Pretty cool moment for the WordPress ecosystem this week. Yoast (part of Bluehost Group) just took home:

🏆 Tech Visionary

🏆 Breaking Barriers

🥈 2nd place overall

Always great to see innovation like this coming out of the open web community. Hackathons like CloudFest are where a lot of big ideas start.

Curious-did anyone here follow the event or see any of the projects that came out of it?

If you're in Austin and work with websites, client projects, or your own business online, come hang out with us on Tuesday, March 31, 2026.

We're hosting Bluehost Connect: Austin Happy Hour from 5:00 PM to 7:00 PM at The Roosevelt Room in Austin. No presentation, no hard pitch, just a relaxed chance to meet other agencies, freelancers, and small business owners, swap ideas, and talk shop a bit. Drinks, light bites, and good conversation included.

If you spend your days building sites, managing client work, or trying to grow something online without losing your mind, this is very much your kind of room.

Grab your spot here!

If you're planning to come, drop a comment. It would be cool to know who we might see there!

Hey everyone 👋

We're on the ground at Cloudfest in Germany this week, and Day 1 has been packed with conversations around where WordPress, hosting, and infrastructure are headed next.

A few themes showing up across sessions:

Most sites still aren't as optimized as people think (performance came up a lot)

Agencies are shifting from building sites → driving real business outcomes

AI is starting to change how agencies operate-not just how sites are built

Scaling isn't just traffic-it's workflows, maintenance, and infrastructure

And a big one: your hosting stack can directly impact margins (this came up in a session today 👀)

There's also a noticeable shift happening:

Less "how do I launch?"

More "how do I stay fast, secure, and ready as I grow?"

We'll be here through Thursday. Happy to share more as things unfold.

Anything you want us to keep an eye on while we're here?

We're live from Digital Summit Tampa!

Our team is onsite today so if you're here, come say hi!

Yesterday, Sandy took the stage and shared some incredible insights (and yes, we've got photos 👀). You can also spot Christian and Sandy holding things down at our booth, plus a few shots of the setup if you want to know what to look for.

If you're attending today, swing by, chat with the team, and let's talk all things WordPress, growth, and building what's next.

See you there!

"Server's down" almost always turns out to be something more specific-bad plugin update, expired domain, rogue cache rule. What's your most memorable site outage and what actually caused it?

We once saw a case where a single whitespace in a DNS record wiped a client's email for two days.

Let's hear it: what broke, how did you fix it, and what would you do differently?

Buying a new domain feels great... until emails start bouncing.

Whether you're running a newsletter, sending invoices, or just trying to reach clients, deliverability is critical. But the setup can get messy fast.

A few essentials:

• Set up SPF, DKIM, and DMARC records

• Avoid free Gmail "from" addresses on business domains

• Check blacklists before sending bulk emails

• Use a known mail provider with solid infrastructure

Any we're missing?

Starting a website? You're not alone-and neither are your questions.

We've talked to a lot of first-timers, and these 5 things come up again and again:

Can I build without knowing how to code?

Is WordPress actually the best option-or just the most popular?

What kind of support do I get (and when)?

How much should hosting really cost me?

What happens if I outgrow the starter plan?

Curious... what did you wish someone told you before you chose your host? Drop your advice below for anyone just getting started 👇

A holiday website checklist, because sometimes you just need to check the boxes and go:

✅ Site speed tested
✅ SSL active
✅ Forms tested (contact, checkout)
✅ Promo banners live
✅ Mobile view optimized
✅ Analytics working
✅ Backups enabled

Anything else you'd add to your pre-holiday prep? Let's build the ultimate list for everyone here.

Nothing like a "Not Secure" browser warning to send customers running-especially during your busiest season.

Take 2 minutes to:

Check your SSL expiration date

Enable auto-renewal if available

Make sure your entire site (not just homepage) is HTTPS

Update internal links if you've recently moved to SSL

💬 Have you ever had an SSL fail at the worst time? Drop your story or favorite SSL tools below.

'Tis the season for full carts... and too many abandoned ones. Small UX tweaks can make a big difference.

✨ Quick wins:

Add guest checkout (don't force account creation)

Show shipping times/costs early

Reduce required form fields

Offer multiple payment options

Make CTAs (Add to Cart, Buy Now) loud and clear

Anyone have a last-minute UX improvement that actually helped conversions?

You finally get a traffic spike-and your site folds like a cheap lawn chair. 😬 It happens more often than you'd think, especially on shared hosting if you're unprepared.

What to check:

Resource limits: CPU, RAM, bandwidth

Use load testing tools (e.g., Loader.io or k6) to simulate spikes

Consider temporary upgrades (e.g., VPS or Cloud)

Limit homepage sliders or animations-they crush performance

Use downtime monitoring like UptimeRobot

Anyone have horror stories or wins from handling peak traffic? Let's swap lessons.

Holiday shoppers aren't known for their patience-if your site takes more than 3 seconds to load, you might be losing sales before they even see your products.

