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00:00 on YouTube and everyone can hear us
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00:06 off we go ladies and gentlemen it is
00:09 time for WordPress plugins A to Z not z
00:16 h good morning good afternoon or good
00:19 evening wherever you have be hiding out
00:20 there on the globe this is John oral
00:22 with the wp plugins A to Z podcast and I
00:26 blew the intro so let’s go with the
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00:31 WordPress it’s the most popular content
00:34 management and website Solution on the
00:36 internet and with over 880,000 plugins
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00:52 this is WordPress plugins from a to zed
00:57 well good morning good afternoon or good
00:58 evening wherever you hav be hiding out
00:60 there Globe today coming to you direct
01:02 from the brewery Overlook in beautiful
01:04 Southern Vancouver Island Canada I’m
01:06 John overall and today it is interview
01:09 number 64 with Derek ashau from
01:12 conversation or conversion Bridge WP and
01:16 he’s here to talk to us about his plugin
01:18 and whatever else happens to come up in
01:20 this interview show so welcome to the
01:22 show Derek thanks for having me on joh
01:25 oh you’re welcome and just so you know
01:26 we are not going live with v uh video I
01:29 didn’t tell you that the video is not
01:30 live just audio it’s an audio show
01:33 only okay sounds great all right just in
01:36 case you were wondering about that so at
01:38 any rate what we’ve got here is
01:41 conversion bridge I was doing a little
01:42 research on this on this plugin I hadn’t
01:45 actually heard of it until you uh
01:47 reached out for an interview and uh tell
01:50 me a little bit about this it looks like
01:52 it’s a very inclusive plugin that brings
01:55 in analytics from ad
01:57 platforms plugins page tracking
02:01 e-commerce tracking tell us what this is
02:05 yeah so conversion bridge is meant to be
02:07 on a WordPress developer stack meaning
02:11 one of your core plugins that you
02:12 install on every single client site the
02:15 reason being is every site that you set
02:17 up there should have some analytics on
02:19 it yeah um whether it’s Google analytics
02:21 or you know there’s lots of different
02:23 alternative platforms that are out there
02:25 as well now um we can get into that a
02:27 little bit as well is you know what are
02:29 some good alter atives um but the idea
02:33 is is that it makes it really easy to
02:35 add that core analytics tracking script
02:37 that you know that we copy and paste
02:38 from Google analytics or whatever
02:40 platform you’re using makes it easy to
02:42 add that to it but the real power is in
02:43 the conversion tracking that’s one of
02:45 the biggest challenges and um that web
02:49 developers that are creating a site for
02:50 clients or for themselves that they
02:52 don’t do because it’s how do I do that
02:56 where do I put it how do I make sure
02:57 it’s accurate is it even working how can
02:59 I check it there’s just a lot of things
03:01 to do and as someone myself who’s been
03:04 building client sites since 2007 um it
03:07 was actually honestly something that I
03:09 left off of a lot of clients as well
03:11 client sites as well right um but it’s
03:13 something that I regret doing um because
03:16 it’s it’s great for your clients to know
03:18 that what is and isn’t working on their
03:21 website is you know uh if you’re not if
03:24 you’re having a website that has
03:25 e-commerce you’re using woocommerce and
03:27 you’re trying to sell items are you
03:29 actually tracking in your analytics
03:32 platform if you’re getting conversions
03:34 or not because if you’re not you can’t
03:36 tell how successful that is especially
03:40 if you’re doing um paid ads or other
03:42 types of advertising um you know maybe
03:45 have some links on another third party
03:47 site coming back and you want to track
03:48 to see if they’re actually doing
03:49 anything for you you can track page
03:51 views which is okay but ultimately what
03:54 you really want to know is what are what
03:56 conversions are happening on your site
03:59 and those conversions could be anything
04:01 um that you really want the user to do
04:03 on your site it could be purchases if
04:05 you’re selling something on the site it
04:07 could be something um as small as
04:09 clicking on a specific button um it
04:11 could be also signing up for a
04:13 newsletter uh filling out a contact form
04:15 or you know a request for a quote form
04:17 things like that there’s those are you
04:19 know some of the main ones um but
04:21 there’s all kinds of different
04:22 conversions that maybe you want to be
04:24 tracking on a
04:26 site um so so this what conversion brid
04:30 does is it works with right now it works
04:32 with um what do we got 14 different
04:35 analytics platforms every from Google
04:37 analytics and some of the alternative
04:39 platforms like plausible or fathom um
04:42 there’s a couple other ones that I
04:43 really like called user Maven and pers
04:46 uh and then also ad platforms so that’s
04:48 Google ads um meta ads Tik Tok Pinterest
04:53 just uh in the next update that I’m
04:55 going to release is going to have
