Podcast appearances and mentions of andrew wilder

We hit a milestone today as this is our 50th Podcast Episode! A Big thank you to You, our listeners for your continued support!* Kali Linux Users Face Update Issues After Repository Signing Key Loss* CISOs Advised to Secure Personal Protections Against Scapegoating and Whistleblowing Risks* WhatsApp Launches Advanced Chat Privacy to Safeguard Sensitive Conversations* Samsung Confirms Security Vulnerability in Galaxy Devices That Could Expose Passwords* Former Disney Menu Manager Sentenced to 3 Years for Malicious System AttacksKali Linux Users Face Update Issues After Repository Signing Key Losshttps://www.kali.org/blog/new-kali-archive-signing-key/Offensive Security has announced that Kali Linux users will need to manually install a new repository signing key following the loss of the previous key. Without this update, users will experience system update failures.The company recently lost access to the old repository signing key (ED444FF07D8D0BF6) and had to create a new one (ED65462EC8D5E4C5), which has been signed by Kali Linux developers using signatures on the Ubuntu OpenPGP key server. OffSec emphasized that the key wasn't compromised, so the old one remains in the keyring.Users attempting to update their systems with the old key will encounter error messages stating "Missing key 827C8569F2518CC677FECA1AED65462EC8D5E4C5, which is needed to verify signature."To address this issue, the Kali Linux repository was frozen on February 18th. "In the coming day(s), pretty much every Kali system out there will fail to update," OffSec warned. "This is not only you, this is for everyone, and this is entirely our fault."To avoid update failures, users are advised to manually download and install the new repository signing key by running the command: sudo wget https://archive.kali.org/archive-keyring.gpg -O /usr/share/keyrings/kali-archive-keyring.gpgFor users unwilling to manually update the keyring, OffSec recommends reinstalling Kali using images that include the updated keyring.This isn't the first time Kali Linux users have faced such issues. A similar incident occurred in February 2018 when developers allowed the GPG key to expire, also requiring manual updates from users.CISOs Advised to Secure Personal Protections Against Scapegoating and Whistleblowing Riskshttps://path.rsaconference.com/flow/rsac/us25/FullAgenda/page/catalog/session/1727392520218001o5wvhttps://www.theregister.com/2025/04/28/ciso_rsa_whistleblowing/Chief Information Security Officers should negotiate personal liability insurance and golden parachute agreements when starting new roles to protect themselves in case of organizational conflicts, according to a panel of security experts at the RSA Conference.During a session on CISO whistleblowing, experienced security leaders shared cautionary tales and strategic advice for navigating the increasingly precarious position that has earned the role the nickname "chief scapegoat officer" in some organizations.Dd Budiharto, former CISO at Marathon Oil and Philips 66, revealed she was once fired for refusing to approve fraudulent invoices for work that wasn't delivered. "I'm proud to say I've been fired for not being willing to compromise my integrity," she stated. Despite losing her position, Budiharto chose not to pursue legal action against her former employer, a decision the panel unanimously supported as wise to avoid industry blacklisting.Andrew Wilder, CISO of veterinarian network Vetcor, emphasized that security executives should insist on two critical insurance policies before accepting new positions: directors and officers insurance (D&O) and personal legal liability insurance (PLLI). "You want to have personal legal liability insurance that covers you, not while you are an officer of an organization, but after you leave the organization as well," Wilder advised.Wilder referenced the case of former Uber CISO Joe Sullivan, noting that Sullivan's Uber-provided PLLI covered PR costs during his legal proceedings following a data breach cover-up. He also stressed the importance of negotiating severance packages to ensure whistleblowing decisions can be made on ethical rather than financial grounds.The panelists agreed that thorough documentation is essential for CISOs. Herman Brown, CIO for San Francisco's District Attorney's Office, recommended documenting all conversations and decisions. "Email is a great form of documentation that doesn't just stand for 'electronic mail,' it also stands for 'evidential mail,'" he noted.Security leaders were warned to be particularly careful about going to the press with complaints, which the panel suggested could result in even worse professional consequences than legal action. Similarly, Budiharto cautioned against trusting internal human resources departments or ethics panels, reminding attendees that HR ultimately works to protect the company, not individual employees.The panel underscored that proper governance, documentation, and clear communication with leadership about shared security responsibilities are essential practices for CISOs navigating the complex political and ethical challenges of their role.WhatsApp Launches Advanced Chat Privacy to Safeguard Sensitive Conversationshttps://blog.whatsapp.com/introducing-advanced-chat-privacyWhatsApp has rolled out a new "Advanced Chat Privacy" feature designed to provide users with enhanced protection for sensitive information shared in both private and group conversations.The new privacy option, accessible by tapping on a chat name, aims to prevent the unauthorized extraction of media and conversation content. "Today we're introducing our latest layer for privacy called 'Advanced Chat Privacy.' This new setting available in both chats and groups helps prevent others from taking content outside of WhatsApp for when you may want extra privacy," WhatsApp announced in its release.When enabled, the feature blocks other users from exporting chat histories, automatically downloading media to their devices, and using messages for AI features. According to WhatsApp, this ensures "everyone in the chat has greater confidence that no one can take what is being said outside the chat."The company noted that this initial version is now available to all users who have updated to the latest version of the app, with plans to strengthen the feature with additional protections in the future. However, WhatsApp acknowledges that certain vulnerabilities remain, such as the possibility of someone photographing a conversation screen even when screenshots are blocked.This latest privacy enhancement continues WhatsApp's long-standing commitment to user security, which began nearly seven years ago with the introduction of end-to-end encryption. The platform has steadily expanded its privacy capabilities since then, implementing end-to-end encrypted chat backups for iOS and Android in October 2021, followed by default disappearing messages for new chats in December of the same year.More recent security updates include chat locking with password or fingerprint protection, a Secret Code feature to hide locked chats, and location hiding during calls by routing connections through WhatsApp's servers. Since October 2024, the platform has also encrypted contact databases for privacy-preserving synchronization.Meta reported in early 2020 that WhatsApp serves more than two billion users across over 180 countries, making these privacy enhancements significant for a substantial portion of the global messaging community.Samsung Confirms Security Vulnerability in Galaxy Devices That Could Expose Passwordshttps://us.community.samsung.com/t5/Suggestions/Implement-Auto-Delete-Clipboard-History-to-Prevent-Sensitive/m-p/3200743Samsung has acknowledged a significant security flaw in its Galaxy devices that potentially exposes user passwords and other sensitive information stored in the clipboard.The issue was brought to light by a user identified as "OicitrapDraz" who posted concerns on Samsung's community forum on April 14. "I copy passwords from my password manager all the time," the user wrote. "How is it that Samsung's clipboard saves everything in plain text with no expiration? That's a huge security issue."In response, Samsung confirmed the vulnerability, stating: "We understand your concerns regarding clipboard behavior and how it may affect sensitive content. Clipboard history in One UI is managed at the system level." The company added that the user's "suggestion for more control over clipboard data—such as auto-clear or exclusion options—has been noted and shared with the appropriate team for consideration."One UI is Samsung's customized version of Android that runs on Galaxy smartphones and tablets. The security flaw means that sensitive information copied to the clipboard remains accessible in plain text without any automatic expiration or encryption.As a temporary solution, Samsung recommended that users "manually clear clipboard history when needed and use secure input methods for sensitive information." This stopgap measure puts the burden of security on users rather than providing a system-level fix.Security experts are particularly concerned now that this vulnerability has been publicly acknowledged, as it creates a potential "clipboard wormhole" that attackers could exploit to access passwords and other confidential information on affected devices. Users of Samsung Galaxy devices are advised to exercise extreme caution when copying sensitive information until a more comprehensive solution is implemented.Former Disney Menu Manager Sentenced to 3 Years for Malicious System Attackshttps://www.theregister.com/2025/04/29/former_disney_employee_jailed/A former Disney employee has received a 36-month prison sentence and been ordered to pay nearly $688,000 in fines after pleading guilty to sabotaging the entertainment giant's restaurant menu systems following his termination.Michael Scheuer, a Winter Garden, Florida resident who previously served as Disney's Menu Production Manager, was arrested in October and charged with violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) and committing aggravated identity theft. He accepted a plea agreement in January, with sentencing finalized last week in federal court in Orlando.According to court documents, Scheuer's June 13, 2024 termination from Disney for misconduct was described as "contentious and not amicable." In July, he retaliated by making unauthorized access to Disney's Menu Creator application, hosted by a third-party vendor in Minnesota, and implementing various destructive changes.The attacks included replacing Disney's themed fonts with Wingdings, rendering menus unreadable, and altering menu images and background files to display as blank white pages. These changes propagated throughout the database, making the Menu Creator system inoperable for one to two weeks. The damage was so severe that Disney has since abandoned the application entirely.Particularly concerning were Scheuer's alterations to allergen information, falsely indicating certain menu items were safe for people with specific allergies—changes that "could have had fatal consequences depending on the type and severity of a customer's allergy," according to the plea agreement. He also modified wine region labels to reference locations of mass shootings, added swastika graphics, and altered QR codes to direct customers to a website promoting a boycott of Israel.Scheuer employed multiple methods to conduct his attacks, including using an administrative account via a Mullvad VPN, exploiting a URL-based contractor access mechanism, and targeting SFTP servers that stored menu files. He also conducted denial of service attacks that made over 100,000 incorrect login attempts, locking out fourteen Disney employees from their enterprise accounts.The FBI executed a search warrant at Scheuer's residence on September 23, 2024, at which point the attacks immediately ceased. Agents discovered virtual machines used for the attacks and a "doxxing file" containing personal information on five Disney employees and a family member of one worker.Following his prison term, Scheuer will undergo three years of supervised release with various conditions, including a prohibition on contacting Disney or any of the individual victims. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit edwinkwan.substack.com

Link to episode page This week's Cyber Security Headlines – Week in Review is hosted by Rich Stroffolino with guest Andrew Wilder, CISO, Vetcor Thanks to our show sponsor, Conveyor Let me guess, another security questionnaire just landed in your inbox. Which means all the follow up tasks you don't have time for are close behind.  What are you going to do? Here's a better question: what would Sue do? Sue is Conveyor's new AI Agent for Customer Trust. She handles the entire security review process like answering every customer request for a SOC 2 from sales, completing every questionnaire or executing every communications and coordination task in-between.  No more manual work. Just a quick review when she's done. Ready to let Sue take the reins? Learn more at www.conveyor.com. All links and the video of this episode can be found on CISO Series.com  

All links and images for this episode can be found on CISO Series. Check out this post for the discussion that is the basis of our conversation on this week's episode co-hosted by me, David Spark (@dspark), the producer of CISO Series, and Geoff Belknap (@geoffbelknap). Joining us is Andrew Wilder, CISO, Vetcor. In this episode: It comes down to growth Maintenance mode is anything but simple An asymmetric arrangement Integrating with the business  Thanks to our podcast sponsor, ThreatLocker ThreatLocker® is a global leader in Zero Trust endpoint security, offering cybersecurity controls to protect businesses from zero-day attacks and ransomware. ThreatLocker operates with a default deny approach to reduce the attack surface and mitigate potential cyber vulnerabilities. To learn more and start your free trial, visit ThreatLocker.com.

Diversifying your traffic sources, building your email list, and the tools to help you build your audience with Andrew Wilder and Colin Devroe ----- Welcome to episode 473 of The Food Blogger Pro Podcast! This week on the podcast, Bjork interviews Andrew Wilder and Colin Devroe from NerdPress.  Future-Proofing Your Content with Andrew Wilder and Colin Devroe We were so thrilled to have Bjork sit down with Andrew Wilder and Colin Devroe for this episode! Andrew is the CEO of NerdPress and one of our Food Blogger Pro experts, so you may have seen him around the forum breaking down all things WordPress for our members! Colin Devroe is also on the NerdPress team—he's a Senior Product Manager currently working on SaveThis and Hubbub, NerdPress's very own social sharing plugin (previously Grow Social Pro and Social Pug before that). This episode has been an affirmation for us all that to keep your content flourishing, you'll want to dig deep to build a community and form lasting relationships with your readers. We hope you enjoy the episode as much as we did! In this episode, you'll learn about: Diversifying Your Traffic Sources: The landscape of social media is constantly evolving — while giants like Meta (Facebook, Instagram) hold significant power, it's crucial to look beyond them. You'll learn about the rise of the "fediverse," an open-source network allowing users to move between social platforms and take their content and followers with them, as well as the importance of diversifying your traffic sources and exploring emerging platforms to future-proof your content strategy. Build Lasting Connections with Your Audience: Growing a loyal email list is critical to building strong reader relationships. This episode emphasizes the importance of consistent communication and providing valuable content to your subscribers. The power of community is much stronger than you think and can help you and your content remain stable in the long run! Maximize Traffic and Community Through Strategic Tools: You'll hear about how various tools like Hubbub (their very own social sharing plugin), SaveThis (a tool within Hubbub Pro), and Flipboard can help you grow your audience — and your email list — while still providing value to your readers! Resources: NerdPress Hubbub Pro Hubbub Lite (free to use) SaveThis by Hubbub Flipboard Recap of Fediverse Webinar for Creators and Curators by Flipboard 1,000 True Fans by Kevin Kelly Nathan Barry's Newsletter Join the Food Blogger Pro Podcast Facebook Group ----- This episode is sponsored by Yoast and Clariti. Learn more about our sponsors at foodbloggerpro.com/sponsors. Interested in working with us too? Learn more about our sponsorship opportunities and how to get started here. If you have any comments, questions, or suggestions for interviews, be sure to email them to podcast@foodbloggerpro.com. Learn more about joining the Food Blogger Pro community at foodbloggerpro.com/membership

Link to blog post This week's Cyber Security Headlines - Week in Review is hosted by Rich Stroffolino with guest Andrew Wilder, CISO, Community Veterinary Partners, also cybersecurityintheboardroom.com. Thanks to our show sponsor, Conveyor Why did the AI cross the road? To complete your security questionnaires for you. Conveyor, the company using market-leading AI to automate the entire security review, wants you to check them out and book a call so they can stop writing these cheesy podcast ads. If you're ready for AI to instantly complete security questionnaires for you, visit www.conveyor.com to try a free proof of concept. Mention this podcast for 5 free questionnaire credits when you purchase a Pro plan. All links and the video of this episode can be found on CISO Series.com

Andrew Wilder helps businesses, boards, and startups understand and address Cybersecurity Risk. He has  broad range of Cybersecurity, Risk Management, Audit, Merger & Acquisition, Organizational Design, and International experience cultivated over more than two decades across several industries. He is a retained Chief Security Officer, an adjunct professor in cybersecurity, and is an advisor for many cybersecurity startups. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/virtual-ciso-moment/message

Andrew Wilder, founder of NerdPress, tracks his journey from theater lighting designer to food blogger to web solopreneur to tech CEO. Andrew recalls his dad's advice, to walk different paths and see what you like. Doing this got him to what he is passionate about—enabling people to use complex tech solutions. Once Andrew let go of the need to define his identity through professional labels, he freed himself to measure success by his own standards and metrics. Key among those was targeting excellence rather than perfection. Andrew explains how in his leadership role, coat-checking his “control freak” tendencies, delegating, and collaborating on decisions empowers his team and fuels NerdPress's growth. He emphasizes how core company values apply to both customers and staff, and how checking in with those principles helps him and his team make decisions that align with their mission. A strong company culture, robust communication system, and strategic partnerships enable Andrew's work family to have fun while providing exceptional services. Andrew shares how just “showing up” and talking with people led to unexpected opportunities in his career. He encourages listeners to be bold, take risks, and stay open to possibilities that may lead to the next big thing. KEY TAKEAWAYS Be bold and take risks: Just showing up and connecting with people leads to opportunities and growth. Many of the pivotal moments in Andrew's journey were the result of unexpected conversations.Let go of labels: Andrew shares his journey, from attaching his identity to labels to building a company and defining success his own way. Strive for excellence, not perfection: The pursuit of excellence leads to success and fulfillment, while obsessing about perfection can hold you back. Collaborate, empower, and trust: Hiring good people, leveraging the power of communication software, and forming strategic partnerships, Andrew ensures that NerdPress clients enter a collaborative orbit for “WordPress support that feels like family.” Core values as a tool: Andrew and his team work by a fundamental rule: When you're struggling to make a decision, use the company's core values as a guide. SOUND BITES“Just showing up is huge. You never know what's gonna happen. Be bold and take a risk. It's so easy to reach out to somebody. Where I am now is a result of all these little interactions that I never could have predicted." “My dad just encouraged me to try stuff. He would say, ‘There's always going to be a bunch of paths in front of you, and you should try going down them and see what sticks and what you like.' Walking down a path isn't a huge commitment. It sometimes feels like it is, but it isn't.”“I'm not going to let go of excellence, but it doesn't have to be perfect. There's a difference.” “I found myself not really liking the work. I loved having done it, and being proud of the work. But I didn't like the actual doing. The idea is one thing, but the day to day is another. We are the sum of our days. And if we're miserable each day, we're going to be miserable. One of the things I look for when hiring is intrinsic motivation. One of my favorite interview questions is, ‘What gets you excited to get out of bed in the morning?' I love hearing how people answer that question.”“If I'm struggling to make a decision, I look at our core values. If we have a company culture that's resilient, and is a shared set of values, as long as somebody on my team is living those values, I'm going to back them 100 percent.”“There's a cartoon that's, like, two panes. One side says ‘What people think success is.' It's just a graph of a straight diagonal line, going up right with an arrow. The next pane is ‘What success really looks like'—a...

Zach talks with Chief Security Officer, Andrew Wilder, about what he calls the "beauty and the beast" of GenAI, especially as it relates to cyber security. Andrew comes from a place of neutrality, addressing the good, the bad, and the ugly of leveraging Generative AI in enterprises. He and Zach dive into it all in this episode. Like and Subscribe on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAIUNkXmnAPgLWnqUDpUGAQ), Spotify, and Apple Podcasts. Follow us on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/company/keyhole-software) and Twitter (@KeyholeSoftware). Find even more Keyhole content on our website (https://keyholesoftware.com/). About Andrew: Andrew has a broad range of Cybersecurity, Risk Management, Audit, Merger & Acquisition, Organizational Design, and International experience cultivated over more than two decades across the Consumer Packaged Goods, Manufacturing, Financial Services, Logistics, Healthcare and Consulting industries. He has architected multiple strategic reorganizations in North America, Latin America, Europe, and Asia driving savings of more than 100 million dollars in bottom line cost. He has created and led global programs for Cybersecurity Risk Quantification, ISO 27001 (ISMS), Security Awareness, Cloud Security Architecture, Vulnerability Management, Security Operations (SOC / SIEM), Incident Response, Asset Management, Digital Security / DevSecOps, Data Privacy, Identity and Access Management, OT/IOT/IIOT Security, Privileged Access Management, Network Security, and Vendor Risk / 3rd Party Risk Management.

