Tips Tuesday – Image Optimization, Full Page Patterns, YouTube Keyword Tool

Tips this week include:

• Why the Tips Tuesday Livestream is going dark
• How you can still get into the Gutenberg Ninja course before it closes
• How to discover what your audience wants workshop in the BB Hub
• Upcoming bonus sessions in the DIY SEO workshops
• Multiple follow-ups on the WebP as default proposal
• Why there is no way to carry MozJPEG optimization through thumbnails
• More image formats coming that are just around the corner
• The difference in Reusable blocks, block Patterns, Templates and Template Parts
• Possible full-page patterns coming in WP 6.0
• YouTube’s keyword research tool is now available to all
• An easy way to get dynamic YouTube thumbnails
• A roundup of more GA4 tutorials

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BlogAid Happenings

There are a LOT of major life changing events happening everywhere I look, including with many of y’all.

And I finally slowed my pace down long enough to get off the hamster wheel of working in my business to work on my business, and to give myself a little time to reflect on what’s working now, what’s not, and what I need to do to prepare for what’s coming with running a profitable online business, just like many of you have been doing for the past year or so.

Tips Tuesday Live Going Dark

You may have noticed at the top of this post and podcast that I didn’t invite you to join me for the livestream tonight.

One of the reasons I started those livestreams was to give you breaking news on what was reported in Tips Tuesday and what had hit since I had recorded it on Monday afternoon.

Well, there really hasn’t been that much breaking news, so the livestream ended up being a rehash of just what you’ve already read or heard in the post or podcast.

And that may have something to do with why attendance at the lives has fallen off too. Most of the folks who do catch it are watching the replay. The point of doing a live, at least to me, is to be able to engage with you.

Plus, I polled my BB Hub folks and most of them prefer to read the post and/or listen to the podcast, as they are both faster and easier to retain the info.

On top of that, doing the Lives in the evening makes for a 12-14 hour day for me. And I already put 15+ hours a week into the reading and research needed to produce the post and podcast.

So, I think it would be a better use of time for you and me both to let the livestreams go.

And thank you to everyone who has been so faithful to attend or watch the replay.

I still have the quick overview video on TikTok, YouTube, and Facebook. And if there is breaking news that I want to do in a video, it will be in those places too.

More Changes to Tips Tuesday

During our first Digital Downloads workshop we did research to see what kinds of freebies our competitors offered.

I discovered that none of mine offer any type of bonus. They just offer tips in their newsletter.

I have decided that I’m going to do the same.

And Tips Tuesday will become that weekly roundup post.

Here’s why.

My ebook on “What Every Site Owner Should Know” is attractive to newbie bloggers. Yet what I publish on the blog and report in Tips Tuesday is not for newbies. So I end up with a ton of churn in my email list. 

Plus, lowering my client load has allowed me more time to evaluate plugins and such that we need, and to make the associated tutorials for them, like the ones for the Enable Media Replace and Limit Modified Date that I published for you last week.

And I have needed to write more posts and do more tutorials like that for the last 3 years because not doing them has tanked BlogAid’s SEO on search engines and YouTube.

So, I’m going to be doing more of both now that I have given myself the time.

But I won’t be emailing my newsletter peeps every time I publish something unless it is critically important news.

I will, however, be posting about it on my social media and letting my BB Hub members know about it right away.

So, please do let me know where you follow me on social media, so I’ll know where most folks would like to see the new posts as they happen.

And hint, hint – my preference is that it be a video platform, as I intend to prioritize publishing those.

Shorter Tips Tuesdays

You may have noticed how short the last few Tips Tuesday posts have been as far as tips, including today’s post. That’s because there really hasn’t been that much news to tell you about, or what news there has been won’t really affect you for a long time out.

We’re all super busy folks.

So, I’m thinking shorter posts are going to make it easier for all of us to get the info that matters most to us today.

Gutenberg Ninja Course Closing Near 2023

Another big change I’m making will be to close the Gutenberg Ninja course near the end of this year or first of next.

