06May

YOUTUBE’S NEW MONETIZATION FEATURE

Super Thanks (formerly known as Viewer’s Applause), a new YouTube monetization tool, that allows creators to make money directly from their viewers, is now available on all eligible channels. After a successful test period, Super Thanks is now rolling out to all creators in the YouTube Partner Program (YPP). Super Thanks is a method for dedicated viewers to support you and your content.

YouTube is working to update its monetization features to make its platform a more appealing choice for content creators. With YouTube’s monetization process a big lure, it offers the most earnings potential without having to organize brand deals and extra partnerships.

All creators of the YouTube Partner Program can now earn revenue by enabling Super Thanks on their videos. Millions of creators in over 68 countries can now access this monetization feature. Earlier, this was available to only a randomized number of creators.

ABOUT YOUTUBE SUPER THANKS

Super Thanks is a feature that lets creators earn through a new source of revenue and connect with viewers who want to show an extra form of gratitude towards their favorite creators. It also lets users support their favorite creators and YouTube channels. The cost of a Super Thanks is up to the viewer. The feature allows everyone to tip their favorite creator from payments ranging from $2 to $50 (Rs 150 to Rs 3370). Most creators keep 70 percent of the amount given to them by the viewers.

Viewers can click the ‘Thanks’ button while watching the video to buy a one-time animation and also send a personalized, colorful message in the comments section. Once a Super Thanks is sent by a viewer, they’ll see an animated gif at the right of the channel’s video.

All the eligible creators of the YouTube Partner Program can avail of Super Thanks. If you can run ads on YouTube and earn from them, you have the ability to activate Super Thanks.

Super Thanks is not available for the following videos:

  1. Age-restricted
  2. Unlisted
  3. Private
  4. Made for kids
  5. Videos with Content ID claims
  6. Videos with YouTube Giving fundraisers
  7. Live streams or Premieres, while live

In addition to Super Thanks, the Google-owned platform has released similar features such as Super Chat and Super Stickers in 2021 and 2019 respectively.

TURNING ON SUPER THANKS

  1. Go to YouTube studio
  2. Select Monetization (left-hand navigation menu)
  3. Click the Supers tab, where you’ll see Super Thanks with an on-off toggle.
  4. On turning it on, a Thanks button will automatically appear on your existing and future videos.

MANAGING SUPER THANKS COMMENTS

  1. Go to YouTube studio
  2. Select Comments (navigation menu on the left)
  3. Filter comments to see ones sent by Super Thanks
  4. Review, reply, or like any of these comments from your YouTube Studio dashboard.
  5. You can delete any of these comments as well.

REVIEWING SUPER THANKS REVENUE

  1. Go to the Analytics section.
  2. Select Revenue
  3. See your total Super Thanks earnings under Transaction Revenue

To view your earnings per video, from the Content section, select the video you want, go to Analytics, then Revenue, then look for Super Thanks earnings under Transaction Revenue.

In addition to Super Thanks, YouTube has a couple of other tools available for channels and creators. For live streams, Super Chats are available for viewers who donate, which will again, highlight your comment and show support. If you’re not interested in leaving a comment, YouTube also has Super Stickers for purchase, with proceeds going to the channel.

On YouTube, a simple sign up for the program, then creating your content is pretty much all you have to do to make money. The same simplicity cannot be offered by short-form video platforms in this respect. That could end up being a big advantage for the app in the future. On top of the expansion of Super Thanks, YouTube has also announced that viewers can now customize their Super Thanks comments, which has been one of the most requested updates for the feature.

 

28Apr

GOOGLE TESTING ON TWO NEW FEATURED SNIPPETS: ‘FROM THE WEB’ AND ‘OTHER SITES SAY’

Google is testing two new types of Featured Snippets. Both these snippets will show the users short answers to their search query from one or more sources not just a single source, unlike most snippets. Featured snippets are highlighted pieces of text that come up at the top of a Google search results page at Position 0.

