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WP Simple Pay joins the Sandhills Development family

I am excited to share that WP Simple Pay has joined Sandhills Development.

WP Simple Pay, led by Phil Derksen, launched four years ago with the goal of offering a simple way to integrate Stripe payments into WordPress. It has stayed true to its goal and continues to be an excellent way to process payments and subscriptions with Stripe.

Since 2013, the team at Sandhills Development has worked to build the best products we can in eCommerce, membership, affiliate marketing, and other verticals. While doing that we’ve learned a lot about what we do well and what we’ve done poorly. We’ve also learned very well the kinds of customers our products work for and those that they’re not quite suited for. We’ve found the gaps and strengths in our offerings.

WP Simple Pay is a product that perfectly fits into several of the gaps in our offerings, so by bringing WP Simple Pay into Sandhills Development, we can do much better at offering our customers the solution that best fits their needs, whether it be complex digital eCommerce or simple payment processing; full-blown memberships or just quick and easy monthly payments.

Phil and I first got to know each other near the beginning of our WordPress product journeys six or more years ago and have consistently communicated since then. We’ve shared strategies, ambitions, and challenges in master mind groups, over many dinners, and frequently consulted each other as we built our products. Phil’s products have used Easy Digital Downloads and AffiliateWP for years and his experiences and feedback from doing so have contributed great value back to me and my team.

As of October 1, WP Simple Pay is now being maintained under the Sandhills Development umbrella. Phil has joined the Sandhills Development team where he will continue to lead and work on WP Simple Pay as well as other projects.

What will change

As with any merger or acquisition, customers may be uneasy and worried that the tool or team they love will change. We fully recognize why that uneasiness happens and want to reassure everyone that the changes that will be made in the next few months will be positive for all.

At first, very little will change. The product will still be led by Phil and the same support team will continue offering top-notch support. We will make a few minor branding updates to bring the product in line with our existing products.

Being part of a bigger team now, WP Simple Pay will receive development, support, and marketing resources from Sandhills Development. After the initial merge and everything is settled in, this will allow us to continue growing the tremendous product Phil has built, and push it even further.

We are really excited to be working together and cannot wait to begin sharing the results of our combined efforts.

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Simple Google Maps Shortcode plugin has new home with WebFactory

In October, 2012, I released a plugin called Simple Google Maps Shortcode. It was a very simple plugin that simply registered a shortcode that could be used to display a Google map of any address on a post or page. The plugin was simple, efficient, and did just the one thing very well. Overtime it grew to more than 10,000 active installs and is still actively used on thousands of sites. Today I’m happy to announce that the plugin has a new home and has been acquired by WebFactory.

Gordan has already released a few updates for the plugin and plans to continue developing it into a more powerful solution for site owners to add Google maps to their sites.

Among other things, Gordan plans to release updates to introduce the following:

  • A GUI for creating/customizing the final map display
  • A detailed explanation and help guide to assist site owners with generating a Google Maps API key, necessary after the recently announced pricing and billing changes: https://cloud.google.com/maps-platform/user-guide/pricing-changes/
  • New support for custom pin images
  • New support for custom fields, ie [map]$custom-field-with-address[/map]

This acquisition brings WebFactory’s portfolio of Google maps plugins to three. Along with Simple Google Maps Shortcode, Gordan also developers and maintains:

I have known Gordan for a long time and have complete confidence in his ability to deliver superb results.

The post Simple Google Maps Shortcode plugin has new home with WebFactory appeared first on Pippins Plugins.

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New website and branding for Sugar Calendar

Today I’m really excited to announce the launch of a new, dedicated website for Sugar Calendar! Say hello to sugarcalendar.com.

This is the first in a large series of updates we are working on for our sweet and simple event calendar plugin for WordPress. In the coming months you will see new features released, improved interfaces, numerous add-on plugins, and a whole lot more!

