Tips Tuesday – SEO Content Revamp, Video Payouts, AI and Search

Hello Happy Site Owners and Webmasters!

Tips this week include:

• Update on my secret project
• Content Revamp Workshops in progress in the DIY SEO course
• GA4 webinar is coming soon
• Review of Cloudflare Analytics
• Review of Cloudflare Turnstile reCAPTCHA
• Why to stop displaying a raw email address on your site
• Why I’m so glad that WP fully documents its releases now
• Incoming YouTube CEO Shares his future vision, it’s about creator money
• YouTubers report first month’s earnings from Shorts
• Landing Pages that Convert
• Regular Bing now has a Summary Box and what it means for your site getting found
• Bing Webmaster Reports to Add Chat Index Coverage
• Google says Bard is not Search
• Why this is not an AI war
• Who’s behind the new AI culture war
• OpenAI’s API just got way cheaper and where you’ll be seeing it show up
• Is ChatGPT Plus worth paying for now?
• Meta AI is coming
• Why Meta’s VR headsets are on sale
• How AI mouse and keyboard clicks could automate tasks
• Web3 is still alive and growing

BlogAid Happenings

The last of winter is a slower time for BlogAid as far as client work and course updates and such. And that’s a good thing because I need time to catch my breath from the frenzied pace that starts in the fall and goes clear through the end of February.

And, I need time to check out new things for us, like plugins and services and such too. In a moment I’ll tell you about the ones I checked this past week.

Site Services Update

I’m also glad for the slow down in client work this time of year so I can get caught up on my waitlist.

We are running about a week or so on wait time for new requests.

So, if you want to get an audit checkup, or your first audit, or any other service in March, now is the time to fill out the request form.

As always, consults are on demand.

Secret Project Update

I haven’t shared much about my new secret project lately.

That’s because it had to go on hold for me to finish the GA4 course tutorials. And then to flip over to the DIY SEO tutorials and workshops to get them up to date. And then flip back to the GA4 course to add the new Search Console integration tutorials.

But, I’m back at it again and slogging my way through learning something new for it.

Have you ever gone up a mountain on a switchback path that seemed to go more sideways than up?

Yeah, that’s what it all feels like right now with this project.

I’ve spent a lot of time just trying to figure out how to do one part of it that will be critically important to the marketing. And I’ve had a heck of time finding someone to teach me one specific part of it too. 

Private instruction that gets me exactly where I want to go is far faster and cheaper and less stressful than trying to piece together tidbits from courses and YouTube and such that aren’t exactly what I need to accomplish.

But, it took a few weeks, and buying a few programs to narrow down exactly which one would work best for me. And I’m on my second teacher now that I’ve found the right tech to use finally too.

All of this has reminded me that the reality of taking those switchback paths up the mountain. They are the road to the top. That’s what success looks like. 

I’ve rarely seen anyone go in a straight line with a new venture, especially with one that has parts they’ve never done before.

And I’m trying my best to give thanks in all things with it because what seems like a delay or setback may actually turn out to be good that I waited as a better opportunity or situation may come along. And I’ve learned something useful no matter what.

So, keep walking your path. And be patient with how long it’s taking. This is the road. And you’re in the right place here at BlogAid to get the help you need to make it to the top.

BlogAid Course Happenings

Content Revamp Workshops in Progress

A huge key to your ongoing SEO success is constantly tuning up your site’s content.

And if you’ve been blogging for a while, that can seem like a daunting task.

The nice thing is, you don’t have to do it alone, and there are ways to make it easy and keep you out of overwhelm.

And that’s exactly what we’re covering in the 3-part Content Revamp series of workshops in the DIY SEO course.

This past week I showed folks a quick and easy way to export all the info they would need.

And this week’s workshop will be about how to sort through your content and make good decisions about what to do with it, including:

• Delete
• Rework
• Republish

And then next week we’ll cover all of the how-to steps in doing those things the right way, the first time, so they don’t bork your SEO.

That’s especially important with updating or republishing your content, as Google and Bing have 2 different directives about those things.

My peeps will see how to make changes that don’t suddenly drop their rankings, like some folks have experienced who don’t know these tricks.

GA4 Webinar Coming Soon

Did you miss the first webinar I did on Google Analytics 4? It was during the holiday haze in November.