Howdy, y'all, and welcome to The Cyber Ranch Podcast!  Our guest is Andrew Wilder, Retained CISO at Community Veterinary Partners, Member of the Board of Directors at Washington University in St. Louis, Advisory Board Member, former Global CISO, former Regional CISO... He's got a real history in this game.  What we're talking about today is retained, fractional, virtual, and part-time CISOing...   Topics addressed:   Challenge of vCISO - do i have a job 6 months from now? Marketing and sales - building pipeline OR work for someone else - they get a big cut? Life insurance in the US is normally employment-based, and paid time off is a thing.  Allan's cancer scare brought all of those risks to light. Tax benefits to 1099 Work/Life balance - or should that be life/work balance? Two fulltime vCISO roles at the same time?  Possible... Fractional, one-offs, consultations SEC and SolarWinds - a vCISO is not an officer of the company Andrew calls himself 'retained CISO' - he got that term from our friend Steve Zelewski Fractional vs. virtual vs. retainers - everyone says retainer is the path to victory, but how does that really work?    

Andrew Wilder is an award-winning CISO who is in the C|CISO Top 50 Hall of Fame. Here are the books mentioned in this episode, along with a few other suggested readings.Cybersecurity First Principles by Rick Howardhttps://www.amazon.com/Cybersecurity-First-Principles-Strategy-Tactics/dp/1394173083IT Works (The Famous Little Red Book) by RHJhttps://www.amazon.com/Works-Famous-Little-Makes-Dreams/dp/0875163238The Magic of Believing by Claude M. Bristolhttps://www.amazon.com/Magic-Believing-Claude-M-Bristol/dp/0671745212The Five Lessons by Neville Goddardhttps://www.amazon.com/Five-Lessons-Neville-Goddard/dp/1603865357The Lazy Man's Way to Riches by Joe Karbo (1st Edition)https://www.amazon.com/Lazy-Mans-Way-Riches-Everything/dp/1884337015So You Want to be a CISO by Sue Bergamohttps://www.amazon.com/want-Chief-Information-Security-Officer-ebook/dp/B0CP8HSCKTThe Leadership Forge: 50 fire-tested insights by Joe Scherrerhttps://www.amazon.com/Leadership-Forge-Fire-Tested-Insights-Toughest/dp/0990489612A Data-Driven Computer Defense by Roger A. Grimeshttps://www.amazon.com/Data-Driven-Computer-Defense-Way-Improve/dp/1092500847The Great Reboot by Bob Zukishttps://www.amazon.com/Great-Reboot-Succeeding-Complex-Systemic/dp/173504301X Washington University Executive Cybersecurity Certificate Programhttps://tlcenter.wustl.edu/executive-cybersecurity-certificateAsk me a Question Here: https://topmate.io/ken_underhill Get better at job interviews and build your confidence with this short course.https://cyberken23.gumroad.com/l/jbilol/youtube20 If you need cybersecurity training, here are some good resources. Please note that I earn a small affiliate commission if you sign up through these links for the training. Learn Ethical Hacking skills https://get.haikuinc.io/crk0rg6li6qd Get Ethical Hacking skills, SOC Analyst skills, and more through StationX. https://www.stationx.net/cyberlife #cybersecurity #ciso #leadershipdevelopment #leadership #executivecoaching Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/cyber-life/donations

Link to blog post This week's Cyber Security Headlines – Week in Review is hosted by Rich Stroffolino with guest Andrew Wilder, CISO, Community Veterinary Partners Thanks to our show sponsor, Vanta “Growing a business? That likely means more tools, third-party vendors, and data sharing — AKA, way more risk. Vanta's market-leading trust management platform brings GRC and security efforts together. Integrate information from multiple systems and reduce risks to your business and your brand — all without the need for additional staffing. And by automating up to 90% of the work for SOC 2, ISO 27001, and more, you'll be able to focus on strategy and security, not maintaining compliance. Join 5,000 fast-growing companies that leverage Vanta to manage risk and prove security in real-time. Our listeners get $1,000 off Vanta. Go to vanta.com/ciso to claim this discount. All links and the video of this episode can be found on CISO Series.com  

Hello and welcome to Get It Started, Get It Done, the Banyan Security podcast covering the security industry and beyond. In this episode, our host and Banyan's Chief Security Officer Den Jones speaks with veteran cybersecurity leader Andrew Wilder. Andrew discusses some key lessons from his early career and his CISO roles, with a dose of advice for those just entering the cyber security space. About Andrew Wilder:“Andrew Wilder brings more than 20 years of progressive leadership experience in Cybersecurity.  He spent the majority of his career at Nestle, where he was the Regional CISO of Americas, Asia, and Europe in 2021.  His most recent role was as the Global CISO of Hillenbrand, an industrial manufacturing company where he rebuilt the Cybersecurity program from scratch.  Andrew is a thought leader in the Cybersecurity community and regular speaker at conferences, webinars, and podcasts where he shares his knowledge to help inspire the next generation of Cybersecurity professionals.”

How can cybersecurity professionals help shape the next generation of cyber leaders? How will the industry continue to adapt to the evolving security threat landscape? In this Ask Me Anything (AMA) video podcast episode from Security magazine, Andrew Wilder, cybersecurity executive, Adjunct Professor of Cybersecurity and Member of the Board of Directors at Washington University, discusses how the field has evolved over the last decades; cyber best practices for mergers & acquisitions; lessons he's learned about cybersecurity since becoming a professor; and much more.

In this episode of The New CISO, Steve is joined by guest Andrew Wilder, Adjunct Professor at Washington University in St. Louis and a multi-time CISO.After eighteen years, Andrew left a job he loved to transition into global security. Now, he gives back to the cybersecurity community by sharing his insight as a professor and mentor. Tune into today's episode to learn more about his IT journey, expanding your network, and company red flags.Listen to Steve and Andrew discuss his five-step mentorship plan and essential interview guidelines for CISOs:Meet Andrew (1:38)Host Steve Moore introduces our guest today, Andrew Wilder, who has worked in cyber security for twenty years.Andrew got his start in cybersecurity by working at a paper company, where he worked in marketing, sales, inventory, customer service, and more. One day the owner came to him, wanting to change their computer systems. Being the youngest in the office, Andrew was given the project, beginning his IT journey.Eighteen Years (6:23)Andrew reveals why he stayed at Nestle for eighteen years. Andrew loved the people and culture and even met his wife on the job.Steve presses Andrew on why he didn't stay longer, and Andrew reveals that he progressed as far as he could go. Wanting to move forward in his career, Andrew felt inclined to make the jump.A Difficult Move (8:12)Andrew shares how challenging it was to leave Nestle. Although his co-workers were shocked, Andrew knew going was right for him.If you're in a similar situation, you may always find something to regret, but no situation is perfect. Ultimately, you have to do what's best for you.Care About Your Career (11:50)When contemplating a career transition, Andrew recommends finding a mentor. Of course, no one will care for your career for you. You will make time for something and seek the necessary resources if you care about it.The Five-Step Plan (13:59)Andrew shares his five-step plan for changing careers, which includes creating a development plan with your mentor and filling in the gaps in your desired skill set.In addition, Andrew shares a helpful tip he received from Nestle, which is that 70% of your learning should be learning by doing. 20% of learning is through relationships, while 10% should be through a course or learning program.Getting In The Room (20:00)Steve presses Andrew on what steps CISOs should take to get in the room. Andrew recommends ensuring people know who you are and your expertise.If people don't know you, you'll never be able to prove yourself. That is the value of expanding your network.What To Ask (24:47)If you're offered a board-type position, it's essential to learn about the company culture and the CEO and review any incident reports that allow you to bring your expertise to the position.Interview Questions (28:24)Enterprise risk management is an excellent framework to focus on during an interview. Asking questions based on prior risks will reveal much about an organization, including red flags.Andrew also reveals other red flags to look for in an interview. If companies don't show change or progress with security, the work culture will be less desirable for a CISO. The worst cyberculture you could join is one where they won't admit when they've experienced a breach.Business Continuity Planning (37:20)Business continuity planning is ignored a lot in cybersecurity because it is business driven. In Andrew's opinion, cybersecurity should be separate.Andrew and Steve discuss other business dynamics and what should or shouldn't be the responsibility of the CISO.Why Teaching (41:43)Steve presses...

Join LevelUp Cyber Live and our special guest, Andrew Wilder, where we unravel the profound significance of mentors and the art of mentoring in the cybersecurity industry. Join us on a transformative journey as we explore the pivotal role mentors play in shaping the next generation of cyber professionals and fostering a vibrant cybersecurity community.We will share stories of growth, challenges, and triumphs that have shaped their journeys, with mentors acting as guiding lights along the way. By sharing intimate anecdotes and invaluable insights, our guests illustrate how mentorship has propelled them to new heights, instilled resilience, and nurtured their passion for cybersecurity. From ethical hacking to digital forensics, from risk management to threat intelligence, our podcast explores the multifaceted dimensions of cybersecurity and the diverse avenues in which mentorship thrives.We will delve into how effective mentorship programs can bridge the skills gap, promote diversity and inclusion, and foster innovation and collaboration within organizations. Discover how mentors inspire the next generation of cybersecurity leaders, equipping them with the tools and knowledge to navigate an ever-evolving threat landscape.We will also share invaluable tips, strategies, and best practices for both mentors and mentees in the cybersecurity realm. Learn how to cultivate strong mentorship relationships, leverage them to develop technical expertise, and foster professional growth. Gain insights into the importance of ethical conduct, professionalism, and continuous learning in the cybersecurity field.Whether you're an aspiring cybersecurity professional seeking guidance, a seasoned expert eager to give back, or an organization aiming to establish a thriving mentorship culture, "LevelUp Cyber Mentoring" provides a wealth of knowledge and inspiration. Tune in to discover the secrets of successful mentorship, unlock your true potential, and join us in shaping the future of cybersecurity through mentorship.Join LevelUp Cyber on a captivating exploration of mentorship's profound impact on the cybersecurity industry. Let us guide you on a transformative journey as we illuminate the path to success in the dynamic world of cybersecurity.

Optimizing your website for Core Web Vitals, following best practices for images, and learning more about Google's Ranking Factors with Andrew Wilder from NerdPress. ----- Welcome to episode 407 of The Food Blogger Pro Podcast! This week on the podcast, Bjork interviews Andrew Wilder from NerdPress. How Core Web Vitals and Image Size Impact Search Ranking Do you ever feel overwhelmed by the nitty gritty tech side of running a food blog? Well then, this week's podcast episode is for you. Bjork is chatting with Andrew Wilder, our WordPress Support Expert, and the Founder and CEO of NerdPress. In this episode, Andrew takes a deep dive into Core Web Vitals and explains how they're calculated, and why it's important to optimize your site with Core Web Vitals in mind. They also discuss the best practices for blog image sizes, including the best method for compressing your images, and frequently asked questions about Featured Images. Andrew is a frequent flyer guest on the podcast for a reason — he is super knowledgeable, and can teach us all about the tech side of blogging that many of us struggle with! If that sounds like you, you won't want to miss this episode. In this episode, you'll learn: All about Andrew's journey of starting and growing NerdPress as a business. Why it's important for creators to pay attention to Core Web Vitals. More about Google's Ranking Factors (and how they relate to Core Web Vitals). Everything you need to know about Core Web Vitals, including how they're calculated and how to optimize for Core Web Vitals. What Google Search Console is, and how to set it up. The process for optimizing and compressing the images on your site. The difference between .jpeg, .png, and .webp, and when to use them. Best practices for sizing and cropping your Featured Images. More about working with Andrew and the NerdPress team. Resources: Andrew's episodes on The Food Blogger Pro Podcast NerdPress International Food Bloggers Conference Google Search Console's Core Web Vitals report The Feast Plugin WP Rocket Perfmatters PageSpeed Insights 339: Tech Check-In – The Best Plugins and Tools for Food Bloggers in 2022 with Andrew Wilder Google Search Console Google Discover Adobe Lightroom Adobe Photoshop WP Recipe Maker ShortPixel Imagify Smush NerdPress Frequently Asked Questions Follow Andrew on Instagram Join the Food Blogger Pro Podcast Facebook Group ----- This episode is sponsored by Clariti. Learn how you can organize your blog content for maximum growth by going to clariti.com/food. If you have any comments, questions, or suggestions for interviews, be sure to email them to podcast@foodbloggerpro.com. Learn more about joining the Food Blogger Pro community at foodbloggerpro.com/membership

Andrew Wilder is the founder and CEO of NerdPress, a digital agency that provides WordPress maintenance and support for hundreds of food blogs, placing an emphasis on site speed, stability, and security. Inside this episode he provides food bloggers with five things to focus on as we head into a fresh new year. - Site speed/core web vitals. - Invest in good web hosting. - Look at your site from your user's perspective. - Diversify revenue beyond display ads and diversify traffic beyond Google. - Start building your team today!

Understanding what's new with Core Web Vitals, using the best plugins as a food blogger, and diversifying your revenue streams with Andrew Wilder from NerdPress. ----- Welcome to episode 339 of The Food Blogger Pro Podcast! This week on the podcast, Bjork interviews Andrew Wilder from NerdPress about the current state of tech for food bloggers. Tech Check-In Today on the podcast, we're really excited to be chatting again with our WordPress Support Expert, Andrew Wilder! Through his company, NerdPress, Andrew and his team do maintenance and support for WordPress websites, and 95% of their clients are food bloggers. Suffice to say, he knows his stuff when it comes to WordPress food and recipe sites. In this episode, you'll hear Andrew's thoughts on the current state of tech for food bloggers. From an update on what's new with Core Web Vitals to his current list of go-to plugins for food bloggers, this episode is jam-packed with information that will help you set your blog up for success in 2022. Enjoy! In this episode, you'll learn: What Andrew does at NerdPress Why documentation is so important when it comes to building a business What bloggers need to know about Core Web Vitals Why it's important to use a recipe plugin What caching plugins do What types of plugins he doesn't recommend using What his thoughts are about Google Web Stories Why he recommends diversifying your revenue streams as a blogger Resources: NerdPress Eating Rules WordCamp Ramshackle Pantry Process Street Loom Guru 306: Core Web Vitals – What Food Bloggers Need to Know About User Experience and Google with Andrew Wilder Core Web Vitals PageSpeed Insights WP Rocket Tasty Recipes WP Recipe Maker Create by Mediavine Curbly Yoast SEO Cloudflare The Feast Plugin Google's Feature of a Pinch of Yum Web Story Food52 Leaf Group 99designs LogoTournament Find Andrew on Food Blogger Pro Connect with Andrew via email The Food Blogger Pro Podcast Facebook Group Check out the Food Blogger Pro YouTube channel (and subscribe while you're there!) If you have any comments, questions, or suggestions for interviews, be sure to email them to podcast@foodbloggerpro.com. Learn more about joining the Food Blogger Pro community at foodbloggerpro.com/membership

Today we chat about building your website team and what you need to know when you are building that team to manage your website. We talk about building a team for your website and thinking like a CEO. Join us for this fun and casual conversation! In this episode, I'll cover: The biggest struggles with managing a website The ideal website team for food bloggers Things to look for when hiring someone  Connect with Madison  Instagram | Website | Show Notes Web Design for Food Bloggers Connect with Andrew NerdPress

On this episode of BofC Live, we connect with Andrew Wilder of Torkin Manes LLP. Torkin Manes it the Official Law Firm of Business of Cannabis. Wilder co-authored a piece on Business of Cannabis last week titled: Reflections and Trends to Look for Since the Legalization of Recreational Cannabis in Canada, and we wanted to connect with him to talk about the piece and where he sees the sector headed.BofC Live is the daily news and interview program of Business of Cannabis. Business of Cannabis highlights the companies, brands, people and trends driving the sector.

