In today’s episode, we are going to talk about how to stay in the loop. That is, how to stay in the WordPress news loop, and what websites to follow to make sure that you are following and understanding what is happening in the WordPress Community. Right here on Your Website Engineer Podcast, episode number 445.

Hello and welcome to another episode of Your Website Engineer Podcast. My name is Dustin Hartzler. I’m excited to be here with you today because we are going to talk about all the sites that I peruse on a weekly basis, just to kind of keep updated of what’s happening in the WordPress space. There’s a handful of websites that you could follow one or two and just be pretty much in the loop, but I like to kind of make sure that I know what is going on so I can bring the latest and greatest information to you each and every week.

So, today, what I wanted to talk about is just websites in general that have WordPress news. There are countless different blogs that are out there. There are podcasts. There are online courses. There are all kinds of things that are dedicated to the topic of WordPress. And, if you want to make sure that you are knowledgeable in what is happening in the WordPress space, what is going on, it would be a great asset to follow some of these websites and check out what’s happening and what kind of news is going on there. So, let’s go ahead and talk about, now, I have got about 15 or so of these websites, so let’s go ahead and talk through them.

The first one is WordPress.org. It is more of a – I mean everything is on WordPress.org. We have got – that is where the themes are, the plugins, the things about Mobo, we have got WordPress support is on there, but there is a blog section on there and it has most of the news that’s on there are when upcoming releases are. So, this is where I go and check to make sure when the new version of WordPress has come out or if there’s any been – been any point releases to WordPress, I want to – those are some things that I follow there.

And then, also, there is a post that usually happens at the beginning of the month that is like the month before’s recap. And that goes into some detail of all the things that are happening in the WordPress space. So, WordPress.org, that’s something that I’d definitely make sure that you check out and follow. And I don’t know; you can probably subscribe over there. I just go and look at it regularly just to kind of see what’s happening in the WordPress space.

A new one that I found this week as I was kind of going through just a bunch of new sites and whatnot and looking around is one called Gutenberg Times. And it was released or it started in June of 2017, and so it just talks about how the WordPress editor has evolved since it was originally announced, and all the changes that continue to happen as well surrounding it. Some examples of blog posts that are over there are, “94 Plugins for the New WordPress Block Editor” or, “The Secret Manual: Hidden Features and Gotchas in WordPress Gutenberg”. So, there are all kinds of stuff over there that you can check out. And that is at Gutenbergtimes.com.

The next one on my list isn’t just specific to WordPress, but is a good leader for reading about what is happening in the security space, especially for WordPress security or website security. And so Sucuri.net is a good place to go and they have a blog over there. It basically talks, it talks and is shared with all kinds of resources that are talking about the vulnerabilities to WordPress or that otherwise would affect WordPress websites.

And so it is not really news or – it is not really like tips and tricks and news, per se, but it is all educational content on the latest sequel injection. Or this plug-in needs to be updated or you should remove this one immediately. All those types of things are over on Sucuri.net. And then you can go and click on the blog tab and see all the posts there.

Another one that is kind of interesting to follow is Matt Mullenweg’s personal blog. It is at M-A-.-T-T and he shares the insights into what is happening with WordPress behind the scenes. Really, a lot of personal musings as well. It talks about his productivity, his books that he is reading. He usually has the post once a year of what is in his backpack and he kind of shares some of the latest tech stuff he is using. And it is kind of nice to follow him just to know what he is talking about and what type of tools and stuff that he has shared on there.

It usually has the state of the words, which are the big events that happen at WordCamp US, WordCamp Europe, and all those type posts and videos are there on his website as well. So, check out M-A-.-T-T.

The next one on my list here is called Search Engine Journal and it is a new source for all things SEO. So, if you are in the business of helping people rank better on Google, then Search Engine Journal is a good one to follow. It regularly publishes just SEO tips, guides, tools, and it does occasionally dabble in WordPress and news topics when they interact with the search target market or the search marketing.

And so there’s –some examples over there are, “Seven WordPress Vulnerabilities Discovered; What You Need To Know”, “The Official Amp and WordPress Plugin Updated Allow Sites to be Built Completely with Amp”, and “Google Introduces WordPlus Plugin with Integrated Analytics, Search Console”, and more. And those are a few of the articles that are over on the Search Engine Journal page.

Moving right along, we have got Wordfence and this one kind of goes along with Sucuri, but this is a blog 100 percent dedicated to web security news. It reports on issues strictly on WordPress. It provides also with regular updates on vulnerabilities and keeps users up to date with what is happening, and the blog also has begun to publish some podcast episodes for Wordfence, which go into deeper detail of recent WordPress exploits that I have reported on. So, that is a good one just to kind of keep your head in the space of what is happening vulnerability wise and what plugins you need to make sure that you are not using outdated versions or things like that. That is the Wordfence blog.

WPBeginner is another one on my list that I spend a lot of time with, just kind of looking through every week. And it is the leader in WordPress tutorials, but they also occasionally publish WordPress news stories as well. So, it is kind of nice just to kind of see, they have a page dedicated directly to news, so that is under blog and news. And so it basically allows you to see what they are reporting in the news spaces. Well, they go through like the upcoming version, so like what is new in WordPress 5.2. Has features and screenshots, so that comes with helpful descriptions and screenshots to demonstrate upcoming changes.

They also do, “Form Pages by WPForms” is another example post on their news page and it basically tells them how WPForms is better or worse or the differences between that and Google Forms. And so that is something that you may want to check out. That is WPBeginner and, again, the category is news over there.

