Making Your Videos Grab Attention

Do you have a website that hosts video? Or is it that you want to host your own videos and generate traffic so that you can earn through advertisements or pay-per-click. Whichever is your business format – if you are into video hosting or uploading videos for business then in order to generate traffic and sustain a constant flow, you must ensure that your videos grab attention and make people come back for more.

Not just for pure video hosting sites, you can use videos to promote your product, your website, your online tutorial, your resume – almost everything can be given that special touch if it is presented through videos – ‘lights, camera, action!’. You may be planning to sell a beautiful antique through ebay – what better way to bring the prospective buyer as close as possible to the piece than by sharing a video of it with them. But the key to effectively use videos to promote your online business is to shoot videos that grab the user’s attention, can be streamed easily for users across the world and does not take ‘forever’ to download.

Here are some tips to make videos interesting and ensure that they grab the attention of your target audience:

Frame your video shots well. Look around and take a stock of your surroundings – how is the background? Does the background suit the mood well? Keep it clean and professional. Avoid cluttered and busy frames – always remember that people choose the online medium because they do not have time to spare. So give them what they want.

Do you have enough light around your subject? How are the shadows forming? Are the shadows of surrounding objects covering up your subject? Few simple questions, if taken care of can produce high-quality videos. Utilize home-made paper or transparent paper around the light slow to give a soft glow to the video if you want.

Check yourself or your subject whichever is on the video before shooting. You wouldn’t want a stray strand of hair poking out of the frame or a speck of dust on your precious antique artifact.

Keep your video interesting – you are in command of a medium where you can engage the user by both sound and visual, so utilize these to the fullest – avoid monotonous narration. Keep it simple but remember adding some special effects often grab viewer’s attention.

Once you have the video with you and you want to promote it, you can follow the usual online marketing strategies employed to promote and advertise websites, blogs and products. However to promote videos, remember you must use keywords effectively in the description of your video so that it pops up in search engine lists when searched at the top. Take time to compose the content with keywords but avoid making the keywords appear too closely. If the keywords are spaced well, chances are search engines will spider the description and place it higher in the search list.

SEO for professional services

Webmasters and web designers should create websites with SEO in mind. The reasoning behind this is that many people who are doing their research online frequently encounter the things that they are looking for due to the SEO efforts made by the company to get the best ranking in the search engines. What is really SEO?

SEO is actually search engine optimization. It is the process which increases the audience and visitors of a certain website by optimizing the website to rank well on the SERPs (search engine results pages). It definitely helps Internet users to find the appropriate websites they are looking for.

Search engine optimization guarantees the accessibility of Web pages on the search engines. It is an important service that is rendered to certain professional service websites. Though it is important in the growth of a business’ online success, many websites fail to have a good ranking on SERPs because of poor search engine optimization practices.

The two types of search engines are the human-powered directories and the crawler-based search engines. The two are different in terms of gathering what is considered for listing. The human-powered directories based their listings on human editors. One good example of this type of search engine is the Open Directory. The descriptions submitted by an editor will be the basis for a particular search. One important thing in this type of search engine is that, a website with good and effective content will get reviewed more favorable compared to a website with limited content. On the other hand, crawler-based search engines automatically create and generate listings. From the word itself, the search engines “crawl” the web and look for the site that they’ve been looking for. Google is the best example for this type of search engine. This search engine has three elements namely: crawler, index and the search engine software. The crawler visits and reads certain web page and then follows a link within a particular website. The index, then stores a copy of the web pages that the crawler has found. It actually acts as a big catalog. After indexing, the web page is already available to search engine seekers. Lastly, the third element is the search engine software. It sorts out hundreds of thousands of web pages found in the index. One drawback of crawler-based search engine is that the changes made for particular web pages can affect the current listings of the said web page as well.

In terms of ranking, the crawler-based search engine follows algorithm which is actually a set of rules. However, no one knows how algorithm works because it is said to be a closely-kept trade secret. One thing is for sure, ranking of web pages are based on the frequency and location of keywords. That is the reason why keywords should be located in a suitable location and the contents of the web page should be really relevant and of the essence.