04:56 LinkedIn ads and X ads as I was actually
04:59 working on that just this morning before
05:01 we hopped on this call nice so I’m going
05:03 to make sure that those so that so you
05:05 can do conversion tracking say you’re
05:06 running ads on X or Twitter you want to
05:10 see if those are actually generating
05:12 conversions on your site not just oh did
05:14 someone click on it say you’re trying to
05:16 build your newsletter your email
05:18 newsletter list you want to see if
05:19 people are actually subscribing to that
05:22 email newsletter list yes and then what
05:24 the other half of the conversion Bridge
05:26 does is it integrates with right now 55
05:29 different plugins so that means like
05:31 form plugins like WS form or gravity
05:33 forms or ninja forms any of the top um
05:37 plugins that are the form plugins that
05:39 are out there uh e-commerce plugins um
05:42 like woocommerce or maybe some
05:44 membership plugins like paid memberships
05:46 Pro paid memberships Pro or restrict
05:49 content Pro um leaky pay wall there’s
05:52 you know there’s just a massive list of
05:54 plugins so that you literally all you
05:56 have to do click a toggle enable the
05:58 integration and you’re done and it will
06:00 work with any of the analytics or ad
06:03 platforms without any code and I have
06:06 several videos that I do where you can
06:08 have you can add your analytics and
06:10 conversion tracking in less than a
06:12 minute and know that it’s just going to
06:13 work you don’t need to think about it
06:15 you don’t need to worry about it there’s
06:16 no coding there’s no fuss it’s just
06:18 click click done I can move on with my
06:21 life and then you can add some amazing
06:23 insights to your customers or your own
06:26 sites um one of the big things that I
06:29 like to push is for like agencies or
06:31 people or Freelancers building sites for
06:33 clients is a fantastic um thing to have
06:36 in your portfolio is not just look at
06:38 this beautiful site I made right what
06:40 clients really want to know is they were
06:43 making they were getting a 1% conversion
06:45 rate before I on their old version of
06:47 their website and now they’re getting a
06:49 4% conversion rate that’s the data that
06:52 you need to to sell to perspective
06:54 clients in your portfolio to prove I’m
06:57 actually I’m I’m improving your business
06:59 I’m not just making it looking making it
07:01 look pretty actually improving your
07:03 business before these guys were only
07:05 getting you know the the old version of
07:07 the website was only getting five
07:09 requests for quotes per month now
07:11 they’re getting 500 with our new version
07:13 of the website but if you’re not
07:15 tracking that data you can’t use
07:18 that um on in your portfolio as a way to
07:21 sell that to prospective
07:23 clients absolutely and a question I’ve
07:26 got about it okay it’s doing the
07:28 tracking or or connecting with it is
07:31 your data your in data you’re looking at
07:33 coming from say Google analytics is that
07:36 where you’re finding the end data or is
07:38 there something in this plugin that’s
07:39 showcasing the data right there in the
07:41 back end of the
07:42 WordPress right so uh it does a little
07:44 bit of both um by most part it is a
07:46 bridge that’s why it’s called conversion
07:48 Bridge it’s a bridge from your website
07:50 to your analytics platforms it does have
07:52 one additional feature which uh I call
07:55 conversion Journeys so for example if
07:57 you were looking at an order in wo
07:60 Commerce you could see the journey the
08:02 Page by page view journey of what that
08:04 user did to ultimately convert and
08:07 become and make that purchase so you can
08:09 see they landed on the homepage then
08:11 they went to the about page they went to
08:12 your product category they viewed one
08:14 individual product they added to cart
08:17 went to cart checkout made a purchase
08:20 and you can see step by step what they
08:23 you know what pages they went to on your
08:25 site to ultimately do a conversion so
08:28 that that part is the internal part that
08:30 conversion
08:32 Bridge allows you to turn on so it’s an
08:34 optional uh feature that you can do um
08:38 uh but otherwise it is mostly just a
08:40 bridge into the analytics and AD
08:43 platforms okay so it makes it easy to
08:46 drop it in now when it’s
08:48 using the bridge in between does it
08:51 automatically dump in certain tracking
08:54 codes that Google analytics so you could
08:56 say figure out your audiences
09:06 oh I lost your
09:10 audio did I lose you oh there you go
09:13 came pop back oh did you get the
09:15 question so um does it add yeah so it
09:18 adds the core tracking code that every
09:20 site needs to get it into say Google
09:22 analytics or fathom or plausible you
09:24 know that main tracking code and then
09:26 also does the tracking code to when a
09:28 conversion happens so so um yeah this
09:31 person made a purchase it’ll also send
09:33 like Google analytics can accept um a
09:36 lot of extra data um such as what items
09:40 were purchased uh what the order total
09:43 and all that good data so it’s not just
09:45 yes there was a purchase it’s there was
09:46 a purchase and here’s all this great