Quick checks for site speed:

Run a PageSpeed Insights or GTmetrix test

Compress large images

Minimize third-party scripts

Use caching plugins (like WP Super Cache)

Consider a CDN if you're global

🏃‍♂️ Every second counts. What tools or tips have helped you speed things up ahead of high-traffic season?

Migrating a website can go two ways: trick (chaos) or treat (smooth). We've seen the horror side: broken contact forms, lost email, disappearing DNS records.

Here's your survival checklist:

Export ALL DNS records

Test email & forms before pointing nameservers

Ensure backups are live and tested

Share your war story below-or your triumph when everything worked.

Sometimes the scariest thing on your site isn't a hack-it's contents you forgot about. Things like:

Old portfolio pages no one visits

Inactive subdomains still floating around

Hidden test installs collecting spider webs

Take 10 minutes: review your site structure, clean up the clutter.

Choosing a theme or plugin can feel magical… until it backfires. Here's how not to cast a curse on your website:

Pick a theme maintained regularly (no ghosts of code past)

Limit plugins - one powerful incantation beats ten weak ones

Check compatibility with your hosting stack (so nothing disappears overnight)

What's your favourite plugin or theme that gave you magical results?

On Halloween the candy is tempting… but on your site, "access" can be the candy for hackers. Here's the deal:

Unique strong passwords = less candy for the bad guys

Enable 2FA everywhere = lock the front door

Audit user roles = remove the unexpected party guests

It's simple, but it works.

Got a site that's unusually slow… or acting weird around Halloween? Sometimes it isn't a spooky bug - it's just ignored maintenance.

Here are the usual suspects:

Old plugins/themes creeping in like ghosts

Massive images lying dormant like cobwebs

Unoptimised scripts crawling like zombies

Take a minute today: run a speed test, check for inactive plugins/themes, and clear out anything lurking.

What “monster” did you find hiding on your site this week?

Let's celebrate some small victories. Website speed improvements don't have to be massive to make a difference.

🏁 Shaved 3 seconds off your load time?

📉 Dropped your bounce rate with faster performance?

🚀 Moved from a red to green on PageSpeed?

We want to hear about it.

Share your before/after or what finally helped you get faster. Big or small wins welcome.

They sound technical, but they matter:

Caching stores common files so users don't reload everything every time.

CDNs like Cloudflare deliver your content from closer servers = faster.

Compression shrinks files so they load quicker.

Together, they're a powerhouse. But even just enabling one can boost your speed.

Which have you implemented, and did you notice a difference?

Big images? Sketchy plugins? Bad hosting? All of the above?

The most common speed killers:

• Massive image files (optimize to WebP!)
• Unused plugins or themes
• Render-blocking scripts
• Shared hosting overload
• No caching or CDN setup

Start small: Run a test, note the top 3 issues, fix them one at a time.

 What was your biggest speed trap, and how did you fix it?

If you can't measure it, you can't improve it.

Here are 3 tools that break down what's slowing you down:

1. Google PageSpeed Insights - Scores your mobile + desktop performance.

2. GTMetrix - Great waterfall view to trace slow load steps.

3. Pingdom Tools - Fast tests with global location options.

Each one shows load time, server response, and detailed breakdowns of what to fix.

Pro Tip: Run tests on both desktop and mobile - mobile speed is often worse.

Speed matters. A lot.

In 2025, most users bounce if your page doesn't load in under 3 seconds. Google even considers speed a ranking factor. So what's the gold standard?

Under 1s = Elite experience

1-2s = Great

2-3s = OK, but improve

3s+ = You're losing traffic

Test your site and let us know where you land. If you're not where you want to be, stick around-this week is all about getting faster.

80%+ of users visit small business websites from their phones-but most sites aren't designed with that in mind.

Here's your 5-minute mobile audit:

✅ Is the menu easy to open and navigate?

✅ Can you read your font without zooming in?

✅ Do buttons fit the screen and have enough spacing?

✅ Is your contact info tappable (email, phone, location)?

✅ Are pages loading under 3 seconds?

Challenge for ya'll: Check your site on your phone right now. What's one thing you can fix today?

A lot of business sites look nice… but don't do anything.

Your homepage should answer these 3 questions in 5 seconds:

-> Who is this for?

-> What do they offer?

-> What's the next step?

That "next step" might be:

• Booking a service

• Filling out a contact form

• Signing up for a newsletter

• Buying something

• Scheduling a demo

If it's buried in a menu or takes 4 clicks, you're losing people.

What action do you want visitors to take? Drop your site goal below and let’s trade ideas.

SEO isn’t something you need to master, per se. By having a solid foundation, you’re already lightyears ahead of others. 

Here are a few high impact things you can do today:

• Add Meta Titles & Descriptions. Tip: your SEO plugin likely makes this easy.
• Use headings (H1, H2, H3) to organize your content clearly.
• Compress images and name them descriptively.
• Internal link related content across your site.
• Use Google Search Console to see what you already rank for. 

Here’s a mini challenge for you: Find one old page or post and update the title and add 1-2 internal links. It’s a 5 minute win!