Back in November, 2017, John James Jacoby joined my team at Sandhills Development specifically to work on Sugar Calendar. With the skills and experience that John brings to the table, we will be elevating Sugar Calendar  from a small, simple event calendar plugin to a full-featured event platform. Work on this is in progress and a lot of updates will be coming out in the near future.

John and I have both spent considerable time building and maintaining our own event calendar plugins so with our combined knowledge and experience added to the vast wealth of skills at Sandhills Development already, we should be able to deliver a really good platform.

While we are working on the updates, we need to ask a small favor of existing customers. As part of the migration to the new website, we have regenerated all license keys and account records on sugarcalendar.com. In order to ensure your site(s) stays up to date with the latest versions, please follow these steps:

  1. Update to Sugar Calendar version 1.6.6 from within WordPress like any other update.
  2. Reset your account password at https://sugarcalendar.com/account using the same email address you purchased Sugar Calendar with.
  3. Once updated and logged into your account, please retrieve your new license key and update your site(s) that use Sugar Calendar with it. This is the license key you will use from now on.

That’s it!

With the launch of the new site, we also have an affiliate program available that you may join. Help promote Sugar Calendar and earn a commission on every sale!

If you have any questions or issues, do not hesitate to reply to this email or send us a support ticket from the new support page.

P.S. The upcoming updates will include a price change. Upgrade to or purchase an Ultimate license now to lock yourself into the low price forever.

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Full Screen Background Images Pro acquired by Scott DeLuzio

Full Screen Background Images Pro is a plugin I first built seven years ago that allows site owners to easily configure background images on their site that scales automatically based on the browser size. As one of my earlier plugins, I’m thrilled to announce that it has a new owner and home. Last week, Scott DeLuzio and I came to agreement for him to take over sales, development, and support of the plugin.

The plugin can now be found at https://fullscreenbackgroundimages.com/.

I am really excited to see Scott take the plugin further by adding great new features and bringing it up to date with today’s standards and expectations. If you have previously purchased the plugin, or are considering purchasing it, rest assured that you are in excellent hands with Scott.

To help ensure the transfer goes smoothly, let’s address some commonly asked questions for acquisitions like this.

Do customers that purchased from Pippin’s Plugins still get updates and support?

Yes! All customers will get support and updates directly from Scott for the duration of their license key. For example, if a license was purchased from pippinsplugins.com on June 1, 2017, that license will be valid for support and updates from Scott until June 1, 2018, at which time it is then necessary to purchase a renewal from https://fullscreenbackgroundimages.com/.

Can customers log into their account at the new website?

Once all customer accounts have been migrated, yes. Expect an email from Scott in the coming days with instructions on how and where to log in.

Can expired license keys be renewed at the new website?

Yes. Please contact Scott through the new website if you need any assistance in renewing an expired key.

Who should customers contact for help, Pippin or Scott?

Contact Scott through the new support page.

If you have any questions, comments, or concerns regarding the plugin or the acquisition, feel free to leave a comment below or get in touch with Scott or I directly.

The post Full Screen Background Images Pro acquired by Scott DeLuzio appeared first on Pippins Plugins.

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Discontinuing memberships on Pippin’s Plugins

Six years ago I announced the launch of premium memberships to Pippin’s Plugins for access to advanced tutorials, code reviews, and other member-only benefits. I have been continually humbled by the response and support my memberships received from the WordPress community and I would like to sincerely thank everyone that signed up. Today, however, I have discontinued memberships to this site.

My ability to consistently produce new material and to provide code reviews like I used to has continually waned as the product side of my business has grown. For a long time I held onto the hope that I could find a way to get back to consistently producing new content for this site but a small part of me has known that is unlikely to ever happen, and so I have made the only right decision available: close down memberships.

Effective today, memberships have been discontinued on this site and all existing memberships have been cancelled to ensure no existing members are billed again. If you are a member and signed up within the last 30 days, contact me and I will be more than happy to provide a full refund.

