About the Notepad

The new version introduces the Table Builder, a simple, visual interface that allows you to create beautiful tables effortlessly.

It’s a feature that a lot of customers had asked for, replacing the shortcode approach and making the process much more streamlined .

You can read the announcement here.

WooCommerce Product Table is one of Barn2’s bestselling plugins used by store owners to display product information clearly, in a tabular format (eg. like an invoice)  and on one page.

The episode is called Is WordPress’ Market share Declining? And What Should Product Businesses Do About it? and co-hosted by Matt Cromwell and Amber Hinds .

There were 4 guests split in two sessions:

• Part 1 – Joost de Valk (Yoast SEO founder, Emilia Capital) and Noel Tock (Human Made partner)
• Part 2 – Miriam Schwab (Strattic founder, Elementor’s Head of WP Relations) and Rich Tabor (Automattic Product Manager)

It’s definitely worth a listen, and when you do remember that the success of the project depends on both a top down and bottom up approach. That is, leadership and steer from a higher level and participation contributions from everyone else. How this can be made to work will directly impact its effectiveness.

This is a space for those looking to work for a WordPress business, to ask career advice, specific questions about roles posted in the Jobs section of this website, or if you are a hiring manager, questions and comments about recruiting the best people for your business.

Please note: This isn’t a bulletin board to ask for or advertise for jobs. 

If you are looking for work, feel free to post a link to your CV and/or LinkedIn profile and ask for feedback.

Don’t forget to read the Community Rules too.

How about that for click bait? 😉

If you follow Kevin Geary of Automatic.css (ACSS) and Frames, you will have heard of his new project: EtchWP.

In one of this email he says: “This is slated to be one of the biggest product announcements in the history of WP, if not the biggest.” Will it be?

Here’s the thing: he’s built a following and credibility. And two great products. Here’s earned the right to a slow, expectation-building reveal. However, if Etch isn’t the best thing since sliced bread, or even Top 5, he will have lost some of that credibility.

Etch will be revealed in September. Get your popcorn ready.

I keen on hearing it, at WordCamps, in podcasts,  and the various communities I part of: WordPress product owners, Devs and agencies need to do more marketing.

Here’s the thing: unless you are a Marketer… you just don’t know where to start. I’ talk about this here a little, but this is a topic that needs to covered as a course.

If you can answer this question it will help me figure out what topics to write about and how to structure the online course I intend to create.

So, what is your #1 blocker to growing your WordPress business?

Have a look: https://www.liquidweb.com

The new UI is quite conservative (compared to Kinsta’s recent efforts) but polished and on brand.

It provides real estate to their broad range of products. I’m not a big fan of sliders but I think the one they have adopted works well because it looks like one that I can scroll through myself.

This is what stands out, IMHO: Setting the standard in web hosting for 27 years

It’s hard to argue against the quality if a web product or service that is as old as the web itself 🙂

Interesting webinar that I think is of interest to both established and higher-traffic publications and smaller ones that are seeing their traffic increase.

Covering some of the more technical considerations:

• Performance optimization
• Scalability
• Integrations
• Headless

Speakers are from The Publisher’s Desk, 10up, Big Bite and WP Engine.

It’s free to attend

When: Thursday, August 22 at 12:00 pm EDT / 5:00 BS
Register: Webinar | WordPress for Media & Publishing Sites

Remote work is great unless you’re working for a globally distributed organization that hasn’t quite embraced async.

Twist addresses this, or so they say:

Builderius is a new page builder that features:

•  Full CSS Development Environment
• Global Components
• Tabbed Canvas Interface, Dynamic Data Previews
• To Publish Releases Straight from the Builder

You can see the walkthrough here: https://youtu.be/-ecvt6xrqCA

And test it yourself here: https://builderius.io/alpha/

Great piece by Equalize Digital comparing accessibility of websites built using a number of popular WordPress builders.

Kadence came top and Bricks, which is what I use on this website, was 8th out of 10, so not doing well at all. I’ll need to look into this for WP BizDev and make the necessary changes.

Read the article: WordPress Page Builder Accessibility Comparison

Instead, Chrome users will be prompted to opt in or out.

