Top 10 Reasons to Blog (Part 1)

by Carl Weiss

Like it or not, if you own a website, you are forced to compete for exposure online.  With 242 million websites already in existence and nearly 130,000 new sites coming online every day, is it any wonder that being found is getting harder and harder to accomplish?  Well, the good news is that while it may take a little sweat equity to put your web presence in the winner’s circle, the task can be accomplished in short order if you blog just once per week.  Below are the top 10 reasons to blog.

1.  Blogs generate an audience – Life is the ultimate reality show.  As anyone who has ever watched HGTV knows, people love to watch other people work.  It doesn’t take Hollywood to turn your business into must-see-online-tv.  In fact it doesn’t take video at all (although it helps).  The easiest way to generate an audience online is to document the drama that every business person goes through on a daily basis.  The simplest way to accomplish this is via blog. Think of blogging like a diary that enables you to document the everyday trials and triumphs of running a business.  Done properly, this is compelling stuff that readers will want to follow and pass along to friends and family.

2.   Blogs engage readers – The most important thing to keep in mind before creating a blog is that readers crave drama.  If you want to keep readers on the edge of their seats, you need to first identify the elements in your business that either solve a problem, create suspense, or make readers laugh.  The best way to do this is to carry a notepad and pen around with you.  Somewhere during the course of doing business you will stumble upon an idea or scene that can engage your audience.  The problem is that if you don’t make not of it (and shoot a few photos with your smartphone), it will be a case of in one ear and out the other.  By taking notes you will be surprised at how much drama occurs in your business.  Then it’s simply a matter of sitting down and detailing the episode for your readers.

3.  Blogs are a great place to use mixed media – Speaking of smartphones, I can’t emphasize enough the value of photos and video in bringing your business home to readers.  By spicing up an otherwise lackluster blog post with a few photos, or a quick video blog, not only will you find your audience more interested in you and your business, but it also serves to improve search engine optimization (SEO) as well. 

4.  Blogs create backlinks - For many years the major search engines have put a premium on how many sites link to your site.  Not so long ago this concept actually caused a great deal of conflict, since it spawned backlink factories that turned out backlinks like linked sausages.  You’ll know you have come across someone who has worked with these firms if their backlinks are in Farsi or Chinese.  The good news is that the search engines cracked down on these bad boys big time.  The bad news is that most search engines still rate a portion of your worth on backlinks.  Is that’s what’s bothering you, Bunky?

Other than spending hour upon hour of identifying and emailing firms in your industry begging for backlinks, or spending thousands of dollars on software that does virtually the same thing, what if there was an easier way?  In fact, what if you could develop backlinks every week as part of your normal website update procedure? 

How do you do this? By always making certain that you include links to your sites at end of each and every blog.  Better still, sign up for article posting sites that will offer your reposted blog to other online businesses looking for content.

5.  Blogs are free advertising – Being a business consultant, I am always pitted against financial reality when it comes to helping a business grow online.   Most small businesses are on tight budgets. If money is tight, then one of the best reasons to use blogging week in and week out is due to the fact that it doesn’t cost you a penny to employ.  Provided that you are prepared to take as little as an hour out of your busy schedule to create a weekly blog, this could be one of the best investments your business can make.

Since 1995, Carl Weiss has been helping clients succeed online.  He owns and operates several online marketing businesses, including http://wsquaredmediagroup.com and http://jacksonville-video-production.com

He also co-hosts the weekly radio show Working the Web to Win every Tuesday at 4 pm Eastern on http://blogtalkradio.com/workingthewebtowin

The Tao of SEO

by Carl Weiss

When it comes to search engine optimization, most people think of it as some kind of religious cult where members speak in tongues, intoning such mantras as “SERPS,” “Meta Data,” “Linkbait,” and “AJAX,” as though they were trying somehow to transmute lead into gold.  Worst of all, there is so much conflicting data out there regarding the ever changing world of SEO that keeping current is almost a full time job in itself.  Add to this the fact that no sooner do you get a bead on what the search engines want, when they up and change their algorithm (as Google recently did with their Penguin Update), making the analogy to sorcery even more poignant as your listing disappears like a puff of smoke.  So, if you don’t want to have to start the process from scratch every time the search engines decide to do a little spring cleaning, this is what you need to know:

1.      Stop trying to please the search engine spiders and work on pleasing your audience instead.  In the good old days before the turn of the century, many SEO experts would generate page one results by stuffing their homepages with as many keywords as possible.  Some would even take this to the extreme, by generating nonsense paragraphs using white text that more or less guaranteed that they would have higher keyword saturation than the competition.  While this tactic may have worked back in 1999, today’s spiders are trained to flag keyword spamming, along with other black hat techniques as link farms.  Besides, who wants to read a website that is nearly unintelligible?  If you really want to score points with both the search engines and your readers, start creating better content on a regular basis that engages, educates and intrigues your audience. 

