Tips Tuesday – SiteGround Deindexed, TikTok Creative Exchange, Google Tests IndexNow

Hello Happy Site Owners and Webmasters!

Tips this week include:

• New Recipe Video SEO tutorials are live
• A new How to Transfer a Domain from GoDaddy to NameCheap tutorial is live
• Update on the specialist we have in our Ecomm Coalition
• A few of my plans for 2022
• More live sessions are coming
• The return of my live consults to help you make money
• Holiday specials are right around the corner and where to get first dibs
• Google Dropped SiteGround sites from indexing for a while
• How to have Migration success for your site
• WP 5.8.2 bug and security release has rolled out
• Why I’ll be starting the Gutenberg Ninja updates early this time
• Where to get your WP 5.9 update instructions when that rolls out soon
• The annual WP Survey is out and why I encourage you to take it
• The annual State of the Word address will be delivered soon
• Pagely sells to GoDaddy and E-comm service that will come from it
• Why I’m happy about Google testing IndexNow
• Twitter’s huge partnership with Viacom and watch parties coming
• How you can make money on TikTok with their new Creative Exchange

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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

This week has been all about switching gears.

Me and my neighbor got the last big brush clean out and burn done in the meadow. And I winterizing my lawn mower and yard power tools early this week.

I also finished my last big woodworking build for the year and I’m almost finished with that set of posts for Heartwood Art. Then I’ll be closing up the wood shop.

So, all the hours I have been devoting to yard work and woodworking is now going full bore into the rest of the projects I have to do before the end of the year for BlogAid.

And that means bunches of new goodies for you!!!

Recipe Video SEO Tutorials are Live

I’m delighted to share that a whole new section has been added to the Video SEO Booster course for embedding videos on recipe posts.

That includes videos in the post itself as well as in the recipe card.

It includes an Overview of the deep testing results as well as what they tell us about making a strategy for earning the most money and getting the most reach.

And then it has all manner of schema markup output combo tests so that you can be absolutely sure about what Google is indexing on your recipe posts so they can rank in a way that meets your goals.

These tests are what set this course apart from all others – for every type of video embed.

It’s far too easy to confuse Google with various schema markup within one post and you need to be super clear on how that works.

And I’ll give you a hint – throwing the kitchen sink into a single post is most definitely not the way to go.

How to Transfer a Domain from GoDaddy to Namecheap

Transferring your domain to a different registrar can take 4-7 days – but not if you know the tricks for how to move it in a single day!!

If you want to save some money and transfer from GoDaddy to NameCheap, then go see the new tutorial I posted for you yesterday.

It will help you jump through all of the GoDaddy hoops a lot easier and faster too.

More Tutorials Coming

I had to do that domain transfer process yesterday, so I decided to document the process for it and make a post.

And that’s the way I’ll be making more tutorials for you from now on – just make them as I do them. Same with updating old tutorials.

If I don’t put it on my plate as I go, I’ll never get around to having the time to do them.

And SEO on BlogAid and its YouTube channel is tanking because of it.

So, this is the best way I know to do something about that and get you the info you need.

Ida Progress

Me and a couple of my webmasters are working on a secret project whose code name is Ida.

BB Hub folks, check our Facebook group for more.

It’s huge, and something every site owner will need. I just can’t talk about it publicly yet, but I want to keep my peeps up to date.

We are meeting later this week to discuss the research all of us have been doing individually. We hope to define some parameters and make a plan for delivering solutions to you asap.

Ecomm Coalition Update

Our team is expanding. I’ve invited a few more webmasters and vendors to the party.

We have someone doing an insanely deep dive on cart comparisons for digital downloads.

And we have a vendor who can do any type of email integration needed.

Plus we have a specialist in gamification for downloads, member sites, and ads.

And we have designers who specialize in landing pages and member site page layout and styling.

