Tips Tuesday – Done For You Services, Google Spam Update, Metrics Webinar

Tips this week include:

• New done-for-you services available
• The new agency site is almost ready
• EZ Metrix webinar coming soon
• Universal Analytics ends July 1 – what to do right now
• Conversion tracking and new conversion metrix
• Why Google’s latest spam update is being heavily criticized
• What Google is ranking now – and you need to get on it
• Has Google Search become the new shopping mall
• Why ecommerce didn’t work well for Pinterest and TikTok
• WordPress 6.5.5 security release is out
• I’ll be testing the WP 6.6 update soon
• Why designers need to read about the theme .json update

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BlogAid Happenings

I’ve been building, testing, and creating so many new things this week – and all for you!!!

New Done-For-You Services

Y’all have heard me saying for years that you need to move from just blogging to selling your own products.

But making all that work together with your site can be a real PITA.

Let me help you with that!!!

New done-for-you services include:

• Business email – proper secure setup of domain-related emails for ensured delivery, including all DNS records (DKIM, SPF, and DMARC) for Workspace, Zoho, and Outlook.
• Email list service – proper secure setup to ensure delivery, including all DNS records
• Trip wires – for upsells on your optins
• Digital downloads – start small with Gumroad or move up to a Shopify Starter plan that integrates with your site, or a full Shopify store.
• Membership/Courses – turnkey setup and training for MemberPress – this one does it all including courses, digital downloads, coaching program, and more!
• Integrations – connect 3rd-party platforms to your site, or setup up standalone service

You don’t have to face technical challenges alone. I’m here to help you get things set up on the backside so you can focus on your products.

See all Site Services here

New Agency Update

As you read in last week’s Tips Tuesday, I’m creating a new agency that will focus on helping you create and sell your own products.

There will be several done-for-you services available through it too including member/course site setup.

I’ve been using MemberPress for all of my member sites, including:

• The BlogAid Learning Center
• Webmaster Training
• AI Images for Profit

On the AI Images for Profit course, I used a bunch of the new features in MemberPress, like ReadyLaunch and Courses, which is their built in LMS.

For the new agency, I’ll be using those plus a whole bunch more of the new features, including downloads, and bump orders because I’ll have digital downloads in addition to video courses this time.

And, I’ll be using their new AWS integration that provides an expiring URL for downloads and videos. That way I can still store my videos on AS3 and not have to buy another license for S3 Media Maestro. 

Plus, I’m checking into the new member account features that give you a sidebar with links to the various parts of your membership, like showing only your courses or your downloads and such.

So, it has taken me a little longer to set this membership up as I’m trying new things and documenting as I go.

The point is that you don’t have to use a 3rd party platform to do all this. And it’s FAR less expensive than Kajabi and some of the other all-in-one platforms too.

But, all of them have a learning curve and a lot of the setup stuff is once and done. It’s not something you really want to do yourself as you’re not going to know about all the ways you can customize it for your needs and for what your members see. Even the wizards in these things miss most of that.

And that’s why I’m offering turnkey setup services so your store or membership is ready for you to just add your content and start making money.

EZ Metrix Update

The first course that will be available in the new agency is EZ Metrix.

I had all of the course material created, including the video lessons. But I had to edit them to change the branding, as they had BlogAid all over them. 

I loaded up the course material now and testing that everything works.

We’ll have a live webinar next week so you can see just how fun and fast it is to find out what’s working and what you need to improve to get more traffic, more optins, and more money.

Look for an invitation in BlogAid News soon.

Google Analytics Tips

Universal Analytics Ends July 1

Well, here we are, coming up on the end of life for Universal Analytics, which was the predecessor to GA4 that we’ve been using since last year.

Do your last download

At the beginning of 2024 I advised you to download your UA metrics for all of 2023, and maybe even do a download of each half and/or each quarter so you could do more comparisons with your 2024 data.

Now is your last chance to get any of your UA data downloaded, but you may only have the last 12-14 months of it available.

After July 1, you will no longer have access to your UA account and all data will be deleted.

So, it’s now or never.

FYI, the max time you can hold data in GA4 is 14 months. So you need to do yearly downloads in it as well. In fact, maybe doing quarterly downloads as they pass is a good idea too.

Remove the UA Code

Since no data is being collected for Universal Analytics, there’s no need to keep that code on your site.

For those in my GA4 course, I had advised putting all of your GA code into the WPCode plugin.

You’ll want to remove the UA code part, as it is just one more thing that loads at the top and impacts load speed a little.

Conversion Tracking

You can set up some tags directly in GA4 to track conversions, like when you get visits on a certain page.

But for tracking things like folks clicking your optin, and what page they were on when they did it, that requires a GTM tag.

