January is the time when people like to, you know, write their year in review and stuff. I’ve seen a few along the way and I’m sure you have too.
If you like that sort of thing, we have three at MainWP. I wrote two last year from the blog and Dennis had a nice yearly report for MainWP.
So, for the first article of 2022, at least by me, we will have our January Roundup.
Ready?
Let’s ride.
Yoast is coming to Shopify
If you haven’t heard the news this past week, Yoast is going to offer Yoast SEO for Shopify.
According to the announcement,
“We’re not going anywhere, our WordPress plugins will remain one of our main focuses. But we are bringing Yoast SEO to another platform: Shopify! Just like our Yoast SEO for WordPress plugin, this Shopify app will help users work on their own SEO and create pages that both people and search engines will love.”
The article goes on to say they are going to host a Shopify event.
Many WordPress consultants also use Shopify so this might come as welcome news for them.
The event takes place on January 20 starting at 4:30 pm CET / 10:30 am EST.
The event is online and you can register here:
Website Resolutions for 2022
We all have resolutions, well many of us, but what about our websites? Or more importantly, what about our client’s websites?
Michelle Frechette goes over some very salient points for doing a website review for your clients in this article at WSForms.
Frechette says,
“You built a website (or had someone build it for you), so you’re done, right? Nope. Not even close. Just like you’re not still wearing the clothes you bought in 1997 (flares with neon shirts anyone?) your website needs to grow and change to remain relevant and not a relic.”
Thankfully, she reminds business owners not to have a hit counter.
Basically, Michelle gives you an 8 part checklist you can send to your clients. All WordPress consultants should be making sure their clients have these 8 items on their website.
The call to blog by Matt Mullenweg
Matt Mullenweg will have his birthday in January and he wants you to celebrate by blogging.
Let me add my name to the list. Mine is in January too. Write an article for me as well, while you are doing it for Matt.
“Write for a single person. Share something cool you found. Summarize your year. Set a blogging goal with reminders. Get a Gutenberg-native theme and play around with building richer posts. Start a nom de plume. Answer daily prompts on Day One. Forget the metaverse, let’s hang out in the blogosphere. Get your own domain!”
Yup, forget the metaverse. I’m with Matt on that one.
Write something for fun, write something for your business blog, use writing to expand your ideas.
I learned the art of writing to pour ideas out and help them crystalize from my friend Steve Roller.
Carve out a couple of hours.
Just write something.
Here’s How Meta Is Changing Facebook Ads Targeting For 2022
I can’t remember when I last ran a Facebook ad or boost. I’m not saying it’s not worth it but doesn’t inspire confidence for me.
In addition, Facebook… or Meta, whatever they call themselves, seems to have purposely tanked organic reach for Facebook business pages. In my opinion, use Google ads or something else.
But, I’m not an expert.
Search Engine and Ilya Cherepakhin explains this new looming change,
“January 19 – save the date! Meta has announced that audience targeting changes are coming to Facebook ad campaigns.
“In response to industry pressure, Facebook parent brand Meta is holding up to its earlier promise and will scale back advertiser targeting settings.”
Some people will not like this change as it hinders the ability to create a more personalized advertising experience.
On the other hand, others will be happy for the change as Cherepakhin explains,
“At the same time, there is rising sensitivity when people are identified based on their affiliation to social causes, health conditions, or demographic characteristics.”
The author explains the four areas of categories that will be eliminated. The changes will be made effective to the entire “Meta Universe” according to the article.
You can read about the details in the article in the Search Engine Journal.
WordPress Product Community on LinkedIn
Community. What does it mean in WordPress?
I gave some thoughts in an article last month. We have so many communities hosted by so many different people and organizations on so many platforms.
Well, it seems like most of them are on Facebook. Ironic isn’t it?
I mean, you can make a community platform on WordPress, but we all meet somewhere else.
Well, LinkedIn is not a bad place to do that. It is made for business networking.
Last year, the folks at LinkedIn reached out to Courtney Robertson and Rob Cairns to launch a community on their platform.
Consider it done.
The community launched last month.
There are 8,394 members in the WordPress Product community on LinkedIn.
The community is in its infancy and it will take some time to get its traction, but Robertson and Cairns are committed to making it for the users and eliminating Spam.
So far, they have done just that.
If you haven’t already, and you are on LinkedIn, that is likely where your WordPress peeps are hanging out.
Wrapping it up
That is all for this month’s roundup.
To me, I think it is really big news that a WordPress company is expanding to another platform. Will we see other companies do that in the future?
With Michelle’s article, it’s a good idea to take inventory of our clients’ sites to see if things are in place like they should be.
I am optimistic about the WordPress Product Community on LinkedIn. Have you joined it yet?
Let’s talk about it at the MainWP Users Facebook Group or over at Meta.MainWP.
