Money-Code

Coding For Online Success

February 8, 2026
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Essential Free WordPress Plugins Every Website Should Use

One of the biggest advantages of using WordPress is the massive ecosystem of free plugins available.

If there’s a feature you want to add to your site, chances are someone has already built it. Plugins are essentially add-ons you can install to extend your site’s functionality without writing custom code.

That said, I’ll admit it. I’ve been called a bit of a plugin junkie in the past, and the label is not entirely undeserved. There is a downside to all this free software. Installing too many plugins can slow down your site, cause conflicts, or introduce security risks if you are not careful.

With that in mind, here are a few plugins I consistently recommend, along with what they do.

1. All In One WP Security
Nobody wants to deal with a hacked website. This free plugin walks you through practical steps to harden your WordPress installation and protect your site from common threats. Follow the setup instructions and you will dramatically improve your baseline security.
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2. UpdraftPlus
Backing up your site to an external location is a must. This plugin makes it easy to schedule automatic backups and store them off-site.
My hosting provider runs daily backups, but I like having a redundant copy. I have mine configured to upload to Dropbox for peace of mind.
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3. W3 Total Cache
Site speed matters for both users and search engines. This plugin helps improve load times through caching and optimization.
I typically enable features like page caching, browser caching, and file minification to keep things running efficiently.
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4. Smush
Large image files are one of the most common causes of slow page loads. Smush compresses images automatically without noticeably reducing quality.
If your posts include a lot of images, be sure to enable lazy loading so images only load when users scroll to them.
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5. Yoast SEO
WordPress does a decent job with SEO out of the box, but this plugin helps fine-tune on-page optimization.
It allows you to customize titles and meta descriptions while offering guidance on readability and best practices. I do not obsess over getting every indicator to turn green, but I do take their recommendations seriously for content I want to rank.
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6. Pretty Links
The free version of Pretty Links lets you turn long, messy affiliate URLs into clean, readable links.
This makes it easy to update tracking links in one place if they change and keeps your site looking professional. I also use it to create short, memorable URLs for content, like custom page or episode links.
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February 7, 2026
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Money Comes to Me Abundantly and Freely (Because I’m Paying Attention)

One of the most consistent habits I’ve kept over the years is a simple mantra:
Money comes to me abundantly and freely. I see it everywhere.
I say it often. Quietly. Repeatedly. Sometimes daily. And no, this isn’t about believing the universe is magically dropping checks from the sky.

It’s about training awareness.

I don’t personally believe money manifests just because you say the words. What I do believe is that language shapes attention. When you repeat something like this, especially in a calm, meditative way, your brain starts scanning for proof. Opportunities that would normally pass unnoticed suddenly stand out. Ideas connect faster. You start asking better questions. You stop assuming “that’s not for me” and start wondering “how could this work?”

The key part of this mantra isn’t just the affirmation. It’s the because.

Money comes to me abundantly and freely because I work hard.
Because I think out of the box.
Because I hustle.
Because I’m observant.
Because I try things.
Because I deserve it.
Because I want it.

That “because” matters. It turns the mantra from wishful thinking into alignment. You’re not asking for money, you’re reminding yourself why you’re capable of finding it. You’re reinforcing behaviors that actually lead to monetization. Effort. Curiosity. Willingness to experiment. Patience when something doesn’t work the first time.

When you approach monetization from this mindset, something shifts. You stop looking for a single big idea and start noticing small ones everywhere. A product someone undervalued. A digital asset that could be improved. A tool that saves time. A gap in a marketplace. A workflow that could be automated. Money opportunities are rarely hidden. They’re usually ignored.

This is why I think one of the very first steps to building side income or wealth is internal, not tactical. Before funnels, before ads, before AI tools, you have to genuinely believe that opportunities exist around you right now. Not later. Not when you’re “ready.” Right now. That belief changes how you move through the world. It changes what you click on, what you save, what you test, and what you follow up on.

Once that awareness is there, the tactics become easier. Surveys turn into seed money. Small flips become capital. Digital products become experiments instead of pressure-filled launches. AI becomes a helper, not a crutch. Each small win reinforces the mantra again, creating a feedback loop between mindset and action.