Now that you understand the types of search engines and how they work, it is important to look at how to utilize them in your marketing efforts. The one common thing to remember in either search engine type is that content is king. Ensure you have keyword rich content in your title, META data and webpage content that not only allows the search engines to understand what you offer but also relays a great message to your visitors. We can get into techniques that will help in your ranking efforts but for now let us start with four main points.

The first is to ensure your webpage title reflects your message along with the keywords that your customers would use to find you if they searched for you in the search engines. This is not your company name or web address. Most likely if they knew that they can type your address in the address bar and find you directly. Just like a good book, your title will let the search engines and visitors know what to expect. If your keywords “Atlanta Attorney” are not in the title, you miss out on the opportunity to reach those that are searching for that term.

Next, ensure that your keywords are in your META data. There are two types; the keyword and description. The keyword META is just that. It tells the search engines what keywords are relevant to the site. The visitors never see this information. The description META tells the search engines a brief description of what the website is about. Do not make this too long. This will be seen on your search results when the visitor finds you on the search engine. So ensure it makes sense.

Create your content with the visitor in mind first and not the search engines. Have a good story to tell. The search engines are smart and can find the keywords within your content. Sprinkle them in hear and there and you will find that your conversions will increase as well as your ranking. Put your keywords in your headings, first and last paragraph and within the body. Do not over do it or you may get penalized. Remember, it must make sense to the reader.

Last, have others praise your name. Establish links back to your site from other credible sites. These can be directories, publications, or other sites that speak to your market like bloggers. The better quality of the links you have then the better results.

Indeed, the SEO is essential in terms of the accessibility of a particular website on the search engines. Moreover, it is one of the best practices for professional services. Also, it serves as a marketing strategy sometimes to have a large number of visitors and target market.

E-books Promising to Make You Rich Through Affiliates

Websites that claims to be able to make you rich through affiliates. There are so many of them out there. All you need to do is buy their e-book and they will show you how you can get rich just like them. Chances are, we have all come across a few of them. Some are so crappy, that we can tell that it is a scam from a mile away!

But with the newer times, come newer technologies and newer and smarter methods. Now, there are many sites that really does seem to be able to do what they claim to do. They show you pictures of large cheques, pictures of large amount of money in their accounts, and even lots of testimonials from people who've made it rich because they bought their e-book and followed the instructions. It almost seems certain that all of us too can achieve what they have....or can we?

First, let's take a look at affiliates. Do you really understand what affiliates is? An affiliate is just a term that describes a partnership between the manufacturer (creator of the products) and the middlemen (the person who sells those products to others). Each time someone buys that product through the middlemen, the middlemen earns a commission for the product that he helped sold. The commission rate will vary from manufacturers.

That is what happens in the real world right? It is the same in the Internet. Let's say that there is a website a from a famous author and he sells his books there. You set up an affiliate account with him, and you get a tracking code and place it into your website to monitor who clicks through your website to buy from the author. Simple enough right?

So what is it that the e-book is going to teach that could help make you rich? Well, most claim that they will teach you how to convince other people to buy your product. In other words, technique of purssuasions. Yeah, it makes perfect sense. To earn a lot, you need to pursuade a lot of people to buy the product you are affiliating. But what many people do not know, is that you will need a lot more than simple purssuasions to sell.

Those people trying to sell you the e-book will make it sound like all you need is their e-book. You don't need anything else to make it succeed. That is very wrong. To sell an affiliate product, you need a website to sell it on. Hmmm...that will take some time and money. But wait, a website is still useless without people visiting it. So you need a good website that ranks very well to attract lots of people. What you need is to SEO (Search Engine Optimization). Hmmm....it takes even more time and money. And worse, even if you spend all that money, there are no guarentees that you will have a good website or a good ranking.

Whew, from something that was supposed to be easy and cheap, it is getting complicated, expensive and very risky! Not what you had in mind? Of course. Do not forget that in the end, their goal is to sell you the e-book so they can make some money. Not help you make money! They make themselves sound like "gurus" or something, but what they really are, are just normal people who try to make an extra buck by tricking other innocent people.

Truth be told, there are many real and legit "gurus" out there. And you can learn and benefit a lot from them. The problem is picking the real ones from the fake ones. But to be honest, I would still recommend that you try it out on your own first. Remember, setting up an affiliate account is free. And they usually provide you with free information on how to maximise your sales as well. So why buy information that you can get for free and through experience?

