Do you think Twitter is a waste of your time or marketing budget? I’m often asked, “what’s the ROI of a Tweet?” I have an issue with the term ROI; however, let’s go with it for the sake of this post, yes? This is a short case study of one tweet that won me $23k of work and is only growing.
The Redacted Backstory
In October of 2018, the unnamed client (I signed an NDA), tweeted out a generic photo at a conference with the hashtag #CouldBeAnywhere. I retweeted it saying, “This is why you hire professional content strategists who prep the boss for content ahead of time.”
The Redacted $23k Tweet
An old-school retweet quickly turned into a conversation in the DMs. We commiserated with each other in those DMs. Being a marketer in tech is a challenge enough. Additionally, it’s pretty tough to write an engaging social post, when the “on location” team sends generic photos without a description. (I remember training my co-workers to take selfies and text them to me.) Needless to say, we became fast friends.
How A Tweet Earned $23,000
Those direct messages on Twitter turned into emails. The prospect asked if I had room for another client. (I sure did!) They were wondering how could I help this “Marketing Team of One” with their tasks? After we met on Zoom, the seed was planted. Nine months later, they decided to get going and became a Twitter Lite customer for $250/month.
To date, that one tweet has earned me $23,000. Over the last 19 months of our business relationship, that customer has spent an average of $1200/mo. I’m happy to say that over the course of our relationship, this client has increased their scope of work. In fact, for 2021, this client is projected to hit $30k/year.
How did I get that business?I got it from one tweet. Yes. One Tweet. My client and I talk and laugh about it often. It’s funny and cool. And guess what else — it’s human.
Don’t Be Afraid to Be Yourself
It’s possible that not everyone will like your sense of humor, how you handle your company online, or your face in general (as one of my friends always says, “it must be they don’t like my face.”).
You know what? Be yourself anyway. Not everyone will like you. Certainly, not everyone likes me. Be the best version of yourself, sure. Reply to people. Engage. Add to the conversation. Don’t be afraid of small talk. You never know whose attention you’ll attract and what budgetary authority they’ll have.
With any software development, you have to take into consideration your technical dependencies. This is no different in WordPress plugin development. The caveat may be that in an ecosystem with 40-50% adoption and over 50,000 plugins in the directory, how can this process be more of a team effort?
“Here are a few things that might make this communication more difficult. If you can think of other communication challenges (or solutions to the ones below), please share them in the comments. We don’t have established communication channels with theme and plugin authors.”
In her article, on Make WordPress Core, Josepha Hayden explores options on how to make the best use of volunteer contributors. Managing a volunteer team is quite a lot of moving parts, without factoring in burnout, attrition, and the pace of the release schedule. Those are real issues. Maintaining volunteerism in the Open Source Movement is hard; it’s hard in church. Volunteers are unsung heroes.
Can We Make WordPress Releases Easier for Whom?
So the question I immediately thought of when I saw the title was, “for whom?”
For the volunteers? I don’t worry about that too much. Josepha is amazing at working with people and creating an environment for collaborators.
For the users? She makes a good point in her article.
“In my observation, our users see no difference between our nuanced guidelines around minors vs majors, and currently experience each type of release (~9ish on average) as “yet another thing I have to update.”
For Plugin Developers? Hmm. I’m not certain this has been considered to scale that the plugin ecosystem has become. (Not to mention themes.)
Now, I know from leading the Make WordPress Marketing Team for two and some odd years, that “users” is a persona with a complicated Venn diagram. I tend to think of users as people like me. Small businesses that have a website running on WordPress. I’m a user of WordPress. I also have plugins on my website. Additionally, I am now a plugin developer thanks to Media Ron, LLC. See where the waters of “who is a user” is easily muddied?
As a marketer who has been working with plugin shops since 2015, I can’t help but bring up the very small window of 14 calendar days between Release Candidate and launch of the major update. With four updates planned for 2021, that felt burdensome for plugin developers — regardless of how large their shops are.
Yeah, in my mind I hear Dr. Laura’s pithy, “you chose him so what do you expect” response to a wife calling about her toxic, cheating, abusive husband. (That always used to bother me.) Yeah, she chose him as the person she was twelve years ago. Now, that she’s evolved and the problem is scaled, what are her options?