09:48 information that you would ever want
09:50 about that purchase um that actually
09:52 happened so that you can not only see um
09:55 like if you’re looking in Google
09:56 analytics maybe you have you’re maybe
09:57 you’re running ads in AdWords and you
10:00 have five different ads running and one
10:03 of those ads is only returning like an
10:05 average order of $3 per purchase but
10:08 this other ads returning 300 so then you
10:11 know that that ad’s more effective so
10:13 conversion Bridge can send in all that
10:14 valuable data so that you can use that
10:16 to determine which ads are most
10:18 effective and that can appear in Google
10:20 analytics in Google ads in meta whatever
10:24 analytics or ad platforms you’ve
10:26 configured okay so on on another side
10:29 note on this when you’re doing currently
10:32 if you’re not using something like this
10:34 or you’re running Google ads you’ve got
10:36 to go set up your Google Tags to get all
10:38 your conversion tracking does this help
10:40 eliminate that step or is that step
10:42 still part of what’s going on yeah so a
10:46 lot of a lot of times they’ll say use
10:47 Google tag manager to set this up and to
10:50 be honest that it it gets just it
10:52 scratches the surface it tries to make
10:54 it easy and all those automated tools
10:56 that they’ll put up there like it’ll
10:57 automatically track form submissions it
10:59 will automatically track purchases I’m
11:02 like it it it’s it does not
11:04 automatically do anything no I
11:07 know and so and so this basically El it
11:10 does it eliminates if you would you
11:12 really wouldn’t I mean if you wanted to
11:13 if you had maybe a whole another
11:14 marketing team that wanted to do Google
11:16 tag manager you could but you don’t need
11:18 to configure stuff in tag manager if you
11:20 don’t want to it it takes care of it
11:22 again makes it easy so there’s no coding
11:24 no fuss um it’s just a couple clicking a
11:28 few options to enable
11:30 to enable some things um but yeah I get
11:33 I get what you’re saying that’s another
11:35 well that’s a pain in the butt is how do
11:37 you use well I I have a client that I
11:39 manage a Google ads account for and
11:41 setting it up so we could deal with the
11:43 their conversion is all about submitting
11:46 a contact form and set getting that set
11:48 up was a challenge and a half you know
11:52 yes because we had to get the Google ad
11:54 the Google tag manager and you got to go
11:56 through six different steps to get the
11:58 tag and then you got then you’ve got to
12:00 configure the form to submit the right
12:02 data so there was a whole lot that went
12:04 into it yeah and this eliminates all of
12:07 that it’s literally just yes I want to
12:09 add conversion tracking and you are done
12:11 there’s no more than just clicking a
12:13 toggle to enable it uh on on all the
12:16 form plug-in Integrations so um you know
12:18 on the site there’s lots of videos
12:20 tutorials and stuff but I mean the
12:21 tutorials are basically just saying
12:23 click this option okay that’s that’s
12:25 pretty much the extent of it and it’s
12:27 also great is that um there’s uh one of
12:30 the challenges with um with privacy
12:33 stuff these days is you know how do
12:36 you how do you how do you track that
12:38 stuff with all the privacy concerns and
12:40 one of the ways that they’re doing that
12:41 is in like Google ads for example they
12:44 they call it enhanced
12:45 conversions uh and what that means is
12:47 that when you track a conversion you can
12:50 pass along um some extra data about like
12:54 say a form submit is a great example um
12:57 what what conversion bridge will do is
12:59 it will include the email address from
13:01 the form when they submit the form and
13:04 include that as part of the uh data that
13:07 gets sent over there as part of the
13:09 enhanced conversion it gets all sent
13:11 securely it’s all hashed with Shaw 256
13:14 and all this kind of stuff so um so it’s
13:16 all done securely and and uh you know
13:19 above board and stuff like that um so
13:22 having that allows you that extra layer
13:25 of accuracy on your conversion tracking
13:28 as well so try if you’re trying to do
13:30 just conversion tracking is tough and
13:32 then if you wanted to do enhanced
13:34 conversion tracking that’s another whole
13:36 other layer of complexity and all this
13:38 kind of stuff and again conversion
13:40 Bridge just handles it with a single
13:41 toggle there’s nothing more you need to
13:43 do um for like purchases in in the form
13:47 plugins there’s a couple steps probably
13:50 take you about 15 to 20 seconds to set
13:52 it up um and there’s no extra code for
13:55 it it’s just choosing a couple options
13:57 um basically what field in your form is
13:59 the email address what field and the
14:01 form is the first name that’s it that’s
14:03 all you have to do it’s as easy as
14:04 mapping it then yes exactly oh dear God
14:08 um like yeah so like sa tons of time yes
14:12 exactly so and that’s the goal um is to
14:14 make it really really simple there not
14:16 every single form plugin support is
14:18 supported for enhanced conversions yet
14:20 because that one’s kind of a challenge
14:22 the but um gravity forms WS form and
