Tips Tuesday – Improved Images, Monetize Instagram, AI in Search

Hello Happy Site Owners and Webmasters!

Tips this week include:

• WP Fastest Cache improves lazy load images
• Limitations with author box
• WP Performance team overreaching again
• 18 ways to monetize Instagram
• How to get product review posts ranked
• Google forced to include AI in Search
• How SEOs can embrace AI Search

BlogAid Happenings

I want to share with you a few of the challenges we ran into when setting up the new AI Discover Hub site where I’m covering all things AI, including tool reviews and news.

Be sure to follow me on your favorite social media platform so you can see the vlogs as they publish. And get on the email list to ensure you never miss anything.

WP Fastest Cache Improves Lazy Load Image

During the final checks on the new AI Discover Hub site, my designer, Michelle Phillips of Codefetti discovered that the placeholder image for the videos looked terrible on some mobile devices, particularly Android.

I never saw the issue because the image looks fine on desktop and my iPhone and iPad. So, thank goodness for her thorough checks across multiple devices and orientations.

That placeholder image is supplied by WP Fastest Cache for lazy loading the iframe I use for my video embeds.

I contacted Emre at WP Fastest Cache and he made a fix for it right away.

That fix will be in an upcoming update of the plugin soon.

It is such a delight to work with professionals, especially those that are always trying to improve their wares.

Get Your Site Looking Good and Speedy

If you’re interested in using what I consider the very best caching and optimization plugin on the planet, see my WP Fastest Cache Settings tutorial.

And contact Michelle Phillips at Codefetti for your next theme design too.

Limitations with Authorbox

The Kadence theme I’m using on the AI Discover Hub site has an author box available.

And like most themes, it pulls off the User profile info, including your Gravatar image and your social media links.

The problem is, there are only a few social media URL fields, and a big one that is missing is TikTok.

So, I went in search of author box plugins and they are all missing it too, at least all the ones I looked into.

Gutenberg also now has an Author Box block, but it has the same limitation.

Now, I can build a Gutenberg set of nested blocks that will allow me to add an image, a bio, and then use the Gutenberg Social block to add all kinds of icons, including TikTok.

But, there are only 2 ways that I know of to get that placed at the bottom of each post.

One way is to make it a Reusable Block. Those things have been flaky for a couple of years now, and I will likely forget to add it anyway.

The other way is to purchase the Kadence Pro theme plugin so I can add it as a hook.

I tried adding it as some type of code snippet using WPCode, but could not get it to work.

And there is a way to do it with Advanced Custom Fields if you want to jump through all those hoops, and I don’t.

So, if you want to add a social icon to your author box that does not include a field in the User profile, you’re out of luck unless you want to buy something or jump through extra hoops.

I’m thinking WordPress needs to just add a drop-down thing in the User Profile and let us choose from every platform it supports in the Gutenberg Social block.

Or, if you know of another way to do this, please leave a comment on the blog, or anywhere you see this post online.

Mini Spring Break This Week

I’m in between client jobs right now, as we are closing the open projects we’ve been working on for the past few weeks.

And before I open new projects, I think this is a great time for me to take a bit of a spring break from BlogAid duties.

I won’t be entirely off, but my days with it will be super short.

No DIY SEO Workshops This Week

That also means we’ll be taking a bit of a break from the DIY SEO course workshops this week too.

Next week we’ll dive into ADA and Accessibilties Compliance plus UX (User Experience) both of which are a big deal to Google for ranking factors these days.

And the week after we’ll go over Core Web Vitals, which is far less of a big deal to Google now, once your site meets a minimum threshold of speed.

And all of my site audit clients are way faster than that minimum threshold.

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

Speed Tips

WP Performance Team Overreaching Again

If you’ve been following me for a while, you know that I quit working with the WP Performance Team when they tried to shove WebP images by default down our throats. Over 400 speed, developer, and hosting professionals tried to tell them why this was a horrible idea and they wouldn’t listen to anybody.

It took Matt Mullenweg himself saying no to halt this mess getting put into the WP core code.

Well, the WP Performance team is overreaching their bounds once again.

It was bad enough they put checks for opCache in the Site Health Check, which is something that should be done at the host server level and should always be an option, not a requirement.

Now they are discussing checks for improvements on initial server response time and database optimization.

