Hey hi hello!

It’s time for our March Blogging Newsletter where we’re recapping some of the biggest news, strategies, and insights to come out of the blogging industry this past month.

But before we dive in, we have a question:

Can you take five minutes to take this survey for us?

We’re interested in learning a bit more about the kind of work you love to do when it comes to working on your blog/online business.

The responses from this survey will help us:

• Better serve members of our community (like you!) with content and resources.
• Understand your goals and passions. ❤️

Take the survey here!

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Once you’re done taking the survey, check out this recap of this month’s news:

1. A core algorithm update from Google. 📈

​Google released a new algorithm update on March 22, and the rollout completed on March 28.

​You can read a bit about how core updates work here, but essentially, a core update is an update to the way Google ranks content, so it’s possible your content’s search performance is looking a little different after the rollout.

So what do you do now? 🤔

Check your analytics. There are always winners (aka content that benefits from core updates) and losers (content that performs worse after core updates), so it’s important for you to understand how your content was impacted. Use either Google Analytics or Google Search Console and see if there’s a large difference between search performance before the core update and after the core update.

An important note: there’s not necessarily anything wrong with the content that performs worse after a core update. The core update simply impacts the way Google’s systems assess content across the web.

If your site was negatively impacted by this core update, Google has some questions that you can ask yourself about your content to help you create the very best posts you can for readers and searchers around the globe.

2. Will TikTok be banned in the US? 🤷

One of the biggest stories this month was around the ongoing investigation into whether or not the US should ban TikTok.

There are many nuances to this story, but essentially the issue boils down to privacy (who has access to what user data) and mental health.

Instead of doing a deep dive of this issue within this email, you can check out this article for a nice recap of TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew’s testimony before Congress.

It’ll be interesting to continue following this story, as many US-based brands and businesses rely on their TikTok presences for promotion and marketing.

3. A new way to monetize on social… and one less way. 📱

Speaking of TikTok, they recently released a new feature that allows creators to share premium content (aka content behind a paywall).

A Series is just one of the ways TikTok pays creators for the content they publish on the platform. A Series can include up to 80 videos, each being up to 20 minutes long, so this is an interesting step towards longer-form content for TikTok.

On the other side of things, Meta (aka the parent company of Facebook and Instagram) is halting their Reel bonus program for creators.

Back in 2021, Meta created a paid program to incentivize creators to share Reels with their audiences. According to TechCrunch, creators were initially making some pretty decent money through this program, so it’s a bummer to see that the program going away.

This is just the latest change in Instagram’s creator monetization options, and it’ll be interesting to see if this change forces creators to other platforms like YouTube Shorts or TikTok where they may be able to more easily monetize short-form videos.

4. AI for keyword research! 🤖

ChatGPT, Bard, Dolly… the news has been filled with stories about AI. We talked a bit about it a few weeks ago on our podcast, but if you’ve read or heard any information about AI and thought, “How can I use this to my advantage?” you’re not alone.

If keyword research is one of those things you know you should be doing but don’t necessarily have time to do, try using ChatGPT for it! You can use ChatGPT for brainstorming and topic ideation, and Search Engine Land covers specific steps and prompts that you can use to help plan your blog posts.

Keep in mind that one key shortcoming of ChatGPT when it comes to keyword research is the fact that it doesn’t have access to search metrics like Ahrefs, Google Search Console, and Semrush do. That said, this AI tool “can help you find largely untapped pockets of keywords.”​

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Phew! That’s a wrap on this mega-packed Blogging Newsletter for March. 😊 We hope you enjoyed jumping into some of these trends and learned a thing or two.

If you have any comments or suggestions for upcoming Blogging Newsletters, just hit reply. Otherwise, we’ll see ya next time! 👋