2.  Having a blog isn’t the same thing as blogging.  If your idea of a blog is to write an occasional paragraph about your business that would make the minutes of your next board meeting seem animated by comparison, then you really don’t understand what blogging is all about.  The best way to maximize your blogging results is to generate weekly installments that solve problems, provide insight and/or provoke a reaction.  Properly employed, blogging can be one of the best ways to increase your audience, create backlinks and get on page one of search engines.  (Note: Google is gaga for blogs.  A properly optimized blog will many times wind up on page one of the world’s most popular search engine in as little as 24 hours.)  If you repost your best blogging efforts on article posts, zines and other blogs then you will not only create an opportunity for your blog to go viral, but you will also enhance your SEO at the same time.

3.     Why read the book when you can wait for the movie to come out?  I can’t stress the value of YouTube too much in terms of SEO worthiness.  In the first place, YouTube is itself a combination of video portal, social network and search engine all rolled into one.  Secondly, YouTube streams more than 3 billion videos daily, making it the most watched Super Station on and offline by far.  Third and more importantly, it is owned and operated by Google.  What this means is that a properly optimized video can jump from YouTube to Google page one. Better still, having a video on page one is 5 times as powerful as having your homepage in the same spot.  Why?  Because it is a fact that people prefer watching a video to reading text.  Best of all, you can enhance your website, blogs, social networks and even your print literature by embedding videos in all of them.

4.       How social are your social networks?  Social networking is again another free marketing tool that makes your web presence 100% interactive and sticky.  Just as with blogs, social networks are only useful if you feed them on a regular basis.  This doesn’t mean that you have to write a blogpost a day to succeed online.  But you also don’t want to post only now and then.  Especially with timeline driven social networks like Facebook, having long gaps between posts is not likely to help you build readership.  One tip to making the job of feeding the social nets less of a chore is to link or repost your blogs on your social networks.  Make sure the posts have links and offers embedded at the bottom of the post.  This way you will kill two SEO birds with one stone.

5.      How many websites should your company have?  (Note: the correct answer is never one.)  Four or five years ago, the consensus was that all a company needed to do was create one website chock full of as many pages that described the business as they could generate.  Back then it was hoped that someone arriving from a search engine query would click around the site for ten minutes or so in order to determine if they should do business with you. 

Today, the average website visit lasts less than 2 minutes.  More importantly, if a visitor has to click onto a subsidiary page in order to find the item they seek, the next click you will hear will be the prospect clicking back to the search engine for a new search.  Heck, it's next to impossible to get web surfers to scroll beneath the fold nowadays.  To give your business a competitive edge, you need to look at a search engine query as a question and the website or landing page as the answer.  If you want to maximize not only your SEO potential, but also your conversions as well, then you need to research the keywords and phrases that correspond to your business and create a number of landing pages that contain a video, text and offer related to each keyword or phrase. 

What it takes to cast an SEO spell

While it doesn’t necessarily take eye of newt to get the magic formula right, what it does take is imagination, interaction and persistence if you are going to make the Tao of SEO resonate for your business. 

Carl Weiss is president of W Squared Media Group, a company that specializes in putting client websites on steroids.  Carl also operates http://jacksonville-video-production.com a cutting edge viral video production facility.  Carl can be heard live every Tuesday at 4pm Eastern on http://blogtalkradio.com/workingthewebtowin

Move Over 800 lb Gorilla. Here Comes the Elephant in the Room.