14:25 ninja forms those three are the ones
14:27 those are the top ones right now yeah
14:29 exactly yeah that that was where I
14:30 started so yeah because I I’ve been
14:32 using gravity form since they were brand
14:34 new yeah WS form is also a great one as
14:37 well and that one supported uh supports
14:39 enhanced conversions as well yeah okay
14:42 yeah that that just wow I’m G to have to
14:44 dig into your plugin because that is
14:47 just uh saved me tons of time for some
14:50 of the sites we’re setting up these days
14:52 because more and more it’s important as
14:54 you mentioned in the beginning is that
14:56 you got to do the tracking you got to
14:58 find out what’s happening the internet’s
15:00 a crowded place now it’s no longer quiet
15:03 like it was 10 15 years ago well
15:06 relatively in terms of noise but there’s
15:09 a whole lot more businesses out there
15:11 now yeah and I think it’s important
15:14 because these days marketing is more
15:16 than just SEO you can’t just assume that
15:19 everything came from Google and that’s
15:20 what it is we you have to be on Tik Tok
15:22 you got to be on Instagram you got to be
15:24 on X you got to be everywhere and so
15:27 when you add like if you’re on there and
15:28 you’re posting back you can you know add
15:30 those UTM tracking tags to your thing
15:33 and then know where things are coming
15:34 from and but if you’re not ultimately
15:36 tracking those conversions you’re not in
15:38 your analytics platform you’re not um
15:41 you’re not you can’t tell which ones are
15:43 the most effective so it’s really
15:45 important when you have lots of
15:47 marketing channels these days to track
15:50 where people are coming from and what
15:51 they ultimately do from those sources um
15:55 you know just like in a Google ads
15:56 account you know you have five different
15:57 ads you want to see which one’s most
15:59 effective
15:59 but also you need to check and say which
16:02 Which social platform is is getting me
16:04 the best leads is it Instagram is it X
16:06 is it LinkedIn all these different
16:08 things so it’s really important to to to
16:11 set up conversion tracking oh absolutely
16:13 and more and more these days so you
16:15 mentioned uh earlier there on talking
16:18 about uh you have this integrated with
16:21 multiple alternate tracking things
16:26 um I saw a brief bit about them the
16:29 itics platforms that’s what it was yep
16:31 some of these I didn’t even know
16:34 existed um and I’m just trying to catch
16:37 up with them but tell us a little bit
16:38 about why some of these may be better
16:41 than Google
16:42 analytics yeah so when um you know
16:45 there’s the G it’s a lot of it came out
16:47 of gdpr and the old version of universal
16:50 analytics not being gdpr friendly and
16:53 even in a couple countries Google
16:55 analytics is flat out banned you just
16:57 can’t use it because of all the cookies
16:59 they set and the privacy concerns and
17:01 that it’s stored on us servers and stuff
17:04 like that so a lot of alternative
17:07 Alternatives popped up about four five
17:09 six six this years ago I believe um and
17:14 and now there’s just a lot more options
17:16 and basically they do tracking
17:18 differently they don’t use cookies to
17:20 track because cookies are something that
17:23 gdpr and you know all those cookie popup
17:25 notices and all that kind of junk that
17:27 you see on there um there they are
17:30 alternatives Google analytics so that
17:31 you don’t have to track using cookies um
17:35 they do their own they have their own
17:37 unique methods of doing it um but but
17:41 what’s great about those is that if for
17:42 example I use one called plausible or
17:45 pers you know there’s a whole bunch of
17:47 them you can find them on conversion
17:48 bridge wp.com and there’s also
17:50 comparisons I’ve written some
17:51 comparisons pros and cons of each one
17:53 and which ones have which features and
17:55 things like that um is that uh you don’t
17:60 need a cookie popup just because you’re
18:01 using that in Alix platform that’s the
18:03 main reason why a lot of people have
18:05 those cookie Banner popups is because
18:07 they’re using Google analytics to track
18:09 them and so they have to add that cookie
18:11 banner yes that little popup that’s
18:13 annoying if you use an altern one of
18:15 these Alternatives you could just remove
18:17 that cookie Banner entirely you just
18:19 simply don’t need it because they don’t
18:21 use cookies um so it’s a great thing to
18:24 you know it’s something to really
18:26 consider using if you don’t like those
18:29 which I think most people will agree
18:31 that they are terrible yes and as a
18:33 result and as a result you get more
18:35 accurate data because if only 20% of
18:39 people are opting in or agreeing to that
18:41 cookie popup you’re only tracking 20% of
18:43 people in Google analytics right so
18:46 especially those European site
18:48 owners it’s it’s became a really those
18:51 are really great alternatives to using
18:54 Google
18:56 analytics okay now uh question now I
18:59 know this is an odd one but it’s one
19:01 that popped in my head it’s like could
19:03 you run multiple analytics on the site
19:06 at the same time yep absolutely I when