There really isn’t much new for it coming out of WP – mainly just tweaks to existing things that require me to have to update 10 tutorials.

And those updates mean that I’m just breaking even with it now, so it’s not much of a money maker anymore either.

On top of it, I cover what is new in Gute in my “What’s New in WP” video tours of each release. So, you will still be able to keep up. And I’ll have quick video tips for new features too.

The course subscription is for 6 months.

So, if you still have not switched to Gutenberg, you’ll want to put that on your plate.

And, you’ll want to get into the course before the end of June, as I will be closing it to new purchases and renewals this summer.

That way everyone in the course will be able to get updates right up until their subscription expires. And once they have all ended, I’ll take the course down.

BB Hub Happenings

FYI, the BB Hub is a private member site and Facebook group just for my DIY site audit clients that has lots of extra perks and support.

Don’t Create in a Void: How to Discover What Your Audience Wants

I’m super excited to meet this week with my fellow BB Hubbers for our next Digital Downloads workshop.

This one is being presented by visibility expert, Denise Wakeman. And she will be walking us through how she discovers exactly what her followers want.

FYI, if you’re not a site audit client in the BB Hub, keep your hopes up, as there is a good chance Denise will be offering her parts of the workshops publicly. And you bet I’ll let you know when, if that happens.

BlogAid Course Happenings

DIY SEO on Spring Break and Upcoming Bonus Sessions

For the next 2 weeks we are on Spring Break from the DIY SEO live workshops.

And in the last workshop I mentioned that I wanted to start doing bonus group sessions to review our content.

Every SEO person on the planet will tell you that the key to success is to write high quality content.

Well, what does that mean, exactly?

The ONLY way to know is to have YOUR content reviewed.

Several folks said they were super interested in having the entire group put eyes on their content and offer feedback.

So, I’ll be looking into scheduling those bonus sessions.

Plus, I think we need a bonus session on those 2 plugins I mentioned earlier before we dive into our on-page content SEO workshops.

There are caveats to using those plugins and we need to discuss those more in-depth.

So, I’ll be looking into scheduling those sessions as well.

Site Services Updates

We’ve been working hard on some really big site services projects and making good headway. So last week I was able to bring on the next 2 folks on the wait list, which is now running about 2-3 weeks out.

Get Your Site Audit Checkup Scheduled

For BB Hubbers, if you have a checkup that was due in the first quarter of 2022, I have emailed you that you’re overdue.

Please fill out the site audit request form immediately so you can stay in the BB Hub with its discounts and perks. That’s part of our DIY site owner partnership Terms of Service. You do your part and I do my part and I can support you because your site is being kept up to par.

Also, if you’re audit checkup is coming due for May, now would be the time to put in that request.

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

Image Tips

Follow Ups on WebP as Default Proposal

There was a LOT of negative PR online about the WebP as default upload proposal that was rushed out from the WP Performance Team.

Here are just a few of the articles:

• WP Performance Team Puts Controversial WebP by Default Proposal on Hold After Critical Feedback – from WPTavern
• WordPress Reconsiders WebP by Default Proposal – by Search Engine Journal
• Follow Up on WebP by Default Proposal – from Make WordPress official release

And in that official release you’ll see that the devs responsible for this debacle finally realized that they got their asses handed to them by every segment of the WP ecosystem. And now they are going to do the research they should have done in the first place – you know, like the nearly 100 dissents in the Performance Team told them in the first place.

But I guarantee you that they are going to push for this thing no matter what.

So, if it ever does actually get considered for WP core, I’ll take up the banner again and/or prepare y’all properly for it.

No Way to Carry MozJPEG Through to Thumbnails

I did make a couple of friends in the image group handling this. And they did seriously investigate if there was a way to carry the Progressive render of MozJPEG images all the way through the thumbnails.

It can be done, but it takes such extensive modification, and is so resource intensive if done on upload, that it will never make it into WP core.

So, should you still use MozJPEG, as I advocate doing with the Squoosh online image optimizer?