By Carl Weiss

If you have been keeping up with the rhetoric surrounding the impending Facebook IPO slated to launch this Friday, you have definitely gotten entertained.  Everything from wardrobe gaffes by Mark Zuckerberg (apparently Wall Street bankers don’t like hoodies), to co-founder Eduardo Saverin renouncing his US citizenship in the hopes of avoiding taxes on something on the order of $1 billion post IPO, was bandied about by the press.  This has made the pre IPO coverage something that would make even PT Barnum blush.   In order to try and make some sense of the three ring circus over this long awaited public offering, below I have sorted out the facts.

Show Me the Money

When one compares the first quarter of 2011 with the first quarter of 2012, Facebook increased its user base from less than 600 million to more than 901 million, which represents an increase of 33 percent.  Subsequently their revenues also rose from $731.5 million in the first quarter of 2011 to $1.058 billion in the first quarter of 2012.  So when you hear pundits lament that Facebook’s net income dropped in the first quarter from that of the previous year, you need to take into account several factors:

 1.  Facebook’s costs and expenses grew more than revenue, due in part to a significant increase in share-based compensation expenses not incurred in 2011.
 2.   Facebook had $1.21 average revenue per user in the first quarter of 2012, an increase of 6% from the same period in 2012.
3.  Facebook also paid $300 million in cash and 23 million shares of stock to acquire Instagram in the first quarter of 2012.  I don’t care how deep the pockets, a billion dollar purchase is going to take a bite out of anybody’s wallet in the short term.  The question is whether the acquisition is going to make a decided difference to the bottom line over the long haul.  (Remember that Google paid $1.6 billion to acquire YouTube in 2005, in a move that was unquestionably their best buy to date.)

To put Facebook’s revenues into perspective, let’s not forget that in all of 2009, FB’s revenues amounted to only $740 million.  2012 estimates put this year’s ad revenues at $5.74 billion, a six-fold increase from three years ago.  So excuse me if I don’t quake in my boots regarding a slide in net revenue.  I mean, how many businesses can boast a 600% increase in revenues in less than 4 years? 

Send in the fashion police

That brings us to the much ballyhooed IPO Road Show.  Not since Janet Jackson’s “wardrobe malfunction” during the halftime show of Superbowl XXXVIII has a fashion faux pas gotten so much media attention as when Mark Zuckerberg chose to wear a hoodie to his first Facebook road show event in NYC.  You’d have thought that Mark mooned the investment bankers.  Talk about much ado about nothing.  That a 27 year old CEO considers himself above the stodgy fashion norms set down by his elders is not without precedent.   If you Google Steve Jobs, you will find precious few photos of him wearing a suit.  And when it came to building big businesses, everyone agrees that he was a rock star.  How many rock stars do you know that go onstage in a suit and tie?

Love him or hate him, when it comes to helming one of the world’s most popular online destinations, Zuckerberg is most certainly driving the bus.   And this bus is going places, IPO profits notwithstanding.  While a number of analysts have compared Facebook’s IPO to those of Zynga, LinkedIn and Groupon, this is like comparing a Chihuahua to a Great Dane.  As Google proved to their competitor's chagrin in 2004, when it comes to staying power SIZE matters.

900 million users can’t be all wrong

So, no matter the outcome of the IPO, from an online marketing point of view, giving Facebook a $60-100 billion war chest means that its online muscle is only going to increase.  That and nearly a billion users is going to make even the 800lb gorilla named Google sit up and take notice of the elephant in the room. 

Carl Weiss is president of W Squared Media Group, an online marketing firm that specializes in cutting edge Internet technology.  He also co-hosts Working the Web to Win every Tuesday at 4pm Eastern on http://blogtalkradio.com/workingthewebtowin  He also owns http://jacksonville-video-production.com

Holy Algorithm, Batman, the Penguin Strikes Back!

by Carl Weiss

Many website owners were shocked and dismayed to find their sites had suddenly disappeared from page one of the world’s most popular search engine after Google launched its Penguin 5 Update at the end of April.  While Google’s recent action has left many website owners blindsided and scrambling to recover lost rankings, the move, while ruffling more than a few feathers, was hardly unprecedented.  So if you have suddenly fallen out of favor with the 800 lb gorilla in the room, what you need to ask yourself is whether you want to get mad, or whether you want to get even.

