Tips Tuesday – Find My Blocks, Diversify Traffic, Cloudflare Page Rules

Tips this week include:

• Get Spectra off your sites
• Why I’m switching from Genesis to Kadence
• Cloudflare Page Rule updates
• How metering my day is working better
• WP 6.5.4 rolls out June 5
• Find My Blocks tutorial update
• The impact of Google’s new SGE
• Why clicks from Search are down
• Search layout changes all the time
• Why you need to diversify your traffic sources now
• Faceless video ideas
• Why I’m thrilled to be back in my wood shop
• Videos take time but are so worth it
• Why to become a content curator
• AI in WP is getting scary

BlogAid Happenings

Happy Muesday for those who had Monday off. 

Getting Spectra Off My Sites

I used part of the weekend to dedicate myself to getting Spectra off one of my sites where it was used on every post and page of the modern era. 

I say modern as the Heartwood Art site started out with my carvings. And then I let it lay fallow for a while until I moved into my current house and had a place for a dedicated wood shop.

I started making posts on how I built things for my shop like a workbench, mitre saw station, and then posts on woodworking tips and tools.

Those new posts and pages have Spectra all over them.

For all of my other sites, I used the Find My Blocks plugin to help me locate the few places where I had used Spectra. (That tutorial has been updated, see the Plugin Tips section below.) But I didn’t find it useful for tracking as many posts and pages as I needed to update on Heartwood Art.

So, I used the WP All Export plugin to make a spreadsheet of my posts and I sorted it to show the newest at the top.

During these updates, I’ve found all kinds of goofy on the site, like every one showing a message at the top of the editor that there is an autosave. And all of the embedded images needed their blocks recovered. I’m sure this has to do with all of the Spectra updates that have gone through since I last made a post nearly 3 years ago.

I even set up a test site and put Spectra on it and it caused all kinds of goofy.

I would strongly encourage you to make a priority of getting Spectra gone and to use native WP blocks every time you can.

New Themes

One of the reasons I’m in such a hurry to get this big project on Heartwood Art completed is that I’m swapping all of the sites that run the Genesis theme over to Kadence. I have 4 of them, including BlogAid and its 2 member sites, and then Heartwood Art.

Genesis still works, but it’s really not being developed like Astra and Kadence are, and I believe it will eventually fall out of this race at some point.

In fact, I believe the only reason it is still in popular use is due to the designers who specialize in it who are setting up new clients with it.

I feel that down the road there will be far more Kadence designers than Genesis too, and more support for WP changes. So, even though I’m not having issues with Genesis, I believe now is the best time for me to make the switch.

We’ll be starting with the BlogAid member sites, and you should not see any disruption with them until we get ready to put the new theme from the clone over on the live site. I’ll give you a heads up when that is going to happen.

Site Services Update

If you’re due for a site audit checkup in June, now is the time to get in your request.

Cloudflare Updates

I had sent an email last week to my site audit Hub clients for booking a session to get their Cloudflare Page Rules updated. We prioritized all the folks who are on the free version first.

They booked right away and now we’re ready for everyone to book. See the email I sent for details.

We most definitely want to get this knocked out prior to the deadline.

Metering My Day

These Cloudflare live sessions only take about 5 minutes.

But my online scheduler books for an hour and the slots fill up fast every day.

So I’m literally working 50 minutes at a time all day long.

And that’s actually working out pretty well!!!!

I’ve seen ads for folks who use timers to help keep them on track. I never thought that would work for me.

But, having start/stop times all day has made me reorganize what I work on and when, and that part of it has been helpful.

You may want to give it a try and see if that works for you too.

WordPress Tips

WP 6.5.4 Rolls Out June 5

There are a few bugs in WP 6.5. The one I’ve found most annoying is that you can’t see a plugin’s settings/listing in the admin sidebar after you activate it.

You have to refresh your browser window to see it.

The WP 6.5.4 update due on June 5 will restore the auto redirect after plugin activation routine.

There will be a few other bug fixes included too.

This will be an auto update for you.

Plugin Tips

Find My Blocks Tutorial Updated

See the new tutorial on how to use the Find My Blocks plugin with all of the changes that have been made by the new developer.

It works differently, but in a good way, as it helps you control hosting resources and prevent overages.

I still have a LONG way to go to finish getting the Spectra plugin off the 2 remaining sites it is on. But I’m plugging away at it.

FYI, I set up a new test site for the first part of this new video tutorial. I installed Spectra and it completely wiped out the title area on the post editor and had other funky things going on.

So, that is even more motivation for me to get it off my sites!!!!!!

I’m so grateful that the Find My Blocks plugin was picked up by a new dev. I can’t imagine how hard it would be to do this task without it!!

SEO Tips

The Impact of Google’s new SGE

Google’s latest AI experiment that is available to the public is called Search Generative Experience (SGE). It also runs by the name AI Overview.

Leave it to Google to cause confusion with different names for the same thing right off the bat.

Like every other AI thing Google has released, it is a disaster.

Instead of Featured Snippets with quotations directly from an authoritative source, Google is now blending together their own AI summary version. 

It has contradictions and falsehoods and downright bad advice.

