Tips Tuesday – Explosion of AI for Bloggers, New Tutorials for DIY SEO, GA4, and Webmaster

Hello Happy Site Owners and Webmasters!

Tips this week include:

• New Affiliate Program coming to the GA4 course
• How to track cloaked affiliate link clicks tutorials added to GA4
• What new tutorials and workshops are coming to the DIY SEO course
• Updates in Webmaster Training for new cron job settings that affect UpdraftPlus
• One of the best business quotes I’ve ever heard
• Why ChatGPT already has a waiting list for their pro version
• Why Microsoft is in a hurry to buy OpenAI, which is the parent company of ChatGPT
• More powerful AI is in the wings, including GPT4, LaMDA, and DeepMind
• Why AI video is the holy grail
• Free webinar today on 10 ways to use ChatGPT in your content marketing
• Neil Patel buys Ask the Public
• Google gives a green light to AI generated content
• What Google said about AI content from Bankrate
• How AI is a great productivity tool you can’t afford to miss because your competition is already using to get ahead of you

Listen to the Podcast

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

BlogAid Happenings

This past week I’ve been a tutorial making manic with finishing up the GA4 tutorials and collecting my notes and revamping the DIY SEO tutorials and workshops for this year.

And, of course, doing site services for my clients, including audit checkups for my current DIY site audit clients.

Site Services Update

The wait list for any site service is running into end of February. 

So, if you have an audit checkup due before then, now is the time to get in that request by filling out the site audit form.

BlogAid Course Happenings

Affiliate Program Coming Soon

This past week I also spent a little time setting up the affiliate program for the GA4 courses.

We’re in the process of testing it now with invites I sent to folks who were in the previous affiliate program for the Gutenberg Ninja course.

And anyone in the GA4 course will be able to register as an affiliate. I’ll be sending out an email to course members when we’re ready.

GA4 Webinars Available

I’ve also started scheduling private webinars so folks can see GA4 in action.

If you run a group, or know of anyone who does, please contact me to schedule a webinar for that group.

And, there will be course discounts available for the group members too.

GA4 Course Update

Last week I was delighted to finish up the cloaked affiliate link tracking tutorials.

And this week I’m finishing up the optin click tracking tutorials.

And, I may have found a way for us to get around the change that GA4 made so we can register and see these custom Dimensions in our custom Explore Reports and get way more insight than the Standard reports with just total Event count.

I’ll keep you posted on that as it takes 24 hours between setting things up for them to become available, and then another 24 hours to see the test clicks.

DIY SEO Course Update

While I’m waiting for GA4 testing stuff to be ready, I’m super busy working on the revamp of the DIY SEO course.

I’ll be making changes to the Google Connections section of tutorials with removing the Google Analytics setup, as it is for Universal Analytics.

But, I will be creating a new section on how to integrate Search Console with Analytics. And that new section of tutorials will be available for both the DIY SEO course and the Ultimate GA4 course!!!

And then I’ll jump over and update all of the Yoast SEO tutorials, as they have changed their interface and added a whole bunch of new integrations and features, most of which we won’t use, so we’ll be turning them off, as they are on by default.

I’ve also been making a list for the last 2 months of all the new AI tutorials I’ll be making for the course. You really MUST know how AI works with regard to creating SEO content, and what’s safe to use and what’s not.

These will be workshops, not just me talking about AI. You’ll be getting an OpenAI account, if you don’t have one already. And we’ll be doing some hands-on training and testing.

My goal is to have all of this completed within the next 2 weeks so that we can start our Quick Checks in early February. We’ll see if I can keep that pace with the load of client work that I also have too. 

I’ll keep you posted.

Webmaster Training Updates

Did you know that WP has an internal clock to fire off scheduled events like scheduled posts and backups and other routine maintenance?

Yep, it’s called the cron.

And it gets wound up every time a visitor hits your site.

Well, the problems with that are if you have a fairly new site and low traffic, the clock doesn’t get wound up. And if you have a heavily visited site, it can waste hosting resources.

So, I’ve decided to create a custom cron job on the hosting side that pings the site every 5 minutes to keep that clock wound up properly, but not too tight.

But there have been recent problems with it, especially with backups using UpdraftPlus, as it is extremely sensitive to the cron settings.

