Tips Tuesday – Google Analytics 4 Course Webinar, Most Profitable Blogging Niches

Hello Happy Site Owners and Webmasters!

Tips this week include:

• The Ultimate Google Analytics 4 Course for Bloggers is open to the public and on sale!
• Free GA4 webinar is this Thur, Nov 10, but you have to register to save your seat
• How to fix your SEO crawl budget
• When it might be safe to update to WP 6.1 and where to get update instructions
• Will your site break when your host forces it up to PHP 8.0 at the end of this month?
• Is blogging dead?
• Which niches are making the most money online
• Why adding a product makes you twice the money

Listen to the Podcast

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

BlogAid Course Happenings

Google Analytics 4 Courses Open to the Public and on Sale

Woot!!!

We had a record turnout to the private webinar I did last week for my peeps with:

• A tour of GA4
• How the tracking is so radically different from UA (Universal Analytics)
• Why most of the default reports are useless
• All of the 20+ custom reports that you can create to see the accurate metrics you need

Bless my clients!! I offered them a presale discount on the course and they scooped it up like crazy even though there wasn’t a single tutorial in it yet.

Now, all of the tutorials had been written, I just had not started recording.

And that’s what I did all weekend.

Getting GA4 Tags Installed Right Away

15 new tutorials were added by Sunday and the folks who scooped up the course already have their new GA4 setup and the tracking code on their site.

That way they can track all of this great end of year traffic they are getting.

Great Feedback

And the feedback about the course started coming in immediately, with folks saying:

“I would never in a million years have been able to figure this out on my own.”

“The bite size tutorials make it so easy.”

Public GA4 Webinar

I’m offering a GA4 webinar for the public this Thurs, Nov 10.

Register for it here, as seating is limited.

Webinar attendees will get to ask questions and anyone who registers will get access to the replay.

Changes to GA4 Course Discount Codes

Now that the course is open to the public, I’ve set the price to the holiday discount, no coupons needed.

And the $100 off discount will be good through the first week in January, as many folks want the tax write off for 2023.

A note to my peeps, your pre-sale coupon code has changed, but that price is still good until midnight on Black Friday, and then it goes to the holiday discount for everyone.

Get the Course Early

Even though the sale lasts through the holidays, you don’t want to wait to get it.

Your hurry is to get that GA4 account, property, and data stream set up correctly, and to get that tracking code on your site right away.

And the rest of the tutorial sections are being added as fast as I can create them.

And you’ll get to take the course like a drip and do one quick section at a time too.

But as long as you have that tracking code set up quickly, the new reports you’ll create later will have that data available.

And I hope to have all tutorials available in the next 2-3 weeks.

So, it won’t be long before they’re all in there, and you could be totally done with the setup before the month is out.

BlogAid Happenings

Site Services Update

Even though I’m mostly a tutorial making maniac right now, I’m also doing client work every day.

The number of requests always picks up at this time of year and stays heavy through February.

If you are ready for a site audit, a checkup, or you want to combine those with moving to new hosting, please see the updated info pages for those services under the Services tab in the navigation, and fill out the appropriate request forms.

Right now the wait list is running into mid/late December – best guess.

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

SEO Tips

WordPress SEO Crawl Budget and How to Fix It 

Did you know that Google assigns a crawl budget to your site?

You can’t change that assignment, but you sure as heck can ensure that the bots are not wasting their time crawling stuff that has no chance of showing up in search anyway, like duplicates of your original post that have their own URLs for your RSS feed, categories, and way more.

The folks over at WP Beginner have a very long article with more details.

And this is the kind of stuff we cover in my DIY SEO course, but in a way that quickly tells you what the problems are and quickly shows you how to fix them the super easy way.

WordPress Tips

WP 6.1 Update Status

I updated to WP 6.1 on a few of my test sites and they are okay.

But I have yet to do my money-making sites.

And I’ll be asking my Webmasters this week how their client site updates are going.

I hope it won’t be too long before it is safe to do the update because I really want all that new standardization of block styling that it brings.

This will put us one step closer to coming out of specialty block plugins.

Where to Get WP Update Instructions

BlogAid News subscribers will be the only folks who get my special WP update instructions when I feel that it is safe for us to update.

So, be sure you are subscribed.

PHP Tips

PHP 7.4 Hits End Of Life Soon

Folks, I’ve been telling you since July that the current PHP level you’re on at your host is coming to end of life in Nov. And that day is nearly here.

