast brought to you by WP Gears. I’m David Blackmon.
00:35 Tim Strifler: And I’m Tim Strifler.
00:37 David Blackmon: Today in episode 650 we’re going to talk about how a local small business meetup can help grow your business. And in these times this is going to be even more, so I’ve always felt like this was a great idea to do regardless of pandemic or not. But now that a lot of small businesses have suffered as a direct result of the quarantines. And people being locked down and businesses being shut and them not having an online presence. I think now more than ever is going to be a great time to start helping these businesses out you know do these things once a month and give them give away share some of your free knowledge. I guarantee it’s going to benefit help grow your business so that’s what Tim and I are going to talk about today.
01:27 Tim Strifler: Yeah and depending on where you are, you might still be in some sort of a lockdown quarantine type situation. I know in California they started to open stuff back up, and then the cases skyrocketed. And so then they locked everything back up again, and so you might be in a place where you’re like I can’t do a local meetup for small businesses. And so what we’re suggesting is start planning it now
because as soon as stuff starts to open up small businesses are going to be hungry for that. For that engagement and interaction with other business owners and wanting to network and stuff like that. So if you can kind of get the all those things rolling now “oh my gosh”, it will like be so successful once you can actually make it live.
02:07 David Blackmon: And what are some of those things that you can be doing right now. You can be looking for a place to meet you know. You can be thinking about topics that you want to cover that are relevant pain points solve some problems for these small businesses that didn’t have a website, or maybe had a website but had no way to generate revenue on that website, because they didn’t have an e-commerce website,
or whatever. There are lots of things and topics that you can kind of cover and stuff. So preparing for that now and getting the word out you don’t need to wait until all this pandemic stuff is over, you know. Start reaching out to businesses let them know what you’re going to be doing and stuff and making them aware.
02:56 Tim Strifler: You took the words out of my mouth David! I was going to say the exact thing start reaching out to these businesses and engage their interest, and you could even create a Facebook group specifically for this quote unquote networking group. And be like “hey I’m gonna create this group here for you know blank small business networking”. So you know, your area small business networking Facebook group and then start inviting people there, and you can start engaging with them and interacting with them there, even before you have an actual physical meetup. So you’re gonna get a ton of people that are interested and you’re gonna look like the hero because you’re the one behind it all, and guess what? You’re a web designer! Hey all these businesses are gonna need someone to help them redesign their site work on their site build a new site whatever. It’s not something that you go in with this big sales pitch, but just the fact that you’re there and you’re wanting to network and you’re not pitching yourself at all, but you’re showing value they’re going to want to hire you even without you pitching anything at all. It’s it’s amazing how not selling can sometimes be the best sales strategy!
04:02 David Blackmon: Absolutely being helpful and sharing your knowledge will 100 percent, you know, benefit! You in the long run you know besides the fact that physiologically something happens when we’re of service to people, you know, we feel good about ourselves, we feel like we’re giving back, you know, we’re sharing our knowledge and stuff. And it just it makes us feel good emotionally. Which affects us physically
all the way around you know. I guarantee you that kind of whether you believe in what you reap is what you sow or karma, you know, what you’re putting out into the universe, you’re gonna get back. If you’re putting out goodness and stuff out there, you’re gonna definitely benefit greatly from doing that and stuff. And businesses are going to be appreciative even if they don’t hire you it’s okay you know they may run across someone, you know, one of their co-business owners that does need to hire someone and you might be the person they think of, and say “go see David or Tim because those guys really help me out, and they know their stuff. And you know they’re good guys so go hire them”. You just never know so yeah! Boom there you go! Start a local small business meetup, because I promise you it’s going to help grow your business in the long run. Do it once a month it’s not going to take a tremendous amount of time an hour a month what can that hour a month benefit you huge.
05:28 Tim Strifler: Yeah and what one more thing I want to say is you sometimes might not even have to be the one to start it. Do some research there might already be one, and just join it, and start getting involved and being helpful.
05:40 David Blackmon: Absolutely all right tomorrow in episode 651 we’re going to talk about four things you need to install on every WordPress website for marketing purposes. Tim until tomorrow we’ll see you then.
05:55 Tim Strifler: Take care bye-bye.
Did you Enjoy this Episode? * Will you consider sharing it online? Just click one of the share buttons below! * Will you leave us a review? 🙂 * Have a question, or a topic request? Let us know in the comments below!
Want to Connect with David & Tim? * David: + Aspen Grove Studios + Divi Space * Tim: + TimStrifler.com + Divi Life
The post How a Local Small Business Meetup Can Help Grow Your Business | EP 650 appeared first on WP Gears.
Virtual Studio Series: The Audio & Mic Setup that David and Tim Use and Why 1. Upgrading First! 01:16 2. A Rode Procaster” 02:22 3. An Audio Interface 03:22 4. Price points 05:01 5. “We sounds like we know what we’re doing” 06:34
Read the full episode transcript below: 00:25 David Blackmon: Hey everybody. Welcome to another episode of WP The Podcast brought to you by WP Gears. I’m David Blackmon.
00:35 Tim Strifler: And I’m Tim Strifler.
00:37 David Blackmon: Today in episode 649 we’re going to continue our Virtual Studio Series which we started a few days ago. We talked about our camera and video setup, today we’re going to talk about the audio and mic setup that Tim and I use. To do honestly just about everything in our business you know, so whether you’re on a we’re on a call with a client or on a on a call with our team members going over client projects or internal projects for our product companies or our courses we use these microphones for everything. So it’s important.
01:16 Tim Strifler: Yeah it really is! And we, David mentioned this, is part of the series uh if you missed the previous episode we talked about
our video camera setup and so we didt was episode 646. And so we’re doing this Virtual Studio Series every three episodes. Just to kind of break it up for you guys um and so definitely go back and listen to that if you if you missed it because we talk about our cameras and how to get really really high quality video. And kind of the reason for this is with um uh everything going on with with Covid19 and stuff so many companies are having to go virtual, and so everyone is wanting to up the quality, and they want people to be able to see them more clearly, and hear them
better and stuff. So audio is one of the the things. Actually probably what I recommend upgrading first is you know even before you upgrade your camera upgrade your audio setup. You definitely can’t go wrong and so yeah David you want me to talk.
about the mic
02:19 David Blackmon: You can talk about the mic, absolutely.
02:22 Tim Strifler: All right. So the mic that I’m using and uh if you are listening to this on Apple podcast or Spotify or whatever, If you want to actually see we’re going to post pictures on WPGears.com so just navigate over to WPGears.com episode 649. And we’re going to show you some pictures of our actual setup and audio and mic setup. And so or if you’re watching this live you can see it now but basically the microphone that both David and I use, is the Rode Rrocaster. it is a professional level microphone for podcasters. That’s kind of their the target demographic but as David mentioned we use these for everything for doing Zoom calls with clients, or our team members or recording tutorials or videos. The mics are used uh for everything! And so um the Rode Procaster is very high quality, it’s an XLR microphone and so you can’t actually plug it directly into your computer you need an audio interface. And I’ll let David talk about that.
03:22 David Blackmon: Yeah the audio interface that we use is the Focusrite it’s the Scarlett 2I2. I believe is the actual name of it and it’s very simple straightforward, and it does use usb to plug into your computer and it is the interface that ties your microphone which is XLR. It’s got an XLR feed into the front of it and it will actually the one we have will actually house two microphones at the same time. So one thing that Tim didn’t say he did talk about what we did use what we started out using initially was the Yeti Blue. I want to say the Yeti Blue…
04:05 Tim Strifler: Blue Yeti. Blue’s the brand Yeti’s the mic..
04:08 David Blackmon: Thank you Tim. I had it backwards. Yeah so those are great mics but truthfully I want to say the Rode Procaster didn’t cost much more than the Yeti, you know. I had the Yeti Pro, I want to say it was silver and it was awesome looking. Kind of retro looked like you had a big microphone in front of your face that, uh you know, I was going to sing a 40s song to. So you know, you don’t have to but the quality is
night and day difference if you’re using headphones on your phone that plug into your computer or you’re using your computer audio you’re going to know a massive take. I notice a massive difference when you use one of these professional level microphones and I agree with Tim, I think audio is something that you should probably set up first as opposed to you know jumping off into the video stuff so yeah..
05:01 Tim Strifler: Only thing I’ll add is give you some some price points here. So the Rode Procaster is the for just the microphone is 229 dollars.Then you have to get the the audio interface. So the Scarlett Focusrite or Focusrite Scarlett uh is about depending where you get it, uh 160. I’m seeing it 229. So yeah so there’s I don’t know why there’s different price points. Maybe just because it’s low stock and so they’re
ramping the price up um and so but then what you’re also going to need is a microphone arm to mount it to your desk or some sort of a stand we prefer the arms that way when you’re not using it you can just easily turn it, get it out of the way. It’s very e asy to adjust the height and then we also have a shoot what’s that called the little cage thing to reduce vibrations…
05:51 David Blackmon: Let’s call it a cage Tim, cage..
05:56 Tim Strifler: Basically it’s it’s to reduce vibrations and so it has, I don’t even know how to describe it…
06:02 David Blackmon: A shock absorber..
06:05 Tim Strifler: Shock Absorber. Yep that’s it. I’m gonna say that and then a windscreen over it too so to reduce the “pff pff” noises..
06:12 David Blackmon: Yeah the “pops”, Your “peas”..
06:14 Tim Strifler: Yeah. So if I remember correctly the entire setup for all those things is around 600. So and then the Blue Yeti is 100 bucks 120 or for. And that’s all you need..
06:28 David Blackmon: Plugs directly into your computer..
06:34 Tim Strifler: Yeah so I remember going from a built-in mic uh to the Blue Yeti huge upgrade, and then going from the Blue Yeti to the Rode Procaster, another huge upgrade. So massive we actually sound professional with these microphones we sound like we know what we’re doing which is the whole goal..
06:53 David Blackmon: Yeah we sound like we know what we’re doing.. I love that! All right well that’s our audio setup. Tim’s right we’re going to take some pictures of our desk and we’ll put it in the video series and stuff. So that you can kind of get an idea of how we have things set up
tomorrow we’ve got another great topic guess what we’re at Episode 650 tomorrow. Wow 650 podcast episodes Tim! That’s a lot! And the topic will be how a local small business meetup can help grow your web design business. Tim until tomorrow we’ll see you then.
07:34 Tim Strifler: Take care bye-bye.
Did you Enjoy this Episode? * Will you consider sharing it online? Just click one of the share buttons below! * Will you leave us a review? 🙂 * Have a question, or a topic request? Let us know in the comments below!
Want to Connect with David & Tim? * David: + Aspen Grove Studios + Divi Space * Tim: + TimStrifler.com + Divi Life
The post Virtual Studio Series: The Audio Mic Setup that David and Tim Use and Why | EP 649 appeared first on WP Gears.
How to Use Header Tags Properly for Effective SEO 1. What Header Tag is? 00:59 2. How many H1 tags should I have? 02:15 3. A hierarchy 03:35 4. What is good for search engines, is good for humans too.. 06:25
Read the full episode transcript below: 00:25 David Blackmon: Hey everybody. Welcome to another episode of WP The Podcast brought to you by WP Gears. I’m David Blackmon.
00:35 Tim Strifler: And I’m Tim Strifler.
00:37 David Blackmon: Today in episode 648 we’re going to talk about how to use header tags properly for effective SEO. You may be wondering I didn’t know you could do it wrong, but guess what? You can do it wrong, or I won’t say that you’re doing it wrong. There are some things that you can do that are going to help boost the SEO of your website based on these techniques that we’re going to talk about today.
00:59 Tim Strifler: Yes exactly so uh I first let’s kind of talk about what a header tag is. So a header tag is html and basically it tells the browser how to format things. As well as a search engine it tells you know what’s important that sort of thing. And so html is a markup language and then
you use CSS and Javascript and other things to actually make it look good. But html’s most basic form is very basic and so you use header tags to basically organize information. And so when it comes to search engines and SEO and ranking well the search engines need to understand your content. They need to understand your website they understand your content and the better that they understand your content and what’s important then the better you’re going to rank, because they’re going to understand that “hey they wrote this post and these are the important things because they used header tags properly”.Therefore we know you know what this page is about and so that’s what you want to do you
want to help the search engines as much as possible by using header text correctly. And all the other SEO principles so that the search engines can index your your website and your content um as effectively as possible.
02:15 David Blackmon: I’m going to throw a bonus thing out here, or not necessarily a bonus thing, but a tip. I have a question for you Tim, how many H1 tags should I have on my on one webpage?
02:28 Tim Strifler: One.
02:31 David Blackmon: One!
02:32 Tim Strifler: You should never have more than one H1 tag per page, and that should be the title of the page! Should be the header tag and you only have one title because that’s the, you know, overarching theme of the page, of what this page is about, and so it’s not going to be about 20 different things. It should be one big overarching thing and then you have the sub points underneath it.
02:56 David Blackmon: There’s tip one. I know when I started developing websites, I liked the way that H1 tags looked. Because they were so much bigger and bolder and they were, they looked better than H2 three four five six tags because they incrementally got smaller as it went down the page and stuff and I didn’t realize I was such a “design nazi”! And I like the way things look and stuff so I put everything under an H1 tag for a long time and man uh did I see a major jump in SEO when I started doing it properly and having one H1 tag on the page, so yeah..
03:35 Tim Strifler: Yeah and that’s the thing is a lot of people do it that way they use header tags for styling. So if they want somebody to be big they use a you know an H1 or an H2 because the way that like a theme styling is done. Typically within WordPress is that the H1 is going to be the biggest H2 is going to be smaller and so people will you know, use that for styling which is the wrong way to do. It you should use it to emphasize content and so really ideally what you want is you want a hierarchy within your html tags, where as we mentioned, you have one H1 tag on the entire page which is the title. And then you have an H2 tag which is your main point number one right? And you can have several
main points and then within your H2 you might have a couple H3s and maybe even H4, and it’s like your hierarchy of content to separate content and break it up. And so um like a good example of that is you might have a page on your website so you have a travel blog and you have a page on your website of like all the places you’ve traveled to, right? Well your H1 tag can be all the places that I’ve traveled to and then you have an H2 that is Europe and then within H3 you have you know some of the the countries of uh of Europe that you’ve traveled, to those are your H3s, and then maybe you have some H4s of some specific cities that you wanted to talk about right? And then um you have another H2
lower down that is uh North America so um you know when you break it up that way of of smallest to largest in terms of , you know, the importance and how it’s structured and and that’s how you use H1 tags properly with the hierarchy. Did that make sense David ?
05:16 David Blackmon: It does and i kind of want to give you another example and stuff. So your H1 absolutely has to be the title overarching but you can have, like Tim said, four five six H2 tags. In fact in Tim’s example you may want to have those you know main point number one two
three four and five here are the countries that I traveled to Europe, Africa, Australia, United States, those would all be H2s. You don’t want to have, you know, the title of your article be “hey all the places i’ve traveled all the countries i’ve traveled to in the world”, and then have
uh United States H2, uh Australia H3, Europe H4. No you want h2h2h2.. So making sure you use these tags properly and stuff is really important. We’re going to link to an article elegant themes who has a great WordPress blog. One of the top WordPress blogs in the world
has a really good article that Tim and I are going to link, to that will give you a some good examples of of how you want to use this properly and stuff.
06:25 Tim Strifler: Yeah absolutely. So they have some and I’ll just read quickly one of their examples. If you’re talking about obs studio how
to live stream well your H1 would be how to use obs studio to live stream and then your H2 is what is obs studio and under that is H3
is what about slobs. I don’t know what that is but they talked about it on the blog post and then the next stage too is how to get started with obs and then another H2 obs studio setup and then within that you have you know breaks it down further setting up a scene in obs studio and
then adding sources in obs studio. And then another H2 is adjusting sources on screen, so you can kind of get the idea here, you know. It’s breaking up and organizing content and here’s the thing is that’s really really good for search engines when you structure and have good
content hierarchy using header tags but the cool thing is it’s actually really really good for humans too. So when you have your users reading it when it’s broken up and organized really well, your users appreciate that, and they like that. Because they can scan the headers and be like “oh here’s the part that actually tells me how to set up a scene”, like you know it’s the obs studio setup. And then setting up a scene “boom that’s what i’m looking for”. And so that’s the cool thing about SEO is typically what’s good for search engines is ultimately best for users too. And so um that’s just how how genius these search engines have become and how intelligent the algorithms are..
07:55 David Blackmon: All right Tim I think we’ve covered this topic good enough. Anything we missed? Nope i do not think so.. All right tomorrow we’ve got another great topic we’re returning to our virtual studio series, and Tim and I are going to talk about the audio and mic setup that we use, and you can see his right there in front of his face if you’re watching this live stream, and you can’t see mine because it’s
above my head and i’ve got it out of frame. So lots of different options we’re going to cover it tomorrow. Tim until tomorrow we’ll see you then.
08:31 Tim Strifler: Take care bye-bye.
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The post How to Use Header Tags Properly for Effective SEO | EP 648 appeared first on WP Gears.
How to Add Syntax Highlighting in WordPress 1. Syntax Highlighting 00:59 2. “This is a body, this is a head” 02:24 3. Code Snippet 03:23
Read the full episode transcript below: 00:25 David Blackmon: Hey everybody. Welcome to another episode of WP The Podcast brought to you by WP Gears. I’m David Blackmon.
00:35 Tim Strifler: And I’m Tim Strifler.
00:37 David Blackmon: Today in episode 647 we’re going to talk about how to add syntax highlighting in WordPress. You may wonder how sometimes code gets put into a WordPress website and it just looks different, it’s got a different color, it actually looks like code and stuff.. Well there’s a simple way to do that we’re going to tell you how to do that today. Tim?
00:59 Tim Strifler: Yeah, so let me quickly explain syntax highlighting and why you want it. So if you just look at a block of code and it’s all the same color it’s really hard to read, but what syntax highlighting does is it changes the colors for the different things. So for example if you just have basic html well they’re going to put the html tags in one color and then the other things that you’re writing in between will be black and then that’s like the most basic example . And so the more complicated the coding language the more different colors are going to be used and for it really just makes it easier on the eyes to read, and so if you’re if you’ve looked at tutorials on on WordPress before, and they you know, give you
some examples of something to add to your functions.php file and it like it looks really good it’s well formatted, well that’s syntax highlighting. And so um you might wonder how to get that onto your site as David mentioned and so there’s a couple there’s, I mean there’s a lot of different ways. The plug-in that we recommend using is called Syntax Highlighter and it is a really powerful plug-in. It’s actually they’ve changed the name to Syntax Highlighter Evolved, because they’ve added a lot of stuff and so if you’re using Gutenberg it comes with a Gutenberg block but if you’re not using Gutenberg then that’s okay, you don’t have to use it. So it’s very very simple very easy to use. And uh that’s how you do it anything to add to that David?
02:24 David Blackmon: No it’s uh you know a lot of people think you gotta use code to highlight code and stuff and there are many different ways like Tim said, but this is probably the simplest most easiest way to add syntax highlighting to your WordPress website. I guess my only question would be why would someone want to do that, and you kind of answered it which is, you know, when someone comes to the website a lot of tutorials like Tim and I will do tutorials on our websites Divi life and Divi Space, and we’ll do a lot of Divi tutorials and stuff where we’ll give away free code and stuff, to teach people how to do this, and this is when these types of plugins or this type of syntax highlighting comes in handy because as you’re learning, at least for me, it was helpful to know “this is a body”, “this is a head”. This is a you know and and having that highlighted out in that code and stuff allows me to, you know, target what I want if I want to make some edits or changes and stuff to it so
I hope that made sense.
03:23 Tim Strifler: Yeah and so I use, the David and I both use Divi. Uh we’re big Divi people and so I actually use a Divi module. And so it’s actually it’s from Divibooster.com a module called Code Snippet module and basically it’s a Divi module that allows you to pop in your code and then it allows you to customize. They have different color schemes built in and so you can choose one that kind of matches the site and everything. And so that’s what I use and I love it! It works great I’ve used it for years now but if you’re not using a page builder or using different page builder then the plugin we mentioned is free it’s been around a long time has 40 000 active installations four and a half stars, can’t go wrong with the Syntax Highlighter Evolved plug-in.
04:05 David Blackmon: Well tomorrow we’ve got another great topic for you. We are going to talk about how to use header tags properly for effective SEO. Tim until tomorrow we’ll see you then.
04:22 Tim Strifler: Take care bye-bye.
Did you Enjoy this Episode? * Will you consider sharing it online? Just click one of the share buttons below! * Will you leave us a review? 🙂 * Have a question, or a topic request? Let us know in the comments below!
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The post How to Add Syntax Highlighting in WordPress | EP 647 appeared first on WP Gears.
Virtual Studio Series: The Cameras David and Tim Use and Why 1. Introduction 00:37 2. Tim’s setup 02:59 3. David’s setup 04:29 4. The lens 07:04 5. Hi-end phones 08:14 6. Capture card 10:41
Read the full episode transcript below: 00:25 David Blackmon: Hey everybody welcome to another episode of WP The Podcast brought to you by WP The Gears. I’m David Blackmon.
00:35 Tim Strifler: And I’m Tim Strifler.
00:37 David Blackmon: Today in episode 646 we’re going to start our virtual studio series this is a series a four part series where Tim and I are going to talk about our video set up, our audio setup, our desks, the mounting systems that we have for our monitors and everything. It’s going
to be pretty awesome i think. Tim and I are geeks and we geek out on this stuff all the time, and today we’re going to start off with our video series the cameras we use to do this recording, to do these live streams, to record um you know product videos for our product companies but
also to do client screen recording and stuff where we actually show clients how to use their WordPress website and stuff and you may do that so we’re going to share with you these tools that we use.
01:26 Tim Strifler: Yeah and so we’re gonna, Dave mentioned, the series it’s gonna be every three episodes so we’re not gonna just talk about gear for the next several episodes we’re gonna break it up just in case you’re a daily listener and you don’t have any interest in this. we don’t wanna bore you with all the gear stuff so we’ll mix in some other uh different topics in between but um whenever we’re going live where David and I are doing a coaching call for our course or you know, we’re doing this doing that we’re always getting questions “oh what cameras that are like you know do you have any special lighting or what microphone is that” and so we get asked those questions a lot and so we we have done an episode. Recently a few episodes back where we kind of gave a quick summary over the stuff we we use but we wanted to really kind of dive deeper for those interested because with these days especially with the global pandemic and everything like with these days.. Especially with the
global pandemic and everything like upping the quality of your virtual meetings and your live streaming and your recording tutorials or courses
or podcasts that’s a big deal. And so people want better quality and because of the pandemic so many people are wanting to up their quality all of these companies that sell all these different products are sold out we’re going to talk about some of those in a little bit but it’s it’s not a bad time to be in the business of selling high quality camera and audio and live streaming gear. So David do you want me to jump in and talk about my cameras or..
02:54 David Blackmon: I think you should Tim. Go you’re on fire!
02:59 Tim Strifler: Yeah! So cameras are obviously very a very big deal when you’re doing any type of video or live streaming and so here’s the thing though you might think that you need a webcam. Well you do not need a webcam. Webcams are terrible even if you buy one of the nicest webcams out there if it’s just a webcam. It’s not going to look that great and so what you actually need to do to get the quality that David and I have. Which is the kind of the blurred background bokeh effect, you know, really high quality look. You actually need a professional level
camera. And so I use the Sony A6400 which is a professional photography camera with really great video capabilities built in. It’s a mirrorless camera so it technology is different than a DSLR but you can also use a DSLR, and then I have my secondary camera which I don’t actually
keep hooked up is a Canon M50. And both of these even though they’re professional level they’re more on the entry-level side of professional cameras and so they’re very affordable and the quality is outstanding especially when you compare it to a built-in like laptop or iMac webcam, or even an exterior webcam that you buy from like Amazon or whatever. And so yeah so those will get you really really good quality we’re gonna talk in a little bit how to actually use it as a webcam but first I’m gonna send it back over to David to talk about his camera setup.
04:29 David Blackmon: Yeah and one of the things that I want to say is that you know the highest end webcam that Tim was talking about is is the Logitech 922c or something like that and the difference is that you see if you’re watching this live feed or if you’ve seen any of our videos
we actually stream in 4k you know. Which is twice 1080p is basically 2k and they do not make any 4k streaming webcams they haven’t. As a matter of fact this Logitech 922c web camera has been the best one for like the last five or six years they have not updated it so and it is drastically different it is huge. In fact if you are watching this live stream never mind I don’t even have it hooked up anymore because I don’t want to use it anymore. I’ve got this one I used to have it hooked up and I was going to do a quick quick demonstration of how terrible it is compared to these cameras that we use. So anyways the cameras that I use is also I stay with the Sony. I’ll tell you why I chose them uh Sony A6500 which is the one that you’re seeing me on right now, and it’s a little bit older than Tim 6400. 6400 came out after the 6500 which really doesn’t make a whole lot of sense but it has a screen that allows you it has a flip screen and that was kind of my only pain point with the sony mirrorless cameras, but I still went with them anyways because their auto focus tracking is second to none in these high-end cameras. I knew that I wanted to possibly doing some vlogging, take my camera out in nature, you know, possibly even put some stuff up on Youtube and I wanted it to be able to auto focus and track. So even if as I’m moving here you know the auto focus with Sony is just insanely good. So I have the A6500 and the A6400 as well as my two cameras and absolutely love them. And you know they’re the price range of those cameras is around a thousand
anywhere between a thousand to fifteen hundred dollars for those cameras so it is a little bit of an investment, but it’s not an overwhelming like “oh my god”. I think if you have some some lenses already you can actually buy the camera for eight or nine hundred dollars and it does allow you to have the interchangeable lenses. So it’s huge you know when you’re looking at video equipment and stuff it’ll go to all of these different cameras and stuff so..
07:04 Tim Strifler: Yeah and if you’re listening to the audio uh since this is an audio podcast. Just so you know, David and I are actually live streaming or recording uh to the WP Gears, Facebook and Youtube and so you can go and see the video on any of those platforms and if we remember we’ll try to have this the live stream Youtube embedded into the the episode on WPGears.com so you can see what we’re talking about with the cameras and the quality and everything. Because we we honestly we get that question every other day like oh what camera are you using like why does it look so good, like my webcam doesn’t look anything like that and that’s why. Because it’s yeah it’s a professional level camera that we’re using as a webcam. And we we talked about the cameras and David kind of uh gave some price range tips on there one thing we didn’t mention yet is the lens which the the kit lens or the stock lens that come on these cameras is pretty decent. David and I are using an additional lens that we bought it’s a made by Sigma and it’s a 19 millimeter lens is that correct David?
08:14 David Blackmon: 16 millimeter f 1.4 yeah it’s uh it’s a great lens and it doesn’t cost that much and it’s a super lens for doing this type of stuff. Desktop stuff. It’s got a really wide angle catches a lot if you’re you can see this on the live stream and we’ll make sure that the Youtube video gets embedded onto this episode for sure but you can see Tim’s almost his entire office and stuff. You know it’s pretty amazing it’s got a great wide lens. The third thing that I also use is this bad boy Iphone 11 pro shoots in 4k you know. I mean, I have a little stand you know that I
you know hook it onto a little tripod and you know I’ll use the phone sometimes as well. So if you don’t have the money to do the investment but you do have one of these high-end cell phones these days these guys shoot in 4k video. So I would assume Android does the same. I’m an Apple guy, so i’ve got the Iphone 11 pro. It shoots in 4k, it’s fantastic so if you need to use that until you can upgrade to one of these you know cameras don’t hesitate to do that as well.
09:34 Tim Strifler: Now David is there an app to use your connect your phone to your computer to be able to use it as a webcam.
09:43 David Blackmon: Absolutely! And I think Ecamm. Well I’m kind of going all in on the video stuff so I actually have a switcher
that allows me to use my phone and it’s uh oh what’s the name of the switcher Blackmagic Atem Mini which is a switcher that will allow me to you know plug my Iphone into the switcher and then do the output through the computer, Zoom Ecam live or whatever it is that you’re using and stuff. But I would imagine that there’s probably something that you can do you know that will plug the phone directly into your computer and stuff.