Anthony Chavez, vice president of Google’s Privacy Sandbox, said:

“Instead of deprecating third-party cookies, we would introduce a new experience in Chrome that lets people make an informed choice that applies across their web browsing, and they’d be able to adjust that choice at any time”

Here’s his post: A new path for Privacy Sandbox on the web

It’s still not a done deal – they are discussing this new approach with regulators.

It’s also too early to speculate whether this means that it’s business as usual or whether businesses will still need to adapt to a new approaches and new solutions (that have been developed in preparation for a cookie-less world). We will have to wait and see how many people decide to turn cookies off.

In the meantime, businesses who are setting themselves out to capture first-party data should not change their plans. It’s still a solid strategy to adopt.

Ann0uncement: WP Engine Acquires NitroPack, Extending Leadership in Managed WordPress Site Performance

It will be added to their new ‘Tools & Plugins’ category of their refreshed brand architecture.

From the Content Marketing Institute:

“Marketers should stop using attribution models and return to a 1985-like measurement model if they want their brands to succeed in 2024 and beyond.”

That is, before the internet and the ad / distribution channels telling us that we can measure campaigns accurately.

Can a 1985 Marketing Playbook Fix Measurement Problems in 2024?

SparkToro and Datos (a Semrish company) have compared searches that end with a click with those that don’t, giving us insight into the former too:

Here are the key numbers (for American searches):

• 41.5% of searches feature a click (70.5% of which go to the open web, 1% to ads, and the rest to Google properties)
• 37.1% end up with.. no click
• 21.4% end up with another search

So, 58.5% are considered Zero-Click searches.

Source: 2024 Zero-Click Search Study: For every 1,000 EU Google Searches, only 374 clicks go to the Open Web. In the US, it’s 360, by SparkToro

It will be updated dynamically every month:

https://joost.blog/cms-market-share/

I’ll have a read and share my thoughts over the weekend.

Stellar WP’s event will *spark* ideas for growth, creativity, collaboration, and more.

Here’s the schedule: https://stellarwp.com/stellar-spark/spark-schedule/

There are quite a few growth related talks that are worth attending:

• Future-proofing your SEO: Updates, Overviews and Leaks!, by Carolyn Shelby and Alex Moss
• The Future of Email (Newsletters) in WordPress, by Xaver Birsak
• What the Weird Internet of Early 2000s Can Teach Us About Profitable Content in 2024, by Lana Rafaela Cindric
• How to Create an Affiliate Program to Sell Expensive Services, by Alex Standiford
• Monetizing Your Passion: WordPress for Content Creators, by David Wolfpaw
• Picturing Success: Maximizing Image Engagement in WordPress, by Corey Maas
• Credibility Marketing, by Adam Weeks

The  event takes place on online on 19 July, starting at 9am ET.

Register here: https://stellarwp.com/stellar-spark/

“OpenOrigins is a solution to safeguard against manipulated and AI-generated content. We prove the authenticity of digital media to enable trust in content. ”

From: OpenOrigins

My fear is that authenticity is going to lose value. People are not going to care if something is true or not, as long as they can get a fix of whatever content, notification, Like, etc… comes next.

But it’s a battle worth fighting. Particularly if live off the content you produce.

The venue has been announced too: Philippine International Convention Center, Manila, Philippines

Tickets are not yet on sale.

Rand Fishkin of Sparktoro (ex Moz) has written a great piece explaining what these are and what we can learn from them.
Here are the main headings of the article:

• Navboost and the use of clicks, CTR, long vs. short clicks, and user data
• Use of Chrome browser clickstreams to power Google Search
• Whitelists in Travel, Covid, and Politics
• Employing Quality Rater Feedback
• Google Uses Click Data to Determine How to Weight Links in Rankings

If you’re short of time, skip to the Big Picture Takeaways for Marketers Who Care About Organic Search Traffic part.

Read the article: An Anonymous Source Shared Thousands of Leaked Google Search API Documents with Me; Everyone in SEO Should See Them

Interesting article from the Pew Research Center:

When Online Content Disappears

However, there’s no big conspiracy here:

In most cases, this is because an individual page was deleted or removed on an otherwise functional website.

The article covers links on government and news sites, as well as referencing a surivival analysis of Twitter / X posts:

• 1% of tweets are removed within one hour
• 3% within a day
• 10% within a week
• 15% within a month

Source.