Even Gorillas Get the Blues

More importantly, you need to ask yourself what is it that the gorilla wants that you aren’t currently providing.  For the most part, the Penguin Update was seeking to redress issues regarding link spamming, where sites rely on paid links that have little relevance in the real world and only exist to game the search engines.  So if you have been dabbling with link farms, or otherwise engaging in building links with questionable sites, it is time you stopped this practice. 

Google also took issue with such tactics as keyword stuffing, where keywords are dropped without rhyme or reason throughout a site in order to influence the search engine spiders.   If your text is peppered with keywords that have little relevance to your storyline, or you have hidden text readable only by the googlebots, then you need to clean up your act.

Time to Spring into Action

In fact, one of the best ways to get back in Google’s good graces would be to conduct a bit of spring cleaning in order to prune old or irrelevant content, links and keyword spam.  Instead of crying over spilt milk, perhaps you should look at this as a wakeup call that could be put to good use.  If it has been more than a year since you updated your site, this would be the perfect time to add some sizzle by dropping in a video or two, or adding Google+ to your social networking scheme.  Both these and additional blogs will do more to boost your links and ranking, as well as giving your site a fresh new look.

While there are a few additional and highly technical details that the Penguin was designed to curtail, for the most part what every website owner needs to know that if you are more interested in gaming the search engines than you are in engaging your audience, then you can only expect to get as good as you give.  What I mean by that is that if you provide consistent, relevant content on a regular basis that improves visitor experience and delivers value to your customers, then you are going to wind up not only wooing the search engines, but wowing your audience as well, which is why you should be working the web in the first place.

So, if you really want to create a web presence that is more or less bulletproof to the ever changing whims of search engine operators, then you need to stay focused on creating the kind of site that people will want to come back to read time and time again.  And always beware of booby trapped umbrellas.

Carl Weiss is president of http://wsquaredmediagroup.com and co-hosts the weekly online radio show Working the Web to Win on http://blogtalkradio.com/workingthewebtowin

How Freeware Can Cost You BIG

by Carl Weiss


Especially in today’s economy, most people are searching for deals.  Whether it is a buy-one-get-one at the grocery store, or an online coupon that offers fifty percent or more off your next restaurant visit, most people are only too happy to snap up a bargain for something they would normally purchase.  When it comes to acquiring software for the home computer, this rule is even more prevalent.  Why pay for the cow, when they’re giving the milk away for free, right?  In the case of recognized vendors, such as Filezilla or Linux, not to mention CNet and Tucows, these sites either own the software they distribute freely, or else the vet any vendors promoted on their sites.  Unfortunately, when it comes to freeware, there are a number of purveyors who are not offering their software out of the goodness of their hearts. 

If a deal seems too good to be true, it probably is.

Case in point: Last November, an FBI investigation led to the arrest of six cybercriminals in Estonia.  The six were implicated in a worldwide criminal enterprise that resulted in the infection of more than 570,000 computers.  In this particular case, the group’s online advertising scam took advantage of vulnerabilities in the Microsoft Windows operating system to install malicious software on the victim's computers. The software also turned off antivirus updates and changed the way in which the hacked computers reconciled website addresses.  Victim’s computers were then reprogrammed to use rogue DNS servers owned by the attackers which redirected the affected computers to fraudulent websites controlled by the group. The victims were not only scammed out of some $14 million, but their very access to the Internet was virtually hijacked by the group.

More frightening still is the fact that online scams like this happen to millions of unsuspecting consumers every day.  Whether the intent is to deliver malware, spyware or some form of virus, the very nature of the web allows mischief to spread far and wide with relative ease. 

Only recently, Consumer reports stated that, “Malicious software infections cost consumers $2.3 billion in 2011.”  They also pointed out the fact that one third of households surveyed had experienced a malicious software infection in the past year.  Even more ominous is the fact that in the US alone, 1.3 million PCs were replaced in 2011 due to malware.

Does WWW stand for Wild, Wild West?

Why are criminals and other online miscreants able to inflict such damage to so many people with relative ease?  The culprits most were cited as aiding and abetting the underworld can’t be found on a “Most Wanted” poster.  That’s because they aren’t people.  The real accomplices in cybercrime are poor virus protection and freeware.  When you bear in mind that the Internet is in a sense as free and unfettered as the Wild, Wild West ever was, it should come as no surprise that criminal elements have been quick to capitalize on this electronic frontier town.  The problem with the web is that unlike Dodge City, there is no sheriff in town other than the antivirus software on your machine.  This same software can easily be circumvented with one Trojan horse planted inside your computer via freeware.  Once your computer has been breached, there is no electronic posse that is going to pursue the outlaws who have infected your machine.

