Hello Happy Site Owners and Webmasters!
Tips this week include:
- The Super Summer Sales Event only has a few days left to get big discounts
- What I did over the July 4th weekend that got me unstuck and moving forward again
- A new Google integration that may show up in our favorite SEO plugin
- An op-ed on the death of search traffic from Google and what to focus on instead
- Another article and why search traffic may not be dead after all
- What you need to know about the Chrome Ad Filter going global today
- Why I signed up for a new Video Marketing Summit in August that is on sale through today
- A follow up on the massive cPanel price increase and what it means for our hosting
- More hosting partnerships are in the works and the trend this is setting
- Why I’m so silly happy at NameHero hosting these days and the special things they and other plugin devs do to help us all have better sites
- An update on the rare, but massive Cloudflare outage last week and what I’m looking for in the changes
Listen to the Podcast
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Join me Live to Discuss Tips Tuesday
I hope you’ll join for tonight’s livestream at 9pm ET / 6pm PT on the BlogAid Facebook Page. It’s open Q&A time for what caught your attention in this week’s tips or whatever you’d like to discuss about your site success. And, I always have breaking news for the day too. So come join us live for the party.
Replay
BlogAid Happenings
I hope all of my U.S. buddies had a nice holiday weekend.
Super Summer Sales Event – Last Week to Get Savings
Thanks to everyone who jumped on this Super Summer Sales Event!!!
And welcome to all new folks in classes and/or Facebook groups for:
- Gutenberg Ninja
- DIY SEO
- Webmaster Training for Designers
And welcome to all the folks who requested a site audit too as well as secure site setup services!!
I’m booking into August for those, so if you want any site service, now is the time to request it.
You don’t have to start your project before the sale ends, but you do have to get the request in right away and I’ll book it in the order received.
There’s only a few days left on the sale, so don’t miss it!
Getting My Art Room Ready
Zak had major dental surgery on July 3rd, which was timely, as he was on pain meds through all the fireworks around here.
We spent July 4th in the basement with some good tunes cranked up, so he couldn’t hear all the booms, while I got my art room down there in shape.
It’s right beside my workshop and had become a catch-all room since the move here.
It was so nice to hang most of my carvings up where I could see them again.
And I’ve almost got it squared away so I can be in there creating art again too.
You can see the pics on the Heartwood Art Facebook page.
Mitre Saw Station Build Plans Posted
I’m thrilled beyond words to get the final post for the Mitre Saw Station project published!!!
It has taken me six months to get to this place with my editorial calendar for the Heartwood Art site.
And that’s more than twice as long as I was hoping.
I had to just give up on finding a tutor for the CAD program to make the build plans. And I think the alternative I came up with for this post is fine for showing the dimensions and such.
Go have a look and see what you think!!
This is the only post that doesn’t have a dedicated video in it, but I did make a promo video for it. You can see it over on Instagram @HeartwoodArtCreations
I think I’m going to settle on a 600×600 square format for these, as that did well on IG, and will likely do well on Pinterest too.
I’ll return to landscape at 1280×720 for YouTube.
The SEO on this series is already gaining traction, and that includes a wee bit of YouTube video SEO too.
And I’m positive my Pinterest traffic will pick up now that I have the final build plan post done too.
Free to Move Forward Again
I have hit so many boulders in my path with turning this hobby site into a money-maker.
But, that CAD program thing was the last one and I found a way around it for now so I can keep moving.
Next, I’ll be back in the shop building my workbench. And it will be a spinoff of this mitre saw station.
I was enjoying the heck out of sharing the mitre saw station build as I went on Instagram and I am so looking forward to doing that again.
I’ve been missing out on a LOT of fun. And I miss seeing y’all regularly there too.
In case you missed the last post in my hobby to money-making site series –
READ: Blowing Up Boulders in My Path to Site Success because I have to tell you, it feels so good to be on the other side of those things and on my way again!!!
Don’t let anything stand in the way of your dreams. Find a way to keep moving forward.
That’s all the news from around here. Let’s jump into this week’s tips.
And tips this week include a LOT of follow up on breaking news from last week.
SEO Tips
New Google Integrations
Google has just released a new Site Kit on GitHub for developers to preview.
Here’s a short list of the features:
- Seamless site verification with Search Console.
- Provisioning and configuration of Analytics, AdSense, Tag Manager and Optimize.
