Today’s guest writer, Fabian Tan, deals with an increasingly popular topic. We all know what a big deal YouTube is. But for many folk in internet marketing, knowing how to prof’it from YouTube can be a stumbling block. In his article, Fabian writes:

“Similar to the written content, your You tube should also be optimized to generate an exodus of YouTube traffic. The following tips can get you exponential YouTube traffic when appropriately employed.”

You can read the rest of his article here:

http://www.IanSays.com/Article/YouTubeTraffic

Incidentally, I picked up some inexpensive videos yesterday which are a good guide to getting started in video marketing. Have a look here:

http://www.IanSays.com/VideoMarketingVideos

Oh, and this is another site powered by the new “Instant Member” software. I’ve started to prepare my first product which will use IM. It’s about the easiest membership site script I’ve used. Have a look at it here

http://www.IanSays.com/ILike/IM

If there isn’t, there should be! Recently I published an article by Arun Pal Singh, which gave some tips on optimising Wordpress blogs. One of the tips was about “slugs”, and I said that I’d have to look into that topic.

I’ve done just that! It’s all to do with how the URL for individual blog posts (the “permalink”) is constructed. There are a number of possible ways that this is done.

The default way is to have permalinks which look like this:

http://www.myblog.com/?p=123

.. which isn’t very search engine friendly

However, you can change this so that the permalink is taken from the title which you give to your post. For example, if you title your post “A Better Way To Make Blueberry Pie”, the permalink would become:

http://www.myblog.com/a-better-way-to-make-blueberry-pie

.. which is better than “?p=123″, but still not all that search engine friendly. This is where slugs come in (and not just through my garden door!). When you’re writing a Wordpress post, there’s a box on the right-hand side labeled “Post Slug”. This is where you can choose what permalink you want - and you can insert keywords which you want the search engines will pick up on - the URL is important to the search engines. Here’s a real life - and recent - example.

The post I made about interpreting Google Analytics has the title “How To Interpret Google Analytics Stats”. I put in the “post slug” box “google-analytics-videos” and the URL is

http://www.marketingsparks.com/google-analytics-videos/

How important is this? Well, it’s a starting point. The page got indexed by Google in less than 10 hours and got reasonable ranking for relevant key words. The next task I have is to find out how to change the <TITLE> tag for individual posts. This would be much more search engine friendly. I’ll keep you posted on this topic.

You see, I’m a real Wordpress newbie. But I’m learning fast. And one lady I’m learning from is Lorelle. Here’s her page about post slugs:

http://www.IanSays.com/Lorelle/PostSlugs

It’s actually another very ingenious “social co-operation” website. “IM Answers” (”IMA”) describes itself as “An Internet Marketing Q&A Community”. The main focus on the site is simple.. you can ask a question, and another member might be able to answer it.

You get varying numbers of points for asking and answering questions and these then go towards having your Adsense-like a.d at the top of each page.

Apart from his own AdSense ads, I can’t see any ways that the site owner can monetize the site. It’s all 100% free.. no upsells, no upgrading. Yet! The site is in beta so other things might come along later. In the meantime, you can sign up here:

http://www.IanSays.com/YourInvite/IMA

Now for the real meat and potatoes!

Join My “Marketing Update” Discussion Group

Every IMA member can set up a mini-forum, called a Group. And that’s just what I’ve done.

For some time now I’ve been toying with the idea of setting up a proper forum for “Marketing Update” subscribers. So far, the nearest I’ve got is the “Have Your Say” section in the Download Library - which isn’t very satisfactory.

So, as another way of “Update” subscribers getting together, I’ve set up my group in IM Answers - and I’d really like you to get involved. Here’s what to do:

1. Get your f’ree IMA account here:

http://www.IanSays.com/YourInvite/IMA

2. When you’ve logged in, use the big red “IMA Groups” button at the top of the page.

3. Select the “Business & Entrepreneur” category

4. Scroll down and near the end you’ll see the link to my “Marketing Update” Group. You should recognise my happy, smiling face

5. After using the link, you’ll see, on the left-hand side of the screen, a panel headed “Group Tools”. In it is a link “Join Group”. Hit the link and you’re in!