Money doesn’t come from saying the words alone. It comes from what the words train you to notice and do. If you can hold the belief that money comes to you abundantly and freely because you are active, observant, and willing to act, you start playing a very different game. And that game has opportunities everywhere.

February 6, 2026
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Money Code Is Back: Building Wealth Through Systems, Side Hustles, and Smart Leverage

If you’re reading this and wondering why this site suddenly woke up after years of silence, you’re not wrong. The last time I published anything here was back in 2017. A lot has changed since then. The internet has changed. Opportunities have changed. And the idea of what it means to “code” your way to more income has changed too. So consider this a reboot, not a nostalgia post.

Originally, Money Code was about using websites, affiliate marketing, and a bit of technical know-how to unlock opportunities online. That core idea still holds. What’s different now is the scope. Today, coding is not just writing PHP or tweaking CSS. Coding is building systems. It’s automation. It’s leveraging AI as a force multiplier. It’s designing workflows that turn time, attention, and small bets into repeatable income streams.

Going forward, this site will focus heavily on side hustles and wealth building without the traditional “get a second job” mindset. The goal is not burnout. The goal is leverage. That might look like creating digital products, testing affiliate funnels, building simple tools, flipping underpriced assets, or setting up automations that quietly run in the background. Some experiments will work. Some will not. That’s part of the process.

Digital marketing will be a recurring theme here, but in a practical sense. Not guru talk. Real systems. Traffic, conversion, offers, and distribution. Whether that’s selling PDFs, running micro-sites, experimenting with marketplaces, or using AI to create and validate ideas faster than ever before, the focus will be on execution and learning. The tools are cheaper. The barriers are lower. The advantage goes to people who build and iterate.

We’ll also talk about smaller, accessible ways to generate capital. Surveys, marketplaces, flipping physical products, arbitrage, and testing platforms most people overlook. These aren’t glamorous, but they work. Small wins compound. Capital gives you optionality. Optionality lets you play bigger games later. That progression matters more than chasing the perfect idea.

Over time, this will expand into asset building beyond just online income. Stocks, long-term investing, short-term trades, and using profits from side hustles to fund wealth-building vehicles. Not as financial advice, but as a real-world exploration of how systems connect. Cash flow feeds assets. Assets create stability. Stability creates freedom to experiment further.

Money Code is not about hacks or shortcuts. It’s about understanding the rules, building systems that play within them, and letting time do the heavy lifting. If you’re interested in side hustles, AI automation, digital products, and turning effort into compounding results, you’re in the right place. This is the next chapter.

January 12, 2017
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How to Use Social Media to 10x Your Website Traffic – SEOMoz

Okay, I’ve been itching to talk about this topic. On December 16th, this was posted on SEOMoz’s blog.. and is absolutely fantastic. My posts prior to this have been leading up to this post and we’ll definitely expand on this topic moving forward.

Basically, this strategy is quite simple. For the most part it focused on Twitter, and also reinforces the concept of community. But before I talk further, let’s get to the video. I’ll catch you on the other side…

[iframe_loader width=’100%’ height=’480’  frameborder=’0’  longdesc=” marginheight=’0’  marginwidth=’0′ name=” click_words=” click_url=”  scrolling=’auto’   src=’https://fast.wistia.com/embed/iframe/vynel67pkk’ class=” ]

Okay, so the first part was about using tools generate reach and create engagement. Again, this is about community. We just don’t want millions of drones/bots as our community. We want real people. Using tools as they mentioned could be great, but again, I prefer Hootsuite, and you can really drill down the clutter. I like to do hashtag searches and create those as streams. So I’m constantly watching those tweets go by and I have opportunities to interact. I also like to make the list as she suggest. I do NOT DM though. I think it’s very low ROI in regards to engagement.

Now, her second strategy really caught my attention. Generate clicks using the 14 day experiment. I thought it was interesting to get multiple tweet headlines for your most popular posts and tweet throughout the day. Creating a spreadsheet and defining those headlines. Her resources were a spreadsheet and to use some type of tool to schedule those tweets. Again, Hootsuite can do this, so I didn’t have to go far.

Finally, the recycling of posts. Brilliant. I would constantly focus on writing great content, and present that to the community. The best content got lots of traffic, while the not so great didn’t do as well. I would work on my post frequency to continue gathering traffic and pulling in some organic search traffic. I never really occurred to me to re-post content on my social networks – like I constantly see others do.

