Geek on Heels

02/04/2026

Dortmund, April 7. For my German speaking friends! I’ll be at the WordPress Meetup where I’ll rant about digital accessibility for 10 to 15 minutes, and the rest of the meetup you all get to pick my brain!

Das neue WordPress Meetup Dortmund in 2026. Wir ändern ein wenig unser Konzept und werden ab 2026 stärker das Netzwerken in den Fokus Rücken. Das wichtigste zuerst: Wir t

08/01/2026

Are you in doubt about applying as a speaker for WordCamp Europe? Have a read!

https://www.rfr.bz/f5ff32a

19/12/2025

Most "partnerships" are just lazy affiliate schemes in a trench coat. My favorite takeaway from this podcast episode is to stop treating partnerships as passive income streams and start vetting for operational pace, because a partner who moves slower than you is just a dead weight on your bottom line.

Treating other businesses as nothing more than a passive lead funnel is costing you long-term stability and actual revenue depth.

Do you recognize this? You shake hands at a conference and agree to partner up and then absolutely nothing happens. You swap logos on a partner directory and call it a day.

Some may think that's strategy, but it's just digital clutter. Real results come when you align your pacing and your product value to actually solve a problem for the client. It is about knowing your partner's product well enough to demo it yourself because you actually believe in it. |

If you don't know how to do that, then you don't know the difference between a link swap and a business moat.

I listened to this fantastic conversation on Open Channels FM today, where Jonathan Wold hosted Sandra Kurze from GREYD. and Timothy Monner from BigScoots. It was a breath of fresh air because they skipped the corporate bla bla bla and got straight to the point.

They discussed why alignment in company culture and speed is critical. If one of you is sprinting and the other is crawling you are going to have friction.

Sandra made a brilliant point about proactivity. If a partner waits for you to do all the work that is a massive red flag. Tim backed this up by explaining how they integrate at the engineering level to create value that actually keeps clients around. They aren't just selling to each other. They are building solutions together.

This conversation is a reminder that partnerships are work. They are just like personal relationships. If you stop investing time and effort into them, they will wither away. But if you do it right you create a sticky ecosystem that competitors cannot easily copy.

You need to listen to this episode if you want to move beyond the logo swap and start building alliances that actually print money.

You can find the link to the podcast in the comments!

07/12/2025

Yuck, that revenue-torching nonsense! Talking to agencies and SEO specialists, I still hear the same warning whispered like a campfire horror story: “Don’t use visually hidden text, Google will penalize you.”

This myth is costing businesses online conversions. And the irony is so painful. The very techniques that make content clearer for real users are the ones people are afraid to implement because of a misunderstanding about (or simply not reading) Google’s guidelines.

Google penalizes manipulation, not accessibility. Yet this myth has grown so persistent that teams remove essential labels, skip important context, and ship experiences that actively hurt users and performance.

So I finally wrote the piece that needed to be written.
If you work in SEO, content, UX, CRO, or development, you should read this.

Link in the first comment.

PS I think I will have a field day in the comments here with folks who only read the first paragraph of this post and not the rest, nor the article. 😂

04/12/2025

Baust du Webseiten mit WordPress? Kommt heute (4. Dezember) um 19:00 zum WordPress Meetup in Zürich wenn ihr mehr lernen wollt über Barrierefreiheit und wie sich das auch positiv auf SEO, Clickrate und Conversions auswirkt.

Mehr Informationen und Anmeldung: https://www.meetup.com/wordpress-zurich/events/312076943

Und ein großes Dankeschön an alle Sponsoren, die das Meetup ermöglichen: Liip (nich auf FB?) Haptiq, WooCommerce, Kinsta, WordPress.com, hosting.com und Jetpack for WordPress
Vielen Dank!

Und natürlich auch ein großes Dankeschön an den Organisatoren!

02/12/2025

For my Swiss German audience! Kommt am 4. Dezember um 19:00 zum WordPress Meetup in Zürich wenn ihr mehr lernen wollt über Barrierefreiheit und wie sich das auch positiv auf SEO auswirkt. Mehr Informationen und anmelden: https://meetup.com/wordpress-zurich/events/312076943/?eventOrigin=group_upcoming_events

Und ein großes Dankeschön an alle Sponsoren, die das Meetup ermöglichen: Liip (nich auf FB?) Haptiq, WooCommerce, Kinsta, WordPress.com, hosting.com und Jetpack for WordPress

Vielen Dank!

02/12/2025

WordPress is introducing a non-backward-compatible change in the processing of JavaScript modules. (I added an explanation why that change is a good thing in the comments).

Check your mails for plugin vendor updates! They’ve known about this for a while now. For some it means you have to update them before you update to WordPress 6.9.

I know of Borlabs and WPML but there may be more.

Borlabs wrote: To ensure that your website continues to function properly, you must update Borlabs Cookie to version 3.3.20 before updating to WordPress 6.9.
Older Borlabs cookie versions from the 3.x series are not compatible with WordPress 6.9.

From WPML on their website: WordPress 6.9 includes a change that breaks backward compatibility with previous versions of WPML. We just released WPML 4.8.6 so you can update and be fully prepared. (They released this yesterday).

And as usual: always test updates on a staging site first!

01/11/2025

😁

01/11/2025

Another morning walk, in Lüttelforst this time (Germany). 5.8 kilometers. Autumn is just so beautiful. The colors, the smell. We did have a bit of rain, but it didn't bother us.

21/08/2025

This was a great and insightful conversation!

Greyd Conversations #10 is live: Accessibility – Good for Users, Great for Business

Sandra Kurze sits down with Anne-Mieke Bovelett (WP agency consultant & accessibility mentor at Geek on Heels and Jennifer X Z. (Director Accessibility Program & Innovation, at RaLytics) and discusses how accessibility done right drives business success and what the European Accessibility Act really means for agencies and website owners.

Key takeaways:
✅ Accessible websites convert better, reduce bounce rates, and build long-term customer trust.
✅ Accessibility is no longer optional, non-compliance can mean legal risks and serious fines.
✅ The European Accessibility Act reshapes how agencies must work with EU clients starting June 2025.
✅ Quick fixes like overlay plugins often cost you users and revenue instead of solving the problem.
✅ Real accessibility comes from solid tools, workflows, and user testing.
✅ Progress matters more than perfection, agencies, and site owners that improve step by step gain a competitive edge.

Watch the episode and get practical strategies and tools to make accessibility part of your workflows: https://hubs.ly/Q03D44hR0

02/05/2025

An event I wished I could have attended. Like CloudFest, this too is a business focused event for decision makers in . The folks from GREYD were there, at .

And I heard that Raquel Manriquez and her team did a great job at putting this event together!

We went to expecting insights, and came back changed. Real conversations, raw stories, and lasting connections. This wasn’t just an event, it was a turning point. https://hubs.ly/Q03kPtSK0