At the time of writing, there’s just me sitting there all alone Come and join me - and start posting! This could be interesting - and fun!

But we’re not done yet..

Build Your IMA Pages

Like Squidoo and Hubpages, IMA let’s you build as many pages as you want. Here’s one that I created as a test:

http://www.imanswers.com/page/marketing-update

If IMA takes off, then your IMA pages should get indexed in the search engines, similar to Squidoo and Hubpages. Right now, IMA is brand new.. only a couple of weeks old. So you can get in on the ground floor. Do it now..

http://www.IanSays.com/YourInvite/IMA

I look forward to seeing you in my “Marketing Update Group”

Oh, just a quick note about the sign-up procedure. You’ll get the usual email with a confirmation link. After you’ve used it, you may have to wait a bit before you can log in to your account. As I said, the site is in beta and there are a few rough edges!

I’ve been an intensive user of Google’s free “Analytics” service for some time now.

It’s basically a way of seeing exactly what’s going on inside your website - looking at pages viewed, keywords used to access your pages and so on.

OK, that doesn’t sound like rocket science. After all, web log analysis software has been around since the year dot. Most web hosting companies provide free website stats. And many third party solutions (free and paid-for) have been giving this type of service for many years.

But what I particularly like about Google Analytics is the way that you can easily drill down deeper and deeper into your website’s performance.. and just through pasting a bit of code into all your web pages.

All this information can be baffling. It’s important to be able to interpret this wealth of information. That way, knowledge really is power!

I’m not going to try to show you how to interpret Google Analytics stats. Why should I when Google can do it so much better? Here’s a couple of videos for you watch..

Video 1: Interpreting and acting on your data

Video 2: The Google Analytics Interface

If you’ve not already started to use Google Analytics, then I strongly recommend that you do so. Here’s how to get your free Google Analytics account:

 1) If you haven’t get got a Google Gmail account, then get one at:

http://mail.google.com/

2) When you’ve got one, then go and sign up for Google Analytics here:

http://www.google.com/analytics/

Now go and really start to understand what’s happening on your websites

Incidentally, if you are using Analytics, please post your comments below.

Here’s how our guest writer, Arun Pal Singh, introduces his article:

“Wordpress is a great platform for blogging. It does not require much technical know-how to install and use it. This and its versatility are the main reasons why Wordpress has become so popular. Today we discuss few tricks and tweaks that beginners can use for better functioning of Wordpress. This also gives them higher search engine optimization results.“

Arun gives four specific tips to help get your Wordpress blog more visible in the search engines. Three of them I knew already. But I’ll have to start looking closely at “slugs” - his fourth tip!

You can read Arun’s article here:

http://www.IanSays.com/Article/Wordpress

By the way, English doesn’t seem to be Arun’s first language. I’ve tried to correct some of his mistakes, but I might have missed others. It doesn’t detract from the value of the info, though.

Whenever you put your email address on a web page, you run the risk of it being “harvested” by the spammers. Their “bots” crawl the web, looking for unprotected email addresses.

In my early years on the web I innocently put numerous email addresses on my web pages. I had to abandon them all because they were being spammed out of sight.

Today, I use a variety of ways to protect myself - often with a bit of Javascript. Last week, whilst looking at a web page, I came across a new technique. It’s a free web-based tool, courtesy of the Carnegie Mellon University. Here’s how it works..

On their web services page (link is below) you enter your email addy, and you’re then given an HTML snippet which you paste into your web page. This displays some text which hides your address, but is still a hyperlink.

When someone hits the hyperlink text, a little window opens up, displaying a “captcha” - an image showing some jumbled up letters.. I’m sure you’ve come across them before. When the user enters the correct letters, they are shown your full email address.

Here’s where to access the service:

http://www.IanSays.com/SpamFighter

I’ve been trying this out on the web version of my newsletter:

http://www.marketing-update-newsletter.com/current.php

It’s a bit of a convoluted method, but it might appeal to you. Incidentally, I suggest that you slightly change the HTML as I have done so that none of your email address is shown.