Let me be clear: I’m not comparing WordPress Core to domestic violence. With that said, there is a power imbalance. That’s expected. Yes, plugin developers chose to become technically dependent upon WordPress. That’s true. So, should developers follow best practices and revolve their entire product development around WordPress’ schedule? Um. Yes and no.
What people should do and what they actually do is the middle ground that should be solved. WordPress should have a smaller schedule. Developers should subscribe to the core updates.
“Shoulds” — implied or otherwise — are the blameshifting language that divorcing couples use. It is a warning sign of an unhealthy relationship. So, I figured I would do my part and do a bit of outreach.
When Do Plugin Developers Test?
So the question is when do plugin developers test. Do they start testing at alpha? Beta 1? Beta 2? Or wait for the Release Candidate. Like most things in tech, the annoying “it depends” response is the answer.
The best case is nightly builds. But what if you have dozens and dozens of extensions that integrate with say, other dependencies a lot bigger than WordPress like PayPal and HubSpot?
“We test with the RC. And yes, 14 days isn’t very much time. We have some devs working with the nightly, but officially we test at RC.” Kevin Stover of Ninja Forms
“We run a full suite of automated tests against trunk and Gutenberg trunk every night and ramp up manual testing as soon as beta starts. We also run the Gutenberg plugin on our sites to test and work with it.” Joost de Valk of Yoast
“We have integrated automated unit testing with bleeding-edge WP for the most critical functionality.” Adrian Tobey of Groundhogg
“The beta periods last fairly long and ideally plugin devs should be testing against the betas. But there are so many “passion” projects on .org, so it’s a bit of a chore to test your free plugins.” Ronald Huereca of Media Ron LLC
“14 days feels reasonable? Can’t say I really test my free plugins and my premium ones depend more on Woo vs integrating directly with WP.” Kathy Darling
“We keep the bleeding edge versions on our dev environments and try to test related upcoming changes before the RC. Then when the RC comes out, that kind of marks the end of testing for us since things won’t change much.” Jason Coleman of Paid Memberships Pro
Plugin Developers v WordPress Core
Here’s my analysis. In the case of Plugin Developers (“devs) v WordPress Core (“Core), devs feel they have no voice on the schedule. This essentially goes against the philosophy of the Open Source Movement in their minds. Regardless of the dependencies that we choose while building the web, a healthy working relationship is important.
Core is dependent upon PHP, mySQL, Apache, jQuery, and a lot more I’m not even mentioning I’m sure. My knowledge of code only goes so deep; my specialty is strategic awareness and how that affects our ecosystem.
So, in this case of devs v core, who takes custody of the children (“users)? How do web hosts factor in? When a website is broken, the user doesn’t know what broke. Case in point, when 5.6 dropped, my Caldera Forms didn’t work. I went to my web host first (Pressable at the time), who installed the jQuery manager plugin. Support for WordPress websites will increase after a major release regardless of whose product broke or why.
Back in the days of the Growth Council, there were quite a few people chiming in on the project itself from a long-term strategic view. I think that was an important discussion to have.
Yes, WordPress Core writes about all that they do and they take feedback quite well, I’d like to add.
Here’s where I see the problem.
Even medium-to-large plugin shops don’t have a full-time developer who monitors, runs, and tests the nightly build. As far as I understand, the nightly build is the time when all of the code is done for the day and is tested against the source. This is like reconciling a cash register after someone’s shift. What broke? Where did it break? Etc.
“For Wordfence, we do some testing with alpha and beta versions, to try to catch any compatibility issues as soon as we can. I generally keep at least one of my test sites running the nightly builds, to watch for any new issues. This does get a bit more cumbersome when there are both a minor release and a major release in active development. Once the release candidates are available, we do more rigorous testing since they can contain significant changes or additional trac tickets that were not included in the earlier betas.A 14-day window does feel a bit short, especially if one or more team members is working on another project or has some time off during that period. Other factors like the PHP 8.0 release that was so close to a major WordPress release can add to the time crunch as well.” – Matt R
For my devs who are my clients, I highly recommend that they themselves get involved and subscribe to the Core Blog. This is why I’m always tweeting out when software changes. It may seem odd when a marketer is tweeting these things out except, breakage affects us all.