10:20 Tim Strifler: Yeah or an app that’ll allow you to connect it uh and use it as a webcam I imagine. I haven’t looked specifically but…
10:27 David Blackmon: I would imagine. Maybe even the um yeah like Sony has in an app that i used to use with the cameras and stuff that would use my phone I could use my phone through the Sony app and stuff, so you’re probably right there’s probably an app..
10:41 Tim Strifler: Now one thing we haven’t talked about yet that’s very very important when it comes to using these professional level
cameras in your virtual studio connecting them to your computer and that is a a capture card. So David and I we use an Elgato Cam Link 4k. So Elgato’s the brand Cam Link 4k is the product and basically what it is, it’s a little thing it almost looks like a usb flash drive. Remember those things I’m going to use those in ages but transferring data from computer to computer now everything you just transfer via the cloud but it looks like that and then at the end of it you plug in an HDMI cord and then the HDMI Micro plugs into your Camera. And that allows you that’s the magic that happens and allows you to configure your camera to be used as a webcam. And so basically that’s what you need to make it all happen. And so Elgato makes really good products and that’s what I mentioned at the beginning of this episode that so many of these companies are sold out because of the global pandemic everybody wants to get their hands on these high quality tools for uh increasing the quality of their their production, and so the Cam Link 4k is like sold out everywhere. At least it has been I haven’t checked recently um luckily David and I got ours what a year and a half ago somewhere around there. Also there’s other brands and stuff out there blackmagic capture card I think is another thing you could do to connect the camera to your computer so that so there’s definitely some other ways, but Elgato Cam Link 4k is what we use to get our high quality cameras onto our computer.
12:18 David Blackmon: Boom all right! Well I think that pretty much touches on all the video stuff it doesn’t really touch on all of the video stuff that Tim and I do that’s just the kind of the minimums that you’re going to need in order to get this kind of quality and stuff there’s obviously some things you can do to step up your game even more. And I think the reason why so many things are sold out is like all of these like churches even for example are all virtual now so they’re all holding their services and stuff through Zoom and Ecamm and they need you know to have these high-level you know equipment and stuff so that they can present to their congregation and stuff. So I’m sure churches are not the only one lots of businesses uh are using this and stuff and that’s why it’s sold out. If you’re not using yours here’s a pro tip and you want to make some extra
money put it on Amazon you can probably charge twice for what they’re charging a brand new one for. So if it’s a 300 product you could probably get 600 for it right now. If you want to wait for a while I’m not giving mine up though Tim it was hard enough to get some of the stuff we got all right anything else on this topic?
13:29 Tim Strifler: No we’ll do an another one specifically on software that we use and we’ll kind of it’ll make more sense and bring this all
together how we use the video with the software and stuff so.
13:44 David Blackmon: Awesome! All right well tomorrow we’ve got another great topic, how to add syntax highlighting in WordPress comments. Tim until tomorrow we’ll see you then.
13:52 Tim Strifler: Take care bye-bye.
Did you Enjoy this Episode? * Will you consider sharing it online? Just click one of the share buttons below! * Will you leave us a review? 🙂 * Have a question, or a topic request? Let us know in the comments below!
Want to Connect with David & Tim? * David: + Aspen Grove Studios + Divi Space * Tim: + TimStrifler.com + Divi Life
The post Virtual Studio Series: The Cameras David and Tim Use and Why | EP 646 appeared first on WP Gears.
How to Embed Tik Tok Videos into WordPress 1. What Tik Tok is? 00:37 2. How to embed Tik Tok video into WordPress 02:10
Read the full episode transcript below: 00:28 David Blackmon: Hey everybody welcome to another episode of WP The Podcast brought to you by WP Gears. I’m David Blackmon.
00:35 Tim Strifler: And I’m Tim Strifler.
00:37 David Blackmon: Today in episode 645 we’re going to talk about how to embed Tik Tok videos into your WordPress website. Unless you’ve been sleeping and living under a rock you probably know what Tik Tok is, but i’ll go ahead and tell you anyways before we tell you how to insert it into your wordpress website. Tik Tok is the latest craze social media platform where you can it’s a video you know you can make videos of yourself and then post them on the Tik Tok platform. There is some you know a lot of stuff going around about the security of tick tock so I want to just put this out there that we’re not saying “go download Tik Tok today”, because if I’m not mistaken it’s a pretty they’re they’re capturing all the data not that all the other apps that you install on your phone and stuff don’t do that, but I want to say that uh some of the articles that I’ve read, Tik Tok takes it to the extreme. They get everything so just be aware of that if you decide to start using this platform, but needless to say it’s the rage my kids love it, that’s what they do all day long, and I’ve seen a lot more adults more, more adults using this platform for sheer entertainment, laughing all the time, it’s funny videos, it’s uh…It’s just a new great platform to entertain yourself I guess Tim, so I’m not a Tik Toker, so I can’t really you know, give you personal experience.
02:10 Tim Strifler: I was going to say the same thing. While like you said everyone’s probably heard about it, I’ve definitely heard about it and kind of seen things posted and I know what it is, but like you David, I am not a Tik Toker, never downloaded the app, never really watched any videos from Tik Tok, but I do hear that it is all the rage, and so uh if you’re building wordpress websites chances are um actually maybe not chances are but there might be a case where you need to embed Tik Tok videos into your WordPress Website for a client or for your own purposes. And so um here’s the thing it’s actually super super easy. WordPress has it built into where it’ll automatically embed so like wordpress has it built in for for Vimeo videos and Youtube and um different things like that Spotify if you just paste a link to a video or audio file on one of those platforms and now including Tik Tok it automatically embeds it. You don’t have to do anything you don’t have to add any extra plugins you don’t have to deal with embed code and html and all that you just paste the link into the browser. And so that’s it there’s no secret that’s just what you do and how you do it um not really much else to talk about here. We will post an article in case you want a little bit more information from WPbeginner so if you wanted to do more than just a video and for example you wanted to embed a feed you can embed a Tik Tok feed using a Tik Tok feed plug-in from quad layers it’s a free plug-in in the WordPress repository and basically any time a Tik Tok profile posts new stuff it’ll show up there automatically. But for single videos you don’t have to do anything you just paste the link and WordPress does the rest.
03:55 David Blackmon: Awesome! Well there you go super easy WordPress is getting better and better every day and got a new release coming out soon. Tim and I are going to cover that in a future podcast episode as well. Tomorrow we’re going to start a new series called our Virtual Studio Series where Tim and I are going to discuss in depth the things that we use to run our businesses whether it’s manage our product business our WordPress clients websites, record these podcasts, do live streams, all the marketing and stuff. And it’s not going to be an everyday thing, because we don’t want to bore you to death. This is a WordPress Podcast and so we kind of want to keep it WordPress related and stuff and we don’t want to lose you. So every you know we’re going to start the series but it won’t be sequential there’s going to be some great topics in between and stuff. But we’re going to dive deeper into like our video camera the the camera that tim and i use and why we use it
so tune in tomorrow to catch that episode. Tim until tomorrow we’ll see you then.
05:02 Tim Strifler: Take care bye-bye.
Did you Enjoy this Episode? * Will you consider sharing it online? Just click one of the share buttons below! * Will you leave us a review? 🙂 * Have a question, or a topic request? Let us know in the comments below!
Want to Connect with David & Tim? * David: + Aspen Grove Studios + Divi Space * Tim: + TimStrifler.com + Divi Life
The post How to Embed TikTok Videos into WordPress | EP 645 appeared first on WP Gears.
The Tools You Need for High Quality Virtual Meetings 1. Video conference software00:37 2. Good quality camera 02:04 3. Cam link 03:40 4. Power pack 05:12 5. Lighting 06:48 6. Microphone and audio interface 08:25
Read the full episode transcript below: 00:25 David Blackmon: Hey everybody welcome to another episode of WP The Podcast, brought to you by WP Gears. I’m David Blackmon.
00:35 Tim Strifler: And I’m Tim Strifler.
00:37 David Blackmon: Today in episode 644 we’re going to talk about the tools you need for high quality virtual meetings. Yesterday Tim and I tackled the topic of how to have an effective virtual client meeting. If you haven’t listened to that go take a listen to it. Today we’re going to talk about the tools that we use and the ones that we recommend and number one to start off is video conferencing software. You know there’s lots of options out there and they’re all good it just depends on what meets your budgets and your needs. Best we use Zoom, you can use Google Meet, Google Meets free, Zoom has a free option but it’s got a time limit .You can do a zoom call for an x number of time i believe it’s like 40 minutes and then it’s going to cut off. So if you have meetings that could potentially go longer than 40 minutes and when you’re meeting with clients those meetings were really important, and sometimes those clients can get long-winded or vice versa you could go longer than 40 minutes, so be aware of that. You know the software platform that you’re using a la Zoom, Google Meet, Skype those are the three that are probably the most common and that we recommend um you know. Just be aware of that Google Meets free it doesn’t have any time limit you can stay on there forever if you want to and Skype is as well but Zoom does have a time limit so..
02:04 Tim Strifler: Yeah, yeah and another one is go to meeting go to meeting used to kind of be all the rage. Came well before Zoom but Zoom in my opinion and trust David and I we’ve used everything. Zoom is is the best quality and the best like stability um hands down compared to everything else so that’s that’s top of the list for sure. The next thing uh that you need for high quality virtual meetings and again as David mentioned this is high quality, so if you want if you’re starting to do more of this, you want to up the quality that’s the things on this list you don’t
necessarily have to do this just to have virtual meetings right this is. If you want to have high quality virtual meetings so the next thing on the list is a good quality camera. So for example David and I use Sony mirrorless cameras. So mirrorless and DSLR are two different professional camera technologies. DSLR have mirrors and mirrorless are kind of a newer thing and that they don’t have mirrors in the same way but they’re both very high quality professional level cameras. David and I both use the uh use Sony’s as I mentioned I use the A6400, David has the A6500
and I think David’s plenty I’m getting the A6400 as well. And then I also have a Canon M50 um but all great cameras um and if you buy the camera you’re typically going to want to buy a lens as well so um Dave and I both use the sigma uh Sigma lens is..
03:32 David Blackmon: 16..
03:32 Tim Strifler: 16 millimeter okay.. yeah I’m terrible with the lint..
03:33 David Blackmon: Yeah I think it’s a 16 millimeter yeah..
03:37 Tim Strifler: Okay, 60 millimeter Sigma lens is a great one so we highly recommend that.
03:40 David Blackmon: And speaking of cameras obviously your camera can shoot very high quality video hours for example will shoot 4k video well it’s not your computers that your camera could be plugged into your webcams and whatnot um can’t really record in those. So you’re going to need something to capture that so there’s we use cam link which is a capture card. I’m sure there’s some other options out there but elgato cam link is a pretty well known well-known easy to use works with just about any camera you hook it up with an HDMI cord and you can plug it right into your Computer and it will turn any really nice camera like the Sony A6400, A6500 or the Canons or you know any of the other ones Panasonic whatever, into a webcam. So we also have the um Logitech HD 1080p camera but there aren’t any 4k ones so they just haven’t made them yet and this hd camera that Tim and I have, had for years. With the Logitech is actually the best one that’s out there and but it’s just not super high quality. We want the bokeh effect in the background the blurred background we want us to really you know looking really good
on camera and stuff and uh this capture card is going to allow you to do that so get that.
05:12 Tim Strifler: Yeah there’s no like webcams that can get you the quality that you can get with a professional level camera that you use a cam link or capture card with. And so that’s the route you have to go if you want to have a really high Quality video for virtual meetings and streaming and stuff. The next thing is you’re going to need a basically a power pack or dummy battery for your camera. And so Dave and
I we we’re using our high quality cameras that we’re telling you about right now and uh so they’re you know we’ve been recording now for um I don’t know close to an hour or whatnot. And so um you don’t want to be constantly having to change the batteries you want to be able to plug it in and have it just stay on for an unlimited amount of time and so you can basically get a like a power pack that plugs into an outlet and it’s
essentially like a dummy battery that goes into your battery port and it basically allows the electricity to transfer into your camera without having to constantly be switching battery packs.
06:12 David Blackmon: And you may be asking why not just plug my camera in directly to the wall. Unfortunately a lot of these cameras don’t allow you to do that. They still will shut off after a period of time and that is why these dummy batteries or power pack batteries for these cameras are important. Because they will even if you have it plugged in for some reason it doesn’t work that way and blows my mind! Sony fix that! So that we don’t have to buy a dang extra dummy battery so..
06:43 Tim Strifler: Yeah which they’re cheap they’re like what 20 bucks..
06:48 David Blackmon: Yeah they’re pretty cheap so it’s not a huge deal but kind of a pain. Seems like it would be just built right into the camera because I can plug mine into the wall however it’s still going to shut off after about 45 minutes. So next on our list which is very important
for high quality virtual meetings is good lighting. Tim and I talked about lighting yesterday probably the most it’s really really important obviously. You don’t want just the lights from your room you know above lights or just a window only to depend on lighting we actually have purchased some professional lighting that mounts to our desks that you know, goes from um I forget the scales of lighting because we’re Tim and I aren’t photo or video experts.. uh I think it’s kelvin you know and and it. Yeah it’s how you measure light temperature from like the cool to the warm you know and it kind of gives that natural or outdoor or indoor or those types of lights where you can manage the kelvin is is gonna allow you to adjust the lighting and stuff. And how you position the lighting where it shines from um all of that stuff is really really important so you’re going to somewhat need to educate yourself on good lighting and stuff and it’s pretty easy just use common sense you can see yourself you know what looks good,what doesn’t look good when you have shadows.. uh when things are kind of out of out of out of focus and stuff. So good lighting is really important and it’s pretty inexpensive to get some good lights as well.
08:25 Tim Strifler: Yeah which they’re cheap they’re like what 20 bucks that mount directly to your desk and so we don’t have to set anything up we don’t have any uh you know stands that are getting in the way of anything. They just mount to the desk and they’re made for what we’re doing you know. To shine directly on you as you’re as you’re you’re doing videos and video calls and streaming or live video calls. So that’s lighting’s Important. The last thing but definitely Not. uh the least is a good microphone. I would say i’d venture to say if you’re not gonna do any of the other things on this list you should at least get a good microphone because that will automatically make your uh virtual meetings so much better quality by having a good microphone. And so you can uh start relatively inexpensive for example the Blue Yeti that’s probably the first thing that i did to really upgrade the quality of videos and stuff. That I was doing was i bought the Blue Yeti microphone I think it’s about 100 bucks somewhere in there. Get it on amazon or Best Buy or any store that sells electronics it’s a pretty popular microphone it’s and it’s
a usb mic so it’ll plug directly in your computer no additional hardware or software needed and it’s gonna drastically improve your quality over the microphone that’s built into your computer or the microphone that comes with your headphones. So that’s a great place to start however if you want to take it a step further uh two microphones that i highly recommend and are really popular in the kind of the podcasting world the ones that David and I have is the Rode ProCaster. So the Rode ProCaster is a professional level podcasting dynamic microphone and it works really really well and then the second one that’s also really popular I haven’t personally used it, but it’s one that you’ve probably seen a million times in different videos is the Shure SM5. I think I said that right the Shure SM58 that’s another really popular one and it’s very similar very comparable to the Rode ProCaster it’s actually more quite a bit more money though. And so um I the Rode ProCaster is awesome and and i don’t think the the Shure is any better quality I think it’s just a slightly different sound uh depending on preference um but both of those are neither of them are usb microphones so if you buy the Rode ProCaster or the Shure SM5 8 you’re going to need an audio interface. Because it’s a traditional microphone like you see on stage and it uses an xlr cable which is a traditional microphone cable and so you plug that into the audio interface and then the audio interface connects via usb to your computer, and so you need that in order to use the microphone with virtual meetings as well, as uh you know live streaming or creating videos and stuff. So the the interface that David and I use that’s probably the most popular one
is the Scarlet Focusrite um i think Scarlett’s the brand focus writes the product right David?
11:41 David Blackmon: It is, yeah, that’s correct..
11:47 Tim Strifler: And so it works really you know.. It’s a little built-in mixer too so you can have two microphones and then uh control the
input separately so uh very simple very easy to use and it’s going to give you amazing quality like you’re hearing right now. That’s what David and I are using.
12:02 David Blackmon: I’m so glad you tackled microphone Tim. There is so much that goes into just the microphone alone that it’s as you can tell depending on what the route you go if you’re brand new go start with a Blue Yeti it’s a great microphone you can even use lapel mics that plug directly into your camera directly in your computer depending on your setup and stuff and what you’re going to do so microphone there’s lots of options do some research check it out. We can maybe even link a list of our all of the equipment that we use in our con in our you know this podcast episode on our website WPGears.com episode 644 and we’ll link Amazon to it as well. And you can go check them out may or may not be affiliate links i’m going to be transparent tim and i don’t typically do Amazon affiliate links. So I don’t even know if we’re set up for that
but who knows we might be and guess what it doesn’t cost you any more money to click on that link If you’re going to buy it anyway. So just going to throw that out. There we’ve got another great topic tomorrow. Tim until tomorrow we’ll see you then.
13:14 Tim Strifler: Take care bye-bye.
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The post The Tools You Need for High Quality Virtual Meetings | EP 644 appeared first on WP Gears.
How to Have Effective Virtual Client Meetings 1. Well-lit room 01:43 2. A “witness protection” 02:30 3. Headphones to avoid the echo 03:34 4. Use a microphone 04:01 5. Use software that your clients are familiar 04:52
Read the full episode transcript below: 00:25 David Blackmon: Hey everybody welcome to another episode of WP The Podcast brought to you by WP Gears. I’m David Blackmon.
00:35 Tim Strifler: And I’m Tim Strifler.
00:37 David Blackmon: Today in episode 643 we’re going to talk about how to have effective virtual client meetings. Obviously with everything going on globally in the world with mandatory “stay-at-home” orders. Coronavirus, Covid19 depending on where You are in the world as to how they’re referring to it. It’s kind of changed the way that we do things you know tim and i are pretty used to having virtual meetings with clients and stuff because our client base is global. We have clients all over the world so obviously if we have a client in Germany Tim’s in California i’m in Oregon, we can’t be in person we’ve got to do virtual meetings. So it’s something that’s kind of normal in our wheelhouse and we kind of take it for granted. So there’s a lot of people whose lives have completely changed who have never had to do virtual client meetings who are having to do it now. So we wanted to talk about how to have effective virtual client meetings because we’ve got a lot of experience with it. So Tim won’t you get us kicked off?
01:43 Tim Strifler: Yeah absolutely! Now the first thing the first tip we have to have an effective virtual client meeting is be in a well-lit room. No one wants to see a really dark shadowy person on their screen you know. And so if you’re with a client you want to present yourself really well you want to be in a well-lit room and so either natural light or turn the lights on, right? So if it’s you know after hours or maybe you have a room that doesn’t really have good natural light coming in no big windows just make sure you have some good lights on. Like that’s like the easiest thing but it’s crazy how much we see people that just have poorly lit room it’s like they’re they’re in a closet or something with no lights on and it’s like you can barely see them.
02:30 David Blackmon: I laughed because what came to mind was unless you’re in “witness protection” do you not want the
lights on. So I don’t think I don’t think you’re going to be doing “the witness protection” thing. Secondly let’s make the lighting shine
on you and not towards the camera, you know because when you put the light towards the camera and stuff, you know make sure that the window is behind the camera and not in front of the camera because it’s just gonna again lighting is very important.
03:02 Tim Strifler: Yeah definitely! Yeah that’s another thing too is like you’ll see someone’s like oh they’re in a bright room they’re it’s a very well lit room but the window is facing the camera and then it’s like you see a silhouette and it’s just too bright on the camera. The camera can’t focus on the Person because the person’s not lit like if you are this uh the subject right and and you want to light the subject that’s a general lighting rule. And so you want to light the subject not the camera so you want the light source coming from behind the camera ideally. The next tip is use headphones to avoid Echo. So uh you know if you have your your speakers turned up pretty loud uh it can pick up the other person talking and so there’s they’ll hear themselves on an echo and everything. And so just avoid the possibility of that happening and just put in some headphones it’ll make it a lot better experience for for both you and the the person that you’re having the virtual client meeting with.
04:01 David Blackmon: Next is try and use a microphone other than the built-in computer mic to avoid again the “in bathroom” . We’ll call it the in the bathroom echo effect if you uh you know are on a zoom call and you’re with someone that is not using a mic and they’re using the built-in um mic into the computer you can definitely tell the difference. I mean it is a huge difference and there is an echo and it sounds just like you’re in a tunnel or in the bathroom and it can be a little bit distracting for both people and stuff. So when possible try to use a mic and you don’t have to go out and buy a super professional mic even if you have headphones from your phone that plug into your computer. That microphone’s going to be better than your you know built-in microphone on your computer.
04:52 Tim Strifler: And then the last tip that we have is use software that your client is already familiar with. If possible to avoid the technical difficulties getting started so for example we’ve all been in those situations where you you send your client the link to join the zoom webinar and they’re like “I’ve never done this before”. They have to download the software and then do an update and then blah blah… and once they finally get it open now they’re trying to figure out how to turn their mic on or the speakers on and select the right microphone and it’s the speakers on and select the right microphone and it’s it’s a nightmare. And sometimes you can’t avoid that if your your client meeting is with someone
That’s not very tech savvy. And that’s okay you know you just have to be supportive and kind of guide them through but if there’s something that they’re YouTube have you Skyped like “oh yeah I Skype with my you know my my niece or my grandson” or whatever and stuff. And so it’s like all right well then don’t try to get them to learn and download something new just use what they’re already familiar with and it’ll save yourself and your client a lot of headaches.
05:57 David Blackmon: So you want to up the quality with premium software and tools after talking about this episode tomorrow’s episode you may want to tune into the tools you need for high quality virtual meetings. Tim and I are going to go over what we use and what we recommend so Tim until tomorrow we’ll see you then.
06:16 Tim Strifler: Take care bye bye.
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The post How to Have Effective Virtual Client Meetings | EP 643 appeared first on WP Gears.
Categories vs Tags with WordPress for SEO 1. What is the difference between a Category and Tag 00:37 2. Organisation of content 01:39 3. Bonus Tip! 04:47
Read the full episode transcript below: 00:25 David Blackmon: Hey everybody welcome to another episode of WP The Podcast brought to you by WP Gears I’m David Blackmon.
00:35 Tim Strifler: And I’m Tim Strifler.
00:37 David Blackmon: Today we’re gonna talk about categories vs. tags with WordPress for SEO. Before we dive off into this topic you may wonder what is the difference between a category and a tag. And believe it or not there are some differences. First of all categories are broad groupings of blog posts content that’s on your website you can categorize it and tags describe specific details within the post. So you may have a category such as Divi for example the Divi Theme in you know, on your website and blog posts and you may have a tag for Divi headers which specifically focuses on content dealing with the Divi header. So I hope that kind of gives you an idea concept of the difference between categories and tags and WordPress and now we’re gonna talk about why it’s gonna be good for SEO and why you want to even do or use them.
01:39 Tim Strifler: Yeah definitely! So SEO is all about organization of content and and helping the search engine understand your blog organization of content and and helping the search engine understand your blog. And so WordPress in and of itself is really good for SEO because WordPress has a really good structure in terms of being well organized. And so the more organized that your blog is and how that
the hierarchy works the better it’s going to be for SEO. And so WordPress has this built in because of the fact that has categories and tags and so forth but you just have to know how to use them right and so as David mentioned categories are more broad, tags are more specific. And so if you think of like the the hierarchy of your content. The blog is the overarching theme of of what you’re teaching what you’re covering you know whatever it may be and then categories breaks down from there. So you have one blog but then you have categories where you might have three to five different categories that are major things that you cover on your blog and then tags are smaller more specific topics covered on your blog. And so that you might have you know one to two category you might have like four to ten tags per post where a blog post might only have one to two categories right typically only one sometimes it might fall into two categories depending on what it is. S a really good example is like a travel blog righ? You know the the travel blog is the overarching theme of the website is travel right? But then within travel you might have different categories for you know the major continents right? So you might have you know you travel a lot to Europe so you have a Europe category and then you might have another category for you know Australia and New Zealand then you might have another category for you know the Caribbean islands or you know whatever it may be. And then within the those categories you have a bunch of different tags you might have a tag for beaches and it shows all the different beaches that you’ve gone to, and then you might have another tag for food, so all the posts of the food that you’ve had while you’ve while you’ve been traveling, and so you know, you have those overarching things themes of your blog
and then within that you have a bunch of little things. And so again a blog post should typically only have one to two categories that it falls into usually one, but it might overlap as I mentioned and then you might have like four to ten tags per post. And so kind of the rule of thumb here is you only want to tag something if you think you’re probably going to have that come up again. So it’s like you don’t want to have a you know a thousand different tags per blog post for every little thing that that you’re describing on your post. But if you know you’re gonna have more posts in our example about beaches, okay well then let’s do a beach tag you know. You’re probably gonna cover food again okay let’s do food but like you don’t want it if you visited for example the Eiffel Tower and you probably won’t do cover more things about the Eiffel Tower then you might not want to do a tag because you don’t really want tags with only one post in it. David I’m talked long enough..
04:47 David Blackmon: Yeah, that’s that’s a lot of really really good valuable information. I’m gonna throw a bonus tip out here four categories
versus tags you know. Typically on a website depending on the size of your website and stuff Google and search engines typically like you to limit the number of categories. So don’t also don’t have 100 categories on your website you know. I know back in the day when we started blogging a typical website a good number rule of thumb was to not have more than seven to ten categories that way Google could you know determine what you were an authority. In so obviously Tim and I are WordPress Divi and we have some other categories and Google knows were authorities in this specific niche on the web. So there’s your bonus step. Tomorrow we’re going to talk about how to have effective virtual
client meetings with all the Coronavirus locked down. Everybody you know stay at home orders and stuff, a lot of work is transitioned and we felt like it was a good time to talk about how to have client meetings virtually with the social distancing. So until tomorrow we’ll see you then.
06:08 Tim Strifler: Take care bye bye.
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The post Categories vs Tags with WordPress for SEO | EP 642 appeared first on WP Gears.
Should You Turn Off Comments on Old Blog Posts 1. Why should I keep post comments turned on? 00:53 2. Why you may want to consider turning them off… 01:58
Read the full episode transcript below: 00:25 David Blackmon: Hey everybody welcome to another episode of WP The Podcast brought to you by WP Gears. I’m David Blackmon.
00:35 Tim Strifler: And I’m Tim Strifler.
00:37 David Blackmon: Today Tim and I are gonna talk about whether or not you should turn off comments on old blog posts. Tim’s gonna give the pro I’m gonna give the con and we’re gonna tackle that topic right now. Tim why should I keep old blog post comments turned on?
00:53 Tim Strifler: Yeah so the argument for keeping them turned on is SEO! So search engines love content. Obviously we’ve talked about that many times they also love when content gets updated and comments are a great natural way for the search engine to see that the blog post is getting updated and it shows engagement. Search engines can see the difference between you just updating a blog post and then what a comment is in a comet shows engagement. It tells the search engine that not only is this blog post relevant, even though it might be on the older side but it’s so relevant that people are still engaging it and leaving comments and asking questions. And so if you keep comments turned on and you let people comment and then you respond to those comments that helps you in the search engines because it’s giving the blog post more content. So to speak and in the form of active engagement and so that could be a huge SEO value over time to show the search engines that this blog post still deserves to be ranked well because look at all the people that are still engaging with it.
01:58 David Blackmon: I think those are great reasons why you want to consider turning them on or keeping them on here’s a couple of reasons why you may want to consider turning them off. The first one is spam! Obviously bots are out there people are, you know there are
robots out there. If you have a blog you’ve experienced comment spam lots of. I remember there was a time where I got so many Viagra you know links and my comments on my blog post I was like “oh my god”, and you know, they’re just trying to get links in as many web sites as they can. So there are some things that you can do to battle comments we’ve talked about it in a recent episode, go check it out. I don’t remember which number it is but within the last week or so we’ve talked about comment spam and stuff, and what you can do. That’s one reason. Second reason is moderation. It relates to that spam and live comments you know, the good ones as well. You’ve got to have someone monitor it. So if you are a pretty consistent content producer and you’re writing a lot of blog posts over time those can add up. So you have to have someone
physically moderating those blog posts so if you’re not in a position to where you have a team or a member that a team member that’s you know they’re their sole job is managing and moderating your blog content and comments. You might want to consider turning them off because time is money I’m gonna go ahead and just kind of put my vote in here you know I think that you know the value of SEO is going to outweigh the value of you know having to find someone to moderate it and stuff. And it depends on how much traffic you’re actually getting you’re gonna want to analyze that data and stuff and make that decision based on that if you’re getting ten hits a month on a blog post turn the comments off on it. You know if you’re getting good traffic, good you know people are still coming and they’re still engaging and still commenting keep it on just make a good logical sense and stuff. But at the end of the day my opinion is SEO matters and if you’ve got some good traffic coming to it keep it on yeah anything else?
