Tips Tuesday – ChatGPT Ads and Products, AI Post Summaries, Video Money Tips 

Tips this week include:

• WordPress 6.8.3 security release
• Is Comet an AI browser?
• ChatGPT becomes a shopping mall
• ChatGPT will be full of ads soon
• New Yoast AI Brand Insights tool
• AIO results change with every click
• Are you using LinkedIn?
• Why to write summaries into your posts
• No more holiday craft shorts for me
• Just in time publishing on YouTube
• More homeowner product videos
• Tool reviews vs tool tips videos
• Why controversy = money
• Get reach beyond your intended niche

WordPress Tips

WordPres 6.8.3 Security Release

Last week WP rolled out a minor release of 6.8.3 with a few security updates.

This should have auto updated for you by now, but check your site to ensure that it did.

AI SEO Tips

Is Comet an AI Browser?

Last week I mentioned that I had not heard recent news about the release of AI browsers from the major players.

I didn’t mention Comet, which is the AI browser from Perplexity.

The reason I didn’t mention it is because I don’t consider it a real browser.

Even Perplexity promotes it as an AI Assistant. And it was not free.

Well, guess what?

On Oct 2 Perplexity released Comet to everyone for free. But I believe this is for a limited time.

Be aware that this thing is more like the paid version of ChatGPT than it’s like Chrome or Brave.

I like Perplexity best for research way more than ChatGPT, and even more than Google, depending on the topic.

But, I really don’t want an AI Assistant or AI Agent of any kind doing things for me at this point. And that’s really what Comet is all about.

ChatGPT Becomes a Shopping Mall

OpenAI announced that Chatgpt has a new Agentic Commerce protocol with Stripe and that they are partnering with Etsy and Shopify for direct purchases.

We knew that sponsored product placement ads had to come to AI at some point. Well, here we go!!

ChatGPT Will Be Full of Ads Soon

OpenAI is now hiring folks to help them gear up to run ads.

They kind of have to do it, at least on the free version.

The fact is, running a platform like this, or even regular Search, is insanely expensive.

A full 80% of Google’s revenue is from paid ads, especially on Search.

And while that business model has been holding them back compared to the huge strides all other AI platforms have made, Google has not gone broke adding AI to its Search.

Many financial analysts are beginning to talk about the AI bubble popping at some point.

OpenAI has a $500 billion valuation, but they have yet to turn a profit all these years. And with the expense of the new data centers they want to build, including the nuclear power they will need, I don’t see them making a profit without selling their soul in the form of products, ads, and sponsored placements.

Here’s the other thing. 

ChatGPT gave product info and reviews based on all the info they collected across the web.

I wonder if it will now just be pushing the products that you can purchase directly on ChatGPT instead.

We’ll see.

New Yoast AI Brand Insights Tool

Yoast just announced the beta of a new tool in their Yoast SEO AI+ package.

It’s called AI Brand Insights.

It’s not a plugin. It’s a service that monitors your brand mentions across AI platforms.

I think this tool is aimed at small businesses more than bloggers.

But, if you have a product that is specific to your brand, then this might be of interest to you.

For now, keep an eye on your GA4 traffic sources to see how many clicks you’re getting from AI platforms, as well as your Cloudflare metrics to see how many AI crawlers you’re getting.

AIO Results Change with Every Click

In last week’s Tips Tuesday I shared a link to an AIO from a search I did on “blogaid ai browser wars”.

I appreciate everyone who let me know that it worked. But it seems that it showed a different summary for each person, even for each click from the same person. 

I had the same experience when I clicked on it the next day. And the mobile version was entirely different from anything I saw on desktop.

So, there is no way to recover the exact same AIO you saw the first time you searched. And that’s one of the huge differences between searching on Google and searching on an AI platform like ChatGPT, or even in Google Gemini, as they can hold history on their replies to you.

Are You Using LinkedIn?

I haven’t spent time on LinkedIn for years now.

But, I do post a summary every week of what’s in Tips Tuesday.

And, those links showed up in the AIO Results Summary that I linked to last week.

The fact is, AI crawlers love bullet point snippets like that where they can grab a bunch of info quickly.

If you’re in the DIY SEO Everywhere course, let me know if you’d be interested in a mastermind session to go over your LinkedIn settings and cover things to post there.

Why to Write Summaries Into Your Posts

Don’t read this post on Yoast, just scan it.

Pay attention to the formatting.

At the top they have a section for a summary called Key Takeaways.

Every heading serves as a section title that could be pulled, intact, and delivered as an AI summary.

Most of the sections have bullet points and examples. These can also be pulled as an AI summary.

In the DIY SEO Everywhere course, we did a workshop early in the year on how to get one of the AI platforms to summarize one of your posts to see if it could understand your main points and intent.

If you’re not already writing in a way that is easy for AI to pick up sections and show them in summaries, then let this Yoast post be your formatting guide on how to do it.

And this is good for regular SEO now too.