Ronald Huereca of Media Ron, LLC, for example, appreciates the emails that come out. They’re well thought out and helpful. He forwarded me the email he got for 5.6 and it explained all of the issues with jQuery, what plugins he has listed on the repo, etc.
For WordPress 5.6 the email was sent 23 November and 5.6 dropped 8 Dec. This is the 14 calendar day period of testing. Also, this happened during the holiday season in the States.
“IF we keep this short RC length, then we MUST be able to contact developers sooner with the Field Notes and details of changes. Anything less means plugins (and themes) absolutely will not be updated in time and we’ll have conflicts, which will lead to larger support queues for the volunteers here, as well as any webhost who automates updates.It also suggests maybe we need something better than the emails from the plugins team and instead have something automated when a Beta drops, which contains an overview of the changes, that goes to everyone with a commit bit to anything (plugin, theme, core). “ Mika Epstein
So, How About Shortening the Release Candidate (RC) Window?
The problem I see with shortening the RC window is that the window is already too short. There is also the presumption that plugin developers have fully vetted their products by the time the RC is out. Meaning, plugin developers are closely mirroring their own plugin development schedule around Core.
In an ideal world, sure. That sounds awesome.
Does it actually happen? Not really.
Many developers I reached out to don’t bother testing until the RC is out because they don’t want to duplicate work. Larger companies test against nightly builds but, as Matt from WordFence pointed out, that comes at awkward times when point releases are also being tested.
I love that you’re opening up this conversation, Josepha.
I’ve always believed it is burdensome on plugin shops to release Core Versions after 15 October. Most of the world celebrates holidays at the end of the year.
For example, PHP 8 dropped on American Thanksgiving and 5.6 dropped 8 Dec.
I’m also wondering if there could be more than 14 calendar days between the release candidate and launch.
Could this be changed to business days and/or extended by 5 days?
I’ve pinged some of my peers who develop plugins and I’m sure theme authors may have excellent feedback as well.
“I think with Francesca’s suggested realignment of the phases in each release cycle, the idea is that by the time we get to RC there are essentially no new changes left to manage. The experiment to shorten the RC window is pretty new and I’m committing to it all the way, but it’ll be interesting for us to look back on it at the end of the year!”
How Long Should the RC Window Be?
I would like to see Core do a better job reaching out to plugin companies to get a feel for how testing against Core is done in practice, rather than in a perfect testing scenario. Will this be realistic on every release? No, but from a social science and research standpoint, it is important. What are the trends? What actually happens? Outreach as research is important to get the data that matters.
To study the mountain gorillas, Diann Fossey didn’t watch them on Slack or expect them to come to her. She went to where they are. She observed them. Listened to them. Drew their faces. Now, that may be super odd for the Core team to start sketching a plugin developer in the wild, but you get my point.
How long should the release candidate window be?
What is too short?
What is too long?
What is the labor burden for these releases?
At what point will it adversely affect development shops and their users?
Who Loses When Windows Are Too Short?
My suspicion of how core releases affect dev shops is this. Keeping up with Core, especially if there really are four updates in 2021, comes at a cost to their own product development and updates. If their products aren’t at the cutting edge, then how does that ripple resonate in the WordPress ecosystem?
So, who really loses?
Without a healthy working relationship, like most dysfunctional parents, it’s the kids that suffer. The users lose. Something breaks. They don’t care what it was or whose fault it is. It comes down to a retention and branding issue. If their site is WordPress, then WordPress broke. It wasn’t Ninja Forms or Yoast. It’s not the slider plugin they insisted on installing. It’s not advanced custom fields. It’s WordPress. Regardless of the pieces of software that are assembled, it’s “WordPress.”
“WordPress breaks. We’re moving to Squarespace.” This is a direct quote from one of my large-business, non-WordPress clients. Even running their company’s website, which only changes as we publish content, has become expensive. WordPress isn’t expensive. The time managing an outside vendor is expensive. The invoices for management is expensive.
With our goal for WordPress to be the dominant CMS, we have to look at how we can set realistic goals that move Core forward at a reasonable pace that allows growth while also factoring in real-world scenarios from plugin shops.
If we don’t, at 40% of the market share, we will have a hard time getting to 51% of the market. As an ecosystem scales, its faults scale.
