Tips Tuesday – Schema Markup, Direct Traffic Rise, Substack Video Recording
Tips this week include:
- Schema markup workshop this week
- Is your Direct Traffic rising?
- Multiple minor WP releases
- WP 7.0 coming soon – with one thing I don’t like
- Substack launches video recording
- Update on my YouTube channels
SEO Tips
Schema Markup Workshop
Last week I asked the DIY SEO course members what they wanted to learn more about and the overwhelming response was schema markup.
There are multiple tutorials/workshops in the course for it already. But I think it would be a good idea to do a workshop that helps tie all those together. So, that’s what we’ll be doing this week.
Traffic Tips
Is Your Direct Traffic Rising?
In GA4, visits to your site that don’t have a proper referral tag get lumped into the “Direct Traffic” count.
And I’ve heard several bloggers say that their Direct Traffic numbers have increased significantly. Too many times they are crediting that to AI Search/Chat traffic.
But, all of the most popular AIs have clearly labeled referral tags that are called out by name in GA4.
Read Why Direct Traffic in GA4 is Not What You Think from the nice folks at MarTech to see why your GA4 traffic may be on the rise, and what things may be losing their proper tags.
WordPress Tips
Multiple Minor WP Releases
Last week, WP rolled out version 6.9.2 to fix a few security issues.
And then within hours, reports started pouring in that it was breaking sites.
So they released 6.9.3, which fixed that bug.
But then, they realized that neither of these versions actually fixed a few of the original security issues.
So, they rolled out 6.9.4 and this one seems to have fixed all of the issues.
Geez, did no one test anything before releasing it?
WP 7.0 Coming Soon
I expect the first Release Candidate (RC1) for version 7.0 will be rolling out today.
I’ll start my testing when it does.
And I’ll be writing up notes about what is new in this release.
FYI, they had a last-minute edition that I’m not too happy about. We’ll see if it makes it to the final release or not, which we’re expecting in April.
I’ll keep you posted.
Video Tips
Substack Launches Video Recording
Substack has just rolled out a new video recording studio.
It allows you to:
- Pre-record a show
- Invite up to 2 guests
- Share your screen
- Add brand customization
Does this remind you of Blab?
I think it’s a super start.
And you don’t have to coordinate 3rd-party software to be able to do it.
But, one important thing is missing.
I didn’t see them mention a way to download the video.
And considering that Substack still has no way for you to take a backup that you can restore, and they don’t offer a system backup that they can restore, you have no way to preserve your recordings and/or share them elsewhere.
I’m betting they don’t want you to share them on other platforms. They want viewers to have to come to Substack to see them.
Even Blab gave you a way to download them. In fact, they required you to, as they would only hold them on their servers for about a month or so.
And most folks promptly uploaded to YouTube, or another storage platform, and embedded them on their sites.
Update on My YouTube Channels
I’ve been doing very well with bouncing back and forth to make new videos for the 2 YouTube channels I’m focusing on now.
For my newest channel, the 47 Shorts I made late last year are still publishing at the rate of 2/wk.
The viewership and subscribers pretty much flatlined for February. But both are picking back up now.
I’ve been working for a solid month on the next tutorial and I will be releasing it today. I had to learn how to do a new thing, and nobody else is covering it at depth, or finding the tricks to make it easy and repeatable. So, I’ll have a tutorial on just those aspects that I believe will do very well.
This current tutorial is just over 1 hour long, which is typical for this type of tutorial, at least with the other creators who have over 1 million views on similar tutorials.
I had chosen to release the first such tutorial in shorter segments to serve as a beginner’s course. And that was WAY easier to record and edit!!!!!
I love my Camtasia screen recording software, but it has a super tough time with longer videos. Sometimes it takes 20 minutes for it to save the first time. After that, it’s not so bad. But that sure scares me to see it struggle!!!
The nice thing is that I can now make variations on the theme for this current video that will be even faster to make, since I don’t have the learning curve on how to do the main part of it anymore.
For Heartwood Art, all 12 CAD videos I had made a couple of months ago have now finished publishing.
Over the weekend I made a new content silo page for them on my site. But I just brought in the YouTube embeds for it. I did not make separate blog posts for each one.
Honestly, I don’t see the point of doing video posts on my site for these.
My money comes from folks watching the videos, no matter where they are.
I don’t have affiliate links or such with these.
And the YouTube video will always outrank my blog posts in Google Search anyway.
(FYI, with my newest channel, I don’t even have an associated website, as folks wanting to know about this topic are going to want a show-and-tell video. Most folks start that search on YouTube.)
Now I’m in the process of promoting my new CAD playlists in my email list and in my woodworking groups too.
My goal is to increase my YouTube subscribers, so I’m sending them directly there instead of to my site.