But here is something to make you curious. Many of them claim to be very succefull affiliates who've made it big. But when you search around, do you notice that they don't have other websites? If they don't have another website, how can they even be affiliates when they don't sell any affiliated products? Talk about irony! Or perhaps the e-book that they are selling you is an affiliated product. But that would mean it isn't theirs and they've already lied to you about being an expert since they were not the ones who wrote it. So either they've lied to you about being an affiliate or selling you an e-book you thought was theirs. Now, they tricked you once, so are you even going to trust their words again? Do you still really believe that buying their product will make you rich? I think we all know the answer to that, don't we!

Of course, there are still plenty of other techniques that they do use to trick people. If you would love to learn more about the techniques that they use, please visit my website in my bio section. The key to not getting tricked by them is by understanding what works, and what doesn't.

HIGHER GOOGLE LISTING

There are many ways in which you can improve your Google listing, and some work better than others depending on the type of website you have or on your niche. Here are ways in which you can get a higher Google ranking, or even a better search engine ranking in general.

We shall forget about onpage SEO such as use of meta tags and use of keywords since that has been done to death by now. There are other things that you can do to improve your search engine ranking, and among them are:

1. Put a site map on your website. You can generate an XML site map using any of several tools listed on Google, and a simple, search should enable you to find one. Once you have followed the instructions, you should submit the site map to Google and to Yahoo, and each will then be able to crawl your website without hindrance. It will also be updated each time the search engines crawl your site because XML sitemaps update as you add new pages to your site. Your site map should uploaded to the root directory of your website.

2. Start up a blog using one of the two main free blogging hosts, Blogger or Wordpress. In fact, why not use both and get the benefit of each? Blogger is owned by Google, so a Blogger blog is of particular benefit for Google listings. Put the URL of the pages of your website that you want promote on your blog, and these pages will be visited next time your blog is crawled.

3. Open an account with Technorati, and some of the other social bookmarking sites, and submit your blog to them. Ping them each time you make a new posting, and you will get good exposure to search engines whenever they visit these sites (which is very often).

4. Use social networking sites such as YouTube, MySpace and Facebook to advertise your blog, or even your website. In fact put both your blog and your website on these sites, and you will get one-way back-links to your site, thus improving your Google PageRank and search engine results positions.

5. Make sure that all of your links are open. Nothing ruins your Google listing than broken links, and you must test all of your links to make sure that they are all working. You aren't expected to do that manually, and there is software available online to test your links for you.

6. Avoid reciprocal links like the plague, unless you have arranged them privately and both of you are happy with their positioning. Links farms, and large list pages on which you are at #259 on the SEO page, are not only useless with respect to any PageRank votes, but can actually do you harm. So steer clear of them. There are enough ways of securing one-way links without having to negotiate reciprocal links. These days are long gone.

7. Register with Google Webmaster Tools, and check out their analysis of your website. The software can detect broken links, but more importantly, can carry out other tasks such as making sure that only one form of your URL is recognized, and checking out your Meta tags. Although these are not used as much as previously, they are used or Google wouldn't be checking them for you!

8. Register for a free Squidoo lens, and use your URL on that. Not simply just as a URL, but as a means of solving a problem. A Squidoo lens is like a mini-website, and you can use it to present a problem, and then your website as a solution. Not only does that get you one-way back-links to your choice of website page, but also the potential of loads of traffic: people that want their problem solved.

So there are eight methods of promoting your website and improving your search engine ranking. There e other ways to improve your Google listing, but these are very effective off site methods of doing so, other than 1 and 5 that are essential on-site techniques - even more important than meta tags and the correct html tags.

Apply each one of these and you should be rewarded with an improved Google listing, and your search engine ranking in general should be enhanced.

TECHNIQUE FOR SEO

As well as link building and on-page optimisation, there are some other very important SEO factors which can help your website index and rank in search engine listings. The following techniques are grouped into the category named 'website optimisation' and should not be overlooked when preparing an SEO campaign.

Domain Age and Expiration Date

Google and other search engines include many factors within their ranking system. One of these factors is trust rank. Owning a domain that has history improves the trust rank as does registering the domain for a long period of time.

Website History

Again trust rank comes into play here. If your website has been archived in the search engine results for a long period then it will help improve rankings and indexing of webpages created in comparison with a fairly new website with no history.

