Tips Tuesday – GA4 Reports, Google Site Name, Videos Make Money

Hello Happy Site Owners and Webmasters!

Tips this week include:

• Why you need to have a contingency plan in place for your online business
• Why we have to switch to GA4 and UA has to be shut down – it’s all about privacy
• Why there is no longer any cross-platform tracking in GA4
• How the roles of User and Scope are used in GA4 reports
• Where to get discounts on the GA4 course
• WordPress 6.1 Release Candidates are rolling out
• Where to get a WP 6.1 tour and update instructions
• Why the Active Install numbers were removed from plugins
• Google’s showing Site Name now in mobile and what not to do about it
• Yoast SEO has some exciting improvements
• Why to add videos to Shopify and how they can be used elsewhere too
• How to make money answering questions
• A fun and easy way to make video clips and transcripts
• The most powerful way to show up online

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BlogAid Happenings

It’s looking and feeling like full-on Fall around here. We’re having frost in the morning and all the leaves are changing. Are you feeling it where you are?

I know that January marks the beginning of the calendar year.

But for me, Fall feels like a beginning – start of school, start of gatherings and festivities. And it’s the start of hunker down and get it done time.

For me, that means getting this GA4 course finished, and I’ll have an update for you on that in a moment.

Have a Plan in Place

Fall also reminds us of the passing of things.

And me and my webmasters were reminded of that fact this past week when we learned that one of our long-time members discovered he had a terminal illness. It was literally days between learning that and becoming incapacitated, and then passing.

Others have taken over his business dealings as best they can and they are in the process of closing it.

Most all of us are solopreneurs.

It’s critically important that we have a plan in place so that our business can function if we have short or medium term absence, and so that someone else can take over if we cannot continue.

READ: Make a Contingency Plan – it has all the steps and lists of things to check and put into place for short, medium, and long term needs.

And if you have been following me for a while and already have yours done, do a quick check of it this week to ensure it is up to date.

Sunset Site Services

If you do need to shut your site down for any reason, like retiring, or letting the site you started with go so you can focus on a newer one, I offer a site sunsetting service. 

Just contact me for a consult and we’ll get it closed properly.

There are so many things about it you probably have not considered.

Site Services Update

The waitlist for any site service is about 4 weeks.

So if you are ready for a site audit or checkup through November, please fill out the site audit request form.

And if you want to combine that with migrating to a better host, please fill out the migration/audit combo request form.

You can find these, and all other BlogAid site services under the Services tab in the top navigation menu.

BlogAid Course Happenings

GA4 Course Progress

This past week I had some major breakthroughs and wall-hitting episodes while digging deep, deep, deep into what you can do with GA4.

Let’s start with the slightly disappointing news and where I hit a wall with the limitations of GA4 reporting.

It’s All About Privacy

The whole reason why GA4 was created and why UA has to have a termination date is because of all the new privacy and cookie tracking laws.

This is going to radically impact your ability to gather some of the info you report to brands and ad agencies and such.

You can only gather demographic info on visitors who:

• Are using the Chrome browser
• Are logged into their Google account
• Have allowed personal data to be gathered – which is on by default in Chrome.

So, whatever info about this you do see in GA4 is from a sub-set of your visitors.

No More Cross-Platform Tracking

Here’s the other wall I hit about what you can make reports on.

You can see where your traffic is coming from, both as a lumped group of stuff, called Channels, like Organic Search that lumps all the search engines together, or Organic Social that lumps all those platforms together.

Or, you can split that info out into specifics by using Source tracking and see the individual search engines and social platforms.

But, what you can’t do is see the flow of how these visitors click through your site – at least not natively and dynamically – like Behavior Flow.

It’s all because of the limits of cookie tracking individual Users across platforms.

Like, when you Google something and then start seeing ads for it on Facebook.

That’s tracking you across platforms. 

And that’s what is coming to an end.

So, while we may like the idea of not being tracked that way, there is also a consequence to our analytics and seeing what 3rd party marketing efforts are working best for us.

Silver Lining

That said, I did find a way to replicate Behavior Flow, sort of.

It is a flow chart, like you’re used to seeing in UA.

But it is not dynamically generated.

