Tips Tuesday – Mobile-First Indexing Emails, Genesis Future, Cloudflare Gifts

Hello Happy Site Owners and Webmasters!

Tips this week include:

• The change I’m making to the New Search Console Course that you’re going to like
• What to look for in those Mobile-First Indexing emails you’re getting from Google
• Which site types can make the most use of the new Speakable Content schema markup
• What the future holds for the Genesis theme framework and Gutenberg
• All kinds of birthday goodies coming from Cloudflare this week

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Replay

BlogAid Happenings

Back to Work

I got moved this past weekend and I was glad to get back to my desk and working by Monday afternoon.

My new office is a little boomy, as I’ve still got a few sound proofing elements to add. So I hope this sounds okay on the podcast.

Moving and remodeling are each stressful things to do. And taking both on at the same time is no fun. It was planned so that the remodeling would be finished prior to move in, but didn’t end up that way.

I’ve basically kicked everyone out until later this week so I could get back to work and unpack without holding the dog’s leash in one hand and so I could have some peace for a few days.

It’s going to be the end of the year before I’m fully settled, but I’m already enjoying the house layout and this neighborhood a lot better.

Doing it Twice, Making it Right

All of this house hoohaa continues to bring up similarities to running a site for profit.

My contractor’s crew didn’t do a good job with a couple of things, but he is bending over backward to make it right.

I want a long-term relationship with this man and the work he personally does is outstanding. Plus, I know I can trust his judgement and advice. He will be supervising the crew for the do overs.

I sure do know how y’all feel when you pay folks to do stuff to your site and then still have issues with it, or get an audit and discover things were not done well. Same with getting things fixed by your host for free. Sometimes that’s even worse, as they are hosting experts, not WordPress site experts.

Prior to my move I was helping a site audit client clean up a bunch of gunk left from a popular fix-it service and a popular image optimization service. Even though she got rid of the image squishing thing, it left behind a whole bunch of orphans that were goofing up things all over the place.

It costs time, money, and peace of mind to have to do things 2-3 times instead of right the first time.

But sometimes you can do all the research in the world trying to vet a service and still get screwed, like my client did with the 2 popular services she used, and like me with some of this house stuff.

Stick with Who Does Good For You

I hope I am to you what my contractor, Joe, is to me. The person who is going to make it right and help you keep your site running smoothly and be there for whatever else comes down the pike for us.

And I am so grateful that you continue to tell everyone about me as often as you can too.

Your references are how I stay in business.

October Schedule

Y’all were very kind not to deluge me with requests during my move time, but they are starting to roll in again, even though there seems to be an issue with my service request forms. I think I have that fixed now.

And, I already have several requests in the queue for a few site audits and other services from folks who wanted to wait until October to start.

So, if you’re thinking about getting anything done with your site, contact me pronto, as I’ll be booking into November very shortly.

Change to the New Search Console Course

Prior to moving I finished up the “tour” of the new Search Console interface tutorials. I call it a tour because it’s basically how to find everything and the type of info you can find on all the different tabs.

I had planned to save the how-to tutorials for the course on the original interface that will be coming out toward the end of the year.

However, as I reported in a previous Tips Tuesday, Google has now made the new interface the default when you log in.

So, even though all of the functions from the old interface have not been ported over yet, it only makes sense to do the majority of the course on the new interface at this point.

That means I’ve had to reverse my scheduling and put more time into this new interface course. And that may delay the full release.

But, I think I will go ahead and release this tour and keep on schedule for the discount offer next month.

That way you can go ahead and get familiar with the new interface and then be ready for the how-to tutorials as they release.

Then I’ll flip over to the course on the old interface for how-to posts on any function that has not been ported over to the new interface.

How does that sound to you?

I think this will get everyone in the DIY SEO course ready for our live workshops, which will begin again in January. And the first one this year will likely be Technical SEO again.

The more familiar you can already be with the new interface, the more ahead of the game you’ll be.

I think this will be a win-win for us.

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

SEO Tips

Mobile-First Indexing Emails

This past week, Google began sending out emails through Google Search Console for all of your site properties that it has included in its Mobile-First Indexing.

You should get four of them – one for every version of your site that you have verified:

• http www
• http non-www
• https www
• https non-www

If you received at least one email, but not all four, then be sure to check that you have all four versions verified.

For those in the DIY SEO course, check the Google Connections tutorials for how to verify a property if you’re missing any.