04:20 Tim Strifler: Yeah I agree and I definitely agree that’s it for me.
04:24 David Blackmon: All right tomorrow in episode 642 we’re gonna talk about categories versus tags. Speaking of blogging you know, with WordPress for SEO. Tim until tomorrow we’ll see you then.
04:38 Tim Strifler: Take care bye bye.
Did you Enjoy this Episode? * Will you consider sharing it online? Just click one of the share buttons below! * Will you leave us a review? 🙂 * Have a question, or a topic request? Let us know in the comments below!
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The post Should You Turn Off Comments on Old Blog Posts | EP 641 appeared first on WP Gears.
How Turning Down Certain Web Design Projects Can Actually Make You More Money 1. Wrong projects00:52 2. Potential for future projects02:08 3. Project minimum 04:01
Read the full episode transcript below: 00:28 David Blackmon: Hey everybody. Welcome to another episode of WP, the podcast. I’m David Blackmon.
00:33 Tim Strifler: And I’m Tim Strifler.
00:35 David Blackmon: …brought to you by WP Gears. Sometimes I gotta just mix it up Tim today in episode 640, we’re going to talk about how turning down certain web design projects can actually make you more money. Tim, tell us how that’s possible.
00:52 Tim Strifler: Yeah, definitely. So kind of the, the basic concept here is if you choose the wrong projects, you might be choosing projects that are a huge time suck. Maybe it’s a lower caliber client, a pain in the butt client. And when you do that, you might be missing out on. Other projects that are higher quality, higher return on investment. And so you have to know what products to choose and when, and, and, and that sort of thing. And so opportunity cost is kind of a businessy term, which has to do with the cost of. Not doing that thing. And so, for example, like if you have a bunch of money, you want to invest it into the market, you might say, okay, well, I want to invest all my money in Apple stock, right? Apple is really good, but you have to look at what the opportunity cost is of not having a diverse portfolio until you look at, okay, well, the opportunity cost is, well, if Apple goes down, you know, then I’m going to lose all my money and blah, blah, blah. And so when you choose a project, you have to look at what the opportunity cost is of that. Project. And so for a kind of a pain in the butt client while the opportunity cost is, uh, you’re not going to have time to take on a higher quality client project. Makes sense?
02:08 David Blackmon: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And it, it, you know, there’s a lot of factors that go into it. It’s not just about the dollar amount, you know, it could be about the, um, exposure. It could be about. You know, um, the potential for future project. So, uh, I’ll give you an example. Um, we had a customer that, um, you know, that came to us that wanted some software development. They wanted a mobile app and they wanted to use Xamarin, which is Microsoft, uh, Microsoft’s mobile app framework. And because we had. Developers in house, you know, that could handle these types of projects. It’s not our normal wheelhouse. It’s not something that we normally do because it’s just, you know, that’s not our focus Xamarin. Yeah. Developers, however, you know, the opportunity to potentially get future projects that we’re going to pay high dollar, because that’s a very niche specific programming need. So to have something like that in our portfolio was, would be good for us. So, uh, kind of an example of the opportunity costs, not something normally in our wheelhouse. Um, that, but we wanted future projects potentially. We wanted to be open to that. Cause we knew that the value there was going to be good. And it’s the same, the other way around, you know, if you take on a time suck con like. Tim talked about our point. Number two is some projects are just time sucks with low return, you know, pain in the butt client brochure website. They want a $500 website as opposed to your minimum of $3,000 or whatever that is. You know, there’s no value to that for you. There’s none. It’s just a total, you know, black hole.
04:01 Tim Strifler: Yeah. And I think one thing David kind of alluded to it to help you not. Take on projects that are time sucks for low return. And that sort of thing is to have a project minimum. And so when you have a project minimum, you know, this is the, the minimum amount that I’m willing to even. Get out of bed for type of thing. Right. And so, uh, and, and that’s, that’s a really important thing because you might be thinking, okay, well, I have a, an hourly rate that I charge that I assigned to projects and stuff like that. However, there’s a lot of factors with projects that aren’t really billable hours. It’s so much. So like, just like talking to someone on the phone to see if they’re even a good one. Yeah, that takes time and you can’t really build them for that. Um, and just the time it takes to, you know, bring them into your, your workflow and your project management system and to do all those different things, it’s like, it’s not going to be worth it for a two hour project. And so you have to have a minimum project cost, you know, depending on where you are and, uh, geographically, and then where you are in your business in terms of how long you’ve been doing it. Like those are all things that should, um, Uh, factor into what your, your minimum project costs is, but it’s like, you have to think it’s like, what is that, that amount that I’m willing to like, take on a new project for, in anything less than that? Like you just have to respectfully decline or refer them to someone else or something like that. Um, because another thing that comes into this too, it’s like, we’re talking about. Opportunity costs, minimum project costs and stuff like that. But you have to also factor in like mental energy and like the capacity to handle another client, another project. And if it’s not giving you a return, not just on your time, but also your mental energy, then you know, it’s not, it’s not worth it. And so that’s why. Turning down certain projects can actually make you more money in the long run because it frees you up, not just your time, but your mental energy to be able to take on higher quality, higher dollar amount projects.
06:00 David Blackmon: Yeah. And I think one thing David kind of alluded to it to help you not. Take on projects that are time sucks for low return. And that sort of thing is to have a project minimum. And so when you have a project minimum, you know, this is the, the minimum amount that I’m willing to even. Get out of bed for type of thing. Right. And so, uh, and, and that’s, that’s a really important thing because you might be thinking, okay, well, I have a, an hourly rate that I charge that I assigned to projects and stuff like that. However, there’s a lot of factors with projects that aren’t really billable hours. It’s so much. So like, just like talking to someone on the phone to see if they’re even a good one. Yeah, that takes time and you can’t really build them for that. Um, and just the time it takes to, you know, bring them into your, your workflow and your project management system and to do all those different things, it’s like, it’s not going to be worth it for a two hour project. And so you have to have a minimum project cost, you know, depending on where you are and, uh, geographically, and then where you are in your business in terms of how long you’ve been doing it. Like those are all things that should, um, Uh, factor into what your, your minimum project costs is, but it’s like, you have to think it’s like, what is that, that amount that I’m willing to like, take on a new project for, in anything less than that? Like you just have to respectfully decline or refer them to someone else or something like that. Um, because another thing that comes into this too, it’s like, we’re talking about. Opportunity costs, minimum project costs and stuff like that. But you have to also factor in like mental energy and like the capacity to handle another client, another project. And if it’s not giving you a return, not just on your time, but also your mental energy, then you know, it’s not, it’s not worth it. And so that’s why. Turning down certain projects can actually make you more money in the long run because it frees you up, not just your time, but your mental energy to be able to take on higher quality, higher dollar amount projects.
08:00 Tim Strifler: Take care. Bye. Bye.
Did you Enjoy this Episode? * Will you consider sharing it online? Just click one of the share buttons below! * Will you leave us a review? 🙂 * Have a question, or a topic request? Let us know in the comments below!
Want to Connect with David & Tim? * David: + Aspen Grove Studios + Divi Space * Tim: + TimStrifler.com + Divi Life
The post How Turning Down Certain Web Design Projects Can Actually Make You More Money | EP 640 appeared first on WP Gears.
The Rule of Compounding Effort How it Relates to Web Design 1. What is Compounding Effort?00:50 2. The Rule! 02:40 3. A Big Picture 07:06
Read the full episode transcript below: 00:25 David Blackmon: Hey everybody. Welcome to another episode of WP The podcast brought to you by WP Gears. I’m David Blackmon
00:35 Tim Strifler: And I’m Tim Strifler.
00:37 David Blackmon: Today in episode 639, we’re going to talk about the rule of compounding effort and how it relates to web design. Tim, what the hell is compounding effort?
00:50 Tim Strifler: Yes. So compounding effort is basically the concept of what you do today isn’t necessarily starting over if you’ve done, you know, the work and everything yesterday and the day before the day before. And so, um, rather than trying to explain that with the definition, let me give you an example. So you might know someone that’s been in business for a while doing web design with clients and stuff, and they just have so many, uh, internal, um, referrals coming in. Uh, consistently it’s like, how the heck do they get so many incoming referrals? And so, um, the reason why is because it’s compounding effort, they’ve been in business for years, they’ve built relationships, they’ve done all these projects. And so they have a bunch of happy clients and stuff. And so it’s not like they started over every year. After every new project, no leads, uh, you know, that they had, uh, before and everything are, are starting to come to fruition. And so, um, that’s kind of what we’re talking about here. And so for a lot of new businesses that, that are. You know, trying to get clients and build a client base and get projects and stuff. It’s it might seem like you’re pulling teeth, just trying to get that first project and you get the first project. And then it’s like, okay, it’s equally hard to get that second one, but when you stick with it and you’ve been doing it awhile, that effort starts to build on itself and you might reach out to people and build a relationship, you know, over here, and then they’re not ready for a website now, but, uh, you you’ve built that connection. And then you do the same thing over here and over here and over here. And then. Later down the road, those start to come to fruition actually become paid projects. And it’s effort that you did, you know, over a long period of time, that compounds in order to, uh, you know, make you really successful the longer you’ve been in business.
02:40 David Blackmon: Yeah. And I, I relate this to early in my web design career. I wanted something. You know, to use that, that, that kind of the role of compounding effort. And I relate mostly to like service and maintenance agreements and stuff. So, um, you know, I basically wanted a, I had a goal of a specific revenue that I wanted to hit, and I knew that it was going to take. Some time to build that up and effort, and it wasn’t going to happen overnight that it was going to be what Tim was talking about. I was brand new. I was in web design and I would go out and I’d get clients. And the next thing I had to get another client and then I had to get another client and it was always about me going out and pursuing the work. Whereas when I got established and you know, not only established on the web. And where people could start finding me because Google saw me as an authority in my local area in web design, but also customers, existing customers started referring me and, you know, work started to come in. It didn’t totally, you know, rely on me making a phone call, walking into a business. I all of a sudden started getting these other. You know, streams of, you know, um, pay off basically of the work that I had done initially. And I, what I really liked about the service and maintenance agreements was that. I wanted to, I had a goal to just sign up a hundred maintenance and service agreements, you know, uh, which basically allowed me to just maintain the main core functionalities of their website. Um, and something that I felt that every small business even could afford. And that was very important for them to do. But over time, you know, if I could get a hundred clients in the stable, pay me X number of dollars, a Year that I would start the year off with a guaranteed revenue. And that took time to build up over time and stuff. And that’s, you know, this rule of compounding effort and stuff, it applies in so many different areas and stuff, but, uh, and there’s several ways that you can use it in web design. Most people don’t think about, you know, The hard work that they’re doing today and how’s it gonna pay off in the long run and stuff. And Tim and I teach a lot of this stuff and our Divi business expert course, which yes, it’s focused on Divi. Um, because Tim and I are, you know, we’re all in with WordPress and Divi. We were product creators for the Divi theme. But it’s very business focused and you could transplant Divi with, you know, if you want it to, we recommend Divi. We want, we think you should be using it cause it’s easy, but you could take the business principles from that course. And we talk a lot about this compounding effort and stuff in that. So yeah. Yeah. And the, the maintenance and service agreement. That’s another perfect example of the compounding effort at play.
05:36 Tim Strifler: Yeah. And the, the maintenance and service agreement. That’s another perfect example of the compounding effort at play. And it’s hard when you’re a web designer, because it’s like, you’re not really thinking of the compounding effort and, you know, the fact that. You’re going to be building something that’s going to be worth, you know, a lot more later and have a lot more things happening down the road. It’s like a lot of times you’re just thinking about that next project, that next project and stuff, because you’re trying to, you know, pay rent, pay mortgage or whatever. And so you’re just trying to think about that next paycheck. But, um, if you can kind of look at the big picture and zoom out a bit and, and like what David was saying, you know, with the maintenance and service agreements and wanting to, you know, have a hundred maintenance clients. So he’d be starting the year with. What was it? A hundred grand at the time?
06:24 David Blackmon: Yeah. Well, mine at the time was I wanted to, you know, make $1,500 per customer. So start the year off with a hundred, 150,000 a year, you know, and it, my goal was it was going to be a five year plan. You know, it would take me five years to get there, but once I got there, you know, It was like, okay, well, I’m going to start off with a six figure salary before I ever even close the first web design contract. And I actually hit the six figures, you know, earlier than five years. That was just the goal that I set myself and stuff. And that’s, that’s kinda where I wanted to go and stuff. So, yeah.
07:06 Tim Strifler: Yeah. And I think it’s important to have that big picture mindset because yeah. It’s like a lot of times when you, when someone’s a new in business, it’s like, you’re, you’re only thinking about that short term. And sometimes you have to, cause you have to, like I said, you have, you have bills to pay, but um, if you can kind of, yeah. Look at that big picture. It’s it’s it’s worth it. Absolutely. Especially when you combine it with the things we’ve talked about, the last couple episodes with consistency and all of that, so..
07:31 David Blackmon: Awesome! Well tomorrow, we’ve got another great topic in episode six 40. It’s a doozy. It’s a great one. How turning down certain web design projects can actually make you more money Tim, until tomorrow. We’ll see you then.
07:49 Tim Strifler: Take care. Bye. Bye.
Did you Enjoy this Episode? * Will you consider sharing it online? Just click one of the share buttons below! * Will you leave us a review? 🙂 * Have a question, or a topic request? Let us know in the comments below!
Want to Connect with David & Tim? * David: + Aspen Grove Studios + Divi Space * Tim: + TimStrifler.com + Divi Life
The post The Rule of Compounding Effort How it Relates to Web Design | EP 639 appeared first on WP Gears.
Consistency and Persistence vs Failing Fast 1. Recognizing that somethings failing01:18 2. Consistency and Persistence 04:27 3. Marketing is a series of tests and experiments 07:16
Read the full episode transcript below: 00:25 David Blackmon: Hey everybody, Welcome to another episode of WP The Podcast brought to you by WP Gears. I’m David Blackmon.
00:35 Tim Strifler: And I’m Tim Strifler.
00:37 David Blackmon: Today we’re going to talk about consistency and persistence versus failing fast and it may be a little bit confusing, it may not. Tim’s going to give us kind of a little intro as to what we mean by the title of this topic and then we’re going to talk about It.
01:18 Tim Strifler: Yeah and uh this is really sort of a continuation of the topic that we did yesterday episode 637. So definitely uh listen to that um after this if you haven’t already or you can pause this episode and listen to yesterday’s first. Yesterday we talked about the tale of the tortoise and the hare and how it relates to business and really kind of the the lesson being consistency and persistence pays off and effort that you put in. Today you might not see the full benefit but later down the road you will by sticking with it and and being consistent no matter what business
you’re in whether you’re in client services and you’re you know making connections and and you know getting referrals and stuff or you’re you know doing content marketing the consistent. The value of doing consistency there um but there’s a whole other kind of uh businessy term called failing fast and and this is something I learned, I think originally in school taking entrepreneurship courses. And the the concept of failing fast and this is really really important in like the startup world and in you know new businesses where you’re iterating and you’re pivoting and stuff. And you have to recognize when something isn’t working and you fail fast meaning you move on to something else. And you pivot and you iterate and you know and so forth and so. Those can sometimes seem like conflicting values right consistency and persistence and then failing fast because it’s like, okay well you just said be consistent and stick with it and be persistent, even if you’re not seeing the results right away. But then how do you fail fast which is basically you know changing it up and and you know recognizing that something’s failing. And so how do you recognize when to do what when to fail fast and when to be consistent and persistent and so that’s kind of what we wanted to talk about today. And this is one of those topics where there’s not an exact right answer or an exact wrong answer and so forth and so you know, sometimes it requires kind of going with your gut and or getting outside counsel mentoring coaching that sort of thing. And I’m gonna start off because David was like, I don’t know what the right answer is, I was like either do I, but i’m going to kind of just.. kind of think out loud here and say that first of all there’s as I mentioned there is an exact right answer. But I think if you are following things that are known, to be best practice then it is worth sticking with it. So for example if you know that like in your client service business that it’s all about relationships and something that David
and I preach all the time is it’s all about people wanting to hire, people that they know, and trust or someone that they know and trust knows and trusts right referrals right? And so if you know that principle then you can go out and make connections with business owners and you’ll know that eventually that’s going to pay off. Because you’re establishing yourself as an expert in the community. Aand so forth and you know chances are, if you keep doing that it’s going to work. Because that’s best practice with failing fast it’s more on the other hand side of things when you’re doing something that maybe hasn’t been done before. A new business model you know or a new type of product or something and it’s uh you know you’re you’re out there and you’re not sure if it works yet and so you kind of need to wait and see. And then if it doesn’t work okay you can pivot and so that’s kind of the distinguish. How I distinguish it in my head between the two it’s not an exact formula by any means but um if you’re following best practices for for doing something chances are if you stick with it it’s going to work. Would you agree David?
04:27 David Blackmon: Tim you just stole my thunder brother! You just stole my thunder! I was thinking the exact same thing Tim, and i didn’t we don’t really talk about pre-podcast stuff what we’re gonna say. We kind of dive into it we let our own experiences kind of share our own experience so we’re not biased and stuff and we feel like that tandem that dual you know.. perspective tends to be really good for valuable for
our listeners. But this is one time where we could have talked about this ahead of time because I couldn’t agree more with what he said. The whole time I was thinking about consistency and persistence in that realm uh was the comment that he mentioned. Like blogging for example
you know, and we know that search engines for example they content is king! So we know for sure 100 percent certain that if you produce valuable relevant content over an extended period of time search engines are going to begin to see you as an authority in that subject. Don’t know when it is typically will happen somewhere between 6 and 18 months. That’s typically our experience and so we know that that’s a tried and true thing that you can do for your business to get traffic about your specific topic. That’s one thing that you can do and I think when I think about failing fast, kind of what he was talking about I think a lot about mvpąs you know. A lot of businesses you know, especially startups and
stuff and where they use this phrase is they they do a minimum viable product which is an mvp so they want to see is there interest in it. You know they want to stick their toe in the water before diving full on their whole body into the deep. End to make sure that hey this is a viable thing people going to want to purchase this and when they do find out about that, then you can go with the consistency and Persistence of your track. So um you know question that Tim asked, and you know what’s the answer how do you know when you know.. I agree with him again. I think that you’ve just got to trust your gut. You got to kind of give you know your audience. Hopefully in your perspective arena you know your audience better than you know, your your business guy down the road, who may not know your business as well as you. And you’re just going to have to trust your gut your intuition and make a judgment and then if it doesn’t pan out over an extended period of time, and you’re not making money… Well guess what that’s going to force you to quit. You’re going to know “hey I got to stop I can’t Keep keep doing this”. So hope that hope I didn’t repeat what Tim said so yeah..
07:16 Tim Strifler: No no that was good and it actually made me think here you know. It’s not always one or the other and we kind of set this topic up because in some cases you know it is one or the other but they’re not mutually exclusive all the time. So for example you can be consistently and persistently trying different things right and then and then failing fast when those things aren’t working out. Right? So if you think about marketing being you know, they say marketing is you know a series of tests and experiments and trial and error and so forth. And so you know and then once something works you keep doing it and stuff and so if you think of that in your business, you know, of a way of getting new clients or getting new customers, acquiring customers. And whatnot you can be consistently and persistently trying new things and then if they fail, you fail fast and you don’t keep doing it if it’s not working. And you move on to something else where the big picture you’re being consistent and persistent and you’re you know you’re going to be The tortoise in the long run. But in the the short term you’re failing fast and so you can kind of do a combination of the two. So you can kind of look at it that way too and it’s not consistency and Persistence versus failing fast it’s and failing Fast so ..
08:28 David Blackmon: Boom!
08:28 Tim Strifler: Boom!
08:29 David Blackmon: Boom! We hope you’ve gotten a lot out of these last two topics guess what it’s not over with yet because tomorrow in episode 639 we’re going to talk about the rule of compounding effort and how it relates to web design. If you want to find out what compounding effort is you’re going to have to come tune in tomorrow and listen to tomorrow’s podcast episode. Tim until tomorrow we’ll see you then.
08:56 Tim Strifler: Take care bye-bye.
Did you Enjoy this Episode? * Will you consider sharing it online? Just click one of the share buttons below! * Will you leave us a review? 🙂 * Have a question, or a topic request? Let us know in the comments below!
Want to Connect with David & Tim? * David: + Aspen Grove Studios + Divi Space * Tim: + TimStrifler.com + Divi Life
The post Consistency and Persistence vs Failing Fast | EP 638 appeared first on WP Gears.
The Tale of the Tortoise and the Hare and How it Relates to Business . 1. About the tortoise and the hare01:18 2. Relationships in communities 03:11
Read the full episode transcript below: 00:25 David Blackmon: Hey, everybody. Welcome to another episode of WP The Podcast brought to you by WP Gears. I’m David Blackmon.
00:35 Tim Strifler: And I’m Tim Strifler.
00:37 David Blackmon: Today in episode 637, Tim and I are going to talk about the tale of the tortoise and the hare, and how it relates to business. We’ve seen time and time again, especially in the Divi community where people will come out with a blazing fire and, you know, a super high intensity. And then next thing you know, they’re just gone. And it’s like, where the hell, where the hell did they go? What the heck’s going on. So we kind of wanted to touch base on that because our next few topics are going to be centered around kind of this subject about, you know, um, you know, this type of topic and stuff that about consistency and why it’s important and stuff. So Tim get us kicked off.
01:18 Tim Strifler: Yeah, absolutely. So, uh, there’s a, I don’t know if this is just an American story or if it’s something that’s, you know, globally and well known. I know we have a global audience that listens to WP The Podcast, but there’s a children’s book called the “The tale of the Tortoise and the Hare”. And basically, uh, it’s the, the story of a tortoise. And the hare that are racing and the hare being a rabbit is very quick, very fast, very agile, and the tortoise. Being like any other tortoise was very, very slow and the racing and the tortoise is going slow, but steady and consistent where the hare is kind of runs, takes off and goes really, really fast, but then it gets distracted and then it goes over here and does this. And, then the, the tortoise ends up winning the race because of the steady, consistent, uh, slow and steady wins the race. Right. That’s the phrase. And, so yeah, that’s kind of what we’re talking about and, and how it relates to business. And so, as David mentioned, we, we see it a lot where people will come out with a lot of intensity, be really, really excited and, you know, promote, promote, promote, come out with new products and stuff. And we see it in the Divi community where that’s where our businesses are selling TV products, and then they’ll get burnt out because they, they. Aren’t weren’t in it for the long run. They’re trying to make a quick buck and you know, it wasn’t as easy as they thought, and they weren’t really willing to put in the work and be consistent. And so there’s just so much value, no matter what business you’re in with slow and steady, right? I’m not saying go necessarily intentionally go slow by any means, but, uh, being consistent and, and, and willing to, uh, you know, invest the time and effort and not necessarily see all the benefits right away. But knowing that they’ll come down the road,
03:11 David Blackmon: Yeah. And I think one of the things that is important for anyone in business and, um, especially in communities and stuff, when you bring your business into those communities, I know that it’s been super valuable for, for myself. I know that it’s been valuable for Tim is yeah. There’s, it’s good to have intensity. It’s good to be driven and it’s good to move, you know, quickly when you need to move quickly and stuff. But there’s also a huge benefit too. Getting involved becoming a part of, you know, what that does for you is that it allows you to have that steady and consistent pace that you need to last for the long term, because you’re invested in. That community, that group you’re invested in helping them there’s relationships that are formed, they’re invested in helping you and friendships form. And that’s all, that’s actually what ended up happening to Tim and I and our own product businesses and stuff. Is that. You know, the community that we were involved in the Facebook group specifically around Divi, you know, we all became friends and it was like, it was like going to the club and hanging out with our best friends, you know, cause we could talk shop and you know, we started to learn more about personal and stuff, their personal lives. So we were invested, which in turn kept us rooted. Into where we needed to be. And even though our products or services may not have taken off as quickly as we would’ve liked them to, it kept us there long enough to allow organically what needed to happen happen. Uh, I don’t know if that made any sense, but it, it all kinda ties together and stuff and it’s, it’s really important in my opinion.
04:59 Tim Strifler: Yeah, absolutely. And that was great, David, and I think, you know, Necessarily selling products like, like we are, but you can really relate this to any type of business, any niche, a lot of our listeners out there create websites for clients and exactly what David was saying, like investing in your community. Building relationships with business owners. You might not get projects from it right away, but putting in that time now is going to help you along, along the way, rather than coming out and being the hair and, you know, like, uh, cold calling every business that you can and then giving up and, you know, whatnot like yeah, having intensity is good and moving fastest. Good, but think about things that you can do that are consistent and that will help you in the longterm, you know, and having that, that steady, consistent mind frame. And that’s how you’re going to really, really win in the end.
05:52 Tim Strifler: Awesome on tomorrow, we’ve got another topic that closely relates to this consistency and persistence versus failing fast, Tim, until tomorrow.
06:06 Tim Strifler: Take care. Bye. Bye.
Did you Enjoy this Episode? * Will you consider sharing it online? Just click one of the share buttons below! * Will you leave us a review? 🙂 * Have a question, or a topic request? Let us know in the comments below!
Want to Connect with David & Tim? * David: + Aspen Grove Studios + Divi Space * Tim: + TimStrifler.com + Divi Life
The post The Tale of the Tortoise and the Hare and How it Relates to Business | EP 637 appeared first on WP Gears.
5 ways to increase Your website traffic this month. 1. Create something extraordinary00:37 2. Paid Ads 03:08 3. Sponsored posts 04:12 4. Facebook groups 04:56 5. Use social platforms 06:23
Read the full episode transcript below: 00:28 David Blackmon: Hey everybody welcome to another episode of WP The Podcast brought to you by WP Gears. I’m David Blackmon.
00:35 Tim Strifler: And I’m Tim Strifler.
00:37 David Blackmon: Today we’re going to talk about five ways to increase your website traffic this month. Tim and I have talked a lot about how to increase website traffic overall and in general. And typically it’s a it’s an organic long play that we recommend and it takes you know anywhere from a year to eighteen months a year and a half to get really good consistent organic traffic coming into your website. But we wanted to give you some tips and tricks that you could use to get traffic in the next thirty days. So here’s five things that we think we can help you with
first and foremost number one is freebies create something extraordinary! Ideally free that will draw attention to your website and bring traffic in. So an example of what we did several years ago with Aspen Grove Studios when we launched our business. Obviously we’re a big Divi Company you know Tim and I are our Divi product creators, we created the demo zone which was actually a multi-site that we built several amazing you know websites and layouts that was built with the Divi theme. And we wrote some custom plugins to allow multiple people on the same page at the same time we locked down the database so they couldn’t change things and screw up the designs and stuff but they could go on the back end and see exactly how it was built. Because we kept getting the same questions over and over and over again in the Facebook groups that Tim and I were you know administrating. And you know highly involved in and you know which were hey how are they doing this effect hey how are they doing this so we created the demo zone it was 100% free and it basically allowed people to come and learn Divi and to this day it is still a high converting lead magnet and draws a lot of traffic to our website. That’s one example several people have you know we also have a child theme creator that’s free tim has some amazing guides on everything you need to know about child themes from video walkthroughs to tutorials and stuff so that’s totally free create that type of content. Put it out there and and then get your you know
your friends and network to share this stuff and if it gets picked up somewhere you’re gonna get a lot of traffic and you can do that in 30 days.
Number two..
03:08 Tim Strifler: Yeah absolutely the next one on the list is paid ads. Now sometimes you have to spend money to make money. And so paid ads can be a great way to get traffic to your website. Pretty much immediately. However one thing worth noting is if you’ve never ran ads before it can be challenging to kind of get your your ads dialed in and figure out your audiences and stuff like that and so you know I would say if you’re brand new to paid ads like there’s a minimum of like a 30-day learning curve you’ll pretty much get traffic right away. However it might not be traffic that converts and so I do want to kind of say that you know major caveat is it can take time to actually have it be effective but if you’re willing to put some money out there Facebook ads or Google Ads or both can be a great way to get traffic to your website. And so yeah it’s you know you might be thinking well we only want free ways to get traffic but sometimes you got to spend some money.