[ Caution ] This article is a sales pitch as well as a bit of internet marketing training

http://www.WordpressUncovered.com/subscriber-deal.php

Ever since I made the move out of Google’s safe and cozy blog platform, Blogger.com, I’ve been fascinated - and challenged - by the the power of Wordpress.

I started to collect a variety of Wordpress training materials, mainly videos, and a month or so ago, I had the idea of putting this material into a training package. I even registered the “WordpressUncovered.com” domain name.

Then, with one thing and another, my project lost momentum - you know how it is! So I was completely unprepared when, a few days ago, another Wordpress training package was launched with a lot of publicity - “Wordpress Unleashed”. Drat!!

Anyway, I picked up the Master Resale Rights to “Unleashed” and I was delighted with the quality of the videos. They were better than some that I had in my collection.

But the presentation of the package was terrible - just one huge 157 Mb download, with a clumsy way of viewing the videos and no easy way to resell them.

This was a big chance for me.. so learn from the way I handled it!

I simply added a whole lot of value to the package:

• I made a careful selection from my own Wordpress video collection, and added 8 excellent videos which covered subjects not in the Unleashed collection. This raised the number of videos from 13 to 21 - and the download size to 450 Mb!
• I wrapped the whole lot up in one of my “Video Viewers” (download size 0.9 Mb). That made the product much more manageable. OK, so you have to be online when watching the videos, and this might not please all customers. But sometimes you have to make these decisions, and I know that the majority of people prefer my Video Viewers.
• In my “eLibrary” I found two excellent Wordpress training reports, and added those as bonuses (also downloadable from inside my Video Viewer).
• I went through my researches on Wordpress training and added a “Useful Resources” section to my Video Viewer.
• And I priced the whole enhanced “Wordpress Uncovered” package at the same price as the inferior Wordpress Unleashed package - as a special deal for “Update” subscribers.

http://www.WordpressUncovered.com/subscriber-deal.php

And that is how you, too, can take existing Resale Rights products and produce something completely new.

The key is to add value - lots and lots and lots of it! Oh, and sometimes you need to move quickly to ride the crest of the marketing wave.

You’ll also need to move fairly quickly to pick up my “Subscriber Deal” on “Wordpress Uncovered”. I’ll be ending this deal on 17th September. So if you haven’t done so already, pick up my Wordpress training package here:

http://www.WordpressUncovered.com/subscriber-deal.php

There’s full details of the content of the videos on that page. Oh, and I’ll be making the Master Resale Rights for the “Unleashed” part of the package available in a few days time - but only to people who’ve purchased my “Wordpress Uncovered” package. And it’ll be cheaper overall and easier to download than from the official “Unleashed” sales page.

I’ve just installed Google’s latest attack on traditional Microsoft markets - their new web browser, “Chrome”. Now I’ve seen a lot of “techie” reviews of Chrome over the past couple of days, but most people are going to be more interested in how Chrome seems to perform, rather than what goes on under the hood.

So this is a “low-tech” review And it’s not meant to be a comprehensive review.. just my comments on what, from a surfer’s point of view, struck me initially. And they’re pretty random!

First impressions were good. The installation went smoothly, and Chrome imported all my IE bookmarks accurately.

Tiny Toolbar
When I first opened up my new, shiny browser, I was impressed (and a little startled) by the minimalistic appearance. It’s true that my IE top is stuffed with various toolbars and addons, but even so, “Chrome” lacks the array of buttons for its different functions. They are all tucked into drop-down menus from a couple of buttons top-right of the browser.

So, the minor tools that you need from time to time are all tucked away and don’t interfere with your main need - looking at websites! I’ve had to reduce the image size to fit in here, so it’s not a brilliant representation. But here’s Chrome’s total toolbar:

Text Rendering
When I first started to access sites with Chrome, I was initially disappointed with the appearance of the text. I’ve grown to like the “anti-aliasing” effect of text in IE 7. Chrome’s text rendering is more like that of Firefox. Here’s a comparison of the three, looking at the same bit of web page:

So, if you’re a FF fan, you’ll be OK with this. But IE7 supporters will be disappointed with Chrome’s text rendering.