You literally have to create the report every time you want to see it.

The one saving grace of that is you can actually select either a generic starting point, like all pages viewed, or you can select a specific page or post.

And then you can click through to see the paths you want to see.

For instance, you can start with all pages.

And then just click through the path of the top ones hit.

It is FAR from a perfect solution.

But do keep in mind that GA4 is still under active development. Heck, they just added Bounce Rate to it a few weeks ago.

So, I suspect we’ll see more UA type things like this come over to GA4 as more folks start using it and complaining about what they can’t see.

The good news is, the foundation for dynamically generating such a report is already in GA4. It’s just a matter of Google creating it as a default report and giving us a way to create it as a custom Explore report.

So, I can show you how to track some of the things I’ve mentioned, like general flow, and then more specific flow, like where users from Facebook go on your site. But, I don’t know if the reporting limitations are so great that this will be more work than it’s worth for you beyond curiosity.

I’ll keep digging, and we’ll see.

Users, Scope, and Reports

One of the breakthroughs this past week included digging into the default reports and discovering exactly what GA4 is showing you with them, and the 4 main types of Users and Scopes they lump those User types into for these reports.

And now I can show you exactly why these reports don’t match what you’re seeing in UA (Universal Analytics).

I will also be showing you which of the default reports are worthwhile and which ones are a waste of time.

And, now I know exactly what custom Explore reports to show you how to make too, so that you can see the kind of info you rely on in UA now.

I’ll have at least 6-10 examples for you and these things are so fast and fun to create that you’ll be playing with them for days.

So, forget sorting through a bunch of metrics in a layout that is hard to navigate.

Now you’ll be able to create a master report for traffic and another for acquisition and see exactly what you want to see, and all laid out exactly how you want to see it.

Pre Sale Coming

I’m about 85% finished with writing the tutorials at this point. I’m hoping to totally finish them this week and finalize the course outline.

Once I get to that point, I’ll be setting up the course and email list.

And once I get that done I’ll start recording the first section of tutorials.

And once they are ready, I’ll be opening the course up for purchase.

I’ll likely be doing a staged release meaning that the biggest discounts will be during the initial offer.

And as I add more tutorials, the price will go up every week until I hit the discount rate I’m going to offer for all holiday sale stuff.

So, look for that announcement in BlogAid News as you’ll hear about it there before I tell the general public.

The other reason you’ll want to jump on this right away is time. This course is only going to be available through the end of the year and you’ll want to get started right away.

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

WordPress Tips

WordPress Release Candidates Are Out

The RC1, or Release Candidate 1 of WP 6.1 rolled out last week.

I expect RC2 to roll out today.

An RC means that no new changes will be added and they are just doing bug fixes.

The final release is expected the first week of November.

I’ll start my testing the week prior to that and will have a video tour for you of what’s in this release.

Get WP 6.1 Update Instructions

BlogAid News subscribers will be the only folks who get my special update instructions for WP 6.1.

Please actually check that you are subscribed to that email list. Not kidding.

Three times a year I send out those instructions to that list. And three times a year I get emails from folks who say they didn’t get it.

They are subscribed to a course or membership list or such and thought they were subscribed to BlogAid News too.

Nope.

If you get Tips Tuesday in your inbox, then you are subscribed to BlogAid News.

If you don’t get it, or you just listen to the podcast, you’re missing a LOT – including the special discounts I will be sending out for the GA4 course, and important or emergency update or security news. 

Go subscribe – today.

And check that those Tips Tuesday emails are showing up in your inbox every week.

Plugin Tips

Active Install Data Removed

We have a little bit of WP drama happening, mainly with plugin devs, but this may impact you a bit too.

WP has decided to remove the Active Install data from the plugin’s page in the WP Plugin repository. 

They cited some folks are gaming the system.

Like everything WP does these days it’s controversial. And the Plugin devs are up in arms about it.

I won’t be following this news too closely, as active installs are the last thing I judge a plugin’s worthiness by.

But, if it’s something you look at, I wanted you to know why that info is no longer there, at least for now.

SEO Tips

Google Changes Site Name on Mobile

Google is trying to clean up the way links look on Search for mobile users. 