For those in the Ultimate GA4 course, you may have also installed the Google Tag Manager code (GTM).

If you’re not using it, you can take that out too while you’re removing your UA code, and it has 2 parts, 1 each in the header and body sections, so get both.

But I would leave it in if you ever plan to set up conversion tracking.

If you decide to take it out, be sure to copy both parts into a plain text editor like Notepad and save it for later use, in case you change your mind.

And Google just added some new conversion rate metrics to the reports too. I’m checking these out right now.

FYI, I plan to make conversion tracking setup and custom reports available in the EZ Metrix course.

SEO Tips

Google’s Latest Spam Update Heavily Criticized

Pro SEOs are so disgusted with Google’s turn to the dark side for the last 6 months that they are not holding back their public slams in direct reply to anything Google posts anywhere, especially on social media.

When Google announced the latest spam update rollout on X, one SEO replied, “Does SPAM stand for Small Publishers Are Meaningless?”

He went on to say, “I miss the days when updates favored better content rather than prioritizing big players and killing content sites by calling them spam.”

And everybody is upset with the AI Overview to the point that Google has started showing it less often while they work on a way to stop folks from being able to turn it off.

Hey, Google, listen to your users!!!! Think about why so many folks want to turn it off. And maybe think about why so many content creators are upset that you are literally stealing their content and the only one making money from it. 

Google won’t show as many links directly to small content creators in SERPs now. Instead, they are only showing that same small creator’s info in the AI Overview.

To me, that’s stealing.

I don’t work for Google.

And they should not profit from my content if I don’t have the opportunity to profit from it too.

FYI, to market my new agency, I have ZERO plans to blog or rely on Google in any way.

That doesn’t mean there is no place for SEO in my marketing, quite the opposite. It just won’t be for Google Search.

What Google is Ranking

You should read this post from Search Engine Journal on all the slams Google is getting for their last few updates.

Some of those slams include a clue to what Google is ranking – Pinterest and Reddit.

Take a hint, y’all.

Reddit traffic is up 39%. It’s opinion vs expertise much of the time, but maybe you should check into how you can be helpful there.

Pinterest traffic is way up too.

Want to get your Pinterest going big time?

I highly recommend the Pinterest courses and guides from Levee Road Studio.

Several of my Hub members have taken these courses and absolutely rave about them.

And they are like mine in that each one is focused and gets right to the heart of it, no fluff.

Google Search – The New Shopping Mall

Let’s face it, ecommerce is what pays the bills. And ads somewhere are what support the whole thing.

It’s clear that Google Search is favoring ecommerce even more prominently now.

HINT: This is also why I’m not throwing out SEO with the marketing for my new agency. 

Google is also favoring User Generated Content (UGC) compared to review sites now too. That has everything to do with so many review sites being pure junk. But it hit many small publishers/creators who gave honest reviews too.

At least on Reddit, you’re hearing from real people. However, a lot of it is snark too. So, sometimes UGC is not really as helpful as Google ranks it.

Not to mention that AI can tell the difference between reality and snark/satire, as evidenced by the advice their AI Overview gave as jumping off a bridge to cure depression.

Pinterest and TikTok Tried It

Remember back when Pinterest went IPO and turned its back on creators and turned Pinterest into a shopping mall? That was the downfall of the company. They have since reversed course. But, Pinterest is still a great place to sell stuff.

TikTok came up with a Shop where you can make direct purchases, and some creators are making a fortune from it. I see a few who go live every night and sell products like crazy.

Shopify is crawled by Google. So is Pinterest.

You have a super chance of getting seen in Google for a product rather than trying to rank a post.

And this has everything to do with why I won’t be blogging to market my new agency offers.

You also have a greater chance of getting a video seen in Google rather than a blog post.

That’s why vlogging will be how I share tips – and most of them will be faceless videos.

WordPress Tips

WP 6.5.5 Released 

On Monday, WP rolled out the 6.5.5 update. It has 3 security fixes.

This should be an auto update for you.

Testing WP 6.6 Soon

I expect that the WP 6.6 RC1 will be released today. That’s the first Release Candidate and it means that no new things will be added, just bug fixes until the final release on July 16.

The RC1 is when I start testing the new release and documenting what’s new and what to watch out for. I’ll have a post for you around the release date with that info.

I’ll be sending special update instructions to my site audit Hub members and Webmaster Training folks when I believe it’s safe for us to update.

Theme .json Version 3

The theme .json file will be updated to V3 in WP 6.6.

It may affect fonts, so I suggest that all webmaster designers read this.

WordPress does carry legacy support for older versions. But theme frameworks may elect to upgrade and may or may not offer backwards compatibility.

That means child themes may or may not support the upgrade.

So, this is definitely something we want to test for with WP 6.6.