- Simple aggregate and per-page reporting from Search Console, Analytics, and AdSense, to help you understand the full acquisition and monetization funnel.
- Continuous site performance auditing and monitoring with PageSpeed Insights.
- Insights we derive from across the products you’ve connected and surface on your dashboard, to help you make sense of the stats.
As I mentioned to my DIY SEO course members earlier this week in our Facebook group, I expect we’ll see plugins created from this way down the road.
But I expect to see parts of it integrated into Yoast SEO sooner than that.
I’ll be keeping my DIY SEO peeps informed as it happens. And that’s where we’ll be discussing best uses for it, if any too.
THIS is why folks stay in that course year after year, because SEO stuff changes all the time and you need to stay informed and on top of it.
And, if you are a member, be sure to stay active with our Facebook group, as that’s where I release the news stories first. You’ll find a link to the group at the top of your course dashboard.
The Death of Google Search Traffic and What It Means for Marketers
Michael Stelzner, the founder of Social Media Examiner, has started an op-ed series. And his first post reveals his findings from analyzing his Google Analytics and Search Console data.
His data shows that there is a marked decline in traffic from organic search placement on Google.
Pro SEO folks have been screaming about this for over a year as they watch snippets, refined search query guesses, and ads take over page 1 of Google.
It’s a lot harder than it used to be to get their clients organically ranked.
At the end of his post, he mentions that they are going to now focus on videos for YouTube because they do show at the top of SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages).
I like Mike, and his data holds true for his niche.
It does not hold true for all niches.
So, beware of following advice from anyone, even a guru, that may not work for your content marketing goals.
Read a variety of data collecting gurus, including those in your own niche, and make a plan for yourself based on your own data results as to what actually works for you.
And I believe when you do read what others are saying, you will also find them advising that you get in on video, just like what I’ve been telling you.
Don’t wait for me to have a course on it.
There are plenty already out there.
Find folks in your niche who are killing it with video and learn their tips.
The point is, get started – today.
Traffic Tips
How to Generate Traffic on a New WordPress Site
To offset a little of what Mike said in his op-ed about traffic from Google being dead, this post from Torque advises that you start with SEO for generating traffic to a new site.
That’s exactly what I’m doing with Heartwood Art.
And many folks in my DIY SEO course have seen major increases in their search traffic that sure helps offset the rollercoaster ride of having all your traffic come from Pinterest!!
So, don’t count out free traffic from Google just yet!
The post goes on to give tips for all leading social media platforms except Instagram, and I think that is getting too big to ignore now.
Chrome Ad Filtering Goes Global July 9
If you run ads on your site, you most definitely want to read this post from Mediavine on the ad blockers in Chrome.
Mediavine is, by a LONG shot, on the leading edge of ad agencies when it comes to compliance with all internet related standards.
And if you are on their network, you have nothing to fear with this Chrome update.
But go read the post anyway so you know why.
Video Tips
Video Marketing Summit
I noticed that Mike Stelzner followed up his SEO op-ed with the launch of a new Video Marketing Summit that’s happening in August.
It’s on sale for $97 through July 9, so jump on this immediately, as the regular price is $300.
I’m sure I won’t be able to attend many of the sessions live, so I was delighted to see that the replays will be posted later the same day.
Guys, I’m investing time and money into learning about better video marketing. I hope sharing my experimentation and resources like this summit encourages you to do the same. Hint, hint.
Hosting Tips
Follow Up on cPanel Pricing Changes
There has been worldwide blow back on cPanel’s announcement last week about a major price increase coming in September.
The news hit too late to make it into last week’s Tips Tuesday podcast, but we did discuss in the live stream later that evening. You can see last week’s post for the replay.
Well, cPanel heard that outcry and responded with another post that helps a bit with that price increase. But, I don’t know that it will be enough. It may just give hosts more time to find an alternative control panel.
I’m keeping close tabs on this because it will likely mean a significant increase in hosting prices for us if a host chooses to remain with cPanel.
And it may mean a significant decrease in host-side control of our sites if they jump to an alternative control panel.
I don’t see that anybody is thinking about the enormous impact this is going to have on all tutorial makers. Hosts may have to make significant updates to their Knowledge Base articles.
And folks like me, as well as all 3rd party apps and software devs, will be hard pressed to make control panel related tutorials that work at most hosts if they are all over the place in what they use for a control panel.
