Tips Tuesday – Core Web Vitals, 2023 Writing Trends, Video Ranking
Hello Happy Site Owners and Webmasters!
Tips this week include:
- Brainstorm more ROI
- Countdown to GA4
- Core Web Vitals workshop this week
- Why Accessibility compliance and UX is more important than speed now
- Not upgrading to WP 6.2 yet and why
- SMTP plugin authentication dropping
- 7 content writing trends for 2023
- Video reviews are best option for ranking
- Brand deals are even better for making money
- Why video must be main content on page to rank
- Increased character limit on social platforms
- Project Magi brings AI and ads to Google Search
- AI Discover Hub news you may have missed
BlogAid Happenings
I’m back from my mini spring break. Man, does that time off ever fly by fast!!
The weather was perfect and I enjoyed some nice time outside, away from the desk.
But, it’s time to get back in the groove and busy making Q2 the best ever.
Brainstorm More ROI
This past week we finished all of the site audit fixes for a new client and her site is now super fast and clean.
She’s getting super serious about taking her online business to the next level.
Blogging is a great way to get your online presence established.
But let’s face the truth that most niches are totally saturated now.
You need more than blogging to break through.
And relying on just ads for income is no longer the way to go.
You do a lot of work to create the content and then tons more work to get the eyeballs so you can hopefully get enough of them to see the ads so you can get paid.
How about getting paid directly for your expertise instead?
How about ensuring that you get paid up front for creating the content?
And that’s exactly what my new client wants to talk about in our upcoming consult.
We’ll be brainstorming all the ways she can make money beyond running ads so she can make them a side income or get rid of them altogether.
My clients come away from these sessions with a pad full of notes and new ideas.
Plus they have a plan to make them happen and they can get started on them immediately.
Ready to increase your ROI?
Contact me for a live chat and let’s get you going.
BlogAid Course Happenings
Countdown to GA4
74 days and counting until Universal Analytics no longer tracks hits to your site.
Now is the time to jump into the Ultimate GA4 Course for Bloggers and get your new analytics setup.
For just a little while longer you’ll be able to compare your GA4 to your UA and see just how much they don’t match up in the new Standard Reports.
You’ll want to create a few custom Explore Reports so you can see what you’re used to seeing in UA.
They’re easy to do and the course takes you step-by-step through everything.
Core Web Vitals Workshop this Week
This week in the DIY SEO course workshop we’ll be discussing the changes to Core Web Vitals and why speed is not a direct ranking factor, but can still drop your rankings under certain conditions.
We’ll also discuss why looking at CWV in Google Search Console is a waste of time, and what throws off those metrics.
Accesibilities Compliance is a Big SEO Thing Now
In next week’s DIY SEO workshop we’ll be covering ADA and Accesibilities compliance.
Google is looking at this hard as part of your UX (User Experience) score.
In fact, UX is becoming more of a ranking factor than speed now that most all sites meet the minimum speed threshold for mobile.
If you are one of my site audit clients, your site exceeds that minimum by a wide margin.
It’s always a good time to get into the DIY SEO course.
Here’s a podcast that also explains why accessibility is such a big deal now.
That’s all the happenings around here. Let’s jump into this week’s tips and news.
WordPress Tips
Not Upgrading to WP 6.2 Yet
One of the issues I’ve seen reported is that titles disappear on the editor side of the site. But they display fine on the front side.
I think this is limited to some Kadence themes, but it may be more widespread.
We’re looking into it and I’ll keep you posted.
BlogAid News subscribers will get my special update instructions when I feel it is safe for us to upgrade,
Email Tips
SMTP Plugin Authentication Dropping
If you’re using Google Workspace for your domain-related email address and using any type of SMTP plugin, you might want to check to see if it is still sending emails from your site for things like your contact form and comment notification.
It appears that Workspace is deauthorizing the connection to the SMTP plugins intermittently.
Last year I discovered that my member sites were not sending out subscription reminders and I was not getting contact form messages on BlogAid.
We reauthorized the SMTP plugin and that seemed to fix it, until it lost that connection again a few months later. And after the 3rd time it did it, we switched to a different plugin.
The new plugin has been running for about 3 months and guess what? The connection got dropped to Workspace on it too.
After chatting with my webmasters, I discovered they are seeing the same issue on yet a 3rd SMTP plugin.
So, it looks like Google Workspace, or something with the setup, is the issue.
We’ll be diving into it and I’ll keep you posted to see what we find.
Content Creation Tips
7 Content Writing Trends for 2023
Want to know what types of content are getting the most eyeballs this year?