I believe we have found what the conflict is, and it has to do with the directives used to control revisions and heartbeat.

So, I tested the new settings an put out an update and new tutorials in the Webmaster Training membership.

That’s all the happenings around here. Let’s jump into this week’s tips and news. 

Best Business Quote

One of the folks I follow on TikTok was a high-level coder who job hopped his way to the top of the industry and then retired early.

I’m going to paraphrase something he said that I believe is the truest thing I’ve heard about running an online service business or courses about online businesses.

• If you lie to people who want to be lied to, you’ll be rich.
• If you tell the truth to people who want to hear the truth, you’ll make a living.
• If you lie to people who want to be told the truth, you’ll go broke.

The folks who tell newbie site owners to get on Bluehost with Divi and they can have a lifestyle business working just 4 hours a week are a whole lot richer than I am.

I’m making a living and glad y’all want to hear the truth.

But, the fact is, the number of folks who want to hear the truth is getting less and less every year. And folks like me who tell the truth to those who want to be lied to get beat up for it.

I’m telling you this because with all of the AI stuff popping up everywhere, there’s a whole new slew of “get rich quick with AI” tales flying all over the place too. And the folks who are telling the truth about it are getting drowned out by the shiny, new, exciting, easy stuff.

So, be super careful of getting carried away with this AI stuff, and don’t get sucked into some of those promises, like letting AI build your next website. Y’all know there’s a lot more to having a successful website than just having something generate the basic code.

That’s going to be the same for most of the “get rich with AI” business schemes I’ve seen some folks promoting.

So today, I want to tell you the truth about AI, how big and how fast it is moving, and I hope you can receive it.

AI Tips

ChatGPT Pro Version Soon

Since its release, ChatGPT has been free. 

Keep in mind that it was released as a research beta, and what they are researching is the way we’re using it.

They just announced that there will be a Pro version soon. If you get on the wait list, they have a whole bunch of questions for you, all aimed at trying to engage what folks would pay for the service.

Also keep in mind that OpenAI has an API where devs can pay for a license to have GPT run the AI part of their business. It costs them a certain amount for so many words in the text prompt. That’s why many of the other AI sites/services that you see have a free trial version and then you have to pay to keep playing with it.

They are all running on the same AI core. They just have a better interface. And they may be training it on a more specialized set of data too.

Microsoft May Buy OpenAI

OpenAI is a non-profit organization that is the parent of ChatGPT and DALL-E and more.

Microsoft was one of the initial investors, as was Elon Musk, and others.

Now Microsoft is looking to purchase OpenAI outright – to the tune of $10 billion.

Y’all may recall that I recently reported that Microsoft already has plans to incorporate ChatGPT with Bing.

And now they want to incorporate it into all of their Office365 products too.

Keep in mind that OpenAI runs on GPT3 and that data set feeding stopped at 2021.

Also keep in mind that Google has its own AI and a much more current data set.

GPT4 is On the Way

One of the reasons Microsoft is making this bid offer so quickly is that they see the insanely high adoption rate of ChatGPT, and they see just how many folks are already building tools to use with writing, spreadsheet, and slide programs now.

They want to corner that market asap.

But, they also want to make this purchase before GPT4 is released.

What OpenAI is running on now is GPT3. The data set it was trained on came mainly from books. And it doesn’t know about anything posted on the internet since 2021.

GPT4’s training material dwarfs that of GPT3. And it will be much more up to date because it will have currently available news and info from the internet.

That may also make it more prone to inaccuracies too, though.

All of this is just one more reason why you can’t rely on the current ChatGPT to write your blog posts and such too.

OpenAI recently said they will release GPT4 when it is safe and responsible to do so. That’s just how much more powerful this thing is compared to what we have now.

Google’s LaMDA AI is Just Around the Corner

On top of all this, Microsoft is desperately trying to get the jump on Google, which has its own AI called LaMDA.

Google has been using it internally for several years, they just haven’t released it to the public.

But you can bet this super fast adoption of ChatGPT and the recent Microsoft bid for OpenAI has their full attention.

We’ll see what they do in the coming months and I’ll keep you posted.

Google’s DeepMind is in the Wings Too

DeepMind is a subsidiary of Google. They’ve been sitting on this AI for years and say it is far too powerful to release to the public.