NOTE: this does not refer to Restrict Content Pro. That product is still actively maintained and developed at https://restrictcontentpro.com.

All previously restricted tutorials are now open to everyone. Please learn, grow, and enjoy!

The post Discontinuing memberships on Pippin’s Plugins appeared first on Pippins Plugins.

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Use Verticals To Increase Reach

In the last post, we looked at how SEO has always been changing, but one thing remains constant – the quest for information.

Given people will always be on a quest for information, and given there is no shortage of information, but there is limited time, then there will always be a marketing imperative to get your information seen either ahead of the competition, or in places where the competition haven’t yet targeted.

Channels

My take on SEO is broad because I’m concerned with the marketing potential of the search process, rather than just the behaviour of the Google search engine. We know the term SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. It’s never been particularly accurate, and less so now, because what most people are really talking about is not SEO, but GO.

Google Optimization.

Still, the term SEO has stuck. The search channel used to have many faces, including Alta Vista, Inktomi, Ask, Looksmart, MSN, Yahoo, Google and the rest, hence the label SEO. Now, it’s pretty much reduced down to one. Google. Okay, there’s BingHoo, but really, it’s Google, 24/7.

We used to optimize for multiple search engines because we had to be everywhere the visitor was, and the search engines had different demographics. There was a time when Google was the choice of the tech savvy web user. These days, “search” means “Google”. You and your grandmother use it.

But people don’t spend most of their time on Google.

Search Beyond Google

The techniques for SEO are widely discussed, dissected, debated, ridiculed, encouraged and we’ve heard all of them, many times over. And that’s just GO.

The audience we are trying to connect with, meanwhile, is on a quest for information. On their quest for information, they will use many channels.

So, who is Google’s biggest search competitor? Bing? Yahoo?

Eric Schmidt thinks it’s Amazon:

Many people think our main competition is Bing or Yahoo,” he said during a visit to a Native Instruments, software and hardware company in Berlin. “But, really, our biggest search competitor is Amazon. People don’t think of Amazon as search, but if you are looking for something to buy, you are more often than not looking for it on Amazon….Schmidt noted that people are looking for a different kind of answers on Amazon’s site through the slew of reviews and product pages, but it’s still about getting information

An important point. For the user, it’s all about “getting information”. In SEO, verticals are often overlooked.

Client Selection & Getting Seen In The Right Places

I’m going to digress a little….how do you select clients, or areas to target?

I like to start from the audience side of the equation. Who are the intended audience, what does that audience really need, and where, on the web, are they? I then determine if it’s possible/plausible to position well for this intended audience within a given budget.

There is much debate amongst SEOs about what happens inside the Google black box, but we all have access to Google’s actual output in the form of search results. To determine the level of competition, examine the search results. Go through the top ten or twenty results for a few relevant keywords and see which sites Google favors, and try to work out why.

Once you look through the results and analyze the competition, you’ll get a good feel for what Google likes to see in that specific sector. Are the search results heavy on long-form information? Mostly commercial entities? Are sites large and established? New and up and coming? Do the top sites promote visitor engagement? Who links to them and why? Is there a lot news mixed in? Does it favor recency? Are Google pulling results from industry verticals?

It’s important to do this analysis for each project, rather than rely on prescriptive methods. Why? Because Google treats sectors differently. What works for “travel” SEO may not work for “casino” SEO because Google may be running different algorithms.

Once you weed out the wild speculation about algorithms, SEO discussion can contain much truth. People convey their direct experience and will sometimes outline the steps they took to achieve a result. However, often specific techniques aren’t universally applicable due to Google treating topic areas differently. So spend a fair bit of time on competitive analysis. Look closely at the specific results set you’re targeting to discover what is really working for that sector, out in the wild.

It’s at this point where you’ll start to see cross-overs between search and content placement.