19:10 I’m when I’m building and testing
19:11 conversion bridge I have over 10
19:14 different analytics platforms running at
19:15 the same time to make sure that it’s
19:17 tracking in each one at the same time
19:18 which is a great feature I mean it was
19:21 for me I kind of built it as I want to
19:23 be able to do this so I can test it
19:24 quicker and not have to you know with 55
19:27 plugins and then have to do it one by
19:28 one for separate analy platform one but
19:30 was like that would take me years to
19:32 test anything yeah so I said it that you
19:34 could do all of them at once but the
19:36 added benefit is that yeah you could put
19:38 a you know um I recommend you know do a
19:42 free trial for three or four different
19:43 analytics platforms compare the accuracy
19:46 see how much data you’re getting in each
19:48 one um and see which one yields you the
19:51 most information and the best
19:52 information and then after a couple
19:54 weeks I mean I don’t recommend longterm
19:56 having 10 different analytics platforms
19:58 on your site
19:59 um I mean they’re all really really tiny
20:03 tiny JavaScript files um so they’re not
20:05 going to you know make it you know 30
20:08 second page loads or anything like that
20:10 but it’s something you could run for a
20:11 couple weeks during your during a free
20:13 trial with each of those platforms and
20:15 then see which one you actually like
20:17 each one does have some pros and cons to
20:19 it some of them being you know how much
20:21 page views and how much data you can
20:23 track and versus cost and things like
20:25 that that is the one thing that Google
20:27 an analytics will always have for it is
20:30 it’s free um where all the Alternatives
20:33 do have a cost but some of them like
20:35 pers had you know if there’s a great you
20:37 know have a small business client that’s
20:38 like a landscaper you know they could
20:41 easily you know get away with like a $6
20:45 a month plan on pers analytics which is
20:47 a company out of Germany and I love them
20:49 they’re one of my favorite alternative
20:51 platforms
20:52 um so uh you know six bucks a month
20:55 that’s something that is a little bit
20:57 more manageable and then you could do
20:59 pers and then run Google ads just
21:02 because you have Google ads does not
21:03 mean you have to have Google analytics
21:05 you do not need Google analytics to do
21:08 Google ads and that’s I think also
21:10 another common misconception um they are
21:12 two separate things and conversion
21:14 Bridge can understand if you have Google
21:16 analytics and if you don’t and it knows
21:18 and adjusts um you know to make sure
21:20 that you’re doing the proper conversion
21:22 tracking in each
21:24 excellent okay now trying to think of
21:28 where else to take this at the moment
21:30 and
21:31 uh you touched on the Privacy stuff
21:34 there the alterate
21:37 platforms the one the Journey part uh
21:40 that you called it um following the
21:42 following the path through the site now
21:44 this is one that’s near and dear to me
21:46 especially with a couple of clients as
21:48 we’re trying to track where they land
21:50 and hopefully where they end up and how
21:55 does that one work and how does it
21:56 benefit people
21:60 uh so conversion Bridge has its own
22:02 conversion Journeys which uh like I
22:04 mentioned is you know when they first
22:05 land on the site it hits that you know
22:07 say they land on the homepage they hit
22:09 the about
22:10 services and then end up on a contact
22:13 form and fill out that lead form um when
22:16 they fill out that form you can then see
22:18 the journey for that submission depends
22:20 on what form plugin you’re using how
22:22 where that is and how you access it but
22:24 if you’re for example using gravity
22:25 forms there’s there’ll be you can see
22:26 all the entries that get saved in there
22:28 and then there’s a new option to view
22:29 the journey so and then that just shows
22:31 you Page by Page they hit the homepage
22:34 they hit the about Services contact page
22:37 submission okay and you can see that so
22:39 it’s really helpful to see how many what
22:41 are people typically doing on your site
22:43 to eventually get there what content is
22:45 actually convincing them to finally land
22:49 and and and be and convert and actually
22:51 take action on your site so you can
22:53 better understand how users interact
22:56 with things so the more data you have
22:59 what people are actually doing on your
23:01 site the better informed you are as to
23:04 what is and isn’t
23:06 working excellent
23:08 and you mentioned now that information
23:10 is held on the site you don’t have to go
23:13 elsewhere to get that Journey
23:15 information that is in your back into
23:16 your site right yeah and some of the
23:18 some of the platforms do have like
23:20 sessions like persch has one they have
23:22 like a sessions feature which is
23:24 essentially the same thing um so it but
23:29 why I built it into conversion Bridge
23:30 because there’s a lot that simply don’t
23:33 um don’t have that so excellent that’s
23:37 useful information and data for folks to
23:39 uh find out what people are up to okay
23:42 and all this of course integrates with