A few of us, including me, are starting our super deep dives into membership and course builds for niche sites. We’ll have multiple offerings for folks who are just dipping their toe in the water all the way up to full blown, marketing savvy niche sites that convert like cra-cra.

The main thing we are focused on now is research into best products and packages.

And then we will have consulting to start you off, as my consulting clients make 4x more money than they had originally thought about with how to run their program, simply because they had never done one and didn’t know what all was possible.

At the end of that consult you will have a plan. And then we find the right tech to implement and deliver that plan.

For member sites we will have a specialist available for every step of building and integrating whatever it is you need. Or, in the case of digital downloads, to have packages with ways for you to vet your needs and then tutorials for you to build it yourself, or only hire the parts you need help with.

We’re doing our best to make this modular so that we can accommodate both hands-on, DIY folks as well as totally hands-off site owners.

I’m crazy excited about how this is coming together and what we will have to offer you early next year.

And I’ll keep you posted.

Planning for 2022

This week I also met with two of my vendor partners to discuss what I see coming for getting traffic and making money online in 2022 and more changes I need to make with BlogAid, including what I offer and how I market.

We discussed the change of focus that is already happening with BlogAid for video and ecomm and the fact that I need to partner with more specialists to bring you well-vetted offerings next year.

There’s just no way for any one person to cover all of the angles by themselves. So, we are partnering to deliver different aspects of a project under one umbrella, so to speak.

That way, you get the benefit of folks who stay deeply connected and active with their specialty all the way through the project. And you have one point person to coordinate everything for you too.

This is an extension of what I already do with site audits.

I have access to theme design specialists who can take care of the CLS and other theme related issues we find that Google is dinging you on, and email specialists to help us get rid of the security issues with that too.

Many of you have already worked with these folks and can attest to how pleasant and affordable the whole process is.

Well, we’ll be bringing that same structure and coordination to new ventures that we agree are critically important to your site success in the coming year, and I’ll tell you more about those as we have things for you to see. 

Just know that these ventures revolve around SEO, UX, security, video, and ecomm because that is the way everything is going and where the most needs are for education and services.

More live sessions

I am super duper serious about wanting to spend more time with you live next year.

We did a few live masterminds in our BB Hub this year and they were super fun and helpful.

I’m already working out a schedule for how to do more live sessions in all of my courses and groups, and even more public live sessions, if time allows.

I’m also putting together plans for more mini courses and challenges.

You know, courses and such are a fantastic way to learn. But they are necessarily generic.

What you need most is specific help on your site. Or help seeing how you can make use of new traffic gaining opportunities. Or maybe just a group for accountability to help you learn a new way of doing things

Well. that’s what these live sessions are all about.

Let’s focus some attention on your direct needs and talk it out and brainstorm ideas for you and help you get started in a new direction with a new thing. 

Consulting Returns

And, I’m figuring out the best way to re-open my 1-on-1 consulting. It will be along the lines of “show me your site, I’ll show you the money” or such.

I’ve been doing mini consults like this all year with my site audit clients. 

The folks coming to me for their first audit are taking 4 pages of notes and finding all kinds of money they were leaving on the table.

And many of my long-time clients are ready to switch gears by changing how they make income. I’ve already helped 2 clients launch entirely new businesses. They have accumulated a ton of knowledge while making their current site a success and now it’s time for them to sell that knowledge.

I’ve also helped several more clients this year save a ton of money by advising them on what not to purchase and/or in finding alternatives for some expensive thing they could do another way.

All of this is super valuable info. I just need to figure out how I want to present it in a focused manner so that I draw in the folks who can benefit the most.

Site Services Update

I will be keeping my normal load of site services clients through the end of the year. And we are still running on track for when I guesstimated we would start your project.

The current waitlist time is now moving toward March – best guess.

So, if you have plans to do an audit, or audit/migration combo, or a new site setup or such by spring, now is the time to put in your Site Services request.