The Role Of Verticals

You could try and rank for term X, and you could feature on a site that is already ranked for X. Perhaps Google is showing a directory page or some industry publication. Can you appear on that directory page or write an article for this industry publication? What does it take to get linked to by any of these top ten or twenty sites?

Once search visitors find that industry vertical, what is their likely next step? Do they sign up for a regular email? Can you get placement on those emails? Can you get an article well placed in some evergreen section on their site? Can you advertise on their site? Figure out how visitors would engage with that site and try to insert yourself, with grace and dignity, into that conversation.

Users may by-pass Google altogether and go straight to verticals. If they like video then YouTube is the obvious answer. A few years ago when Google was pushing advertisers to run video ads they pitched YouTube as the #2 global search engine. What does it take to rank in YouTube in your chosen vertical? Create videos that will be found in YouTube search results, which may also appear on Google’s main search results.

With 200,000 videos uploaded per day, more than 600 years required to view all those videos, more than 100 million videos watched daily, and more than 300 million existing accounts, if you think YouTube might not be an effective distribution channel to reach prospective customers, think again.

There’s a branding parallel here too. If the field of SEO is too crowded, you can brand yourself as the expert in video SEO.

There’s also the ubiquitous Facebook.

Facebook, unlike the super-secret Google, has shared their algorithm for ranking content on Facebook and filtering what appears in the news feed. The algorithm consists of three components…..

If you’re selling stuff, then are you on Amazon? Many people go directly to Amazon to begin product searches, information gathering and comparisons. Are you well placed on Amazon? What does it take to be placed well on Amazon? What are people saying? What are their complaints? What do they like? What language do they use?

In 2009, nearly a quarter of shoppers started research for an online purchase on a search engine like Google and 18 percent started on Amazon, according to a Forrester Research study. By last year, almost a third started on Amazon and just 13 percent on a search engine. Product searches on Amazon have grown 73 percent over the last year while searches on Google Shopping have been flat, according to comScore

All fairly obvious, but may help you think about channels and verticals more, rather than just Google. The appropriate verticals and channels will be different for each market sector, of course. And they change over time as consumer tastes & behaviors change. At some point each of these were new: blogging, Friendster, MySpace, Digg, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, Pinterest, Snapchat, etc.

This approach will also help us gain a deeper understanding of the audience and their needs – particularly the language people use, the questions they ask, and the types of things that interest them most – which can then be fed back into your search strategy. Emulate whatever works in these verticals. Look to create a unique, deep collection of insights about your chosen keyword area. This will in turn lead to strategic advantage, as your competition is unlikely to find such specific information pre-packaged.

This could also be characterised as “content marketing”, which it is, although I like to think of it all as “getting in front of the visitors quest for information”. Wherever the visitors are, that’s where you go, and then figure out how to position well in that space.

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But First, A Word From Our Sponsors…

Yesterday Google shared they see greater mobile than desktop search volumes in 10 countries including Japan and the United States.

3 years ago RKG shared CTR data which highlighted how mobile search ads were getting over double the CTR as desktop search ads.

The basic formula: less screen real estate = higher proportion of user clicks on ads.

Google made a big deal of their “mobilepocalypse” update to scare other webmasters into making their sites mobile friendly. Part of the goal of making sites “mobile friendly” is to ensure it isn’t too ad dense (which in turn lowers accidental ad clicks & lowers monetization). Not only does Google have an “ad heavy” relevancy algorithm which demotes ad heavy sites, but they also explicitly claim even using a moderate sized ad unit on mobile devices above the fold is against their policy guidelines:

Is placing a 300×250 ad unit on top of a high-end mobile optimized page considered a policy violation?

Yes, this would be considered a policy violation as it falls under our ad placement policies for site layout that pushes content below the fold. This implementation would take up too much space on a mobile optimized site’s first view screen with ads and provides a poor experience to users. Always try to think of the users experience on your site – this will help ensure that users continue to visit.

So if you make your site mobile friendly you can’t run Google ads above the fold unless you are a large enough publisher that the guidelines don’t actually matter.