23:44 several right now does four different
23:46 cookie Banner plugins that are available
23:48 in WordPress I’m hoping to increase that
23:49 to a few more in a release or two um but
23:52 the cookie Banner so that it’s not
23:54 tracking conversion Journeys unless the
23:56 user agrees to ow that to happen with
24:00 the cookie Banner plugin that you have
24:01 installed in the site um you know us in
24:04 the US there you know there’s not that’s
24:06 not used nearly as much as um as those
24:09 site owners in the in the EU but it is
24:11 something that’s incredibly important
24:13 for people that are in those countries
24:15 affected by gdpr uh privacy laws and
24:17 things like that so conversion Bridge so
24:19 anyone that is in the affected by that
24:21 conversion bridge that all times does
24:24 obey that when you configure it to do so
24:27 so if you you know I want make sure that
24:29 this you know follows cookie the cookie
24:31 bot plugin then yeah check that box
24:33 conversion bridge at all times will
24:36 ensure that its own internal tracking if
24:38 it does any follows the rules that it
24:40 will not do anything until that person
24:43 has agreed to allow it well that’s good
24:45 to know but I’ve learned a lot about
24:47 privacy policies and laws and whatnot in
24:50 the last couple three weeks and uh it’s
24:54 what I’ve discovered is you folks down
24:57 in the states down there
24:59 you might not have it nationwide but you
25:02 have individual states that have some as
25:05 restricted as gdpr or
25:08 Worse yeah and here in Canada we have a
25:11 nationwide one for ours which is not as
25:15 bad as GTP gdpr but it’s pretty close in
25:18 many aspects and one of the things I was
25:21 dealing with in particular for my site
25:24 bringing it online when I discovered it
25:26 was how do I write a privacy policy to
25:28 cover this nightmare because my client
25:30 my clients are all over the globe yeah
25:33 and I did find a company that is
25:37 termageddon that has that’s what I was
25:39 gon to suggest well that’s I ended up
25:42 being I I ended up becoming an agency
25:44 for them so it’s it’s a lot of
25:48 information and it’s nice to have a
25:49 policy that automatically updates and
25:51 they have a c an integrated cookie
25:53 system that goes with the policy so it
25:55 just keeps it all together at once
25:59 exactly and and I imagine it’s only
26:01 going to get you know there’s going to
26:03 be more countries more states that are
26:05 going to enact similar things so it’s
26:08 going to be one of those things that by
26:10 default it’s just one of the things that
26:12 you add to every website you build just
26:13 it just becomes part of your
26:16 stack it’s now becoming part of and I’m
26:18 going back to some older clients and
26:20 telling them they need to bring it all
26:21 up to
26:22 date because of the way the laws have
26:25 changed so dramatically in the last
26:26 couple of years
26:29 you’re doing my puppy dog decides he
26:31 wants attention at this exact moment in
26:33 time it’s like you’re talking to
26:35 somebody I know you are
26:37 yeah yeah so I mean so yeah making sure
26:41 that um everything integrates with
26:42 privacy laws and all that and tracking
26:44 especially because because yeah you want
26:46 to make sure that your site doesn’t
26:47 break those laws and you get fined and
26:49 and all that kind of stuff so so that is
26:51 also always the the Forefront the top of
26:53 my mind when I’m when I’m building and
26:55 testing things and making sure that it
26:57 does it just follow all the all those
26:60 those laws um I do give a lot of leeway
27:03 to let the you know if you’re using
27:05 conversion bridge on a site there’s
27:07 options that let you choose I’m not I I
27:10 I try not to be too opinionated I try to
27:12 say do you want it to integrate with a
27:14 cookie plugin yes okay then which one do
27:16 you want it to do it doesn’t force you
27:18 to by default but you have to go in
27:20 there and do that so that you that
27:21 people can choose what they feel is best
27:24 for them for their level of risk they
27:26 would like to take um I know there’s a
27:27 lot of people in the who are just like I
27:29 don’t give a I don’t I’m sorry I
27:31 don’t care um you know they’re like I
27:33 don’t care uh we’re not going to worry
27:35 about that just track everybody and if
27:37 you want to do that you can but if
27:38 you’re in Germany where they have really
27:40 strict laws you want to lock that down
27:43 and so you can then configure to do that
27:45 so it’s up to you know the the site
27:47 owner or whoever’s you know managing the
27:49 site to choose those options in the end
27:51 it’s up to the site owner as to what
27:53 kind of risk they want to take because
27:55 they’re the ones that ultimately are
27:57 responsible for it correct so so yeah
28:01 now you also build other plugins you you
28:05 made mentions of a couple of them there
28:07 in the in your bio you’ve got one called
28:10 Sunshine photo cart uh a WordPress
28:13 e-commerce plugin and uh what else do
28:16 you got
28:17 there yeah so Sunshine photoart is a
28:19 massive e-commerce ecosystem plugin
28:23 specifically for photographers though so
28:25 I’ve been doing that one for about oh
28:27 almost 12 years now
