“Screencasting”, according to Wikipedia, is the “digital recording of screen output, also known as ‘video screen capture’”. With screencasting software you fire up the software and then do whatever you want to capture - maybe software, maybe a website. You must have seen such videos dozens of times, [FIRSTNAME}!

Most internet marketers, including myself, use the up-market software, “Camtasia”. But for many people, Camtasia is too expensive.

So, given that website video is almost a “must” these days, what are the alternatives. “Cam Studio”, from which Camtasia originated, is f’ree or low-cost. It’s open source software, so there are a few variations around.

But what else is there? My eyes were opened when I came across a Wikipedia page devoted to screencasting software.

I know about “Jing”, and in the Download Library right now, there’s a video showing you how to use the Firefox plug-in “Capture Fox”. But most of the other software on the Wikipedia page I hadn’t heard about. Some links on the page go to another Wikipedia page, which gives more details about each software. Others go direct to the supplier’s web page.

So, if you’re looking for screencasting software, I suggest that you have a look at the page:

http://www.IanSays.com/Wiki/Screencast

Google’s search engine, I often think, is a bit like Microsoft software - 95% of people only use 5% of the features. And it’s usually because many people are unaware of the many search parameters that can be used. You can find details of advanced search operators here starting from this page:

http://www.IanSays.com/Google/AdvancedSearch

Let me give you an example, and it’s a powerful one. This search technique lets you find recently published articles on EzineArticles.com with more than a certain number of page views. It’s a great trick to identify up-to-date and popular sub-niches within a broader niche. Here’s the search term in full:

KEYWORD site:ezinearticles.com “This article has been viewed 2000..199999″ “Article Submitted On: * *, 2009″

That’s all on one line, by the way. So, you put in your keyword followed by a space and then the rest of the search term.

The two dots “2000..199999″ will find any number between those two values. So if you want to find articles with 5,000 or more page views, change “2000″ to “5000″. The two asterisks are wild card characters substituting for the month and the date that the article was submitted to EzineArticles.com

That particular search term on its own is a valuable research tool. But, with a bit of creative thinking, you can use these, and other advanced search operatives to really put more power into your Google searches.

You’ll be very familiar with the links in “Update” which start with “IanSays.com”. These links are the front end of a very powerful link tracking system, GoTryThis (”GTT”), which I’ve been using since July 2006 - and it cost me nearly 200 bucks. And that was an “early bird” price! The price went up considerably and people still kept buying it. Very soon, John Reel, the owner shut the doors after 2,500 people had bought GTT.

Very little happened over the next couple of years and then John started hinting about version 2 of GTT, which, he said, would be very different and even more powerful. He wasn’t wrong!

A few weeks ago, version 2 arrived, creeping out like a new-born kitten, blinking in the sunlight. OK, I know that kittens are born blind, but you get the picture First, just 50 existing GTT users were allowed to upgrade, then another few batches followed on. And eventually it was my turn.

It wasn’t a smooth ride. The new software was still in “beta” and there were a few bugs in the system. But John Reel provided excellent service for me, and now everything is running smoothly.

In the last couple of days, John has decided that the software is now stable enough to be made available to a limited number of the general public. And that includes you! You can read John’s short (and slightly quirky) sales page here:

http://www.IanSays.com/GTT/ThePower.htm

When you’ve watched the short video, go to the “Get Started” button, and you’ll be in for a pleasant surprise. On this page, which shows all the different options, instead of having to lay out mega bucks, as I did, you get the full power of GTT for a small monthly fee - if you opt for having your tracking hosted on the powerful GTT servers. If you want the system on your server, that’s when the mega bucks kicks in!

I switched immediately to the inexpensive hosted version, and I’ve not regretted my decision. Yes, I know that I’ll be paying out each month. And yes, I know that I’ll be using this service in the years to come. I’ve already been a happy user for two years. But I feel that I have peace of mind knowing that my mission-critical system is on the GTT servers.

In just a couple of days about 200 of the 500 slots have gone. So if you’re interested in using the same tracking / cloaking system that I use, then have a look at the features of GoTryThis:

http://www.IanSays.com/GTT/ThePower.htm

And if you have any questions you want to ask me about GTT, I’ll try to answer them.

I always like to try out new types of search engine, and recently I found a really different one: Wolfram Alpha

Wolfram Alpha uses all sorts of databases, li.sts and websites where it can find information that is known to be true. You can enter “population UK France USA” and it will give you the numbers and useful graphs. It can tell you what the weather was in major cities on any given date, or the age of the oldest person.

It’s fascinating to play with - but it ain’t a search engine! The British-born (now living in the US) co-creator, Stephen Wolfram, describes it as a “computational knowledge engine”. If you’ve got time to spend, you might enjoy exploring what Wolfram Alpha can do:

http://www.wolframalpha.com/

Last week I talked about a couple of ways to set up social networking features on your web sites. Today, here’s a way to add the same sort of “comments” feature to your conventional web pages that you find on blogs. It’s a freebie you can get from here:

http://www.IanSays.com/WebPageComments

There are paid-for versions, but as far as I can see, the f’ree version seems to off’er all that most people would want. And it seems only to need a snippet of Javascript to be inserted on your page. Even better, it comes with the same “Akismet” spam filtering that I use on my Wordpress blog.

I’ve not tried it out yet, but it’s something I might experiment with in the near future. If you do try it before I get round to it, perhaps you could post your comments on the Marketing Update Community forum.

I have had to temporarily close the Forum for new registrations because of the increasing number of spammers signing up. I started the Forum by allowing sign-ups with no verification except a “Captcha” image on the sign-up form.

For quite a few months there were no problems. Then forum spammers started to target the Community Forum. So I introduced an email verification system. That didn’t work. These evil people were still getting through.

Last week I switched to the system where I, as Admin, have to manually approve registrations. I did this by emailing all registrants and asking them a simple question which “Update” subscribers could answer, but possibly no-one else. That kept the spammers out, but it was a hugely time-consuming process for me. The number of spammer applications keeps on increasing - up to 40 to 50 per day.

I’m currently checking out on forums where Forum Administrators hang out, various automated anti-spam techniques, but until I find a solution, the Forum is closed to new members. If you are already a Member of the Community, you can still use the forum as usual. So, make me feel better about what I’ve had to do.. log on to the forum and have a rant against spammers!

“Split testing” is a marketing technique which helps you to improve the conversion rate on your web pages. It’s an established technique in the “real” world, but the web makes it much easier to use.

Basically, you set up two versions of a page with just one element changed.. say, the headline. You then use split test software which sends visitors alternately to the two pages. After you’ve had a reasonable number of visits, you can compare the conversion rates of the two pages and see which headline worked best.

I’ve experimented with the process a few times, but it’s quite time consuming. So I was interested to get an email from a guy called Ryan Deiss, who is giving away the results of 43 split tests that he’s carried out if you take up a $97 monthly membership (his “Total Access Club”). I’m not endorsing this because I haven’t tried it.

However, in his email, Ryan gives the result of one of his split tests.. the text on the “buy” button - the one you hit when you’ve read the sales page and want to make a purchase.

Ryan ran 8 variations of the text and tested the results on over 80,000 page views. The winner, by a big margin was “Add To Cart”, which outperformed the others by a factor of 20 times.

I’ve certainly noticed that more and more sales pages are using “Add To Cart” - even though no online shopping cart is being used.

I guess I’m going to have to start converting all those buttons on my sales pages. And maybe you, too, might want to experiment with this.