Tips Tuesday – More 2022 Predictions, LearnDash Acquired, DIY SEO, Site Success Goals

Hello Happy Site Owners and Webmasters!

Tips this week include:

• 2022 and Beyond Livestream replay is available
• Last chance on BlogAid Course Discounts
• DIY SEO Quick Checks start this week
• DIY SEO Workshops start on Jan 20^th
• The steps I’m taking to ensure I find right-fit clients
• The changes in focus I’m making for tutorials and support
• The 2022 Site Success Goals live session is this week for BB Hub members
• A huge thank you to WP Tavern, Team Yoast, and Andrea Whitmer
• The WP 5.9 RC1 is out and what I’ll be doing with it
• Why we’re not ready to switch to Full Site Editing yet
• LiquidWeb acquires LearnDash and who is heading it up
• Eye-opening video marketing stats for 2022
• 2022 predictions for the underlying infrastructure of Web 3.0 you’ll want to know about

Listen to the Podcast

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Spill the Beans Livestream tonight

Do join us live tonight at 8pm ET / 5pm PT on the BlogAid Facebook Page. We spill the beans on this week’s news, breaking stories for the day too, and special info just for those who watch. And the replay is available here on this Tips Tuesday post later too. But the live party is so much more fun.

Replay

Who I Help

All BlogAid posts and tutorials are intended to assist business-minded, hands-on bloggers and webmaster designers who are serious about making money and who want to stay up-to-date with site changes. And our BB Hub is a private member site and Facebook group for my site audit clients that has lots of extra perks and support.

BlogAid Happenings

Welcome to a new year, y’all.

It’s time to shake things up and get moving in new directions!!

2022 and Beyond Livestream Replay Available

Thanks to everyone who left comments on the post and emailed me about the eye-opening post of what’s coming in our online future and the bridges we’ll take to get there.

And a special thank you to all the folks who attended the livestream that day where we went further into it.

If you were not able to attend, the replay is available on the post and I suggest you watch it, especially if you think I’m going to spoon feed Web 3.0 stuff to you.

There is a whole other world of stuff you will want to get familiar with on this. And I’ll continue to do my best to point out the topics you need to read up on.

And then it’s up to you to do your own research and see what you think about the wild west that’s being built and where you want to participate in it.

What I will be focusing on are the bridges and the steps you will want to take starting now to get to that land of milk and honey where the eyeballs and the money are waiting for us.

Last Chance on BlogAid Course Discounts

The BlogAid Holiday Deals end Jan 5, which is tomorrow at midnight.

Get huge discounts on all courses, including:

• Gutenberg Ninja
• DIY SEO
• Video SEO Booster
• Webmaster Training

DIY SEO Quick Checks Start This Week

Here we go!!

DIY SEO course members, look for daily emails starting on Jan 6 with Quick Checks to ensure your SEO foundation is up to speed.

Now, if you’re new to the DIY SEO course, you need to take all of the standing tutorials for Yoast, and Google Connections, and Search Console and such.

For folks who are repeating the course, you’ll want to do these Quick Checks for the stuff that has changed since you last looked at them, plus new things that have been added.

THIS solid SEO foundation is what separates this course from all other SEO courses.

We start with the technical SEO to ensure Google has no issues with crawling your site, and that you’re not confusing Google in any way.

Plus, we want to ensure that your Google connections and Bing connections are setup correctly too.

Why do we do this?

Because a full 80% of my site audit clients have the Yoast SEO plugin, but none of the global settings are configured. 

We also see that your theme is outputting schema markup that is competing with Yoast.

And all that totally borks your SEO.

And when we do a real HTTPS conversion on their sites, we find their Google Analytics and Search Console are not set up right. Suddenly their analytics go through the roof because they are actually tracking and seeing the real hits after we do this setup.

So, we want to ensure your SEO setup is solid before we dive into all the other stuff like keywords and such so your efforts actually pay off.

DIY SEO Workshops Start in 2 Weeks

In two weeks we’ll be starting our live workshops in the DIY SEO course.

And this year we’ll begin with the massive SEO changes that happened in late 2021 that you’ll need to know before you apply any changes to your current content with what you learn in the rest of the course.

We’ll also be covering what’s coming for SEO in 2022 and all of the new ways to get your content on page 1 of Google.