As one of the best digital marketing and SEO company in Kerala, here is an article explaining more about featured snippets and the Google tests on two new featured snippets ‘From The Web’ and ‘Other Sites Say’.

Featured snippets provide users with quick answers to their search queries. They are more likely to appear when users enter informational search queries. They are displayed above organic search results, only showing the relevant section of a website as a list, table, or text, accompanied by an image or video. The featured snippet box is more predominately placed than the search results thus allowing showcased websites to expect higher click rates and increased traffic. Snippets contain relevant information from a website that matches the user’s search query.

A featured snippet consists of a number of content elements from the landing page, ranked as follows:

  • Text snippet
  • List snippet
  • Table snippet
  • Video snippet

Featured snippets usually contain an image, though the image may not come from the same source as the content selection. Sometimes, they may display video content. Google also displays the title and URL of the website in the snippet, thus providing users with more knowledge about the source domain. With the snippet being placed in Position 0, the corresponding URL of the website experiences an increase in organic traffic.

 ‘From The Web’ and ‘Other Sites Say’ are the two new additions to Google’s featured snippets.

  • From The Web- Usually in normal cases, snippets contain content and link only to a certain website. But, in this case, the featured snippet features to text and a link from one website. Google also shows brief excerpts from two or three websites linking each source separately as well as including the site’s favicon.
  • Other Sites Say- In this second variation, Google groups at least three different sites similar to the From The Web snippet under the heading ‘Other Sites Say’.

Optimizing for featured snippets will help in increasing website visibility in the corresponding search results. Though users may receive answers to simple search queries through the featured snippets, for more complex information, the snippet provides only an excerpt, list, or table pertaining to the information so the users have to click on the website to see all the information.

In conclusion, owning a featured snippet can be beneficial, as it helps increase CTR, adds credibility to your website, and improves brand awareness. If a website is already ranked in featured snippets, it can face a drop in traffic. On the other hand, if you do not have a space on the featured snippet, it provides an opportunity for you to optimize your site and drive traffic towards your site.

 

18Apr

WordPress All in One SEO Integrates Microsoft Clarity

The All in One SEO for WordPress is the original WordPress SEO plugin that started in 2007. Over three million smart website owners use AISEO to properly set up their WordPress SEO so that their website can gain higher ranks in search engines.

The AISEO is the most comprehensive WordPress SEO plugin and marketing toolkit that can be used to improve a website’s SEO rankings and uncover new SEO growth opportunities within minutes. AISEO’S WordPress SEO plugin features are highly optimized for Google and other popular search engine algorithms because they follow the most up-to-date SEO standards and practices.

The AISEO plugin integrates Microsoft Clarity Behavior Analytics which gives publishers insights for improving conversions and diagnosing site issues.

The benefits of the AISEO plugin are given below:

  • Understanding user intent
  • Optimizing content and web designs
  • Reducing bounce rates
  • Improving conversion rates
  • Optimizing your user experience

The AIO SEO plugin is considered one of the best WordPress plugins because of its unique features. They are given below:

  • TruSEO On-Page Analysis
  • Rich Snippets Schema
  • Local SEO
  • Smart XML Sitemaps
  • Video SEO sitemaps
  • Social Media Integration
  • Link Assistant
  • WooCommerce SEO
  • SEO Audit Checklist
  • Redirection Manager
  • Google News Sitemaps
  • Robots.txt editor

As an SEO and software development and digital marketing company based in Kochi, Kerala here is some information based on the AIO SEO plugin and the advantages that accompany it when integrated with the analytics program Microsoft Clarity.

ABOUT MICROSOFT CLARITY

Clarity is an analytics program that focuses on user behavior. Data visualization is the most important feature of Microsoft Clarity. Its top features include- heat maps, session recordings, and insights. Clarity’s behavior analytics offer insights into the actions users take on a particular site. It finds bugs, tests ideas, and is capable of tracking success with the help of heatmaps, session recordings, and ML-based insights.