04:12 David Blackmon: And number three is another paid way potentially not paid although I don’t know many highly successful WordPress websites that are gonna allow you to come and promote your website on their website without some type of number three sponsored posts. Some of the higher trafficked websites. In the WordPress world sometimes allow you to sponsor posts on their site where they you pay a
fee and they allow you to put their your post your blog posts and then direct traffic over to your website for whatever reason to get your freebie or
whatever it is but again that’s another way that you can get some traffic immediately but it’s gonna cost money.
04:56 Tim Strifler: Yeah definitely! And then the the next thing on the list here that can get you traffic in the next 30 days and even potentially on a consistent basis if you do right is Facebook groups. Now I’m not suggesting by any means to go into a bunch of Facebook groups that are in your niche and just start spamming your services or your products or whatever. But what you can do if it’s permitted by the the group admins is create something really great some sort of tutorial. Something of high value it could be a freebie can just be a blog post but something that is you know extraordinary you know it’s something better than what people are used to seeing out there and you know link to it in the Facebook groups. Now again you don’t want to do anything that’s against the rules and you also don’t want to just go into a Facebook group and be brand new to it
and all of a sudden just start posting your stuff even if it is completely free tutorial training. Whatever you want to kind of get familiar with the group and how the group dynamics work and also offer help and answer people’s questions and stuff and kind of give back to the group before you you you post something. Even if you are posting something that is completely free so that that’s something that can work really well depending on the niche and and so forth. But yeah Facebook groups can be awesome but you have to do it right cannot stress that enough.
06:23 David Blackmon: And last on our lists but definitely not least is to use some type of social platform like Reddit. Where you know if you’re familiar with Reddit. Reddit is a forum type kind of platform that that covers. I think it covers every topic on the planet there’s a group a subreddit group in there that covers it. So for example Divi. Let’s just stick with Divi. There is a Divi Reddit group you know and one thing that we did a couple of years ago for a client of mine that worked really really well we launched their new website brand new no even in the world knew who this company was it was called flip tails and I had a Creator who created flip books. He had taken the first the top 200 names in the IRS database and created flip books for those 200 names male and female boys and girls. And you know David turned into a peregrine falcon for example and it was just a thumb flip through book. Well we launched the website about 30 days before Christmas and he wanted to get a bunch of sales for his new product and one of our strategies was is to go out and if we could get to page one on Reddit. We knew that it would go viral and we would get a ton of traffic to our website so what we did was we created a very unique creative video showing off the flip books. We posted it to Reddit and the trick with Reddit is if you get enough up votes you’re gonna get to page one and if you get to page one on Reddit
you’re gonna have an insane amount of traffic. I think we got a million visitors in that first 24 hours or something it was incredible to you know
to to see how much traffic and how many sales he actually made. But it was just a plan that we put together. We knew that if we could get to you know page 1 of Reddit that it was gonna go viral and stuff. And it’s the same with some of these other you know platforms like Tic Toc or Snapchat or any of those other ones if you can do something that or YouTube you know YouTube’s a little bit different in that you know it’s kind of works like it’s the second largest search engine in the world so you’ve got to get indexed and there’s just so many factors where it’s like a Reddit or something like that. There’s like you know people with these topics you’re gonna get instantly and if people start up voting it’s going you know so but yeah use some type of platform like that and it could be huge I hope that made sense Tim and you know just get creative
and get some website traffic to your site tomorrow we’ve got another great topic for you Tim anything else want to close it out?
09:21 Tim Strifler: I think that is it for this topic but yeah if you’re new to WV the podcasts. Were happy that you are here hit subscribe leave us a review preferably 5 stars. Feel free to recommend some topic ideas of things you’d like to learn this is episode 636 so obviously we’ve covered a lot of different things. And feel free to go in and search our website or whatnot for it for different different things because we might already have a topic on it.
09:50 David Blackmon: Awesome well Tim until tomorrow we’ll see you then.
09:54 Tim Strifler: Take care bye bye.
Did you Enjoy this Episode? * Will you consider sharing it online? Just click one of the share buttons below! * Will you leave us a review? 🙂 * Have a question, or a topic request? Let us know in the comments below!
Want to Connect with David & Tim? * David: + Aspen Grove Studios + Divi Space * Tim: + TimStrifler.com + Divi Life
The post 5 ways to Increase Your Website Traffic This Month | EP 636 appeared first on WP Gears.
How to Reduce WordPress Database Bloat 1. What is Database bloat 01:12 2. Better delete revisions 03:04 3. Optimised Database 03:45 4. lLomit the number of revisions 04:11
Read the full episode transcript below: 00:28 David Blackmon: Everybody welcome to another episode of WP The Podcast brought to you by WP Gears. I’m David Blackmon.
00:35 Tim Strifler: And I’m Tim Strifler.
00:37 David Blackmon: Today in episode 635 we’re going to talk about how you can reduce WordPress database bloat. And this is important because speed matters! When it comes to not only your visitors but search engines algorithms place a high importance on how fast your website loads. And if you get your database bloated over time which it will that’s just how WordPress works you need to know how to clean it up. We’re gonna give you some tips and tools so Tim before we dive in why don’t you tell us what WordPress database bloat is?
01:12 Tim Strifler: Yeah definitely. So WordPress basically it stores content inside of a mySQL database and so you basically have two parts to a WordPress website you have the files and then you have the content and the files is stored in a normal file structure and that’s your WordPress software itself. As well as your plugins and your themes and your your media uploads but everything else is stored in the database so content settings you know everything from like menus all the the the things that you’re doing within your theme or page builder all of those settings and stuff are stored in the in the database as well. So like really if you think about it everything you if you strip away the database you basically have an empty website. And so everything that you’re doing and changing and customizing and creating is stored in the database so it’s a huge huge portion of the site and so the longer your websites been around the more and more bloated the database can get. And so there’s a couple things
that will really blow your database. One of them being WordPress revisions and so I’m gonna let David talk about how to do this but basically Wordpres revisions when you make changes to a WordPress page or post or whatever. WordPress by default will store revisions and so it’s basically different versions of the page.So that you can go back and undo changes that you’ve previously saved and so it sounds like a great idea. The problem is is if your websites been around for a while and you made a lot of changes and you’re kind of designing and saving designing and saving well all the sudden before the site even goes live you have a huge bloated database of revisions and you have like 50 different versions of a page or post and so that’s a problem so yeah what do you do..
03:04 David Blackmon: Dang! Tim just stole my thunder! Man that’s the one that I could talk about it at length and the way that you handle that the easiest way to handle that is to use a plugin called Better Delete Revisions, and it’s a plugin that you can find in the WordPress repository and it’s awesome. And if you had to go in and manually delete these or even go in the database and delete them manually from the database as opposed to own your WordPress website will take a lot of time. And it would be really cumbersome. This thing allows you to do it automatically and stuff. You can there’s a lot of features and things that you can do to make that happen Tim what’s number two?
03:45 Tim Strifler: Yeah number two is Optimized Database after deleting revisions. And so this plugin it’s a separate plugin but it’s meant to be used with the plug and David just talked about and basically after you delete the revisions it will go and it will optimize your database. I’m not a mySQL expert so I’m not going to try to tell you what exactly it does to optimize but it’s something good to do and so we definitely recommend doing that.
04:11 David Blackmon: The third thing that we recommend is to code snippet to limit the number of revisions. So I don’t know if we have
the code or not to give people Tim but it would be great if we could put this in our show notes. I’m pretty sure we could get it. If we don’t have it I could get Jonathan to give it to us, but you can put a piece of code in your website. Which is going to control the number of revisions that WordPress is going to store in the database so yeah it’s pretty much that simple I can’t say anything more to it than that.
04:43 Tim Strifler: Yeah and I think there’s some might be a plugin as well but basically by limiting the number of revisions to maybe the
last five. You still have that fallback in case you need to you know revert back to a previous version without getting a huge database. So it’s like an WP Engine actually they’re hosting when you have a website with a VP engine revisions don’t work at all however there’s times where I really
wish that it did work and so having kind of something in-between a ton of revisions and no revisions you know is the ideal situation in my opinion. So yeah we’ll see if we can get again I found a blog post here we’ll put in the show notes on how to limit revisions and the next thing here is kind of separate but similar and that is to actually go. The next thing here is kind of separate but similar and that is to actually go plugins and so for example if you’re kind of in a design development phase of a WordPress website you’re probably installing different plugins and sometimes it might not do what you want you deactivate and find a similar one or you know or maybe you’re using something for a while and then you deactivate and decide you don’t want anymore. Well depending on the plug-in there’s typically going to be some sort of content that’s saved in the database whether it’s settings whether it’s actual like content itself like custom post type content there’s gonna be something that’s saved in there and if you go and later reactivate that plug-in you’re gonna any changes that you made previously are gonna be there. As if you never deactivated it which is a nice feature to have. So that if you change your mind and come back to it everything is saved nicely where you left it. However it’s also going to bloat your database if that happens with a lot of different plugins and you plugins you’re never going to come back – you don’t really need it to save its data and so some plugins very few will give you a way to remove the data after deactivating it and it’s usually an additional setting you have to turn on to remove the data. But most plugins don’t have that and so the way you do that is from your server there’s a server tool for my sequel database is called PHP My Admin. And it basically lets you see all of your database tables and rows and
and all of that and so you can basically find the different plugins that are on there and you can actually remove those tables or rows or whatever or entire databases, depending on the plugin. And that can can reduce database bloat. Now I will say this this is some advanced stuff here and you absolutely want to make sure that you have a current backup before you do this because if you remove the wrong thing you can completely just break your site into oblivion and so you want to make sure you have a backup you want to be careful but this can be a helpful way of kind of slimming down that database.
07:40 David Blackmon: Fantastic! Well there you go folks how to reduce WordPress database bloat and why it’s important that you take care of it. Tomorrow we’ve got another great episode five ways to increase your website traffic this month Tim until tomorrow we’ll see you then.
07:53 Tim Strifler: Take care bye bye.
Did you Enjoy this Episode? * Will you consider sharing it online? Just click one of the share buttons below! * Will you leave us a review? 🙂 * Have a question, or a topic request? Let us know in the comments below!
Want to Connect with David & Tim? * David: + Aspen Grove Studios + Divi Space * Tim: + TimStrifler.com + Divi Life
The post How to Reduce WordPress Database Bloat | EP 635 appeared first on WP Gears.
Contact Form Emails Not Sending or Going to Spam (deliverability issues explained) 1. Common Issues 01:04 2. Debbie P mail SMTP 03:08 3. Paid delivery service04:16 4. Secret third option06:00
Read the full episode transcript below: 00:28 David Blackmon: Hey everybody welcome to another episode of WP The Podcast brought to you by WP Gears. I’m David Blackmon.
00:35 Tim Strifler: And I’m Tim Strifler.
00:37 David Blackmon: Today we’ve got a super exciting technical topic seems like we’ve had quite a few of those in row episode 634. We’re going to talk about why your contact form may not emails may not be sending, or why your emails are going to spam. So we’re gonna kind of cover some things why it’s happening but we’re also going to give you some tips into end tricks to help solve the problem for you as well.
01:04 Tim Strifler: Yeah absolutely! So first things first let’s kind of talk about as David mentioned what the issue is and why it happened. So basically websites are configured to load web pages right web or website servers are configured to load web pages right and so they’re not really configured for sending emails. And so when WordPress sends emails so the work the emails that WordPress can send, it can be anything from a password reset email when you forget your password, or one of your customers forgets a password and email receipt. If you’re using a ecommerce plugins such as WooCommerce or EDD a form submission. So for example you have your built in contact form on your theme or page builder or you’re using something like Gravity Forms. Those are all emails that WordPress has to send and it’s using the web server to
send that. However the web server as I mentioned isn’t really configured to be sending emails it’s configured to be serving web pages also if you’re on cheap shared hosting, chances are your IP address has already been blacklisted by different email services like Gmail, and so forth and so those are that’s kind of the the basics for why it happens. And so because it’s not configured to be sending email and because of like shared servers shared IP addresses. The IP address can get blacklisted and so it ends up going to spam or not getting delivered at all. Even can some happen. And so it’s a very common problem. Whether it’s your contact form or an email receipt or this or that and so basically what you want to do is you want to get the emails that are being sent by your website server by WordPress and outsource it to some sort of service that specializes in sending emails. And so we’re going to talk about a couple of those options. Now the first one on the list and I’m gonna talk about and then Dave is gonna talk about the next one is a free plugin it’s brought to you by WP Forms, I want to Sayid Bell keys companies and the plugins called Debbie P mail SMTP buy WP Forms and it’s a free plugin. If you type in WP Mail into the WordPress repository you’re going to find it. But basically it allows you to use an SMTP which is stands for simple mail transfer protocol for sending emails. And so for example you can use a gmail account to send your WordPress emails instead of your website server. And so we won’t get into all the technicalities on how it
works and so forth but it can be a really cheap and easy way to send emails on. And I would say that’s a good really cheap and easy way to send emails on and I would say that’s a good solution for small sites not e-commerce. you know you’re not sending a lot you maybe have a occasional contact form submission being sent that sort of thing that can be a really good solution. However if you’re an e-commerce site and you have a lot of traffic a lot of users customers a lot of things happening. A lot of emails being sent. Then we recommend the next thing that Dave is going to talk about.
04:16 David Blackmon: Yeah. The next thing is a paid email delivery service and we use them. There’s a couple of options out there that are pretty popular in common. One of them is called Singrid and the other is Mailgun. And they essentially do the same thing there’s just a paid
service where Singrid or Mailgun they are an email service provider. Basically their servers are optimized to get your emails delivered from your website and it’s a paid service and they’re pretty inexpensive you know. So we have a couple of pretty highly trafficked youmurrs websites and Aspen Grove Studios dot com, Divi space. Tim has Debbie dot life you know. And there’s a lot of transactional emails going out and stuff. And we pretty much have no problem whatsoever and we use Singrid. I’m not sure if Tim uses Singrid or Mailgun, I think you use the Singrid also. But we also use it on WP Gears for our course and our students and stuff. And it’s just it’s easy and it works you know. So if you want to make sure that your emails are getting Cine sent out use one of these paid services you know. We’re not going to go into the details of how exactly they work and stuff but their servers are optimized to send emails and they’re constantly reviewing when something gets blacklisted making sure
that you’re those IP addresses and stuff aren’t blacklisted. And stay clean and stuff and debris deliverability is probably very very high in the high 99% if not 100 percent I don’t know what they guarantee but it I highly doubt that guarantee 100% but..
06:00 Tim Strifler: Ya know definitely! And I just wanted to clarify just in case there’s any confusion here transactional emails is the emails that
wordpress sins and they call it transactional. Because something’s happening whether you’re trying to get a password or you’re buying a product you know. WordPress is sending an email in response to some sort of action and so that’s why it’s called transactional. This is not to be confused with the email that you set up for your company. Like for example to be able to send emails out to you know your customer you know you know or your internal team and stuff this is not like your John at your domain.com email. That’s something different, that’s not what we’re talking about here and we’re also not talking about email marketing. Emails like MailChimp and so forth that’s again a little bit different and so this is only transactional emails and so David you asked what I use. I actually don’t use a single or Mailgun I use the secret. The secret third option that we didn’t list on here and that and that is Mandrel. Mandrel is actually a by MailChimp and so you have to have a paid MailChimp account in order to use Mandrill. And it’s a paid add-on and so I use it just because I’m used to MailChimp and so I’m kind of in that world already and so I use Mandrel MailChimp. And so I’m kind of in that world already and so I use I use mandrel for for sending transactional emails but
it works well. But yeah, if you don’t use MailChimp SendGrid and Mailgun are both great options. I’ve used both I’ve used Sengrid probably a little bit more on client sites and stuff and then as David mentioned we use Sengrid for WP Gears Com.
07:42 David Blackmon: Awesome! Well tomorrow we’ve got another great topic how to reduce WordPress database bloat. This is an important one folks so make sure you tune in. Tim until tomorrow we’ll see you then.
07:56 Tim Strifler: Take care bye bye.
Did you Enjoy this Episode? * Will you consider sharing it online? Just click one of the share buttons below! * Will you leave us a review? 🙂 * Have a question, or a topic request? Let us know in the comments below!
Want to Connect with David & Tim? * David: + Aspen Grove Studios + Divi Space * Tim: + TimStrifler.com + Divi Life
The post Contact Form Emails Not Sending or Going to Spam (deliverability issues explained) | EP 634 appeared first on WP Gears.
How to Prevent WordPress Comment Spam 1. A Kismet 00:37 2. How it works? 02:17 3. SEO Value 05:26
Read the full episode transcript below: 00:29 David Blackmon: Hey everybody welcome to another episode of WP The Podcast brought to you by WP Gears. I’m David Blackmon.
00:37 Tim Strifler: And I’m Tim Strifler.
00:37 David Blackmon: Today in episode 633 we’re gonna talk about how to prevent WordPress comments spam. If you do not take care of this and put something in place, your email box, your inbox is gonna get overwhelmed with notifications. That you’ve got a new comment or a new forum or somebody’s contacted your website. And a lot of it is spam. There’s spots out there on the internet that are constantly pinging finding new WordPress websites and they’re just constantly spamming them for whatever reason. You know testing them to see if they can hack get act or to get backlinks hoping that you approve this comment spam and believe me some of it is not so nice. Before we dive off and let Tim you know we’re gonna give you a few different ways that you can you can help protect against that. One of the main tools that we’re going to talk about today is a scam it and its anti-spam plug-in a Kkismet .asking it of its a Kismet not asking Matt because there’s no s in the second letter. It’s okay I want to give you some stats. It’s currently active on over 5 million websites! That’s huge, that’s a lot of people using it. We use it I’m not sure if Tim uses it, we haven’t talked about that but basically the way that it works is is that a visitor submits comments to your blog your blog runs each comment through a Kismet and then a Kismet tells your blog whether it’s ham or spam. And you get to choose whether or not. You’re gonna you know what you’re gonna do with it and stuff so Tim tell us a little more.
02:17 Tim Strifler: Yeah.. you know, I know, I do use a Kismet and we highly recommend that. You put it on every site you build it’s free.
There’s no reason not to use it, and it basically is the type of thing that gets the more websites that use it, the smarter it gets. Because basically if a comment is spam and I mark it as spam, and I have a Kismet running, well it’s gonna tell a Kismet that “hey this IP address is a spam IP address”. And so then it basically makes their spam detection smarter because it’s saying “okay well if these IP addresses here are this the spammers then we’re not gonna let any comments come through at all to any of the sites using a Kismet, because we already know it’s spam”. And so rather than you having to detect spam on an individual basis, it’s doing it on a huge global scale with all of these websites. And so it’s becoming a spam detection wizard and can detect it. So that you don’t even have to look at it and mark it as spam. And so that’s kind of you
know quick run-through of how it works and and everything. And so yeah that right there for most websites will be the first and last line of defense in terms of comments payments. All you really need to do the now we have a couple other points here depending on your site and your blog. Like for example, if you have a website that like you don’t really have an active blog or like you don’t want comments to really be part of your blog, well then you can just turn them off. And so if you go to within your WordPress admin panel go to settings discussion you’ll see all the different things for controlling comments. And one of them is to just completely disable comments all together and not enable discussion at all. And so that can be a you know a simple way to get spam off of off of your blog. Altogether which can be good and then there’s other things that you can do as well so for example automatically. There’s a setting under other comment settings that’s titled automatically close comments on posts older than blank number of days right. And so if you can fourteen days you can do 30 days whatever. And so if there’s an old post from two years ago and it might still be relevant but you don’t really want discussion on it. Where you can have this happen and so then you don’t have to worry about posts that are super old. Getting you know comments from spam bots and or you know, they have such an active blog with years
and years worth of content and so they automatically close comments on posts older than a set amount of days. I can’t remember it might be 30 days or might be longer than that. And so you can’t go to a post that was written two years ago in comment on it unless they’ve individually allowed that post to open up comments again. And so because you can control it on individual post basis as well.
05:26 David Blackmon: Man that could lead to a couple of more future WP The Podcast topics Tim. Yeah should you, or should you not, do that and stuff. So yeah I think it’s Great. I personally don’t because I get I get posts on our I get comments on posts from from several years ago and I welcome it and I keep those posts updated. And so you know I get real questions from real people and it’s rarely ever spam. And so I I like having the discussion. But yeah, we could do a whole another episode on that. Plus the SEO value of comments. Is huge so engagement on your website is the big deal for algorithms with search engines. So yeah but when you become a top 100 website in the world like Elegant Themes. Calm is you know maybe you don’t worry about the engagement so much and stuff. So all right tomorrow we’ve got another
great topic episode 634 contact form emails aren’t sending or they’re going to spam, what and the heck can I do? We’re gonna cover that tomorrow. Tim until tomorrow we’ll see you then.
06:34 Tim Strifler: Take care, bye bye.
Did you Enjoy this Episode? * Will you consider sharing it online? Just click one of the share buttons below! * Will you leave us a review? 🙂 * Have a question, or a topic request? Let us know in the comments below!
Want to Connect with David & Tim? * David: + Aspen Grove Studios + Divi Space * Tim: + TimStrifler.com + Divi Life
The post How to Prevent WordPress Comment Spam | EP 633 appeared first on WP Gears.
Debunking the Divi Shortcode Fallacy 1. A lot of people that are against Divi use the fact that Divi uses shortcodes as a reason that Divi is not a good page builder. 2. They say things like “If you plan on using Divi, it better be forever” because if you change themes Divi will leave behind a lot of shortcodes. 3. This really isn’t true though. In most cases, regardless of whether you have used Divi, if you change themes, you’re going to have to redesign the website anyways because every theme uses different layout, styling, etc. 4. We tested this: we installed “non shortcode based page builders” and built out a site using their included tempaltes. Then, we changed to a a different theme. The result: it looked like absolute junk. 5. It doesn’t matter if the page builder uses shortcodes or not. If you change themes/page builders, you will 100% need to redesign the website. 6. Divi is constantly getting updated (you can see the Divi changelog here), and they are actually planning to migrate away from shortcodes anyways. When this update comes out, no one can ever make this gripe against Divi again (although it was baselss anyways).
Read the full episode transcript below: 00:28 David Blackmon: Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of WP The Podcast Brought to you by WP Gears. I’m David Blackmon.
00:36 Tim Strifler: And I’m Tim Strifler.
00:37 David Blackmon: Today in episode 632 we’re going to talk about debunking the Divi Shortcode fallacy, you who may have been around the Divi community. Since the beginning may remember, a blog post from our good buddy Chris Lima who he didn’t say to kind of things about Divi at the time and his main argument of why Divi was, you know a theme that you wouldn’t want to go with, was because “if you chose
Divi you were stuck with Divi forever”, and obviously you know it’s the number one WordPress theme in the world now. And has been for a while
and it’s totally not not 100% correct or true, but his blog post got a lot of traction, and still ranks very highly. Today and Tim and I are gonna correct some of this myth, and we’re gonna debunk some stuff. So Tim go..
01:31 Tim Strifler: Yeah, so David’s right. There was that article and it was I don’t know if it still is, but at the time for awhile for a couple of years if you search Divi it was on page. One like halfway down the page with the title “If you use Divi it better be forever” and so the where that’s coming from is the fact that Divi the page builder is built on shortcodes. And so shortcodes of something’s been in WordPress for a while and if you’ve ever installed the plugin that uses shortcodes and then maybe you uninstall the plug-in but you forget to remove the shortcode, you
basically see on the frontend an empty shortcode right you’re seeing the actual shortcode with the brackets and stuff rather than what’s supposed to be shown in its place. And so because Divi is built on shortcodes if you uninstall Divi it’s true, that you will see all the Divi shortcodes and you have to go in and clean them up or whatever. And so that’s the argument and it gets brought up a lot people will whatever and so that’s the argument. And it gets brought up a lot people will say like “oh yeah I won’t use Divi because of the short codes you know I don’t want to be stuck with you know with Divi and blah blah blah”… However while that may be true it may be. It’s true that if you uninstalled Divi and you don’t you know change anything, you’re gonna have all these shortcodes. However every single page builder works in a similar way maybe not with shortcodes but if you for example if you go and you install Elementor and you build a website with element or and then you decide “you know what I don’t want to use Elementor anymore, you know it’s buggy” or you know whatever… and you uninstall element or you’re not gonna
see shortcodes. But what you are gonna see is a very broken garbage looking website and so all of the the styling and layout from element tour is there, or I’m sorry, all the styling layout is gone. And all you have is the empty content and it looks like a website that was built in 1990 before CSS existed. So you don’t see shortcodes but it’s still a broken website and so you still have to start over. And so just like any other theme or page builder if you stop using Divi you’re gonna have to redesign and that has nothing to do with the fact that Divi uses shortcodes. It’s that if you build and design a website built on the controls and styling of a certain theme or page builder and then you switch to something else you’re gonna have to redesign. And so it’s a big fallacy that that Divi has short codes that will you know that that’s a limitation basically is what we’re trying to say here. And so I mean I’ve done these tests myself you know… I installed Beaver Builder I installed Element or i used one of their built their default layouts one of the layouts that they provide and then I deactivated the page builder and what I saw was a garbage looking website that needed to be redesigned. And that’s what you get when you take a WordPress theme or a page builder or whatever and then you deactivate it. You’re gonna have to rebuild and so that’s kind of the the moral the story here that it’s no different when you’re using Divi or you’re using whatever other theme you’re gonna have to start over if you decide to switch themes or page builders.
04:38 David Blackmon: Yeah I totally agree. I mean regardless of you know which theme you use in WordPress or you know bootstrap your own and custom-built your own thing if you go to a new website and change you’re gonna have some work period bottom line. It’s not going to ever be “click of a button migration”, boom! “everything is beautiful and amazing”. I don’t care what theme you can have the most simplest theme in the world – the simplest theme in the world. There’s going to be some work that’s going to have to go into you know making, it look the best way that it possibly could look. So yeah I agree with everything Tim said and I hope we’ve answered your question and debunked the
Divi shortcode myth because it doesn’t matter what theme you got, you know. I don’t know if you know I I don’t know really why some people chose to jump on that bandwagon. But you know what it hasn’t slowed down Divi from becoming extremely popular and millions of people using the theme and stuff so yeah don’t be afraid.
05:49 Tim Strifler: Ya know it that’s exactly right and I challenge anybody who’s curious to do this test yourself you know with Divi and with you
know Beaver Builder and Elementor both have free versions and the plug-in repository. Use one of their default layouts and then deactivate it and you’ll see what happens. It looks really crummy and so it’s like is that any better than short codes that are showing empty like either way you’re gonna have to redesign. Plus, with Divi you have access to some amazing Divi Plugins and an incredible community that is unmatched by any other page builder. So, “if Divi is forever” (which it isn’t more than any other page builder), than I’m okay with that. That’s sort of why I called my business Divi Life.
06:17 David Blackmon: Empty like either way you’re gonna have to redesign so that’s that’s that’s it prevent WordPress comment spam we get a lot of it or shall I say we used to get a lot of it we’re gonna tell you about it. Tim until tomorrow we’ll see you then.
06:34 Tim Strifler: Take care bye bye.
Did you Enjoy this Episode? * Will you consider sharing it online? Just click one of the share buttons below! * Will you leave us a review? 🙂 * Have a question, or a topic request? Let us know in the comments below!
Want to Connect with David & Tim? * David: + Aspen Grove Studios + Divi Space * Tim: + TimStrifler.com + Divi Life
The post Debunking the Divi Shortcode Fallacy | EP 632 appeared first on WP Gears.
What’s the Difference Between WordPress.com and WordPress.org? 1. The difference 01:19
Read the full episode transcript below: 00:25 David Blackmon: E verybody welcome to another episode of WP The Podcast I’m David Blackmon.
00:35 Tim Strifler: And I’m Tim Strifler.
