Tips Tuesday – New Gutenberg Blocks, SEO Tutorials, Google Updates, LastPass
Hello Happy Site Owners and Webmasters!
Tips this week include:
- Why you need a reseller hosting account for multiple sites
- New Google Connections tutorials are live
- Live DIY SEO workshop this week for revamping old content
- Why Google Site Kit is a no go
- The eye-opening results of my Gutenberg survey
- An update on the nofollow and sponsored link news from Google
- Old Search Console is dead, long live new Search Console
- Google’s reason for why not to use Instagram embeds on your site
- What happened to Cloudflare’s stock once they became publicly traded
- The new Kioken block suite plugin that made it onto my list to check out
- Why the EditorsKit Gutenberg plugin may not make it on my check out list
- A new dummy content for blocks plugin
- Why you need to update LastPass right now
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Replay
BlogAid Happenings
It’s been another busy and productive week here with wrapping up 3 site audit client projects and starting 3 more.
One of the new projects has some major issues, including a potential hack. We’ll be getting that checked into this week after I do as much cleanout of the account as I can.
That cleanout includes deleting multiple other sites on the account that were also not secured. And all of them were contributing to massive overages of hosting resources.
Get a Reseller Account for Multiple Sites
Folks, if you have more than one site, they all need to be in their own cPanel so each has a wall between it and limitations of the resources it can use. And each one of them needs to be secured.
The best way to do this is with a reseller, or WHM account.
NameHero has very affordable shared reseller accounts. I’m on one because I have so many production sites, plus test sites, and training sites for clients.
Several of my clients have multiple sites and they are on a reseller account too.
It’s pretty easy for the host to split all the extra sites off into their own cPanel as well.
So, no excuses when it comes to getting this fixed and taking the security risk and performance drag off your main money-making site.
New Google Connections Tutorials Live
This past week I’ve once again been making new tutorials for the DIY SEO course.
The Google Connections section has been totally revamped and updated.
That’s for how to connect Google Analytics and Search Console. And then how to connect the two together.
In previous weeks I updated the Yoast tutorials. And this week I’ll have a look to see if there are any tutorials that need updating in the Search Console section, as they have recently closed down the old Search Console interface and have now moved everything over to the new interface.
So, look for a few more updates this week.
DIY SEO Fall Booster for Revamping Old Content
DIY SEO course members voted on what they needed the most help with in revamping their old content.
In previous weeks we deleted old content that no longer serves. I deleted 380 posts and all images associated with them and I am so glad to have that task behind me.
This past week our challenge was to choose the old content we want to revamp to make better.
I’ll be working on all the posts listed on my Helpful Posts page.
Those have a lot of internal interlinking, so I’ll be updating all of those posts as well.
All course members doing the booster are choosing their focus for this project, as we don’t want to take on too much.
We’ll be meeting live this Friday for a workshop that includes a checklist of items to look at when revamping an old post.
And as the booster goes on, we’ll have live group sessions so folks can get individual help with specific posts and/or their unique content revamp needs.
We’ll do those up to the end of October and then take a holiday break.
And then our regular live workshops start again in January.
Google Site Kit is a no go
This past week I also checked into the Google Site Kit plugin as a way to connect our sites to both Analytics and Search Console, and then AdSense, Tag Manager, and more.
The purpose of it is to bring all of that data into WordPress so you can see it from just logging into your site.
The plugin is still in beta. And beyond even that, I don’t think it’s something we’ll be using even when comes out of beta.
The setup is a bear, which is true to form for way too many of Google’s products.
It’s just not worth the trouble at this time.
I’ll keep my eye on it, but loosely, as I don’t see it ever being less than a beast to deal with for what you get out of it for most of us.
Site Audit Client Booster Ongoing
Me and my site audit clients are also doing weekly boosters.
They are super fast and easy ways to check things on your site and ensure it’s ready for all the holiday traffic we’ll be getting.
This is just one of many perks you get as a site audit client.
And for those of you who have recently wrapped up your site audit project with me, don’t worry. There’s a whole page in your free private member area with all of the booster checks so you can catch up.
Gutenberg Survey
Yesterday I sent a super quick survey out to all BlogAid course members asking about new tutorials and Gutenberg related services I have in the works.
Wow, was that eye-opening!!!
And I can clearly see what I need to address in my marketing too.
That not only includes the course marketing, but Gutenberg in general.
So, look for more posts that educate on Gutenberg in the coming months.
Plus, I had already planned to do free webinars, but I want to get these new tutorials and themes and such in the course first as they will play a key role in those webinars to show you all that Gute can do.
And if you think there are more issues with Gute than solutions, you’ll be floored to discover all that you can do with Gute that regular WP can’t come close to touching without lots of plugins and special design features.
And for those who may be put off by the lack of lifetime access, or a time limit, the only other course that even holds a candle to my Gutenberg Ninja course is $30/mo over on LinkedIn Learning. And it’s still more of an introductory course and doesn’t cover half of what’s in my course. But it does cover a lot of fluff you’ll never use.
So, if you’re comparing prices, look at what you get for the time and money and you’ll see what a bargain my course is, plus how much more advanced it is. And it’s about to be even more so in just a few weeks.