  1. Heat Maps: These show how users engage with web pages, what they click, and how far they scroll on a page.
  2. Session Recordings: This shows how site visitors click and navigate through the site and the points where you may lose them. It also helps to identify friction points that can be fixed to improve user experience.
  3. Insights: These are reports that show problems with how the users interact with the site.

AIO SEO also provides the SEO toolkit required to implement these insights. This plugin helps you to optimize your site for search engines and users on all the major fronts of SEO- on-page SEO, off-page SEO, and technical SEO.

Clarity helps publishers fix problems like page abandonment and identify reasons behind users’ frustration with a site or inability in performing the desired action. This information helps in creating a better user experience, performance improvement, and a significant boost in sales conversion.

INTEGRATION OF CLARITY WITH AIOSEO

Clarity and AISEO are integrated in a modular manner. It also means that Clarity isn’t activated by default. This integration makes the use of Clarity easier because it eliminates the need for publishers to toggle between websites to activate it. The activation happens smoothly on the website itself. Another advantage is having Clarity on the website admin interface which avoids skipping between Clarity and the optimizing website.

HOW TO ACTIVATE CLARITY ON AIOSEO

  1. Go to General Settings
  2. Choose Webmaster Tools Verification
  3. Click on Microsoft Clarity
  4. Fill in your details
  5. Copy and paste required Clarity tracking code
  6. Save

USING MICROSOFT CLARITY

Microsoft makes it easier to see which pages of your site are more popular. There are other useful insights, for instance, the percentage of sessions that have ‘dead clicks’ (clicks that don’t go anywhere). The dashboard also provides the number of ‘quick backs’, which occur>? When users leave a page quickly and then come back to it. It also tracks excessive scrolling, rage clicks that occur due to rapid clicks or taps in the same area by a user, recordings of user sessions that provide information on a user’s device, operating system, and country, and the number of pages visited by a user, duration and time of their session and the number of clicks made by them.

Close attention to these metrics can help in making a site more user-friendly. Heatmaps help you in recognizing popular sections on your site based on the clicks made by a specific user. Recordings let you see where a user clicks on your site. Microsoft Clarity also plans to show scrolling on heat maps in the future.

CONCLUSION

Microsoft Clarity is a new analytics tool that offers interesting features such as free heatmaps and session recording. Microsoft Clarity is useful for users that are unable to afford premium solutions such as Hot Jar or Crazy Egg. The use of heat maps and session recording will be useful in optimizing your website or online store experience to improve user experience and boost sales.

28Mar

WORDPRESS RELEASES A NEW PERFORMANCE PLUGIN

WordPress has now announced the release of a new plugin known as the Performance Lab plugin. It was developed to help WordPress sites to speed up. This plugin gives the publisher an opportunity to use new improvements now before they are included in the core of WordPress.
As a digital marketing company based in Kochi, Kerala, here’s some information on WordPress’s new performance plugin.

ABOUT THE PERFORMANCE LAB PLUGIN

The plugin was developed by the WordPress Performance Team, consisting of WordPress developers, with some of the team members being developers from Google and Yoast. This team was created in November 2021 with the purpose of coordinating performance improvements within the WordPress core.

The Performance Lab plugin is a set of modules designed to improve performance in WordPress. The Performance Lab plugin provides improvements to WordPress allowing publishers to speed up their websites and also to diagnose any issues that arise which may be slowing their websites down. The plugin is designed in a modular fashion so that the publishers can pick and choose the improvement they want to use.

Normally, the new features are released as separate plugins but WordPress decided to group all of its new performance features into one single plugin allowing the user to select and enable the features from one central location, within a single plugin. Thus, it provides a centralized location for performance-related features that will eventually be integrated into WordPress’s core. Hence it can be regarded as a beta-testing plugin.