If we don’t achieve our 51% market share, who loses, then?
It will be plugin shops first, because they’ll lose end-users to Squarespace, Webflow, and Wix. (This is the time to think about a SaaS move.) Without users, there is no revenue. Without revenue, marketing folks and developers will lose employment. I personally know WordPress developers working for Shopify.
WordPress the Project will lose because plugin developers won’t have the time or money to sponsor full-time volunteers to work on the project. The web hosts will have to continue to do the heavy lifting as far as that goes, much as they are doing now. Last I heard, Bluehost has 8 full-time employees who work on Core. I imagine that number is larger in the 16 months since I’ve talked to them at a WordCamp. That doesn’t account for the employees that are full-time sponsors from Yoast and anyone else I can’t think off.
WordPress.com will lose, not to the same degree, but Automattic will have to pick up the slack from the attrition of companies who sponsor full-time employees to work on the project. Sure, dot com and Automattic, in general, have what seems like a bigger part of the pie, but they also have a bigger part of the overhead. Automattic is not only accountable to their product teams and employees, but their vendors and clients. Let’s not forget their fiduciary duty to their investors as well.
When “WordPress” the brand doesn’t work, it affects us all. Maybe not to the same degree, but it will affect our reputation.
“Oh you’re going to use WordPress? Doesn’t that break?”
We have to do better.
Shortening the Release Candidate window is not a good move for Core. The domino effect is too grave.
There are so many articles about how to become a freelancer or how to start. It’s crazy. We read stories from people like Ryan Robinson who kept his day job until his freelancing earned six figures. SIX. FIGURES. Swoon. I’m not even close to six figures.
“I grew my freelance business to over six figures in revenue on the side before quitting my day job in 2016.” Ryan Robinson
So that goal may be daunting. For me, I didn’t have a choice. I had to start freelancing. I also didn’t have a partner. I started freelancing full-time when I lost my dream job — as a widow.
I have mentored so many people in my 34+ years of working. I wish I had the courage to listen to myself as a thirty-something instead of doing it at 43 years old. With that said, you will be fulfilling every role of a business when you freelance.
“The buck stops with you. Always. There is no one to dump on. You can only blame yourself. Barry from Sales doesn’t exist anymore. YOU are Barry from Sales. And you’re Karen from Client Services too.”
Stop procrastinating by taking a dozen courses and buying every book there is. You don’t need it to start. The way you start is to start.
I mean, you may need to educate yourself on marketing, best practices in business, hire an accountant, and all of that. If you do all that first, you’re never going to get going. You have to start.
How Do You Just Start?
The key to just starting is believing that you have marketable skills. What does this mean? It means you have a professional service that people will give you money for. I know what you’re thinking, “Wait, how do they give you money?” We will get to that. There are so many ways to collect money. Don’t worry about all of those details yet. Find the need. Fill it.
I’ll tell you how. Do you really want to know? It’s not glamorous. Here is the no–holds–barred, no-bullshit way I started freelancing. You ready?
How Did I Start Freelancing?
I started freelancing in the early 2000’s because I had some dental work (surprise to those who know me) and needed extra cash.
Someone needed a website. Great. I built it. After two of those, I quit. Who wants to argue about orange when that’s the hex code they gave me? Whoosh.
Someone needed me to tutor their kid in algebra. Great. How does $20/hour sound? Perfect, I’ll be there. Does Tuesday work? Bring cash. Drop off your kid. Done. I did that for ten years.
Someone needed help with their social media. Great. I’ll set it up and teach you how to do it. Three years later, I was still managing their accounts for free. Oh sorry, one person gave me a gift card to a restaurant. Lesson learned.
Those weren’t all ideal situations. But, they gave me experience and taught me lessons. When I started charging for social media (I needed more dental work), I charged $250 a month. I later figured out that was way too low. No worries. Adjust. Change.
Why Continue Freelancing?
Usually, the reason to have a side hustle is financial need. Freelancing is a great way to make up those literal deficits. That’s reality. It’s not always a sexy story of an epiphany you have while picnicking on a hill overlooking the ocean with the love of your life.