After doing speed tests for well over a decade, I can tell you that there are multiple reasons why initial server response time could be slow that have absolutely nothing to do with the host server.

But this new check, if it makes it into the WP core, is going to cause thousands of unnecessary support tickets to be opened at the host.

And God help all the site owners who allow their host to try to fix it.

I’ve made a good living cleaning up those messes and then fixing the actual problems.

Plus, it will be super interesting to see how Bluehost reacts to this, as they are one of the leading sponsors of WordPress.org.

You are NOT going to get good initial server response time from that bargain basement hosting, especially with their ancient server setup.

For the database optimization, we’ll see what the Performance team comes up with.

But again, this is not something a non-techie site owner needs to try to fix themselves.

The tools I use to clean the database are super invasive and no plugin way of doing it comes close to that level of deep cleaning, nor should they.

You have to know how to take the proper precautions in case anything gets borked. And most site owners have no real, guaranteed backup to restore from either.

If you’re paying for managed hosting and your host is doing daily backups, read the fine print – they are not guaranteed.

I’ll keep you posted on what comes of this.

But I won’t be in the trenches fighting for us over it – not after being beat to a pulp over the WebP thing.

What I will say is that I hope Matt will step in and put a stop to them overreaching and taking on things that should always remain outside of the WP core code.

Monetization Tips

18 Ways to Monetize Instagram

Since I started going all in on short-form video, Instagram has been the most productive platform for me.

In fact, the 1300% increase of hits I got on my AI-related vids there is what prompted me to split that off to the AI Discover Hub site and its own social accounts.

And I have clients who are doing spectacularly on IG too, including making money from what they post for both themselves and for sponsors.

The nice folks over at the Blogging Wizard have an article with 18 ways you can monetize your Instagram account.

Definitely give it a read and set your goals for capitalizing on a few of them.

How to Get Product Review Posts Ranked

Last year, Google rolled out their Helpful Content update in an effort to get rid of review sites where the folks never even used any of the products. They were just Amazon affiliate sites created by pro SEOs that weren’t all that helpful.

Since then, Google has been desperately calling for more actual product users to do review posts, and especially to do review videos that show you demonstrating the product in use.

The nice folks over at Search Engine Land have a super article on how to do a review post that is helpful to both readers and Google.

I most definitely want to get back into my woodshop and do more woodworking tool how-tos and reviews for my Heartwood Art site.

The YouTube videos I already have are getting featured, and I’m getting paid from folks watching them, as well as the stuff they buy from my affiliate links too.

So, go have a look at the post from Search Engine Land. 

And if you’re not doing videos yet, seriously think about starting them, as that doubles your ability to rank your content.

Keep in mind that YouTube is the 2nd largest search engine, and it is owned by Google.

And Google LOVES to feature YouTube content in regular search too.

AI SEO Tips

Google Forced to Include AI in Search

Oh boy! This is big!!

As I’ve mentioned several times recently, Google’s main income is from ads displayed in their Search results – to the tune of $162 billion a year.

That has EVERYTHING to do with why they have hesitated to release their own AI chatbot, as that is an answer model, not a search model.

But, Google is waking up to the fact that with Microsoft going all in with OpenAI, and specifically with Bing Chat that includes ChatGPT mixed with search, that more folks are leaving the Chrome browser and Google Search for Bing Chat.

And yep, Bing has ads too.

For every percentage point of the search market Bing takes away from Google, Microsoft adds $2 billion dollars to their coffers.

So, in a recent interview with the Wall Street Journal, the CEO of Google announced that they plan to integrate more AI into search.

Of course, that will include the Bard AI chatbot, which has been underwhelming in performance.

But, it will also likely impact the People Also Ask section too, which has been another way bloggers can get featured on page 1 of search.

The fact is, Google has been using AI-supplimented search for years. And their AI engine has far more data training than GPT-4.

That’s also another reason Google has been slow to release it.

They are actually scared of what folks could do with such a powerful AI engine.

I’ll be staying on top of this story and will let you know what becomes of it.

And the best place to hear that news as it breaks is on the AI Discover Hub.

How SEOs Can Embrace AI Search

Search Engine Journal has a nice op ed on how they think AI will impact Google search, and what you can do to embrace it.

It’s worth reading to get the historical perspective of Google and AI.

And it’s definitely worth reading to see how Google combats spun content from ranking, including content created by AI.