MODULES OF THE PERFORMANCE LAB PLUGIN

This plugin has four modules:

1. WebP uploads

It converts newly uploaded jpeg files to a faster and more efficient WebP format. This functionality is dependent on server support for WebP.

2. WebP Support

This functions as a site health module that analyses if the server supports WebP and comes up with a warning if WebP is not supported.

3. Persistent Object Cache Health Check

It is a site health check module that may suggest the use of object caching. Object caching is a way to speed up the amount of time it takes for the site to respond, it helps reduce the database load and speeds up the website for site visitors.

4. Audit Enqueued Assets (experimental)

It provides an audit of CSS and JavaScript files enqueued on the home page. This identifies unwanted CSS and JavaScript files that might reduce the speed of a website. This module is labeled as experimental because this module will be improved in the future.

To test the other three modules, visit the Site Health status tab, where each module adds an equivalent new check:

• The Audit Enqueued Assets module monitors the number of scripts and stylesheets enqueued on your homepage.

• The WebP support module examines whether your server environment supports creating WebP images or not.

• The Persistent Object Cache Health Check promotes the usage of an external object cache depending on the amount of data on your site.

Remember that each and every module you would like to test has to be activated via the plugin’s settings screen at ‘Settings > Performance’. Non-experimental modules are enabled by default. If you want to test the modules individually in seclusion, you can toggle them one by one.

ADVANTAGES

1. Extends functionalities: The custom WordPress plugin supports user requirements and lets the website work according to the owner’s satisfaction.

2. Backlink creation: Backlinks are considered as the building blocks of search engine optimization as these links direct towards a particular website. A large number of quality backlinks result in the popularity of a website in search engines. WordPress plugins have the capability of generating maximum links to a site and can also create excellent backlinks for the website which boosts its exposure.

3. Security: Website security is an important factor to avoid unauthorized access to sensitive information, cyber thieves, and hackers. A customized plugin developed by WordPress would be one of the best options for increasing security. It not only provides protection from security threats but also ensures the utmost satisfaction for its user.

4. Speed: Speed is one of the most important benefits provided by the custom WordPress plugin development. It ensures a smooth user experience and boosts the number of visitors to your website by speeding up your website with the help of custom plugins.

5. Performance Boost: Remodelling or redesigning the website regularly is tedious and a waste of time, money, and effort. Here is where WordPress plugin development comes in handy. These plugins will not only help you to add a new feature to your site but also boosts its existing functionality in an economical way.

6. Simple To Use: The intuitive interface and simple functionality of the WordPress Plugin separates it from other platforms. Since WordPress has extremely simple technology and reduces the time of formatting, it is easily accessible and also allows you to access the best features within your budget limits.

7. Compatibility With Search Engines: WordPress’s easy coding makes it easier for search engines to read website content in a well-defined manner. Additionally, every page, image, and content of the post will contain keywords, descriptions, and titles. This results in having the best search for optimization, which can further be enhanced by adding tags for better outcomes.

ADDRESSING CONCERNS

The plugin download page mentions that the plugin has been tested and should be okay to be used on a live production site. Since three out of the four modules are not labeled as experimental, all of them are considered to be stable and incapable of breaking a site. The main purpose of the plugin is to provide publishers with an opportunity to provide feedback about the modules before being integrated into the WordPress core.
A benefit of using WordPress websites is that it adds its new plugins on a staging site first and tests it there first before updating it to the main website.
Another advantage is to save a backup of the website before installing the plugin. The backup will make it easy to upload the website back to its original version in case the plugin clashes unexpectedly with another plugin or theme.
The plugin delivers clear benefits that can help you speed up your website. But it’s provided by the WordPress Performance Team as an incentive to receive feedback on brand new improvements that will eventually make their way into the WordPress core.
WordPress provides a Performance Lab plugin support forum and a GitHub repository where feedback can be sent to WordPress.