If you spend the extra money to make your site mobile friendly, you then must also go out of your way to lower your income.

What is the goal of the above sort of scenario? Defunding content publishers to ensure most the ad revenues flow to Google.

If you think otherwise, consider the layout of the auto ads & hotel ads Google announced yesterday. Top of the search results, larger than 300×250.

If you do X, you are a spammer. If Google does X, they are improving the user experience.

@aaronwall they will personally do everything they penalize others for doing; penalties are just another way to weaken the market.— Cygnus SEO (@CygnusSEO) May 5, 2015

The above sort of contrast is something noticed by non-SEOs. The WSJ article about Google’s new ad units had a user response stating:

With this strategy, Google has made the mistake of an egregious use of precious mobile screen space in search results. This entails much extra fingering/scrolling to acquire useful results and bypass often not-needed coincident advertising. Perhaps a moneymaker by brute force; not a good idea for utility’s sake.

That content displacement with ads is both against Google’s guidelines and algorithmically targeted for demotion – unless you are Google.

How is that working for Google partners?

According to eMarketer, by 2019 mobile will account for 72% of US digital ad spend. Almost all that growth in ad spend flows into the big ad networks while other online publishers struggle to monetize their audiences:

Facebook and Google accounted for a majority of mobile ad market growth worldwide last year. Combined, the two companies saw net mobile ad revenues increase by $6.92 billion, claiming 75.2% of the additional $9.2 billion that went toward mobile in 2013.

Back to the data RKG shared. Mobile is where the growth is…

…and the smaller the screen size the more partners are squeezed out of the ecosystem…

The high-intent, high-value search traffic is siphoned off by ads.

What does that leave for the rest of the ecosystem?

It is hard to build a sustainable business when you have to rely almost exclusively on traffic with no commercial intent.

One of the few areas that works well is perhaps with evergreen content which has little cost of maintenance, but even many of those pockets of opportunity are disappearing due to the combination of the Panda algorithm and Google’s scrape-n-displace knowledge graph.

.@mattcutts I think I have spotted one, Matt. Note the similarities in the content text: pic.twitter.com/uHux3rK57f— dan barker (@danbarker) February 27, 2014

Even companies with direct ad sales teams struggle to monetize mobile:

At The New York Times, for instance, more than half its digital audience comes from mobile, yet just 10% of its digital-ad revenue is attributed to these devices.

Other news websites also get the majority of their search traffic from mobile.

Why do news sites get so much mobile search traffic? A lot of it is navigational & beyond that most of it is on informational search queries which are hard to monetize (and thus have few search ads) and hard to structure into the knowledge graph (because they are about news items which only just recently happened).

If you look at the organic search traffic breakdown in your analytics account & you run a site which isn’t a news site you will likely see a far lower share of search traffic from mobile. Websites outside of the news vertical typically see far less mobile traffic. This goes back to Google dominating the mobile search interface with ads.

Mobile search ecosystem breakdown

  • traffic with commercial intent = heavy ads
  • limited commercial intent but easy answer = knowledge graph
  • limited commercial intent & hard to answer = traffic flows to news sites

Not only is Google monetizing a far higher share of mobile search traffic, but they are also aggressively increasing minimum bids.

As Google continues to gut the broader web publishing ecosystem, they can afford to throw a few hundred million in “innovation” bribery kickback slush funds. That will earn them some praise in the short term with some of the bigger publishers, but it will make those publishers more beholden to Google. And it is even worse for smaller publishers. It means the smaller publishers are not only competing against algorithmic brand bias, confirmation bias expressed in the remote rater documents, & wholesale result set displacement, but some of their bigger publishing competitors are also subsidized directly by Google.

Ignore the broader ecosystem shifts.

Ignore the hypocrisy.

Focus on the user.

Until you are eating cat food.