So, the first step to taking a bite out of cybercrime is to understand just how prevalent it is.  What most people don’t realize is the fact that the total amount of money lost in cybercrime in 2011 ($338 billion) dwarfs that of that of the profits of illicit drugs ($288 billion).  More shocking still is the fact that in the past year alone, more than 431 million adults were victims of cybercrime.  While the number of violent crimes in the US declined 6.4 percent in 2011 according to the FBI, cybercrime has risen dramatically.

According to Mashable.com, ““Five years ago there were only 92,000 strains of malware cataloged worldwide. This figure rose to 14 million by 2008 and 60 million by 2010.”

Their report goes onto say that you can purchase bank details for accounts for $80 to $700. You can hire someone to design and publish a fake online store for between $30 and $300. A credit card-cloning machine costs $200 to $1,000, and an actual fake ATM, which steals valuable credentials from anyone who uses it, can be bought for a mere $3,500.  The cybercrime industry acts just like any legitimate one, developing providers who cater to buyers needs and strive to build market share.

More frightening still is the fact that so many consumers make these crimes so easy to commit.  Even though most web surfers are familiar with such threats as computer viruses and malware, more than forty percent of those surveyed by Consumer Report admitted to not having an up to date antivirus program.  And an even higher percentage admitted to employing weak passwords.  Add to this the fact that cybercrime has now gone mobile where there is even less security and you have to ask yourself why isn't everyone up in arms over the situation?

What it boils down to is this:

1.      Cybercriminals are organized and motivated to engage in cybercrime because it is easy to get away with and hard to prosecute.

2.      Consumers who routinely triple lock their doors and have burglar alarms on their cars for the most part leave their computers and cellphones unlocked, or with the key under the doormat.

3.      While organizations like the FBI occasionally get involved in high profile cases such as the Estonian Connection, policing the internet at the local level is for the most part left to local law enforcement, many of whom have little or no facilities to deal with this growing menace.

Far from free, that gift horse could well turn around and bite you. In short, since it has been left to consumers to defend themselves from phishing, password cracking, Trojan horse hacking, all but invisible cybercriminals, my advice is to think twice before accepting most freeware.  And for God’s sake, get some decent antivirus software.  Unless you like buying a new computer every year.

Carl Weiss is president of W Squared Media Group, a company dedicated to keeping clients stay on the cutting edge of online technology.  Carl is cohost of the weekly Working the Web to Win radio show that is broadcast live every Tuesday at 4 pm Eastern on BlogTalkRadio.com

What Does the Public’s Uncontrollable App-etite Mean to You?

“There’s an app for that.”  How many times have we all heard that phrase during the past couple of years?  Allow me to put it into better perspective for you.  During the last week of 2011, 1.2 billion apps were downloaded, with 242 million apps being downloaded on Christmas day alone.  While that number may seem staggering, it is even more so when one considers that less than 11 billion apps were downloaded in all of 2010.  Add to that the fact that it is predicted that the number of mobile apps offered by companies will increase by a factor of 10 in 2012, and it is clear that the public’s App-etite is clearly uncontrollable.

FACT: As of December 2011, there were nearly 1 million applications available to the public, with nearly 2,000 new apps being published on a daily basis.

While some apps are pay to play, where consumers are charged a few dollars to download and use them, a vast number of them are given away for free. ..or, are they?  While an app may be free to download, that doesn’t mean the app developer isn’t looking to cash in. 

For example: A recent Wall Street Journal article that examined 100 of the most popular Facebook apps found that some apps seek not only the email addresses, current location and sexual preference of users, but also of their Facebook friends. One Yahoo service powered by Facebook requests access to a person's religious and political leanings as a condition for using it. The popular Skype service for making online phone calls seeks the Facebook photos and birthdays of its users and their friends.

What the article didn’t reveal is that the WSJ isn’t immune from this phenomenon, since its own app, WSJ Social, collects data from its subscribers, including profile information, email address and the ability to post an update whenever a subscriber reads an article.

