Fishbone Talk · 21 posts
Opinions and post-mortems.
What broke, what we learned, and what we would tell a client. Written when there is something to say, which is why the count is small and honest.
how to sell an ebook with woocommerce (or give one away)
Selling an ebook on WooCommerce and giving one away as a free guide are two different jobs. Here are the WooCommerce download settings that protect a paid ebook, and how to hand out a free one without leaking the file URL.
Read it →how to set cost of goods on woocommerce variable products
A variable product doesn't have one cost. It has one per size. Here is how to set cost of goods per variation in WooCommerce, which variations actually need their own number, and the traps that make big sizes look more profitable than they are.
Read →how-to · · 9 minhow to add custom php code to wordpress without breaking your site
Where custom PHP belongs in WordPress: a site plugin, a child theme, mu-plugins or a snippets plugin. Which to use, the paste mistakes, and how to undo one.
Read →how-to · · 8 minhow to add a table of contents to wordpress posts
Add a table of contents to WordPress posts: by hand with heading anchors, or automatically with a small plugin that links every H2 and H3. Full code inside.
Read →opinion · · 6 minthe future of qr codes: from links to buttons
Today a QR code points to a web page. With AI glasses that read what you look at, it starts acting like a button. Here's how to get your codes ready.
Read →how-to · · 10 minhow to send woocommerce orders to zapier (or any webhook)
Send WooCommerce orders to Zapier, Make, n8n or your own endpoint. The built-in webhook in five minutes, its four traps, and a small plugin that sends each paid order once.
Read →how-to · · 8 minwoocommerce new vs returning customers: who actually made the month
Split WooCommerce orders into new, returning and guest customers: how the built-in report decides, where it surprises you, and a read-only script.
Read →how-to · · 9 minhow to add a name your price field in woocommerce
Let customers choose what they pay for a WooCommerce product, with a minimum you set and the amount carried to the order. Hooks only, no plugin.
Read →how-to · · 8 minhow to a/b test a spin-to-win wheel on woocommerce
A spin-to-win wheel is a discount in a costume. Work out what a spin costs, test it against a plain popup fairly, and count it in WooCommerce.
Read →how-to · · 8 minhow to set up woocommerce quantity discounts (bulk pricing tiers)
Buy 5, save 5%. Buy 10, save 10%. Add quantity discount tiers to WooCommerce with a few hooks, show them on the product page, and check they still make money.
Read →opinion · · 5 minbuild a free tool instead of another ad
An ad works while you pay for it. A small free tool that solves a real problem keeps bringing people in for years. Why useful beats loud, what makes a good free tool, and when it's the wrong call.
Read →opinion · · 6 mingive away the whole fix. charge for what comes after
Most free tiers are crippled on purpose, built to annoy you into paying. That's a trap for you and for them. Free should completely solve one problem, and you charge when someone outgrows it. Here's why that sells better, and where it doesn't work.
Read →opinion · · 5 minnobody cares about your brand. they care about their tuesday
Most marketing talks about the company: our mission, our team, our values. Customers don't buy that. They buy the moment where their problem goes away. Here's how to build every piece of marketing around one real moment in your customer's day.
Read →opinion · · 9 min"hard work pays off" is a lie. here's what actually pays
Hard work pays off for whoever owns what the work builds. If that isn't you, it's paying someone else. Smart work is deciding what the effort should build and who keeps it, and the payoff comes from ownership.
Read →opinion · · 5 minthe most persuasive line on your sales page is what you don't do
Every sales page claims everything, so readers believe none of it. Saying plainly what your product doesn't do is the fastest way to be believed about what it does. Why honest limits sell, and how to write them without scaring anyone off.
Read →field notes · · 5 minyou don't need more content. you need to ship what you already made
Making more is the hard-work lie of marketing. Most businesses have a pile of finished work that never reached a customer: drafts, approved posts, half-launched pages. Shipping that pile beats making a new one. Here's how to spot it and clear it.
Read →opinion · · 6 minyour followers aren't yours. stop renting your audience
A follower count is a number a platform lets you look at. It can shrink overnight because of a rule you never voted on. The marketing that actually stacks up is the stuff you own: your site, your search traffic, your email list. Use social for reach and own where people end up.
Read →how-to · · 9 minhow to add a custom input field to a woocommerce product page
Add a text field to a WooCommerce product page (engraving, a gift message) that is checked, shown in the cart and saved on the order. Five hooks, no plugin.
Read →how-to · · 7 minhow to work out profit per order in woocommerce (and the four costs your report is probably missing)
WooCommerce shows what an order took in, not what it made. Here is the per-order profit formula, a worked example, the four costs most reports leave out, and how to set your store up so the number is honest.
Read →field notes · · 9 minyour prerender says it worked. here's how to tell if it actually did
How to check if a page was really prerendered: why a 200 and a byte count both lie, and a free check you can run on any site, with or without a terminal.
Read →opinion · · 6 minstop screaming "ai" at your customers
Leading every ad and pitch with your tech stack makes the tech the product instead of the customer's outcome. We watched it happen with blockchain. It's happening again with AI. Here's how to talk about your tech without repelling the people you're trying to sell to.
Read →Got a story like ours?
If something in your stack broke in an interesting way, we would like to hear it — and maybe fix it.
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