So, I’ll be doing a new one very soon, probably next week.

BlogAid News subscribers will get first notice and the registration link to the limited seating for the live session. Plus registered folks will get access to the replay too.

You only have 3 months before the Universal Analytics you’re using now stops working.

So, you don’t want to delay in getting GA4 properly setup and for creating custom reports so you can see what you’re used to seeing in UA. The Standard reports in GA4 are mostly useless, even for vanity metrics.

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

Analytics Tips

Cloudflare Analytics Review

In last week’s Tips Tuesday I told you about 20 Google Analytics alternatives.

And I told you I’d be checking out the ones in Cloudflare.

The first thing they show you is not really all that helpful, as it’s mostly about the Cloudflare logs and how much it’s protecting your site.

You have to click a link to see the analytics on a single site.

It already had BlogAid setup, but it wasn’t working.

I added one of my other sites and it did an auto setup and started working within minutes. So, I’m thinking the older setup for BlogAid is at fault and it would need to be deleted and redone.

The analytics shown are just the basic vanity numbers of page hits and such. It also has Core Web Vitals for the whole site, not individual pages.

So, not really all that helpful compared to GA4, even it’s Standard reports have more info than Cloudflare. Worth checking, but we’ll pass on it.

FYI, if you do turn it on, you’ll get a weekly email about it.

Plugin Tips

Cloudflare Turnstile reCaptcha Review

Another thing I had a chance to check out for us this past week was the new Cloudflare Turnstile reCaptcha service.

It is a better replacement for the Google reCaptcha service.

And I want us to use it for our contact forms and more.

However, it is still in beta. And there are only a few forms that are natively supporting it.

I checked into Fluent Forms, which has a beta for it. And that’s a great plugin. But, you need the paid version to be able to turn off the form data collection in the database, which is a no-go for GDPR.

That’s the main reason why I suggest you use Formidable. It has a way for you to turn off that form data collection in the free version.

Now, there are several Cloudflare Turnstile plugins available that will integrate with multiple contact form plugins. And I tested one of them and it works just fine. Plus, you can add that reCaptcha to your login and comments and more.

But, I’d rather we not add another plugin to our site right now.

I’m going to contact the nice folks at Formidable and ask them to try Turnstile and see if we can get a native integration.

For now, we’ll stick with Google’s v3 reCaptcha on our forms.

Stop Displaying Raw Email Address

Do not display your email address on your site – not even in some goofy spelled out way like using the words dot and at instead of the symbols.

Bad bots learned to read that years ago.

And they are scraping your email address and selling it on the black market – forever.

They will use it to try to hack into every online account you have.

So, it’s not just about spamming you.

This is the whole reason you have a contact form. Link to it.

And check your privacy policy page too. I’ve heard some folks say that you have to show your email address on it. No you don’t. You can link to your contact form.

I suggest using Formidable Forms (see my tutorial) because it has a way for you to turn off collecting the form data in your database. Most other plugins don’t have that in their free version.

And collecting that data is a GDPR no-no, plus it clogs up your database with useless info, and that will eventually become a speed issue.

WordPress Tips

WP Release Documentation

Finally!!

A new hire to the Automattic staff decided to curate all changes in an upcoming WP release into something all of us can read!!!

How did we go 20 years of development without this?

Yes, there has always been a long list of changelog links from the proposal tickets. But it’s written by devs, for devs, and is nearly impossible to sort through in any reasonable amount of time, including the herculean task of connecting the dots of how one thing affects another.

And not to mention the surprises we’ve encountered with some critical code change being buried that breaks stuff no one knew to test.

Where to Get WP Update News and Instructions

WP 6.2 is set to be released March 28.

And I expect the first RC (release candidate) to drop today, or next week.

I’ll have a video tour of the changes that matter to you soon after the release.

BlogAid News subscribers will get my special update and testing instructions.

So be sure you are subscribed.

Video Tips

Incoming YouTube CEO Shares His Future Vision

Recently you saw me report that the CEO of YouTube stepped down unexpectedly.

Well, they took no time at all in finding a replacement.

Neal Mohan outlined his vision for YouTube’s future and it is squarely on content creators.