I had a full-time job as the Office Manager for a general contractor. Why freelance? Well, there are a couple of reasons. First, I needed money for (wait for it) dental work. Secondly, I realized (read: finally believed my peers) that I am intuitively good at marketing and should try to get a job in that field.
Great. I worked 16 hours a day — for six months — until I got hired full-time for a dream job at an advertising agency. Working those hours did not give me work-life balance. (Which is a privilege, by the way). It was hard. It weighed on my marriage. It kept me distant from friends. I was exhausted. But I knew my husband was getting older and I needed to work from home. Getting that job gave me time to be at home for the last six months of his life. That’s reality. Not sexy.
A little more than two years later, I began freelancing again? Why? That’s too long and sordid to detail. (I know I said there were no-holds-barred. But yeah. I got fired.) The point is that I found myself in a place where I a) needed to make money; b) wanted to control my destiny; c) continue being a remote worker.
Freelancing isn’t all about sitting on the beach and working for four hours a week. It’s as serious as you want to take it.
Okay. So, we covered, “just start.” Let’s go deeper.
Freelancer Step One — What’s Your Service?
Take out a pen and paper and write down services that you are good at. Freelancers are typically service providers. This can be anything from cleaning houses to dog walking, to building websites, to bookkeeping.
What are your marketable skills? Write them down. No, seriously. Write them down.
Freelancer Step Two — What Service Do People Want?
Okay. This may require a bit of a think. Almost a come to Jesus kind of think. Maybe you need to do this with a best friend. What are your marketable skills right now?Who do you know — right now — that would hire you for one of those services? Reach out to them saying, “I was thinking of offering this service. What do you think? Would you pay $1,500 for a website?” Get their opinions. Write down what they say.
I’m a big believer in taking notes in notebooks. Your brain works differently when you write notes than when you type. And for the love of God, don’t send the GenPop a Google Form. That looks like work to them. They won’t fill it out and if they do, they’ll be annoyed. You don’t want to annoy your potential customer base.
Freelancer Step Three — What Will People Pay? What Should I Charge as a Freelancer?
What should you charge as a freelancer? The answer is more than you think. When you first start, you’ll have to throw out pricing and see what sticks. Then you can go back and do some work. This includes covering your own sick days, vacation, and retirement. If you want the freedom of freelancing, then you have to be responsible like a business owner. Get out of the employee mindset.
Each customer will teach you something about yourself, your services, and how you want to do business. This is the process. You can’t really skip it too much.
Create a pricing sheet, even if it’s just a Google Sheet. A landing page on your website is better. Don’t worry about getting the price just right. It’s okay to change your prices. This is the beauty of a web page versus print. Print is forever. Websites are not.
This one is easy nowadays. Freelancers can get paid with Zelle, PayPal, Venmo, checks, and yes, paper money still works.
You can create an invoice in Google Docs with a template, keep your records in a Google Sheet, and boom. You’re in business with no money down.
When you’re ready, Freshbooks is a great option since they price by the number of clients you have. I started with Google Sheets and have used Freshbooks since October of 2017. Since I started my LLC this year, I will be transitioning to Xero which, ironically, will cost me less. But hey. This is how you learn.
Freelancer Step Five — Market Your Freelancing Services
This could mean direct calls or texts telling your friends you now offer dog walking on the side. It also means creating a website, Twitter, and other social accounts, and then using them. You have to tell people you’re taking clients and keep telling them.
If you already have a website, set up a landing page for your services and fees. Be upfront. This establishes boundaries with clients. Don’t worry about making mistakes. The more mistakes you make, the better you write your estimates. In construction, we write “good for 30 days” on our estimates for a reason. I adopted that quickly when I began freelancing.
Freelancer Step Six — Start a Budget
Why is starting a freelancing budget step six? Because you won’t know all of the SaaS tools you’ll use to market your writing, web development, or marketing skills. You may even be using these tools for marketing your dog walking, house cleaning, or lawn care. It costs money to be in business for yourself; even for a freelancer.
Freelancer Step Seven — Block Your Time
This is especially important if you have a full-time job. You will need to figure out times when you will work. This is best done with time blocking. If you have a partner, you’ll need to have that conversation with them, too. Set boundaries early. Your freelancing time will come out of your leisure time and maybe even family time — at first — until you can make freelancing your full-time job.