The nice folks at Search Engine Journal have listed the top 7 trends emerging this year.
It’s definitely worth reading the whole article, but here they are in brief:
- AI generated content – it just makes some content creation processes faster.
- Video shorts are dominant – yep, and I’m definitely seeing an uptick in eyeballs since I went all in on making short-form video content.
- Influencer marketing – this is the new creator economy and you most definitely want to shoot for brand deals and/or product reviews.
- Podcasting remains strong – yes, but it can be hard to monetize.
- High demand for personal experience – AI content is a summary, as are most product review sites. People want to hear from other people who have actually been there and done that.
- Data-driven content – the money is in the metrics, which is why feedback from GA4 and GSC are so important.
- Shoppable content – the link to purchase is embedded in the content or video – and affiliate marketers can attest to how well this works.
Video Tips
Video Reviews are Best Option
Your best bet for maxing out on these 7 trends is to do video product reviews.
Google is desperate for them and most definitely wants to feature real folks using real products and telling others what they think of it.
Put that video on YouTube, let AI make you a transcript, and then format the whole thing for a blog post that has great SEO.
And if you like the product, put your affiliate link on the post and on YouTube.
FYI, you will need to verify your YouTube channel with your affiliate vendor, like Amazon. It’s as easy to do as verifying your site.
Brand Deals are Even Better
Once you get an audience that trusts you, brands will seek you out to review their products.
You are sure to get paid for that review.
I have clients who are nearly exhausted trying to get to all the brand deals – and money – that’s being laid at their feet.
That’s a whale of a lot better problem to have than exhausting yourself on the blogging hamster wheel and hoping it brings in income.
Video Must Be Main Content on Page to Rank
Google has finally given some clarity on which video thumbnails they will show alongside a search result.
It has to be clear to Google that you are trying to rank that page/post for a video.
How does Google know that you’re trying to achieve that?
Here are the 2 biggest clues you give Google:
- Video placement on the page – it needs to be near the top
- Video schema markup – via a specialized plugin for it, like Yoast Video SEO
So, if you run a recipe site and the video is only at the bottom where the recipe is, and you are using a plugin like WP Recipe Maker, even if you have special video SEO schema markup, it’s not likely that post will rank for video – nor would you want it to. You’re trying to rank that post for the recipe. And that’s how the schema markup is ordered too.
Whereas, on my sites that have videos, including BlogAid, Heartwood Art, and AIDiscoverHub sites, the video is near the top. All of the content and images below it are in direct support of the video. In fact, that content is just the transcript and still shots from the video itself.
It’s clear to Google that I’m trying to rank for the video.
And that gives it a higher chance of getting the thumbnail shown alongside the post title in SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages).
And all that content, plus super SEO on the video itself, and at YouTube could get that video displayed in a Featured Snippet at the top of Google SERPs.
Social Video SEO
TikTok increased its character limit for one reason – to become a better Search Engine.
Instagram has followed suit.
Google crawls Twitter, including the content and videos.
So, short-form video on these social platforms can be SEOd to get you more eyeballs too.
Ranking is ranking. Eyeballs are eyeballs. There is more in play than just Google now.
AI SEO
Project Magi Brings AI and Ads to Google Search
Okay, Google finally got the message that they can no longer rely solely on their current search model for income.
And what woke them up?
More folks using Bing Chat, which combines ChatGPT and search.
Not only is Google losing out on revenue from the ads they show in search, they are losing tracking data that the Chrome browser provides so they can properly target those ads.
So, Google has started what they call Project Magi to bring their own AI chatbot to search. And of course, it will run only on the Chrome browser.
And, of course, it will be combined with ads.
We’ll see if they can do any better with this than they did the Bard launch, which was embarrassing, at best.
And, oh yeah, they are still improving Bard while they get this other thing going.
I most definitely don’t have high hopes for any of it.
AIDiscoverHub News Briefs
Here’s the AI tool tips and news you may have missed last week on the AIDiscoverHub.com
- AutoGPT AI Agents – no more prompt engineering needed
- AI Eye Tracking Makes Videos Faster – see what I use
- AI Image Pricing – from the 2 most popular AI image generators
- AI Copyright Update – official update on what you can and can’t copyright
- Beware AI Image License – ensure you have a commercial license
Here’s what’s coming to AIDH:
- Descript – How to Make Perfect Video Captions
- Get Started with Midjourney
What I’m working on:
- AI Agents I’m Testing
- AI for WordPress
Wrap Up
That’s a wrap for this week’s Tips Tuesday.
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Be sure to visit BlogAid.net for more tips and resources and I’ll see you online.