What Core Web Vitals are, how they impact Google search rankings, and when they'll impact the Google search algorithm with Andrew Wilder. ----- Welcome to episode 306 of The Food Blogger Pro Podcast! This week on the podcast, we’re sharing part of our most recent member Q&A with Andrew Wilder from NerdPress where he talks about Core Web Vitals. Core Web Vitals  Google has already started using things like mobile friendliness, security, and intrusive popups to impact search rankings, and the big news on the block is that Core Web Vitals, a way to quantify user experience on a website, will impact rankings soon as well. There are three signals that measure “good” user experience: Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) First input Delay (FID) Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) Google wants readers to have a good experience on the sites that are ranking in the first few spots in search results, and Core Web Vitals are one of the ways they’re tracking that. If this all sounds confusing, don’t worry –– you’ve come to the right place! In this episode, we’re sharing part of our most recent member Q&A with our incredible WordPress and Site Speed Expert, Andrew Wilder, where he covered the ins and outs of page experience and Core Web Vitals. In this episode, you’ll learn: What Core Web Vitals are When Core Web Vitals are launching How and when Core Web Vitals will impact the Google search algorithm What other search ranking factors are What Largest Contentful Paint, First Input Delay, and Cumulative Layout Shift are Resources: NerdPress Ember Mug Core Web Vitals Core Web Vitals and Page Experience FAQ Web Vitals Extension PageSpeed Insights Google Search Console Find Andrew on Food Blogger Pro If you have any comments, questions, or suggestions for interviews, be sure to email them to podcast@foodbloggerpro.com. Learn more about joining the Food Blogger Pro community at foodbloggerpro.com/membership