He knows that the good ones are going to post content where they can make the most money – and he wants that to be YouTube.

YouTube paid out $10 billion to creators last year.

And he wants more creators to start doing Shorts and sharing that revenue too. But honestly, it’s not as good a deal as you can get on long-form video content.

Mohan also said he wants to see more tools in YouTube to turn that long form content into Shorts as a way to help creators speed up the process of making more of them.

I’m glad to hear it, as video will be the centerpiece of my marketing for my secret project. And I’d be super happy to earn more money with it than I’m already earning with Heartwood Art, which is actually trouncing BlogAid in watchtime.

That’s the power of evergreen content. It grows more than tech related news stuff that is changing every 5 minutes. You just don’t have to make as many videos with evergreen topics to grow and make money either.

YouTubers Report First Month of Shorts Earnings

It’s been one month since YouTube launched monetization of Shorts.

It pools all of the revenue generated via Shorts ads. And then they share half of that revenue with top Shorts creators. 

The nice folks at Social Media Today have a post where they collected up Tweets from Shorts creators on what they think about the new monetization program.

They are saying it pays 2x more than TikTok, and better than the creator program on Instagram.

You can read the post for more info about payments.

But, the real money with video is catching more eyeballs and getting them to follow and trust you. And then getting them to jump over to your site where you can make more money with ads, products, and services.

Long-form video on YouTube is always going to outpace Shorts for payouts, though. So, if you’re looking to make money directly from the video itself, longer is better.

Conversion Tips

Landing Pages that Convert

So once you do get those eyeballs on your videos, you want to send them to a page that converts well for you.

The nice folks over at Social Media Examiner have an excellent post that breaks down the elements that make a landing page convert.

And this is very close to the formula I use for my landing pages too, and it works.

So go have a read and follow the steps they outline and see if your pages don’t convert better too.

AI SEO Tips

Regular Bing Has Summarized Box

In last week’s Tips Tuesday you heard me say that there are 2 versions of ChatGPT.

One is directly from OpenAI, and it is what we call ChatGPT.

The other is the ChatGPT section of what is being called New Bing that you have to get on the waitlist for.

But, the regular Bing browser is now offering a Summary Box for your search query that is very similar to the one in the ChatGPT sidebar on the New Bing.

And it lists just the top 5 web sources for the query too.

So again, if your site is not in the top 5, it may not get seen if those summaries answer the query satisfactorily.

Bing Webmaster Reports to Add Chat Index Coverage

Bing Webmaster Tools doesn’t give you as much actionable info as Google Search Console.

But, they are adding and new section for Chat Index Coverage so you can see if your site shows up in these new AI assisted searches, and if folks click on your site link.

That’s great, but I’m betting it only works on the Bing Browser and likely does not cover impressions and clicks from other AIs extensions that have access to the internet, like the ones for Chrome and FireFox and such. 

We don’t know if more folks are using Bing as their default browser, but I’m betting Google is not too worried about the dominance of Chrome just yet.

So, it’s nice to have these new analytics from Bing. And I’ll be adding them to the DIY SEO course’s Bing Webmaster section as soon as I can.

AI Tips

Google Says Bard is Not Search

The lead dev for Bard recently reminded Google employees that Bard is not Search.

He says:

“The magic that we’re finding in using the product is really around being this creative companion to helping you be the sparkplug for imagination, explore your curiosity, etc.”

Bard has been revamped into a thing titled “Search it” on Google.

And to steer more folks away from paying attention to it, the lead said! “But as you want to get into more of the search-oriented journeys, we already have a product for that — it’s called search.”

This is not an AI war

So, what’s behind all this?

A full 60% of Google’s revenue is from ads on Search results pages, including shopping for product placement. They can’t afford to swap from a search model to an answer model.

On the other hand, Bing is owned by Microsoft. And the bulk of their revenue comes from their own products, like Office365 and such. 

And while Bing does have ads on search results pages too, it’s not so critically important to their revenue strategy as it is to get everyone hooked on ChatGPT so that they also purchase products that incorporate it natively.

So, this is not an AI war. It’s a revenue model war.

And Google has chosen not to give up their main revenue stream while also going broke providing free computer time for an AI chat service.

AI Culture War

Elon Musk has something to say about all this too.