Freelancer Step Eight — Tax Paperwork
For a while, my “freelancing” was a “hobby” according to my tax accountant. You’ll have to chat with yours. If you’re not a corporation or LLC, you may need to have a W-9 ready to give to clients. The IRS has the W-9 form online. Easy peasy. Save it as a pdf in a place you can have on-hand for when you’re asked to send it.
As of the time of this post, any company that pays you over $600 in a year is required to send you a 1099. Those are due to you by January 31 each year. Some will be late. It happens. You’ll need these for tax prep. Again, it’s important to chat with your tax accountant. And don’t opt-out of the self-employment tax; you need it for Social Security and Medicare.
I use H&R Block Small Business Tax Filing which starts at $85. A professional tax preparer reviews my forms before they’re sent to federal and state. I’m fine with that. You can always hire a CPA or do it yourself. It’s up to you.
I’m a huge believer in outsourcing. The things that distract you from your billable time are things that should be hired out. Yes, I can do my own taxes. I did before. This is worth spending money on.
Freelancer Step Nine — Evaluate Your Client Work Each Quarter
It’s good to look back and reflect on the last three months. What worked? What didn’t work? This is when I realized I way under-charged for my social media services. I’m not going to lie; the first year was hard. I don’t write blog posts every year like some companies do, because nobody really cares and they’re super braggadocious like Christmas letters from people whose families are perfect. However, I did write about the first year. It will be hard. Very hard. If that intimidates you, you’re not ready to be a freelancer.
Freelancer Step Ten — Are YOU Really Ready To Be a Freelancer?
I mean it. Are you ready? Can you take the criticism? It will come. Can you step into the spotlight? Can you be yelled at by people for no legitimate reason? When you freelance you are the boss. And, more importantly, can you commit to doing the work on time every time. It’s not a job where no one cares if you miss deadlines. There is no probation. If your work is late or sloppy you will lose clients and — even worse — brand legitimacy.
“When it comes down to it, you have to believe in yourself, believe in your business, understand it might not pan out, and know you’re willing to stay the course to successfully start a freelance business.”
You have to want to be in business for yourself more than you want money. It will be a sacrifice. Your spouse will call it a “hobby.” Your friends will be mad that you don’t want to go out to the bars every night.
Being a freelancer is ultimately about being who you are — who you really are — and who you want to become.
If you can endure those very real obstacles, you can start being a freelancer today. Well, maybe tomorrow because, honestly, this article is super long and now your kid is asking you for help on their school project. Okay. Tomorrow then. Start tomorrow.
What’s the best SEO plugin for WordPress? Like all complex questions the answer is: “it depends.” And as always, the best tool is the one you use. In this post I’ll let you know the WordPress SEO plugin I use. It’s RankMath. I pay for the Pro Version which is $59 per year.
Does Your WordPress Website Need a SEO Plugin?
You need water, air, shelter, and food. Do you need a SEO plugin? No, you don’t need a SEO plugin for WordPress. WordPress has technical architecture (sitemaps, permalink structure, excerpt) that helps with SEO from the technical side.
Will a SEO plugin replace old-fashioned intuition or a SEO consultant? No. A plugin never replaces a human. But Both Yoast and RankMath help guide you as you write, especially if you write in the WordPress editor. And you’ll want to make the best use of your meta descritpion/summary/snippet.
“For best results, we recommend communicating the page’s main takeaway and including a clear Call To Action (CTA).”
If you want to ensure that Open Graph data is available for social sharing, you can use an Open Graph plugin and skip SEO plugins for your WordPress site all together. “Open Graph and Twitter Card Tags” looks like a good choice in the WordPress plugin directory. And, it’s free. So what do you have to lose?
(Don’t go crazy and install a plugin without backing up your site, though.)
What’s the Best SEO Plugin for WordPress?
In the exercise of defining the best, let’s look at the worst SEO plugin for WordPress. The worst SEO plugin is not having one. I mean, we’ve established the fact that you don’t need one, but why wouldn’t you have one? It’s a lot better for your website than a slider. (The best slider for your website is no slider. Yep. Ever. No. Don’t do it. Please. Okay. Read this.)
Decision fatigue is a real problem. Meanwhile, you keep writing and writing and writing and your content meanders and there are so many run-on sentences and wait that bird just hit my window I wonder if I should go walk by the river today? I mean. Stop. Just slow down.