PHP is one of the main coding languages for WP and your database.

Most hosts are currently running version 7.4.

The end of its life for support is Nov 29.

Any decent host will be forcing an upgrade to PHP 8.0 on that date.

If you’re on a host, or using a theme, or a plugin that is not ready for that update, leave them.

They are putting your site at extreme security risk.

WP is ready for PHP 8.0, as are most of the popular plugins.

Mainstream themes such as Kadence, Astra, GeneratePress, and Genesis are ready too.

That does not mean that your child theme is ready, if you’re using one.

You need to start testing now if you haven’t already.

And if you find your site broken the minute you go up to PHP 8.0, ditch that host. 

In fact, most hosts aren’t ready.

And even if your site does not break, 99% of hosts have the hidden PHP settings so wrong that it will slow down the entire server, and slow down your site speed as well.

When you’re ready to move to better hosting, check the Service page for my migration service and see why you can’t afford to have a new host do a free cPanel migration for you.

FYI, don’t let anyone take you up to PHP 8.1 yet. It may be stable, but some plugins and themes are not fully compatible with it yet. I’ll let you know when they are.

Blogging Tips

Is Blogging Dead?

The nice folks over at Blogging Pro have an article that is something you will want to read.

They ask if blogging is dead or not. And they answer that question based on the data they collected.

I do encourage you to read the whole article, but I want to bring forward a few highlights.

The quick answer is no, blogging is not dead.

But, the longer answer is why blogging alone is not even close to the real money you can make with the site.

Blogging for Ads

They cited that 72% of bloggers who make at least $2,000/mo from ads are with either Mediavine or AdThrive. That’s $24,000/yr.

Adding a Product Makes More

But, they also state that 45% of bloggers who make over $50,000/yr do so from their own products.

Let’s stop here for a moment.

Many of my clients are in the blogging for ads camp.

And several of them signed up for the digital downloads workshop we did in the summer.

Those folks had no trouble creating their own product to sell.

And they stand to double their income by doing it too.

Double income from adding one thing to their site. 

Let that sink in.

Adding a Course or Membership

More bloggers are adding courses and memberships too, but the article didn’t give data on how many or how much more those folks are making.

And I can tell you that adding a digital download is lot faster, easier, and cheaper than adding a course or membership.

So, start with the fastest way to more money and expand later.

Average Income

The niche with the highest median income for a blogging site is food, at $9,169/mo.

And that was followed closely by the personal finance niche at $9,100/mo.

Lifestyle/mommy blogs are averaging $5,174/mo.

And travel blogs average $5,100/mo.

In my opinion, these numbers will drop next year when Chrome removes 3^rd party cookie tracking. There just won’t be a way to target ads as well as is being done now.

Saturated Niches

Also in my opinion, the top earning niches are already the most saturated.

I have a LOT of foodie blogger clients. 

And one of the reasons they are so dedicated to sticking with me and my services is that they need every edge they can get.

Video for the Win

What I’ve been telling my peeps for over a year now is that video is the new format they need to get established in to get THE single biggest edge on their competition.

But very few of them have done that.

And I believe that’s typical.

If you do video, you can own those platforms.

There really aren’t nearly as many foodie folks on YouTube and TikTok as there are foodie bloggers.

And Google LOVES showing foodie videos at the top and all over search results.

Folks eat with their eyes. Video is a natural fit for foodie bloggers. I’m stunned at how few folks do it.

And I’m not surprised that folks who do video have doubled and tripled their revenue because of it.

Read the post

Like I said, the whole post is worth reading, until you get to the bottom with them telling you to start your blog on Bluehost. Nothing wrong with Bluehost for beginners. But it’s not somewhere you want to be if you’re serious about making money with your blog.

Masterclass: Design & Deliver Your Lead Magnet – 3 Part Workshop

I also want to remind you that Denise Wakeman is running a 3-part masterclass on how to design and deliver your lead magnet.

Folks, this is a “get it done” series where Denise takes you from “I don’t even know where to start” to a finished product.

She will help you discover what your audience wants, how to write it, how to create it, and more.

The first workshop starts Nov 8, which is today, so you want to jump on this.

(Affiliate link) 

Register now because this is the good stuff that works.

And this will set you on the road to creating your own paid product too.

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.