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The Three Core Tenets Every Successful Blogger Needs to Have

As bloggers, we all have different goals. Some may be to monetize your blog; some may be to get a book deal; some may be to become recognized as an expert in your field; others may be to share company news and updates.

Some may even just be to have a personal outlet where you can let your creativity go and see what works, and what doesn’t.

But no matter the goals you have for your blog, to succeed in them takes more than just setting up a blog and watching the success come rolling in.

Succeed

While there may be early successes, to be a truly successful blogger you need to have the following three key tenets.

1. Patience

So many bloggers give up in the first few months because they’re not experiencing what they feel they should be, to be classed as successful. They’re not getting the thousands of subscribers, or visitors, or social shares, or sales.

The thing is, much like anything, blogging success is not an overnight success. To build a blog that has both longevity and solid foundations takes time.

You need to cultivate your community; understand who your audience is and what they’re interested in; what social platforms make sense for you to be on; and define your editorial voice.

You’ll make many mistakes in your first few months of blogging – but that’s a natural part of growth.

Don’t let perceived “failure” put you off your game – be patient and your goals will start to happen.

2. Strength

One of the great things about blogging is that it allows the fostering of some truly great ideas and discussions.

Sure, the blogger might start all this off with the original post, but then the following comments can really take the post into a rich and varied discussion point.

Of course, with discussions comes dissent – and many bloggers fail at welcoming this part of the discussion into their part of the web. Which is a mistake.

The very best bloggers not only welcome dissent, they encourage it and meet it head on – because they have strength in their convictions.

The very best bloggers not only welcome dissent, they encourage it and meet it head on. Click To Tweet

When you put something out for the world to read, you need to be strong enough to know that not everyone is going to fawn over your wisdom (real or otherwise), and that often questions will be asked.

Want to run a successful blog? Be strong when questioned, accept when wrong, and understand that the most successful blogs are the ones where the reader feels like they’re really a part of it, as opposed to just being a bystander to your soapbox.

3. Belief

One of the things I always notice when reading a blog is how much conviction is there.

It comes through in the words being written or the video/podcast being shared, as well as the advertising partners on the site, and the products/services being recommended.

In other words, it’s easy to see when a blogger truly believes in what they’re doing, or saying, versus one that’s just mailing their posts in.

Blog readers are smart people – we know when you’re the real deal and when you’re just out trying to make a fast buck, or position yourself as something you’re not.

Instead of trying to fool us, make us believe that you believe too.

  • Recommend products and services that you use, and would recommend anyway even if you weren’t getting paid to do so.
  • Believe in the words you’re writing. Passion wins over boring wisdom every time.
  • Believe in the wisdom of your readers – never take them for granted or expect them to believe your every word.

Simply put – if you believe, we’ll believe.

Which is what really matters at the end of the day, no?

The Three Core Tenets Every Successful Blogger Needs to Have originally appeared on Danny Brown – – all rights reserved.

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Bloggers to Watch in 2017

Bloggers to Watch in 2017

This is a guest contribution from Jade Craven.

The blogosphere has changed so much over the past decade. I curated Bloggers To Watch column here on Problogger for four years and it is phenomenal how much has changed since I wrote my last post in 2012.

In that time, popular bloggers have pivoted multiple times. Social platforms have risen and fallen. It is a fascinating time. So fascinating that I asked to compile another list of bloggers that haven appeared on my radar.

This post features bloggers who have gotten my attention over the past year. It doesn’t reflect the top bloggers online. Rather, it’s a list of bloggers that have sparked my interest and is heavily biased towards the marketing niche.

Sol Orwell

Sol Orwell is someone that has gotten a lot of attention in the entrepreneurship space over the past 2 years. To quote from Smart Passive Income:

Sol’s built his career across a dizzying number of spaces. He’s a master at building authority in a niche, identifying community pain points, and crafting businesses that meet those urgent needs

His latest project, Examine.Com, garners around 70,000 visitors a day and is a seven-figure business. Normally, such figures would put me off recommending him. However, his work stands out and he can teach you a lot about networking and selling products. His post about How I made my guest post a massive success [CASE STUDY] blew me away when I first read it.

