Tips Tuesday – Video SEO Booster Launched, New Lighthouse Speed Metrics, Block Patterns

Hello Happy Site Owners and Webmasters!

Tips this week include:

• The Video SEO Booster course is live!!!
• Super Summer Sales Event is on with discounts on all BlogAid courses
• Great progress with theme testing
• Contingency Plan mastermind is this week for BB Hub members
• What we’ll be covering in our Ecommerce masterminds
• A super evergreen content case study and which post types do best
• Update on Mediavine GDPR method
• The super sneaky thing the WP Mail SMTP plugin does to some folks
• Speed metrics going stricter in the new Lighthouse 8 tester
• Why you need pro help with your site speed
• WordPress 5.8 RC1 is out
• How Gutenberg Block Patterns will change everything

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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.

BlogAid Happenings

I hope all of my U.S. clients enjoyed their holiday weekend.

We’ve got a LOT to celebrate this week as we officially kick off summer!

Video SEO Booster course is live

I am THRILLED to announce that my new Video SEO Booster course is live and open to the public!!!

I sent an extra special discount to BB Hub members on Saturday.

And I sent it to BlogAid News subscribers on Monday as part of the next news I want to share with you.

Super Summer Sales Event is on!

All BlogAid courses are on sale this week.

Now is your chance to get a big discount on:

• Video SEO Booster – $50 off
• DIY SEO – $50 off
• Gutenberg Ninja – $30 Off
• Webmaster Training – $50 Off

This sale only runs through midnight Sunday, July 11.

So grab them up quick!!!!

See the post for your coupon codes.

Theme tests making progress

I have all of the speed tests done for all 4 of the themes I’m testing including:

• Genesis
• Astra
• Kadence
• Generate Press

That includes speed for the initial theme right out of the box.

And then speed tests for demo sites that are all set up exactly alike on each one to mimic a real-world home page and post.

I also have the SEO tested on all of the themes too.

And this week I’ll be adding the Yoast SEO plugin and see if all but Genesis still outputs its native microdata schema markup. My bet is that they will.

Yoast outputs JSON-LD schema markup, which Google prefers.

And we already know that Genesis will auto detect the SEO plugin and back out its microdata.

But the other themes do not.

So, I’m gathering the data to show you what double schema markup looks like.

And I’ll be testing the tutorials that each theme vendor has provided for the code you need to add to fix this issue.

We have to fix this issue prior to me running tests for the recipe plugins, and especially before I add a video to the recipe, as it has its own schema markup. So, you could be outputting 3 different schema markup sets, and that’s just going to confuse the crap out of Google.

I’ll be updating both the Video SEO Booster course, as well as the DIY SEO course with these SEO findings and fixes.

And then I’ll circle back to the theme speed tests. That will take another month or so because I want to throw the kitchen sink of tweaks at them to speed them up too.

And I’ll keep you posted on all of it.

Contingency Mastermind for the BB Hub this week

We had a GREAT time during our Instagram Mastermind last week.

And boy, was that ever timely, as IG’s head poobah just announced that they are going all in with video.

You know, between this and YouTube paying out $100 million to Shorts creators, we have a super good indication of just how hot TikTok is, and how many eyes they are drawing away from all other platforms.

And yes, I have a section in the Video SEO Booster course for YouTube Shorts as well.

This week me and my BB Hub members are getting our contingency plans squared away.

The fact is, whoever you have assigned as your POA very likely has no clue what to do with your online business.

It’s super important to get some instructions written out for both short-term and long-term absences. 

READ: Make a Contingency Plan for Your Website for details.

And, it’s super important that your site stay current if you are unavailable too.

That means getting a blogging buddy to help you, or getting on a monthly maintenance plan.

READ: Why You Can’t Ignore Your Site for Long Stretches for details.

Ecommerce Masterminds coming up

Toward the end of July and all through August we’ll be meeting in the BB Hub for a variety of ecomm related topics, that include:

• Shopify
• Woocommerce
• Mailchimp Shops
• SendOwl
• Gumroad
• How to make printables
• And more

It’s super important now for you to diversify your income streams.

We’ll be focused on paid downloadables and will get into courses if there is enough interest.

Focusing on YouTube

A couple of weeks ago I celebrated with you that I published my first post on Heartwood Art since November.

Since then I have already built another project and have that post and video nearly complete.

But, it references one of the new tools I got over the holidays.

So, this past weekend I made a video tutorial on how to set up and use that tool.

I wanted it out first so I can reference that post in the new build tutorial. 

All of this is part of a content silo that is working great on Heartwood Art. And that’s something I teach in the DIY SEO course too.

I’ve also shared with you recently that even though I have had few posts on Heartwood Art, my YouTube watch time and subscriber rate keep going up and up.

I’m not too far from being able to monetize the channel.

And this latest tutorial on the Kreg Rip Cut system gets other folks 45 million views over the last 3 years.

There aren’t that many tutorials on it either. And some that are coming to the top of search aren’t all that good.

So, I feel pretty confident that I can do well with it, and that I might reach the tipping point with being able to monetize.

That will also allow me to use other features like Cards for linking to the posts I mention and such too.

So, I’m focusing on YouTube these days so that I can bring even more tutorials to you in the Video SEO Booster course.

That’s all of the celebration happenings around here. Let’s jump into this week’s tips.

Content Marketing Tips

Evergreen Content Case Study

The nice folks at Backlinko did a super case study on what types of evergreen content do the best.

They analyzed 3.6 billion articles. And with the help of BuzzSumo, they sorted through the metrics to see what gets shared and linked to and has the longest lifespan.