For folks new to the course, I’ll be removing the 2021 workshop replays as I schedule the new workshops.

So, you’ll want to save your time and don’t watch the old info. Wait for the new. But, the old is still there until a few weeks before it will be replaced, just in case you want it for reference.

I should have the first several workshops scheduled soon, but mark your calendar now for the first one on Jan 20th.

Site Services Update

We are running on time for projects I guesstimated would start in January. And we’re running about 2 weeks ahead for projects I guesstimated would be starting after that.

The current start time for new project requests is about March – give or take a couple of weeks.

Finding the Right Fit

And one of the reasons we are running ahead is because a few folks who were on the waitlist have dropped due to self-identifying as hands-off site owners who can no longer lie their way into the DIY, hands-on site owner service and support.

I’m going to be honest with y’all.

I was burned to a crisp with ill-fitting clients in 2021. That has a LOT to do with folks panicking over Core Web Vitals.

Many of them have never been DIY site owners and they hired other techs who borked their sites and then disappeared. And the site owner has zero idea what was done or why.

I had to send many of those sites to my dev partner to square out before I could even do the audit.

And then the site owner still had no clue what was going on with their site – like why they had many of their plugins and such. Nor would they take the time to even look them up and find out.

We can fix a borked site. And we can do that for hands-off site owners.

But, hands-off site owners who don’t really have a grip on what’s going on with their sites do not qualify for the BB Hub with all of its perks and support, and that continual support was what they were after. A $50-$100/mo maintenance program would be a better fit for that type of support, and folks who run such things, or even higher priced hosting that offers pseudo managed packages are the only ones who would not lose their shirts supporting such clients.

So, what qualifies as a hands-on or hands-off site owner is a distinction I had to continually make clearer all through 2021, including a post to help folks self-identify as either already DIY, hands-on or not. And then making the BB Hub invitation-only because sometimes I can’t tell if someone is lying on their project application. There is no hiding about it once we get into the project.

This is next-level site ownership and I don’t handhold DIY wanna-bes. I do happily educate folks who already have a grip on what’s happening with their site, and take them into the next level of security and speed and SEO.

Change of Tutorial and Support Focus

One of the reasons I attracted so many ill-fitting clients this past year was my own fault. I’ve been hanging out in blogger groups and answering questions. 

Now, I’ve had a lot of great new clients find me that way. In fact, they are the young upstarts who are willing to adapt and do what it takes to get an edge and ahead of their more established competition in their over-saturated niches. I’m very excited for them.

But, I’ve also had a lot of folks contact me who just pulled the trigger without so much as even vetting who they hire. Many of those folks did the same with who they hired prior to me too, which is why their sites were so borked. 

So, this year I’m making a priority of getting back on the hamster wheel of creating more posts with news and tutorials. And of course, that goes hand-in-hand with my video strategy for this year too. 

That’s how my best clients found me – through doing their own research to fix a problem. I just need more info for them to search and find that is not all contained in Tips Tuesday.

In fact, I’m positive that I need to return to my old ways because of an email I received on Monday that confirms it.

In part it says:

“I have been watching your Tips Tuesday and reading the emails.

I am really impressed with your knowledge.

I really liked your email post last week on the changes happening. I also like how you are totally honest about working with the right people. I totally respect that and admire you for being very honest. 

I will apply for your blog audit later today.”

That’s someone who knows me, knows their site and where the gaps are in their education, and we’ll likely be a good fit.

Straight Up Dope

I’ve also had more folks in 2021 complain that I’m a bit gruff.

Yep, I’ll own that.

And it’s because I’m done with tolerating the extra stress of PITA clients, or dragging dead weight trying to help folks move into their future money-making opportunities.

I’m a freelancer, not a serve-all agency.

I cater to a very specific type of client – and that’s hands-on site owners who are ready, willing, and able to do what’s needed to stay ahead of the curves and stay in the money.

If you’re looking for someone to give you the warm fuzzies – seek life elsewhere.

But, if you’re looking for a site success partner, and you’re willing to do your part, and willing to work with someone who is more about function than fashion and the niceties of life, who delivers the straight dope, and who cusses like a sailor sometimes, then I’m your girl.