It is refreshing because his work doesn’t repeat the passive income rhetoric. If anything, he rebels against many of the common themes in the marketing niche. To quote from his about page:

Having a one-time launch of $50,000 does not make you a guru, nor does making $2k/mo from your websites make you a passive income genius, nor does getting 2000 visitors a day to your site make you some kind of traffic genius.

You can learn more by checking out his blog at SJO.com

Ryan Holiday

Ryan Holiday is a writer and media strategist. I initially discovered him via his first book Trust Me, I’m Lying: Confessions of a Media Manipulator, where he shows how blogs control and distort the news. As a blogger, I found it useful to learn how I was being manipulated.

He’s written extensively about his business experiences. The following posts have helped me immensely:

  • From Zero to 35,000: How I Built A Big Email List Exclusively About Books I Liked
  • How I Did Research For 3 New York Times Bestselling Authors (In My Spare Time)
  • Behind The Book Campaign: How to Sell 30,000 Copies in Six Weeks
  • The Notecard System: The Key For Remembering, Organising And Using Everything You Read

Lately, his work has focused on what we can learn from philosophy. I believe everyone can learn from the principles of Stoicism, which he explores at Daily Stoic.

You can learn more by visiting his blog at RyanHoliday.net

Emilie Wapnick

Emilie Wapnick wowed attendees of the 2106 Problogger Event with her talk about bringing multiple passions/interests into one blog. In 2015, she gave her TEDx presentation about why some of us don’t have one true calling. I believe that was her reaching her tipping point. Since then, interest in her work has exploded. The release of her book, How To Be Everything, this year will spread that even further.

You can check out her top resources for multipotentialites at her Start Here page.

Ramit Sethi

Ramit Sethi is a New York Times bestselling author and founder of iwillteachyoutoberich.com. Over 1,000,000 people read his material to learn how to use psychology and systems to live a Rich Life. His work has helped me change my relationship with money.

His work has been featured here in the past via two guest posts by Michael Alexis.

  • Ramit Sethi: I Will Teach You To Monetize (In 6 Steps)
  • Ramit Sethi Exposed: How He Earns Millions Blogging

His blog posts are brilliant but I also love it when he is interviewed. Here are a few of my favourites:

  • How Creatives Should Negotiate via Tim Ferris
  • How Ramit Sethi Launched a Product That Generated $5m in a Week via The Hustle
  • Why The Loooooong Sales Letter Works And Other Surprising Sales Hacks via Mixergy

Now, he’s helping his readers create a low-risk and automated online business at his new site, Growth Lab. I highly recommend following it.

Sujan Patel

Sujan Patel is a leading expert in digital marketing. He is the co-founder of WebProfits, a growth marketing agency, and is a partner in many software companies.

It is so easy to be intimidated by Sujan’s experience and breadth of knowledge, especially if you are at the start of his blogging career. Don’t be. He is a prolific writer and content curator and shares so many useful resources via his Twitter account. He contributes regularly to Forbes, Wall Street Journal, and Inc.

Some of my favourite posts include:

  • 10 Brainstorming Exercises to Generate 100 New Blog Post Ideas
  • How to Validate Demand for Content Before Creating It
  • How to Secure Guest Posts on Big Publications (WSJ, Forbes & HuffPo)

Find out SujanPatel.com

Neil Fahey

Neil Fahey is one of my favourite Australian bloggers. He created Bushwalking Blog in 2008 to provide detailed reports of his hikes. In 2011 he expanded the scope of Bushwalking Blog to cover all things hiking, from how-tos and trip reports to news, outdoors photography, safety, and gear reviews.