It was no surprise to see that lists and how-to posts were at the top.

They clarified that by saying:

“Content types with the highest proportion of evergreen content include “best of” lists, guides, data-driven research and industry reports.”

And those “best of” list posts literally trounced all other types. It was the leader, by far.

List posts that have the year in the title also did well. There are tricks for how to keep posts like that evergreen, though.

I was surprised to see that posts which get good engagement on Reddit tend to have a long lifespan too.

Do you use Reddit? I have not been, but maybe I should.

There’s a lot of meat in this post and I’m thinking it would be a good one to break down in the DIY SEO course. 

What do you think?

Plugin Tips

Update on Mediavine GDPR Method

Doh!!!!!! 

Last week I reported that one of my clients tested the GDPR method provided by Mediavine for their ad partners.

And I told you that it gave us a big warning when I tested from Paris.

Well, I totally forgot that France is on the challenge list of countries at Cloudflare, and that is what produced the warning.

All was fine when I tested from Ireland. It showed the GDPR notice in a lightbox style that obfuscated the site until the visitor clicked the button to agree or not to being tracked, which is what it should do.

So, all is well with their GDPR method, and it only displays in countries where it is required, and that’s not the US.

So, if you run Mediavine ads, you may want to do this instead of using a GDPR/cookie type plugin.

Please know that I am not giving you legal advise about what to use with regard to GDPR. You need to do your own research and use what you think is best.

WP Mail SMTP is sneaky

A few weeks ago I shared that running your domain-related email through your host is now a major security issue.

You really need to use a 3rd party email service like:

• Google Workspace (formerly GSuites)
• Zoho, which has a free and paid version

You also need an SMTP plugin to detach your site-sent emails from the hosting too.

And a super popular plugin is WP Mail SMTP.

Well, that vendor also makes the WPForms Lite plugin too.

And if you have ever used the WPForms Lite plugin, it will auto install again when you install WP Mail SMTP plugin, even if you had previously deleted the forms plugin.

That’s crazy sneaky of them!!!

For my clients I have a site tech that can help you make the email switch and configure the plugin too.

You most definitely will need that help because I have yet to see anyone setup up their 3rd party email properly or fully. They just follow the limited instructions from Google, and that’s nowhere near enough.

Plus, it does not address the security issue of why we’re doing this either.

So, come get a site audit or a checkup and get this issue taken care of while we’re at it.

Speed Tips

Lighthouse 8 has launched

Lighthouse is a tester created by Google to gather lab data metrics on a variety of site elements. Speed is just one of them.

Pieces of this tester have been incorporated into all other online performance testers like:

• WebPage Test
• GTMetrix
• Google PageSpeed Insights

That includes the Core Web Vitals metrics.

Like every other thing Google makes, they tweak on it constantly.

The latest 8.0 version of Lighthouse is no exception.

All of the Core Web Vitals metrics have changed the way they calculate and are weighted. They are much stricter now.

So, if your site was on the hairy edge of passing, it may not now.

Get Pro help with speed

I see site owners, and even SEO folks, trying to use Google PageSpeed Insights to determine what’s slowing down their site.

It is, by far, the least helpful tester.

I also see folks hire site techs who use all manner of trickery to get the test scores up instead of actually fixing the issues.

Worse, I see countless site owners suddenly think they are qualified to diagnose and fix the problems and now they have a complete amateur working on their site, which is themselves.

However expensive you think hiring a pro is, it’s going to be even more expensive to undo the mess and then fix things right.

Save the time and money and get a site audit and let’s get you on the good side of Google’s tests.

WordPress Tips

WordPress 5.8 RC1 is out

The first release candidate for WP 5.8 rolled out last week. I expect there to be an RC2 this week.

And the final release is scheduled for July 20th.

I do expect that most of us will need to use the new Classic Widgets plugin.

Be sure you are subscribed to BlogAid News so that you get update instructions when I think it’s safe for most of us to upgrade.

Gutenberg Tips

Block Patterns Will Change Everything: Part 2 – Headers and Footers

WordPress is putting heavy emphasis on Block Patterns as being the new way for designers to make whole post and page formats available to end users.

Here’s how Justin Tadlock describes it:

“At its core, the block patterns feature is a simple way of bundling one or more blocks into a preconfigured design. Users can point and click to insert them into their post or page content. The goal of the block system is not just to be a page builder where users must create everything from scratch. While we want it to be flexible enough to do that, most users should have the ability to simply insert sections of a design and customize them. This could be as simple as an audio player with a background to a portfolio layout that showcases their latest projects.”

WordPress will be rolling out a new Block Pattern Directory soon.

You’ll be able to grab patterns like you grab free plugins.

And if designers are smart, they should bundle their themes with Block Patterns too, for things like a default contact page, or landing page, or even snazzy optin pages.

That way themes are not bloated with demo content and users can pick and choose from previews only the things they want to include on their site.

In his WPTavern post, Justin goes on to show examples of Block Patterns for headers and footers too.

Now, this will require a block-based theme, which is exactly what the new Gutenberg core code rolling into WP 5.8 will support.

I don’t advocate we start using block-based themes yet – and likely not until sometime toward the end of 2022, at the earliest.

The two main reasons for that are that I don’t believe our major theme frameworks will have something totally viable for a production site until then.

And, most of the plugins we use for widgets won’t have a block version until then either.

The point is, we are living through a messy revolution and we will enjoy what’s on the other end of it.

But, we need to be patient and stay out of the fray until we are ready to make the full switch.

Wrap Up

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

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