00:37 David Blackmon: And this is brought to you by WP Gears. I sounded so official, I almost threw myself off I liked introductions to be really casual and laid-back in that time I felt like I was very official, and I’m David Blackmon you know. So yeah today we’ve got a great episode what’s the difference between WordPress.com and WordPress.org. We get this question asked a lot and a lot of people who manage their own website or small businesses that do it themselves. They don’t really realize that there is actually a difference between WordPress.com and WordPress.org. They automatically assume WordPress is WordPress and yes that’s true. However there isn’t one major difference between these two Tim.
01:18 Tim Strifler: Yeah and so WordPress is in this it’s actually kind of annoying that they have the same name, because people will here oh “yeah WordPress has a most popular website platform and blah blah blah”. Like you know my web guy recommended WordPress and so if I start googling and stuff. And then they come across WordPress.com and so they like oh this is the WordPress that everyone’s talking about. Well maybe but probably not because WordPress.org is open-source software you can put that software anywhere you want any server whatever
you can download it you can make changes to it, add plugins stuff like that. It’s fully open and you can do whatever right, and so that’s why because the open source nature of it. That’s why it’s so popular and 30% of the Internet’s built on it. However WordPress.com is a closed system and that closed system is a walled garden, meaning that it might look pretty but you are limited on what you can do. You can only do the things that they allow you to do similar to Squarespace and wicks and Shopify and stuff like that and so it’s a hosted solution so they take care of everything for you so there’s a lot of benefits to it but you don’t get to do anything you want like Beaver Builder on WordPress.com you have
to use one of their built-in themes where wordpress.org can take that software put on a server add whatever plugins, whatever themes, whatever you want to do and so that’s the main difference.
02:42 David Blackmon: Yeah create your own theme, Yeah freedom flexibility WordPress.org is the way that we highly recommend versus WordPress.com. Because at the end of the day you want to own and manage your own website. So there you go big difference. Tomorrow we’ve got another great topic debuging the Divi shortcode myth. Tim until tomorrow we’ll see you then.
03:07 Tim Strifler: Take care, bye bye.
Did you Enjoy this Episode? * Will you consider sharing it online? Just click one of the share buttons below! * Will you leave us a review? 🙂 * Have a question, or a topic request? Let us know in the comments below!
Want to Connect with David & Tim? * David: + Aspen Grove Studios + Divi Space * Tim: + TimStrifler.com + Divi Life
The post What’s the Difference Between WordPress.com and WordPress.org | EP 631 appeared first on WP Gears.
How to Clear All Your Caches in WordPress 1. What is cashe 00:49 2. Caching Plugins 01:53 3. Server level, theme level and Cloudflare 02:50 4. Browser Cashe 05:26
Read the full episode transcript below: 00:25 David Blackmon: Hey everybody. Welcome to another episode of WP The Podcast brought to you by WP Gears. I’m David Blackmon.
00:35 Tim Strifler: And I’m Tim Stifler.
00:37 David Blackmon: Today in episode 630. We’re going to talk about how to clear all your caches in WordPress. Tim, give us a snapshot of what cache actually is.
00:49 Tim Strifler: Yeah, absolutely. So, uh, basically a cash is a static version of your dynamic page. So WordPress basically typically when you load a new page on your site and you’re viewing it on the front end, it goes to the WordPress database and checks to make sure it has the most recent version of the page and compiles everything. And, uh, it’s actually pretty lengthy process. So cashing we’ll take a static version of the page and serve that to the user instead. And so it dramatically speeds up your site. And so typically when you’re troubleshooting, you’re saying “Hey, something’s not working”. You might hear someone says, “Hey, go clear your cache, see if that solves it”. And the reason for that is you might be viewing a version of the page that isn’t showing the changes that you just made. However, what makes it confusing? And the reason for this episode is there’s a lot of different types of cash, depending on certain things. You might not be utilizing all of these things, but, uh, there’s a lot of different ways to clear your cache. And so it’s important to know which ones to do and, and that sort of thing. And so that’s, that’s what we’re going to talk about today.
01:53 David Blackmon: Well, the first level that you can clear your cash, the way that you can clear it is to use a Caching Plugin most common way with WordPress, most sites, install, cache plugins, so that they can speed up your site. Gives you the ability to clear the cache and stuff. So whether you’re using a plugin like ours, Divi, Rocket for Divi or WP, Rocket WP, fastest cache w three total cash. There’s so many of them, it’s not even funny. Uh, there’s going to give you multiple ways to clear that cash within your website. And, um, so that’s the easiest, fastest, and typically that’ll solve most of your problems. You don’t typically need to go and do these next three things that Tim’s going to talk about, or even the, the last thing that I’ll talk about. Again, typically this will solve all of your problems. It’s just clearing the cache by using Clashing Plugin.
02:50 Tim Strifler: Yeah. And every cash plugins, a little bit different on how you clear the cash, but typically you’ll have something in the admin bar that will say clear cash. And so. It’s usually as simple as that. Now if that doesn’t solve it, the next thing to do is, uh, you may or may not have hosting that has server level cash. So for example, um, WP Engine Flywheel and, and so forth, they’ll have a caching at the server level. And so you have to log into your. Portal and click clear cache. I think SiteGround has it too built into the C panel. You can clear the cash there. And so depending on what you’re doing, sometimes you need to do that, that server level cache clear. And so I think WP engine actually has a built into. WP admin, a way to purge the cash without having to actually log into the WP engine portal. But Flywheel, for example, doesn’t mean you have to log into the Flywheel portal and clear it there for that specific site. Um, and that’s typically the second most effective thing. So as David mentioned, right, Clearing your cache plugin will usually solve any issues and allow you to see the most UpToDate version. Um, and then the next thing, if that doesn’t, doesn’t do it, then the server level cashes next. So those are the kind of the first to go to that we recommend. Now, now this third one I want to talk about is a little bit on the newer side, and that is a theme level cash. So, um, I don’t know exactly what, uh, Themes have this, but Divi does. And we’re in the Divi World. We make Divi products and plugins and so forth. And so Divi actually has a builtin cash, uh, that you need to clear. And I’ve been finding that it’s, it’s more and more aggressive. And so, uh, with our product support, we’ve been telling people more often to clear their Divi cash. And so when you go to Divi theme options, build their tab and then click on the clear button for the next to the cash. And so that’ll solve a lot of problems. Too. So that’s typically the third thing. And then the fourth thing is using CloudFlare or CDN. So say for example, you’re using a style sheet, uh, in a child theme to, for all your custom CSS. Well, if you’re using something like CloudFlare or another CDN, like MaxCDN or something like that, well, a lot of times your style sheet, uh, will get, uh, cashed, uh, at the CDN or CloudFlare level. And so you’ll need to do a, a. Cash purge at that level too. Uh, if you’re not seeing that the custom CSS that you just added, and so it doesn’t happen a lot, but, uh, sometimes I’ve seen that happen in clearing that will kind of solve the problem. So enough of me talking, David, what’s the last thing to do?
05:26 David Blackmon: Last thing on our list in regards to clearing cash is actual browser cash. A lot of times your browser will store the information, you’ll make updates to your website and it just won’t show on the browser. And I’ll be honest. This is the one I hate the most because, um, there’s so many ways to clear the browser cache and stuff. And if I have to go in and do a complete. History wipe, which is okay. The only problem with that is a lot of times it’ll erase your passwords and usernames and you’ll have to re log in and type a whole bunch of stuff. But browser cache is the last level. Uh, Chrome, for example, you can hit command shift R and it will reload the site and the page that you’re on. So hopefully you won’t have to go into the history and delete your entire history cash. Um, but there are some settings also in a lot of the browsers, which will allow you to save. The password and not clear it when you clear the cash, doesn’t always work in my experience and I always have to go log in re log in to all my emails and whatever else I have opened that I’m logged into, which is typically a lot.
06:34 Tim Strifler: But yeah, command shift are in Chrome. What will clear the browser cache for just that webpage, which is really handy. And most people don’t even realize that there is such thing as a browser cache, but basically the way to see it is go to a website you’ve never been to before close it and then go back to it. And you’ll notice it loads a lot faster. The second time is, cause that browsers storing a lot of that website information right there in the browser. And so you want to clear that if you’re making changes and need to see those changes.
07:00 David Blackmon: Well tomorrow, we’ve got another great episode. What’s the difference between WordPress.com and WordPress.org. We get this question asked a lot and we’re going to go through it tomorrow, Tim, until tomorrow. We’ll see you then.
07:14 Tim Strifler: Take care. Bye. Bye.
Did you Enjoy this Episode? * Will you consider sharing it online? Just click one of the share buttons below! * Will you leave us a review? 🙂 * Have a question, or a topic request? Let us know in the comments below!
Want to Connect with David & Tim? * David: + Aspen Grove Studios + Divi Space * Tim: + TimStrifler.com + Divi Life
The post How to Clear All Your Caches in WordPress | EP 630 appeared first on WP Gears.
How to Easily Deactivate All WordPress Plugins Without Affecting the Front End of the Website 1. Safe Mode 00:52
Read the full episode transcript below: 00:25 David Blackmon: Everybody welcome to another episode of WP The Podcast brought to you by WP Gears I’m David Blackmon.
00:35 Tim Strifler: And I’m Tim Strifler.
00:37 David Blackmon: Today an episode 629 we’re going to talk about how to easily deactivate all wordpress plugins without affecting the front end of your website. This is going to be done very simply with a plug-in that Tim is gonna tell you all about.
00:52 Tim Strifler: Yeah and before I tell you the plugin really quickly I thought that’s something if you’re using the Divi theme or I think Elementor has it too. Divi has Safe Mode built in. Where you can basically do what we’re going to talk about here and you activate safe
mode and it’ll deactivate all the plugins on your site as well as any you know custom stuff you’ve done, and it will basically show the website in Safe Mode only to you, the person that’s logged in. So any of your visitors and stuff like that are gonna see the website with everything activated and so that’s what this plug-in does as well. So if you’re not using Divi you can install the WP Safe Mode plugin it’s free plug-in the WordPress plug-in repository. It’s by Markus Sykes and it will basically allow you to disable or even switch to another theme. So disable your themes switch to another theme as well as disable certain plugins or all plugins, so you can see what’s happening when you install a certain plugin. So say something’s not working on your site but you get a lot of traffic, you don’t want to just start deactivating plugins, you can use WP safe mode so that the visitor will see something or see everything activated and working and stuff and then you can kind of troubleshoot behind the
scenes. So it’s a really useful thing to do.
02:10 David Blackmon: It’s an awesome plugin highly recommend it, and the best part is it’s free! Episode 630 tomorrow, how to clear all your caches and WordPress, and no folks, were not we’re not talking about your wallet or money to an end. Tim until tomorrow we’ll see you then.
02:28 Tim Strifler: Take care bye bye.
Did you Enjoy this Episode? * Will you consider sharing it online? Just click one of the share buttons below! * Will you leave us a review? 🙂 * Have a question, or a topic request? Let us know in the comments below!
Want to Connect with David & Tim? * David: + Aspen Grove Studios + Divi Space * Tim: + TimStrifler.com + Divi Life
The post How to Easily Deactivate All WordPress Plugins Without Affecting the Front End of the Website| EP 629 appeared first on WP Gears.
Can’t Access WordPress Admin Here’s What to Do! 1. “Cowboy Coding” 00:47 2. Retreace your steps 01:39 3. Worst Case Scenario 03:50 4. Backup! 04:38
Read the full episode transcript below: 00:25 David Blackmon: Hey everybody welcome to another episode of WP The Podcast brought to you by WP Gears I’m David Blackmon.
00:35 Tim Strifler: And I’m Tim Strifler.
00:37 David Blackmon: Today in episode 628 we’re gonna talk about the WordPress admin, and oh no I can’t access my website what the heck should I do? Tim get us kicked off!
00:47 Tim Strifler: Yeah so that you might be making changes adding plugins doing this updating whatever, and all of a sudden your website you’re getting that white screen of death, as its known as in cowboy code. Yeah cowboy coding which is editing live within the the WordPress theme editor or or something and all of a sudden, you’re getting that “white screen of death”. Or you’re getting like you know some sort of an error and so we’re going to talk about a couple things they can happen for a few different reasons and I think David has a blog post pulled up that will link to in the show notes of some of the common things that can can cause that and do you have that David?
01:26 David Blackmon: I do not have it open Tim, but there are five different things PHP errors white screen of death forgot your password and couple of others and that will typically cause that and we will link to that in the blog in the show notes as well.
01:39 Tim Strifler: Yeah, and basically what you want to do is the first thing you want to do, is kind of retrace your steps. Right so figure out what you just did, that caused it. Like so did you just install a plug-in which can be a common thing, or do you do did you do an update to a
plug-in or theme, did you add some custom code here. And so if you can figure out what the last thing you did then you’ll be able to kind of step back from that, and in undo it. So for example if you did an update to a plug-in or theme or you added a new plug-in or theme and that’s what caused it well you can’t just go into WP Admin, and deactivate it because that’s the whole issue is you can’t access WP admin. So what you want to do is you want to get into your site via FTP and from there go into the WP contents folder and then go into the plugins folder or the theme folder depending on you know what you last did. And you want to basically manually deactivate the plug-in in question, and you might not know exactly what pocket, but you might have an idea of a couple plugins. And so the way you manually deactivate a plugin is you don’t delete the folder but you rename the folder. So for example say the the plugin is Gravity Forms for example well you want to just type in rename the folder Gravity Forms – you know broken or something like that or old, or you know or the letter A or something. Doesn’t matter what it is but
you want to make it something to where you can easily undo that and basically get it back to the way it’s supposed to be. When you want to be able to act to activate the plugin again and so when you by renaming the folder you’re basically because WordPress activates it based off of the folder and so when you change that, then it automatically deactivates it because that’s no longer pulling from that same folder and so it forces it to deactivate. And so you want to do that until you can kind of see if the issue stops and you’re able to see that front end of the site again and access wp-admin. So that’s a really useful trick in troubleshooting that you can do, and then I’m gonna stop talking here for a minute and David can talk about another useful step as well.
03:50 David Blackmon: Absolutely! Yeah the the final step that you know, worst case scenario is you’re gonna revert from a backup if needed. So you may we always recommend highly recommend many times on WP The Podcast always backup your website! Depending on how often you are producing new content on your website is, how often you should have it backed up. But worst case scenario let’s just say you’ve done
all the steps that we’ve talked about you’ve went in you’ve troubleshot with the plug ins you’ve renamed them and nothing’s working, worst case but you know worst case scenario you’re just gonna need to revert from a backup if needed so grab one of your backups upload it to your website your latest backup and that should get you back to being able to log in.
04:38 Tim Strifler: Yeah and the reason why we don’t recommend that first, is typically most people have like nightly backups right? And so anything that you did that day, you know like for instance, some of the stuff that may have caused. The issue you might lose some of that work, so you might have been editing and adding content stuff, and then you do one thing and that breaks the site rules. You don’t want to necessarily lose all the work that you just did, and so that’s why the backup is kind of a last resort! Type of thing you want to be able to try to step back from the thing that actually caused the issue and then another thing worth noting too on the backup side of things is. Anytime I’m doing something
that I think could potentially cause issues, when it was especially when it comes to you know, a live site like my main site, then I will do a backup first. For example if I’m gonna do some plug-in updates or theme updates or I’m gonna add a plug-in or something like that I’ll always just go into my WP engine server and do a quick backup. And so whatever backup method you’re doing I always do a backup when you you’re gonna be doing stuff like that. That could potentially bring down your site so yeah.
05:41 David Blackmon: Absolutely! All right tomorrow we’ve got another great topic how to easily deactivate all WordPress plugins without
affecting the front-end of your website. Tim until tomorrow we’ll see you then.
05:57 Tim Strifler: Take care, bye bye.
Did you Enjoy this Episode? * Will you consider sharing it online? Just click one of the share buttons below! * Will you leave us a review? 🙂 * Have a question, or a topic request? Let us know in the comments below!
Want to Connect with David & Tim? * David: + Aspen Grove Studios + Divi Space * Tim: + TimStrifler.com + Divi Life
The post Can’t Access WordPress Admin Here’s What to Do! | EP 628 appeared first on WP Gears.
How to Control the Facebook Thumbnail in WordPress 1. YOAST Plugin 01:00 2. All-in-one SEO Plugin 02:33
Read the full episode transcript below: 00:25 David Blackmon: Everybody welcome to another episode of WP The Podcast brought to you by WP Gears I’m David Blackmon.
00:35 Tim Strifler: And I’m Tim Strifler.
00:37 David Blackmon: Today in episode 627 we’re gonna talk about how to control the Facebook thumbnail in WordPress. You may notice that sometimes when you share your content from your website to social media platforms such as Facebook it’s not showing the image that you really want to display. And we’re gonna tell you how to fix that really easily and quickly.
01:00 Tim Strifler: Yeah and so by default WordPress will typically use like or yeah Facebook will use your WordPress featured post or
featured image of the post that you’re sharing or the page or whatever. But a lot of times you might not have a featured image. Like if it’s a page or you know something like that and so then what it’ll try to do is use the first image of the page. However if you’re using a page builder it sometimes has a hard time like grabbing it so instead it might grab like your your favicon and so you’ll have a thumbnail in Facebook and it will basically have your favicon all stretched out and just looks horrible. And so you want to be able to control that. And sometimes like for me I run Facebook ads and Facebook has some strict rules on how much text they allow in the image, and so what I’ll do is I’ll have a normal featured image that might have the text over the amount that Facebook can use and that’s just the image that shows up on my site but then I might have a different image that shows up on the Facebook thumbnail. That’s reducing the amount of text that way Facebook doesn’t penalize me when I
start running an ad for that post and so having that fine-tuned control is really really useful. And so the first way to do that this is what David and I
both use is Yoast. We use the Yoast plug-in for SEO and being able to control the title tags and meta descriptions and the sitemap and stuff
like that. We’ll Yoast has some other kind of additional features built in such as being able to control the Facebook thumbnail for each individual
WordPress page post custom post type etc so that’s that’s what we highly recommend.
02:33 David Blackmon: The second one is another tool All-in-one SEO which is very similar to. Yes they are both plug-ins for WordPress that allow you to control a lot of what Tim was talking about, title ,meta tag, you can in that social settings on both of those plugins you’re gonna be able to set which image. And I highly recommend that you do this just getting habit of doing it one thing that you’re gonna want to make sure that you do. However if for example Facebook grabs the favicon image that Tim talked about, you’re gonna need to go and use the Facebook debugger to reset that image. So if you just Google Facebook debugger we’ll put a link in the actual episode of the blog posts on WP Gears, calm, but you just need to go in quickly debug that it’ll grab the new image that you’ve set in Yoast, or All-in-one SEO and then boom you’re done! That’s how you control the Facebook thumbnail and WordPress and it’s super easy. It’s like really quick, but if you get in the habit of doing it it’s gonna benefit you in the long run and stuff.
03:39 Tim Strifler: Yeah absolutely, nothing more to say. There might be standalone plugins that allow you to do that but we recommend
just using an SEO plugin for all the additional benefits as well.
03:49 David Blackmon: So tomorrow we’ve got another great episode, can access the WordPress admin here’s what you do Tim until tomorrow we’ll see you then.
03:58 Tim Strifler: Take care, bye bye.
Did you Enjoy this Episode? * Will you consider sharing it online? Just click one of the share buttons below! * Will you leave us a review? 🙂 * Have a question, or a topic request? Let us know in the comments below!
Want to Connect with David & Tim? * David: + Aspen Grove Studios + Divi Space * Tim: + TimStrifler.com + Divi Life
The post How to Control the Facebook Thumbnail in WordPress | EP 627 appeared first on WP Gears.
How to Use WordPress User Roles to Manage Website Access 1. Admin 01:25 2. Editor 03:10 3. Author 03:41 4. Contributor 04:10 5. Custom Plugins 04:44
Read the full episode transcript below: 00:25 David Blackmon: Hey everybody. Welcome to another episode of WP The Podcast brought to you by WP Gears. I’m David Blackmon.
00:35 Tim Strifler: I’m Tim Strifler.
00:37 David Blackmon: Today in episode 626 we’re going to talk about how to use wordpress user roles to manage website Access. Now this comes into play with anyone who has a WordPress website you may have people that work on your website, that contribute as authors or they do front-end work back-end work, and you may not want them having access to your entire site and we’re gonna that’s what the role editors is used for it’s to control users ability to do specific things on your website. So Ttim’s gonna kind of let us know what each role is and then we’re going to kind of dive into it a little more.
01:12 Tim Strifler: Yeah and let me eah. And let me just say really quickly, uh. If you have to give someone access to your website, the last thing you want to do is send someone, your admin username and password. So the existing username and password that you use to log into your site. And for some of you are like, well, duh, of course I want to do that, but it happens a lot. And we see it a lot, with our product support companies where, our support will say, “Hey, we need access to site, please, give us admin access”, and the user will actually send us the username and password that they use. And it’s like, you know, they didn’t reset the password or anything. It’s just super insecure. So what you want to do is you want to give someone their own user account depending on the access level that they need. So in the example, I just gave with, uh, Like product support and that sort of thing. You’re probably going to want to give admin, but you want to create a new admin user that way when you’re done, the support department has done fixing the issue or whatever, you can simply delete the admin account and then it’s gone, the access has been revoked. Um, and so that way you don’t give out your, your actual username and password. So, um, Just wanted it to kind of say that first up. And that’s kind of why WordPress has the ability to have user accounts. So everyone’s not logging in with the same username and password, but the highest level of, uh, for a typical WordPress site is admin. Now I say typical, because if you’re using WordPress multi-site, we’re not going to get into that. In this episode, WordPress multisite has a super admin user account. We’ll, we’ll discuss that on a, on a later episode, but, um, for a standard WordPress install, adamin is the highest level. Everything is, is included, uh, in that access so that you can add new users, you can add new plugins, new themes, you can edit all the plugins and themes and stuff like that. You have access to everything.
03:10 David Blackmon: Awesome! Next was is the editor role. T hey don’t have the ability to add plugins change themes add users the only thing that they can do is add and edit and remove content. So for example you write blog posts and you put blog content on your website and editor’s going to basically be able to have admin privileges for your blog. Basically they’re going to be able to create new publish uh post content and stuff.
03:41 Tim Strifler: Yeah absolutely! Now the next user access role is a little less than the editor is the author. Now authors can add and edit their own content but they can’t edit other content. So the editor like the name suggests can edit and have access to everything where an author can only add and edit their own content. And so they can’t go and delete someone else’s post or add to it or anything like that but they can access their own stuff and they can even publish as well.
04:10 David Blackmon: And the last role that we’re going to talk about is a contributor. A contributor can add content to your website but they do not have the ability to publish. So if you want to review something before it’s actually published or if you want to control when content is published on your site you may want to consider using uh the contributor role for people who produce content on your site. That way you have access you you have the ability to manage when that content is actually published.
04:44 Tim Strifler: Yeah now those are all of the the default built-in roles that come with wordpress out of the box admin editor author contributor
however other plugins will add additional user roles uh depending on what the plugin does and that sort of thing. So for example Woocommerce and Easy Digital Downloads will add like Subscriber or Customer user roles as well. As like shop manager or store manager whatever to be able to add. And edit products and access store details and stuff like that and so um depending on on the plugins you’re using you might see additional user roles there. Now there’s also ways to create custom user roles as well as edit the roles so for example maybe you want um
a Woocommerce store manager to to do everything that they can by default, but you also want to add maybe one additional capability that normally isn’t included. Well using a plugin that will allow you to edit the roles such as advanced access manager or user role editor we’ll have the links to those in the show notes you can go in, and you can Make changes to those roles or create an entirely new role and add different capabilities. So it basically pulls in the different capabilities of your site and you can kind of customize what you want the role to be able to do which is really powerful and then one last thing we want to recommend is is always test this like make sure that if you’re giving someone access that you know everything that they have access to and don’t guess actually see what they’re saying there’s a really easy way to do that you can use a plugin called User Switching or User Switcher. One of the two and basically you can go into uh WP admin users and then click the switch to link and it will show you what they see when they’re logged in and so that way you can see everything they have access to and and so forth so you know, what you’re giving people access to on your site. So that’s really important.
06:43 David Blackmon: Absolutely! We hope this episode has been helpful on how to use wordpress user roles and give you some ideas on
how to manage what the users can do and not do on your site. Tomorrow we’ve got another great topic how to control the facebook
thumbnail and wordpress. Tim?
07:02 Tim Strifler: Take care, bye bye.
07:04 David Blackmon: Bye-bye until tomorrow we’ll see you then.
Did you Enjoy this Episode? * Will you consider sharing it online? Just click one of the share buttons below! * Will you leave us a review? 🙂 * Have a question, or a topic request? Let us know in the comments below!
Want to Connect with David & Tim? * David: + Aspen Grove Studios + Divi Space * Tim: + TimStrifler.com + Divi Life
The post How to Use WordPress User Roles to Manage Website Access | EP 626 appeared first on WP Gears.
5 Things you can do with Inspect Element 1. What is Inspect Element 00:48 2. Different devices 01:41 3. Time-saver 02:30 4. Check for JavaScript 04:35 5. See all resources 05:15 6. Learning 06:18
Read the full episode transcript below: 00:28 David Blackmon: Hey everybody welcome to another episode of WP The Podcast brought to you by WP Gears. I’m David Blackmon.
00:34 Tim Strifler: And I’m Tim Strifler.
00:37 David Blackmon: Today in episode 6 twenty five we’re gonna talk about five things you can do with Inspect Element. Tim won’t you get us kicked off and tell us first of all what the heck is Inspect Element?
00:48 Tim Strifler: Yeah absolutely. So it’s built into every major browser. There’s basically the same, there’s some differences and some are better than others. In my opinion chrome works the best and so that’s what I use for development purposes. But basically you can right click and just click Inspect and it’s going to pull up the inspector as I call it. And then you can basically click on in the arrow and then click on any part of the page and then it’s going to show you the HTM. It’s going to show you the CSS that goes with it, and you can you basically are pulling back the layer, the top layer of the website to see what’s underneath. And so it can be a really really effective tool for web development purposes.
01:37 David Blackmon: All right. What’s the first reason Tim? What’s the first thing you can do with Inspect Element?
01:41 Tim Strifler: Yeah the first thing you can do is you can view the website on different devices without actually having. To open up those devices and so for example when you’re building a website you want to make sure it looks good on mobile right? But you also want to make sure it looks good on the individual different mobile’s right? And so there’s the mobile settings built in and they have presets for iPhone 10 for iPhone six seven and eight plus for the Google pixel two and so it’s basically going to show you the dimensions of the page that are in that for that specific device. And so you can see like “hey something isn’t looking right on this specific size” which is you know the iPhone 10 for example and so super effective way to be able to do mobile responsive web design.
02:30 David Blackmon: And second thing on our list which I absolutely love and is a huge time saver. Is you can absolutely love and is a huge time saver. If you can CSS changes and view in real time on the website now this won’t save it but if you’re developing websites as opposed to you know say “I want to try out this color to see if this color looks good on my website homepage”, you know… I can open up Inspect Element and edit the color real time within the Inspect Element window and see it live, happening right there as opposed to changing the color on the back end of the WordPress website. Hitting save hitting preview going to the front-end then going back to the backend and doing this back and forth thing over and over and over again. You can actually make CSS changes and view it in real time on the front-end of the website using the Inspect Element and that’s huge not only for colors but styling any type of styling. Whatsoever can be done and it’s just a huge Time-saver.
03:33 Tim Strifler: Yeah and when I learned what David just described, I think it was maybe 2012, it was a absolute GameChanger! Yeah it honestly it was a a game-changer, because yes I knew about CSS and I remember like getting technical support from you know different you know theme companies whatever, and they like hand me a little CSS snippet that would do what I wanted to do, and it’s like okay. I understood the concept but it’s like I don’t know how to write it from scratch. Well when you can right-click and view the CSS and make the changes as David described and then you can copy it and put it in your Divi theme options, if you’re using Divi or whatever theme you’re using, whatever they are actually WordPress has it built in, now in the theme customizer your little CSS box. Well the way that CSS works is the browser reads CSS from top to bottom whatever is loaded last gets priority and overrides everything above it. And so you can make those changes in the inspector copy it paste it and boom you just made CSS changes to your site without actually having knowing how to write CSS from scratch. So the next one on the list is of the five things you can do with inspect element is check for JavaScript error and warning. So when you’re trying to troubleshoot something something’s not quite working, you installed a new plugin and all of a sudden it’s conflicting with another, and you’re not sure what’s going on you’re not sure what plugin is it is conflicting.. Well you can open up the browser inspector and go over to the console yeah the console and I so used to clicking on it and then it’s gonna show you what JavaScript errors or warnings are happening, and they can give
you a better idea of where the issue lies so that’s super super helpful.
