Hey Everyone, With this post, I am starting a new chapter for MetaBlogue. For a long time, I was thinking to start a regular series on MetaBlogue and what’s better than Blogging updates. So, I am going to do a monthly mashup about the latest news and updates around blogging and this is first of those.
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This monthly mashup will not only contain things about Blogging but also things or services close to blogging and WordPress. Some of the things which will be covered are like updates to Elegant Themes, Genesis Framework, Hosting Services updates, WordPress Plugin Releases, etc.
Blogging Monthly 001
So let’s kick off this month’s update with one of the most important topics for every blogger – Google Search Updates.
Google BERT Update
Google has released its latest updated to Search Algorithms – BERT.
BERT update is specifically targeted towards a better understanding of the user queries context. It is going to use machine learning and artificial intelligence to better understand the query and map it with proper results.
This is good news for the people who do not like keyword stuffing and would like to write the content in more conversational language. With this update, Google will be able to better categorize the queries and map it with proper content by understanding the context of the queries.
The update is released around the 25th of October, so keep an eye on your SERP results and traffic. Let us know if you are seeing major changes around it. As per Google, this update affects around 10% of the search queries which is very high considering some of the recent updates.
BERT update improves the understanding of the on-page content and user search query with the help of natural language processors. So you may see some increase with the queries which might be related but the keyword is not directly mentioned on your pages.
Another point to notice about BERT is that it’s targeted towards long-tail keywords. Short tail keywords will not have much data to process through the natural language processors. Though there can be some shuffling of results for short-tail keywords due to better understanding of on-page content.
You can get more details about it from Search Engine Journal or Search Engine Land.
WordPress 5.3
The next update is around WordPress CMS. WordPress is already testing the next version (5.3) which will be released in the upcoming weeks. Currently, its under BETA testing and showing good progress. You can expect it to be available in the week of 11th November.
There are many changes that will help you better manage your WordPress installs including performance improvements for Gutenberg Editor. With this update, the Gutenberg Editor will reduce its response time and your content will load faster.
There are also many enhancements including Group block functionality which will allow you to select multiple blocks and create a group. Currently, I use Atomic Blocks to create a container to manage multiple blocks easily. The grouping functionality will help in easily manage it.
There are some updates to Site Health functionality, Gallery embeds on post/pages or cosmetic upgrades to Admin UI.
There are many other updates for other blocks that you can check in detail at this post on Kinsta. So, keep an eye on the public release of WordPress 5.3 in the week of 11th November.
Divi 4.0 Release
Divi from Elegant Themes is one of the best WordPress Page builder available in the market. Till now, you are able to design the pages and save generic elements in the Divi Library for reuse.
Elegant Themes has released a major update to Divi which makes it a complete solution to design WordPress Themes. Now, you can use the Divi and design almost all the pages or posts with the help of Divi Theme Builder.
There are new site-wide templates where you can design an element and assign it across your site. This will remove the need to edit each post individually.
You can also add the dynamic content in those templates which will be displayed based on the post or page user is visiting.
You can feel the power of the Divi Theme builder while designing the Woo-commerce store. Now, just define a site-wide template while picking the dynamic content for the product and your complete product pages are ready.
Divi was already one of the preferred page builders to develop sites for many and now it has become a complete solution. If you want to check more about it, you can check here.
Not only the update, but they have also released a new set of them builder templates. These templates can help you kick start the theme designing for your site.
Genesis 3.2
Genesis Framework for WordPress is also working on the BETA for their next release version 3.2. This update makes it easier for users to manage certain parts of the themes without editing the code.
With Genesis 3.2, you will be able to edit the post meta directly from the Customizer. Now, no need to edit the filter or action hook to make those changes.
There are some other changes coming with Genesis 3.2. For Example, the ability to hide footer widget on posts on pages, Open Graph support, etc.
One of the major changes coming to Genesis is the support of Google Native Lazy-loading. Till now websites need to use a JavaScript to lazy-load the images but the JavaScript adds to the load time of the page.
Native lazy-load works with a simple HTML attribute of the image and automatically loads the image when its close to the user view.
There are some WordPress Plugins available in the WordPress repository which can enable this support. But, with this update, you should be able to enable it with the addition of just a simple line.
You can check more details about Genesis 3.2 Beta here. You can expect it to be available as a public release in the upcoming weeks.
Kinsta Server Upgrades
Kinsta has just announced major server upgrades for all of its clients. They are moving all of their clients to the latest Compute-Optimized (C2) servers.
The update is not limited to any plan, all of their customers will move the latest servers. Their internal testing shows an almost 100% speed increase for the big websites.
Those who are not aware of Kinsta, they offer a WordPress Managed Hosting Solutions. They are not a conventional hosting company and use Google Cloud network for all of their hosting needs. They also have a tie-up with KeyCDN services to provide CDN services.
This automatic upgrade to a more capable server should give a speed boost to the sites hosted on Kinsta servers. Speed is one of the measures for SEO rankings, so it’s a piece of good news for the Kinsta Customers. You can check more detail about it here.
So, that’s all for the first episode of Blogging Monthly. Please let us know how you like the episode and if you need any more information, just drop a comment below.
Is there something else you would like to listen about or like us to cover as part of this Blogging Monthly series, please write to bm.feedback@metablogue.com. If you have any tips for the news around blogging, you can send it to us on bm.tips@metablogue.com. You can always follow us on Twitter or Facebook for the latest updates.