If you didn’t receive any emails, either it has not rolled out to you, or you don’t have any sites verified.

Speakable Content Schema Markup

Google continues to beat the drum on adding appropriate schema markup to help your posts get a bump up in Search.

First it was recipe plugins, then how-to posts.

Now it’s for speakable content.

If you want Google Assistant to be able to read your posts aloud, you’ll need to add special schema markup around those sections.

Now, before you jump on this train, do your homework.

Start by reading the rules in this post.

This is not for evergreen content.

The focus is squarely on news stories. In fact, you have to qualify for Google News for your posts to even be considered. And then you should add the speakable content markup around the most important sections.

You can’t add it around the whole post.

And, you can’t include any visual media within the markup either.

I probably only have a handful of clients that can make any use of this. But for those who can, it will be a big bonus, so check into it if you write news-worthy posts.

I’m seriously looking into this for all of the website related fires that pop up. I do cover hot news, so those posts may very well qualify. As soon as I have time I’ll be checking into what it takes to qualify for Google News.

Theme Tips

The Future of Genesis and Gutenberg

I sure was glad to see this post on the StudioPress blog.

You may recall that the Genesis team was part of the buyout when WPEngine acquired Synthesis. We were told that they would continue to empower the Genesis team to continue development of the framework. But with that transition, and Gutenberg looming, this is the first evidence we’ve had of their commitment to move forward.

If you use Genesis, I strongly suggest you read this entire post.

Note it mentions they don’t expect Gutenberg to release until early 2019. Oh, I hope that isn’t true, for all our sake’s as it is totally goofing up the regular WP updates.

I was glad to see so much detail about their thinking with the future of the Genesis framework itself. And, that there are few backward compatibility issues with supporting the Classic Editor. To me, that means that they will be mindful of helping folks through this transition and supporting both editors for quite some time.

For you and me, that means we don’t have to be in a rush to jump on Gutenberg.

As far as child themes, they say:

“The main focus of updates to the StudioPress themes are on adding styles for the new Gutenberg blocks. We’ll also be publishing content with tips on how you can do the same to the custom child themes you have created.”

For my webmasters, who are primarily designers, that means you will likely get even more support directly from the Genesis folks soon. I know there are several popular theme developers who have been providing extensive Gutenberg tutorials and help. But it sure will be good to have native support rolled into the Genesis framework, and to give you specifics on how to upgrade the base of child themes for Gutenberg block style support and such too.

I’m also hoping they come up with a new naming convention for enhanced child themes that support Gutenberg block styling natively. Remember when they added native schema markup? All of the converted child theme names had Pro at the end. Maybe these will have a G or Gute or something in the name.

Security and Speed Tips

Cloudflare Launches Week Long 8th Birthday Celebration

If your site is on Cloudflare, and I certainly hope it is, you likely got an email over the weekend announcing their birthday week celebration with lots of presents for us.

You might want to go read the post for a bit of Cloudflare’s eight year history and milestones. But more importantly, read what they mean by having a mission to make the internet better. I’m pretty much in agreement with those values and desires too.

In the section on Increasing Value for the Community, they drop hints on all of the birthday week gifts they will be sharing.

Here’s the list of gifts:

• On Monday, we are releasing something that will make the Internet more private and secure for every user.
• On Tuesday, we are leading the way democratizing a new Internet standard, while also making the Internet faster.
• On Wednesday, we are bringing together a coalition of partners to help our customers lower their infrastructure costs — dramatically.
• On Thursday, our actual birthday, we are releasing a new service we hope you’ll love that provides something that every one of our customers needs, but now with the best security and lowest price.
• On Friday, we are releasing a new product that pushes the power of the Internet forward by making it more programmable.

Now, I’m pretty sure most of those will either be paid usage products, or available on the paid plans, but even so, even the free version of Cloudflare gives you fantastic, cutting edge speed and performance perks, plus great HTTPS related perks that I just won’t do a site without.

When all of the options are configured properly, there is nothing on the planet that beats it.

So, if you’re not on Cloudflare yet, get on it.

If you’ve had trouble with it in the past, it’s likely a configuration issue that can be fixed.

If you are on it and haven’t had your settings checked recently, at least 12 of the have changed since January.

Security and speed requirements are dynamic things and Cloudflare keeps up, but some of those settings are not turned on automatically.

Holler at me if you need help with any of it, or contact me for a loyalty audit if you’re a site audit client and get a full checkup, which includes those Cloudflare changes.

Wrap Up

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

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