05:15 David Blackmon: All right next on our list number four is the ability to see all the resources a website is loading, and from where. Tim you’re more of our technical guy so you’re gonna have to talk about that too..
05:31 Tim Strifler: Yeah absolutely. So when you right click and click on sources it’s going to show you all the different resources that it’s loading. So all the images that it’s loading if it’s pulling in scripts from other sites you know maybe like Facebook or YouTube and stuff like that and so if you want to see you know how a website doing a certain thing and you’re trying to get to the bottom of it, will loading up the sources. And all the the resources that are being loaded that the browser’s are loading can be a really effective way of doing that, and so there’s not you know one necessarily one use case for this it kind of depends on what you’re trying to do, but it’s basically gonna show you all the different places that a website’s actually loading stuff from. So like Google Fonts for example would be an external resource and that’s going to show up there.
06:18 David Blackmon: And last but not least number five on our expect element is learning. It allows you to see how a web page is compiling you know, how the CSS affects things. So it’s a great learning tool like Tim was talking about in a couple of points back it was eye-opening and life-changing whenever he realized that you know he could utilize the CSS that was you know from Inspect Element put it in make exchanges and put it into his website it’s a great learning tool. Because I remember the same thing it was like “a aha moment” it was like “oh my god the holy grail of web development” and the good news is I didn’t have to be a CSS expert to feel comfortable with making styling changes with CSS. Because It’s element gave me that confidence to do it and stuff. So learning is huge it’s really important and it’s a great thing. So there you go yeah are five things you can do with Inspect Element.
07:16 Tim Strifler: Yeah… Well the last thing I want to act quickly the last point David, is if you’re a visual learner like me, and I think like you too David like it doesn’t get any more visual than that when you’re able to click around the page and see how different things are made and the CSS like. I’m that’s how I learn is getting writing in there getting my hands dirty so it’s a perfect learning tool.
07:37 David Blackmon: Awesome! Tomorrow in episode 626 how to use WordPress user roles to manage website accounts. Tim?
07:45 Tim Strifler: Take care bye bye.
07:47 David Blackmon: Until tomorrow we’ll see you then.
Did you Enjoy this Episode? * Will you consider sharing it online? Just click one of the share buttons below! * Will you leave us a review? 🙂 * Have a question, or a topic request? Let us know in the comments below!
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The post 5 Things You Can do with Inspect Element | EP 625 appeared first on WP Gears.
Should I monetize my website with ads 1. Decrease User experience 01:26 2. Usefull content and aesthetics 03:40 3. Distracting 07:17
Read the full episode transcript below: 00:28 David Blackmon: Hey everybody welcome to another episode of WP The Podcast brought to you by WP Gears I’m David Blackmon.
00:34 Tim Strifler: And I’m Tim Strifler.
00:37 David Blackmon: Today in episode 624 we’re going to talk about whether or not you should monetize your website with ads. I’m gonna throw this out there Tim put this underneath our topic he said, David yes, Tim no, and partially true he’s partially partially partially correct David is yes absolutely, but it depends.
01:03 Tim Strifler: Yeah and really I’m like no! You probably shouldn’t however in some cases you might exact, so we we actually are
probably more in agreement, but it’s just kind of fun to argue you know the two different sides to it . So David you want to go first who do you want me to explain why I said no?
01:20 David Blackmon: Oh oh no! I want to overcome the objection, I want you to go first with the no. There we go I like that.
01:26 Tim Strifler: So in my opinion in most cases no. You should not add ads to your website. Now first of all I feel like the debate really should only come up when you have a Content website with the blog and you have lots of traffic in organic traffic with really good search rankings and stuff like that, if you’re a you know a small business and you have a mom and pop type of online brochure type of website like then 100 percent no do not had ads to your website. But if you have a content site that’s kind of where the question comes up is like hey I’m getting you know have a lot of blog post and a lot getting a lot of traffic “should I add ads”, my answer is no, because I think it can decrease the user experience and people depending on the type of ads like banner ads especially. People just don’t like to click on them they get annoyed in my opinion. I think what you should do is you build a brand and you with an email list and everything and you monetize through affiliates right. So if you look at like some of the big WordPress companies or blogs like WPbeginner, beginner doesn’t sell any products on Wpbeginner.com they also don’t have any ads last time I checked. However they make a killing off of affiliate marketing by doing content blog posts, reviews tutorials on different WordPress related products and services. And then they make a commission on it, and so to me that’s provides the best user experience also. You’re recommending something and so you know there’s money being made on you know both sides and so to me that’s typically what I recommend. However in some cases you know in ads might work. I don’t have a lot of experience with that but personally when it’s not when I’m on a blog I don’t like to see ads. If I’m in my facebook newsfeed sure look at that if I’m on YouTube sure ads but when I’m on a on a blog I don’t like it. Getting cluttered up with with ads that aren’t specifically written you know for that post like an affiliate you know quote-unquote ad would be. I don’t like automated generated ads on blog posts but that’s just me.
03:40 David Blackmon: Alright! Well there you go Tim’s no, and I do agree with Tim. You know to a certain extent I do think it depends on you know how much traffic you have, what type of website and what your business model is. Obviously he gave the example of Wpbeginner their business model is more of affiliate revenue and content site, and they have 1.3 million readers a month. I’m pretty sure Syedboki is a very smart businessman probably one of the smartest ones in the WordPress space, and if it was a value to him he would have ads there, but he doesn’t. He goes more of useful content and if you find the content useful and you want to purchase some of these products that they review you generate revenue through affiliate money and that’s perfectly okay. However I have a very good friend of mine who is in the RV community and they have a an RV blog and a family blog and they get probably about the same amount of traffic that we get on our Aspen Grove Studios Divi Space websites and I was shocked. You know she did a talk a couple of years ago on you know a very transparent how they earn their revenue and you know what they do and their business to generate income and stuff and one of their biggest if not their biggest revenue generation was ad revenue. And you know to the tune of nearly six figures a year in ad revenue! And you know that’s huge that’s like you know can support your family and it obviously supports their family and stuff. And they travel and whatnot so I guess you know if you have that opportunity then absolutely yes. I think you know my own mind. You know this is not the 90s anymore or ads used to just it. Used to be pop-up Hill and ads were
just insane everywhere you know people are kind of more anesthetized to it now. You know we kind of we’re used to seeing them so it doesn’t overwhelm us and piss us off as much. So I think you know if you can put ads into your website if you have the traffic to justify it and you’re going to make revenue from it then placing them in your website discreetly and not just overwhelming. It’s going to be good for you from a revenue standpoint and can’t help you and stuff. I’m with Tim on the aesthetics part you know. If you can’t tie it in to where it looks nice and stuff don’t do it because it is tacky I’ll give you an example of one thing that I hate and Tim used this as an example that he was ok with the ads being on and it was YouTube. I’m a big youtuber I love watching YouTube it’s kind of my form of not only entertainment but education I learned a lot of things from YouTube. Well when you open up youtubes homepage the first thing that comes up is this gigantic ad expands at the top of the YouTube page, and I have to scroll down to see the latest videos for the things that I’m interested in. And that’s annoying to me every single time.You now and I gotta hit the X or I got a scroll and it’s just I don’t know… it’s just it’s just kind of annoying to me and stuff.
07:17 Tim Strifler: Yeah yeah! That I don’t like either, but what I meant was more like the when you’re on an individual channel watching someone’s video, and and they have an ad and it’s like yeah it might be a little annoying, but it’s like hey this is helping them you know. They’re creating content like this is how they they get paid type of thing. But yeah.. well I think one thing like on a WordPress website like in a sidebar
banner ad type of thing, or you know it’s pulling it it’s like a Google ad network or Facebook ad network whatever. I think that the reason why I don’t like it is basically it’s distracting from whatever your content is. So if you have a blog post you’re trying to teach something to someone well they’re the ad that’s on there is distracting them from your content. But it’s like you almost want them to be distracted and click on the ad because you get money type of thing and so that’s you know that’s where the issue lies. However when you’re doing like affiliate it’s like no you’re controlling and it’s like you’re your driver to them, to that affiliate product cuz you recommend it and you’re it’s not like distracting with something else so I think that’s the key difference there. But yeah I mean if people you can make money off ads and you know have a great blog and a great brand and people love you and the contents and make money from ads like why not you know.
08:34 David Blackmon: Yeah absolutely! We hope that answers your question of whether or not you should monetize your website with ads. We think we’ve given you a good cross section of when you may want to consider it. Tomorrow in episode whether or not you should monetize your website with ads we think we’ve given you a good cross section of when you may want to consider it. Tomorrow in episode 625 we’ve got five things you can do with inspect element. If you’re building websites or if you ever wanted to know how something’s done you know how did they make this big letter red or padding around it or margins or whatever, we’re going to tell you why this little thing called Inspect Element is so powerful and five things you can do with it. Tim until tomorrow we’ll see you then.
09:06 Tim Strifler: Take care bye bye.
Did you Enjoy this Episode? * Will you consider sharing it online? Just click one of the share buttons below! * Will you leave us a review? 🙂 * Have a question, or a topic request? Let us know in the comments below!
Want to Connect with David & Tim? * David: + Aspen Grove Studios + Divi Space * Tim: + TimStrifler.com + Divi Life
The post Should I Monetize My Website With Ads | EP 624 appeared first on WP Gears.
How To Answer The Do I Need A Website Question From Clients 1. Social Media – a putting eggs to someone else basket 01:12 2. Own your own content and control 02:56
Read the full episode transcript below: 00:28 David Blackmon: Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of WP The Podcast brought to you by WP Gears I’m David Blackmon.
00:35 Tim Strifler: And I’m Tim Strifler.
00:37 David Blackmon: Today at Episode six twenty three, how to answer the do I need a website question from clients? Obviously? Social media is free. Everybody’s on Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Tik-tok you name it? Whatever the next one that comes out. Social media is free and some clients are under the misconception. I’m throwing it out there It’s a huge misconception that they don’t need a website, that everybody is on social and we’re gonna answer why and how you should answer this question? So Tim go.. ?
01:12 Tim Strifler: Ya know this is.. I would say it’s maybe not as common as it was when social media was on the rise and Facebook and Twitter and Instagram, you know came out and all that people were thinking “Oh, this is gonna replace websites”, but it still happens and also in certain niches as well. So for example in the Photography niche or niche depending on how you want to say that word. A lot of photographers have their Instagram profile and that’s it. And they literally do bids through Instagram. There’s their direct messaging people about photography projects. My cousin’s a professional photographer and I see this and so many of them don’t have websites, you know, it’s it’s like It’s not common to have a website. It’s not only like some of them don’t. It’s like most of them don’t, and so Yeah. So that’s that’s definitely a common dish. There’s there’s definitely a lot more where you see that and so I would say, the first thing that you want to tell a client that might be kind of saying that objection when you’re trying to do a website project for them is. When it comes to social media, you don’t own the content. You don’t know anything you’re completely putting all of your eggs in someone else’s basket, whether that’s Instagram, whether it’s Facebook, whether it’s you know, Whatever LinkedIn Twitter doesn’t matter. It’s someone else’s platform so you’re putting your eggs in someone else’s basket when you have your own website, and it’s on your own hosting. And You you know, it’s WordPress and you the continued and everything it’s yours. You can take it wherever you want. Do whatever you want. You control the process. No one can take that away You’re not fighting algorithms. You can build your email list you can build Organic traffic following it within Google and and so forth. And so you are in complete control.
02:56 David Blackmon: I think a perfect example of what you’re talking about Tim. Is Twitter lately with Donald Trump and the censorship that they chose to do to him, you know, which was his.. You know, we’re not this is not a political podcast. Let me throw that out there We’re not endorsing or not endorsing or throwing anybody under the bus. We just want to use as as an example You know. He made some you know, some claims and the platform because he didn’t own the platform, made some opposite claims from him. They didn’t agree with what he was saying, so They changed it and you know what? That’s the reality, you know, these social platforms and stuff. Yes. They’re free Yes, everybody’s on them. However, if the powers that be decide to change things tomorrow, guess what you’re screwed. So yeah do whatever they want. It’s their platform they can do whatever they want. Even if you’re the president of you know the United States of America, they’re gonna do what they want to change it. So Yeah, so it’s it’s really important to you know, own your own content and be in your own platform being control.
04:13 Tim Strifler: Yeah and another story that a really good example that applies to this is something that you told me about David. You had a a friend who had a pretty popular YouTube channel and all of their eggs was in the YouTube basket. And YouTube changed our algorithms and all of a sudden their views and their subscribers just kind of tanked, and it rather than them using YouTube to then build an email list and and build content on their website and start Diversifying they completely relied on the YouTube and it drastically affected their income, right?
04:47 David Blackmon: It killed their income! I mean it went from you know husband and wife – Oh 100% of the revenue and livelihood came from YouTube views and stuff in your right? January of 2019 YouTube changed their algorithm and their revenue tanked it went through the floor, and they had to scramble to figure out a way to, you know.. And I’ll tell you what now, they’re they’re using their website. There are a whole lot more, a whole lot smarter now about this very topic and stuff. So, you know do I need a website question from clients? The the answer is emphatically? 100% yes! Because you don’t own those other platforms. You don’t control it and anything goes they could change tomorrow and your whole business model and revenue can be gone. For you know for all intents and purposes and you could be you know broke and destitute. If you’re relying on that so Whereas if you own the platform and stuff and you build it properly like, you know Tim and I have teach in our course to Divi business expert course, you know You’re gonna be fine. No matter what Facebook YouTube or Twitter or any of those guys do. So Ya! Tomorrow we’ve got another great topic. Should I monetize my website with ads? Tim until tomorrow, we’ll see you then.
06:11 Tim Strifler: Take care. Bye bye.
Did you Enjoy this Episode? * Will you consider sharing it online? Just click one of the share buttons below! * Will you leave us a review? 🙂 * Have a question, or a topic request? Let us know in the comments below!
Want to Connect with David & Tim? * David: + Aspen Grove Studios + Divi Space * Tim: + TimStrifler.com + Divi Life
The post How To Answer The Do I Need A Website Question From Clients | EP 623 appeared first on WP Gears.
Where is the Best Place to Buy a Domain Name 1. Godaddy 00:53 2. Namecheap 02:39
Read the full episode transcript below: 00:28 David Blackmon: Hey everybody welcome to another episode of WP The Podcast brought to you by WP Gears I’m David Blackmon.
00:35 Tim Strifler: And I’m Tim Striffler.
00:37 David Blackmon: Tim it is so good to be back we’re about a week into our WP The Podcast I know our topic is where’s the best place to buy a domain, but i just I’m glad we’re back and I just wanted to say that so.. yeah heck yeah..
00:48 Tim Strifler: I agree.
00:51 David Blackmon: All right why don’t you get us kicked off with today’s topic.
00:53 Tim Strifler: Yeah definitely. Now this is a question you might be asking especially if you’re on the newer side to WordPress and building websites and everything. And you know where’s the best place to buy a domain name, because there might be you know, you might be seeing ads or you know googling it, and seeing a bunch of different companies. And so it’s like you don’t know who to trust. And so we have, we’ve narrowed it down to two companies, that we know that we trust and that we both use purchase products, and specifically domains from. So we can uh recommend these choices with confidence. The first one here is Godaddy. Now Godaddy kind of has a bad reputation when it comes to hosting WordPress websites, they have improved things a lot over the years, and so we don’t necessarily recommend their hosting, but in terms of buying a domain name. That’s what Godaddy does that’s what they’ve done from the beginning that’s what they started out doing was selling domain names and they’ve slowly added more resources and services but domain names is what they do best and they do it very very well. And
so what i like about Godaddy is their internal platform for organizing your domains and everything which. I personally have quite a few domains and David does too, and I have them all in Godaddy and they have really easy to use DNS tools. And so when you’re pointing your domain to your hosting company or you’re going to point it to Cloudflare first and then from their point to your hosting company it’s just really easy
really intuitive and really fast. Where some domain registrars when You change the where you’re pointing that domain the the name servers um or you add a new a record sometimes it’ll take up to 24 hours to what they call propagate. Godaddy on the other hand is very very fast propagation and so it’s like it happens within minutes and so that’s a big deal and so that’s one of a lot of reasons that I choose Godaddy.
02:39 David Blackmon: Couldn’t agree more Tim. Next on our list the second one is Namecheap. Namecheap is a registrar company. That’s what they do, they don’t offer hosting or maybe they offer some website tools now but primarily Godaddy started as a Registrar Namecheap as a registrar so everything that you’re going to get from them is serving what we’re talking about. You know buying a domain name that’s what Godaddy and Namecheap are they are registrars. I think one of the most important factors that Tim didn’t talk about about Godaddy that also applies to Namecheap and why we choose these two is not only are they registrars true registrars. That’s what they started as that’s what they still are but pricing you know they are some of the most cost effective pricing companies for for buying and renewing domains out there. You may be thinking of Register.com network solutions some of the one of the oldest companies out there. But those guys suck. I’m sorry to say it. They just suck! They’ll sell you a domain for 50 cents for the first year and then they want to charge you forty dollars for the “dot com” domain the next year for renewals, and most people don’t know they just automatically renew the forty dollars but guess what, it only cost ten dollars to renew! That so Godaddy has you know, ten or eleven dollars somewhere and Namecheap is the same and they don’t try to screw you on that pricing you know. They keep it low they keep it consistent what it is across the board, so yeah they don’t bait and switch you, you know. They offer special prices from time to time, but they’re they’re not a big bait and switch. I feel like some of the other registrars out there are Network Solutions and Register.com I’m calling you out and throwing you under the bus because I was new and started out with those guys and
man it was a pain in the butt to move away from them! It was a terrible experience every time a renewal would come up I would have to call them and say “why are you charging me 40 dollars? Every other registrar including your biggest competitors are charging 25?”. That so and they would give me the price they would say “oh we’ll match it no problem” and what they’re banking on is people not calling. Yeah people that aren’t going to spend the time or are knowledgeable and stuff. So go with Godaddy, Namecheap – those are our two recommended registrars when
buying a domain name. Tomorrow we’ve got another great topic, how to answer the do I need a website question from clients. Tim until tomorrow we’ll see you then.
05:24 Tim Strifler: Take care bye-bye.
Did you Enjoy this Episode? * Will you consider sharing it online? Just click one of the share buttons below! * Will you leave us a review? 🙂 * Have a question, or a topic request? Let us know in the comments below!
Want to Connect with David & Tim? * David: + Aspen Grove Studios + Divi Space * Tim: + TimStrifler.com + Divi Life
The post Where is the Best Place to Buy a Domain Name | EP 622 appeared first on WP Gears.
How Often Should You Publish Blog Posts 1. More is better 00:52 2. Valuable Content 02:00
Read the full episode transcript below: 00:25 David Blackmon: Hey everybody welcome to WP The Podcast brought to you by WP Gears I’m David Blackmon.
00:34 Tim Strifler: And I’m Tim Strifler.
00:35 David Blackmon: Today we’re going to talk about how often you should publish blog posts. Loaded question obviously. It’s gonna it’s gonna depend on a few factors and Tim and I’ll cover that today. Tim you want me to start this episode off?
00:51 Tim Strifler: Yeah go for it!
00:52 David Blackmon: All right! The quick answer to how often should you publish blog post is how often can you create blog posts! I’m jokingly saying that you know the phrase content is king. Is there for a reason you know content producing content for organic search results and traffic is definitely the long play. It’s definitely the best play so if the more blog posts that you can create the faster that Google’s going to see you as an authority on a specific topic. So you know how many blog posts can you create. I was Simmi joking but it’s the truth initially we started out with one blog post per week we committed to consistently writing one blog post a week a thousand words. And it changed our business now we produce several blog posts per week because the value is just there for us so I don’t want to take this whole topic and want Tim to talk about it some too.
02:00 Tim Strifler: Yeah yeah no but David you’re exactly right and I 100% agree and there’s not really a right answer there’s not a number you know or there’s not a you know how often answer for that, because there’s a lot of factors. But I think a couple of key things is you want to be consistent which is what you mentioned. David consistently writing blog posts and then also you want to make sure they’re really good quality so
you don’t want to blog just to blog. So that you’re publishing something you want to make sure it’s meaningful and it’s valuable and it solves a problem of your ideal customer your ideal audience and then you want to make sure you cover it well. And it’s good quality and it’s not thrown together in just a paragraph and you want it to look really good too. And not be just riddled with grammar and spelling errors and stuff like that so if you can do those things to where you can be consistently publishing it. A blog post that’s quality and valuable and you can do that only once a week then do that and stick with it. But if you can consistently do it twice a week well then get on that schedule make sure you keep the quality up and all of that you need. Again you don’t want to just publish blog posts for the sake of publishing blog posts you want to make sure that they’re they’re adding value and they’re they’re solving some sort of a problem well.
03:13 David Blackmon: There you go folks how often should you publish blog posts? As often as you can! Consistently put out
good useful content so I wish it was five posts a week, but it’s not it depends on your company your brand your bandwidth. A lot of factors so tomorrow we’ve got another great topic where is the best place to buy a domain name Tim..
03:35 Tim Strifler: Take care bye bye.
03:36 David Blackmon: Until tomorrow we’ll see you then.
Did you Enjoy this Episode? * Will you consider sharing it online? Just click one of the share buttons below! * Will you leave us a review? 🙂 * Have a question, or a topic request? Let us know in the comments below!
Want to Connect with David & Tim? * David: + Aspen Grove Studios + Divi Space * Tim: + TimStrifler.com + Divi Life
The post How Often Should You Publish Blog Posts | EP 621 appeared first on WP Gears.
The Best Contact Form Plugins for WordPress 1. Forminator 00:43 2. Gravity Forms 01:42 3. Page Builder 03:04
Read the full episode transcript below: 00:25 David Blackmon: Hey everybody welcome to another episode of WP The Podcast brought to you by WP Gears I’m David Blackmon
00:35 Tim Strifler: And I’m Tim Strifler
00:37 David Blackmon: Today we’re gonna talk about the best contact form plug-ins for WordPress Tim get us kicked off!
00:43 Tim Strifler: Yeah absolutely! Contact form plugins are super important and they’re one of the plugins that you’re pretty much going to use on every website that you build. And so we’re going to talk about a few here. Tthere’s a lot of different options but we’re gonna talk about the the few that that we have the most experience with and recommend. So the first one on the list is Forminator and the reason why we put it top of the list is it’s a hundred percent free and it’s actually a very very high value free plug-in. Meaning that WP mu dev they’re one of the largest WordPress product companies they packed a lot of value into Forminator even though it’s a hundred percent free it’s not a preemium plug-in everything is included in the free version. It’s the only version and they included a lot of features that you would normally have to pay for with other plugins things like multi-step contact forms things like stripe gateways to do payment forms doing conditional logic and and stuff like that and so Forminator is awesome. I’ve used it myself on quite a few sites and it’s super powerful super easy to use and again it’s 100% free.
01:42 David Blackmon: Great choice for number one number two on our list is the total opposite. There is no free version of this plugin however it is probably the de-facto go to WordPress form plug-in and it’s Gravity Forms. They’ve been around for a really long time Tim and I both use it
we both love Gravity Forms and the reason why is it just works it’s an awesome product you know a lot of the stuff that Tim just mentioned it’s free and Forminator and stuff is not free and Gravity Forms. The good news is that you know Gravity Forms has what is somewhat like a one price model which is you pay for the plug-in and you get all of the things that Tim’s talking about. Along with it so you can use the stripe add-on it’s not an you know buy the form plug-in and a bunch of different added costs and stuff it’s one cost per year, but if you’re building websites for clients you know and you’re building multiple websites throughout a year period Gravity Forms developer license is very very affordable so check out Gravity Forms.
03:04 Tim Strifler: Yeah absolutely love Gravity Forms. The third one on the list isn’t actually a plug-in but it’s basically the the contact form that’s built into your page builders. So these days most people are using a page builder David and I are huge fans of the Divi theme and we have product companies where we create products for Divi. And so we use Divi and so Divi has a very basic contact form module as do Divis competitors the other page builders and sometimes that’s all you need if it’s a very very simple sites maybe a low-budget client you don’t want to have to add an extra plug in and do the styling to match you know the rest of the site well using what’s built in there can be a really quick solution. But keep in mind it’s very very limited and it might not do you know the things that you want to do and so you might want to figure out what you need to be able to do before you go down that road.
03:55 David Blackmon: Absolutely! Well those are our top best contact form plug-ins for WordPress. Tomorrow on episode 621 we’re going to
talk about how often should you publish blog posts.Tim until tomorrow we’ll see you then.
04:10 Tim Strifler: Take care bye bye.
Did you Enjoy this Episode? * Will you consider sharing it online? Just click one of the share buttons below! * Will you leave us a review? 🙂 * Have a question, or a topic request? Let us know in the comments below!
Want to Connect with David & Tim? * David: + Aspen Grove Studios + Divi Space * Tim: + TimStrifler.com + Divi Life
The post The Best Contact Form Plugins for WordPress | EP 620 appeared first on WP Gears.
Why You Should Develop Websites Locally 1. Saving time 00:37 2. Security and privacy 02:22 3. No Internet connection needed 03:05
Read the full episode transcript below: 00:28 David Blackmon: Hey everybody welcome to another episode of WP The Podcast brought to you by WP Gears I’m David Blackmon
00:35 Tim Strifler: And I’m Tim Strifler
00:37 David Blackmon: Today we’re going to talk about why you should consider developing websites locally Tim why don’t you tell our audience what that means.
00:45 Tim Strifler: Yeah so developing locally is when you use your local computer as a server. Essentially so traditionally when you’re building a website you are connecting to a server right and you’re logged into your WordPress admin website on that server and when you’re saving you’re making changes your browser, is you know you click Save and it’s going up to the server and then it’s saving. Well with when you’re developing locally you’re using some sort of a software that’s all allowing you to turn your local computer into essentially a server which means faster more secure we’re and talk all about that but in a second. Here I’m not going to step on those points that we haven’t gotten to but that’s essentially what developing locally means and there’s a lot of benefits that come with it. And so the first one is developing locally saves you time because it’s faster processing. So right so because you’re not saving to the Internet you know your your browser’s not connecting via the Internet to a server that might be in a different state or even a different country even. And so because of that it saves a lot of time when you click Save it’s like instant. Additionally it’s a really fastest spin of websites if you’re using a tool like local by Flywheel which by the way is our recommended tool for local development. You can create a new site within seconds and you can even clone sites and do all these different things rather than having to go through a cPanel or your hosting account to spin up a new site and wait for it to be provisioned, and all that it happens almost instantly and so you save a ton of time developing locally.
02:22 David Blackmon: Second point is developing locally is more secure and private. obviously if you’re doing it on your computer at home you’re not it’s not connected that environments not connected to the Internet like a web server is so it’s going to be more secure much more. Private obviously your computer’s connected to the internet so technically I guess if there’s some IT guys out there that are saying yes you know but guess what I’m gonna say I could unplug that internet cable to my computer and still work on my website. Locally on my machine and therein lies the thing it’s it’s more secure and private.
03:05 Tim Strifler: Yeah and that actually leads well into the third point here developing locally allows you to do build your website without having an internet connection. So for example if you are on an airplane flying you don’t have enter now you don’t want to pay for the Wi-Fi the expensive Airport airplane Wi-Fi so you can was yeah it’s it’s very slow and very inconsistent and so you can essentially build your website or build a website without an internet connection. Now certain things might get difficult if you need to go and you know find different design assets and stuff like that but you can actually work on the site without internet which is pretty cool.
03:40 David Blackmon: Well a couple of other tools that we recommend checking out. If you obviously Flywheel is our number one choice but also there’s a great company out there in the WordPress community and they do a lot at Word camps and stuff is server press so if you want to actually set up your own local environment and stuff. You can check out server press as well but as Tim said Flywheels pretty e asy I mean click click boom and you’re done. So I think you know as a non tech person Flywheel is even easier than server press and stuff because messing with command lines sometime is not fun. So all right yeah tomorrow we’ve got another great topic Tim..
