Tips Tuesday – Shopify Metrics, AI Traffic, Substack Video
Tips this week include:
- Why Substack is courting more video creators
- New Substack how-to guides are on the way
- Why we’re pausing to take a breath in the DIY SEO course
- EZ Metrix Shopify reports for tracking traffic to the store
- Adding AI Search to GA4 and EZ Metrix
- How AI Overviews are changing search
- New guidelines on AI and copyright
Substack Tips
I started my first Publication on Substack called BlogAid Tips.
And I published DeepSeek – Why I Won’t Be Using It there too.
So far on that post I’ve gained 100+ views and 10 new subscribers that I would not have gotten had I published this post on the main BlogAid site.
On Sunday I published How “Build on Land You Own” is Limiting You and it’s taking off too.
You’ll want to subscribe to my MaAnna Personal Profile too because I’m working on a new publication for blogging things related to eCreators Hub.
Substack Courting More Video Creators
There is going to be a fight on Substack.
The OG users consider it the last bastion of long-form written content.
But, Substack sees the writing on the wall and they are doing all they can to appeal to vloggers.
In fact, Substack just launced a $20 million Creator Accelerator Fund to attract TikTok creators.
In my mind, this is the wrong crowd for Substack to try to capture.
But, to my surprise, Aaron Parnas, who has 1 million followers on TikTok just came over to Substack and brought all of his peeps with him. Substack even did a write up on him.
And now Parnas is starting a paid newsletter on Substack and doing well with it.
Substack Guides On the Way
As I mentioned in last week’s Tips Tuesday, I’m creating 2 Guides for getting started with Substack.
I spent this weekend updating them against a test account I have on Substack to ensure the process new users will see is correct. I had to do this extra check because I did things a little out of order with my own Substack account, and the settings and such will be different for someone with a brand new account.
And then I’ll start work on the formatting to make them “pretty”, well, as pretty as anything you’ll see from this old tech writer!!
I hope to have them ready to go by the end of the week, or within 2 weeks for sure.
BlogAid Course Happenings
Pause on DIY SEO Workshops
Two weeks ago we did a workshop on Pinterest and several folks signed up for Amy LeBlanc’s fantastic courses.
And then last week we did a workshop on how to quickly repurpose your content on Medium.
This week we’re going to pause workshops in the DIY SEO course to give everyone time to get their workflows going on these 2 platforms.
And then once I have these first 2 Substack Guides out, we’ll do a follow up workshop on them so we can compare notes and folks can ask questions.
FYI, the Substack Guides will be available to everyone, not just folks in the course.
EZ Metrix Shopify Integration
On eCreators Hub, I’m working with a WordPress site owner client who also has a Shopify store.
We are setting up Key Events in GA4 that we’ll use as Conversion metrics in her site’s EZ Metrix report. These will show which page of her site folks where on when they click over to her shopify store.
And then we’ll be setting up a new EZ Metrix report for her GA4 and GSC connections on her Shopify store so she can see where all of her traffic to the shop is coming from.
Adding AI Search to EZ Metrix
I’m also in the process of testing a new group of traffic sources, mainly from AI Search.
I need to give it a bit of time for more testing.
But I will eventually be adding these as a Group in EZ Metrix so that we can see clicks from AI summaries.
SEO Tips
AI Overviews Are Changing Search
The nice folks over at Search Engine Journal have a report titled AI Overviews Data Shows Massive Changes In Search Results.
Their summary line says, “Data shows that AI Overviews is answering more complex queries by up to 100% and is rewarding context appropriate content.”
I suggest you read the whole article to see how AI is radically shifting search, and how folks who are searching are quickly adapting to only reading these AI Overview Summaries and clicking on the links in them for deeper info, when needed.
Y’all this is the future of search. And so far, Google is barely losing market share to other dedicated AI search engines, like ChatGPT Search, and those from Apple and Perplexity and such.
AI Tips
New Guidelines on AI and Copyright
That AU content includes text, images, video, or audio.
It states that if there is sufficient human interaction in the process, then it can be copyrighted.
For those who want to use AI, especially text, you’ll have to keep a version log now of your iterations with AI, and how you manipulated/edited what it gave you to show “significant” human involvement in the creation of the final product.
I think they left a LOT of gray area in their definitions. And that may have been on purpose.
Maybe they are wanting folks to challenge these definitions in court to get more precise and/or definitive case precedent on how much human involvement is required to qualify for copyright.
The music business went through similar battles for over a decade when sampling became a thing. The question was how much of someone else’s published music can you use and still claim a derivative work or an outright copyright of your own?
But that was for music that had already been copyrighted and published.
The raw material was never in the public-domain, which is what AI-only generated content is considered to be.
We’ll keep an eye on this. But I don’t think it will affect much of what AI-generated material is used for. If you plan to write a book, or sell artwork, yeah, that would fall under this.
What do you think about it?
