Did you know that approximately 20 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every MINUTE? Think about it… That’s a LOT of video. Talk about breaking the Web, eh? If anything can do it, video can. But that’s highly doubtful. And video is becoming the most popular form of surfing. From ten to ninety-seven, everyone seems to really love YouTube. When there’s nothing to do, or when you’re in a bad mood, finding some hilarious stuff on the site certainly changes your daily picture.
Remember, Americans love TV, and YouTube and video sites like it, have definitely changed the way we see the Web.
But how do you optimize video for search? Spiders can’t parse video yet, right? So, what can you do?
It’s basically the same as it would be for any web page. Have a KILLER title and description. That’s number one. Your title can be based on something that already gets a lot of views on YouTube or something you make up, but it should definitely have a keyword in it that people are searching for. And the title shouldn’t be too long. Remember that Google only shows 65 characters in your SERPs listing, so keeping your video title to 65 characters or less is a good rule of thumb. continue reading »
When I tell people to do that, I can usually hear the gears turning in their brain… EVERY DAY!?!
Well… yeah. Every single day.
The more you blog, the more subscribers you’ll get, the more traction you’ll have with the search engines and the benefits are HUGE. That’s to get your blog started. After you’ve built an audience, you can cut back to three times a week and then, maybe once a week. It’s all in what your niche is and what your readers expect from you. But here’s the deal…
If you blog once a month or even once a week or you’re inconsistent with your posts, you’re training an audience to ignore you. People want fresh content, and if they like what you provide in your blog, they’ll come back regularly to read your stuff, if YOU are regular about getting it up there.
In terms of search engines, pages equal page rank. Since each post you make has its own separate page, you’re adding pages to your site. (This isn’t to confuse you with the “Page” feature in WordPress. Those are pages, too, but they’re more like static information, like “About,” calendars, and such. Posts are continually updating content.) Plus, you’re updating content often, and the spiders just eat that up.
So, how can you post every day and not feel like a gerbil on a constantly spinning wheel?
Simple.
Make videos. They’re easy to do. You can make them with Flip Cams, Camcorders, or cheap old webcams like mine and put them up on YouTube or Seesmic and then, just embed them in your blog. They can teach people something or you can just talk into the camera. Have you checked out “Dear Tellman” lately? All video.
Make voice recordings and post those to your blog. Podcasting blogs are great, and if you’ve ever been to Stephen Pierce’s blog DTAlpha Talkback, you’ll see how easy they can be to do. His stuff is killer! But then, he’s Stephen Pierce, right?
You don’t have to write every day.
But you can get people to write for you. Hire folks at Elance.com and have them write for a small fee.
Or, here’s one I like a lot… get guest bloggers. You don’t have to pay for them, and it’s a win-win situation. They get exposure on a different venue and YOU get a blog post. Sweet! You link to their site from your blog and the guest blogger has a backlink, too. Nice! Plus, their working with a new audience to get readers for their own blogs. It’s great!
You don’t have to make videos, either. You can grab videos from YouTube or another directory and just post them.
The caveats are:
1. Be sure that the content is is consistently about the niche your blog lives in. Don’t have a fishing buddy post something about fishing to your Internet marketing blog. Bad, bad, bad.
2. Don’t use other people’s stuff ALL the time. Just now and then to take the load off. People are coming to your blog to learn about YOU and what you have to say. Don’t always be leaning on others.
3. Mix things up. Unless you’re going to have a pure video blog or a pure podcast blog, then try adding different types of content at reasonable intervals. You’ll notice that most of my posts are written because well… I’m a writer. But I do add videos now and again. When I’m really busy, those are a godsend.
So, see? When you think of blogging every day in those terms… it’s not so overwhelming, is it?
Here’s a video I hope you enjoy. We posted it to YouTube a while back, but I’m telling you… if you’re marketing online and you’re NOT writing articles, you totally need to start, and here’s why…
If you have studied copywriting at any level, you’ll have heard the term “swipe file” often. That’s just a collection of headlines or really good sales copy that can be modeled. It can’t be used verbatim, of course, because that would be plagiarism, but you can rewrite what you find, and even the best copywriters do this all the time.
The constant pace of blogging can be demanding. When you’re first starting a blog, it’s important to write in that blog seven days a week. Then, once you have a following, you can cut back to five days and then three, and still maintain an audience. But the reality is, the more you post, the bigger your audience will grow, unless you’re a total moron and posting crap all the time. Hopefully, you have some cool stuff to mention about your niche to keep your audience engaged, but you must be consistent.
Sporadic blogging is very bad. It just shows that you’re lackadaisical, that you’re not really passionate about your topic, and it might indicate to the people you’re trying to impress that you’re a slacker. Not good.
However, potential bloggers are often aghast at the idea of writing every day!
You have to realize that blogging isn’t ALL about writing. It can be about video. You can make them yourself or just snatch them from YouTube. You can make audio recordings. You can add pictures with captions. There are lots of ways to be blogging.
You don’t have to be tied to your computer, either. WordPress allows you to write now and publish later. You only need click the “edit” link next to “Publish immediately” in the right-hand side of the “Add New Post” page and set your posting date and time. So, you can add 5 posts at the same time, and schedule them to go out 5 days in a row.
This is great for people who like to write Looooong posts. They shouldn’t be more than 500 words, so break them down over two or three days, if that’s the case. A good length is really about 350 words.
A good way to get ideas is by keeping a blogger’s “swipe file.” During the day, as I’m working on other projects, I see sites I may want to blog about later, so I just bookmark them and add them to my blogging ideas file. Then, later in the day, I can go back and write about what I found. These files can include Twitter remarks, websites, even emails that I get. All of them go into the hopper.
It sure makes writing a lot easier. Instead of sitting here at the keyboard trying to come up with something at the end of the day when I’m exhausted, I just go to my file, check around for something I can write about and then, I’m here pounding the keys or posting something to amaze and delight.
Did you know that approximately 20 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every MINUTE? Think about it… That’s a LOT of video. Talk about breaking the Web, eh? If anything can do it, video can. But that’s highly doubtful. And video is becoming the most popular form of surfing. From ten to ninety-seven, everyone seems to really love YouTube. When there’s nothing to do, or when you’re in a bad mood, finding some hilarious stuff on the site certainly changes your daily picture.
The constant pace of blogging can be demanding. When you’re first starting a blog, it’s important to write in that blog seven days a week. Then, once you have a following, you can cut back to five days and then three, and still maintain an audience. But the reality is, the more you post, the bigger your audience will grow, unless you’re a total moron and posting crap all the time. Hopefully, you have some cool stuff to mention about your niche to keep your audience engaged, but you must be consistent.