Clarification on Site Audits and Migrations

Because so many folks have hired other techs to help with speed or other issues these days, I have once again expanded the questions on my intake forms for site audits and migrations.
My services cater to DIY, hands-on site owners. It is a partnership and you and I will be the only ones working on your site, or work will be done by my trusted vendors, if needed.

If you are in any type of maintenance program now, you will have to come out of it when we start your project – and you may need to have them remove anything they have done, and any backdoor access they have created too.

Else, we’ll need to send your site to my developer to put it back to square before I start your audit.

Let me tell you, we have seen some of the junkiest code on the planet on some sites from new clients. And none of it worked well, or it didn’t stay working.

I don’t do trickery or cheater ways that break down the road. And I can’t support you if that is on your site either.

If you are already a site audit client – do not hire others to do work on your site, as that knocks it out of standard from your last audit, and I can’t support you.

If you need something, check with me and I’ll send you to someone who is vetted and will do the work without causing an issue.

And document whatever is done so you can tell me about it in your next audit checkup.

If you are on the wait list, don’t make major changes to your site or add themes or other sites and such that are different from what you put on your request form. It could then turn into a whole other project, and those kinds of surprises are not pleasant for either of us.

Holiday Specials Soon

Be sure you’re subscribed to BlogAid News as Santa MaAnna’s specials are very near to rolling out.

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

Hosting Tips

Google Drops SiteGround Sites from Index

Holy cow, Batman!!! SiteGround took 5 days to even acknowledge that anything on their end was contributing to sites on their servers getting dumped by Google and deindexed.

Folks lost all kinds of money before the issue got fixed.

And some folks panicked and jumped over to Cloudflare just to have it do the DNS management to run end around the issue.

And that is actually going to cause other problems for them.

If you jumped over to Cloudflare, please know there are 30+ settings that need to be configured.

So if you run into email, caching, or access issues, that’s likely the problem.

Unless you plan to get help setting it up correctly, you may want to switch back. I take my clients through that setup in a live session. In fact, I have already done it for 2 folks on my waitlist who had already requested a migration/audit combo to leave SiteGround.

But know that if you plan to move hosts over this, having the site on Cloudflare will goof that move unless you know how to update the DNS records beyond just changing the IP address.

Migration Success

See my migration checklist for what it takes to successfully move to new hosting now in a way where there are no issues, and no leftover conflicting junk from the previous host, and you get your one shot at max security at the new host too.

I see that SiteGround got their DNS issues worked out. But it will take time for Google to recrawl your site and even more time to report that it has.

And if you’re curious to see just how out of date your ideas about hosting are these days, and the insanely radical differences between them now, see my post on What is Managed Hosting?

I’m about to save one client $2400/year in hosting due to nothing more than lack of good security, while her managed host just keeps telling her to buy a bigger package.

WordPress Tips

WP 5.8.2 Security and Bug Fix Release

This should have been an auto update for you.

It contained 2 bug fixes and a minor security fix.

The next major release of WP 5.9 will be in mid December and I expect the beta version to release this week.

Starting on Gutenberg Ninja updates early

Y’all know that I usually wait for at least the RC1, or first release candidate of a major release before I start updating my Gutenberg and WordPress tutorials. And then we usually wait at least 2 weeks before doing the actual update. Then it will be at least another week before I release the updated tutorials in the Gutenberg Ninja course.

The reason for all these delays is because of how major the stuff is going into the WP core with the last 2 yearls worth of releases. And we don’t want to be the guinea pigs for that.

Plus, I’ve been burned to a crisp by spending a lot of time updating my tutorials when the beta came out only to have major things changed before the final release, which required me to make the tutorials all over again.

Well, this year is different.

For one, I have some major time constraints to get a lot done before the end of the year.

Plus, WP seems to have worked out a much better update flow with what will roll into the core from the Gutenberg plugin, which is where they beta test everything for weeks or months first.

So, I will be at least updating the written parts of my tutorials when the beta comes out.