04:22 Tim Strifler: Take care bye bye.
04:24 David Blackmon: Until tomorrow we’ll see you then.
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The post Why You Should Develop Websites Locally | EP 619 appeared first on WP Gears.
Why WooCommerce is the Best eCommerce Platform in the World 1. Popularity 00:36 2. Open Source 01:33 3. Reprository 03:10 4. Your Own Content 04:17
Read the full episode transcript below: 00:28 David Blackmon: Hey everybody welcome to another episode of WP The Podcast brought to you by WP Gears I’m David Blackmon
00:35 Tim Strifler: And I’m Tim Strifler
00:36 David Blackmon: Today we’re going to talk about why will commerce is the best e-commerce platform in the world. Tim I think I’m starting today we didn’t even plan on how we’re gonna do this so we’re gonna we’re gonna do it live. I’m gonna go ahead and start one reason why will Commerce is the best e-commerce platform in the world. Is it’s the most popular they own 30% of the market share WordPress is huge more web sites are built on the WordPress platform than any other platform in the world and WooCommerce is owned by the company that owns WordPress automatic hence there’s more ecommerce more world commerce platform websites built than any of the other. Matter of fact I want to say it’s some crazy stat like all of them combined don’t even come close to what the market share that WooCommerce has I could be mistaken but I think I’m right on that.
01:33 Tim Strifler: Yeah I think so too yeah 30 percent market share last I heard it could be more now I mean there’s a lot of benefits that come with that which means there’s you know an extension for WooCommerce for pretty much anything you can think of and then there’s so many developers that know WooCommerce that are writing tutorials and snippets and stuff like that and so because it’s so popular there’s an unlimited amount of resources and support that you can get because of it. And the next reason is open source it means you can do anything you want on other platforms like Shopify Wix Squarespace it’s a proprietary platform it’s locked you don’t get to choose what you want on there you know they have a you know a plug-in or App Store or whatever they call it and you can add different functionality. But only if it’s been officially added and approved by them. And stuff like that you can’t just hire developer to go in code whatever them and stuff like that you can’t just hire developer to go in code whatever you want with with WooCommerce that’s open source you can do literally anything you want you own it you can do you know you can completely change it if you want you could add your own functionality it’s completely up to you you own the platform.
02:44 David Blackmon: Matter of fact you could even fork it if you have that development chops and build your own e-commerce based off of it if you can make it better
02:52 Tim Strifler: Yeah WooCommerce actually started as a fork. It was a fork of another ecommerce plugin for WordPress and WooCommerce forked it created WooCommerce or I’m sorry themes forked it because they created themes before they created WooCommerce and then and then yeah that’s kind of a story of how it began.
03:10 David Blackmon: Wonderful world of open-source. Gotta love it. Alright last but not least is WooCommerce is free sort of the basic WooCommerce install for WordPress is free you can go download WooCommerce in the repository install it and have a fully functional ecommerce website now is that gonna be and meet all of the needs that you may have for your business probably not but the good news is Tim said you know there are lots of developers out there who have created amazing third-party products for WooCommerce my company being one of them. Aspen Grove Studios we have a line of WooCommerce products product sales, report Pro export order items you know we have probably about ten WooCommerce specific plugins that that that are you know in the repository we have free versions as well as paid versions of most of them. And they have tens of thousands of installs and stuff so yeah it’s it’s free like we said sort of if you want to get.
04:17 Tim Strifler: Yeah you actually we skipped number three. Though oh we done oh yeah you so with WooCommerce another benefit is you
own your content. You own the customers everything else. I kind of talked about open source meaning you can do whatever you want but when another benefit of WooCommerce is is everything belongs to you. Right when you’re if you’re locked into Shopify Wix Squarespace you’re locked into their proprietary platform and so moving your site from Shopify to somewhere else as a pain but with WooCommerce you can move it to any server you want you can download the content you can make your own proprietary platform if you want like you own yeah everything that’s huge yeah yeah that is huge.
04:58 David Blackmon: I looked at that. Sorry about that Tim and I saw you said you’re not locked into the proprietary and you talked about and I thought you were covering one two and three at the same time. Yeah I blame those I did kind of yeah I blazed on I was just rolling with it here’s the benefits of seeing how we do it live and stuff we sometimes even you know kind of bypass and miss some things but Tim is 100% correct that’s to me that’s the most important thing on the list is you own your own content and stuff. That’s huge it’s a really big thing you know it’s funny I said we sent out an email blast today Aspen Grove studios calm or Divi space actually the beginner’s guide to WooCommerce order reports so we just wrote a big blog post on creating you know reporting and stuff with with WooCommerce. So and we put out a lot of content and stuff on around will commerce. So if you’re interested go check it out. Tomorrow we’ve got another great topic why you should develop websites locally
it’s probably gonna be mostly Tim talking I’m just letting you know so if you want to hear Tim come listen to tomorrow’s episode. Until tomorrow we’ll see you then.
06:13 Tim Strifler: Take care bye bye
Did you Enjoy this Episode? * Will you consider sharing it online? Just click one of the share buttons below! * Will you leave us a review? 🙂 * Have a question, or a topic request? Let us know in the comments below!
Want to Connect with David & Tim? * David: + Aspen Grove Studios + Divi Space * Tim: + TimStrifler.com + Divi Life
The post Why WooCommerce is the Best eCommerce Platform in the World | EP 618 appeared first on WP Gears.
Should You Do Paid Courses to Level Up Your Web Design Game 1. “Buffet Learning” 00:50 2. Quote – unquote skin in the game 02:31 3. Being in Community 03:33 4. Coaching Calls 04:28 5. Certificates 07:47
Read the full episode transcript below: 00:28 David Blackmon: Everybody welcome to another episode of WP The Podcast brought to you by WP Gears I’m David Blackmon
00:36 Tim Strifler: And I’m Tim’s trifler
00:38 David Blackmon: Today an episode 617 we’re gonna talk about whether or not you should do paid courses to level up your web design game. Tim what’s your opinion I’m gonna let you start.
00:50 Tim Strifler: Yeah now full disclosure David and I are course creator so we’re a little bit biased but we’re gonna try to give you some solid facts here from our own experience and just kind of some good general knowledge on this object because the topic does come up. It’s like should I just learn stuff for free on YouTube doing Google searches reading blog post stuff like that or should I actually pay for a premium course instead of doing that. And so in our opinion when you pay for a premium course you get a consistent in clear path to whatever the objective might be. So in mine and David’s case we have a Divi Business course a Divi WordPress business course and their clear path is to show you how to build a long-term sustainable business, how to get clients, how to get recurring revenue within your business and so the clear path is to show you how to do that when you’re learning from free resources like YouTube and blog articles and you’re googling stuff it’s what what I like to call buffet learning which is you’re taking a little bit from this person taking a little bit from this person a little bit from this person and not that that’s necessarily bad but you’re you’re missing all the in-between stuff. And so this person might have a good idea but doesn’t necessarily mesh well with this other person’s tip over here because they’re not meant to go together and so it’s the kind of the the concept of you don’t know what you don’t know. But when you’re getting consistent in clear direction from one instructor or one pair of instructors like me and David you’re able to learn the things that we’re teaching that maybe you don’t realize are is the important part of the learning.
02:31 David Blackmon: Number two, reasons why you should potentially you know do paid courses, is you know when you pay for something, it gives you some quote-unquote skin in the game. You know you’re more likely to implement some of the strategies that are recommended and taught as opposed to not when you have money invested. It just makes sense you know if you’re gonna if you want someone to be serious you want to find out how serious someone is about something ask them to pony up some some cash to find out whether or not they’re really serious about taking their learning to the next level and stuff. And typically with a paid course it means you’re in that you’re in that zone you want to take your stuff your your learning and your knowledge to the next level and stuff and by paying for something it gives you some skin in the game and and and you’re more likely to implement what you’ve learned as opposed to maybe watching a youtube video and yeah I’ll do that tomorrow.
03:33 Tim Strifler: Yeah absolutely and then, the next reason why you should do paid courses to level up your web design game is accountability in community with other students. And so for example when you’re kind of out there learning on your own and taking bits and pieces from different things and stuff there’s no community and there and there’s no accountability. There’s no one to ask questions to and stuff like that and we’ve come to learn that those are some of the things that our students value the most or maybe though that those are some of the things that we didn’t realize that they would value as much as they do in the course, like yes that the content is kind of the bread and butter of the course but being able to ask questions, to for me and David and then also get feedback from other students like that’s invaluable and that’s a huge part of the education and learning experience. Is getting that and and so without you know a structured course here you’re missing out.
04:28 David Blackmon: Next on our list of reasons why is the ability to ask instructure instructors questions from someone that’s been there. So Tim and I for example we do live coaching calls with our students once a week. You know when we launch a new class for the course or something you know we’ll have eight weeks of live coaching calls and on these calls we give our students the ability to get clarification to ask us any question that’s related to a WordPress or their business. It doesn’t matter if it’s technical or like I said business-related you know a lot of them struggle with sales and stuff, so you know, having the ability to communicate and ask someone face-to-face hey you know and present situations that you come up against in your real life business day-to-day business. It’s huge! Yes you can ask your friends and yes you can ask other people and it’s really important to have mentors and stuff like that but when you do a paid course you’re actually getting direct access to those instructors to answer questions that you’re struggling with that you’re probably bought the course for to begin with. So for example building a business and WordPress and Divi you know we cover everything from you know the very basics of what type of hosting you should get all the way to pipelines and closings and presentations and contracts and agreements and insurance and all the stuff that’s that’s like you may not even be thinking about, but you know, you need you have the ability to ask instructures these questions right off the that.
06:07 Tim Strifler: Yeah and that’s something to really look into when you are evaluating courses how much access do you get to the instructors and and is there a actual you know formal method of being able to ask whatever questions you want, like David mentioned we have the coaching calls and stuff and so the reason I say that is there some courses where it’s like. Yes you are paying you are investing in it you are getting a consistent and clear path of learning but there’s no community, there’s no you know question and answer a time or no way to reach out and ask questions. And so you know the instructors are basically just cashing in and cashing the checks without you know doing the other things that that should be involved with with learning from the paid course. So the last thing on our list here kind of a bonus reason of why you should do paid courses to level up your web design game is the added credibility that you get with a completed course and that there’s a certificate that often comes with and so being able to say that you completed this course over here with, and so being able to say that you completed this course over here with this reputable company. And you know you have the the necessary training to be able to take on these projects and stuff like that. That’s invaluable and so that’s something I never really realized how important it was until hearing the feedback from students and the question that they would ask you know regarding you know getting a certificate and stuff like that, and you know am I allowed to say that I took this course on on my website and obviously the answer is yes, and so you know that’s something that we didn’t anticipate being as important to people as it is yeah and and and it just makes sense.
07:47 David Blackmon: You know I mean when you have that stamp of approval you know. So like WordPress you know a certificate or learning Google Analytics you know when you’ve got that branded you know recognizable badge that says “hey I’m an expert in this because I have completed and you don’t”. Get these things unless you complete the course and stuff so if you bought a course don’t think you’re getting the certificate just because at least from us anyways you have to actually go through the course complete it and answer a certain percentage of questions and get them right. So that allows your customers and and people that you’re presenting to and stuff and you know safety and security to know that you actually are an expert in this field and stuff so yeah so go out buy some paid courses and come on over and buy ours if you want and join us in our live coaching calls. We do some pretty awesome stuff we’ve got a great community and some amazing students and stuff who have really been just killing it and stuff and it’s been awesome to see and stuff so yeah WPGears.com tomorrow we’ve got another great topic why WooCommerce is the best e-commerce platform in the world. Tim just try me I’m gonna convince you why that is tomorrow so…
09:09 Tim Strifler: hey I’m on the same page..
09:11 David Blackmon: I’m just messin. Build it up for the audience, so yeah build the suspense build the suspense all right well until tomorrow we’ll see you then.
09:20 Tim Strifler: Take care bye bye.
Did you Enjoy this Episode? * Will you consider sharing it online? Just click one of the share buttons below! * Will you leave us a review? 🙂 * Have a question, or a topic request? Let us know in the comments below!
Want to Connect with David & Tim? * David: + Aspen Grove Studios + Divi Space * Tim: + TimStrifler.com + Divi Life
The post Should You Do Paid Courses to Level Up Your Web Design Game | EP 617 appeared first on WP Gears.
Managed WordPress Hosting vs Traditional Hosting 1. Differences of Hosting 01:44 2. Managed or Traditional 05:51 3. Pricing of Hosting 10:13
Read the full episode transcript below: 00:27 David Blackmon: Hey everybody welcome to another episode of WP The Podcast brought to you by WP Gears I’m David Blackmon
00:35 Tim Strifler: And I’m Tim Strifler
00:39 David Blackmon: Almost said “bod cast”. Hey we might we might have started something here Tim a “bod cast” podcast you don’t want trust me you don’t want me giving a podcast maybe Tim but
00:50 Tim Strifler: I am, my wife’s pregnant so you know by default I will be sporting the dad bod very shortly so I don’t know if you want me on the podcast either.
01:01 David Blackmon: All right today we’re gonna talk about managed hosting versus traditional hosting. Hosting has kind of been the theme for the last few episodes because you know when we started back we decided to cover. You know topics that are very much discussed a lot in the WordPress community obviously with website building and website managing and even just websites in general hosting is a great topic to cover so we wanted to touch on today you know manage hosting versus traditional hosting and kind of gives some pros and cons to kind of maybe help you decide or determine which might be best for you. So before we get this episode kicked off I think Tim’s gonna let us know the difference between the two.
01:44 Tim Strifler: Yeah absolutely. So traditional hosting as we covered yesterday on episode 615 is shared hosting VPS dedicated and so forth managed WordPress hosting came out I don’t know five years ago or so I don’t remember the exact timeframe but essentially managed WordPress hosting is premium hosting for WordPress. It’s typically, has additional tools built in so WP engine they’re the ones that kind of pioneered the manage WordPress concept and basically it comes with automated backups. And then you can do manual one-click backups it has one-click staging it has extra security built in at the server level extra caching built in at the server level, and so it eliminates the need for a lot of extra things such as backup security caching plugins stuff like that and they have kind of their own proprietary control panel and the back end and all that so and then additionally it’s called manage because they monitor stuff and so they’re constantly looking at the server and running scans and different things like that from. I had an example where I was on a I was on WP engine which their default plan is technically shared and I’m gonna to talk about why it’s different than traditional shared in a second but it’s technically shared and I started to get more and more traffic my e-commerce business was growing my traffic was growing and so WP engine was monitoring that and then they saw that hey I was taking up more resources and I should have been my website flagged some automated code in their system. And so they moved me off onto my own server and then basically you know talked to me about and I ended up upgrading to a dedicated and so they managed those things to catch those things early on. And if they’re seeing that a sites getting a brute-force attack you know they’ll step in and intervene and different things like that and so they’re they’re constantly monitoring those things and that’s what makes it manage in addition to the tools and so the reason why I said WP engine specifically it’s technically shared. It’s not traditional shared where traditional shared is completely shared resources and stuff like that WP engine has some technology built in to their shared environments where you’re not able to use up resources unless the other websites aren’t using them and so the other web sites aren’t using their resources. Their system will allow you to use some of other the unused resources on the on the shared website but if the web sites are using it and they’re not going to let you use that and they’re gonna tell you that you need to you know move to a higher plan or they’ll move you to a different server altogether maybe one that isn’t that does have some unused resources and so again it’s it’s technically shared but it’s managed so it’s a quite a bit different more powerful and just a better experience overall and then Flywheel another very popular managed WordPress solution is they don’t do shared everything is a VPS. You have your own VPS when you create an account and so that’s how Flywheel is is different but it still falls into that category of managed hosting.
05:04 David Blackmon: Hold Tim I didn’t hear a thing you said um..
05:06 Tim Strifler: um I start over?
05:10 David Blackmon: No no no don’t start okay. I am I was replying to some some people that were watching the live stream so that they you know are audio cut out so we’re recording locally. So even if our audio cuts out on our live stream you know we’re still have the audio on here. So yeah managed hosting versus traditional hosting. It’s you know I guess what must where I want to start. Tim is you know in your opinion what’s the best for someone to do. I’m a new guy I got a website and I’m thinking about hosting and stuff and man should I go managed should I go traditional
05:51 Tim Strifler: So I think it would depend on what your goals are and what your website is being used for. As David famously says if you’re serious about your business you need be serious about your hosting and so if you know this is a business website and you plan on growing your traffic and stuff like that I’d say skip traditional hosting and go straight to a managed. WordPress host such as WP engine Flywheel the soon-to-be dues-based hosting by Divi space. Yeah don’t where I was gonna get there and you know go right to the managed because you’re going to get a lot more for your money in terms of not just getting more reliable. More secure hosting but also the additional tools built in like automatic backups one-click staging it’s WordPress specific security built in server level caching those types of thing things and, so I would recommend one of those three WP engine Flywheel or hosting by Divi space.
06:56 David Blackmon: I’m gonna go ahead and and just throw that out throw this out there Tim and you can tell me what your thoughts on this are.
I think you should always go with the managed unless there’s one caveat where I feel like you could go you know traditional hosting. But if it were me I’m going dedicated traditional hosting and that’s only if you have the technical prowess to do it yourself. If you understand hosting and servers and you’re an IT guy and you can manage it yourself then absolutely go for it do it yourself. It comes down to time you know time is money do I want to manage it myself or do I want to have someone else manage it for me and stuff. I think your technical experience is going to what play into which one you choose manage versus traditional as well but I’m gonna say at the end of the day, time is our most valued resource and it is money. So if you’re managing the hosting you’re really not growing your business so I think I think I’m going with it. I’m calling it always go with managed hosting because like Tim said what are you getting. My site crashes it goes down with a manage toast you know you know they have a full backup of your site and it can be backup within minutes you know. Could be kind of in a mess if you’re not so I’m calling it managed hosting is the way to go.
08:42 Tim Strifler: Yeah absolutely. I definitely agree with that and I’m kind of I fall in that category where, yeah. I might have the technical skill to do my own hosting management and all of that but I don’t have the time. And so I have a dedicated server with WP engine and they’re doing all that those stuff for me. They’re doing the monitoring they’re you know I can get on with Account Manager and you know and talk different things if something’s not loading fast and I need to figure out a way to speed things up and stuff. And I have done that multiple times and they’re they’re able to you know they have a specific team that focuses on performance and they’ll you know do an audit of your side and and help you figure out what you need to do to get your website, you know loading faster and they’ll do a scan and show you what percentage of your site is cached. Cashable content versus non cashable and stuff like that and so to me it’s like I spend a fortune on dedicated hosting with WP engine but it’s worth it you know. It’s worth its weight in gold so I definitely highly recommend it. I also do have a in account with traditional hosting with SiteGround that I use for demo sites and dev sites and stuff like that because it’s an unlimited plan and as David mentioned yesterday in episode 615 shared hosting vs VPS and dedicated we talked about how unlimited isn’t really unlimited they do cap you at bandwidth and stuff like that but you can technically have as many sites as you need not unlimited resources.
10:13 David Blackmon: I totally agree one last thing that I want to say on this and this has to do with with pricing and stuff and cost of managed hosting versus traditional hosting. Typically yes traditional hosting is going to be less expensive unless you’re going dedicated server but let’s talk about it if you’re in business you know. If you can’t afford a managed host which one website on most managed hosts average about $25 a month that’s 300 dollars a year. If you can’t handle you know afford 300 dollars a year for a managed host with everything that you’re gonna get including the peace of mind peace of mind to know that your website is taken care of 100% then you probably need to think of a new business idea because it’s not that expensive. Now if you’re comparing shared hosting and you see some of these things Oh $3 a month or whatever for the first two years you know you got to really think about what you’re getting versus the 25. I mean 25 dollars a month is nothing to have peace of mind you know 300 dollars a year is the most important investment you’re going to make for your you know online business so it’s the foundation. So consider that don’t let price scare you away and stuff you get what you pay for so yeah..
10:40 Tim Strifler: Yeah you get what you pay for and then also if it sounds too good to be true it probably is there’s the reason why it’s only three three dollars a month you get what you pay for and then also if it sounds too good to be true it probably is there’s the reason why it’s probably is there’s the reason why it’s.
11:50 David Blackmon: Absolutely. All right tomorrow we’ve got another great topic for you on WP The Podcast, should you do paid courses to level up your web design game. Tim and I are course creators we have several courses in the marketplace we’re working on our latest course right now and we’ve been asked a lot should I invest in courses to take my web design and development to the next level and come back tomorrow and tune in and you’ll find out what we have to say Tim until tomorrow we’ll see you then
12:22 Tim Strifler: Take care bye bye
Did you Enjoy this Episode? * Will you consider sharing it online? Just click one of the share buttons below! * Will you leave us a review? 🙂 * Have a question, or a topic request? Let us know in the comments below!
Want to Connect with David & Tim? * David: + Aspen Grove Studios + Divi Space * Tim: + TimStrifler.com + Divi Life
The post Managed WordPress Hosting vs Traditional Hosting | EP 616 appeared first on WP Gears.
Shared Hosting vs VPS Dedicated 1. Shared Hosting 00:49 2. VPS Hosting 06:15
Read the full episode transcript below: 00:28 David Blackmon: Yeah, everybody welcome to another episode of WP the podcast I’m David Blackmon
00:33 Tim Strifler: and I’m Tim Strifler
00:34 David Blackmon: today an episode 615 VPS or virtual private server and dedicated server. So we’re all the rave about hosting today and Tim Why don’t you let us know the difference between those three options?
00:49 Tim Strifler: Yeah, absolutely So shared hosting is probably the most common hosting those popular hosting and it’s it can be okay for really small Websites where you don’t need anything Specific or particular and so shared hosting is essentially a server and the hosting company will cram Typically hundreds of websites on one server and so it’s called shared because you’re sharing that server space with hundreds of other sites and you’re also sharing those resources. So the bandwidth the storage. The all the other things server resources that are a part of of hosting so it’s all shared now. VPS stands for a virtual private server and a virtual private server is it’s one server that’s partitioned and segmented into separate areas, And so even though you’re technically sharing the server with other web sites. You have a guaranteed allotment of resources that aren’t affected by other websites on the server and so it’s called a Virtual private server because of that fact. So it’s kind of like a server within a server. And then dedicated server is you have literally the entire server to yourself. There’s no one else on it You have the entire server all the storage all the bandwidth all the resources. Everything is is completely yours and so those are kind of the three main differences. There’s also cloud cloud servers cloud hosting which we’ll say for another episode but shared hosting VPS and dedicated are the three most common different hosting environments.
02:29 David Blackmon: Awesome. What are some of the cons and pros of going with each and and we’re gonna start with shared since that was the first one that Tim defined and stuff and one the cons of shared hosting is I’m gonna go with the potential to be hacked, you know, I’m gonna let you do nosey neighbor and stuff Tim because you talk about that really well. So one of the downsides of you know, you can be the best most efficient word presser in the world. You can be doing everything 100 percent correct. You can be backing up your website. You know making it secure changing your permalinks and your slugs to make sure you’re not using Admin as your username and just going on WordPress best practices. The downside is it’s in a shared environment Because you’re sharing all of those resources and you’re on one server You’re only as secure and good as your neighbor that the person that’s right next to you. So even though you’re doing everything. By the book and correct. You can still be potentially vulnerable to being hacked because let’s say Jim Bob got his first WordPress website and he set it up and he doesn’t know and he’s just fun for him you know, he’s looking for the most inexpensive hosting which is typically shared and He just throws his website on there. And then guess what? He leaves it alone and forgets about it and says, you know what? I’m not doing that anymore. I’m I’m hunting now, I’m fishing and my websites over there. Well WordPress is updating plug-ins or updating, but Jim Bob sites aren’t getting updated. You know, there’s a big security vulnerability that comes out and next thing, you know, you’re vulnerable so Shared can be kind of risky. That’s one of the biggest cons is you’re only as secure as the other websites on your server.
04:28 Tim Strifler: Yeah, absolutely, and I’ve fallen victim to that. I did everything right on shared hosting and I got hacked because as David mentioned You’re only as secure as the other sites on your on your server So if there’s a hundred websites That means only one out of those 99 need to be infected to infect You and everyone else there and I’ve fallen victim without multiple times on cheap shared hosting and I’ll never go back because of that. So yeah, David alluded to the noisy neighbor issue which is another major con of shared hosting and just like you’re only as secure as the other sites on your website, you’re only as fast as the other websites will let you be and what I mean by that You might have a server that has you know decent amount of resources and in general You know, it’s typically pretty fast and everything seems to be running pretty smooth. But if all of a sudden one of the websites on that server has the Oprah effect, right or the shark tank effect. Where you know they’re getting national or international recognition recognition. Yeah, there we go all of a sudden their website just gets blasted and is getting a ton of traffic and now all of a sudden it’s using up all the resources on that server. So now you’re not getting anything and so in the server space they refer to that as the noisy neighbor issue. Because you have a neighbor on the site that is taking up all the bandwidth and it affects you and so you you even though you only need a little small amount of resources if another side or if several other sites are using up a ton. It’s going to take it away from from you. And so it’s shared server space. It’s also shared resources. So that’s a major major con.
06:15 David Blackmon: Yeah, and I know that it looks really appealing the price points, you know because as you go up You know virtual private servers typically a little bit more expensive than shared and even as you scale up to the dedicated side, obviously You think about it a hosting company has a hundred clients on one server versus only one person on that server they have to be able to Justify the cost of the server and stuff. So obviously it’s going to be much more expensive now I’m of the adage of you get what you pay for and I like Tim started out and shared hosting I had a blue celery a Bluehost reseller account as a matter of fact, I still have it. I’m grandfathered in Bluehost discontinued reseller accounts in I want to say it was 2014 so like six years ago, they quit it. However, they allowed you to keep your reseller account because they had unlimited sites unlimited whatever for $30 a month, I Mean, come on Unlimited is a misnomer. It’s nice. It’s not a truth. You know, there are no such thing There is no such thing as true unlimited, you know that there’s resources are limited and stuff. So They did away with it. But I kept it and I started on shared and then I moved to VPS with a to hosting several years ago And it worked really well for us. But as our company and business and traffic continued to grow We ultimately ended up, you know with dedicated servers and I know Tim has a similar story and You know, I’ll never go back. You know, I mean the the cost, you know justifies, you know what we’re getting and stuff. It is more expensive but you know It’s quite a bit more expensive. You know dedicated is a lot more expensive and in order to justify a dedicated server You really need to have like a high traffic D commerce website or making enough money to justify. That so I think we have currently between five and seven dedicated servers now. Which is kind of crazy But you know, it’s it’s just where our business has scaled and stuff so..
08:37 Tim Strifler: Yeah, definitely Yeah. And I would say cuz you know we talked about the pros and cons of each most of the cons are related to shared hosting I would say that the con for dedicated is is the cost as you alluded to David. However, if you can justify it is more than worth it. So like David said if it’s a High traffic e-commerce site when you’re making money with your website, you know you better believe that it’s gonna be worth it and same thing if you have a ton of clients and you want to put your Clients on your dedicated server and your clients are paying you maintenance and hosting fees, okay. Well again, it’s gonna more than pay for it. But if you just, you know have a personal blog or something like that and you don’t get a ton of traffic It’s more of a hobby. Well, don’t buy a dedicated server just because it’s about that’s just a waste of money.
09:19 David Blackmon: All right, Tim I think or have we covered shared VPS and dedicated sufficiently enough?
09:25 Tim Strifler: I think so. One thing I will add is we’re going to talk about in the next episode managed wordpress hosting and so stay tuned for that. And we’ll definitely compare kind of what we’re talking about today traditional hosting versu s managed. But I would say kind of the winner of shared hosting versus VPS versus dedicated kind of you know, the all-around winner. I would say is VPS because you get guaranteed resources. It’s a server within a server you don’t have the noisy neighbor the sideway you hacks and all of those types of things that you do with shared hosting but it’s Also a lot more affordable to dedicate them. So if you want a winner, that’s what I would say.
10:07 David Blackmon: Yeah, unless you have a high traffic D commerce website. Correct. Go dedicated exactly bite the bullet. Don’t cheap out, you know, Tim and I talk about this all the time, you know If you’re serious about your business, you really need to be serious about your hosting. Hosting is the foundation. It’s the most important thing in your business. So, you know, yeah You’re smiling Tim. You’re laughing..
