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Issue #89
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MailPoet - Zeplin 2019-10-25 17-00-44

This week in WordPress

Classic Editor’s end of life pushed back a year

Official support for the Classic Editor has been extended another 12 months. WordPress Executive Director Josepha Haden Chomphosy announced the change this week, saying "After discussing this with Matt [Mullenweg], it's clear that continuing to support the plugin through 2022 is the right call for the project as well as the community."

The update comes after Justin Tadlock at WPTavern started asking core committers since the plugin was due to reach its end of life on December 31, 2021. As Speckyboy writer Eric Karkovack tweets, "Some good discussion about this going on over at @wptavern. He links to Tadlock's article, WordPress Classic Editor Support Extended for at Least Another Year.

Tadlock reminds readers that the last official update about the Classic Editor was in November 2018: "While three years may have seemed like plenty of time to ditch the classic in favor of the modern WordPress editor, the current stats show that the project still has a few miles yet to go."

The news is some comfort to those who maintain client sites that continue to use the Classic Editor. Web analyst Gabriel Nagmay tweets, "Glad to hear that there will be continued support for the Classic Editor plugin! The block editor is great, but as someone who maintains hundreds of sites - updating and retraining is a long process. Sure I'm not alone."

AffiliateWP developer Alex Standiford predicts, "There are going to be sites still using the classic editor 10 years from now. It'll never die." And Jackson Whelan wonders, "Is this going to be an annual thing for the next decade?"

Meanwhile, Post Status's David Bisset took the words right out of my mouth, tweeting, "#WordPress podcasters and bloggers: ‘THANK YOU FOR GIVING US CONTENT THIS WEEK'. 🔥"

Learner badges proposed for Learn WordPress

"Should you get a badge for completing a training course on Learn WordPress? That discussion is happening right now, right here," tweets Yoast Community Manager Taco Verdo, linking to Proposal: Learner achievements on profiles.

Automattic-sponsored community manager Hugh Lashbrooke is proposing a few features to integrate with WordPress.org profiles, including displaying the courses a learner has completed together with their average grade, and adding a "Learner" badge for everyone who completes a course. He says the proposal has two goals: to surface learning data as a way to make Learn WordPress more valuable and prominent, and to provide motivation for people to take courses.

During the State of the Word last year, GoDaddy-sponsored contributor and WordPress Training Team co-rep Courtney Robertson asked WordPress co-founder Matt Mullenweg about how Learn WordPress could address hiring skills and ongoing professional development needs for employers in the WordPress ecosystem. Mullenweg said he wanted to see high quality educational material on the platform, "the equivalent if you were going to take a University course on WordPress," and eventually "it'd be great if the platform could have some sort of self-certification, or perhaps some sort of administered certification, that could show people that you mastered a certain skill," adding that "it wouldn't be a perfect system, but it would be a nice way for people to learn more about WordPress."

In related news, the Training Team has also published new guidelines for how brands can be used and/or mentioned in content on Learn WordPress.

Efficiently deliver results for clients.

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More talk about the WordPress barrier to entry

Discussion about the WordPress barrier to entry that kicked off with developer Chris Weigman's tweet last month continues.

This week, Yoast-sponsored contributor Ari Stathopoulos, who's also a WordPress Themes Team rep, tweets, "WordPress's barrier 2 entry hasn't changed... what we want to achieve has. If today I wanted to do the same things I did 10 years ago, the barrier would be the same. But that's not what I want, I want to do more. And I needed to learn more in order to do more. Isn't that natural?"

Awesome Motive senior developer Tom McFarlin tweets a similar sentiment. "wordpress today isn't wordpress of a decade ago anymore than [insert one of your favorite apps] is today as it was 10 years ago. and it's going to keep changing," he tweets as part of a thread.

Meanwhile, developer Phil Hoyt tweets, "blah blah blah WordPress barrier to entry blah blah blah…"

How to Upsell SEO Services to Your Clients

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For freelance developers, being able to upsell extras like SEO services is one of the cornerstones in quickly converting new customers into repeat business. The most successful freelancers know that you can't just wait for the next job to come to you, instead they present it to the client themselves.

In my experience, it's much easier to get clients to open their wallet the second time than the first. So, once you've managed to find a client you really enjoy working with, identifying future opportunities within your expert skill set builds your credibility, your business, and the relationship with your client overall.

This article specifically looks at upselling SEO work to your clients — something that should already be on their radar anyway. Well-researched SEO health reports are easy for clients to grab onto, and you can get your hands on their data faster than you might think.
The resources we'll go through below will show you how you, as the developer, can present your client's SEO health and status in clearer-than-crystal metrics that can help make the whole upsell process much easier.

Learn how in this expanded tutorial.
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In other WordPress news...

  • ICYMI: "An insightful post by Riad Benguella - ‘The King of Gutenberg Performance' as my friend @gziolo called him. Riad tested the impact of a few plugins and shares his methods so you can too," tweets Gutenberg Times, linking to The cost of WordPress plugins on the performance of the editor. Benguella, an Automattic-sponsored core contributor who's been leading the technical work on the Gutenberg project, tested the performance impacts of several popular plugins and block editor plugins on the WordPress block editor.
  • The Hub by GoDaddy Pro was created to streamline your workflow and save time on tasks that typically eat up a workday. But we aren’t done yet. See the latest Hub updates and changelog here, and then explore the Hub by GoDaddy Pro – it's free! Sponsored link
  • WordPress contributors actually do listen to feedback and engage with the community, writes Justin Tadlock at WPTavern. He highlights the tireless work of contributors, including Anne McCarthy, the Automattic-sponsored contributor who runs the Full Site Editing Outreach program. "I could list name after name after name of others who do the same, going above and beyond their typical roles," Tadlock writes. Combating negative comments below the post, developer Álvaro Franz points out that "The best thing is that actually anybody can become a contributor and push WordPress closer to their vision."
  • "I finally get to hang out with the cool kids!!" tweets Valet.io owner Kimberly Lipari, who's one of 23 speakers announced so far for this year's WPMRR Virtual Summit. The annual three-day event kicks off on Setpember 21. Founder Joe Howard says the aim is to "help as many people as possible responsibly achieve their MRR (monthly recurring revenue) goals." He shares more behind-the-scenes information about the event in the WPMRR Community.
  • Wordfence is urging Booster for WooCommerce users to update to the latest version after disclosing a critical authentication bypass vulnerability to the plugin's developers. According to WordPress.org, the free plugin has 80,000+ active installations. Wordfence has also disclosed two vulnerabilities in Nested Pages. The free plugin drag and drop functionality to manage your page structure and post ordering and has 80,000 active installations.
MailPoet - Zeplin 2019-10-25 17-00-44

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