28:29 um thing coming up on yeah 12 years
28:31 probably here in a few weeks actually
28:34 um so yeah so that one um that one’s
28:38 huge it’s a massive ecosystem it’s
28:41 basically woo Commerce it you know it’s
28:43 just a it’s and it’s only done by me um
28:46 so that one’s a pretty big one but I
28:48 have a couple other fun ones too um one
28:50 that uh it’s called confetti so that
28:52 kind of goes a little bit with
28:53 conversion tracking because what it does
28:55 is it pops up a little fun uh
28:56 customizable confetti effect when people
28:59 do things like make purchases submit
29:01 contact forms sign up for your email
29:03 newsletter things like that it’s just a
29:04 little it’s a it’s a fun thing it’s not
29:07 in any way necessary it’s just a it’s a
29:09 delighter that’s that’s the term I’m
29:11 looking for uh it to kind of just be
29:13 like hey you did this how cool was that
29:15 um and I did that one because I had a
29:18 client site that I added it to and was
29:20 like Hey I could build this into a
29:21 plugin so I thought why not let me just
29:23 uh do that so um that one’s at uh one
29:26 under WP sunshine
29:29 um.com and you can find that there and
29:31 then another one for address
29:33 autocomplete anything uh what that does
29:36 is it has some automatic Integrations
29:37 with various plugins like
29:39 woocommerce um and paid memberships Pro
29:43 or all kinds of different um plugins
29:45 where you know or form plugins where you
29:47 know someone wants to type in the
29:48 address it uses the Google Maps a
29:50 address autocomplete API to then you
29:53 know you start typing 13 and if your
29:55 address is 13457 you know it you can
29:58 just select that and it automatically
29:59 fills the rest of the form um it just
30:02 makes it easy to add that to to any kind
30:04 of form on any WordPress website so and
30:07 those all came from client requests
30:09 basically they were things that I had
30:11 built for a custom built for a client
30:13 and then was well you know what I could
30:14 just spend a little more time and turn
30:16 this into a plugin so um that’s what I
30:18 did with a couple those other ones yeah
30:20 that’s what I’m doing now I’ve got
30:22 several plugins I created for clients in
30:24 past years that are still on their sites
30:26 I’ve just recently
30:28 restarted my GitHub and I’ve taken many
30:31 of those plugins and brought them down
30:33 into my GitHub so I can actually expand
30:36 them from what they are so it’s like I
30:39 forgotten I’d done some of these things
30:41 like some of are one of them I’m
30:43 starting to play with is like 15 years
30:45 old and it’s like wow it still works
30:46 it’s still good okay we’ll see how we
30:48 can improve it and make it better so
30:51 yeah I’m actually finding joy in coding
30:53 once
30:54 again it it’s I mean it’s my favorite
30:57 thing I’m I’m about a year and a half
30:60 two years in my journey of transitioning
31:03 from making client sites to trying to
31:05 become product first so things like
31:07 conversion Bridge or sunshine photoart
31:09 and having all my income from just these
31:12 WordPress plug-in products yeah um so
31:15 I’ve built client sites since like I
31:16 said earlier 2007 so it’s been a long
31:18 long time but uh but it is it’s a very
31:21 different thing to start coding but I I
31:25 kind of just literally woke up one day
31:28 and realized how how
31:30 much frustration I had and lack of Joy I
31:34 had from building sites for clients I
31:36 used to love it make no mistake I
31:38 absolutely love doing it for a really
31:39 long time you know for all my all my
31:42 sites I do all the design I do all the
31:44 development project management I’m a
31:45 oneman team for my clients and my
31:48 plug-in businesses and stuff like that
31:50 um and I really did enjoy doing all
31:51 those things but it was just it seemed
31:53 like it was maybe not necessarily
31:55 literally overnight but it did seem to
31:57 be like I just started
32:01 losing joy in doing it and so I was like
32:04 you know what I’m I’m ready to make this
32:05 switch so that’s when I started whenever
32:07 I buil custom made something for a
32:09 client it was just like can I turn this
32:10 into a product some of them ultimately
32:13 not and I’ve released them as just free
32:15 plugins I have a couple free ones that
32:16 are out there because it was just such a
32:18 small Niche thing that I just like I can
32:20 just put that on the wordpress.org you
32:22 know as a free Plugin or something like
32:24 that but then some of them yeah I sell
32:26 them for a few bucks yeah and uh that’s
32:29 what I’ve got I got well I got my fir I
32:30 put my first free one up on my website
32:33 and uh for people all they got to do is
32:35 go sign up my email list to get it and
32:38 uh that one there is one that came out
32:41 of because I got tired of always having
32:44 to copy and paste certain code Snippets
32:47 that I needed all the time or I may or
32:50 may not have needed so I actually wrote
32:52 a plugin so you can go in turn on and
32:55 off the code Snippets as you need them
32:58 yeah and it’s like it it’s makes my life
33:00 a whole lot easier when I’m setting up a
33:02 site from scratch or taking over a
