Ever have web pages and videos you want to save or share with a specific friend or group of friends, relatives, or coworkers?
So do other people. The question then arises how to organize these favorites or most useful sites. Social bookmarking sites exist to organize what people find interesting. The one doing the sharing tags the preferred site on a given social bookmarking site with a word or words which describe the topic or content.
The tags, and sometimes descriptions, serve as handles to organize the sites for future reference. So if a group of people like your content or if you use social bookmarking sites to refer to your content, traffic to your sites can increase. If the tags accurately represent your content, the traffic can be targeted to your content.
Unfortunately, there are no standards for making tags, which introduces certain kinds of problems, and bookmarking sites have been subject to spamming and collusion abuse. And friends in various instances can limit the exposure of a given site reference to a small or private group. But on the whole, search engines still see value in bookmarking as a means to provide searchers with the content they seek. And you can get back links to your site this way.
Here is a brief list of some of the social bookmarking sites with heavier traffic. The list is ordered more or less from the most to the least traffic as of the time of this writing–save for the last entry, which serves to download to a number of social bookmarking sites at once.
Digg – for social news, videos, and images
Technorati – for blog searches
Del.icio.us
Stumbleupon – The “stumble upon” button randomly selects content in a given topic.
Mixx
Slashdot
Propeller.com – news
Folkd
Citeulike – scholarly and academic articles
Diigo – personal data saved or work collaboratively
Sphinn – for internet marketing
Faves
Blinklist
Simpy
Connotea – “Free online reference management for all researchers, clinicians and scientists”
Blogmarks
Onlywire – downloads to multiple bookmarking sites at once. Free (with ads) or paid (no ads) versions available.
Useful as social bookmarking may be for getting back links to one’s site, one wonders if Facebook won’t dominate in many ways. In any case as usual, the best long term strategy is to provide and share content people are looking for.
Tags: bookmarking
There’s no doubt that online videos are here to stay … and grow. The granddaddy of all video sites of course is YouTube, also currently the second largest search engine. Or more philosophically, we humans like the visual and sound stuff that written words on the screen doesn’t have.
Website promotion for now and in the foreseeable future must include online videos. Here’s a short list of sites that may help in your online video production.
1. YouTube. OK, you knew that, but Julie Perry (retiring) and Paul Colligan have a bunch of advice on how the maximize your YouTube footprint.
2. One of Perry and Colligan’s recommended sites for free YouTube background layouts is YTLayouts.
On YouTube itself, color scheme and custom design are found in “My Account,” then in “Edit Channel” and then the “Channel Design” area.
3. Jivox – upload own or modify existing canned video ads (customized for your keywords, on-site URL, etc.).
4. Createspace – from Amazon. Sign up is free. Send in 20 minute+ DVDs, and they will create the accompanying online hosting and packaging, but for the free version, they will take royalties of 50% or so, and you won’t get money until after 60 days from a given sale. Video streaming, downloads, or DVD forms of your product are available.
5. Youreeeka – If you want to set up pay per view. You can specify the viewing time period. There is a $99 annual fee. You keep 60% of sales, but receive pay only after 60 days from sales.
6. Livestream Procaster – free software that enables you to move between screen capture and person shots, but online ads will pop up at bottom of your screen (like on YouTube). To get no ads, the premium version is expensive.
7. Screer – web based screen recording software like Jing and screentoaster. Twitter friendly videos. Nothing to download. Works on MS PCs and Macs.
8. Tubemogul – Submit your videos for free to a variety of online video host sites like YouTube, Metcafe, Yahoo and so on. You can follow the stats on viewings.
9. Much of the above, I get from Dave Kaminski of Webvideo University. Dave recommends certain video editing software, camera and audio equipment, and a lot besides.
10. Slide Rocket – software tool for video and audio presentations. Free trial offer.
11. Camtasia – screen editing software. Or see the free version Camstudio without all the bells and whistles.
12. Niche Profit Classroom – Within this training program for internet and affiliate marketers are a series of recorded webinars, five of which are particularly geared toward online video production. One of these five, for example, is on creating sales videos. Another covers the nuts and bolts technical stuff the speaker uses in his own production.
Any additions you might suggest?