A few months ago we heard from Amber Hinds about the importance of accessibility and how her WordPress plugin can help you create more accessible content. She also said that you need a human being to catch most accessibility issues – that’s where Bet Hannon comes in. Bet tells us all about what to look for when auditing your website, and how to execute a sampling audit. We also talk about a TON of tools. In Build Something More, listeners get a pre-and post-show. The pre-show is all about beer. The post-show is about database queries. (more…) View on separate page Transcript Joe Casabona: Real quick before we get started, I want to tell you about the Build Something Weekly newsletter. It is weekly, it is free, and you will get tips, tricks, and tools delivered directly to your mailbox. I will recap the current week’s episode and all of the takeaways, I’ll give you a top story, content I wrote, and then some recommendations that I’ve been using that I think you should check out. So it is free, it is a weekly, it’s over at howibuilt.it/subscribe. Go ahead and sign up over at howibuilt.it/subscribe. Hey, everybody, and welcome to Episode 219 of How I Built It, the podcast that offers actionable tech tips for small business owners. That’s a relatively new tagline I’m trying. It used to be “the podcast that asks, ‘how did you build that?'” But we’re expanding beyond that and I’m really excited about that. First, before we get into it, I want to thank our sponsors: TextExpander, Restrict Content Pro, and The Events Calendar. You’ll be hearing about them later in the show. But first, I want to bring on Bet Hannon. Bet Hannon is the CEO of Bet Hannon Business Websites. We are going to be talking about their website accessibility sampling audit. In an earlier episode, I spoke to Amber Hinds about accessibility in general, their tool, the Accessibility Checker. Now we’re going to learn how an agency actually goes about doing an audit and helping their clients not get sued and have a more accessible website. So Bet, how are you today? Bet Hannon: I’m great. Glad to be here. Joe Casabona: Thanks for coming on the show. For those of you who are not Build Something Club members, bet and I had a fantastic pre-show conversation about craft beer. So if you are interested in that, you should become a Build Something Club member over at buildsomething.club. But for now, Bet, before we get into the nitty-gritty, why don’t you tell us a little bit about who you are and what you do. Bet Hannon: Great. So I run an agency that’s focused on WordPress. I got involved with WordPress in about 2008 after I had worked for 15 or so years in nonprofit management and doing some techie geeky things for the organizations that I served. But my position got downsized in that financial crisis and kind of stumbled into starting to do a little freelancing and then develop that into an agency. And have been loving it. I love problem-solving for people. Every project is like a little puzzle to solve. Joe Casabona: Yes, absolutely. That is what I also enjoyed about. When I was doing the full-time freelance website making thing, that was always my favorite part. I wrote a plugin recently, the first one in a while and I was like, “Man, I miss this.” So I’ll have to make it a habit of coding regularly. You lose it too. I guess it’s kind of like riding a bike. But men, things change. Bet Hannon: I know. I’m missing more. I’m doing more. I’m doing less and less of that myself, you know, as I’m running the agency. But it is nice to get in. What I miss is diving in and doing Gravity Forms customization. Joe Casabona: Nice, nice. Well, not nice that you miss it, but nice that you would do it. I always liked customizing Gravity Forms. So you got into WordPress in 2008. So this is your second recession, we’ll say. As we record this, there’s still a global pandemic. Bet Hannon: We actually have been doing okay. I was kind of worried for a bit. You know, a lot of folks really just figuring out they need websites or they need to revamp their websites, or they need to repurpose their websites. So we’ve been doing okay. Joe Casabona: That’s great. That’s interesting. I had a conversation with Brad Morrison back in May 2020 about that very thing. Like we were both kind of making websites in 2008, 2009. And I feel like whenever there is a recession, people realize they need to pivot or improve their online presence. I mean, especially true with this current one because…yeah. Bet Hannon: Right, right. Figuring out how to get information out there about when they’re going to be open or how they’re going to do curbside pickup or all of that stuff. I am kind of notoriously bad for giving unsolicited feedback about websites. So when I go to the local restaurant and I’ve looked up their thing, and I go, “Hey, your colors here are not accessible and this is terrible on mobile.” Joe Casabona: Man, I would do the same thing, where I’m like, “This should really be like that.” However, the PDF doesn’t download or whatever. Your website not…” Bet Hannon: Last week I went to the dentist. I paid the dentist bill from a couple months ago, but there’s no way to pay it online. I had to call and give them and do it over the phone. So when I went in, I said, “You should really not be taking those numbers over the phone. It’s easy to make a payment form. Call me.” Joe Casabona: Yeah, exactly. “Let me know.” I’m always incensed when you can’t pay for something online or whatever. So you have a WordPress agency now. Would you say that your main focus is accessibility or it’s just something you bake into every website? Bet Hannon: Well, it’s something we bake into every website. We got started with accessibility almost four years ago now. We had a client where we were doing administrative maintenance on their site and they are… they’re still our client. They were our a big agricultural Water District in California. And because of the way they’re connected to the state of California, they became aware that they were going to have some accessibility requirements. And they asked about what needed to happen. We said, “Oh, we could refer you to somebody.” And they said, “Well, we want to work with you. Let’s all learn this together.” Joe Casabona: Wow. Bet Hannon: So we dived in, and our entire team got trained and learned a lot about accessibility and worked through a lot of that with the client and just really got hooked. When you start diving into what makes the site accessible, but also the power of making the website available to more people and usable by more people and seeing how it really can impact people’s lives, whether they have a permanent disability or a temporary disability even, you know, to be able to use the sites. And so we just really got excited about that. Some of the best advice I got as an agency owner was never ever put accessibility in a proposal as something to be refused. That you should never put yourself in a position of allowing the client to throw people with disabilities under the bus in terms of bringing down the cost. That for me it’s staking our reputation as an agency on… everything we do has accessibility baked in. And I truly believe that accessibility is going to be what mobile responsive used to be five or 10 years ago. In another five to 10 years, everybody will be doing accessible websites and it’ll just be what every self-respecting developer does. So we’re just kind of on the early curve for that. Joe Casabona: I love that. When you said that it reminded me a lot of responsive web design. Because that was something that I felt I got in on early. I saw Ethan Marcotte talk about it super early. I put it in my proposal as like, “Do you want a responsive website?” And then I was like, “Why am I even asking? It’s just going to be part of it. It’ll be part of the cost. If they want to buy a cheap website from someone else, they can.” Bet Hannon: Yeah. And quite frankly, more often than not, when I talk to clients, and I say, “Look, this is part of what we do. We bake it into everyone. There are some legal requirements that you may or may not have. You need to do this,” and they’re like, “Oh, yeah, thanks. I hadn’t even thought about that yet.” So they’re usually grateful for having it or the topic being brought up. Joe Casabona: Absolutely. I mean, it’s our job right to advocate on behalf of our clients and inform them, right? When I go to a pizza shop, the pizza shop should expect that I know how to make the perfect pizza. I shouldn’t expect that they know how to make a website. Right? Bet Hannon: Well, it’s kind of what we do as freelancers and agencies. The client comes to us and they may say, “I want this one inch of website.” And we start looking at their… our job is to kind of take a consultative approach and to say, “If you added this on, this would really impact your business in a positive way. You can really grow your business by adding this thing on,” or “tell me about how you do the sales process. Oh, we can help automate that for you.” You know, so that you’re taking more of a consultative approach to helping people understand what they might need that they don’t yet know that they need. Sponsor: This episode is brought to you by Restrict Content Pro. If you need a fast, easy way to set up a membership site for yourself or your clients, look no further than the Restrict Content Pro WordPress plugin. Easily create premium content for members using your favorite payment gateway, manage members, send member-only emails, and more. You can create any number of subscription packages, including free levels and free trials. But that’s not all. Their extensive add-ons library allows you to do even more, like drip out content, connect with any number of CRMs and newsletter tools, including ConvertKit and Mailchimp and integrate with other WordPress plugins like bbPress. Since the Build Something Club rolled out earlier this year, you can bet it’s using Restrict Content Pro. And I have used all of the things mentioned here in this ad read. I have created free levels. I’ve created coupons. I use ConvertKit and I’m using it with bbPress for the forums. I’m a big fan of the team, and I know they do fantastic work. The plugin has worked extremely well for me and I was able to get memberships up and running very quickly. Right now, they are offering a rare discount for how I built it listeners only: 20% off your purchase when you use RCPHOWIBUILTIT at checkout. That’s RCPHOWIBUILTIT, all one word. If you want to learn more about Restrict Content Pro and start making money with your own membership site today, head on over to howibuilt.it/rcp. That’s howibuilt.it/rcp. Thanks to Restrict Content Pro for supporting the show. And now let’s get back to it. Joe Casabona: So you mentioned that your team got trained. What was that like? Is there a certification process for accessibility? Bet Hannon: Mm hmm. Joe Casabona: All right. I was going to add a second part of that question, but your face lit up. So go for it. How was it like? Bet Hannon: There are. They’re both. There’s some online journey. There’s a ton of training that you can do out there. So if you’re just starting out and you’re wanting to learn more about website accessibility, some free options for doing that are going to WordPress TV. And there have been a bunch of presentations at various WordCamps on some of the technical pieces for accessibility. I’ll just be the first to confess that I’m not the lead developer at our agency. So some of those kind of technical pieces are not where I would necessarily be helpful to people. But there are tons of presentations from WordCamps to start getting going. There are some LinkedIn Learning pieces. Joe Dolson, who’s an accessibility advocate within WordPress has a great LinkedIn Learning course on Accessibility and WordPress. Very helpful. And then we had our folks do Deque, D-E-Q-U-E, deque.com, they do services around accessibility, but they also have some learning pieces. You can buy basically a membership for a year to do their self-paced online learning pieces. So we have everybody in our group do their base level, which is just awareness about disabilities, and what different accommodations are. So just kind of educating our team about what those are. And then our lead developer has been doing more advanced pieces in preparation for taking a certification exam. So there’s the International Association of Accessibility Professionals. They actually have some certification pieces. Those are several levels, in fact. Those are kind of where our folks are going. So as you may or may not have guessed, one of the ways that you might you would test a website for accessibility might be to use yourself a screen reader. So screen readers are what people who have visual impairments might want to use, and it reads out loud things that are on the web page. We’ve done that, and our developers done that for a long time. But we became aware like, I don’t know, maybe like six months ago, sort of like, well, you can use these tools, but are you using them like a visually impaired user would use them? So I did a little networking and found the consultant and agency, that is the Oregon Federation for the Blind refers people to. So if I experienced blindness and I needed to get training, my state would send me to this guy to learn how to use a screen reader. And we sent her to do training with him, our lead developer. And that was amazing because we had known for sure, but sure enough, people who are blind or visually impaired use screen readers differently than maybe we had anticipated. And so that then helps us be better at testing what we’re doing and how we’re building things out. Joe Casabona: Wow, that’s really interesting. I’ll mention one more resource that I read. Because there’s a chapter in my book on accessibility. But I read “Accessibility for Everyone.” It’s a book by Sarah… Oh, my gosh. Her last name is escaping me right now. I’m very sorry, Sarah. Oh, no, it’s not even Sarah. It’s Laura Kalbag. Laura Kalbag. That’s right. Sorry. But the book is fantastic. I will link that and everything that Bet just mentioned in the show notes over at howibuilt.it/219. Your mention of using a screen reader is very interesting because for my book, there’s a video component where I tried using one in order to show my readers how to use it to test. And honestly, it’s just I had never used one before. So I don’t think it was the most effective demo. But that leads me to ask another question, which is there must be resources in general for testing accessibility with a target audience. Right? So for example, I have transcripts for this podcast. I suspect that there’s a way for those who… Forgive me, I don’t know that I… The proper terminology is escaping me but people who are deaf or have hearing impairments. Is that the right way to put it? Bet Hannon: Mm hmm, hard of hearing. Joe Casabona: Okay. Someone got upset with me for saying hard of hearing Bet Hannon: Well, all kinds of groups, there are a variety of takes on things. Hard of Hearing is what I do see often. Joe Casabona: Okay, cool. That’s what I thought too. Okay, cool. But in any case, I guess, are there resources for you to test accessibility features with those who are most likely to use them? Bet Hannon: Do you mean doing testing with disabled users? Joe Casabona: Yes. Bet Hannon: The actual disabled users? Joe Casabona: Yes, yes. Bet Hannon: Well, people with disabilities often are chronically underemployed, and so if you have a way that you want to do a lot of testing, you could certainly do some networking to find people who could help you with testing. I think you should never ever ask a disabled person to test for you without getting compensated. Joe Casabona: Of course. Bet Hannon: I mean, think that’s just rude. We have several folks that test for us and consult with us when we have questions. Sometimes you’re testing a site and it’s just really hard to get a sense for… you know, if you tagged into this in a certain way, it might get you into a trap that you couldn’t get out of. You know, what are the clues? And so, just kind of having people do some testing for us. So we have a few people that do that for us. Joe Casabona: Got you. Bet Hannon: But resources for finding those people, I don’t… I mean, that’s going to vary quite widely. Joe Casabona: Got you. But there are resources available if you do some networking, like you said, and ask around. Bet Hannon: Yeah. You know, I would ask around. I mean, there’s some state agencies in your state, probably. You could network around about where do they send people when they need training? And then those people who are doing training on those things may often do some consulting like that on the side. Joe Casabona: Awesome. That makes perfect sense. This has already been super informative. Now, you have a website accessibility sampling audit. In a previous episode, I think I mentioned this earlier, with Amber Hinds, we kind of talked about like the WCAG ratings and things like that, which is sort of an automated thing, right? You go to a website, you get a rating. If it’s double, great. If it’s triple, even better. But we still need a person auditing your website, right? Bet Hannon: Yeah, yeah. Right. There are a variety of tools that are out there, automated tools there where you can test your site. And wave.webaim.org is the one that Amber was probably talking about. That’s one of the best known. Lighthouse is another one. It’s a Chrome extension that you can put in in the specter tools and you can look at there. They’re great. Those automated tools are really good and important to us because they can help save you a lot of time. The important thing to remember about them is that they only catch about 30% of the accessibility issues. And you may get some false positives and false negatives. And you’ll always need humankind of… you’ll need to look at things with a human eye. Those testing tools are never going to be enough to say that you’re fully accessible. So, for instance, an AI tool can tell you “yes or no, there’s an alt tag for this image.” Yes is good, No is bad. But if the alt tag is the name of the file, jpg49678, that’s not compliant. So it can give you the false negative that you had all the alt tags are taken care of when they’re not really. So you want to make sure that you’re using those tools as they’re intended, to do some basic screening, but at the same time that you’re really looking at things. Even the tools that Amber and her team have put together are great but they really require you to engage. And that’s the thing with accessibility. There is really no just put a plugin on or just pay to make it go away. You really have to learn what’s accessible and what’s not and implement it regularly. Accessibility has some parts for WordPress, and that’s what we deal with almost always. For WordPress, some parts of accessibility are in the theme. So whether your menu is accessible or not is largely controlled by your theme, for example. Your color contrast of your buttons and your color contrast is set by your theme. But a huge piece of accessibility is your content. So when you’re putting in content, are you making sure that the images have alt tags? Are you making sure that the H tags and the headings are nested without skipping any levels? So a lot of that content piece is stuff that people are just going to have to learn and learn to implement correctly as they go. Joe Casabona: That’s a really important point. I think Amber made the same point, right? Because Accessibility Checker… I don’t know if you’ve used it. Bet Hannon: Oh, yeah. Joe Casabona: She gave me a pro version. That was an inaudible “oh, yeah.” But the education part is really important. When I look at my blog posts and I see the kind of score I get, it’s like, “Hey, you have two h2 tags in a row here and you skipped an h2 tag or whatever it is.” Because I always forget if the… maybe this is a question you can answer for me. The site title is an h1 in most themes, which means your blog post… Bet Hannon: No, the page title is the h1. Joe Casabona: The page title is the h1. Okay. Bet Hannon: Yeah, yeah. Joe Casabona: So if I’m looking at a blog post… gosh, I should know this, but I don’t right now. If you’re looking at a blog post, should the title of the blog post be an h1 or an h2? Bet Hannon: Well, the title of the post or the page will be the h1. And that should be taken care of in the theme. The theme should handle that for you. And then when you start putting in H tags for kind of organizing your content, you should start with h2s. And you can go you can skip from an h2 to an h2. You just can’t go from an h2 an h4. Joe Casabona: Right. Bet Hannon: I think people often don’t quite understand or get that you shouldn’t use the H tags to style font. Right? Joe Casabona: Right. Bet Hannon: An H4 four can have as big a font as the h3 or the whatever. But you’re kind of organizing the content. I sometimes say it’s like when you were in high school English, and you had to do that outline with the Roman numerals and the capitals and then the lowercase Roman numerals and lowercase letters, and you have to kind of build it out in that way. My team doesn’t like that because “who learns to do that in English class anymore?” is what they tell me. Then I feel old. Joe Casabona: Really? Hold on. We can talk about this in Build Something More because it’s a sidetrack. People don’t learn how to do that in English class anymore? I’m outraged. Bet Hannon: Ohhh, yes. Well, you graduated before No Child Left Behind really diminished education. Joe Casabona: Oh, gosh. Bet Hannon: My wife is a college professor and sometimes what people have not learned in high school is quite astounding. Joe Casabona: Ah, that saddens me. Bet Hannon: Yeah, it is. My team sometimes talks about it as nesting file folders. That’s a different example that you can talk about. Like the whole drawer is the h1 and then you can have h2s and then nested folders. But you have to make sure that you don’t skip any. Joe Casabona: That’s interesting. I’m going to bet like most of my blog posts are inaccessible because I guess it was just always like a mental block for me. I thought the site title was h1, the page titles h2. So I always started in on h3. Bet Hannon: Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah. Joe Casabona: I better go back and fix all those. I reckon that there’s like… Bet Hannon: A few at a time. And that’s the thing. When people realize that they’ve been doing something incorrectly… I mean, know better, do better. That’s the thing. When you know better you can do better. And so when you realize that you may have not done that correctly over time, it can seem insurmountable. I mean, it just seems like this overwhelming task, I mean, if you have hundreds or thousands of posts to deal with. So the key is start and do a little at a time. Just make a goal to do two of them a week or three a week. It doesn’t take very long once you figure out what you’ve done. And then just kind of make your way through them. There are some tools for doing that. There’s a couple of really great alt tag checker tools. So there’s a free one in the repository—and now I’m going to forget its name, but we can put it in the show notes—that basically when you install the plugin, it’ll show you all the images in your media library and just show you which ones are missing alt tags. Joe Casabona: Oh, great. Bet Hannon: But then you still need to go back and fix them. And then there’s a paid tool, and it costs like $200 a year. I don’t remember the name of it, either, we’ll get into the show notes… Sorry, guys. I know it’s two, guys. Well, one is written by my friend Andrew Wilder and his team, but the other one I don’t even know. But anyway, the paid tool is really nice because it pulls in all existing alt tags. It will use AI to try and generate an alt tag based on what’s there. You have you still have to go in and kind of like say, “Oh, that’s not quite right. Let me actually fill this out.” But it gives you that help, that start. And then when you fix it there using that plugin, it fixes it on every post that’s used that image. So if you have a lot of images, it’s probably worth getting that paid tools. Joe Casabona: Yeah, for sure. For 200 bucks saving you hours of work. That’s really interesting. Because as we’re talking about this, I thought I could probably make a plugin that loops through the content of all of my posts and just bump up the heading. I’d still need to check. Bet Hannon: Yeah. If you knew it, you could do that, I suppose. Joe Casabona: I’d have to make sure it doesn’t go above h2. So I’d have to say, “Is this an h3 change to an h2, or whatever.” It would have to be smarter than just looping. Bet Hannon: If you knew you were consistently making the error, right? Joe Casabona: Yes. For me personally, I’m confident I consistently make that error. You know why I’m confident? I write in Ulysses, which is a fantastic writing app. It’s markdown, and it exports directly to WordPress. And I always start with an h2 for the document title, and it bothers me, and then I do h3 for all subsequent headings. So I know for a fact. Bet Hannon: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. If you start fixing it, you could do that. You might be able to do that. I got into doing more database query stuff a couple of years ago. We had a really large site with a ton of stuff, and very active site. We were going to be doing a new theme for them. And there’s always that problem where you have the active site where there’s WooCommerce, or an active blog, or whatever, and then like, you’ve got to pull that back together. So I was experimenting with a plugin that purportedly was going to merge in the changes from the production site. And in the testing, it looked all great. But during the time we had it in development, it got stuck in some kind of a loop with Gravity Forms entries. And I had 15 million, with an M, additional extraneous entries. I just had to start learning how to write queries to get stuff out because it was so huge. I couldn’t even get it to load. Joe Casabona: Jeez. That’s horrifying. Bet Hannon: It was crazy. Joe Casabona: There was a plugin a few years back that I guess was not viable market wise. It was bought by Delicious Brains. Bet Hannon: By the time I was looking at this, they’d already pulled that off. Joe Casabona: Oh, man. Bet Hannon: This was another one. But it’s a difficult problem. It’s not an easy problem to solve. Anyway, I learned how to do a little bit of SQL. Joe Casabona: Very nice, very nice. We can talk about that in Build Something More because I have some fun stories. Sponsor: This episode is brought to you by TextExpander. In our fast-paced world, things change constantly, and errors in messaging often have significant consequences. With TextExpander, you can save time by converting any text you type into keyboard shortcut called a snippet. 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Joe Casabona: We haven’t even talked about the service yet, the website accessibility sampling audit. Tell us how that works, how you put it together, why you put it together, all that fun stuff. Bet Hannon: So you might want an accessibility audit of your site to help you know what things are wrong. Like you have been doing some of these things to try and fix things, but there may be still things that you are not sure are problems yet. And it is difficult with accessibility to know… It’s kind of like SEO—knowing where you’re kind of moving toward. It’s a moving target or that’s kind of fuzzy sometimes. So getting an audit is a great thing to do. Traditionally, an accessibility audit would look at every single page in detail and give you a detailed report of every single page of your website. And as you might imagine, that’s a labor-intensive thing because that’s a lot of work. So even if you have a moderate-sized site, it could run you into tens of thousands of dollars. And so what we discovered is that, by and large, if you have problems on with accessibility on your site, you can catch a lot of those with a sample of your content. So we developed an audit that was taking a sample of your content, and then you as the site owner can get this report. And then you have to extrapolate from there. If on your site audit we note that you have images without alt tags, you probably have a lot more than those then on the pages we looked at. So we try to work with folks to do around 25 URLs or so. Even sites that are really big blogs with thousands of posts, you really don’t need more than about three or four posts to do that. Unless you have a blog with a variety of authors. So we try to tell people, you know, try to get all of your page templates represented, try and get a good kind of representative sample of content through time. So like maybe if you start changing and doing better with your H tags now… but we’re only looking at those, we might not pick up that you still have that problem earlier. Joe Casabona: Got you. Bet Hannon: So we want to look at content creation through time. We want to get a variety of the authors on the blog. So maybe one person is continuing to do this one thing that is creating accessibility issues. Look at various features. If you’re doing a WooCommerce site or some other eCommerce site, you know, you want to look at the checkout process, you want to look at its membership site, looking at the process for doing that, and just try to work with them to come up with around 25 URLs to look at in terms of doing that. Joe Casabona: That’s right. And then we produce a big report. Often the reports are more than 15 pages. We actually give them a list of everything we looked for whether or not they violated it so they know what we checked for. We use those automated tools, but then we have human beings checking the page. And then if we run into something where we’re not sure about, we’ll call in our consultants and have people with actual disabilities looking at the content as well. And then we do include an hour of consultation time at the end. So then you can jump into a Zoom call, we can explain it to you, we can demo problems for you, show you why it’s a problem. Some people find that really helpful. If you want, you can bring your… we don’t need to do the remediation. But if you have a regular developer you work with, you can bring them on the call and we can make it more of a technical call about how they might need to fix that or what they might want to do to fix a problem. Joe Casabona: That’s great. That sounds a lot like when Gutenberg first rolled out I created a course, and I basically said like, “How to audit your website to see if it’s ready for Gutenberg.” Very similar. Page templates. I said just like, “Pick a sampling of old and new posts.” But content through time is a very nice, snappy way to put it. I know exactly what you’re saying and I think that’s great. Authors, various features, things like that. And then the one-hour consultation at the end. Patrick Garman came on the show a few weeks ago. They have in a WooCommerce performance site audit, also includes some consultation time. This was not a planned question or anything like that, but do you think that the audit has been a good addition to your business? Do you think it’s helped your business a lot? Because it seems like it’s an idea that’s catching on more, at least in the WordPress space. Bet Hannon: It is. I do think we have to be careful about taking on too many. It takes about two weeks start to finish and we only onboard one a week just because it represents a pretty good chunk of labor for us. And keeping up with our other projects is kind of priority in terms of paying the bills. But it is a good thing. Because most of an accessibility audit is done from the front end, we’re able to do audits on sites that are not WordPress. We can do a Shopify site or a Wix or Weebly site. But those folks don’t tend to want to do those kind of things. But you can do it on any kind of other platforms that someone might want to do. I think people are increasingly concerned. I’m seeing that more niche-driven. So for a bit, we had a ton of audits for food bloggers. So a pretty well-known food blogger got sued around accessibility, and it just raised that awareness for everybody that they… On the one hand, a good number of them are like, “I don’t want to get sued.” But what they also do know that it’s an important thing to do. They can increase their audience, it gives more people access to their content. So they definitely aren’t just anxious about being sued. And I want to be careful about not throwing around the fear-monger kind of thing. Joe Casabona: Right. Right. Bet Hannon: I mean, it is about not getting sued at one level, but it’s also that there are a lot of really great reasons to make your site accessible. Joe Casabona: Yeah, absolutely. I’ve said this on the show before. People ask me how I grew my show so quickly, and I think one of the big growth points in the show’s history is when I added transcripts. I saw a definite increase in traffic to the site and even an increase in listenership. Sometimes it’s not just the deaf and hard of hearing who want to read the transcript. It’s people who maybe can’t listen at that moment and or maybe they want to read along while they listen. Bet Hannon: I have seen statistics go by that say that 80% of the videos on LinkedIn are played without sound. Joe Casabona: Wow. Bet Hannon: 80%. It’s very high. It’s pretty high like that for Facebook, too. I think about that, well, one of the times when I’m surfing LinkedIn is in the early morning when I don’t want to wake somebody up, or when I’m in a waiting room somewhere, pre-COVID, or where I just can’t listen. But I sure watch videos go by and yeah, the captions. Joe Casabona: For sure. I mean, that’s super interesting. 80%. That’s wild. For me, it’s usually maybe I listened or watched something and I remember a phrase and I want to find that phrase. So even for those who do listen or watch with the sound on, the transcript or the captions, the searchable text is invaluable to a lot of people. Bet Hannon: Well, you’re getting the search engine juice from that too. Joe Casabona: Yeah, exactly. Bet Hannon: Right? Joe Casabona: Yeah. Bet Hannon: When you think about captions, you have to think about whether it is… if it’s a video, often you’re doing captions because the video is conveying something of the conversation or the interaction as well. But for a podcast, doing the transcript… Well, I often do listen to podcasts at time and a half or, you know, I bump it up. If you got a transcript for me to read, it’s much faster. I can read a lot faster than I can listen. Joe Casabona: Yeah, yeah, for sure. Awesome. Bet Hannon: So it’s not just situations where I might be time pressed and I just want to skim through stuff. Sponsor: This episode is brought to you by the Events Calendar, the original calendar for WordPress. This free plugin helps you with calendaring, ticketing, and more powerful tools to help you manage your events from start to finish. Whether you run school events, concert at a venue, or fundraisers for nonprofits, the Events Calendar gives you the tools you need to make it your own. And with the Events Calendar Pro, you can create custom views, recurring events, add your own custom fields to events, and much more. Run virtual events? No problem. 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Joe Casabona: I know some well-known, big time podcasters who have kind of poo pooed transcripts because they don’t feel the added cost is worth it. And I’m just like, “First of all, you’re making more money than I am podcasting.” Even if you don’t use… Rev is expensive. My virtual assistant transcribes the videos I sent her so I know that she understands the task at hand, and she transcribed a 30-minute video in like three hours. Worth it. Worth it to pay her that. It’s cheaper than Rev. Bet Hannon: And there’s some other services that are up and coming too. And I think we will see more and more of those. Joe Casabona: I’ve been using otter.ai. Any place that offers an educational discount, I’ll grab it. Bet Hannon: I just heard about Otter today in another… I was in a meeting this morning and somebody mentioned that one. Joe Casabona: How funny. Bet Hannon: I hadn’t heard about it. Joe Casabona: What’s that called? That’s called something. You hear about it once and you hear about it everywhere. Bet Hannon: Synchronicity Joe Casabona: Oh, man. Bet Hannon: Oh, no. Joe Casabona: There’s something effect. I’ll look it up for the post-show. But anyway, we could talk tools all day. I mean, I guess that’s helpful, right? It’s an accessibility show. But otter.ai and Descript both offer educational discount, so if you have a .edu address, you can get it at like half price. So I’ll just snag those. I’ve been pretty happy with Otter. There’s a few things, but it’s AI, transcription. Bet Hannon: Right. And I don’t know if it kind of produces a transcript, but I do know that I’ve been seeing going around that Zoom is giving… For Zoom, they’re giving free on the fly too closed captioning for meetings. Joe Casabona: Yes. Bet Hannon: But if that gets saved in a file, that would be checked out. Joe Casabona: Yeah, absolutely. Bet Hannon: There’s a way to turn that on in your account. Even if it’s live transcription, stuff like that is often a little buggy. But at least you’ve got something to start with from there. Joe Casabona: Again, you can hire an editor to edit it or have your virtual assistant read through and just spellcheck. It’s probably easier for them. So yeah, absolutely. Gosh, this has been super great. As we wrap up, if somebody wants to get started, maybe they have a website, and they’re not sure if it’s accessible, what are some tips to get started? Bet Hannon: Well, the first would be don’t be tempted by what are called the overlay plugins. So it’s big business right now. Those overlay plugins have huge amounts of venture capital pouring in. So their ads are everywhere, and they want to suck you in with just “buy our service and everything will be taken care of.” And they don’t. So don’t get sucked in with that. And then just start educating yourself about what needs to be there. I’d say the very base kinds of pieces are the things that we’ve already talked about in this podcast. You know, your alt tags and you’re heading tags, and then just start trying to work your way through testing your site, getting your content squared away. But ask questions. There are tons of people out on Twitter and LinkedIn and other places that are, if you have a question, willing to look at that and give you some, you know, not free consulting, but point you in the direction of some resources. Joe Casabona: Awesome. That’s fantastic. And with alt tags—again, I think I brought this up on the show previously, but I do want to drive this point home—it should be as descriptive as reasonably possible. Is that kind of the way to put it? Bet Hannon: Right. Yeah. We have a blog post that should come out on our site in another couple of weeks about alt tags. We’re in process with it. But yeah, you want to make it descriptive of the image, but you never want to put in the word image or photo or graphic or anything like that, because the screen reader reads that out loud. The screen reader already tells someone that it’s an image. And so you would just say, you know, “Father and child playing on the beach on a sunny day.” You know. It shouldn’t be too horribly long but it should be… If it’s a photo of a person, it can say, “Photo of Joe Casabona, an incredibly good-looking Italian man.” Joe Casabona: Well, thank you. You’re making… Bet Hannon: You can embellish your own text. Joe Casabona: Yeah, there you go. People will probably picture like Fabio or something. Maybe Fabio is like old-timey reference and newer, good-looking Italian man. That’s interesting. So “father and daughter on beach on a sunny day” is good. But maybe like, father and daughter on beach sunny day with red pale and father’s wearing like green swim trunks. That’s too much. Bet Hannon: Too much detail. Too much detail. Right. Yeah. Well, the thing you don’t want to do is you don’t want to put anything in a meme-like image with text on the top. People do that a lot. They just go to Canva and they’ll make a little meme thing to promote an event or to promote whatever. The thing is, when you do that, you need to make sure that you’re providing alternatives for that. So you can do it but you just want to make sure that… For instance, we have clients where they’re doing a lot of events driven pieces. They might make that graphic, but then in the text of the post, they need to… so that the alt text on the graphic can say, “Graphic promoting this event, details in the post below.” And then the person can skip into the content and get the details. Joe Casabona: Yeah, details in the post below. That’s another thing that I think Amber mentioned. Go ahead. Bet Hannon: But the thing is, if you only put that little Canva image that’s kind of meme, like, Google can’t see that text either. So you’re not getting any search engine juice off of that. Joe Casabona: That’s really interesting. So you wouldn’t necessarily want to have that exact text in the alt tag if it’s also like the title of the post and mentioned in the post below. Is accurate that accurate? Bet Hannon: Right, right. It becomes repetitive. Joe Casabona: Okay. Cool, cool. Bet Hannon: And actually, people who are using screen readers, which the alt text is about people who are using screen readers, like the rest of us, they skim through content. When we all go to a website, we just skim through, and we’re looking at the headings, and we’re looking for what interests us. We’re not really reading every word. So people who are using screen readers are skimming through, and they’re skimming through to look at the headings, H tags, come back to play on the links. And you want to make sure your links are set up so that the link text, the part that gets underlined or made into a colorable or whatever that effect is, but that link text is descriptive because often they’re just skimming through the text and having the screen reader read out that text to them. So if all of your link texts say “click here,” “click here,” “click here,” there’s no context. They’re gone. Joe Casabona: Oh, jeez. Wow. All right. Lots of really good… Bet Hannon: So “click here to learn more about accessibility. Click here to do blah, blah, blah. Click here to download a blah, blah.” Joe Casabona: Yeah. Love that. Right. And then I guess the same with buttons. You don’t just want to say like, “Click here.” You want to say like, “Enroll today” is usually what I put. But maybe I put “enroll today in Podcast Liftoff” or whatever. Bet Hannon: Right. I mean, yes, potentially. And then you remembering that buttons are really just links. Joe Casabona: This will be the last question before we wrap up. We’ve been talking forever. Bet Hannon: [inaudible 00:51:51] Joe Casabona: I know. I know. It’s just such a great conversation. This is mostly for me, and I hope the listeners are getting something out of it. With anchor tags, you can add a title text, right? Bet Hannon: Mm hmm. Joe Casabona: What’s the utility of the title text? Can I say like, “Enroll in the clickable tags” and then have a title that has more context? Or is that kind of like frowned upon? Bet Hannon: Oh, you’re asking me more of a technical question now. I’m sure there’s an answer, but I don’t know. Joe Casabona: All right. I mean, that’s a good answer too because that means at least you weren’t presented with some hard opinion on it. I’ll find something… Bet Hannon: You gotta remember I’m very rarely any more in the content in that way. Joe Casabona: I’ll find the link for the show notes for that because that’s… Bet Hannon: Cool. Joe Casabona: Again, we didn’t talk about that. It just came to my brain and I wanted to ask. Bet Hannon: Yeah, for sure. Joe Casabona: Before we wrap up, you gave us some great tips, do you have any trade secrets for us? Bet Hannon: Oh, yeah. Just don’t get hooked into those overlay things. They are… I really try not to say this very often, but they’re really kind of evil. A, they purport to fix all your problems, but they can only deal with the 30% that’s AI. They kind of make it sound like you won’t get sued if you use them. But that’s not really the case. Actually, we’re seeing some cases where people are being targeted because they’re using them. And the predatory lawsuit people know that they can’t take care of everything. They’re hooking people in a way that just feels kind of manipulative and not very… just not a good heart behind that. Joe Casabona: It’s snake oil. Bet Hannon: It’s snake oil. It really is. And because it’s an overlay, so it’s fixing some of those accessibility problems on the fly as your page is loading, which is adds extra bloat, slows your site down, do those increasingly focusing on speed. So it’s not great for your search engine kind of results and all of that as well. And when you stopped paying for that service, all of those problems are still there. You haven’t fixed anything. You’re paying all that money to the service over time and nothing’s getting fixed. Joe Casabona: That’s really interesting. So these overlay products are not like, “Here’s what’s wrong.” It’s like, “Here’s what we’re telling you is wrong and we’re just going to add a little JavaScript to fix it or whatever.” Bet Hannon: It’s like, “We will try and fix the things we can fix.” So they’ll use AI to put in alt tags, which may or may not be correct. They’re just guessing at the alt tags. And then they put these little, they put some little tools over on the side. Well, if you are a person that has a tool, an accessibility tool that you use on the web, if you have a screen magnifier or you already use some kind of colorblind filter thing, you have tools that you already are familiar with that you have installed that you want to use. And so those little accessibility tools things, it’s kind of like, look at me, I’m trying to be accessible is what it comes down to. And for people with disabilities, it’s sort of like saying to them, “Hey, you should leave the tools that you like and all the shortcuts for to use my second rate thing that’s going to come…” Because those tools conflict them. They create a conflict. So you should leave the tools that you know, and like, and know all the shortcuts to and use my special tool over here that I paid minimal bucks for.” Joe Casabona: It’s almost like a virtual signal. Bet Hannon: It’s frustrating. It’s a virtue signal but it’s really… it’s like telling the person in the wheelchair, “You got steps in front of your restaurant, you need to go around and use the ramp and come to the kitchen.” Joe Casabona: Jeez. Bet Hannon: It’s really offensive. Joe Casabona: Absolutely. And it just goes to show you, right? Because… Bet Hannon: I get that people want to be concerned about accessibility, but take some time to think it through in. Joe Casabona: Yeah. I mean, be concerned and then find an actual solution and not some Band-Aid that you bought at the dollar store. Bet Hannon: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Those services are not cheap either. And that’s the thing. Over time, you’re paying a lot of money, but it’s not really getting fixed. It’s just a kind of a cover-up that’s going to go away when you stop paying. Joe Casabona: Yeah, absolutely. It just goes to show you that the best way you can be accessible is to write good semantic HTML and know the best practices. That’s just… Bet Hannon: Yeah, exactly. Joe Casabona: Awesome. Bet Hannon: Know better and do better. Joe Casabona: Yeah, know better and do better. I love it. Bet, this has been such a great hour we’ve been talking for. We may talk about other stuff in Build Something More. So be sure to catch our pre-show where we talk about craft beer, our post-show where we talk a little bit more over a build something club. Bet, if people want to learn more about you, and they should, where can they go to find you? Bet Hannon: You can find me on Twitter @BetHannon, and then our website is bhmbizsites.com. Joe Casabona: Fantastic. I will link those and lots of stuff that we talked about. This is a tool-heavy episode. So it’s going to be long show notes over and howibuilt.it/219. Bet, thanks so much for joining us today. I really appreciate it. Bet Hannon: It’s been great. Thanks for having me. Joe Casabona: Thanks to everybody listening. I really appreciate it. Thanks to our sponsors, TextExpander, Restrict Content Pro, and the Events Calendar. Until next time, get out there and build something. Sponsored by:Restrict Content Pro: Launch your membership site TextExpander: Get 20% off your first year by visiting the this link. The Events Calendar Source