Folks, if you think the public has trouble discerning fact from fiction now, just wait until more bad actors start releasing deep fake stuff en masse from the AI we already have access to. It’s getting crazy already, and fast. 

AI Video is the Holy Grail

THE most promising AI is still in development, but we have seen the early forerunners of AI video released already.

Google has VALL-E and there is another service called Runway already making big strides with it.

And Facebook has their own video generator too, but it’s not publicly available yet either.

I don’t think any of it is ready for primetime yet. But, it likely will be before the year is over. That’s just how fast all of this is moving.

Get on This Train Now

My job here at BlogAid is to keep you ahead of the curve. 

The release of AI to the public is at the same world-changing level as the internet, cell phones, and social media.

You don’t know anyone who isn’t reliant on those 3 things every day.

At some point the same will be true of AI.

And you can get in the know about it from the ground floor.

I suggest that you read and pay attention to what’s going on with it, and more importantly, find a way to plug in and see what it can do for your daily routine. 

It has already changed mine.

10 Ways to Use ChatGPT in Your Content Marketing

Start with this super post from Denise Wakeman.

She gives you actionable tips on 10 ways you can start using ChatGPT right now.

And if you’re seeing this post early in the day, be sure to register for Denise’s free webinar on using ChatGPT that happens today, the 17th in the afternoon. I’m betting there will be a replay, so register even if you can’t make the live event. I will be there live. It’s that important to me.

SEO Tips

Neil Patel buys Ask the Public 

Ask the Public is a wonderful resource for finding the exact questions folks are asking on a topic.

And that’s a great way to do keyword research too.

Well, it’s so good that Neil Patel just bought it. He’s the same guy who owns the keyword tool Ubbersuggest too.

There is still a free version of Ask the Public available, but with limited output.

I think that’s okay, as the last time I used it, I ended up with 200 results that boiled down to the same 20 questions being asked a slightly different way.

And I hope that’s the only change made.

I’m not a big Patel fan, and I don’t think much of many of the tools and techniques his business uses or owns. So, let’s hope Ask the Public stays as useful as it is right now.

Google Gives the Green Light to AI Generated Content, Sort Of

Y’all have heard me report recently that you should not just copy/paste content written by AI straight onto your blog.

And you’ve heard me report that Google’s current Helpful Content algo update that’s rolling out right now, is specifically looking for crappy, AI generated or spun content.

Well, Google recently gave some clarity on that.

What they are looking for is crappy content. Google really doesn’t care who or what writes it.

What Google said is that if the content is AI generated, but it is accurate and helpful to the searcher, then it could rank well.

What Google said about AI content from Bankrate

And the reason Google had to public clarify this was due to an article from Bankrate. They have been using AI to write a good portion of their high-ranking content, and not at all trying to hide it.

They also put this statement on their articles:

“This article was generated using automated technology and thoroughly edited and fact-checked by an editor on our editorial staff.”

Danny Sullivan of Google said this about it:

“As said before when asked about AI, content created primarily for search engine rankings, however it is done, is against our guidance. If content is helpful & created for people first, that’s not an issue.”

So, just keep all of this in mind, and that ChatGPT content may have a watermark on it in the future for when you want to use AI generated content verbatim. 

AI is a Great Productivity Tool

After reading all the news this week, I think it’s clear why I’m revamping the DIY SEO course to include workshops to get you going with AI and encouraging you to get into Denise’s webinar. 

AI is a tool that will make you more productive. And content creators who use it for writing, images, admin tasks, videos, and more are going to be able to crank out more content for their blog, social media, and video platforms than folks who don’t use it.

Don’t lose your audience to folks using AI. Find out how you can use it too.

Who knows, you may even come up with new money-making ideas that you couldn’t even find the time to think about doing before, just like the new YouTube channel I released last month that is already catching on. My bet is that it will be generating another revenue stream for me before the year is out, maybe even by this summer.

Wrap Up

That’s a wrap for this week’s Tips Tuesday.

Thanks for sharing this podcast and post with your blogging buddies, and for leaving comments and reviews too.

Subscribe to all BlogAid Posts via email so you never miss anything!

Be sure to visit BlogAid.net for more tips and resources and I’ll see you online.