Not Everything Should Be Automated

Every Monday morning, I sit down with my freshly made coffee and… I write this newsletter. It is how I begin every week.

It usually takes me 2-3 hours to do it. And then, when I’m done, I hit that “send” button straight out of FluentCRM.

Nothing is automated about it. And that’s kind of the point.

That’s the topic I discuss further below. Because, not everything should be automated.

We’ll also discuss that “page not found” 404 page on your site… and ways you can make it cool. 😎

OK… so another quick sip of my organic dark roast coffee here….

…. and, let’s do this. 😇

Write To Your List Like A Human, Not A Funnel

Everybody knows you need an email list. At the same time, there’s this desire out there to automate everything.

This idea of “set it and forget it” seems attractive. And I get it.

But, then it can lead to ideas such as automating ongoing email engagement. Basically, turning your entire list into one, big autoresponder.

I’ve talked to people who had it as a goal to write 52 emails. One for every week of the year. Then, set it up on an autoresponder and just let it run. “I’ve got a year’s worth of emails!”. And then, in a year, just reset it and go again. Because, they’ll never notice.

Sounds good in theory, perhaps. But, then again…

Does it sound good to you to have an email list of people who pay so little attention to your emails that they won’t even notice if you’re repeating yourself?

I’ve got a client right now – bless her heart – who has a “nurture sequence”. The emails are all rather robotic and each one has little link down in the PS to maybe buy something.

Thing is, I don’t think it will do the job. The emails are all too… dronish. They’re not the kind of thing people will probably look forward to and take the time to read. Because they all look alike.

So, the other day, I gave her some advice.

I said she should consider just writing to her list personally. Perhaps once a week or so. Whatever frequency works best for her. But, the key is… sit down and write that email in real-time.

I wouldn’t have a “nurture sequence”. I’d just send out real emails – talking to her community – that she writes in real-time. And send them out.

For me, this very newsletter is just that. There’s nothing automated about it. When one joins my list, they’ll get a short welcome sequence, but for the most part, nothing on my list is automated. I sit down every Monday morning and I write this newsletter. Just for you.

Now, for YOUR email list, you may not want a “newsletter”. It may be much shorter. More like a personal email. It doesn’t need any fancy formatting. The important thing is that it is relevant and interesting.

I know people who email their list every single day. Like clockwork. Nothing automated about it whatsoever. Every morning, they just sit down and write an email to their community.

The emails are relevant. They’re interesting. And, it makes you really, REALLY good at it the more you do it. It becomes much easier and, before long, you wouldn’t consider it any other way.

There’s nothing that keeps you in tune with your subscribers better than writing to them personally and frequently. And actually engaging them.

It is so much better than just blasting them with some email sequence because some “guru” told you you’re supposed to.

Email sequences can be useful for shorter campaigns with specific purposes. Welcome sequences. Short sales sequences if the person opts in for a lead magnet and it is appropriate. But, keep them brief. And when they’re over, they go back into the “pool” and you send them your ongoing emails that you routinely write for your community.

None of us like being talked AT. We like to be talked TO.

And your subscribers don’t want another autoresponder.

The most powerful email you can send to your subscribers…. is the one you JUST wrote. 😎

Some related reading:

• What If You Emailed Your List Every Day? (A Different Look At Email Frequency)
• Email Deliverability: The Simple Guide To How To Ensure Your Best Deliverability Metrics
• How To Increase Your Email Open Rates And Get Your Emails Delivered

Concierge Client Update

If you log into your account at the Blog Marketing Academy and you’re an ongoing client of mine, you will now see a new section called “Websites”. You’ll also see your website listed right on your dashboard.

This is the new site profile system that I’m working on. These profiles are only informational. How complete your own profile is right now depends on if I’ve gotten to your site in terms of updating the records. 😇 But, it is coming along…

These profiles are as much (if not more) for ME than it is for you. See, I’m managing so many sites now that I sometimes forget basic information about your site’s setup. Things like…. where your DNS is. Who your email provider is. Which Toolkit plugins are you running. So, these profiles are like me keeping files on some of these things.

Now, one thing I spent some time on last week is.. the owner’s manual.

For awhile, I wanted to have the ability for each client to have a site owner’s manual. It would be downloadable and something you could keep as a reference on your own computer. And it would contain info on the basic technical setup of your site so you know where things are. And importantly, it would provide you the “exit plan”.

This is important for maintaining the digital sovereignty of all of my client’s. After all, you are all trusting me to help manage the tech of your site, but if it is all dependent on me, that’s a weak point in the chain. I’m not naive to that. 😇 So, that owner’s manual empowers YOU to know where things are and, importantly, provides instructions on how to get your site MOVED out of everything I manage and over to your own hosting. Should the worst happen.