33:04 client’s website and I need to change
33:06 things another one I brought in um I
33:09 just I haven’t I haven’t I haven’t put
33:11 it up yet I just wrote it last week it’s
33:14 one for when you’re working on a Dev
33:16 site you want to turn off the irritating
33:18 WP mail now you can go into oh yeah yeah
33:22 you can go into the config file add that
33:24 little snippet but I’ve got a plugin now
33:26 that goes in you turn it on WP mail is
33:29 shut off and it puts a nice big red
33:31 warning on your Dev site to remind you
33:33 that WP mail is turned off you uh you
33:36 turn it back on the warning goes away so
33:39 it’s just a nice nice simple
33:41 straightforward you know but that one
33:43 will be going up as a free one too for
33:45 people that are working on dev sites or
33:47 bringing up a new site that they just
33:48 don’t want to see all the emails that a
33:51 WordPress website
33:53 generates exactly those are great use
33:56 cases right there
33:58 so yeah and uh and I do have a plugin
34:01 that I’m uh working in a concert with uh
34:03 the fellow I interviewed last time from
34:05 web 321 we’re working in concert on that
34:08 plugin and we’re hoping to have it in
34:09 beta by next September so very cool so
34:13 it’s a really it’s a really big one it’s
34:16 probably my biggest project I’ve ever
34:19 attempted the challenge is always the uh
34:21 the support on it and creating the
34:23 documentation um I I do most I do most
34:26 of the documentation and testing he’s a
34:28 he’s a way better coder than me Sean is
34:30 a way better coder than me so he writes
34:32 all the hard code I go in and break it
34:34 for him and then and then show him where
34:36 it needs to fix it or change it and then
34:38 I write the documentation as I as I test
34:41 it so yeah sounds like a good
34:43 partnership too so it’ll it’ll come out
34:45 hopefully hopefully we have a beta a
34:47 beta version of it for testing in
34:49 September that’s our goal
34:51 anyway yeah that’s I mean writing
34:53 documentation is always something I I’m
34:55 training myself to do as I’m devel
34:58 veloping it so that it doesn’t get left
34:60 behind and be like all right it’s
35:01 already and done because I did that with
35:02 Sunshine photo card I would create a
35:04 feature you know I’ve been doing that
35:05 for so long I would create a feature and
35:06 release it and then forget to even just
35:08 write that it existed in the first place
35:10 in any marketing materials or
35:12 documentation of how to use it yeah and
35:14 so then like there all these features
35:16 that have been around for like five plus
35:18 years people like oh I didn’t know it
35:19 could do that oh right I never told
35:21 anyone or made anyone aware that it was
35:24 there on the website in any way yeah um
35:26 so that’s a yeah it’s the uh you know
35:30 it’s the iceberg you know the the
35:31 developing it is the 10 part the 10%
35:34 part that everyone you that you do but
35:36 you there’s a lot behind the scenes that
35:38 you have to to think about and do that
35:40 the documentation is the documentation
35:43 is as heavy as the coding if not worse
35:45 because you got to you got to
35:47 translate all of the geek speak into
35:51 normal human speech so that the people
35:53 who are going to use your program aren’t
35:56 constantly emailing you what does this
35:58 mean you know so things like that so
36:01 that the documentation helps take care
36:03 of the answers as or the questions as
36:05 they come up so you don’t spend all your
36:07 time answering
36:08 questions exactly that’s that’s I yeah I
36:11 realize that you know how much the more
36:14 documentation I write as frustrating as
36:16 is the less support tickets I get so
36:18 it’s you know it’s time well spent for
36:21 sure in the end it absolutely
36:23 everybody’s everyone’s sake it
36:25 absolutely is well thanks a lot Derek I
36:27 really appre appreciate this it’s been a
36:28 great conversation this is the point
36:30 here where you get to tell everyone
36:32 where they can find you and of course
36:34 all the contact info will be up on the
36:36 uh post I’ll be creating the post uh
36:39 within the next 24 hours and get it
36:40 posted up into the podcast feed and the
36:43 blog post will contain all the
36:44 information along with a transcript and
36:47 uh go ahead tell everyone yeah so you
36:49 can find conversion bridge at conversion
36:52 Bridge wp.com my other plugins are under
36:55 my main brand called WP sunshine
36:59 and then I do Post quite a bit and kind
37:01 of do a bit of quite a bit of building
37:02 in public on X or Twitter and you can
37:05 find me at Derek Ash hour on there yeah
37:07 I think I’m following you there
37:09 occasionally I make a snide comment for
37:13 youate well thank you very much uh if
37:15 you could hang around after the closing
37:17 of the credits here and uh uh we’ll be
37:20 right back in a
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38:30 doca thanks for joining us and have a
38:33 great
38:38 day thanks for listening to the show
38:41 this show is copyright by John overall.
38:43 comom so until next time have yourselves
38:46 a good morning good afternoon or good
38:48 evening wherever you happen to be out
38:49 there on the globe today
39:06 the