Google's Page Experience update is coming this summer, with Core Web Vitals as key components. Andrew Wilder of NerdPress and Eric Hochberger, CEO of Mediavine, join Mediavine's Director of Marketing Jenny Guy in a conversation breaking down Core Web Vitals and what this update means for publishers. Learn about the many things publishers can do right now to get ready for the algorithm shift! Helpful Resources NerdPress — WordPress technical support Core Web Vitals Checklist — Google Page Experience checklist for bloggers The Hollywood Gossip Passes Core Web Vitals — Learn how they passed and how you can too! Live Links Document — Contains all the links related to the Live. [MUSIC PLAYING] JENNY GUY: Hey, everybody. Hello, all. Welcome. Grab a beverage. Take a seat. Or switch things up if you've been sitting all day and stand up for a stretch. As Tabitha Brown says, that's your business. It is Thursday, April 15, which means it's time for another episode of Teal Talk. I'm Jenny Guy, your host for this show all about the business of content creation. Thank you so much for joining us. How is everybody doing today? Are you like me? Are you fighting daily battles with pollen? Anyone else looking outside the window and seeing the yellow dust blanketing all of the things and just deciding it's an inside day, cut your losses? That is me. I don't know what to tell you other than that it's spring and we are all in misery. So that's happening there. So let's switch from a least favorite subject being seasonal allergies to a most favorite subject being amazing memes. At Mediavine, GIFs are our love language. And our custom emoji collection in Slack is quite impressive. But I hold a special place in my heart for a good meme. And every year around now, I don't know if anyone out there is like me and a fan of this, but every year around now, the greatest meme of all time starts surfacing. It reaches a fever pitch right around May 1. Do you know the one I'm talking about? I am paging NSYNC fans. Sing it with me. It's going to be May. I crack up every time. It doesn't matter what time-- it's always right on time for me. I don't know how you guys feel about that meme. I love it. If anyone out there wants to express their wrong opinion in the comments and share a meme that they think is better, please feel free. But this is the best meme for me. I'm kidding. We would love to have your meme. Say hi. Share a favorite meme. Please drop it in the comments. We can all use a great meme. OK. But I promise that this conversation has relevance to today's show topic. It is not just because I personally adore the Justin Timberlake meme. No what else is going to be May? Like it or not, Google's algorithm shift to page experience and the dreaded Core Web Vitals is headed our way next month. It's May. That's right. It is dominating the Facebook threads and bloggers' nightmares. So of course, we're here to break it down for you and talk through it with my experts, Mediavine CEO, SEO expert, and long time Google fanboy, Eric Hochberger is here to discuss how Mediavine is solving for ad related CLS issues for our publishers. Welcome, Eric. ERIC HOCHBERGER: Thank you. I did not know I was a Google fanboy until this moment, but I am. We know it. JENNY GUY: We know you are. ERIC HOCHBERGER: Ignore my Apple phone. It's nothing. JENNY GUY: I mean you do tend to say things like, I did SEO in high school. You're-- ERIC HOCHBERGER: Oh, that's because I'm a Metacrawler and Alta Vista fanboy. But they're not really cool anymore. JENNY GUY: They went out of fashion. How do you feel about the Justin Timberlake meme? ERIC HOCHBERGER: I believe you know from karaoke that I'm more of a Backstreet Boys fan. JENNY GUY: That's fair. That's very fair. I don't know. There aren't any good Backstreet Boy memes out there. Somebody needs to get on that. And then let's meet my other guest.

In this episode, I'm talking with Andrew Wilder of Nerd Press about website accessibility. If you're looking to ensure that all of your users, regardless of any disability they may have, are able to access your website then following website accessibility standards and requirements will make your site available to all. READ MORE HERE.

As bloggers, we rely on our websites for money, not only through ads, but for selling sponsored posts, promoting our own products and for keeping our fans engaged. So when our sites go down, it can be a disaster. But today's guest is the perfect person to help us prevent that from happening.He is the founder of NerdPress a digital agency that provides WordPress maintenance and support services for publishers and small businesses, placing an emphasis on site speed, stability and security. He has been building, fixing and maintaining websites since 1998 and has spoken on a wide variety of technical topics in plain English, no less, for numerous conferences, webinars, and podcasts.Discover more notes and links for Full Interview with Andrew Wilder

Pinterest users are looking for what they want after they click on a pin image. If your site is confusing, hard to navigate or has multiple pop-ups, this can distract them from their goal or simply irritate them. Andrew Wilder joins us again to talk about how to design your site in a way that enhances the user experience instead of distracting them.

BofC Live is the daily news and interview program of Business of Cannabis. Business of Cannabis highlights the companies, brands, people and trends driving the sector. Andrew Wilder and Jonathan Mahoney are part of the Cannabis Law Group at Torkin Manes, the Official Law Firm of Business of Cannabis. In this BofC Live episode, Wilder and Mahoney dive deep into their recent Business of Cannabis post unpacking mergers and acquisitions in the cannabis retail space – especially in Ontario.

Andrew Wilder is the founder of NerdPress, a digital agency that provides WordPress maintenance and support services for publishers and small businesses. He's been building, fixing, and maintaining websites since 1998, and now combines his passions for food and technology by helping professional food bloggers and entrepreneurs who would rather be building their businesses instead of monkeying with their websites.

After decades of conflict, Afghanistan is closer to a political settlement than ever before. But with new reports of Russian bounties on U.S. soldiers, USIP’s Andrew Wilder says there’s concern the issue “distracts from the bigger-picture need for the U.S. to continue to support the peace process.”

Dr. Andrew Wilder is the CEO of Ripple Neuro, a medical device company which specializes in neural interface technology and neuroprosthetics. In this episode, he discusses how the company plans to progress in the next decade, as part of their big 10-year announcement. Top three takeaways: One big advancement that Ripple Neuro is planning to make in the next decade is to hold clinical trials for neuroprosthetic upper limbs, and obtain market clearance for these devices As far as the company itself goes, Ripple Neuro will be restructuring itself over the next decade to accommodate markets for both end medical devices and components for medical devices Ripple Neuro is constantly seeking those who are passionate about the long-term sustainability of the company, as well as those who have a passion for solving challenges and having an impact on the world [0:00] Ladan introduces the episode and the guest, Dr. Andrew Wilder [1:45] Wilder discusses his background, how he became CEO of Ripple Neuro, and what the mission of Ripple Neuro is [5:15] Ripple’s goal for the next few decades is to continue to provide solutions in the neuroscience space that can inform therapies for patients with neurological disorders [8:15] Ripple plans on doing clinical trials with prosthetic limbs over the next five years, after which the product is projected to receive market clearance [10:20] Ripple is producing both medical devices and components that other vendors can use in their medical devices, and part of the company’s big announcement is that the company is restructuring itself to accommodate both of these markets [13:00] Ripple is not about developing solely one type of technology, but rather a continuous pipeline of technologies [16:30] The company looks for people who are passionate about long-term sustainability of the company, and people who are committed to the idea of having an impact on the world [19:00] Ripple has always had an expertise in sensing in stimulation, which is what some other companies are starting to work with [21:45] An impact goal for the next 10 years is to have 10,000 devices implanted in humans

How website traffic and ad revenue are affected by the coronavirus, how to ask your audience what it needs, and how you can evolve your content calendar based on what's performing on Pinterest. ----- Welcome to episode 252 of The Food Blogger Pro Podcast! This week on the podcast, Bjork interviews Andrew Wilder, Danielle Liss, and Kate Ahl about traffic, sponsored content, and Pinterest strategies. What You Should Know About Traffic, Sponsored Content, and Pinterest in 2020  Today, Bjork is interviewing three of our Food Blogger Pro Experts. If you’re not a Food Blogger Pro member, or maybe you are a member and you’re not really sure what our experts do, they volunteer their time on the forum and during Live Q&As to help our members out with their trickiest questions. Our experts specialize in certain topics like SEO, affiliate marketing, social media, email marketing, and more, and that’s what they teach our members about on Food Blogger Pro. So in today’s episode, you’ll hear from Andrew Wilder, who specializes in WordPress tech and traffic, Danielle Liss, who’s a lawyer and focuses on sponsored content and all-things legal, and then Kate Ahl, who is our Pinterest Expert. All three are here on the podcast talking about what you need to know about traffic, sponsored content, and Pinterest in 2020. It’s safe to say that 2020 has gotten off to a unique start, so these areas of traffic, working with sponsors, and social media need to be approached in a different way. Traffic is up, sponsors are adjusting their strategies, and Pinterest has reported higher users than ever before. Today’s episode will equip you with some of the strategies and confidence you need to navigate this year as a business owner and blogger. In this episode, you’ll learn: How traffic and ad revenue has been impacted by the coronavirus Why you should be monitoring your uptime Why you might not want to use words like “quarantine” or “coronavirus” in your posts Why accessibility is going to be a big trend this year How alt text works How sponsored content can differ during this time How you can pivot your sponsored content to serve your audience Advice for pitching brands during the pandemic How to ask your audience what they need right now What CCPA means and how you can protect your site How you know that you’ve included everything you should in your privacy policy How Pinterest traffic has changed How the Today tab on the Pinterest app works How trends on Pinterest can influence your content calendar How to find out which of your existing posts are performing well right now What to do if your Pinterest account is marked as spam How you can evolve your content based on what’s performing on Pinterest Resources: Meet the Food Blogger Pro Experts NerdPress UptimeRobot Pingdom WebAIM What is Website Accessibility? Six Ways to Make Your Website More Accessible Web Content Accessibility Guidelines Connect with Andrew via email – support@nerdpress.net Businessese Liss Legal Sponsored Content Bootcamp– for members only Connect with Danielle on Instagram Simple Pin Media How people use Pinterest Pinterest Trends Pinterest Business blog Google Analytics course – for members only Email Pinterest support – creators-support@pinterest.com Pinterest Account Suspended? Here’s What to Do The Best Soft Chocolate Chip Cookies recipe on Pinch of Yum Simple Pin Podcast Follow Kate on Pinterest If you have any comments, questions, or suggestions for interviews, be sure to email them to podcast@foodbloggerpro.com.

I wanted to publish this episode to let you all know that, after long and careful consideration, I have decided to take an extended hiatus from the podcast. Here are my reasons: This has been a passion project for me and, although I thought I might someday make money from it, I realize now that probably won’t happen. So, it’s time for me to focus my attention on my true money maker, which is my Dishes Delish food blog. Dishes Delish has grown leaps and bounds since I started this podcast. I attribute that growth to a few things. The first was my audit in June of 2018 with Casey Markee. That was the catalyst. I had interviewed Casey before that but at the time I decided to move forward with my audit, the blog had only five thousand sessions a month. Mind you, I had been blogging for almost 3 years. Casey helped focus me. He taught me to not pick keywords like “dark chocolate caramel marshmallow cashew butter cups” Yes, I actually used those keywords in a post. As you can imagine, it gets 0 monthly searches. But I’m the reigning champ of that keyword. I am in the carousal and #1 in Google search results. And that’s only one of my really long keywords. Casey also got me to write for my readers and help solve problems. That was a game changer for sure. Another game changer was the viral moment I had in September of 2018. The HBO show Camping mentioned a jelly donut shot in one of its episodes and at that time, the monthly viewfor those keywords was only 330. But here’s why I had that viral moment. My Jelly Donut shot was already #1 in search results, so everyone and their brother who watched that episode of Camping clicked through to my website. That shot is still #1 and now has a monthly search volume of 4400. That shows you how something can grow just by having exposure. And that exposure was also a growth catalyst because, as with all such exposure, having people look at my jelly donut shot brought them back to the site to see other content, which gave me even more sessions. By October of 2018 – and remember: in June of the same year, I had only 5k sessions a month – I qualified for Mediavine and in November their ads went live on my site. Fast forward 6 months, when I was lucky to have another viral moment. My pistachio cookie recipe became my top post, toppling my Cadillac Margarita from 1st place. The popularity of this cookie post allowed me to apply for (and join) AdThrive. Now remember, to join MediaVine, you need 25k monthly sessions. AdThrive requires 100k pageviews. Now, I tell you all this for two reasons, first to explain why I’m placing the podcast on hiatus. I need to focus on the blog to make it even more successful by adding various income streams. Secondly, I am hoping to inspire you by letting you know that you can do it too. Don’t get me wrong, it takes a lot of work and sometimes a little luck. But you don’t have to have a viral moment to succeed. Many of my guests didn’t have one, and yet they are successful; it just takes years and hard work. So, keep at it and don’t give up. Write for your readers, help them solve a problem and create quality content. I also want to say that it is not always necessary to pick keywords that have a high monthly search volume. Some of my more popular posts have under 1000 monthly searches on Google but they do really well on Pinterest. So I would have missed out on this if I’d listened to the experts and neglected to follow my gut. Experts are great and can be a big help but you also can rely on yourself by doing what you think is best. You can also help yourself by joining Facebook groups like Food Bloggers Central. Ask questions, learn from other bloggers mistakes and if you’re wanting some inspiration, visit Dishing with Delishes and re-listen to interviews with food bloggers who forged their way before us. You can also listen to experts like Casey Markee, Andrew Wilder, Matt Molen and Grayson Bell just to name a few. Now you’re probably wondering if I’ll be returning to the podcast. My first instinct is to say no, because I need the break without having to think about the show, interview future guests or edit episodes. Last year, I started publishing the podcast in seasons thinking it would give me a break but, I never really felt like I had any time off and believe me, I need that time for blog growth endeavors. But you never know. I will miss chatting with other bloggers and learning more about their journeys. Don’t be a stranger! If you see me on social media, say ‘hi’ or drop me a line at Elaine @ Dishes Delish dot com. Because, as you know I love chatting with bloggers and would love to hear from you. Okay, it's time for me to sign off. This is Elaine Benoit from Dishing with Delishes and Dishes Delish. I enjoyed this fun ride and thank you from the bottom of my heart for listening in. Happy New Year, everyone! I wish you a prosperous 2020.