See it here 

And they recently stopped using the Title tag in your post and replaced it simply with the site’s name and favicon above the title, as they think folks care more about the trustworthiness of the brand.

I’ve already seen multiple reports that it doesn’t work right for a variety of reasons.

Like if you have more than one word in your domain name, or one like BlogAid that folks could split up, the search may not show up at all.

I’ve also seen reports of things you can tweak in your schema markup.

My advice is to do nothing.

Google tweaks on the look of Search ALL THE TIME. This is a technical whack-a-mole game you don’t want to play.

If this is going to stick, the schema markup will be added in Yoast.

I just wanted to alert you in case you do a search on mobile for your site, by site name, and then keyword. It’s going to look different. 

Yoast SEO Improvements

Speaking of schema markup, the latest version of the Yoast SEO plugin has some nice improvements.

One of them deals with how older or ill-coded themes output empty values for breadcrumbs that causes Google to pick them up as an error.

There is a new noindex, follow attribute that has been added to all comments so they don’t get indexed.

And Twitter is only using the large format card now, so Yoast is dropping the choice for the smaller one so that your OG tag will be correct. I think most of us had it set to the large one anyway.

Video Monetization Tips

Add Videos to Shopify

Folks like to see products in use. That way they can easily see themselves using them too.

That’s also why Google is so hot to get product reviews from real people who are using the product, or at least demonstrating it.

And video is the best way to show folks why you love this thing, or how to best use your product.

Yoast has a nice post on how to add videos to your Shopify store.

And these videos will play nicely on all other platforms too including YouTube, your site, and social media.

Answer Questions, Make Money

You know something about something. That’s what your blog is all about. 

You’re sharing what you know and it’s helping other folks.

But, what brought someone to your site was a question.

They had a question about something and they came to you for an answer.

Another great way you can make the most of this is by making a video that answers a question.

Ann Smarty has a post on the Blogging Wizard about how to use your blog to support your consulting business.

And you run a consulting business, even if all you do is blog.

Let that sink in.

Folks have a question and they are coming to you for that answer.

And they are trusting you to give them the most helpful answer too.

And if it is the most helpful answer, they keep coming back for more of them.

That is what a consultant does – they listen to the problem and give folks helpful solutions.

Video clips that answer questions are THE most personalized way to do it.

If you want to build trust in a hurry, make a talking head video or a demonstration video.

Show and tell is powerful stuff.

It’s a tribe builder.

And it’s a brand sponsor attracter too.

Quickly Make Clips and Transcripts

And here’s a perfect example of a video that solves a problem.

I saw it on TikTok.

And the creator shows you a quick and easy way to make a clip from a longer video.

You upload the video and it spits out a transcript.

Then you just click on the part of the transcript you want to make a clip of and viola!

You can upload that short clip to so many places.

And I have to tell you, I may use this for my own purposes.

I think on my feet. I like to talk things out. And sometimes I speak something so brilliant I want to write it down and use it later.

Why not record this talk it out sessions, upload it, and get the transcript plus the clips as highlights?

Marketing Tips

The Most Powerful Way to Show Up Online

Pat Flynn shared a story of how he started making money online after he got laid off from his job years ago.

And one of those ways surprised the heck out of him.

He had a course to teach folks how to pass an exam. And then the folks who administered the exam put out their own course.

He thought he was done for.

And he was shocked at why so many folks still wanted to buy his course.

When he asked them, they said they trusted him because he had actually taken the exam. 

Here’s the thing.

You’ve been there. You’ve done stuff. Folks want to learn from you.

That’s also why you’ve waited for my GA4 course. 

You know the quality of my courses. You know I’m going to test things. You know I’m going to be thorough.

I’ve been there ahead of you and I can show you the best route.

Do you care if I know every single thing that GA4 can do? No!!

You care that I can sort all of this stuff out and show you what you need to know about it as a blogger and that I’m not going to waste your time with a bunch of info you don’t need.

You can do the same for your peeps.

It’s not about knowing everything.

It’s about helping folks that can benefit from your experiences with it, and sharing info that is tailored to their needs.

In fact, that’s the most powerful info on the planet.

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.