Structured Navigation

When creating a website, it is important to provide a well structured navigation, not just for users but also to allow search engine bots to follow links and index webpages within your website. Structuring your navigation correctly can help all you webpages be indexed and should help the flow of Google's PageRank spread through out the website.

Valid HTML

As with structured navigation, the importance of valid HTML to search engine bots is to allow all webpages within your website to be indexed within the search engine listings. Validating your HTML will ensure that the bots do not hit any 'brick walls' within the code that prevent them from reading the rest of the webpage.

Contextual Linking

To further help the indexing of your webpages and to even out the flow of Google's PageRank, it is useful to include links within the content text of your webpages. Wikipedia is a perfect example of how this should be done.

URL Structure
Including keywords in your website's URLs will help you rank for those terms. If your website uses dynamic URLs created through variables then think about rewriting them. Separate keywords using a minus character (eg. search-phrase.html) and try and keep the important keywords as close to the beginning of the URL as possible.

Regional Targeting

If you wish to target a certain region then there are a few steps you can take to help this process. Firstly you can choose a relevant domain such as a .co.uk (UK) or .de (Germany) rather than a generic .com domain. Then look at your hosting IP location, search engines can access this information and will use it to decide your target audience. Finally, Google Webmaster Tools allows you to set a geographic target which is useful if you have a .com domain.

Site Maps

Search engine bots look for site maps when they visit your website. Providing a standard HTML site map will help improve the indexing of your webpages and allow bots to find webpages that they might otherwise have missed. You can now also provide and submit an XML site map which all the major search engines have took on as a standard. Use your robots.txt to tell bots where to find your XML site map and also submit it to Google Webmaster Tools and Yahoo Site Explorer.

Domain Name

If you are purchasing a domain name for a new website then think about including your main targeted keywords within that domain name. For example if you are building an online store that sells low price golf clubs in the UK and you buy the domain cheapgolfclubs.co.uk then you are definitely going to have a lot more of a chance for quickly ranking well for the search term 'cheap gold clubs' in UK search engines than you would with a more generic domain name. You would also do well for long tail search terms such as 'cheap golf clubs in the UK' and have more chance of ranking for 'golf clubs' in the long term.

NOW YOU JUST BLOGGING

So now, after our previous correspondence I know your aware of the influence the Internet has and can start seeing new potential in different areas of your business already.

It is in this time that I must share with you this next freedom tactic, for I can not let you market on the Internet without it.

For those of you that understand the 80 - 20 rule, which is usually the 20% percent it refers to; this means you must build a blog.

The original definition of a blog is an on line diary; a personal chronological log of thoughts published on a Web page; also called Weblog, Web log.
(Resource: dictionary.com)

This means that you now have a means to speak to your target market directly, to update them as often as you wish and a few more vital reasons we're about to discuss now.

Think of a blog this way, the Internet, search engines are always on look out for fresh new content, reliable of course, and also entertaining.

Blogs keep everyone happy, because the information in a blog is relayed to as "underground", and it usually displays the character and views of the author well. Search engines become enthralled with them and readers can't stop reading them.

This is why you must build a blog, several in fact that the search engines can crawl for valuable content.

Without a blog your credibility is shot on the Internet. You’re basically saying to everyone that you are indeed not a leader and have nothing valuable to say.

I know someone brilliant once said, "If it's not in a blog it’s not worth talking about at all."

A blog is also used as a means of communication. There are times when you'd like to email a group a particular message or an update.

Instead of sending an email that will reach most people's bulk mail filters, you can write a blog and then direct traffic to it instead.

This way you are providing content and are using the tools of the Internet to market.

Throughout this article, I have provided you with examples of blogs so that you may study several and start your own immediately.

Blogs are used primarily to funnel traffic to other marketing ventures.

Allow me to explain.

Let's say you write a blog that includes your favorite poems, a few you've written and other cool stuff.

By adding the links of products you endorse, such as a how to write poems eBook, I guarantee if your directing traffic you will make money.

The key in having a blog, just like anything else is in the content you provide. The more targeted, valuable information you provide the more you become an asset.

People will not buy from you or take your blog serious if you are trying to sell them in any way. Your goal in having the blog is to share unsolicited, unbiased facts.

The more you get this point across the more you'll benefit from having a blog.