Learnings and Leanings I decided to do a special edition episode for a few reasons. First, I've been thinking for a while that I'd like to share what I have learned, which feels like a lot: what I've learned from doing this podcast; what I've learned from my guests; what I think and how I feel about all of it. Second, I want to tell you about some changes that are coming. I'll explain more in a bit, but basically the podcast continues to evolve and these changes will reflect that. Thirdly, I want to talk about some of the services I use that I find beneficial for my food blog, Dishes Delish, and think would be helpful for other bloggers. None of my recommendations are sponsored. Snafu and the Lesson Learned The catalyst for this special edition episode was a problem I encountered last Tuesday, March 5th, when I uploaded Elizabeth Falcigno's interview. It was supposed to be published today, March 13th, but actually came out the day I uploaded it. I had scheduled the episode for the correct date and time, but there was a glitch that overrode my settings and Libsyn published it immediately. I noticed what had happened within a few minutes but even though I quickly tried to reschedule it, iTunes had already pulled the feed and people had already started to listen to the episode. To get downloads so quickly was amazing to me, but still, it wasn't what I'd planned. Since this snafu left a hole in my publishing calendar, once I calmed down, I realized it was my chance to record and publish this update instead of an interview. So here we are. One of the things I learned from this snafu is not to freak out about problems that come up, especially if you can't fix them. And believe me, I tried. Was I upset? Yes. Did hubby have to talk me off the figurative "ledge"? You betcha! But basically, what I realized is the only thing that really upset the order of my world was that Elizabeth's episode came out the day before Chris Collins'. Did that hurt anything? No. It just changed something. I feel grateful and protective towards my guests. I want each person to get their time in the spotlight and I was worried that Chris would lose the spotlight because of Elizabeth's episode. Well, that didn't happen. Both episodes have gotten great download numbers even though they came out on consecutive days. So, instead of pulling out my hair and wailing at the technology, I accepted it and I'm happy for the lesson I learned. Letting Stuff Go - Like Plugins Mostly, I have a love/hate relationship with change. I love it in some ways and hate it in other ways. Hubby and I used to change our furniture around a lot because both of us or one of us - usually me - needed the change. The weird thing is I would more often than not feel kind of lost after we plunked the last piece of furniture down. Because of the change. Not that we undid anything, but it used to make me cry a little. The reason I tell you this is because it sort of explains why I hung on as long as I did to using the social sharing plugin called Social Warfare after I learned it was a problem. I'd read comments on Facebook. A lot of people complained the plugin broke their site once they updated it. BROKE THEIR SITE! Can you imagine? The way I dealt with it, was to not update it, which we all know is not a good practice. When I interviewed Andrew Wilder and he raved about Social Pug, the social sharing plugin developed by Mihai Iova from devpups.com, it still took me a few months to decide to actually switch. Even though Andrew mentioned that Social Pug did exactly what Social Warfare did, I still clung to what was 'known'. Well, today I'm really glad I jumped on the Social Pug bandwagon. Not only does it do everything the old plugin did, but when I had some questions and reached out to Mihai to ask them, not only has he responded quickly but he answered my questions and really cared that I understood his answers. So, if you are like me and want to cling to what you know, I'm here to tell you that I don't regret for one moment making the switch to Social Pug! Change might be challenging, but that doesn't mean it's not good. Now, I'm eyeing Mihai's Optin Hound plugin, since I really need to change my current one, which I'm not going to renew. Services I Rely On I've mentioned before on the show the support I get from my virtual assistants, Helena and Vladi. Together they manage different aspects of the website, social sharing, and SEO for me. I've often said that one of the best things I have done for the blog was to get a site audit by Casey Markee, (you can hear his episodes here and here). But the other best thing I have done was to hire Lil Creative Digital Agency, which is Helena and Vladi's company. I've been working with them for almost 2 years and am here to say that their help has done so much for our business. Not only are they efficient and communicative, but they go the extra mile and are always positive. They answer my questions readily and take time out of their lives to send me feedback or brainstorm ideas with me. I consider them my friends. I will be interviewing Helena and Vladi in the coming months, which I'm really looking forward to. Stay tuned for their episode. One of the services I was most excited to hand off to them was the maintenance of the Dishes Delish website. Even though I'm technology savvy, it's hard to keep up with all the changes and frankly, I don't have the time or desire to do it anymore. So, I subscribe to their maintenance package and couldn't be happier. No more staring at the settings for WP Rocket (or some other plug-in) and guessing if I got them set up correctly. I can rest assured that they will get it done and I don't have to worry! As Toni Dash advises, hire someone who has the expertise you don't so you can focus on creating the content only you can create. Changes to the Podcast Okay, here's what I'm planning for the Dishing with Delishes podcast. Don't worry, I'm still going to be producing episodes for the show. Since the podcast is still growing, I'm not actively looking for ways to make money on the show, so my main source of revenue comes from my food blog, Dishes Delish. I'm imagining that as the show grows, I will do some sponsored ads that I'll insert into each episode, but I keep putting it off because I want my listeners to have a great listening experience and being clobbered over the head with an ad takes people out of the experience. When/if I do sponsored ads, I will only promote companies that I think will be beneficial to you, my audience. Just so everyone understands where I'm coming from, each episode takes me a long time to produce. First comes the pre-interview communications. It takes time to reach out to people, ask if they want to be on the show, respond to their questions and then send them next steps, if they do. So, let's say I spend two hours a week doing that. Next, comes the actual interview, which runs anywhere between 35 minutes to an hour. Then, comes the editing, because I'm not sure everyone knows that I edit every single episode. A 30 minute episode takes me, on average, anywhere between 2 1/2 hours and 4 hours to edit. Why does it take me so long? Because I'm a perfectionist. I take out as many "umms", false starts, pauses, and other types of language that I feel detract from the listening experience as I can. When we are in front of someone and speaking, we hardly notice the "umms', the starting of a sentence and then stopping mid-way to say something else. We just accept it as normal. But when you have headphones on and you're listening to the show, they are glaringly obvious. At least to me. They've got to go! Next up is the show notes page. Thankfully, Christopher (hubby) takes some of the writing out of my hands, like editing and inserting the bio we receive from guests. But I compile and add everything else on that page and that takes me around a 1/2 hour per episode. Uploading and configuring each episode for my media host, Libsyn, takes me between 15 minutes and 1/2 hour. After the episode goes live, I write to the guest, providing them links to share their episode with their social media networks (for which I'm eternally grateful, when they do). The last thing I have to do is share the episode to all of my own social media networks. Do you see how much work that is? Don't get me wrong, I'm happy to do it. I love talking to my guests and hearing their stories. I love learning from them about their journeys and their businesses and want to continue producing this podcast for many years. But in order to do that, I've decided I have to limit how many episodes I produce. So instead of 52 episodes a year, I will be producing the podcast in seasons - think television seasons. I will have two seasons a year - 20 episodes per season. The first season will start in early January and run to mid May. And the second season will start early July and end before Thanksgiving. I feel very positive about this change. I think it will give me the time I need to focus on the money making activities for my blog while still reaping the benefits of producing the podcast. What I've learned One of the things I've learned after talking with over 70 food bloggers and experts is that we all have different approaches and journeys. Some of us started blogging so family members and friends could access our recipes without us having to provide them over and over via email. Some of us started because we love food and have a deep desire to share it. Some of us started because we learned how easy, fun or beneficial cooking is and wanted to inspire and help others to learn, too. And some of us started blogging as a business opportunity. One of the things I really enjoyed was when Kate Kordsmeier stated loud and clear that she started her blog as a business. It was refreshing to hear that because that's why I started mine. I felt funny saying that to people because it felt shameful on some level. But after hearing Kate say it and knowing other guests did it, now I say it proudly. Another thing I've learned is no matter if you have an expensive full framed camera, a starter DSLR or a smartphone, the more you take photos, the better your photography will be. Like the old saying, practice makes perfect. So keep plugging away and if you get discouraged, go back to your old photos to see how far you've come. Another thing I've learned is to celebrate every win you've accomplished. This is something Christopher and I both try to do whenever possible. Too often we don't take the time to celebrate and that makes us lose an opportunity, because we all know that blogging is hard work. Like, really hard. Why not look at what you've accomplished and celebrate it? The work will always be there. We put in long hours. Unless we are super lucky, it can take years to see results. So I say, stick with it and don't quit, but in the meantime work to improve your writing, your photography or anything else related to your business. It will pay off in the end and bring you satisfaction along the way. That's what I think. What do you think? If you've been listening to the show for a while and/or have a blog of your own, I would love to hear what you've learned, either from Dishing with Delishes guests or from your own journey, in a comment on this page. It doesn't have to be long or include a narrative. Short and sweet is fine. You can also shoot me an email if that's easier. Send it to Elaine at Dishing With Delishes dot com. Also, if I'm not covering the questions you want to hear me asks my guests, please either use the comment section below or email to tell me so. That is all. :) Thank you for listening to my podcast. I appreciate each and every one of you!

“I think President Trump has really unlocked the possibility for the peace process by putting our troops on the table, as long as we just don’t withdraw them unilaterally,” says Andrew Wilder. Following President Trump’s clarification of the administration’s strategy during the State of the Union, Wilder shares his analysis of the ongoing peace process in Afghanistan.

Andrew Wilder is founder and owner of Nerd Press (formerly Blog Tutor), a full service website support platform for food bloggers and entrepreneurs. Since 1998, Andrew Wilder has successfully combined his passions for food and technology by helping professional food bloggers and entrepreneurs build, repair and maintain their websites. Andrew is also founder and creator of the popular food blog Eating Rules and the annual October Unprocessed challenge, which has helped more than 30,000 people change their lives by cutting out processed food. Andrew is a noted expert in both the culinary and technical fields, having spoken on a variety of topics for conferences such as WordCamp LAX, the International Association of Culinary Professionals, Food & Wine, Techmunch, BlogHer, and BlogHer Food. He has been profiled in the Los Angeles Times, New York Times, and Eating Well Magazine. Though he geeks out on technology (and has even contributed to WordPress Core), Andrew’s clients love that he communicates using “real people” language, not confusing jargon and tech-speak. Andrew is a proud Eagle Scout, and lives in Santa Monica, California with his husband Matty.

