Tips Tuesday – Kadence AI, Performance Metrics, Google Drops Quality Raters
Hello Happy Site Owner!
Tips this week include:
- Making room for margin
- New metrics reports in the works
- Performance Metrics using Google Sheets workshop
- Google drops thousands of human Quality Raters – what this means for Search
- WP 6.4.3 maintenance release coming soon
- Is Kadence AI ready?
BlogAid Happenings
Making Room for Margin
Both sides of the turn of the year are busy times here at BlogAid.
Lots of site owners take advantage of holiday sales and the new year energy to make big changes.
For me that means a heavy load of site audits and a stream of new clients coming in.
And that means I’m working overtime to keep all the plates spinning.
It’s just the nature of being in a service-based business.
I don’t mind the extra hours as much as I mind being behind or getting into a state of overwhelm for too long. I’d rather just stay on top of it and get my schedule back to a normal pace as soon as possible.
But, I also have to give myself a moment to breathe during all of the hubbub too, and I got a chance to do that this weekend.
One of my clients said that her word for the year is margin.
We all need empty spaces that frame the rest of our busy-ness and gives us room to breathe.
And, I found something creative to do in the evenings that is mindful, yet relaxing and it makes for a good transition between my work day and my downtime too.
Are you giving yourself margin?
Do you have something that helps you unwind and relax?
New Metrics Reports in the Works
Another reason I keep pace as it comes in and before it starts piling up too much at the first of the year is because there is a natural ebb of business during the spring and that’s when I focus on courses and site revamps, case studies, or creating new products to launch.
Ever since the Helpful Content Update back in September, I’ve been researching ways to make digging into our metrics easier.
And that will be Looker Studio, which is another free service from Google where you can import your GA4, Google Search Console, and YouTube metrics and make visual reports.
You can also bring in data from other sources like Google Sheets for free too.
And there are paid connectors for 3rd party sources like social media, Shopify, and more.
It’s a holistic way of looking at your marketing efforts.
I met a couple of weeks ago with a few of my joint-venture partners privately to see a preview of the reports.
From their feedback, I’ve refined the reports with an focus on how they can help answer our content marketing questions so that we get actionable data to improve our blogging and other marketing efforts.
I’ll be meeting soon with my test case client and one of my joint-venture partners to do a presentation on how to use the reports to get action-driven info.
I’m looking forward to their feedback and then building out a live test case to see it in action in the real world.
More than anything, I’m looking forward to seeing how much more money my client makes by using the metrics to improve her content marketing and in driving traffic to her blog and Shopify store.
DIY SEO Happenings
Performance Metrics Using Google Sheets Workshop
Last week in the DIY SEO course we had a look at the metrics in Google Search Console and how to use it to find action-driven info.
In this week’s workshop we’ll download the GSC reports into Google Sheets where we can add some easy formulas to see the trends of how our content is performing over time.
And we’ll be able to do comparisons on more than one metric, like taking a look at which posts are getting the most impressions but the least clicks so we know which ones to investigate and see if we need to improve those posts.
This sort of thing is easier to do in a spreadsheet. I’m still trying to figure out how to do it in Looker.
Your money is in your metrics.
You already know that you should be paying attention to the data.
You just need an easier way to get that info out so you can take action.
And my goal this year is to help you find easy ways to get those answers and make more money and to work smarter not harder for it.
SEO Tips
Google Drops Thousands of Human Quality Raters
In March Google will terminate its contract with Appen, who provided thousands of human quality raters for search results.
What does this mean for the quality of future search results?
Well, it can’t get much worse than it is right now.
Some folks think that Google will replace these human raters with AI.
And some think that maybe Google is shopping for another vendor, as complaints are rising about the super poor quality of search results, and how they seem to be getting worse by the month.
For the last 2 years Google’s page 1 of search has been practically useless unless you wanted to buy something.
Most of us have to scroll and scroll and scroll to get to a post/article that has the info we’re seeking.
And I’m thinking that Google is not going to change that.
I’m thinking they are going to start promoting AI search instead, but only if they can still make ad revenue, which comprises 80% of Google’s profit.
I’ll be keeping my eyes on this and what it means for our SEO efforts.
For now, read the section in my Tips Tuesday from a few weeks ago about why I think AI Search will not kill SEO.
WordPress Tips
6.4.3 Maintenance Release Coming
WP continues to fix bugs in the 6.4 release and will have yet another patch coming to us on Jan 30 with the 6.4.3 release.
This should be an auto update for everyone, but it’s a good idea to ensure you have a recent backup before it hits.
AI Tips
Is Kadence AI Ready?
Last week I attended another live stream from Kadence where they launched their new AI powered Starter Themes.
Here are my thoughts on what I saw, and why I’m so concerned.
Tips Tuesday Plus subscribers got the rest of this tip.