Manually creating these owner’s manuals for every client is obviously a daunting task, which is why it wasn’t done yet. But, with these new site profiles, now I have a way.

You will now see a button on your site profile to download the owner’s manual PDF. It is dynamically generated with your site’s pertinent information in that PDF. And when things change, you can come back and re-download that PDF anytime.

It was kinda fun figuring out how to code up dynamic PDF generation. 😎

Anyway, this little function takes care of that. It is important that my clients never feel “stuck”. It is how I would want to be treated if MY site was being managed by somebody else.

WordPress News & Updates

Google CTRs Drop 32%. SearchEngineJournal reports that Google click-through ratios (or CTRs) have dropped 32% after the AI Overviews were rolled out. Interestingly, though, search results 6-10 saw a roughly 30% INCREASE. Which suggests users scroll past the AI summary to find original sources. Clearly, the shift towards AI is changing a lot about SEO.

TutorLMS 3.7 Released. TutorLMS came out with version 3.7. This version introduces the “content bank”, which allows you to store and reuse lessons, quizzes and assignments across multiple courses. This is such a simple idea and one which is nice to see natively in such a product. Too often, I see people cloning entire courses just to change a few minor things. This content bank might be a nice workaround. Learn more about 3.7 here.

SEOPress Price Increase. In a few days, SEOPress will be increasing prices for new purchases and changing their site limits. $49/year for a single site, $59/year for 5 sites, and $149/year for unlimited. Still a great deal. Existing customers unaffected. And, if you’re on Concierge, I already have the license for you to use, so no need to buy anything anyway. 😎

WPX Hosting Finally Redesigns the Control Panel. I used to use WPX Hosting back in the day. While it is good hosting, their branding colors and control panel were always a dog’s breakfast. Well, looks like they’re about to release a newly designed control panel. Looks like it’ll be a big improvement. They still like that ungodly orange color, but I guess you can’t have it all. 😜

Woo Marketing Strategy. The Repository has an interesting read about the marketing strategy behind Woo. As they say, Woo is “getting louder”. We all know it as WooCommerce, but they’ve rebranded to just “woo” and they’re reorganizing their approach to marketing. Smartly, they’re focusing on digital sovereignty and the fact you own your own store. They call it the “Your’s Truly” campaign.

Interview With Learndash Founder. WPBeginner did an interview on Youtube with Justin Ferriman, the original founder of the Learndash plugin. These days, Liquid Web owns and runs Learndash, but Justin was the original founder who sold it to them.

A WordPress Card Game?. This is kinda funny, but… WordPress has a new card game. Marcus Burnette, from The WP World, has created a Wapuu-themed card game centered around the world of WordPress. It is on pre-order now. And if you have no idea what a Wapuu is, join the club. 🤪 But, I found this page which clarifies.

Voice Feedback Plugin. bPlugins has launched a new plugin called Voice Feedback which allows your users to leave voice messages right on your WordPress site. I’ve seen these kinds of things before, but building it natively into WordPress is a cool twist. You can try it out for free, too. Looks like the paid upgrades have more to do with styling, but I haven’t tried it yet.

Customizing Your 404 Page

It happens. Fairly frequently. Somebody tries to visit a page on your site that no longer exists and they get an error.

It is called a 404 error. There’s a bunch of error codes built into the HTTP protocol that mean certain things, and the code 404 means “file not found”.

Now, people hit these things on your site for various reasons. Perhaps it is a broken link to an article you deleted. Perhaps they clicked a link elsewhere to a page on your site which no longer exists. But, it definitely happens and it is pretty common.

So, if it is kinda common, do you make any use of it?

That 404 page is a piece of real estate on your site and you might as well make it interesting and/or useful.

Here’s what mine looks like:

It is pretty simple, but you can see I customized it. I had two goals here:

• Keep it lighthearted and “on brand”.
• Help them perhaps find what they ARE looking for by giving them a search box.

You can do whatever you want on your own 404. You may link to your latest posts or other site resources. Do what makes sense.

But, then there’s the matter of “how”.

Truth is, every theme is different. Some themes come with pre-done 404 screens that aren’t too bad. Others have options in the Theme Customizer to customize or define your 404 page. There’s also plugins like 404 Solution that can help you out.

A lot of you know I use the Kadence Theme and so do a lot of my clients. So, the way to do it with Kadence is to use Kadence Elements. You can design any page layout you want using an Element and then assign the placement to “Replace 404 Page Content” and display on the 404 page. By using that Element, you can literally create any kind of 404 you want very easily.

One other little “trick”…

Monitor your 404 errors, if you have a simple way to do it. And if you keep finding certain pages showing up that they were trying to access, give them a nice redirect instead of the default 404. Most good SEO plugins have some kind of built-in way to monitor 404 errors and set up redirects if you want.