Liquid Web is a hosting company and that is my next on the list. And they have a really great blog. And even though they are specific for managed WordPress and WooCommerce hosting, the blog is well organized and contains educational content, customer spotlights, press releases, as well as revelant news for developers. And so, it talks about some things like even the news piece about how Liquid Web and I-themes will go farther, that is a news article that is on there or, “Here’s What You Need to Know About Meltdown Inspector”, and these are some vulnerabilities that hit Liquid Web’s server.

So, especially if you are a Liquid Web customer, I recommend checking those out, but they are also great news pieces and this is where I sometimes go for show topics and what can I talk about on the show is sometimes over there on the Liquid Web blog.

Kinsta is another one. It is a managed WordPress hosting company that knows a thing or two about security, performance, and the importance of partnering with a reliable hosting solution, so they have a great blog full of useful tutorials, tips, and interviews, and sometimes Kinsta publishes news that is highly valuable for WordPress developers.

So, recent articles from them are like, “What Is Http 3? The Lowdown on the New, Fast, UDP-based Protocol”. It talks about the latest version of WordPress and how we have got to move forward with PHP. And then it talks about how to join the team at the first ever WordCamp Nordic. So, that is another wordcamp that is being put on by Kinsta. So, those are some things that you can learn about from their website.

Another one that is on my list is one that I – I mean I am on there regularly. I never really comment or never really read the comments, but I like to see what news WP Tavern, WordPress Tavern is reporting on during the course of the week. They do pull a lot of information from the WordPress org website, so any time there is a new plugin or a new update, like a lot of times that stuff comes through, but it also goes through and shares different things that are going on in the WordPress space.

There is a dedicated section specifically for news and they also have a podcast as well over there. That is what they do all day long is look for things that are happening in the WordPress space. So, I would say WP Tavern is the next one on my list.

WP Lift is another website that has a ton going on. It has got WordPress tips and tutorials. It has got repositories for themes and plugins. It has got web hosting recommendations. There are coupons developers can use to purchase new WordPress products. It just has all kinds of stuff and there is tons of news there as well. So, they have a Weekly WordPress News Roundup, so that really talks about things that are happening in the WordPress space. They also have some – every year they do an April fool’s joke and they do some sort of post over there. So, if you want to see a little humor, you can see that over at wplift.com.

The next one on my list is BobWP. This is run by Bob Dunn, who is also known as BobWP. He is a well-known WordPress blogger and podcaster. He has got some, a lot of content there based on how to set up WooCommerce, but a lot of times, he does talk about the news. So, he talks about like the upcoming WooSesh, a virtual conference for store builders for WooCommerce. And he talks about how to update WooCommerce before updating to the latest version of WordPress and all that. So, it is a lot of news related to WooCommerce, so that is a good place if you are a WooCommerce person, you want to check out BobWP.

ManageWP is a leading multi-site management solution for WordPress. It publishes new content regularly to its blog, so it teaches you how to do more with WordPress, especially in terms of maintenance because that is kind of their thing. It helps people manage multiple websites and keep multiple things updated. You will also find some occasional posts on what is happening with WordPress in ManageWP. So, they did a survey and they showed all the releases of 2019 WordPress website maintenance survey. It also talks about how WordPress 5.0 and Gutenberg will affect your site, so those are a few things that are on ManageWP.

There is one called World of WordPress and it is a repository of WordPress news collected from all around the web and it is in a number of languages, so sources may include the WordPress media sites and some of them focus on more web design trends. If you don’t want to hunt down all your stories, you could build your own WordPress RSS feed or use the World of WordPress to provide you with the latest and greatest news. So, that is World of WordPress.

And the last one here on my list is called WPShout. This is a place that web developers go to get high-quality tutorials, but its new section is handpicked from the WordPress stories from around the web. So, some of the examples on their website to talk about how PHP will include a new compiler or Sucuri’s 2018-hacked website report or the Future of WordPress and it is sharing about the news and what may happen with WordPress in 2019.

So, WPShout, I like the tutorials especially over there and those sometimes come up with great articles or great – there is content there that is very useful that I can turn into a podcast episode or I can talk about on an upcoming show. So, I like to use that, WPShout as well.

So, that is what I wanted to share with you today. Those are kind of the news sources if you are craving some news, or maybe you have got a lunch break and you are trying to keep up with WordPress and just listening to an hour-long podcast doesn’t really jive. I recommend checking out some of these sites and spending a little bit of time just diving in and seeing what kind of is happening in the news.

I do use a – let’s see, it is called Feedly. I use Feedly to manage most of these, so basically, I subscribe through Feedly to all of these websites and then I can use my IPad with the Feedly reader or I can use – I can just go to Feedly.com and then just kind of scroll through and see what kinds of articles are happening on these websites. That is an easy way to keep up with all the news instead of going to each and every website. I like doing that just to kind of keep updated and know what is happening in the WordPress space.

So, that is what I want to talk about today. Still here on sabbatical here in Dayton, Ohio. I’m a month into it. I can’t believe it. It has been a month already. I am finishing up some small projects around the house. I am starting the basement this week and the deck should start next week. So, a lot of moving pieces and a lot of things and I have just been enjoying actually kind of stepping back from WordPress just a little bit. Just haven’t been spending tons and tons on my computer this week or even this month.

It has just been great to be outside, spend some time in the sunshine. I am going to the pool and those types of things. So, that is what is happening over here at the Your Website Engineer headquarters. And next week, I am gonna just set aside some time and go through, there are two or three plugins that I want to test out for you and give you a full review, so that is what I am gonna to do in the next week. That is what I want to share with you. Take care and we will talk to you again soon. Bye-bye.