BB Hub Happenings

2022 Site Success Goals Live Session

One of my goals for BlogAid in 2022 is to do more live sessions with my peeps.

I’m already making the schedule for the BB Hub folks, including one this Thursday for chatting about our 2022 Site Success Goals. And, I’ll be revealing more details on the hard pivot BlogAid started making in 2021 for exactly where I’ll be investing my education time, and the type of info I’ll be making available in 2022.

I’ve also got an amazing visibility expert lined up to talk to us soon about the mindset switch I mentioned in my 2022 and Beyond post for thinking of your content as the product.

And, we’ll be chatting with BB Hub members who are already seeing success with sponsored videos and such too.

Plus, we have some collabs coming up for making your admin time more productive.

Not to mention the projects we already have underway for Code Name Ida as well as the Ecomm Coalition for digital downloads and membership sites to help more folks get started with selling their knowledge and content.

That’s just a small taste of what’s coming up for the BB Hub members, and why this is a membership worth paying for.

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

Thank You

WP Tavern 2021 Year in Review

I want to send a huge thank you to Justin Tadlock and all the nice folks at WP Tavern, and especially to Sarah Gooding, for ensuring that all of us are kept current on WP related news.

I count on them to keep me in the know so I can keep my peeps ahead of the curve with info we can trust.

Those articles are, by far, my most linked in Tips Tuesday and will likely continue to be in 2022.

Team Yoast

I also want to thank Team Yoast for all they do for WordPress and its users.

Yoast is the largest contributor to WordPress in the way of paying for folks to volunteer to work on core WP development.

They also send their team all over the world, when not restricted by Covid or such, to attend and participate in Wordcamps.

Plus, they make all kinds of great info freely available to us on both SEO and core WP development in a variety of ways.

Thank you for helping me stay current so I can keep my peeps ahead of the curves too. And thank you, Yoast, for all of your contributions to the WP community.

Andrea Whitmer

And, I want to send a huge thank you to Andrea Whitmer who is a Genesis designer and owner of Nuts and Bolts Media for running The Daily Bolt and syndicating BlogAid and posts from so many wonderful WP news sources to help keep all of us up to date with what’s happening across the WP universe.

WordPress Tips

WordPress 5.9 RC1 

I record the podcast on Monday, so I don’t have confirmation yet, but I fully expect the RC1, or first Release Candidate of WP 5.9 to be out today.

That means that no more changes or new things will be added and the devs are just focusing on bug fixes.

And I’ll be starting on my “What’s New in WP 5.9” post and video, as well as updating my Gutenberg Ninja tutorials.

Now, I won’t be actually making the tutorials yet, just updating my notes, as things are liable to change over the next few weeks until the final public release of 5.9 in late January.

But, I hope to have those tutorials posted for you in the Gutenberg Ninja course near the time of that release.

Not Ready to Switch to Full Site Editing

The only tutorials I will be putting off for a bit involve Full Site Editing, which is the big change in WP 5.9. The rest of the core code to support FSE is rolling in to fulfill what they started in WP 5.8.

The reason I’ll be holding off is because I don’t believe FSE is ready for production sites, and I don’t advise switching to a Full Site Editing compliant theme yet.

In fact, there is a LOT of core code they wanted to roll in with 5.9 that they decided needs a bunch more testing first.

So, even though 5.9 has enough core code to support basic FSE, I don’t believe we have all we’ll want.

And, I believe we’ll have to undo stuff if we jump in too early with it.

Plus, there are very few FSE compliant themes available right now.

In fact, I haven’t heard word from Astra or Kadence about how they intend to morph over from the Pro versions they sell that allow you to modify/style the things that FSE will support natively.

So, I may make some FSE tutorials for the course, but they will have a notice at the top that says to use at your own risk, and that no support will be offered for them.

I don’t think we’ll be ready to move into FSE themes until at least fall, if not into 2023.

So, if you need a theme revamp now, use what we have now, as it is stable and will continue to be supported for several years to come.

Member Site Tips

Liquid Web Acquires LearnDash

We had some major acquisitions in 2021 and the trend is going to continue for 2022.

Liquid Web is WAY more than a hosting company.

They have been gobbling up WordPress-related companies and plugins like crazy for the last couple of years.

And now they are adding LearnDash to their StellarWP brand.