This is what the SEO plugin does.
RankMath — The WordPress SEO Plugin I Use
The WordPress form plugin I use is It’s RankMath. I pay for the Pro Version which is $59 per year. Why? I used Yoast originally and I liked it fine. I have even produced a tutorial on how to set it up for your social sharing. I’m not a huge fan of their constant notifications on the WordPress admin, but free is free. Right?
I was introduced to RankMath from Jason Tucker. While writing the show notes for The Smart Marketing Show, I get to see the tools that he uses on WPwatercooler.com.
The downside of RankMath, however, is that it doesn’t auto update in the WordPress dashboard/admin. It’s not the end of the world but it should be noted.
It sort of annoys me, to be honest, that I can’t auto update this plugin in my Admin. It’s not that big of a deal to download and upload, but yeah. Be aware of this.
Here’s what I like about RankMath.
It has a clean interface.
I like the numerical scoring.
It has content suggestions in the post.
It works with the new WordPress editor and Classic Editor Plugin.
It reminds you to use the keyword in your slug (link), alt text, and headings.
As you accomplish the tasks, your numbers go up. It’s super helpful.
I love RankMath’s color and score combo available right in the posts dashboard.
Here’s what I don’t like about RankMath.
It wants me to use a table of contents. I literally don’t know how to do that.
It wants my title to have a number. So clickbait.
Which SEO Plugin Should You Use?
Honestly, it doesn’t matter which SEO plugin you use for your WordPress website. To keep your writing focused and clear, you should use a SEO plugin. Yoast and RankMath are both excellent choices and I’ve used them both.
What’s the best form plugin for WordPress? Like all complex questions the answer is: “it depends.” How about if I tell you what WordPress form I use and why instead?
What’s the Best Form Plugin for WordPress?
The best form plugin for WordPress is the one you use. Yes. I have a saying, “the best tool is the one you use.”
People get so hung up over what the best thing is that they end up using no thing. No, that’s not a typo. I literally mean they use no thing.
If you’re not going to use a form, then the question about what the best WordPress form plugin is moot.
Also, it does depend. What are you going to use the form to do? Do you need a lot of advanced features? Most of the WordPress plugins have similar features. If you go by most popular, you’ll get results that show you the ones who have been around the longest; that doesn’t mean they’re the best.
Like most consumers, I made my buying decision because of loyalty.
I always say affinity leads to loyalty. Loyalty leads to sales.
Caldera Forms — The WordPress Form Plugin I Use
The WordPress form plugin I use is Caldera Forms. Why? Because Josh Pollock is my friend. Yes. It’s that simple. I first came across him from The WP Crowd in 2015.
When I started creating landing pages in 2017, suddenly I needed a contact form that did more than send me an email. Back in 2016, when that video was made, I didn’t have a contact form.
“I have a job, I don’t need a contact form. They can find me on social media.” Bridget Willard
But then, I went all-in on my freelance business. So, all of a sudden, a contact form became important.
As a fun aside, Caldera Forms is now part of the Saturday Drive family including Ninja Forms, who is one of my favorite clients.
Do You Need a Contact Form?
If you have a landing page, you need a contact form. If you have a mailing list, you need a contact form. If you have a sales page, you need a contact form.
I have a different contact form for every single landing page that I have. Why? This is important so that you can control what goes where.
For example, I have a contact form on my pricing page that has checkboxes for the services. The email that goes to the visitor is specific to that page. After form submission they’re directed to a specific thank you page. On that page, there’s a video about Twitter.
One of my recent clients said that the specific landing page with the video sealed the deal for him. Every point of contact matters.
I currently have three automated drip campaigns that Amy Hall has set up for me in Mailchimp. So, I purchased the Mailchimp add-on for Caldera. It’s only $29 for some reason. It could be $79 and I still would have purchased it.
The contact form you should use is the one you want to use. The best WordPress contact form is the one that is easiest for you. With that said, I hear a lot of heartache with Contact Form 7. People love Gravity Forms, Ninja Forms, Caldera Forms (of course), and WPForms.
Pick one. Make your landing pages, specific thank you pages, and drips. Get your marketing into gear.