Welcome to episode 52 of The Blogger Genius Podcast. Today I'm interviewing Andrew Wilder from the site NerdPress, previously known as The Blog Tutor. In this episode we discuss the simple technical mistakes bloggers make and how they can easily fix them. We talk about how Andrew started as a food blogger, then when other food bloggers kept asking him for technical help, he found his new career. We talk about techy stuff like site speed, recipe markups, and what he thinks of the new WordPress editor called Gutenberg. Make sure you're covered on the technical aspects of blogging, so definitely listen to this episode! Resources: Blogger Genius on iTunes Blogger Genius on Stitcher Blogger Genius on Google Play The Blog Tutor (NerdPress) Eating Rules International Food Blogger Conference Metorik Woocommerce ManageWP 1Password Dashlane First Contentful Paint WP Recipe Maker Google Search Console ShortPixel Imagify Gutenberg TinyMCE Food Blogger Central Facebook Group   Transcript - What Are Simple Technical Mistakes Bloggers Make with Andrew Wilder Host 0:03 Welcome to The Blogger Genius Podcast, brought to you by MiloTree. Here's your host, Jillian Leslie. Jillian Leslie 0:13 Hey everyone, welcome back to The Blogger Genius. I have to tell you, I'm incredibly excited for this year. We've got some really cool things in the hopper. If you have not subscribed yet to the podcast, please do so. You can subscribe on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play -- really anywhere you get your podcasts. And that way, you won't miss an episode. Today, I am interviewing a guy named Andrew Wilder. Andrew started as a food blogger and then what happened was he was really good at the technical side of blogging. So when people kept asking him questions, he decided to create a new business called The Blog Tutor where he helps people with the technical side of blogging. In this episode, we are going to be talking about how to get traffic to your blog, easy wins for SEO, what you need for 2019 to keep your blog up-to-date. Andrew is not only delightful, but he shares so much that will be useful. So if the technology gives you a headache, like it does me, please listen to this episode because I know you're going to really enjoy it. So without further ado, here is Andrew Wilder. Andrew, welcome to the show. Andrew Wilder 1:40 Thanks. Happy to be here. Jillian Leslie 1:42 Okay. So I have to just say how we met which is you not only are a food blogger but you also run it, you you have a service where you help bloggers with the technical side of blogging, and we'll get into that. But you had recommended MiloTree to a customer, the customer reached out to me and said, "Oh, I'm excited about MiloTree. Andrew recommended this..." you know, our pop-up tool. And so I emailed you and said, "I just wanted to say thank you," and then I said, "Hey, would you come on the show?" Andrew Wilder 2:14 And I said I'd love to. How did your food blogger journey start? Jillian Leslie 2:15 I love that. Okay, so we have to discuss how your blogging journey started and also then how you also have this whole other business. So, tell me. Andrew Wilder 2:26 Sure. So I'm in the middle of my second and third career simultaneously. So I originally started-- Jillian Leslie 2:33 Wait. What was your first and second? Andrew Wilder 2:35 Well, my first career was as a theatrical lighting designer, so I did lighting for live events and theater. And I actually worked for a while designing shows for Princess Cruises and so I was I was traveling the world on cruise ships for a while, and it was awesome in my 20s. Then by the time I got to my 30s, not so much. And I kind of burned out on that, decided to move on. And around the same time, this was in the late 2000s, I was out of a long-term relationship and I wasn't feeling great, I wasn't taking great care of my body and I realized something needed to change. I kind of had an aha moment after reading Michael Pollan's work and I sort of had a year of transformation where I got healthy and started exercising pretty much for the first time in my life. Jillian Leslie 3:21 Wow! What kind of exercise? Andrew Wilder 3:25 I started with yoga, that's a great way to get into it. Jillian Leslie 3:28 Yoga works? Wait. YogaWorks? Andrew Wilder 3:29 Actually, I was doing yoga at home. I found a video podcast called YOGAmazing. And they were, like, 20 minute yoga sessions, so it was super great for beginners. I could, you know, do it in my living room and fall over and nobody would be looking, which is really nice. So, it's great If you're really just starting out. And I really liked it, my body really responded well to it. I actually started running after that. And I was the kid who would throw up after running a cross country in PE. It was horrible. And I went to a very sports-focused school and I was the kid in the theater who was puking. So I got over that and I actually started running and enjoying it. I realized as I was transitioning out of my writing career, I'm like, "Okay, I don't know what to do next." And everybody always says follow your passion and the money will come, right. I'm like, "Okay, well, what am I passionate about?" I'm really focused on all of this and I want to help other people. And so I decided to start my own blog about healthy eating and diet and nutrition. So I actually started my blog, which is called Eating Rules. The double entendre is intended, right? So I started that in April of 2010. Jillian Leslie 4:37 Wow. So a while ago. Andrew Wilder 4:40 Yeah. Well, what's funny is, I thought I was late to the blogging party at that point. I went to the International Food Blogger Conference that summer and I was meeting people like Elise Bauer and David Lebovitz who started in like 2004-2005. And I thought I was, like, late. And turns out, there is an attrition to blogging, right, and now I'm, like, old guard. So there is that. Yeah, it feels like I've been blogging forever. I mean, it's what, almost nine years now. So yeah, when I started I was, like, nonstop. I was writing six posts a week. I wasn't doing anything else other than working out, so I had time. That quickly went to 5 times a week and then 4 times a week because, you know, it's hard to maintain that. Jillian Leslie 5:31 And now where is it? Andrew Wilder 5:34 Once every six months. Jillian Leslie 5:35 Ooh! Okay. Got it. Andrew Wilder 5:38 But yeah, we're not going to talk about that so much. So that's because I'm busy with the third career really. Ever since I was a kid, I was always interested in computers. And in the '90s I had started building websites, and actually, throughout the 2000s, I had a one e-commerce client that I just kind of had as a client on the side while I was doing all the travel. So when I started my blog, I had an advantage because I knew the tech already, and so that definitely helps. I was sort of inherently focused on SEO and speed and various things like that, so it made it a lot easier for me to get started. But then when I got into the food blogging community, which is amazing, I got involved with the Food Bloggers Los Angeles group. And I went to the Camp Blogaway conference, which was up in the mountains, about three hours east of LA. That conference isn't running anymore but it was awesome. It was about 100 bloggers in a mountain retreat for a weekend. And most of those folks were LA-based because it was hard to get to otherwise. From there, they asked me to speak at a Food Bloggers LA meeting and I put together this presentation on Google Analytics. I didn't know what I was getting into, so like, I did a deep dive. I printed out 14 pages of stuff for everybody because I didn't have a projector. It was, like, three hours and people just hammering me with questions about Analytics. Afterwards, people swarmed me. They're like, "Hey, can I hire you to fix my blog?" And I was like, "No, no, no. Don't pay me. I'll be happy to help you out." And people were like, "No, no, I'm going to pay you. What's your rate?" and they insisted on paying me. That's kind of when the light bulb went off and I'm like, "Hmm, wait a minute. Maybe there's something to this." And from there, Blog Tutor was born. Jillian Leslie 7:24 Which is your third business. Andrew Wilder 7:26 Which is my third business. I was just doing, like, hourly fixing stuff. I was doing blog redesigns and just helping people out with the stuff that came up. Over a couple of years of that and working on, I don't know, dozens or maybe a hundred sites, I started to see patterns of what everybody kind of needs to be doing but isn't. And I'm like, "Oh, I'm setting this up on every site," you know. Why you need to make backups of your site or blog And like backups is a perfect example. Like so many people don't make backups of their site. And so I would set up backups and I found the backup systems that worked reliably and were also easy to restore if something happened, because that's also really important. So out of that, I kind of started to standardize what I was installing and setting up, and I turned that into a maintenance and support subscription. So instead of working hourly for folks, which is very unpredictable for me and for my clients, instead, it's a fixed monthly rate. We include various services with it. And that's really been a game changer for everybody. It allows me to help more people because it's consistent and I can optimize what I'm doing on my end and I can hire people to help me with some things, so I can help more people that way. It's also made my income more regular and predictable, which is I've never had that in my life. Jillian Leslie 8:47 Nice, nice. Andrew Wilder 8:49 I can run a report on Metorik, I'm not sure how he pronounces it, which is a WooCommerce website. M-E-T-O-R-I-K dot com. A game changer. Bryce (the guy behind that) is brilliant, so I'm going to give him a shout-out on that. Jillian Leslie 9:04 Great. And I'll link to it in the show notes. Andrew Wilder 9:07 Excellent. So yeah, I can go to Metorik and see exactly, you know, if nobody signs up for my plans and nobody leaves, I know exactly how much money I'm going to earn in the next 12 months. Jillian Leslie 9:15 That's amazing. How many blogs would you say you manage? Andrew Wilder 9:19 We are managing a little over 200 sites right now. Jillian Leslie 9:24 That's amazing. Andrew Wilder 9:26 That's also why I'm spending 12 or 13 hours a day, every day in front of my computer. Jillian Leslie 9:30 I get it. Why it's important to hire help when you're a blogger Andrew Wilder 9:31 So I'm tired. But I've actually hired help. I have two guys working with me who are awesome. I brought Sergio on about a year ago in October of 2017. He and I met at WordCamp LA, which is a WordPress conference. We ended up sitting next to each other at a session on the WordPress command line interface and he showed me some tricks. And I'm like, "Hey, you're cool and you're generous, and let's talk." We just totally hit it off and became friends. And he's awesome. Then my more recent hire is Ben Meyer who is also a food blogger. He found me through Food Blogger Pro. He's active in the forums there and I'm one of their resident experts. I had been planning on like working on hiring somebody in October and he reached out in September, just sent me a cold email. I had seen him around, but his email was excellent. You know, so he wrote a really good cover letter and I'm like, "Wait a minute, let's talk." So both Sergio and Ben kind of fell into my lap, so to speak, and they've been great. And, you know, I could not be managing this many sites on my own at this point. Why solving a problem for others can turn into a business Jillian Leslie 10:42 I bet. A couple things that you said that I really resonate with. One, people came up to you and said, "Hey, help me with my blog." And boom, there's the problem, you're the solution. Like, there was your business. So again, I always say this to people, which is, look for what people are responding to you about your... you know, it could be something, you know, here you are this food blogger wanting to talk about health and healthy eating and then who knew that people would want this other service from you. So that was terrific that you saw that opportunity and seized upon it or seized it. Andrew Wilder 11:16 I mean, it's just kind of the path. You know what, you have to be out there doing stuff, right? Jillian Leslie 11:20 Yes. Andrew Wilder 11:21 And if you're doing that, then paths will appear and then you get to choose which path you want to take. Jillian Leslie 11:25 And people will appear because as you just said, "Wow, I met this guy at this conference, or this guy reached out to me." So just my piece of advice is: be open. Andrew Wilder 11:35 One thing, one piece of advice I like to give about going to food blog conferences. So I love going to conferences and, at this point, I tend to like going for the social aspect because I get to see a bunch of people I don't see very often. Right? How to meet people at a conference But when I started, when I went to that first IFBC conference, I didn't know anybody, literally. Like I started using Twitter a week before and through Twitter, actually, I found I was sitting on the same exact train going into the city with another blogger from LA and we happen to have been on the same plane. So we connected and walked to the hotel together. But so, you know, finding ways to reach out and connect with people is amazing. But what I started doing at the conference was we have these, like, 15- or 20-minute breaks between sessions and I would give myself the assignment of go and meet three new people. Jillian Leslie 12:19 Oh, I like that. Oh, it's so uncomfortable. Andrew Wilder 12:22 Totally uncomfortable. But you know, people are really friendly. Jillian Leslie 12:24 They are. Andrew Wilder 12:26 And, you know, as long as you're nice, people are going to be nice to you, I think, or I believe. And so, what I would do though is I go introduce myself politely. I wouldn't like burst in and interrupt a conversation or something. But after a couple of minutes, we'd exchange cards. I'd say, I'd literally tell people, "I've got to go meet two more people. It was nice meeting you. Let's talk soon." And I go meet two more people. And people actually got a kick out of it. So like, you know, so I also didn't get stuck talking to one person and as opposed to, you know. And from that, I met some very dear friends who, you know, I consider my closest friends now. Jillian Leslie 12:59 Right. And what I find... and again, I've talked about this on the podcast. I also like going to conferences and meeting people that I may know virtually, but all of a sudden, you meet them in real life and it just takes everything to a whole different level. And bloggers do share. Like, they're kind and they they will help. I have found that there isn't this feeling of like, "Oh, I have to keep all my secrets to myself." The people are very generous, like, "Oh, I've been doing this on Facebook and it's been working," or, "You should try this with your email," or whatever. And I have always found that so helpful and generous. Andrew Wilder 13:40 I completely agree. And it's amazing because food blogging is incredibly competitive. You know, like, I like to say there's room for all of us, but realistically, there's only 10 search results on the first page. And there's only so many pins and so many eyeballs. And so, you know, clearly it's a huge market and there is room for anybody who's really dedicated. But it's amazing to me how supportive bloggers are of each other when you're supporting your competition. And I can't think of any other industry that's like that. Jillian Leslie 14:10 And there are ways that if you work together, you can help each other grow. Andrew Wilder 14:14 Absolutely. And what's really special. I mean, I love working with food bloggers, like, they're nice people and they're nice clients. When I started working, when I was working for the cruise ships, they would take six months to pay us and it was like an ordeal, we'd have to helm that. And like, food bloggers pay me in advance, and I solve a problem and then I get, you know, a huge thank you. It's nice. I'm not, like, banging my head against the keyboard, you know, and it makes me want to keep helping people. Jillian Leslie 14:41 Totally. Now, back to what you had mentioned. Okay, so people came to you and you kept seeing certain problems over and over again. One was backups. But what other... So again, we all need to be backing up our sites. Andrew Wilder 14:55 Yes. Jillian Leslie 14:56 And can you talk a minute about that? But also, what were these other problems or mistakes or things that people were struggling with? Technical mistakes bloggers make Andrew Wilder 15:04 It sort of falls into, I don't know, three or four buckets. So backups is one of them. The key with backups is, well, first of all, you have to back up files and your database because you need both of those things for WordPress to be complete. And then you have to back them up off-site and it should be on schedule. Like if you just had a calendar reminder to do it once a week, that's not sufficient really because you're going to forget. And the last piece of that is you have to know how to restore your site if something goes wrong. So backups are a little tricky to do. The other thing is, don't ever trust your host to do backups. Some hosts do backups and especially the Manage WordPress posts. But unless you are absolutely sure that they're doing backups and you can access them, and it's not just like the whole server disaster recovery kind of backup, that's not usually sufficient. I had one friend who had a hosting company. Her hosting company disappeared overnight. It was a smaller company, obviously, and she didn't have any backups and her site was gone. Emails started bouncing. Like, nothing. She totally lost her entire site. Jillian Leslie 16:06 Wow. The need to backup your site Andrew Wilder 16:06 That's like the extreme horror story, right? So I can't emphasize backups enough. The other reason I start with backups is you can screw anything else up, your site can get hacked. It doesn't matter if you have a backup you can restore from, you can get back in business. So it's this massive safety net. Jillian Leslie 16:23 I think we back up our sites every day. Andrew Wilder 16:26 I hope so. On my services I take backups so seriously that I actually am doing three different backups nightly. We're using ManageWP now to do incremental backups through a plugin. We're also using CodeGuard, which is a third-party service that doesn't require a plugin or Wordpress's system. It's blogs directly into the server against the backup. And we're also using UpdraftPlus to make a local backup nightly, which that one's more for convenience than security. But that way, you can just make a really quick backup before making any changes or anything. So that's that's how seriously I take backup. Jillian Leslie 16:59 Okay. So everybody, take that seriously. Okay. And then what are the other mistakes or problems that people are facing or were facing when they reached out to you? Making sure your site is secure Andrew Wilder 17:11 Security is a big one. WordPress is not inherently insecure, right? It's an active product that's being developed, but vulnerabilities are discovered. Vulnerabilities and plugins are discovered. Basic stuff like not sharing passwords through email. It's a big one. Email is not secure and that password will sit in both people's archives forever. Reusing passwords is a bad practice, right? Like, what was it, Target that got hacked? If your email address and password were hacked in the Target breach and you use the same email address and password on other services, it's not hard for hackers to make that connection. So using strong passwords and unique passwords on every platform, it's important Jillian Leslie 17:52 My husband who is a technologist forced me to start using 1Password which is a password service and it's not an easy system to use, but it makes everything that much more secure. Andrew Wilder 18:14 Are you on Mac or PC? Jillian Leslie 18:15 Mac. Andrew Wilder 18:17 I'm on PC and I don't love 1Password on PC. I've heard its really good on Mac, but maybe not. Another good one is Dashlane. I also found a free one called Buttercup recently and I started playing with it. And it looks like it might actually be good. So that's another one people could check out. Jillian Leslie 18:32 Yeah. At least with 1Password, and I think 1Password has like kind of a subscription plan that makes it easier, but I will say it's a little bit of a learning curve to use it. But once you do, then you don't know how you'd ever live without it. Andrew Wilder 18:48 Exactly. It's once you get it set up, it makes your life not only more secure but it actually makes your life easier. Jillian Leslie 18:54 It does. So I would recommend investing the time in some sort of password plugin or program or something like that. Andrew Wilder 19:04 Absolutely. And then security scanning is also important, having a good firewall. There's all this technical stuff you can do to help protect your site. Update your site often to fix security vulnerabilities Then the next big, big thing that people aren't doing and should is updating their sites. There's all these plugins and updates are released regularly for a lot of them. Sometimes updates are just new features. Sometimes though, they're fixing security holes. As soon as there's an update to fix a security vulnerability, that becomes a known vulnerability. So hackers actually know this and they can start testing that for sites that haven't updated yet. So one of our tiers of our support plans, we take care of the updates. The other part of it is if something breaks during an update, we'll fix it. That's part of the the peace of mind aspect. Because what happens when you hit update and there's a bug in the new update and you get a white screen of death, if you don't know how to fix it, you're going to be stuck and your site's going to be down. So we're able to take that burden off of people. One of the other advantages of working on so many sites is we see patterns emerge very quickly. So for example, there was a vulnerability in a GDPR plugin, the WP GDPR compliance plugin recently. It was a very bad one, actually. And we were able to find that very quickly. Then we just found all of our sites that were running that plugin and updated them immediately so that they wouldn't get hacked. Jillian Leslie 20:32 Can we talk about plugins in general? Andrew Wilder 20:34 Sure. Jillian Leslie 20:34 Okay. So I know as we just talked about previously, for MiloTree, we built MiloTree so that it was incredibly light and incredibly fast. And the big, I guess, criticism of plugins is they slow down your site and you don't want too many. So can you speak to that and what that means? And how many plugins you'd recommend? Andrew Wilder 20:55 Sure. With plugins, it's not about quantity, it's about quality. You know, most people don't realize how complicated WordPress itself is. I've actually been wanting to do a search and figure out how many millions of lines of code there is on WordPress. And a plugin could be literally two lines of active code, or it could be... so it could be a very lightweight plugin that doesn't do much. And that will be, you know, assuming it doesn't, like, have some problem with it, that won't slow things down at all, you know. But it could be a very large bug. Like, Woocommerce is a huge plugin, right? It's a good plugin but it's huge because it does a lot of stuff and it takes a lot more work for your server to process that. Pick WordPress plugins based on their quality and speed So really focus on quality and size and scope of plugin, you know, if it's well coded and fast. You know, MiloTree has been designed from the ground up to be fast, right? Jillian Leslie 21:49 Right. Andrew Wilder 21:50 So that makes a big difference. I've seen a lot of pop-up plugins that really bog things down, or sometimes they'll keep track of their stats, and I'll log in and check the database and their stats database will be like 200 megabytes, and it's slowing everything down because of that. I can't give you a number of like "Oh, it's okay, to have this many plugins." You know, in general, less is more; and fewer plugins, it's going to be faster because it's less for your site to do. But you really want to focus on on the quality and the speed and the weight. The other thing to consider is, what does the plugin do? Does it add a feature in the dashboard? Or does it add a feature on the front end? Or both? Adding stuff to the front end will add, you know, maybe JavaScript and stylesheets and other stuff. Some plugins are very greedy. The EasyRecipe plugin, for example, I think it added four stylesheets and four Javascripts to every page load, whether there's a recipe on it or not. And in this age where Google and everybody's pushing for more speed, you don't want to bog your site down with that. Does site speed matter? Jillian Leslie 22:53 Can we talk about that? Because my husband is like a speed freak, okay. All he cares about is site speed. He will get mad at me if our photos are not resized, that kind of thing. Could we talk about why speed... like, is he right that speed is so important? Andrew Wilder 23:15 Yes, to a point. So, speed is critical. It is a ranking factor for Google. But it's also good for users. If you click through on a search result to a chocolate chip cookie recipe and you see a white screen for five seconds and then you see an ad pop-up before anything else, you're going to click away before you even get to the recipe, so it needs to load fast. People are on their phones which don't have as fast a connection to the internet and a slower processor. So part of it is just thinking of the user and making sure the site loads quickly because people don't have time, you know, in this millennial age. If it's not there, almost instantly forget. They're going to hit the back button and try a different search result. At the same time, you don't have to be obsessive about speed. In terms of SEO and ranking, actually you don't get a boost in the rankings for being faster inherently. You actually can be penalized for being slow though. And that's also relative to your vertical. So you want to be faster than other food blogs. Jillian Leslie 24:23 Got it, okay. Andrew Wilder 24:26 If you're running a food blog. Jillian Leslie 24:27 Okay, okay. Andrew Wilder 24:29 But faster is better. The other places with a lot of confusion is people are like, "Oh, my page took 20 seconds to load." The total page load time is not really a useful metric. Because what happens during those 20 seconds? What you want to have happen is your page starts showing something very quickly. Within two seconds, the visitor has to see something happening. Within three seconds, they should be starting to read your content. So you want to be looking at, like, First Contentful Paint. It's like basically the first time the browser paints anything or draws anything. Because if your header image and your post title and your first picture, and some of your actual blog post content starts showing up within three seconds, your site's going to be crazy fast to the visitor. Then if other stuff around it kind of loads while the person is reading, they may not even notice. So it's not so much the total time, but it's more about the perception of speed. Jillian Leslie 25:22 Oh, interesting. Andrew Wilder 25:24 And starting to really break down what's important on the page. Jillian Leslie 25:27 Interesting. Okay, so we've touched on, wow, okay, so we've touched on security, we've touched on site speed, we've touched on backups. Anything else that bloggers struggle with? Why you need recipe markups if you're a food blogger Andrew Wilder 25:45 Recipes and recipe markup -- that's a challenge. Jillian Leslie 25:49 Can we talk about what that is? Andrew Wilder 25:51 Yes. Most people, I think, are aware of this now, where you want to use a modern recipe plugin that basically lets you format your recipe on the page. And it looks good, like you have your recipe card, as it's usually called. But it also in the code has markup to tell Google, "Hey, this is the ingredient, this is the description, this is the cook time, the prep time. This is the number of ratings it has." All that stuff is actually in the code and it gives that information to Google. And if you have enough of that information in, Google will reward that by showing what's called a rich snippet in the search results. The little thumbnail image and the rating and, you know, the cook time and stuff. And the more of that information you have in the search results, the more likely somebody has to click on it because it looks much more appealing. So the trick is, you need to fill out all the information or as much of it as possible. If you consistently don't fill out the cook time, you're missing out on opportunity. So it's real tedious to go through and make sure everything is, you know, filled out completely or as completely as possible. But it really does pay dividends on that. Jillian Leslie 27:01 What is your favorite recipe plugin, card plugin? Andrew Wilder 27:05 So there's a few good ones. The one I currently include with my support plans is WP Recipe Maker. The other one I'd recommend is Tasty Recipes. That's from the the same folks who do Food Blogger Pro. Jillian Leslie 27:17 Yeah, I know them. Andrew Wilder 27:18 I know them, I like them a lot. Jillian Leslie 27:20 Me too. Andrew Wilder 27:21 When I started doing WP RM, it was the only plug-in at the time that was fully Google compliant So I started including that as a service for my client. You know, I see that sort of as a value add with my services. It's not sort of as much as of a core component. But it's really helpful. For folks who have ZipList Recipe still or EasyRecipe Plus, you're going to see a big improvement by converting over to WP Recipe Maker or Tasty Recipes. What I always recommend is when somebody's doing a conversion, they do them one at a time; they test for accuracy and completeness. That's the same time you go through and say, "Oh, wait, this is missing the prep time," and you add that or it's missing keywords, or whatever information it is. Jillian Leslie 28:05 Interesting. So, keep going. Andrew Wilder 28:08 I was going to say, then you can also... if you have your site configured in Google Search Console, it'll show you a report of which recipes are missing information. It does take a week or two to update sometimes, so you have to be patient, it's not an instant thing. But as you're working through stuff, you know, once a week check on your Google Search Console and you'll start seeing, "Oh, these recipes are all complete now." Why MiloTree is such a powerful plugin to grow your social media followers Jillian Leslie 28:31 "I wanted to take a short break to talk about how powerful MiloTree is. And why is it so powerful? Because MiloTree is taking your traffic -- people who have been on your site and converting those people into followers and subscribers. And what happens when you take people who love you, who know your content, who then become followers, what happens is those people become engaged. Those people interact with your content on social. And what that does is it signals to the social networks the your accounts matter and will show your content to more people. So these aren't just any followers and subscribers. These are the cream of the crop. And that's what MiloTree does. So I invite you to head on over to MiloTree.com to sign up for your 30-day free trial to see how it works for you. And it also will work on WordPress, we have a WordPress plugin. But there's also a simple line of code that you can install on your Shopify store or any platform where you own your site." And now back to the show." Now, here's the thing. The name of the game -- I was just having this conversation with David, my husband and partner -- and what we were saying is, it doesn't matter how great your site is. What really, at the end of the day, matters for you to make money is traffic. So when you think about that for Google so that you can get traffic, what are your strategies? What are your tips for how to use your blog technology to drive traffic to your site? Andrew Wilder 30:24 It's a lot of what we just talked about from a technical perspective. You know, the site has to be fast, it has to be up and working. And it has to be mobile-friendly. Beyond that, you have to have great content. That is still the number one thing, is great content. When you're optimizing for SEO or any traffic, the most important thing is, think of your visitor. Are they having a good experience? Is it immediately obvious what your site's about, who you are, I can't believe how many people still don't have a smiling picture of themselves at the top of the site. People want to know who they're reading. Why it's important to show Google you are an authority in your niche And Google is also focused on expertise, authority and trustworthiness (the E.A.T). So when Google is looking at your site and humans from Google look at your site too, they want to see that you are an authority and you're trustworthy and you're an expert. So you have to kind of drop those clues. Having a nice picture of you smiling at the top. "Hi, I'm Andrew. Welcome to Eating Rules." It doesn't have to be much. In fact, it shouldn't be much. But rather than some random chocolate chip recipe, it's, "Oh, hey, this is my daughter in my food blog," or whatever your hook is, right? You got to hook people and draw them in and then you have to give them some good stuff. Edit out your redundant blog photos -- show the steps One other thing I've been paying attention to a lot is your photos. You know, everybody knows you have to have great photos, right? But when you take 12 pictures of that cake, with the perfect slice cut out of it, and all the pictures are almost identical and you put all of them in the blog post, you're not really adding value for the reader. Instead, you have one beautiful shot at the top of that cake, right. And it's like, "Oh, want to make that." And you start scrolling, scrolling, you know, reading through the blog and you talk a little bit about how you make the cake, and maybe the process shots of, you know, step-by-step photos of how to make the cake. So like, if you're layering, you know, raspberry filling or whatever in the middle, show a picture of that so people can see how it's done because then you're providing value. And make sure that picture looks nice and it's compelling. That way, you're kind of holding people's hand through this experience of making the cake and they're going to get better results because you're showing them how to do it better and they're going to trust you more. Jillian Leslie 32:29 Right. And especially because people consume content on their phones. So to have photo after photo after photo that's just a slightly different angle, you know, I'm on my phone so I don't want to be scrolling through those photos. Andrew Wilder 32:44 And I know it's hard for people to edit. You know, you get the cake to look beautiful, you set up your light. You've got the camera, you've got all the gear. And, you know, you shoot 200 pictures of this. Show three. Jillian Leslie 32:59 Yes. In fact, I was given that piece of advice for SEO, which is to take out really, like be hypercritical taking out photos in your posts. You know, back in the day it was like throwing in the kitchen sink. And it reminds me, I was a writer in Hollywood and there's always that thing about you need to be able to kill your babies, which means you have a joke or a piece of something and you love it so much. And to become a better writer, you need to learn to delete stuff even if it's good. Andrew Wilder 33:33 Exactly. So, from a user perspective, it's good to get rid of those photos. You know, I don't want to scroll through 12 of the same picture. As I'm scrolling on my phone, those pictures all start to look the same anyway. But from a speed perspective, it's huge too. You know, images compared to anything else are enormous. You know, you might have a 200 kilobyte image. And if you have 12 of those, just the images in your page are over a megabyte, which is slow anywhere. And all the Javascripts and all the HTML probably won't even add up to that much. Jillian Leslie 34:03 Right, yes. Aren't there plugins that resize photos and things like that? Andrew Wilder 34:09 Yes. Jillian Leslie 34:10 And you recommend the? Use an image optimizer to reduce the size of your photos Andrew Wilder 34:11 I do. Actually, I include image optimization on my Inner Peace support plan because it's such an important thing. So not only will we compress the photos, we will actually scale them down, if needed, as well. Because, you know, if you upload right out of your camera, you might be uploading a 4000 by 3000 pixel image that's four megabytes. There are some ways to mitigate that with image source set, which usually only works on mobile. But still, you're better off scaling the image to the size it's going to be displayed. Optimizing it or compressing it with the JPEG compression before you even export out of Photoshop or Lightroom or wherever you're editing. And then when you upload to have an image compression plugin, like ShortPixel or Imagify, that will squeeze out a few more kilobytes and optimize the image. The other reason it's really good to have an image optimization plugin is when you upload an image to WordPress, it generates thumbnail images. So it will basically take your, let's say, your 700 pixel wide image that you upload. It might also create a 500 by 500, and it might create a 300 by 300, and a 150 by 150. So it creates these little thumbnails that are used in various ways. Which images it creates basically depend on your plugins and your theme. But those images will also be optimized by the plugins. So it runs in the background automatically. So once you have it set up and configured, you don't have to do anything, which is really nice. It doesn't add any burden to your workflow. It doesn't make life harder. Jillian Leslie 35:39 Right. Andrew Wilder 35:41 So, ShortPixel is my favorite one. Jillian Leslie 35:42 Okay. And we'll have all these in the show notes. Okay, so here is my next question. So it seems like every so often, pretty often, there are new technical things that come out. Like Google doesn't want you to show intrusive pop-ups on mobile or GDPR. Like, I feel like people's heads exploded. What do you see coming down the pike? What do I need to know about Gutenberg, the new editor is WordPress? Andrew Wilder 36:04 Well, the big, big, big one is Gutenberg. So Gutenberg is the new editor in WordPress. It's been under under development for well over a year. It was originally going to come out this past spring and then it was going to come out the Tuesday before Thanksgiving and then it was going to come out the Monday after Thanksgiving. And it is still not out yet. I'm very glad they didn't release it right before Thanksgiving. It is a beautiful way to create content. It's sort of similar to Medium, if you've ever seen their editor. And it thinks in terms of blocks. So paragraph is a block, and image is a block. Jillian Leslie 36:41 Isn't it very similar also to say like MailChimp or any of those email services where you're constantly adding the blocks? Andrew Wilder 36:49 Yes. Mad Mimi works kind of the same way. So, I think Gutenberg is a great thing for the future. It's, you know, the old editor, the TinyMCE, that's what it's called, is kind of clunky. You can't really do much but write paragraphs and dropping some pictures. It's hard to extend and do things like tables or, you know, three columns or something like that. So, Gutenberg is going to add a lot of that functionality and really modernize things. The trick is, any plugin that works in the editor has to become Gutenberg compatible. They're catching up but Gutenberg has been changing so rapidly that it's been very difficult for plugin authors to keep up. So what my recommendation is, is basically I'm bullish on Gutenberg long term, but I'm bearish in the short term. If you've got an existing site, it may not be worth changing to Gutenberg just yet. So what's going to happen is right now, if you want to use Gutenberg, you have to install it as a separate plugin. When WordPress 5.0 comes out, it will be built in and it'll be the default editor. If you want to stick with what you've got, you can install the classic editor. It's a plugin to the repository that basically as soon as you install it, it just keeps things as is. You can install that now before 5.0 is released. Then when 5.0 comes out, you can update and you'll still have the classic editor. So what I recommend is doing that now, you know, especially in Q4 when everybody's got crazy traffic from the holidays, like don't break anything right now. Then in January or February, we can revisit this and then maybe time it to test out Gutenberg. Okay, so don't rush. Don't rush into it. There's there's going to be benefits but at the moment, you could really kind of shoot yourself in the foot. I had one client who installed Gutenberg and it seemed to be working. and then they had their VAs going through and editing lots of recipes for two weeks and then they discovered problems where things weren't saving properly. They had to go back and fix a lot of stuff. Especially if you don't catch a problem right away, it's really hard to restore from a backup and they had to fix all of this manually and it was a lot of work. So, tread lightly. Gutenberg is going to be great but it might not be there yet. Jillian Leslie 38:58 Right. My husband has a similar philosophy like when iOS comes out with new versions, he waits like a month or two or three or I don't know how long because everybody gets excited and downloads it, but then typically, they kind of fix stuff in the beginning. So patience a little bit kind of can get you further. Andrew Wilder 39:22 I actually set up a playground for my clients where they could log into just a fresh WordPress installation that has Gutenberg installed so they can tinker with it and get a feel for it without having to risk breaking their own sites. Then I installed common plugins like I installed Tasty Recipes and WP Recipe Maker which we both now... yep. So both of those plugins are Gutenberg compatible now officially. Jillian Leslie 39:44 Okay, got it. Andrew Wilder 39:46 But, you know, that's only until Gutenberg changes something and it breaks something in the plugin, and plugin authors have to fix it. So, it's going to be a little rough for a little while. Jillian Leslie 39:54 I get that. Now, here's a question. I know of a blogger who recently changed their theme and their Google traffic like halved. Is that a common thing? Andrew Wilder 40:09 It shouldn't happen. But I wouldn't say it's not common. You know, it's hard to say. It depends what changed. And I'm not a forensic SEO expert, I could refer that person to some great people who might be able to pinpoint what happened and what went wrong. It could be a number of things. It could be that their speed suddenly tanked and the new theme was actually much slower. Or it could be that there was a technical problem or maybe they changed their URLs by accident and didn't realize it. There's so many variables here that it can happen for sure. If you do it "right", it shouldn't happen. If anything, Google, should... you know, you should be making things better, not worse. So, you should long-term at least be rewarded. You know, sometimes when there are big changes, Google will kind of drop things until it gets a chance to re-index. So it might just be like a dip for a couple of weeks. That can happen too, so don't panic necessarily. It could also be bad timing. It could be that there was a Google algorithm change around the same time and, you know, you think it's because of your theme but it's not; it's because of something else. Jillian Leslie 41:19 Interesting. Okay. What's interesting is you're technical and you're a food blogger. So how do you think about social media from a blogger perspective, a technical perspective, or however you want to answer that question? Andrew Wilder 41:34 So I burned out on social media, to be honest. I may not be the best person to ask because I'm kind of down on social media. Jillian Leslie 41:42 As are a lot of people, yes. Andrew Wilder 41:45 I know Instagram exploded and I found it wasn't doing anything for traffic, so I kind of lost interest. You know, Twitter doesn't drive traffic for the most part, so it's really all Pinterest. You know, Facebook drives very little traffic. If you make videos, Facebook is great, but otherwise, forget it. Jillian Leslie 42:03 But I would say that Facebook is good at rewarding your Facebook page, but not necessarily driving traffic even with videos. Andrew Wilder 42:13 Yeah. You know, because they want to keep people on Facebook to get their advertising dollars. Right? Jillian Leslie 42:18 Exactly. Andrew Wilder 42:20 So, you know, on my own food blog, I did okay on Pinterest but I never quite cracked the Pinterest code, to be honest, you know. I was kind of phasing out of Eating Rules and more focused on Blog Tutor. And for Blog Tutor, I'm not really doing a lot of social media because I don't need to. My business is growing organically through referrals. You know, because food bloggers all talk to each other. So I'm blessed that I don't have to do a ton of marketing right now. You know, where I do use social media is Facebook for support groups like Food Bloggers Central is a great place for folks to get advice. Jillian Leslie 42:58 Is that a Facebook group? Big Facebook groups for food bloggers to check out Andrew Wilder 42:59 Yes. There's a few really big Facebook groups of 2000 or 3000 or 4000 people in them, but they're very active. So if you have a question you could ask there and get an answer very quickly. I often answer questions in there to help people out which is of course, great marketing for me. So Facebook groups are really, really useful. I mean, that's sort of replaced other forums. But yeah, if you can tell me Pinterest secrets. I will be listening to that podcast. Jillian Leslie 43:27 We do. Well, actually, Pinterest is very, very important for Catch My Party. In fact, we're approaching a million followers. Andrew Wilder 43:34 Oh, Mazel Tov. Jillian Leslie 43:36 Thank you. And again, we take what Pinterest says very seriously. When Pinterest talks, we listen. That drives millions of page views for us and that's how we ended up building MiloTree was to support, to keep our Pinterest followers growing. So I was curious, especially since you're a food blogger and, you know, Pinterest is I think such an important platform for food bloggers. Andrew Wilder 44:04 I think for me, some of it is it's the the cobbler's kids' shoes. Jillian Leslie 44:08 Yes. I so get that, the manicurist's nails. Yes. Andrew Wilder 44:13 I'm so busy working on other people's sites that it's hard at the end of the day, you know, to spend any time on my own. Jillian Leslie 44:18 I get it. Andrew Wilder 44:20 And that's okay. I've made peace with that. Jillian Leslie 44:22 I get that. Okay, so what is one, just randomly, one piece of food advice that has helped you that you think has really helped your health? Andrew Wilder 44:33 Recently, I've cut out carbs. I don't want to say I jumped on the keto bandwagon. But I feel much better. I think it's because I'm eating more vegetables instead of bread and cheese when I'm working all day and I have to go grab something out of the fridge real quick. When I grab carrots instead of crackers, that makes a difference. Jillian Leslie 44:55 And have you lost weight? Andrew Wilder 44:56 I have. Jillian Leslie 44:57 Naturally without trying? Andrew Wilder 44:59 Yeah. I'm using a meal delivery service for lunches called Territory. It's expensive but it's really good. It's great because I get my five lunches a week delivered and the food's excellent. It's basically lots of vegetables and various proteins, and they have keto-friendly ones, or low-carb ones ready. Because I've been so swamped with work that it's sort of an indulgence, you know, to not have to cook for myself, but it's actually kind of necessary because I don't have the time right now. Which leads me to one big point actually that, like, I'm hiring help. And right now, the help I need is for somebody else to make me lunch. Jillian Leslie 45:47 I like that, I like that. I'm a big believer in that. Advice: Learn to hire people for your business Andrew Wilder 45:54 Inherently, everybody I'm working with, they've learned or they started to learn to hire help because I'm the help they're hiring. And it's something that I've been trying to learn in my own business. It's like, "you know what? Just because I can do this doesn't mean I should." Jillian Leslie 46:05 Right. And there is a process of letting go and that somebody might not make your lunch the exact same way you would and that's okay. Andrew Wilder 46:15 Although, at the same time, I'm often pleasantly surprised that, like, they might make the lunch better than I would. Jillian Leslie 46:22 Exactly. Andrew Wilder 46:25 That's something I've been working really hard on leaving the door open to like because I'm kind of a control freak and I'm, I'm pretty good at a lot of stuff. I like to say I'm good at a lot of things. I'm not excellent at everything. You know, like, I'm not super niche down. So it's hard for me to find people who can do the breadth of stuff, but I'm finding people who can do certain things much better than me. And that has been so liberating, and to take that kind of stuff off my plate which frees me up to do other stuff. And so, you know, it takes time and and leaps faith sometimes to find that but when you do, it's so great Jillian Leslie 47:04 It is. And if you can find the one thing that I am very careful of, intentional about is the people I hired to help me and if they are people that I like and that do great work, and they make my life so much more pleasant, and so I would say take the time to really find those gems because they're out there. Andrew Wilder 47:31 What's the phrase? Hire slowly but fire quickly. Jillian Leslie 47:34 Yes, I believe in that. Andrew Wilder 47:36 Easy to say but hard to do. If it's not working, cut it off. Jillian Leslie 47:40 Immediately, because it's not going to work. No matter how much you try to make it work, you will know, I believe, and it's just, you know, I believe that in so many areas of my business, try something. If it's not working, pull up, pull up, pull up. So well, I have to say, this has been such a treat and I'm sure that a lot of my audience is going to go "How do I reach out to this guy? How do I learn more of what he's talking about, what he's doing? How do I hire him?" So could you share how people can find out about you? Andrew Wilder 48:12 Sure, you can go to BlogTutor.com. That's B-L-O-G-T-U-T-O-R dot com. Then there's some information on the homepage. But then if you need WordPress help, there's a big old button that says "Get WordPress help" and that will show you all the information about our support plans and our pricing and the various plans that are available. Then you can sign up from there or reach out to us. You can also reach us at support@blogtutor.com. So you can just shoot us an email with some questions. So, Ben, Sergio, and I all check that inbox, so we're all we're all working on that. I will drop a little hint. I'm actually about to change the name of the company. It's a long time coming. But you know, when I started, I was originally going to write courses for food bloggers, actually very similar to Food Blogger Pro. They did it better than I ever would have. But that's why I called it Blog Tutor and, you know, it's kind of a descriptive name. We do do sort of a lot of tutoring in our emails back and forth with our clients. You know, I believe in explaining what we're doing to our clients so that they're empowered to know what's going on with their sites. We don't just fix something and then say, "okay, it's fixed." We tell you what we did so you can learn from it. But we've kind of outgrown the Blog Tutor name. So I'm in the trademarking process right now so I can't tell you yet what the name is, but it's so much better than Blog Tutor. So I don't know when this is going to air. Jillian Leslie 49:29 Probably in maybe four weeks or so. Andrew Wilder 49:33 Okay, great. I am hoping to have changed the name by then. Jillian Leslie 49:35 Okay. Well, you know what, if you reach out to me with the new name, I'll add it so that people can read the show notes and see. Andrew Wilder 49:44 Excellent, and I'll set up a redirect from Blog Tutor, so you'll be able to find us through BlogTutor.com either way. But I'm super excited about the name and I can't wait. That waslike my last big project for 2018, so I'm coming down to the deadline and we'll get there. Jillian Leslie 49:59 Nice. Well, Andrew, thank you so much for being on the show. Andrew Wilder 50:03 Well, thank you for having me. This was a pleasure. Please spread the word about The Blogger Genius Podcast Jillian Leslie 50:06 "If you're liking the Blogger Genius Podcast, there are many ways to support the show. The first way would be to share about it. If you have a friend who you think would really benefit from it, please share it. Also, if you haven't subscribed yet, head on over to iTunes, Stitcher. Google Play, anywhere you get your podcasts, and please subscribe so you don't miss an episode. Also, you can review us on iTunes. Just log into iTunes and tell people what you think, tell me what you think. I'm always open to idea. And I'll see you back here next week for a new episode." Why you need to sign up for MiloTree I invite you to head to milotree.com and start growing your business faster. If you're trying to grow your social media followers and your email list, MiloTree will do it on steroids. It will grow your followers 24/7 and your email list, and it does it while you sleep. Watch your followers on Instagram or Pinterest or Facebook or YouTube or your email list explode! Sign up for MiloTree now, get your first 30 DAYS FREE, and set it up in under 3 minutes!