Tags: online video production
Wow. Here is a service that can replace … Dreamweaver or Wordpress web page building, Photoshop image creation (like logo design), an autoresponder service, niche finding labor, keyword research tools, web hosting, directory submission, manual link building, AND a host of other goodies all for a modest monthly (or even more modest yearly) fee. If you have technical skills and tools, those can be integrated too. Or if you want affiliate coaching, local business coaching or someone else to build you site, those services are available too.
I find the outstanding appeal of Site Build It! (”SBI”) in three areas. (1) The ease of step-by-step website building software for the non-techie. Create your own website look and feel without knowing html code. (2) A software package that enables you to find the low-competition, money-making keywords in your niche. That alone is worth the price. (3) The wide range of user-friendly and automated services, including some traffic building, for the modest fee.
They teach a four-step process: “C” for create in-demand content, “T” for build traffic, “P” for presell site visitors (build relationships notably through email follow-ups and repeat site visits), and “M” for monetize.
Whether you have an existing business with an online presence or want to start an new one, whether you are new or seasoned, there is something in SBI that will probably turn your head. That’s why I have become one of their affiliates.
Any downsides? If you are a techie or prefer a particular thing not provided in SBI (a particular autoresponder or web hosting service, for example), you may want flexibility and options not provided. And of course the program will take time to master … and they do expect you to come up with your own content for web pages, articles, and emails (unless you outsource these). In short, it will take time and work.
But SBI even has a free trial to test-drive their program. And check out their video Action Guide.
Tags: Site Build It!
Eben Pagan, among others, argues that success is best achieved when we set up daily routines for each of our top-priority, results-producing tasks AND control distractions from those priorities.
That may seem simple. But think about it.
If we all did our top priority things first, daily, and avoided interruptions, we’d all be a lot more successful. In fact, most of us often don’t “get” what is of top priority.
Pagan continues that there are three pillars of making money (for information product business): The customer (or “leads”), conversion (meaning sales or sign-ups), and content.
With many leads and great content, but low conversion … you earn little money. With a great conversion rate, but few leads … you earn little money. With many leads and a great conversion rate, but a lousy product … well, your reputation will suffer and long term prospects for making money are low.
You need all three pillars. And these three pillars are your top priorities, according to Pagan, in ranking order: first customer leads, second conversion rate, and third product. If you don’t put the time and effort in your information product business according to these priorities, your business will be less than optimal.
Yes, there may be brief periods where you need to spend more time on, say, content for a new product, but normally you should have a set daily schedule that includes these three top priorities first and proportionately.
Pagan repeats his warning against letting distractions of lower priority tasks interrupt the pillars. Not least because distractions actually take a long period to recover from. Not least because mental focus increases efficiency. Stay in your mental “zone.”
I am not affiliated with Pagan’s limited-admission Ignition Coaching Club, but you may want to get on their waiting list.
Tags: Eben Pagan, working efficiently
In principle, normally, we reap what we sow. We earn from others according to our contribution to them. And if that were easy, we’d all be rich.
The difficulties in finding the sweet spot keywords for business, for example, are multifarous.
Some keywords may be ambiguous or not specific enough, crossing over between different concepts, so that they words may attract the wrong kind of people … for the split second before they leave you site. Some keywords may attract lots of viewers who have no interest in buying anything related to your site or in giving you their email address.
But probably the most difficult problem is competition.
Most keywords have too many competing pages on the web for most of us to get noticed. All the good watering holes have already attracted the mass herd. Or too few people search for other keywords to make it worth our while to bother. Or we get the popular keyword phrase, but not in the popular order … or we miss one important word, as Market Samurai notes.
Of course, if there were only ten competing web pages for your keyword, but each of these ten pages were found on large, authoritative, well established sites with thousands of backlinks and pristine ranking … it could take years for your site to appear on the front page of a search. You could be virtually lost on the second page. A few iron clad competitors may be as hard to beat as a million moderate ones.
Of course, you may be the first to capitalize on a new, popular niche, but statistically speaking, that is a bit like winning the lottery.
A more probable road to success for the small business person is to find a less competitive sub-niche possibly related to a popular one, and longer and less competitive keywords possibly related to a popular niche. Either assume the low hanging fruit in the popular niches has been taken and reach for the higher fruit or find a little tree few have even noticed.
Would you like a list of proven niches to give you ideas? Check out
Proven Niche Markets, with which I am affiliated. This includes keywords for each niche. Or see a free list of business ideas for more.
