Tips Tuesday – YouTube Tips, WordPress 6.8, Cloudflare Issues
Tips this week include:
- Post on What’s New in WordPress 6.8
- WP is cracking down on abandoned plugins
- Why Perplexity.ai thrives despite Google’s attempts to kill it
- YouTube Tips mastermind this week
- My first woodworking video this year is live – and I’m making money!
- See why TikTok is surely a goner after what they did
- Breaks on free Cloudflare plan user sites – and the fix
- Improved mobile testing of site designs
WordPress Tips
What’s New in WP 6.8
The latest version of WordPress is slated to be released today.
As usual, we will not be the first to upgrade.
I’ll send word to my site audit Hub clients and Webmaster Training members when I feel it is safe for us to update.
See my post on What’s New in WordPress 6.8 for the most important of the 370 enhancements and 520 bug fixes they made.
Abandoned Plugin Update
The folks at WP are cracking down on abandoned plugins.
Once the Release Candidates for WP 6.8 were released, they sent emails to all devs in the free plugin repository.
If any email bounces, they will either temporarily remove the plugin or that dev’s access.
This is just one more reason why I check for plugin updates during site audits. The security situation is such now that we can’t afford to have plugins that are not being actively maintained.
There is a plugin that scans to see if the plugins in use on your site state that they are compatible with the current WP version. Unfortunately that will result in a lot of very actively supported plugins getting flagged. UpdraftPlus comes to mind as one of them. They ALWAYS lag behind updating that notification that they are compliant with the latest version even when they are. So, don’t waste your time on scanners like that.
AI SEO Tips
Why Perplexity Thrives Despite Google’s Attempts to Kill It
CEO Aravind Srinivas says:
“They [Google] have had two years to kill Perplexity and haven’t.
Srinivas added that Google is reluctant to fully embrace AI-generated search responses because they could undermine its advertising business model.”
In our recent AI SEO workshop in the DIY SEO Everywhere course, we had a look at all of the AI Search engines – and there are more than you think!!!
I’m positive I made new fans of Perplexity. It is my go-to for in-depth searches – no ads, no products. Just super summaries with plenty of resource links, you know, like Google used to have!!!
And most of us are seeing traffic to our sites from Perplexity as well. In fact, that is the top AI Search that is sending traffic to my sites.
SEO Tips
YouTube Tips Mastermind This Week
We had a great workshop on YouTube Channel Settings in the DIY SEO Everywhere course last week. Those settings have changed a LOT in the last 6 months and can definitely impact your earnings and reach.
And this week we are going to continue that series in our Video SEO workshops. We’ll be covering all kinds of YouTube tips, like how to use their new AI Trends spotter. It’s fantastic!!!!!
And we’ll have a look at the changes to thumbnails, keywords, and more.
It’s always a good time to join us in the course!! Replays are available for everything.
Video Tips
First HWA Video
As I’ve mentioned in recent Tips Tuesdays, I’m going to lean hard into my Heartwood Art YouTube channel this year. I pretty much neglected it for about 4 years and only posted a couple of new things last year.
It’s already monetized and all this time it has paid for about 6 months of my groceries every year. Now I want it to pay for all of them!!
But instead of doing big build videos, I’m doing shorter, focused tips videos now, as those are the ones getting the most watchtime.
They are also prime for showing up in search for those keywords.
It’s finally warm enough to open the shop for the season and I made my first new tip video. I’m delighted to share that I used a piece of bluegrass music I wrote 40 years ago for the intro/outro too!
And it includes an affiliate link to a tool folks can get on Amazon too. That will help me get paid twice from that one video.
And that’s the point!!!!
Most of the videos will not focus on a product, but if they show a linkable product, I’ll add a text note in the video to see the description for a link to that product/tool.
Are you maxing out your video opportunities yet?
Surely TikTok is a Goner Now
I’ve held off including TikTok in the video SEO workshops of the DIY SEO Everywhere course until we had clarity on whether they would still be around or not.
Now I think they are surely going to get banned – for doing exactly what the U.S. feared they would do.
See my post on Substack: Is the Truth the Nail in TikTok’s Coffin?
Cloudflare Tips
Breaks on Free Plan User Sites
If you’re on the free plan with Cloudflare, they made a change last week that broke 2 major things in your site’s output, including your caching directives and HTTPS security headers.
I emailed all of my Hub clients and webmasters to go scream about it on the support forum post I made so this would get rectified quickly.
Cloudflare uses free plans to roll out new changes, but those changes due to extreme bot hits, both from hackers and AI, have been coming so fast that the folks at CF have not been doing adequate in-house testing this year.
As of yesterday the issue seems to be fixed. I sent word to my peeps about how to test and how to put their site back on the Chrome Preload Safe Site list if it got knocked off due to the missing HSTS header.
Fortunately, I’m doing audits for clients every week and I catch these things quickly.
If you are not yet a site audit client then you’re missing out on a LOT, including keeping your site safe and fast in this rapidly changing online environment.
I can hear some of you saying, “I don’t see any issues with my site.” Come get an audit and I’ll show you where you’re leaking money!!!!!!!
Webmaster Tips
Improved Mobile Testing
Chrome has added new DevTools that improves tests on mobile.
They are more accurate and give you a better idea of real-world user experience.
And we all know that most sites get at least 60% of their traffic from mobile.
So, be sure to check out the improved tools and see if all of your designs look as you intended.