He was an original investor into OpenAI. And he meant for it to remain a non-profit.

He says it has now become a profit-hogging, closed project that is “too woke”.

So, now he’s thinking about starting his own AI company called Based AI that will be free and not so restrained in its political correctness, much like he tried to do with Twitter.

This sounds to me like he learned nothing from his time as the head of Twitter and just one more way to stroke his ego and keep him in the news. And another way to lose a wad of money.

OpenAI’s API Just Got Way Cheaper

Here we go!!!

OpenAI just dropped the cost for use on their GPT3 API.

It now costs 10x less to run it. 

So, I expect GPT3 AI to come into practically every product and app we touch in the coming months.

There are already 1,000 new products/apps a week popping up. I expect that number to continue to grow as more developers seek their space in this emerging market.

And it’s going to come down to 2 main products, in my opinion – business use and entertainment.

Is ChatGPT Plus Worth Paying for Now?

Nope.

Go watch this TikTok that breaks down the new costs.

You could write every blog on your site and all the marketing for that $20 bucks now.

But, the caveat is that you have to use the OpenAI Playground instead of the ChatGPT interface. And that has a bit of a learning curve. However, it’s worth it if you use ChatGPT enough to feel the need to pay for it.

Meta AI Coming

Remember how Facebook when all in on the metaverse?

Well, they are now doing the same with AI.

Here’s how Zuck sees Meta’s future with AI:

“In the short term, we’ll focus on building creative and expressive tools. Over the longer term, we’ll focus on developing AI personas that can help people in a variety of ways. We’re exploring experiences with text (like cat in WhatsApp and Messenger), with images (like creative Instagram filters and ad formats), and with video and multi-modal experiences.”

There is a waitlist to try Facebook’s new AI called LLaMa. You can sign up here.

VR Headsets on Sale

Meta has also radically dropped the prices on their VR headsets recently too.

I’m thinking this is for 2 reasons.

The Metaverse they were building flopped, and there really isn’t much development happening in the Oculus gaming industry.

But the bigger reason I think they are putting the VR headsets on sale is because some pretty awesome AR/VR glasses are right around the corner.

AR is Augmented Reality.

And these glasses will project digital info onto the real world.

To me, that seems a lot safer and more practical than putting on a heavy headset that blinds you to the real world.

So, VR headsets were a good first step.

But I think AR/VR glasses are going to be the future.

AI Mouse and Keyboard Clicks

There was a very interesting article on the Marketing AI Institute site last week where they outline the future of where they think all of this AI support is going.

One example they highlighted was all the steps it took to write an email.

It may not seem like much for you to write an email. But if you had to train a machine to do it, you’d need it to learn 21 steps.

Remember that song, “Take a Letter Maria, address it to my wife?” Well this is the same personal assistant type thing that business folks want to train AI to do.

We already have dictation available on our computers. AI will just add the rest of the tasks for actually opening, addressing, and sending the email.

But, I’m not sure this is going to work for many of us that need to personalize or customize our replies.

And, most folks aren’t dictating into their computer’s now, even though we’ve had voice recognition for many years. The thought process is more abstract. And typing things out let’s you follow a train of thought in a more thoughtful manner, usually.

So, we’ll see if this reaches into small business use, or stays with big business to send robo replies, which are already a total waste of time more often than not, in my opinion.

Web3 Tips

You haven’t heard me mention Web3 stuff in a long time.

It’s still very much alive and growing.

In fact, more big businesses are filing for licenses and patents and copyrights and all manner of things.

They are just taking it in a different direction because VR/metaverse stuff did not play out as well as they had hoped.

But blockchain technology is still going super strong, and it’s no longer seen as being tied to the tokenomics of related crypto currency.

So, a lot of what’s happening in Web3 concerns the logistics of data for enterprise-level companies moreso than anything customer-facing.

And that’s the main reason I haven’t been talking about it.

All’s well with Web3. There just hasn’t been much to report that will directly impact you, or that you can have visibility on.

But, that will likely change once we get our AR/VR glasses and wearable tech. And that’s right around the corner. I’ll keep you posted as it starts coming off the drawing board and into the hands of consumers.

Wrap Up

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

Subscribe to all BlogAid Posts via email so you never miss anything!

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