So.. I’m a programmer, so the thought of using a spreadsheet is brutal for me. I’m a database guy. So, what I did, and I’ll be talking about this, is experiment with some of the concepts, but I like automation. But I wanted to start with some results of my effort.

With your Twitter account, you can go to https://analytics.twitter.com to see some analytics on your effects with Twitter. I need to start to here to see the effectiveness. I selected one primary Twitter account that had a healthy blog and good Twitter community.

I wrote a PHP script that would determine the best/popular posts on the site and populate a different table (the spreadsheet example) with 10 headlines (I didn’t want to do 14). I would manually create the headlines. I then wrote a PHP CLI server side script that wold talk to Twitter’s API and randomly 10 posts throughout the day, randomly picking a headline and also to be sure not to post the same post url in the same day.

I was amazed with the engagement. Of course, I was still interacting in the day with the community, retweeting and contributing in conversations, but the automated piece continued to do it’s thing. I also wrote a script that would add new popular posts based on view threshold and alert me so I can update headlines when they are inserted. I’ll probably set handling to only show recent posts? Not sure yet.

But, here is a Twitter Analytics graph from the morning of Jan 11 showing the last 91 days. As you can see, when I started the automation of best posts, my graphs spiked, and maintained.

How to Use Social Media to 10x Your Website Traffic - SEOMoz

Please note, the ‘average’ is for the 91 days. Right now, I’m running around 100 clicks / day, which is much better than what it was .. obviously. I’m also playing around with Facebook right now. I have not implemented automation, but I think I will. Facebook is a different beast. I prefer to post in the morning, but I’ve noticed if I pick only one ‘hot’ post and post it in the evening, I basically double… almost tripling my Facebook traffic to the site.

Over the next few weeks, I’ll be breaking down some of the functionality I did into more detail.

January 5, 2017
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Marketing and Traffic – Community Wins

I wanted to quickly post this today. In marketing there are a lot of easy routes, and plenty of hard routes to generate traffic to your site(s). In the early days there was simply Search Engine traffic and paid search arbitrage. So you begin to rely on basic SEO strategies (in those days it was link building) and using PPC from various search engines to drive traffic to your site assets and hopefully convert affiliate earnings or adsense clicks.

People, like myself, would spend hours and days, improving rank, building links, building link wheels and support sites to basically work the available system provided to earn maximum gains from it. I always disliked PPC, because in those days, it was the canary in the coal mine. PPC would “qualify” your ads and you could be punished or removed from programs if someone didn’t feel like your site met their standards.

Then the search algorithm changes occurred. This wiped out countless thin sites (like mine) from search index. Some sites were wiped, some sites recovered. During this phase a few years ago, I came to the conclusion that I was relying too much on things I couldn’t control.. and I hated that feeling.

Community was the key. If I was able to build a network of loyal readers and network of connections, connecting those readers to my various assets, I would add additional traffic streams. What was a low level priority, turned into a high level priority. I began focusing on the social networks. Building likes and building follows and driving traffic from those sources as a priority and then use search as a secondary mechanism.

Building a community, you get quality readers (or customers) so your rate of success increase at a lower rate of traffic. Basically, the 80/20 rule. You know you .. you get 80% percent of sales from 20% of your existing customers, etc. That can be applied in a bunch of ways. Instead of focusing energy on getting random traffic, focus energy on keeping your existing readers and focus on quality readers that will stay.

Besides the classic Social Networks – Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube, I also began to focus on mailing lists. To me, mailing list are HUGE and something that went out of favor a 10 years ago, but over the last 4 years or so, have been absolutely vital for maintaining connection with your readers and driving consistent traffic. I personally use MailChimp for all of my mailing lists. It’s free up to 2000 subscribers, and goes up from there. I pay a lot for it now, but is incredibly important to me now. I also use a secondary service called MailMunch to help capture more sign up on the site. This is very passive, and I’m always impressed with the number signups I get with very little effort.

Again, focus energy on community. Having a large community will increase the rate of success. They will share and promote your content (if you maintain quality content) and are worth their weight in gold in the long run. Community…

Let me know what you think by commenting!