What I find fascinating is how he leveraged his growing popularity in the outdoor niche into other online businesses. In 2013, he launched a hire service for personal locator beacons – a product that many hikers need but can’t afford to purchase outright. Later, he created an online booking site for nature-based walking tours at AussieHikingTours.com.

So many bloggers look at traditional methods of monetization such as advertising, affiliate income and developing online products. Neil has taken a different approach to meet the needs of his audience. I think we can learn a lot from his experience.

Alexis Grant

I featured Alexis as one of the 20 Bloggers to Watch in 2012 describing her as a “publishing powerhouse.” Well – I was right! She has blown me away with the work she has done since then.

Mid 2013, she launched her new blog The Write Life. She shares more about the behind the scenes development of this site in the bottom half of the websites about page. The site has since become one of the premiere destinations on the web for writers.

In 2015, her content marketing company was acquired by Taylor Media, the company behind the popular The Penny Hoarder blog. She became the Executive Editor, running the editorial side of the company. In 2016, the site was named the #1 fastest-growing private media company by Inc. 500.

I believe she will be accomplishing great things in the coming year, and beyond. You can follow her journey at AlexisGrant.com

Over To You

What bloggers are you watching in 2017? Any trends piquing your interest? Please share in the comments.

The post Bloggers to Watch in 2017 appeared first on ProBlogger.

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Sugar Event Calendar 1.6 released

Sugar Event Calendar, my simple event calendar plugin for WordPress has just received a large update that resolves a few long-standing issues and introduces several new features, including category filtering of calendars, better mobile display, improved event list widgets, and several new calendar display types.

This release has been a collaborative effort between myself and Daniel Espinoza, who joined me to work on Sugar Event Calendar back in August of 2015, when we released the last major update to the plugin.

New calendar views

By default, the calendar of events will show full-month views that includes all of the events occurring during the month, like the screenshot shown below:

Some sites, however,  wish to show calendars with smaller date spans, such as one or two weeks at a time, four days, or even a single day. In 1.6, we have added support for the following date ranges:

  • Month (default)
  • Two weeks
  • One week
  • Four days
  • One day

Those views look like this:

Responsive mobile display

Sugar Calendar has always been pseudo-responsive and would adapt reasonably well to small screens. In 1.6, however, we’ve gone all the way and created truly responsive displays for all calendar views to ensure people viewing an event calendar from a small screen will be able to easily read and view the event information.

Better event list widget

Included in Sugar Calendar is a widget that can be added to any widget area that permits site administrators to display a list of upcoming and/or past events. This widget has always been pretty minimal of options so it was not always suitable or flexible enough for many sites.

In version 1.6 we’ve added several options to the widget to give site administrators better control over the exact information that is displayed. These new options include:

  • Option to show / hide event titles
  • Option to show / hide event date
  • Option to show / hide event time
  • Option to show / hide event categories

These new options are accompanied by the existing options that include:

  • Number of events to display
  • Categories of events to display
  • Display of upcoming and/or past events

Category filters on calendar views

The calendar display has supported showing just events from specific categories for a long time, but this option has always been limited to a shortcode parameter, meaning the site administrator was the only one allowed to control what categories were displayed. There was no way for a site visitor to filter the calendar by category.

With version 1.6, we have added a category drop down to the calendar view so site visitors can filter the calendar down to just specific categories. For sites that have a lot of events and categories, this will make it easier for site visitors to locate the events they’re looking for.

Bugs addressed

Also in version 1.6, we have addressed a number of long-standing bugs. These include:

  • CSS files did not include proper version numbers
  • Event titles could not include HTML
  • Recurring events not shown in the proper order
  • Recurring events not listed in “Upcoming Events” widget

Updating to 1.6

This update is available free-of-charge to all customers that hold a valid license key and can be installed directly from the Plugins page within the WordPress admin. The update can also be downloaded manually from your account page.

If your license has expired and you wish to update to version 1.6, your license can be renewed from your account page.

If you do not yet own a license key, a new license can be purchased from the product page.

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