Absolutely!!!!!!!

WP does pass on the faster Progressive render on the original image.

And the file size is so small with MozJPEG that it’s okay if the thumbnails are Baseline render, as my Performance Lab Plugin tests show.

Here’s the trick.

Be sure that you are creating full size images that fit the content display area of your posts/pages. 

Otherwise, a smaller thumbnail size is used, and you lose the Progressive render.

Same thing with themes that do something fancy with how it auto displays the Featured Image at the top of your post. That is a thumbnail image, not the original.

It’s better to embed that first image instead.

More Image Formats Around the Corner

MozJPEG has been around a LONG time.

There are newer formats that have even more compression and better quality.

We’re just waiting for the adoption rate on them to grow.

So for now, stick with MozJPEG. It’s still better than any image optimization plugin, and better than WebP, and requires no fallback images that double the number of images taking up room on your limited hosting disk space.

FYI, if you are still using an image optimization plugin, even if you delete it, all that double load of images are still on your disk space. They have to be manually removed. This is one of the fixes I do for my site audit clients.

Image Info in Database

One of the other things I learned from the folks who actually ran tests concerning the images is that the info about where each thumbnail image is used is held in your database.

That makes sense, as your content is actually held in your database too. But your image files are held in the wp-content > uploads folder.

Many of the image optimization plugins create their own file folders to hold your original images. And some create their own database tables for where their optimized thumbnails are used.

So, that’s why it’s safe to manually remove those things on the host side after you delete the plugin.

And now I know exactly how that Enable Media Replace plugin works without creating its own database table too. It updates the database directly. And this is also why you have to upload the new replacement image instead of using another one already uploaded to the media library. It’s using the native WP media upload mechanism to do the database changes.

Gutenberg Tips

The Difference Between Reusable Blocks, Block Patterns, Templates & Template Parts

The folks at Learn WordPress have a new tutorial that all designers need to see. And that includes any site owners who want to do their own designs.

It helps you understand the differences in which blocks to use for which purpose when it comes to creating blocks and templates that you plan to reuse.

Possible Full Page Pattern in WP 6.0

There is a possibility that WP 6.0 will come with the ability to choose a full-page Block Pattern when you create a new page.

I’m very excited about this and see it as a great way for theme designers to create Block Patterns for common specialty pages like optins, landing pages, contact pages, and more.

Video Tips

YouTube’s Keyword Research Tool Now Available to All

Woot!!! I’m very excited that YouTube has now made their keyword research tool available to every account.

It’s part of YouTube Search Insights and the new keyword research tool should hit every account by the end of April.

I don’t have it yet, but when I do, I’ll be making tutorials on it for the Video SEO Booster course.

Dynamic YouTube Thumbnails

Mercury has come out with a tool to make your YouTube video thumbnails dynamic and they can update in realtime.

They have polls and subscriber shoutouts, plus pricing, and more that you can display on the thumbnail.

And, they have deeper analytics for your videos too.

They say it’s free forever, and you know that made me a bit suspicious because anything free like that means I’m the product.

So, it makes me wonder what they do with those analytics or such.

I’ll be checking into it with an eye on their Terms of Service and privacy policy and such.

Go check it out and let me know what you think about it.

Misc Tips

GA4 Tutorials

Y’all heard me report in recent Tips Tuesdays that Google plans to do away with the Universal Analytics we are all using in the summer of 2023.

And they want us to switch to GA4 now.

You also heard me report that it is a whole other animal and you have to do serious customizing to get anything close to meaningful reports.

Well, the folks at Search Engine Journal have gathered up a whole gaggle of tutorials for you, if you want to install GA4 now.

As I reported previously, I have no desire to install GA4 at this time because it’s one more 3rd party request to slow down my site. And, because folks hate it so much and it is so useless out of the box, I’m betting there will be 100s of tweaks to it, and possibly a delay in deprecating Universal Analytics.

So, I’m taking a wait and see approach.

You do what’s best for you.

Wrap Up

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

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