That’s all the news from around here. Let’s jump into this week’s tips.
SEO Tips
Nofollow Sponsored Link Update
As I mentioned in last week’s Tips Tuesday, I’m holding off writing a post on the news bomb Google dropped about changes to nofollow and the new sponsored and ugc link attributes.
Here are 2 more news posts from others for you.
The word is still to do nothing with this. But I don’t think that will hold.
Ahrefs has already added those link attributes and I would bet money that Yoast and others will too.
So, I’m keeping my eyes on this closely and will have a post when things shake out a bit more and we have more data about folks who are using them and testing.
Google says there are no perks for using them. Yeah right. We’ll see about that.
Old Google Search Console is Dead
As I mentioned previously, I’m currently updating tutorials in the DIY SEO course, and going through the GSC section to see if anything else has changed now that Google has officially closed the old Search Console interface.
It took them a couple of years to move things over to the new interface, and introduce a bunch of new reports.
I doubt they are through with adding new features.
And I’ll be reporting on them as they come live. And in the course I’ll be making tutorials on how to use that data.
Another reason not to use Instagram embeds
As I show you in my post on how Pinterest Widgets Slow Page Load and Best Alternatives, using any type of Pinterest, Instagram, or other social media widget is a big no-no for load time.
Well, here’s another reason not to use them.
SEO Roundtable calls out why Google has fits with the iframe around images embedded from Instagram.
That iframe includes a noindex attribute, so Googlebots are basically blocked from indexing those images in relation to your content.
That’s bad for SEO.
I’ve seen roundup posts where folks embed Instagram and Pinterest posts from others, and that’s not good either. But, it’s even worse, copyright wise, to either upload those images of other’s stuff to our site, or pull the image from their URL, especially without permission.
So, be extra careful with how you do any of this on your site.
Speed Tips
Cloudflare Goes Public with Stock
Stock in Cloudflare just rose 20% on their first day as a publicly traded company.
I think I’m going to contact my investment guy about buying stock in all of the site-related companies I use. I already keep a close eye on how they are doing, and the trends of what’s coming up and what’s going down.
I don’t think this will impact how they do business much, beyond the 20 changes a year they already do to bring us bleeding-edge protection and speed.
But I will keep an eye on it for us.
Get a Site Checkup
And hey, if it’s been a while since your last site audit, come in for a checkup so we can get those 20 updates made for you on Cloudfare, as well as all the new security and speed changes directly on your site and site files.
Gutenberg Tips
New Kioken Block Suite Plugin
As soon as I finish up the DIY SEO tutorial updates I’ll be going full bore into Gutenberg tutorial updates.
That includes a super deep dive into the Ultimate Add-Ons Blocks by the nice folks at Astra, as well as their themes.
And this up-and-coming block suite plugin from Kioken has been on my radar for a few months now, and I’ve added it to my list of blocks worthy of spending time to check out.
The dev has focused on including things no other block suite plugin has, like vertical text and then lots of styling options that rival the best page builders.
As I predicted 4 months ago, plugin and theme developers are not waiting on WP to finish Phase 2 of Gutenberg, which will bring more theme and design elements into the core.
These devs are jumping the gun and on a bullet train to bring us those functions now.
I predict it will be at least another year before WP catches up to where these other designers and developers are right now.
So, don’t wait.
Now is the time to get into the Gutenberg Ninja course and get all of the basics down, plus all of the advanced and real-world things you actually need to do on your site taken care of.
There are already plenty of tutorials on several block suite plugins that have advanced layout and styling options.
And by the time you finish playing with those, you can jump right into the new tutorials coming for adding even more styling options, and on themes made for Gutenberg that are not Genesis based.
If you are a site audit client, or a member of any of my other courses, look in your member dashboard for deep discount codes on the Gutenberg Ninja course.
EditorsKit Plugin
As I mentioned, there are already advanced block suite plugins in the Gutenberg Ninja course, and more are on the way.
I’ve tentatively got the EditorsKit plugin on my list to check out to see if it’s a good fit for the course. I’m not sure it is.
While it offers ways to do things that Gute does not do natively now, like partial colored text, those functions will be coming to the core. And I just don’t feel comfortable with some of the other things in this plugin that I don’t think will last for long.
I’d rather show you the quick coding way or other tricks to get around these simple limitations that won’t need to be undone later when they are supported in the core.
So, be careful with Gute plugins, and vet them just as hard or harder than regular plugins.
Dummy Content for Blocks
Hey designers, need some dummy content to display or test your Gutenberg themes?
There’s a plugin for that!!
I used FakerPress for my speed test sites. But of course it put everything in the Classic block. And the images were not optimized.
I’ll be recreating them in the next few months and try this Gute-specific dummy content next time instead.
Security Tips
Update LastPass
The LastPass service is a spectacular way to always have super hard to break, and unique passwords handy for all of your accounts. And it’s stupid cheap to have it available on all devices, like $1/mo.
Their latest update fixed a potential security issue.
This has not been seen in the wild, so it’s not an active exploit for you to worry about.
Just ensure you have the latest update and let’s keep it that way.
Wrap Up
That’s a wrap for this week’s Tips Tuesday.
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