Video Monetization Tips

I’d like to share what’s making me money with videos, and how I’m adapting to make even more. I hope it encourages you to try different things with your content creation too.

No More Holiday Craft Shorts for Me

I learned several lessons with the Halloween videos I released last month.

You may recall that I patterned my long craft videos to mimic what I did with the long jigsaw videos I made and then edited into Shorts segments.

With the jigsaw videos, the Shorts got a lot of reach and many folks clicked over to the long-form videos for more.

No such thing happened with the Halloween Shorts. They are getting plenty of play, but few clicks.

Woodworkers and crafters just need to see the idea and they can take it from there. That’s why quick, vertical crafting videos do so well on TikTok and IG Reels. No clicks needed.

On YouTube, I made all of $0.19 from those Halloween Shorts and just a few dollars from the long-form vids in September, but they are just now picking up steam for October. 

And I have made zero Amazon affiliate sales, and don’t expect any. 

However, I have made a few Gumroad sales from my PDF of the line drawings.

Last week I finished recording and editing my Christmas wood craft videos. 

There will not be any long-form videos and no Shorts. 

Instead, I made individual videos for each piece of the Christmas village, reindeer faces, and snowflake blocks. They are 3 minutes or less. But they are in landscape, not vertical, so they will not be auto placed into Shorts.

While I may not get quite as much short-term reach when they first publish, like I would with Shorts, I will make more money overall. And that is the point of doing them.

I also made another PDF for all of the line drawings and we’ll see how it does. I think the snowflake patterns may be the big hit with it.

FYI, I’ve had a lot of views on Meta platforms, but zero clicks from these craft videos. I don’t think it’s worth the time for me to reformat them for vertical. I’ll post as is.

Just In Time Publishing on YouTube

While Pinterest may want holiday things in August, YouTube does not.

My Halloween videos didn’t start getting real play until late September.

So, I’m going to hold off on publishing my Xmas videos until at least the end of October, and maybe not until the first of November.

Because there are so many individual videos this time, I’ll be posting every couple of days or so.

And I’ll have to schedule blog posts, Pinterest, and Meta accordingly too. That’s a bigger chore, but for this year, I believe YouTube is my best bet for making money. The rest will come into play for next year.

FYI, I’ve been sharing screenshots of my actual metrics in the DIY SEO Everywhere course Facebook group.

More Homeowner Product Videos

Even though it was late in the summer season to release videos on a mower, hose reel, and hose, they are all still doing pretty well on YouTube for me.

This past week I released a very seasonal video review on a nut gatherer and it’s already getting views. (I have lots of huge black walnut trees around me, so I NEEDED this tool.)

It will be interesting to see my next Amazon report and whether these unboxing, assembly, and review videos make any sales there too.

Tool Reviews vs Tool Tips Videos

Last week I looked into my metrics to see what has performed well for me all year, as well metrics of competitors.

As far as tools go, teaching setup on specific products did far better than generic tool reviews.

Leaning into specific products has been the key with the Homeowner Tips videos I’ve been making too.

So, I won’t be doing generic tool reviews for holiday sales.

Instead, I’m going to lean hard into tool tips and tricks. 

Titles like “The 5 Biggest Circular Saw Mistakes” or “Did You Know Your Drill Could Do This?” get clicks, and LOTS of them.

Controversy = Money

I’m also going to look into doing more videos where I know there is controversy and differences of opinion. 

The video that is making me the most money is just that, although I didn’t intentionally mean for it to be controversial.

The fact is, there are 14 ways to do anything. And if you present one of them, with authority, folks can’t resist telling you how you did it wrong.

So, I’m going to try an experiment of showing how to do something the way my dad taught me, and ask folks how they do it. I’m hoping that will bring just as much engagement, but without the attitude. They’ll be arguing with my dad’s advice, not mine, and I bet that changes the tone of some of the comments. 

But, you better believe that I’m going to have a title that challenges folks, like “Are You Doing this Right?” or such.

I’ll let you know how it goes.

Get Reach Beyond Your Intended Niche

Earlier this year I released a video on how to mount a pullout tray for a music keyboard.

I did in-depth research before I made that video and found my angle. 

Most of the folks who demonstrated it were not woodworkers. I am. And I was able to give tips to do it right the first time, as most of the other folks had to mount it at least twice.

Plus, they didn’t show everything. I did.

I knew this post had a very niche audience and that views would be a slow burn.

But, once the comments started coming in, YouTube expanded the audience.

I just received a comment from a jewelry maker who will be using this tray for handy storage.

My metrics show me that the focus keywords for YouTube had been keyboard tray and now they have switched to focusing on the more generic pullout tray.

Remember that controversial post that I mentioned which is making me the most money? It was up for 4 years before it took off. And YouTube is showing it to all kinds of audiences now that are well beyond woodworkers.

So, do your SEO well, and let the platform find every audience for every version of your keywords, including those beyond your intended niche.