Tips Tuesday –  WP 6.5, AVIF Images, Google’s New Search, Elementor AI

ByMaAnna Stephenson
Tips Tuesday – WP 6.5, AVIF Images, Google’s New Search, Elementor AI

Tips this week include:

  • Consults that get results
  • Time to update to WordPress 6.5.2
  • New video on why AVIF images outperform all others
  • Updated Squoosh tutorial so you can start creating AVIF images
  • Do you want to update your old images or not?
  • How to protect your SEO when you do updates
  • Google’s experimental search is nuts
  • Elementor is now scraping site layouts
  • How to beat the SEO impact of Elementor AI

BlogAid Happenings

This past week was a delight as I spent it doing my favorite things of consults with clients and making tutorials.

Consults Get Results!

I was so happy to chat live with a couple of my clients this week and help them put together a plan for their next venture. 

And these are not just vague ideas of how to do things. We get specific.

Most folks come out with 4 pages of notes on things they are excited about putting into play right away. And they have an order of steps to take to make it happen too.

Here’s what one client said about her consult where she went from a high-level money-making idea to a setup that would not exhaust her to create and run and would instead attract and retain her target audience:

“In just a single one hour consult with MaAnna, I had a clear outline for how to structure a potential membership.  MaAnna helped me see how to target it for maximum revenue potential. She was like a human ChatGPT with the ideas that were flowing! She was also able to provide valuable insight into the tech side of hosting things. I saved myself a lot of time and money with one conversation!”

I can hardly wait to see her manifest this idea into reality that will build a thriving community of folks who are excited to participate.

Have you got a money-making idea but need help making a plan to bring it forth?

Get a consult and we’ll get you on the road to success with it.

Time to Update to WordPress 6.5.2

This weekend I sent special update instructions to my site audit Hub members as well as my Webmaster Training members on the steps to take to safely update to WordPress 6.5.2.

Since this latest point release, I believe they got all of the big bugs out of it.

However, there are some small things that don’t affect most site owners that they are still working on and the 6.5.3 release is scheduled for May 7.

AVIF Images vs All Others

THE thing I’m most excited about with the WP 6.5 update is that it fully supports AVIF images, as do all major browsers.

And that means no fallback images are necessary like they were for so long with WebP.

And the AVIF image compression far exceeds all others.

See this video on AVIF Images vs All Others for just how much you can radically compress the files and still have superior quality.

I strongly suggest you start making all of your images AVIF from now on.

Updated Squoosh Tutorial

I’m thrilled that my favorite image optimizer, Squoosh, has the AVIF image format available.

See this updated Squoosh tutorial for how to use it, plus new tips on steps to take prior to uploading your image to Squoosh, and tips on how to properly upload and embed images in WordPress.

Don’t skip that last part!!!

There are LOTS of site owners who are not doing images correctly in WordPress. 

Update Old Images or Not?

Once you see both of these new image tutorials, you may be tempted to go back and fix or change out your old images.

I would caution you not to do that unless you have a need to change the file name or the image itself.

And even then, you need to see this Enable Media Replace tutorial so that you don’t make a change in a way that Google will feel compelled to re-rank your post.

You will also want to use the plugin Change Last Modified Date to control whether that gets updated or not too.

I’ve seen folks make minor changes to a post and get de-ranked enough to know that it is a real possibility.

However, if you find that you’re missing your Alt Text, that is something you can safely change through the Media Library. And, Google will take notice of that and promote that image and maybe the post because of it.

Protect Your SEO

Tips like the above, to save your SEO, and make it better, are the very things we cover in the DIY SEO course.

There’s even a whole series on how to properly do a content revamp so you don’t tank your rankings.

SEO Tips

Google’s Experimental Search is Nuts

I don’t have a Search widget on BlogAid – on purpose. It generates a LOT of spam bot query hits and too often it will reveal something I don’t want indexed. There are plugins that do a better job of protecting a site from those 2 things, but not always.

So, when I want to find a specific post to reference in Tips Tuesday, I just do a Google search with the word blogaid and then whatever words are in the title of that post.

You are not going to believe how off the rails Google has now run with a new experimental search summary.

I took a screenshot of my query for the Enable Media Replace tutorial.

blank

It literally says:

“The Enable Media Replace plugin from BlogAid…”

And then it shows snippets from 3 places Google found links or backlinks to my post, like BlogAid itself, TikTok, and X (Twitter).

And then it goes on to say:

“BlogAid also offers other WordPress plugins…”

And then it lists out other plugins that I interlinked in the Enable Media Replace post or other pages on my site.

And then it listed the site tagline to tell folks what BlogAid is about.

I’m super happy for all this promotion of what I do being in a single search query.

But I don’t want folks to think that I make these plugins!!!!!!

What an AI mess Google is making of search. Nowhere in my content do I claim that I made these plugins. But that’s what Google’s own AI is telling folks.

And to think, this is what they want Google Search to become, and AI driven chatbot.

That would be great, if it didn’t also lie in the process.

But, the other side of that double-edged sword is that it most definitely gave my post a lot of authority on topic by showing how many places it is ranked or found and all the other content it is related to.

AI WordPress Tips

Elementor Now Scraping Site Layouts

Tips Tuesday Plus subscribers got the rest of this tip. 

How to Beat the SEO Impact of Elementor AI

Tips Tuesday Plus subscribers got the rest of this tip. 

blank

MaAnna is a geek who can still speak in plain English. She helps DIY site owners plus webmasters and designers create sites that are secure, perform well, and get noticed by search engines and readers.