Keywords for business are best when they qualify on four different parameters: relevance, traffic, competition, and “commerciality.” Or so notes Market Samurai.
The keywords one uses on one’s site and in one’s ads or backlinks and anchor texts should be relevant to one’s site and business goals.
The keywords should have sufficient traffic … but not too much competition for the given traffic (or one risks getting lost in the crowd). A lot of traffic alone is not a sufficient indicator of a useful keyword.
And the keywords should give some indication that the people using them have commercial intent. A percentage of the people using the keywords should buy something relevant to the keyword and your site. Or if your goal is lead capture, the keyword is best if an acceptable percentage of people doing a search of that keyword sign up. And so on.
I for one am enthusiastic about this tool. You can even keep a very useful version of the research tool free if you decide not to buy after the trial period. See Dojo for training videos.
Tags: keyword research
There are good reasons to cloak affiliate links. For one, they are too difficult for people to remember or type in to a search engine to find your site. For another, hackers can use them to steal your commissions … or potential customers will just use the vendor’s URL minus your affiliate addition.
One can cloak links in a variety of ways.
1) Of course, one can use various link shorteners. The shortened link will not be in a neat and memorable form of your choosing, but it will be cloaked. Among shorteners are bit.ly (which can be set up for tracking clicks), tinyurl.com, budurl.com, snipurl.com, cli.gs, fb.me, and goo.gl most recently.
2) Create a file in your cpanel named something you like (presumably something to do with the product or service) and put the affiliate link in the html code of the file.
3) Set up a unique domain name and forward it to your affiliate link.
4) PHP Header Redirects.
Use the code: <?php header( ‘Location: http://www.yourtargetdomain.com/new_page.html’ ) ;?>
5) Use Acloaker.com according to the following video, which assumes the use of ftp software wuch as FileZilla.
Tags: link cloaking
A former Muslim college roommate once gently expressed his offense at the notion of God becoming flesh. He objected to the Jesus-born-in-Bethlehem story as relayed in Christian circles.
I saw his point. How could a great, just, wholly-other sort of a Being humiliate Himself, condescending to becoming a burping, unclean-stuff producing baby human? Sort of like a President or monarch morphing into a stray dog or a flea … only far more so.
So here we are in the middle of seasonal stress. Yet still there are things out there that incite our hearts to wonder and awe. A single cell. An evening sky. Galaxies. A colorful and fertile scene shaped by water, valley, and mountain. Mocking such things may be more than in bad taste. How much more so if at an ineffable, holy, unimaginably great God.
Of course, we sometimes chide ourselves for being too caught up in material things (like gifts and presents). There has to be something more important out there than being a Scrooge. Some greater “why” than making a buck and buying your three year old more socks.
Not that socks and money are bad things in themselves. Sometimes errands and work projects are driven by relatively important “why’s.”
Question then arises whether there can be a relationship between the mundane and the wonderful, between retail stores and ultimate purpose, between the material and the spiritual, even between humans and God. Not that there always is, but is it possible?
The story of Jesus’ birth suggests there may be. For one thing, it comes in a context in which God made the material, including our bodies. As God’s creations, we are here for God’s purposes.
For another, The Birth suggests that God did graciously condescend to relate to us mere humans. The Christmas story is that God became a man for a brief period of years and showed humanity something about meaning, ultimate purpose, and that which is most awe-inspiring. He emptied Himself for us.
And that leaves open the possibility of a greater “Why” to our seasonal busy-ness and daily business.
Tags: Christmas
Aside from lists of basic online affiliate and internet marketing resources and resources on ebook creation and outsourcing, I thought the following miscellaneous sites list, while naturally incomplete, may nonetheless be useful, partly for its brevity.
Sites for checking traffic
An index of top internet marketing gurus
Legal form generator
Outsource CD and DVD duplication
Record interviews
Video Storage, unlimited playback
Membership site manager
Buying and selling websites
Create tests to figure out what people are doing on your website.
Opt-in at foot of page
Professional looking talking cartoon heads service
Determine plagiarism of or duplicate content
Find code errors
Test viewing load capacity of your blog or site
Any additional suggestions?
Tags: online marketing, resources list
In this 23 November 2009 video, Elliott Wave adherent Robert Prechter takes the minority position that the “2008-type” recession is not over and that the US dollar’s near-term future looks bullish.
For more on the economic theory, see economic trends.
Tags: Elliott Wave, Prechter
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