10:32 Tim Strifler: I’m laughing because I don’t know if I should say this publicly on the episode David, but David’s company is coming out with hosting. They’re they’re building their own hosting company. Hope that’s okay to say publicly David. Yeah
10:46 David Blackmon: Yeah, absolutely. We we’ve we’ve technically launched it it’s in beta so It’s specifically geared towards the Divi theme obviously, you know, Tim and I are big WordPress guys but were we’re heavily entrenched in the Divi community and that’s kind of where we we started and we create products for it. So it just kind of made logical sense for us to You know go ahead and start a Divi hosting company, but it’s WordPress as a whole. So if you have a WordPress website and you want a great host come check us out Divispace.com.
11:22 Tim Strifler: So yeah and the reason why I was smiling David is is I think that what you just said Which is one of your catchphrases? We both have our certain catchphrases of things we a lot whether it’s on here or Divi chat or in our course One of the things that David says it’s one of his catchphrases is if you’re serious about your business You need to be serious about your hosting which I think you need to put on a shirt with your new Divi a Hosting logo by Debbie’s face or you know, whatever the name.
11:46 David Blackmon: That’s a great idea man. That’s it. That’s a great idea. Yeah. Yeah, well, thanks. All right. Well tomorrow like Tim said we’ve got another great episode 616 managed WordPress hosting versus traditional Hosting we’re gonna give you the pros and cons and hopefully help you figure out which one might be best for you So be sure to join us tomorrow. We’ll see you tomorrow
12:11 Tim Strifler: Take care. Bye bye
Did you Enjoy this Episode? * Will you consider sharing it online? Just click one of the share buttons below! * Will you leave us a review? 🙂 * Have a question, or a topic request? Let us know in the comments below!
Want to Connect with David & Tim? * David: + Aspen Grove Studios + Divi Space * Tim: + TimStrifler.com + Divi Life
The post Shared Hosting vs VPS Dedicated | EP 615 appeared first on WP Gears.
5 Ways to Speed Up Your WordPress Website Right Now 1. Hosting 01:03 2. Cache Solution 01:46 3. Image Optimization 03:51 4. Plugins 05:33 5. Database Optimisation 07:42 6. Bonus – Content Delivery Network 08:46
This episode was taken from Tim’s guide on How to Speed Up Your Divi website. We recommend checking out the blog post and video for a more in depth look at the above steps and why they’re important for a fast loading website!
Read the full episode transcript below: 00:25 David Blackmon: Hey everybody welcome to another episode of WP The Podcast I’m David Blackmon
00:33 Tim Strifler: And I’m Tim Strifler
00:35 David Blackmon: And today in episode 614 we’re going to talk about five ways to speed up your WordPress website right now.
boom do these things you’re gonna have the fastest wordpress website in the world i’m just kidding don’t take me literally but it’s a good topic to cover
00:51 Tim Strifler: Yeah and to be clear this isn’t absolutely everything that you can do to make your website faster but these are the five things that you want to start with because these will make the biggest difference.
01:03 David Blackmon: Number one on our list and probably one of the most important if not the most important one is good hosting. Hosting matters folks Tim and I have been preaching this from the rooftop for years. If you’re serious about your business you need to be serious about your hosting. Hosting is the foundation of everything and guess what, not all hosts are created equal. they’re just not you know Bluehost Hostgator they’re cheap they’re going to save you some money but you’re going to be on there with everybody and their grandma sucking up resources and no matter how much you optimize your website if you’re on their shared hosting plans you’re probably not going to be that fast.
01:46 Tim Strifler: Yeah that is 100 true and it all kind of starts from there you want good reliable hosting because if you do all the other things we talk about it will help even on bad hosting but it won’t be as reliable or consistent, and so tomorrow’s episode we’re going to talk about shared hosting versus vps and dedicated. We’re going to talk about why cheap shared hosting is is not good and so tune in tomorrow for that, but the next thing on our list is have a solid cache solution. So wordpress is a database driven cms which means it uses mysql databases to store content and so every time you load a new page on the site it’s going to the database to make sure it has the most recent and updated version of the post and so or if you you’re on like an archive page and you’re pulling in blog posts it’s going to go and make sure you have all the most recent of all the different post types and everything. So there’s a lot that happens behind the scenes that can make a wordpress website very slow out of the box but if you use a cache plug and what it does is it essentially takes a picture of your website a static version instead of the dynamic version and it will serve that version to the user instead and so for a normal website like a brochure style website when you have a lot of content that’s not really changing a lot. It works out really well and like 99 of your website can be cachable and it makes your website drastically faster and so there’s a lot of really really great cache plugins out there if you’re using divi you definitely want to check out divi rocket it’s by my good friend David here and his team. Divi Rocket is made for Divi which means it does some stuff behind the scenes specifically to cater to the way that divi stores content and styling and stuff like that so divi rocket over at divi.space some other good ones out there WP Rocket um w3 total cash there’s a lot I mean I think WP fastest cash there’s so many different ones out there but if you’re using divi definitely look at Divi Rocket because it’s made specifically for Divi.
03:51 David Blackmon: Number three on our list is image optimization. Image optimization is very important one of the main causes that can slow any website down is large images. I remember when i was brand new building websites i would take a picture of of something that i wanted you know and i’d loaded on the website and it was six thousand by three and it was several megabytes. 20 megabytes in size if you don’t know what i’m talking about you’ll realize how big that image is you want your your images to be around the 50 to 75 kilobyte size and i was loading up 20 megabyte images and i had multiple because of course it was in my gallery you know and i wanted it to look good. So your images can look good and look great on normal sizes designed for the website and stuff so remember to optimize your images. You can use Photoshop they’ve got some really awesome tools in here that are going to allow you to optimize the images for the web they’re going to allow you to you know. If you have multiple images you can bulk at it and stuff that’s that i used to do years ago whenever I did image optimization. There’s probably even quicker and better tools today that you can use just google image optimization website WordPress and you’re probably going to come up with a ton of them plus all of the plugins that do on page you know on website image optimization like smush and our good friends wpmu dev have a fantastic plugin that does that we have a free one in the repository and i can’t even remember the damn name of it right now Tim.
05:32 Tim Strifler: yeah i don’t know
05:33 David Blackmon: while you’re on number two i’m going to go ahead and i’m going to search it. yeah squish it’s squishy. i’m gonna go look now i mean i don’t want to be lying
05:43 Tim Strifler: yeah no WP Smush pro by WPmu dev is a great plugin because it’s a set and forget type of thing and so i still recommend as david mentioned using photoshop and resizing and compressing that way but you put wp smush pro on your website it uses the wpmu dev servers to do the image compression and it’ll even resize it too so if you have it a 5000 pixel wide photo and you forgot to resize it before uploading it’ll actually not just compress it from a like a lossless uh standpoint but it will also resize to be whatever you specify to be your max width and height which is really helpful
06:21 David Blackmon: Squished WP squish is our own plug-in we acquired potent plug-ins a couple years ago and this was a plug-in from our lead back-end developer Jonathan and it is legit it’s 100 percent free. Go check it out it does a lot of stuff that a lot of the other image compression. You know um plugins do and guess what it cost you zippo. Zero dollars go download it and WordPress repository
06:49 Tim Strifler: That’s awesome yeah i’m gonna have to try that uh the next one on our list uh the was that the fourth way to speed up your website right now is to use only good plugins so go do a plug and audit and look at plugins that might be slowing down your website. In another episode we’ll talk about how to actually do that but you want to only use good solid plugins that are well coded as well as custom code so it doesn’t matter if it’s in plugin form or if it’s custom code you’ve added to your child theme. If it’s not written well it can slow down your site if it’s super javascript heavy and it’s pulling in all these external resources it can really really slow down your site too and so you have to look at that. A good cache plug-in can help circumvent some of that but if you have a plug-in that’s conflicting with another plug-in it can really slow things down even on the server side too. So that’s something that you really want to look out for.
07:42 David Blackmon: Number five and our final five ways to speed up your WordPress website right now is database optimization. Tim normally takes the tech topics but we have a bonus in there and it’s another tech topic so i’m gonna i’ll let him clean up whatever i’m going to say about the database optimization. if he feels the need to but like Tim said and we described earlier in this episode on the cache part of it. WordPress is made up of databases and Mysql databases well those databases can get cluttered and they can actually grow in size. Trust me I know we’ve had our website grow in size massively through the database and stuff and we have to periodically go in and clean up those database tables and stuff so that our website remains fast and it stays that way there are plugins that are going to do this for you. If you’re versed with WordPress databases and stuff you can clean them pretty easily but database optimization is one of the is our fifth way to speed up your wordpress website.
08:46 Tim Strifler: And uh the bonus way to speed up your website is to use a cdn uh it’s an acronym for content delivery network and the reason why this is a bonus reason is it’s probably not something that you need on every website, but if you have an online business or you have a blog and you want people from all over your country or all over the world to be able to view your content, then a cdn might be a good choice because what it does is a cdn network is a network of servers and it will offload different parts of your website such as the images such as your style sheets and javascript files and it will load those heavy parts of your website. From those servers based off of whatever one is is closest
to the user and so uh those things like images and and big style sheets and stuff like that. Typically is what takes a long time to load and so by having the cdn network use a server that’s closer to the user and load those parts of your website from there it actually speeds up that the time that it takes to get to the user and load the site. So it’s pretty technical but you can check out max cdn. Cloudflare is another form of a cdn and there’s some other ones out there but a cdn can be a great way particularly if you have an online business and you want people from all over the world viewing your your website. If you’re looking to speed up Divi specifically, I wrote an in-depth tutorial at Divi Life that is all about speeding up Divi.
10:08 David Blackmon: Awesome well that was five ways to speed up your words press website right now. Tomorrow we’ve got another great topic as we mentioned shared hosting versus vps versus dedicated. Vps meaning virtual private server and we’re going to kind of walk in you know to what each one of those are the pros and the cons of each and which one you may want to choose for your business and stuff. So Tim until tomorrow we’ll see you then.
10:35 Tim Strifler: Take care, Bye Bye.
Did you Enjoy this Episode? * Will you consider sharing it online? Just click one of the share buttons below! * Will you leave us a review? 🙂 * Have a question, or a topic request? Let us know in the comments below!
Want to Connect with David & Tim? * David: + Aspen Grove Studios + Divi Space * Tim: + TimStrifler.com + Divi Life
The post 5 Ways to Speed Up Your WordPress Website Right Now | EP 614 appeared first on WP Gears.
5 SEO Tips You Can Implement Today 1. Content 02:05 2. Site Map 02:45 3. Page SEO and Tags 03:46 4. Google Search Console and Google Analytics 04:38 5. Fast Website 08:16
Read the full episode transcript below:
00:00
Announcer: Get ready for your daily dose of WordPress and web development, tips, tricks, and insights to help you find success with WordPress. You’re listening to WP the podcast with your hosts, David Blackmon and Tim Strifler.
00:27
David Blackmon: Hey everybody. Welcome to. WP the podcast. I’m David Blackmon and I’m unsubscribe Strifler and episode 613, five SEO tips you can implement today. We’re going to dive right into the topics. Tip one is start writing. It’s one of the things that I yell from the rooftops to anybody that has a website. That will listen to me.It’s the number one thing that helped our website, Aspen Grove studios.com and dv.space become a WordPress authority in the search engines eyes. I didn’t know this at the time. I just wanted to share my knowledge as I would learn something. And I was learning WordPress. I started sharing. All of this information with the world, basically.And mainly because of the Facebook groups, because we shared everything in there and people kept asking, Hey, how did you fix that problem again? Let me write a blog post and then y’all can all go read it. And I don’t have to keep repeating myself. Well, what ended up happening? Because we were writing this content to be helpful to other web developers who kept asking the same questions over and over and over again.Google saw us as an authority. In WordPress, because we were solving problems and people were searching for it and stuff. And so inadvertently, we ended up becoming a, uh, an authoritative, you know, juggernaut with WordPress and page one with Divi on a lot of terms and stuff, which was kind of awesome. So long winded.But number one, start writing today.
02:05
Tim Strifler: Yeah, no, I just want to say one thing to that, David, a hundred percent content is King. If you do nothing else on this list, do number one. Start writing content, right content. That solves problems for your ideal customer. That’s that’s it. That’s that’s the SEO secret right there.The other things on this list here will help get your content seen by Google and kind of set everything up properly. But that’s the number one thing. Continents, King, everything else is. Secondary. So like, yeah, I can’t stress that enough, but the next thing on the list is have a proper site map. So as I mentioned, uh, everything else on this list kind of just helps Google.Indexy when find you and, and you’re kind of doing everything the way that they want you to structure things. That way it’s easier for the user. It’s easier for their search engine and all that, those types of things. And so having a proper site map is key, and you can use plugins like Yoast, SEO, or any other WordPress.SEO plugin to automatically generate a site map. And then you submit that site map to Google search console. I’m gonna talk about that in a minute, but having a site map tells Google that this is what your, your website looks like from a high level view. So then itknows that, okay, here’s where all of these pages are and here’s how everything falls into place.
03:24
David Blackmon: Awesome. Number three on our list is have proper on page SEO. This is title tags, meta descriptions, um, clear content hierarchy with internal linking a tool that we recommend greatly is Yoast SEO. There’s lots of them out there. Um, We use Yoast. I know Tim uses Yoast. That’s user friendly. It’s very easy. And it kinda just, it gives you the roadmap of, of on page SEO, what you’re wanting to do. And it also lets you know, when you’re kind of. Out of kilter. Now you don’t want to focus in on their green, red and yellow lights. It’s not the goal. I mean, if you can get it green across the board, but don’t, you know, mentally mess yourself up by trying to get greens across the board. It’s not really, what’s important. What is important is that you do have really good, clear title tags, meta descriptions, because Google cares about that. Bing cares about that stuff. So making sure that you have that content filled out on every page that you create on your website is really important. And it really only takes like a couple of minutes. This is not like a thousand word content. This is like a paragraph and a title it’s, it’s pretty quick and easy but important.
04:38
Tim Strifler: Yeah. And the next thing on the list, uh, the next SEO tip that you can implement today is make sure you are using Google search console and Google analytics.
So Google search console is basically your interface with Google, for your website, for example, it’s how you connect to Google search engine. It’s how you submit your site map. So remember, uh, the second tip we talked about is have a good site map on your website using a tool like Yoast. Um, and then you submit it with. Google search console. And that tells Google, Hey, here’s my website. Here’s where you can find all my pages. Here’s what all the pages are about. And it, and it basically helps Google also. It’s where Google tells you if there’s something wrong. So if there’s a pages that it can’t get to, and there’s an air like a four Oh four air, or maybe there’s dead links or anything like that, that’s where Google is going to tell you that something is wrong. You need to fix it. And of course we want to fix it because if you want to rank well in the search engines you want. Them to view your website as positively as possible. And having a bunch of errors is very negative. And so that’s why Google search console is so important. There’s other things too, that we won’t get into, but those are the main, main things that you want from an SEO perspective. Also, it’s going to show you, uh, all of the search queries that people have typed in to get to your site. And so then you can kind of see how people are finding you, uh, which is really useful information. And on that note, Google analytics I mentioned is, is part of, uh, the SEO tip, uh, because that’s how you see how people are getting to your website. You can see, uh, okay, this one company over here is linking to your website and they’re sending you a bunch of traffic and, and having a clear view of what, uh, not only. How people are getting to your site, but also what your most popular pages are. So then you can know, okay. I need to spend more time over here because people really like this type of content. So I need to write more content like this, and you can let your analytics to pick your marketing strategy moving forward. So that’s a huge thing right there.
06:38
David Blackmon: Yeah. I’ll give a quick short. [00:06:40] Less than, and a shout out to Nick Roach at elegant themes. The first time I met him was in orange County at word camp orange County a few years ago, and we were a Divi company and we were Divi fanboys and the great thing about Elegant Themes and Nick and his team is they’ve really just kind of embraced the community dove in. And I’ll never forget. The first time I met him, we were at an Airbnb. We were all enjoying dinner. We’d met each other for the first time and real life, which is a big deal when.Online, you know, when you have your online community and stuff, and then you all get to meet in person. Um, you know, he sat down and he said, Hey, David, why don’t you open up your analytics? You know, let me take a look at your analytics for your website and stuff. aspengrovestudios.com. And he started going through it and he pointed out, Hey, look. This is your most popular content. This is why people are coming to your website. You should produce more tutorials like this because this is what people want. And at the time I was new web developer and he was giving me like a crash course lesson and why this was so important, kind of what Tim was talking about. Um, it didn’t go over my head, but it was lost on me a little bit because I, I wasn’t versed well with Google analytics and stuff, but today our company uses it, you know, steadfast for, for, for moving forward and producing the type of content that you know, so this is why this is one of our five tips, you know, having those, those tools in place to, um, you know, make sure that your, your website can be the best website that it can be for your audience.
08:16
Tim Strifler: Yeah.
08:16
David Blackmon: Last but not least. On five SEO tool tips, I’m going to read the title and then I’m going to let Tim talk more about the technical side of it, which is there we go. You need to have a fast website. Look, if your website’s loading slower than molasses in the winter time, guess what your visitors are leaving. And if you’re on Google analytics and you see this little thing called bounce rate, it’s probably one of the reasons why they’re bouncing, they’re coming into your website. It’s taken forever to load and they’re leaving, you know, so. Have a fast website.
08:47
Tim Strifler: Yeah. And if you think about it, Google wants what’s best for the user.
And as David mentioned, if your website’s slow, your users are leaving well for that same reason, that’s why Google won’t rank you because they don’t want to send people to your site. If they’re just going to bounce back, they’d rather send people to a site. That’s best the first time that loads quickly, so people can get what they want and therefore a Google’s gonna rank you accordingly.
And so if you have a really slow website, you’re not going to rank well. And so you want a really, really fast website as fast as possible. Um, if you tune into tomorrow’s episode, episode 614, we’re going to talk about five ways to speed up your WordPress website right now. So tune in tomorrow and we’ll actually tell you some tips on how you can do that.
09:30
David Blackmon: Right, Tim. You did something for me. I don’t have to do it. Tomorrow’s episode and stuff. We hope these five to SEO tips that you can implement today helped you out. Tim?
09:41
Tim Strifler: Take care. Bye bye.
09:43
David Blackmon: Until tomorrow, we’ll see you then.
09:47
Announcer: : We’ve come to the end of today’s episode of WP, the podcast. Join us tomorrow for more daily tips and strategies designed to help you run your WordPress business towards success. Remember to subscribe to WP the podcast. And stay up to date with each episode and don’t forget to rate and review us. We’ll see you again tomorrow. Right here on WP the podcast.
Did you Enjoy this Episode? * Will you consider sharing it online? Just click one of the share buttons below! * Will you leave us a review? 🙂 * Have a question, or a topic request? Let us know in the comments below!
Want to Connect with David & Tim? * David: + Aspen Grove Studios + Divi Space * Tim: + TimStrifler.com + Divi Life
The post 5 SEO Tips You Can Implement Today | EP 613 appeared first on WP Gears.
Why Divi is (still) the best page builder for WordPress? 1. Introduction 00:49 2. Powerful enough for professionals but easy enough for beginners 01:33 3. Divi newest features 02:24 4. Divi community 03:23 5. Divi workflow features 05:25 6. Third-party Divi products 06:30
Read the full episode transcript below: 00:27 David Blackmon: Hey everybody, welcome to WP The Podcast. I’m David Blackmon
00:31 Tim Strifler: And I’m Tim Strifler!
00:33 David Blackmon: It’s been an insanely long time since we’ve recorded, but we’re happy to be back episode 612 why Divi is Still the best page builder for WordPress. We couldn’t think of a better place to start than with our our tried-and-true Platform that Tim and I obviously if you know us if you follow us or you listen to us, we are huge Divi enthusiasts
01:00 Tim Strifler: Yeah, absolutely. And so since we have been away for quite some time we’re What nine months since we published our last episode we figured we’d kind of go back to our roots go back to some of the really core episodes since it’s been a while and so yeah, as David mentioned starting with Divi and and talking about why it’s the best page builder in the world is a great place to Start out the podcast again.
01:25 David Blackmon: Yeah, and I’m gonna start us off with number one It’s the most popular WordPress theme in the world Divi has become the most popular WordPress theme in the world now not only page builder. This is themes period you know, there are tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of WordPress themes in the world and Divi has become number one hey have millions of users and it is an insanely powerful powerful tool that a beginner can build a website with it’s never even but use WordPress before or a Developer who has some chops can build anything on the planet with it. It’s just a great tool
02:09 Tim Strifler: And and like we like to say Divi in why it’s so popular as Divi is powerful enough for professionals But easy enough for beginners to use and so you get the best of both worlds there so the next reason why Divi is still the best page builder for WordPress is
With its newest features within the last year year and a half two years Maybe it’s now closed the gap with other page builders. And so there was a time that Divi had fallen a little bit behind with some of its competitors. And so Some of its newest features being the theme builder so now you can create custom headers and footers and archive pages and category pages and then with conditional logic you can say where you want those custom things to appear on whether it’s on all pages on your default template or only on certain types of pages like blog posts or WooCommerce products for example and then Dynamic content being another big one the WooCommerce builder being another so all those features that have now it’s fully caught up with its competitors and The features are actually better Implementation than the competitors as well. And so that’s just another reason why Divi is still the best page builder for WordPress
03:20 David Blackmon: Third point on our list is the Divi community is the most vibrant they are incredible That’s actually where Tim and I met was in Divi Facebook groups I was fortunate enough to be a part of the very first Facebook group that Divi started him and was there from the very beginning from when? From when that group started and we helped build that group up too, which is now the main elegant themes Facebook group, you know for Divi elegant themes manages it and stuff But it’s huge. I mean the Divi community is amazing I mean there are hundreds of thousands of people across the groups and they’re all super helpful I mean they’ve got some of the most talented You know amazing people in the world that can build anything with WordPress and they’re giving of themselves freely and their time to answer questions and to be helpful and stuff and I think that’s what makes Divi so great and look all of these other Facebook groups for like The competitors of Divi and other WordPress themes and stuff. They’re just as helpful But Divi was kind of the originator. It was that the the theme that kind of established and realized that holy cow there’s a lot of power in the numbers and the community is it’s like a Microcosmos of WordPress if you’ve been WordPress meetups and stuff. There are now Divi meetups all around the world and stuff There will be a Divi con at some point. There will be a big Divi convention that elegant theme splits on and Nick I’m putting pressure on you if you don’t put it on soon Guess what Tim and I might put it on we might be the first day because
04:58 Tim Strifler: yeah, it was supposed to be this year But there’s this Little thing called the coronavirus global pain. I don’t know if you’ve heard about it It’s been in the news a little bit. It kind of changed everything in terms of in-person events and conferences. So the next reason why Divi is still the best page builder for WordPress is Divi has Workflow features that allow you to drastically speed up build time So if you’re comparing Divi to its competitors to me This is the the killer app So to speak this is the thing that really separates it from the pack and all of these workplace Workflow features allowing you to do Find and Replace So say for example, you want to remove a color and replace it with the color on your entire page You can do that with Divi and so you decide you know what? I don’t like that color I want to change it to this you can do that super quickly rather than having to go in and do that on each module and so being able to copy stuff and paste stuff whether it’s styling or settings being able to multiple
Selectively and things and change things all at once like there’s so many different workflow features DV calls them efficiency tools I tend to calm workflow features
But they’re one in the same and those are the things that the competitors don’t have and that really separates Divi from the pack
06:22 David Blackmon: Awesome, and guess what? We’ve got a bonus of why Divi is still the best page builder and It’s because they’ve got the biggest Third-party marketplace if you’re a product developer like Tim and I Tim and I are two of the have two of the most successful
well-known Divi product companies in the world If you are a product Creator if you create plugins or themes or layouts or anything Divi is an amazing place to do that the audience is there Nick and the team at elegant themes is very very supportive of the third-party marketplace. They’ve always supported it They shout it out from the rooftops when a new product released or launched they have their own Internal, you know Product review, you know, they just don’t do it for anyone. They have an entire team that manages that and Elegant themes is launching a marketplace here soon. So You don’t even need to do what Tim and I needed to do originally which was to build up an audience and build our own Audience and nurture it and do all of that stuff Elegant themes is about to have their own marketplace and you can submit your products there. It’s just huge So another revenue stream for web developers.
07:36 Tim Strifler: Yeah, and if you’re not a web developer maybe you’re just a Divi user the benefits of having the biggest third-party market is there’s always going to be Divi Plugins that will help you do more with Divi and so Divi can’t and shouldn’t be able to do anything you can imagine but third-party developers as David mentioned can create plugins to add features and functionality and Divi Child Themes and layouts and all that and so having having the biggest third-party market is there’s so much out there that Anything you can think of to want to be able to do or any type of design template that you’re gonna need?
It’s gonna be available already Because of the biggest third-party market that exists with Divi.
08:16 David Blackmon: well Tim, how does it feel to be back?
08:19 Tim Strifler: How feels amazing it’s probably longer than our average episode length, but that’s okay. It’s the first one back in a long time
08:27 David Blackmon: How feels amazing it’s probably longer than our average episode length, but that’s okay. It’s the first one back in a long time
Yeah, and I’m excited. I’m really glad we’re back I really hope that you enjoy if you’re watching this or if you do watch this going forward I really really hope you enjoy watching this process behind the scenes and stuff So tomorrow we’ve got another great topic for you five SEO tips you can implement today. Tim?
08:49 Tim Strifler: Take care
08:50 David Blackmon: Bye bye till tomorrow. We’ll see you then
Did you Enjoy this Episode? * Will you consider sharing it online? Just click one of the share buttons below! * Will you leave us a review? 🙂 * Have a question, or a topic request? Let us know in the comments below!
Want to Connect with David & Tim? * David: + Aspen Grove Studios + Divi Space * Tim: + TimStrifler.com + Divi Life
The post Why Divi is (still) the Best Page Builder for WordPress | EP 612 appeared first on WP Gears.
The Most Optimum Way to Segment Your Email Marketing Lists
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Want to Connect with David & Tim? * David: + Aspen Grove Studios + Divi Space * Tim: + TimStrifler.com + Divi Life
The post The Most Optimum Way to Segment Your Email Marketing Lists | EP 611 appeared first on WP Gears.
Why Tim Doesn’t Accept Checks from Web Design Clients
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Want to Connect with David & Tim? * David: + Aspen Grove Studios + Divi Space * Tim: + TimStrifler.com + Divi Life
The post Why Tim Doesn’t Accept Checks from Web Design Clients | EP 610 appeared first on WP Gears.
Hourly Billing vs Fixed Project Billing for Web Design Clients
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The post Hourly Billing vs Fixed Project Billing for Web Design Clients | EP 609 appeared first on WP Gears.
The Best URL Structure for SEO 1. simple 2. readable 3. clean 4. succinct
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The post The Best URL Structure for SEO | EP 608 appeared first on WP Gears.
The Secret to Unlimited Web Design Clients 1. Building Trust with as many people as possible 2. networking 3. social media 4. content marketing 5. webinars
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The post The Secret to Unlimited Web Design Clients | EP 607 appeared first on WP Gears.
Building a Successful Business Always Requires Sacrifice You’re always sacrificing something: time, comfort, financial security, a social life
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The post Building a Successful Business Always Requires Sacrifice | EP 606 appeared first on WP Gears.
How to Design an Amazing Website with a Page Builder Hire a designer or learn proper design principles
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The post How to Design an Amazing Website with a Page Builder | EP 605 appeared first on WP Gears.
The Critical Project Management Mistake that Can Cost You Thousands Always have one point of contact!
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The post The Critical Project Management Mistake that Can Cost You Thousands | EP 604 appeared first on WP Gears.
Why You Should Upgrade to PHP 7 1. PHP is a server side programming language. WordPress is written using PHP as the scripting language. 2. Get Ahead of the Curve and Be Ready for the Upcoming PHP Bump 3. Take Advantage of the Enhancements Available With PHP 7 4. Avoid Compatibility Issues With Plugins and Themes 5. Improve Your Security and Ensure Ongoing Support
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Want to Connect with David & Tim? * David: + Aspen Grove Studios + Divi Space * Tim: + TimStrifler.com + Divi Life
The post Why You Should Upgrade to PHP 7 | EP 603 appeared first on WP Gears.