Predictive Text
After I’d visited a few sites, I noticed that, when you start to type an URL into the address box, Chrome’s “predictive text” feature kicks in. This is better than the IE version - it highlights (with a star) sites you have previously visited:

Startup Tabs
I like this feature! Each morning I regularly open 5 or 6 websites, checking sales and website stats. I’ve got a couple of bits of software which will open multiple web pages when I start work. But Chrome has eliminated this software need. In “Options”, just set the web pages you want opening when you start up Chrome:

Help Files
Absolutely essential with a new product. And Google’s Help Pages are first class. Just select “Help” from under the spanner icon button and a new tab opens up with Chrome’s support pages:

Overall
OK, this review has been as minimalistic as Chrome’s interface. I could, no doubt, spend many happy hours, exploring every nook and cranny of Chrome. And no doubt many people will.

But I hope that I’ve given you a flavour of what Chrome is like. Generally, I like it. I’ll possibly use it more than Firefox. And it will certainly make my morning online tasks a lot more productive!

If you’d like to comment on your experience with “Chrome”, please leave your comments below (all comments are moderated, so your comment won’t appear immediately).

This is a sales page I think you should watch - note, I said “watch” not “read”!

http://www.IanSays.com/Watch/StunningEffects

It’s all about a new product from Josh Anderson, a guy who’s continually pushing out the frontiers of website video. On the above page, you’ll see a neat effect with Josh seemingly suspended on the page. That is not what Josh’s new product is about. I’ll tell you about that effect some other time. What you should focus on is:

• The video player itself, with its neat semi-transparent player controller background. On Josh’s page, the controls are hidden until you mouse-over the video. But that’s optional. You can choose to make them visible all the time.
• The way that videos can “daisy-chain” - that is, when one video ends, it can trigger another video to play.
• The auto-scrolling. This is a really cool effect, and it enables Josh to take you to a completely different part of the web page when a video ends. This, for me, is one of the most powerful effects that you can use.
• The speed of loading. Maybe this wasn’t so obvious, but Josh’s videos load much faster than I would have expected.

I’ve bought into Josh’s new product, but I need to caution you that it’s quite a techie set of tools to use. OK, you don’t need anything other than a text editor to set all the parameters, but you do need to be able to accurately make changes to the JavaScript files. Very good documentation is provided (including demo videos), but you need to concentrate on what you’re doing whilst you are configuring the files.

So, this neat technology isn’t for “newbies”! But if you are currently using video on your web pages, you should have a closer look at Josh Anderson’s wizardry:

http://www.IanSays.com/Watch/StunningEffects

Don’t expect to get as professional a result that Josh gets - unless you’re as expert as he is at shooting video. But his various “tricks” will work equally well with screen capture videos, such as Camtasia - and possibly with the videos you can create using your new gift in the Download Library!

Oh, and I’ll reveal the “secret” of creating these transparent videos in a future “Webmasters Tricks” article.

Squidoo and Hubpages are both Web 2.0-type services which let you very quickly create a web page with a lot of interactive features. I’ve used both of them to some success to promote my sites and other people’s sites (as an affiliate). Squidoo and Hubpages call these pages “Lenses” and “Hubs” respectively (see the current article below).

One of the advantages of creating these special types of pages is that it’s possible to rapidly get your Lens or Hub indexed on the search engines (Google in particular), and they can often rank quite high on the SE results pages - if you know how.

One important thing is, of course, to choose the right title for these pages, making sure than it includes the right keywords than you want to turn up in the search engines. But I’ve still only had limited success.

Yesterday I picked up a cheap report (5 bucks) which gave a very interesting angle on creating effective Lenses and Hubs. It’s certainly is something I’d not considered before. I’ll quote from the sales page for the report:

• Step One: Create a Hubpage or Squidoo Lens.
• Step Two: Do this trick.
• Step Three: Start Getting Traffic Instantly!

Unlike some cheap reports I’ve read recently, this 10-pager is concise and fluff-free! And the “trick” is certainly something I’m going to play around with this weekend. You can pick it up from here:

http://www.IanSays.com/5Bucks/SquidooHubTrafficReport

Incidentally, this is one of those “100% instant commission” jobs, so you’ll be paying me the five bucks. If you don’t like the report I will, of course, refund you. But I think you’ll like it