Did you have a nice weekend?

I hope so. Over here in the Risley homestead, my wife and I spent a lot of time researching cars. She’s going to be buying her next car in the coming weeks, so learning all the options.

I think I may get another car, too. Not yet. Might be another year or so since I’m not in a hurry. But, right now, I’m fairly sure I’m going to get a Tesla for my next ride. We shall see. 🙂 

Anyway, the mark of a nice weekend is being ready to hit it hard come Monday morning. So on that note… let’s dive in.

Coming up…

A potential replacement for blog comments?

The economics of plugin lifetime deals (or LTDs)

New hosting coming from… BuddyBoss?

Other plugin updates and news

Featured This Week

Instead of Blog Comments…

Much of the time these days, having blog comments enabled is more trouble than it’s worth.

For many, it just becomes one huge magnet for comment spam bots. Not only does that require additional plugins (like Jetpack) to handle, but it also means those bots are scanning and probing your site to begin with.

In a lot of cases, I actually prefer to just disable comments altogether.

In most cases, having comments barely gives us anything of benefit anyway.

But, for the last few weeks, I’ve been trying something different. And whether this would work for you depends on the nature of your business.

I disabled comments. However, I replaced them with a customized comment form. You can see it at the bottom of any of my blog posts.

When people ask me a question via that form, it comes direct to me.

I ask if they’re OK if I use their comment for content purposes and they can make that choice. I also have a checkbox where they can opt-in to this newsletter (The Morning WP).

Essentially, this replaces the usual blog comments with a lead generator.

The idea is this…

If they come to the site to solve a problem, then that’s what is on their mind. And between potential training on the Blog Marketing Academy or the services of WP Concierge, it could be that I have a solution to solve the problem for them.

Not only that, but if I can start a conversation with people and help them, then I am more likely to earn their business. Whether it is immediately or some point down the road. People like human connections and personal answers.

So, I don’t hide from people.

I want people to contact me.

And the form at the bottom of all blog posts is an invitation to do just that.

When people contact me via that form, I also know exactly what post they were on when they submitted it.

So, I can just hit the reply button. And help.

Isn’t that what it is all about? 🤷‍♂️

And I’d much rather have those conversations and be real… then sit there with bots hammering my site or people just commenting so they can link drop at the bottom of my blog.

It isn’t worth the hassle.

Blog comments can be nice. But, in many cases, they’re just not worth the time. But, you can do more than just disable them. It is all a matter of using the right tools in the right way. In my case, I used Fluent Forms to build the form. Works beautifully.

The Economics Of Plugin Lifetime Licenses

Lifetime deals (or LTDs, for short) are super popular. Lots of people go out of their way to purchase LTDs for the plugins they want. Heck, many people end up buying LTDs for stuff they don’t even need. You know… just in case 😉 

But, it sure was interesting (and annoying) seeing how some people reacted to the current LTD offer for the launch of FluentBooking.

Most were happy and apparently the company broke all their previous “first day” records when it comes to sales. But, there were a few squeaky wheels.

Some saying it was too expensive. Some complaining that the most expensive option was for 50 sites and not “unlimited”. One guy being vocal saying paying that much for a first version was too much because competitors have more options.

That last one is one of the dumbest arguments ever. And that argument was being made by a dude who claimed he has owned his own business for 7 years. I wonder if HE would be willing to charge a customer ONE TIME and then have to support that customer FOREVER. I kinda doubt it. 🤡

Here’s the thing about LTDs…

When you are seeing an LTD for new software, you need to think about that license like you would an investment. You’re investing in a piece of software not only for what it is now, but what it could be over time.

After all, the ROI (or return on investment) for an LTD isn’t immediate. It is over time. To make an LTD make sense, you need to be using that software for awhile and you want that software to continue to be supported and improved over time.

The idiot that complain about the price of FluentBooking clearly wasn’t thinking of it like that.

WP Manage Ninja has a proven track record of improving and maintaining their software. For instance, I was one of the first people to use FluentCRM. The first versions were rather basic and had some bugs. If I was only buying FluentCRM based on those initial versions, it would have been a little questionable. But, over the last couple years, FluentCRM has gotten better and better. It is pretty amazing now. Those people with lifetime licenses are pretty freakin’ happy they have them. Best investment ever.

With FluentBooking, even though people saw a $499 price tag for 50 sites, that works out to just $10/site. Forever. And keep in mind, that license really makes sense for agencies. If it is just your own sites, you don’t need that license.

When you see LTDs on AppSumo, it can be a little different because what you don’t know about is the longevity of the software. Lot of times, it is little-known software being offered on AppSumo and you just don’t know how well that lifetime license will age. But, LTDs are usually cheaper on AppSumo, so the gamble doesn’t cost as much.

Anyway, LTDs can be a great investment. But, that’s what it is… an investment. An investment in the future.

FluentBooking looks great, but this is a first release and it is a little rough around the edges. That’s not surprising at all. FluentCRM was the same way. In fact, I’m not even installing FluentBooking on my live site right away. I’m going to let them iron out some of the kinks first. But, I know full well what this software is going to turn into. And I know that an LTD for it will be an asset moving forward.

If you need a booking calendar for your site(s) and don’t want to be tied to third-party calendars like Calendly, then definitely check out FluentBooking. It is currently available with a lifetime deal. It won’t be again because this company only offers it at initial launch.

Is it going to complete head-on with every option already out there? No. It’s new. But, like I said… an LTD isn’t just buying the current state of a plugin. It is an investment in the future.

WordPress Quick Bits…

The team at BuddyBoss is apparently gearing up to launch their own hosting called Raypd. You can learn more about it in this episode of their podcast on Youtube. It sounds like it will be pretty solid, but there’s no word yet on monthly cost so the jury is still out. While usually I dismiss hosting offers like this (such as the Elementor Cloud option), this one may actually end up making life easier for some BuddyBoss sites. BuddyBoss is a pretty demanding piece of software to host, so having some of that stuff dealt with more automatically may be attractive for some. We’ll keep an eye on it.

INSIDE SCOOP: Word is that MemberMouse is gearing up for it’s next major release of 3.0. This has been a LONG time coming and it sounds as if they’re looking to solve some of my biggest beefs with them in the past. Namely, they’re going to make it full GPL and get rid of all the encrypted code… and they’re going to stop using their own remote renewal server (for renewing payments) and bring it all in house. So, while I haven’t gotten my hands on a BETA yet, it sounds as if MemberMouse may just end up redeeming itself. 🙂 

Want to know how a company could possibly spend $1 million building a WordPress site? Techcrunch managed to do just that and this interview provides some insight into that. On first glance, spending a cool mil on that site seems impossible. Especially with WordPress. That said, the considerations are quite different when you’re dealing with a site like Techcrunch that gets million of page views PER DAY. That changes everything, really.