How to choose a hosting plan, why SSL is important, and how to optimize your images with Andrew Wilder. ----- Welcome to episode 142 of the Food Blogger Pro podcast! This week on the podcast, Bjork talks with Andrew Wilder about the top five tech mistakes he sees on food blogs. How to Fix 5 Common Blogging Tech Mistakes The first time our Site Speed Expert, Andrew, was on the podcast, he chatted all about best practices for securing your website. Now he’s back to talk about five of the most common tech mistakes he sees on blogs. Between choosing the right hosting to optimizing images, there are a lot of tech decisions to make about your blog. Andrew’s advice will make you a lot more confident to make those decisions. Enjoy! In this episode, Andrew shares: What he does at Blog Tutor Why good hosting is important for food blogger The difference between popular types of hosting plans How you can tell if you have good hosting How big your images should be and why you should be optimizing What a fully enhanced recipe rich card is What an SSL certificate is Resources: Google Recipe Structured Data Guidelines Blog Tutor 020: How to Secure Your Food Blog with Andrew Wilder from Blog Tutor 137: One Million App Downloads in One Year with Trey George Byte Check Cloudways Foodie Pro Short Pixel Imagify 136: Optimizing for Search Results on Google and Pinterest with Raquel Smith 133: Optimizing Your Food Blog’s SEO with Casey Markee Google’s Structured Data Testing Tool Google Search Console Is it time to switch your site to all-SSL? Blog Tutor Plans Connect with Andrew at support@blogtutor.com If you have any comments, questions, or suggestions for interviews, be sure to email them to podcast@foodbloggerpro.com. Thanks to our Reviewer of the Week, Jodie from Growing Book by Book! If you’d like to be featured, leave a review for us on iTunes and include your name and blog name in the review.

What "mobile-first" means, tips for making your website fly, and why you might choose to use a framework with Lauren Gray. ----- Welcome to episode 122 of the Food Blogger Pro podcast! This week on the podcast, Bjork talks with Lauren Gray from Once Coupled about mobile-first considerations, site speed recommendations, and theme frameworks. Site Speed in a Mobile-First World Mobile-first, frameworks, photo size, https…you’ve probably heard these terms in the blogging space before. And the words alone are enough to make your head spin. Developer and Food Blogger Pro Expert Lauren Gray is a pro at helping you make these tech decisions for your blog. And while they might seem like small decisions, they really will have a big impact on your site’s usability, search engine ranking, and workflow. This episode focuses on why you should start thinking about making these decisions for your business. In this episode, Lauren shares: How she started her company The difference between developers and designers Why she likes using a framework What “mobile-first” means and why it’s different than “mobile friendliness” How site speed is measured How you should size your blog photos How to think about automating certain tasks Why it’s important to start thinking about switching to https Resources: Meet the Food Blogger Pro Experts Once Coupled Genesis Framework 119: How an Accidental Entrepreneur went from $0 to $80,000 in Five Months with Brian Gardner Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test WPtouch Padsquad Brunch Pro Theme GTmetrix Google PageSpeed Insights Hotjar 004: How Understanding Your Visitors Can Help You Create an Income with Dr. David Darmanin from Hotjar 020: How to Secure Your Food Blog with Andrew Wilder from Blog Tutor Pinch of Yum’s source code Related Posts for WordPress If you have any comments, questions, or suggestions for interviews, be sure to email them to podcast@foodbloggerpro.com.

How to Secure your Food Blog Welcome back to the Food Blogger Pro podcast! In this episode, Bjork talks with Andrew Wilder from Blog Tutor about blog security. When you're starting and maintaining your food blog, there are so many things to do. From getting your website designed just right to making that batch of double chocolate cookies 5 times to make it perfect, a food blogger pretty much always has a full plate (har har). So when someone tells you that you should take some of your precious, precious time and use it to create strong passwords and back up your blog, I'll admit that I'm not the first person to jump up and down in excitement. However, these things are so, so important. It only takes one small event - which are often caused by factors out of your control - to bring your blog down. And if you don't have it all backed up, you could lose all of your hard work just like that. Andrew Wilder specializes in blog security, and today he's here to tell us what we need to do to make sure our blogs are safe from both intentional and unintentional harm. In this really important interview, Andrew shares: How he transitioned from being a studio lighting designer to a food blog security master The two most important things you can do for your blog's security How databases work and why you need to back them up What tools he recommends for your website backups Whether or not you should use your hosting company's backups Why you should use a password manager Why you should update your WordPress software and plugins What two-factor authentication is and why you should be using it How he helps webmasters keep their websites live and secure all the time Resources: Eating Rules Blog Tutor VaultPress UpDraft Plus BackUp Buddy CodeGaurd 1Password KeePass LastPass WordFence iThemes Security Login Security Solution Google Authenticator for iPhone and Android Duo Security Deals & Discounts page on FBP Remember, we are closing the doors on FBP memberships on November 19! Sign up now to get access! If you have any comments, questions, or suggestions for interviews, be sure to email them to podcast@foodbloggerpro.com. Be sure to review us on iTunes!

A roundtable discussion over the issues of war in Syria, dangers in Russia during the Sochi Olympics and a conversation with Andrew Wilder over this year's scheduled U.S. combat troop withdrawal