Chris Lema is VP of Products at Liquid Web and he will be stepping away from that position to become the General Manager of LearnDash.

That makes a LOT of sense because Chris has been the go-to guy for all things regarding membership sites for the last 8-10 years.

Now, I don’t agree with everything Chris says, as his focus is very heavily on more enterprise-level sites, or at least memberships that are far bigger than what most of us run.

But I have super respect for him and what he brings to the space.

LearnDash is an LMS (Learning Management System). It has tons of nifty add-ons and integrations too, and those make up an entire ecosystem of their own.

Now, LearnDash is already the leader in the market, which is what made it so attractive to Liquid Web.

So, I don’t expect to see Chris make major changes to it.

But, I do expect to see even more integrations and shoring up of any spots where it’s a little weak with regard to integrations.

LearnDash was already on the list of my Ecomm Coalition’s stuff to check into for setting up certain types of member sites. The only reason I don’t use it is because my courses update too often, which totally blows one of the LearnDash functions of helping folks keep up with where they are in the course. 

Plus, folks need to be able to jump around and reference too much in the courses throughout their membership time.

But, there are definitely good use cases for LD, and we’ll be incorporating it into those that do need folks to follow a certain order, or even for gamification to give badges of completion and such.

And, it’s a great looking interface too.

Video Tips

2022 Video Marketing Stats 

The nice folks over at Social Media Today have an eye-opening infographic that’s filled with video stats, including just how much demand for videos has grown.

Here are just a few of those stats I found most interesting:

• Folks spend 18 hours a week watching videos
• 85% say they want to see more videos, and 69% of those prefer short videos
• The number of businesses using video for marketing grew from 63% in 2017 to 86% in 2021
• YouTube has 2 billion active users who watch 1 billion hours of video a day
• YouTube had 45% more livestreams since 2020
• Facebook Live views increased by 50%
• TikTok has 1 billion active users
• TikTokers spend 46 minutes a day watching videos
• Instagram also has 1 billion active users
• 80% of Instagram users say how-to videos are their fave
• Mobile-shot stories outperform studio-shot videos by 63% on IG
• IG users watch an average of 1-2 hours of video a day

Of course, Covid coop up accounts for some of the rise in video viewership, but certainly not all of it. And that doesn’t account for viewership remaining high through 2021 either.

In fact, TikTok will likely surpass 1.5 billion active accounts in 2022.

I’m looking forward to growing my TikTok account to where I qualify to be able to do livestreams there. The audience is so much more engaged than on any other platform, and that makes it more fun for everyone, including the host. I know how much fun we have on the BlogAid Facebook lives, and looking to expand that on TikTok.

I’m also going to be cleaning out the BlogAid YouTube account of old stuff and making more new stuff.

What video plans do you have for 22? Let us know in the comments, or wherever you see this post online.

Web 3.0 Tips

Coinbase CPO 2022 Predictions

This article focuses mainly on what’s coming for crypto in 2022, but that includes what’s coming for the underlying infrastructure that is currently being built and radically improved upon.

That structure will be the foundation that pulls some of what we now have with Web 2.5 into Web 3.0, like the social media platforms we use, including more control over our own data.

Cross-chain interoperability will also impact the wide adoption of NFTs, and that will impact the media we generate, including our images and videos and such.

The infrastructure is what I’m squarely focused on and invested in.

And now is the time for you to start reading articles like this and learning the lingo. It’s a super short article and the bullet points are all you need to get you started.

Be prepared to do a lot of Googling to help you understand the lingo in those bullet points.

It took me about 4 months of doing that before everything started clicking with me, but then I have to go much deeper than you will to sort out the tech each blockchain layer and its apps are using. So I can help point us to the ones that will be the most beneficial for us to use as bridges from what we’re doing now and what everyone will be doing in the next 5 years as Web 3.0 becomes the norm.

And you can start your research with the words you may not understand in this tip I’ve given you.

Just getting a grip on this much of it will put you ahead of 99% of the global population.

That’s how far ahead of the curve I’m trying to help you be.

Why?

Because early adopters make the most life-changing money.

I want that to be us.

Wrap Up

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

Gimme some love!!

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Be sure to visit BlogAid.net for more tips and resources and I’ll see you online.