Here are some great ideas of blogs that have always been effective and still continue to be.

1.) How to - A "how to" blog is simply enough the easiest blog you can write. Just think of a skill you have and then give a step by step tutorial that will allow everyone to know what you know.

Example: http://www.squidoo.com/workathomeinternetjob

2.) Top 10 - The most clicked upon, and highly searched blogs are top ten lists of some sort. They attract readers because it gives them the exact information their looking for, no barriers and its straight to the point.

Example: http://wiswakarma.site88.net

Again it should not be your intention to try to sell anything in your blog. You want people to be able to come and gather info

A blog also serves as your own "identification card" to the search engines. By uploading your information to your blog first you let them know that the content is indeed original and yours.

Let’s go over the main points of this email so you understand exactly why Blogging is here and here to stay it shall, so get familiar with it.

- Free way to communicate with others, and much more reliable than email

- Great content means fresh content for the search engines

- Boosts credibility and gives people the opportunity to get to know you

- Dedicated readers will subscribe to your rss feeds (This is a whole other subject in itself and will be fully detailed in The ML.M Freedom Tactic Course)

- Excellent opportunity to passively suggest a product to others

There are many other reasons blogs are such a helpful commodity to those who use it but honestly you'll begin to see them for yourself when you start writing your own.

With that said, start taking action and get ready because Tactic 3 "How Much of Your Happiness Is Caused by Your Thoughts?" is on its way, and this is definitely the secret information you'll need to get to the next level. (For the complete freedom tactics please see WWW.WISWAKARMA.SITE88.NET for more information)

8 BLOGGING TRICKS TO YOUR VISITOR

If your are blogging for some weeks surely you have realised you pass lots of hours in front of your computer surfing the Internet, researching, investigating, creating, imagining… You are on the correct way, nobody told you this is an easy task. However there are some tips which could help you to set an optimal workspace where you can feel more comfortable and retard the appearance of tiredness.

I told you in the post 8 BLOGGING TRICKS TO YOUR VISITOR that people love lists so here is another one to help you to find the most suitable workspace for you:

1. Your chair must be as comfortable as the best armchair. You are going to spend lots of hours sat on it, Don’t you think it is worth to have the best one? Look for a soft office chair with a wide back, armrest, wheels, adjustable wherever you want… It must be completely comfortable.


2. Have all useful wires always plugged in. Do you have to bend down each time you want to connect a USB device? Buy a USB wire! I have always plugged in my iPod wire and also I have a USB hub near at hand to plug in my pendrives and my camera.


3. Papersheets near at hand. I don’t know you but I’m writing notes all during the day. I write ideas, interesting blogs to check out later, etc. If I had to rise to pick a piece of paper I could forget that new idea I had in my head. More than that. Knowing myself as I do, I’m sure I wouldn’t rise so I wouldn’t write the note, probably another good idea missed.


4. Your screen must be an extension of your writing desk. If you have your desk tidy don’t you think you should do the same with the one you have in your computer screen? If you have all your shortcuts or your windows one on top of the other perhaps it is time to buy a bigger monitor, or even two. I use two 20? monitors plugged in the same computer. This way I can manage lots of windows and have them visible all the time.


5. Videoconferencing is better than chatting. If you usually chat with some friends, relatives or even fellow bloggers perhaps you should try to do videoconferencing. It is a closer communication and it helps you to disconnect instead of paying attention to more and more text.


6. If you listen to music when you blog it is better for you do it well. Do not use headphones because you’ll only get to befuddle your mind. Use a couple of speakers. A good ones give you a clearer sound and you will not turn the volume over a healthy level.


7. Have good lighting. If possible have sunlight, but not everyone has a window beside his computer. There is evidence that well-lit environments contribute positively in your mood and your productivity. You are not the dungeon master so you don’t have to be in the middle of the darkness.


8. Don’t have too much toys over your desk. Do you have your desk full of little Kinder Surprise (Magic Kinder…you know) ? If so surely you waste half an hour frolic with them. Keep pens and pencils in a proper place and not scattered across the desktop. You can have an anti stress toy if it help you to think, I use a ball.

These are eight important points. You don’t have to fulfill all of them. Perhaps you put less importance on some of them and more on other there are not here. But you must have some guidelines to make your workspace a more productive place.