It will also have a significant impact on my webmasters who maintain sites for their clients too.
So, this is not a simple trickle-down effect.
It’s more like a potential business-killing mudslide.
I’ll keep you posted on how this plays out through the fall.
If you hear from your host that they are making changes, please do let me know and we’ll start a running list of hosts that are keeping or dumping cPanel.
More Hosting Partnerships
You may recall the big news I reported a week or two ago about WPEngine acquiring Flywheel, and their other big acquisitions a few months prior of Genesis and such.
Well, they are not the only host making strategic alliances.
Instead of buying up stuff, LiquidWeb Hosting has chosen to partner with WPMerge and AffiliateWP to offer those services as a bundle to their hosting clients.
This, coupled with just how technical it is becoming to DIY site ownership tells me that more folks are moving toward fully managed hosting where they get a lot of the security and performance taken care of for them, plus lots of other perks in apps and themes and services they don’t have to buy extra.
True managed hosting has a high ticket price. But, when you add up the costs of DIY site ownership, it comes out about the same, if not a little cheaper.
There are restrictions with true managed hosting, though. And that might not work for many site owners, especially the hard ceilings on traffic as you grow.
There are also a LOT of hosts calling themselves managed now, but it’s not true managed hosting.
READ: SiteGround Morphing into Pseudo Managed Hosting for more on this deception. And they are certainly not the only ones.
Happy at NameHero
This past week I started running new speed tests on the two new speed features at Cloudflare.
I’ve been sharing the results with my Webmaster Training members.
Boy, do you ever have to watch it on the combo settings between those and local caching plugins like WP Fastest Cache!!
And, I’ve been wanting to test the Litespeed Caching plugin too, as it had some radical updates about 6 months ago.
Well, wouldn’t you know it, Ryan, who is the CEO at NameHero, just happened to do a YouTube video and post on how to enable Object Caching which is primarily what the LS Caching plugin helps you do.
Since its main focus is to cut down on calls to the database, I asked support about anything I need to watch for in coordinating it with Cloudflare, and how their EDGE caching worked with it.
Tier 3 support replied in about 5 minutes and we’ve had the most wonderful little chat about it.
And, I shared that I’ll be running some of these tests on a client’s site soon. And they even offered to clone it for me to do the testing on a non-production site.
How cool is that?!?
I can’t tell you how good it feels to once again be treated as an asset instead of a pain in the ass by a vendor, and to not only get the right answer the first time, but to get extra info, and a keen interest in my results.
These tests take a LOT of non-billable hours to do. And the results give me and my webmasters the tested data to be able to properly advise our clients to help them speed up their sites.
That data also helps plugin devs make their plugins faster and better for us too, as I freely share my test results with those who help sponsor the tests by giving me free premium versions to use on my test sites.
I want to thank WP Fastest Cache and Social Pug in particular because we have all benefited from the changes they made quickly after receiving my test results.
And I’ve already helped NameHero find a bug in the most recent cPanel update with how the servers were connecting to Cloudflare.
It is a true pleasure to work with professionals who partner with me to help benefit all of us.
So, I do hope you will return the favor and support these devs by purchasing their plugins and hosting. They are working with us and making my life easier in doing what I do for you too.
If you’re ready to step up to better hosting that has fair pricing, I hope you’ll visit the Resources page and use my affiliate link for NameHero.
And remember, my migration services are on sale right now too!
Speed Tips
Update on Massive Cloudflare Outage Last Week
A big chunk of the internet was down for about 20 minutes last week due to a rare Cloudflare outage.
Again, this happened too late to make it into the Tips Tuesday podcast last week, but I did a livestream during the incident and talked about it in the live show that evening too.
Just one more reason to ensure you are following the BlogAid Facebook page and come to the shows to see the breaking news.
Be sure you Follow, not just Like, and turn on Notifications so you have the best chance of seeing these critically important posts, especially the live streams.
Cloudflare rolled out new WAF (Web Application Firewall) changes that resulted in CPU exhaustion. They killed the changes, got things running again, found the offending code, fixed it, and rolled the changes back out.
I’m going to be poking around in the WAF to see what they changed, as some of those things are the reason we’ve had to whitelist our IP addresses to get certain plugins to work with the WP API.
I’ll keep you posted on what I find, if anything.
Wrap Up
That’s a wrap for this week’s Tips Tuesday.
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