In pro SEO communities, the running joke is all the results that say to drink urine to cure something.

In fact, it is so bad that Search Engine Roundtable has made a Directory of Embarrassing Google AI Overviews.

And this is the worst one where SGE picked up a Reddit comment that said to cure depression, jump off a bridge. There might be some legal consequences for this one.

Clicks from Search Down

But there’s more bad news.

See this article on Platformer for how SGE is impacting search traffic negatively.

Many site owners who escaped the HCU hit are now seeing a drop in clicks from search after SGE was released at Google I/O a couple of weeks ago. 

I’m hoping this one will be short lived as Google gets laughed out of the room for the insanely poor SGE results.

Keep in mind that Google experiments with stuff all the time, then kills it.

They just killed Google Podcasts and suggest everyone move that over to YouTube via their RSS feed.

Search Layout Changes ALL the Time

Google has been tweaking with Page 1 of Search for 3 years now.

As I recall, it started with far more ads.

And then we had Featured Snippets with a title and excerpt from one post and then an image from another. Unfortunately that has returned with SGE. I searched food processors the other day and the image it showed in the SGE was an iron.

And then they tried carousels, promoting videos, and hiding things in the People Also Ask accordion.

Everybody who uses Google has been trained to scroll a page or two just to find a good blog post, or the info they were looking for.

So, having Position 2 or even 3 is not as bad as it used to be for ranking.

Google Will Survive This, But Will We?

As much as Search has gone stupid over the last few years, Google’s market cap has continued to climb.

Alphabet, Google’s parent company, is currently worth $2.18 Trillion.

According to current search engine market share reports, Google has 70% more market share than all other search engines combined.

So, as much as we complain about Search, and as botched as their AI releases have been, it’s obviously not hitting them in the wallet.

And until it does, we get crappy Search results and legit sources are harder to find.

Monetization Tips

Diversify Your Traffic Sources

What may not survive are sites that rely so heavily on Google Search for traffic, especially those that run ads, including Google Ads. 

News agencies are having a serious battle with Google over it.

But the only folks Google owes anything to are its shareholders.

It’s time for bloggers to get super serious about diversifying their traffic sources.

And I think it’s super ironic that so many bloggers threw all of their eggs into the Pinterest basket until they were betrayed by that platform. Then they got super serious about SEO. And now they are going back to Pinterest.

The one thing most bloggers refuse to do is video, and it has done nothing by steadily growing all this time and will continue to do so.

Faceless Video Ideas

You don’t have to stand in front of your camera and talk.

A 61 second, faceless video can make you money on both YouTube and TikTok.

It has to be over a minute to stay out of YouTube Shorts, and to qualify for the TikTok creator program.

Here are 7 Faceless Video Ideas to get your wheels turning with the type of videos you can start making right now, with only your phone and the free CapCut video editor.

I’m Back in the Wood Shop

I’ve been making a few small builds over the last 3 years. But I had not been posting about them. 

Last fall I did a couple of builds that I did document, but I never finished the post and videos. Those things can take a week or more in my spare time, and I always got interrupted with BlogAid work and just never finished them.

But when I opened my shop up this spring, I dedicated myself to documenting my newest build and getting it posted.

It’s a shelving unit that goes over my push mower.

This is such a simple build of cut it and screw it together, that I decided to just use still shots in the video except for the live recordings at the beginning and end. That way I could just do a voiceover.

Videos Take Time, But Worth It

I’ve gotten so good at storyboarding that I already know what shots I will need as I build. And I document it in the form of writing the post/voiceover script after each 2-3 hour build session.

READ: The Art of Storyboarding and Photojournalism

It still took 8-10 hours to edit the video and optimize all the images for the post. But that’s better than the 15-20 hours it takes for those that have a whole bunch of live video in them.

I’m going to see if I can finish up those other 2 builds that are already fully documented while I make plans for my next 2 big builds that will complete my shop makeover for tools and other storage.

My goal with these is to release 1 new video/post a month and then promote the beegeebees out of it.

That should take me into August when I have plans to get super busy using up all of my scrap wood making fun holiday decor things. Those will be super short videos and posts and a lot of fun to do. Plus, it will be the perfect time to release them.

And I plan to use them to improve my video editing skills as well. I want to see if I can boil them down to 61 second clips that will be great teasers on social media and drive more traffic too.

Yes, videos take more time than just writing a post for BlogAid.

But, I gain new skills, diversify my income, and get a tax write off for all the things I need to build and record stuff. Not to mention getting things done that I need for my home!

Become a Content Curator

Take a good look at Tips Tuesday. It is full of links to content created by others.

I’m reporting the news you need to know to keep you ahead of the curves.

What makes me a content curator instead of just an aggregator is that I also give you my take on the news and what it means for you.

That’s more or less an op-ed.

See this post on How To Use Content Curation To Deliver Fresh Ideas Without Added Resources from the Content Marketing Institute for ideas on how you can create such helpful posts for your peeps and build trust and tribe too.

They drive just as much traffic, if not more traffic, than content you create out of your own head.

AI Tips

AI in WP is Getting Scary

Tips Tuesday Plus subscribers got the rest of this tip.