And I hope to start making the video tutorials and such when the RC1 comes out, or at least a week prior to the final release. That way the new tutorials will be there when you do the WP 5.9 update.

Get Your WP 5.9 Update Instructions

Be sure you are subscribed to BlogAid News to get instructions on when and how to do your WP 5.9 update.

Take the WP Survey

The WP annual survey is available and it is very different this year. It is not entirely dev focused and has a lot of questions that pertain to bloggers.

The survey takes less than 10 minutes too, and the more of us bloggers who put in our $0.02, the better.

So I hope on over and do it right now.

State of the Word Address 2021

WordPress co-founder, Matt Mullenweg will be delivering his annual State of the Word address on Dec 14.

And this explains why he didn’t speak at WordCamp US this year, which is when you normally gives this address.

That might also be because they used to do WordCamp US in mid Dec, but moved it back a month.

Last time it was a recorded presentation that was livestreamed. No word on whether it will be again this year or not.

Hosting Tips

Pagely sells to GoDaddy

Color me stunned on this one. Of all the acquisitions that have happened this year, I didn’t expect this, and this quote from the Pagely announcement post tells you why:

“Scale, Durability, and Legendary Support are our calling cards. After a total of 18.5yrs in business, we are proud to announce we are moving on to the next phase of our journey: we have agreed to the sale of the company to GoDaddy.”

There is nothing about GoDaddy that makes me think of durability and legendary support.

Pagely hosts some super big websites, so we’ll see what they think of this move.

But this quote later down in the announcement may be the key to the whole thing:

“We will be working closely with the amazing team of WooCommerce experts from SkyVerge (previous GoDaddy acquisition) on the GoDaddy commerce team to deploy a world-class WooCommerce SaaS aimed at powersellers.”

They see the writing on the wall just like I do. Ecomm is where everything is going.

It will be interesting to hear what WP thinks of this, since they own WooCommerce now. Seeing it turned into a Service as a Sales product should be fun.

SEO Tips

Google Testing IndexNow

I told you so!!!!

You know that I’ve been keeping my eye on the new API that Bing recently took out of beta for auto indexing our sites and every new post we make.

It works very differently than the way Google does it.

Instead of bots crawling our sites to gather info, the new API sends the entire HTML to Bing and they parse it there.

That ensures they know about the new post and it radically speeds up their ability to index it faster on the Bing search engine.

At the time, I said Google would be smart to do it that way too.

Well, guess what?

Google announced they are testing this new IndexNow way of doing things!!

I had it on my to do list to see how to integrate it into our sites, at least for Bing. But I’m going to hold up a bit and see what Google does with it.

I would bet money that they may come up with their own way of doing the same thing as they have a super long history of not using what is working perfectly well on the market already and making their own thing.

Images are a good example of that. Instead of just using the MozJPEG and OxiPNG standards that were already available for years as the modern file format and superior optimization algorithm for images, they went and developed WebP. And because so few browsers supported it, you had to carry 2 versions of the image – and that lead to insane disk space usage for no reason.

Instead, just use Squoosh, get the modern formats, and optimize your images prior to upload.

Video Tips

Twitter watch parties

Here we go. Twitter is moving hard into video – I never thought I would see this.

They have a deal with Viacom to stream some super popular shows.

The fact is, show fans have long used Twitter with hashtags to talk about their favorite shows at the time they air.

But to see Twitter start streaming – wow – that should tell you just how big video is now and how much folks want to engage with you that way.

New TikTok Creative Exchange

And here we go with making money right from TikTok.

They just launched a new Creative Exchange where brands can pitch a campaign brief and creators on the platform can respond to get sponsored content deals.

Folks, I already have clients that have been making money all year by capitalizing on their big audience on TikTok.

And now it will be a little easier for creators with a following to hook up with brands and make more money.

Don’t think for a minute that brands haven’t already been seeking popular folks out on TikTok already. This new exchange is just going to make it easier for everyone to hook up.

Wrap Up

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

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