While you may recall the recent firestorm raged over Google’s new privacy policy, no one seemed to mind that other search engines, social networks, affiliate marketers and app purveyors were busy at work collecting, analyzing and selling our personal information as well.  Perhaps the reason that so many journalists were asleep at the switch with regards to sweeping changes taking place in cyberspace is due to the fact that until recently the ability to collect and control vast amounts of personal information about every man, woman and child online was a non-starter.  Of course, this was in a time before most people were wired to the web 24/7 via a host of devices capable of transmitting information at will.

Let’s face it, capitalizing on personal data has never been easier or more lucrative.  Facebook, which is slated to go public in May to the tune of $100 billion or more, is hip deep in turning personal data into gold.  When it comes to collecting personal information, social networks in general and Facebook in particular are king.  From the get go when you sign up for a social network, you are asked a myriad of questions concerning everything from your age and sex, to likes, dislikes, movies and books you have seen and read, photos, videos and much more.  Then you are encouraged to share even more personal information on a daily basis about yourself and your friends.  Last but not least, you are expected to willingly proselytize the network to friends and family.  That in effect is the very essence of social networking.  It is also the source of the network’s revenue, since their profits are derived chiefly via advertising.

With the growth of mobile marketing, it wasn’t long before social networks began to break out of the box and onto our phones.  Getting back to the Wall Street Journal’s examination of the 100 most popular Facebook apps, “ The app that sought the widest array of personal information of the 100 examined, "MyPad for iPad," has a two-paragraph privacy policy that says it is "adding Privacy settings shortly." Privacy policies that describe how they collect, use and share data are required by Facebook. The app maker couldn't be reached for comment.”

The article goes on to state that, “By virtue of its size and user base of 800-million-plus people, Facebook is at the heart of the personal data economy. Popular apps can quickly go "viral" there and gain millions of users—but can also flame out just as quickly. This explains why some apps seek to cash in by gathering as much data as possible and hoping to find ways to make money from it.”

While apps are technically required to ask permission to access uses Facebook data, the way in which the permission is couched, namely in a way that would make the app virtually non-functioning if you deny access, makes it a sure bet that users will almost always grant access.  One of the items that the app makers don’t tell the public is the fact that while Facebook tries to restrict app makers from sharing the data collected with any company that hasn’t signed an agreement with Facebook, this isn’t always the case. 

“Data obtained from PrivacyChoice show that several dozen widely used apps are using unapproved companies, most notably Google, the biggest online ad company. That means app users can be tracked within their apps by Google and others. Google said advertisers using its DoubleClick ad services agree to terms that prohibit the collection of any personally identifiable information.”

While the WSJ article concerned itself with Facebook apps, if the world’s largest social network and the world’s largest search engine are not above breaching each other’s privacy policies, what is the likelihood that many of their smaller and hungrier brethren in the world of online advertising are above bending the rules?

Multinational corporations for one have seen the light when it comes to the advantages of apps.  The popularity of mobile apps is now seen as a major player in driving revenues.  Given the fact that within two years more people will be surfing the web via mobile device rather than PC, is it any wonder that companies large and small see mobile marketing as their ticket to easy money, especially since most people haven’t got a clue as to how to prevent their personal data from being mined.

Hey, I’ll bet there’s an app for that!

Carl Weiss is president of W Squared MediaGroup and co-host of the weekly online radio show Working the Web to Win.  Since 1995 he has helped hundreds of businesses improve their visibility and results online.   

The Devil's in the Etails

With the price of gasoline rapidly approaching $4.00 per gallon, more and more people are electing to save gas and let their fingers do the shopping via online etailers.  With vendors such as EBay, PayPal and Amazon greasing the skids of online commerce, getting started with etailing couldn’t be easier.  The hard part is how do you promote your products in such a way that doesn’t break the bank?  While pay-per-click can be effective, organic results cost way less if you can generate them. For my money, one of the best secret weapons to producing organic results is online video.

Lights, Camera, Online Action

With the proliferation of tablets and mobile devices, video can mean the difference between browsing and buying.  When buying online, video can both show and tell a prospect about product features and benefits.  It can demonstrate, it can illuminate. The problem is that precious few etailers are using video to help them promote and sell.  What's worse is the fact that adding videos to your existing catalog couldn’t be easier.  Whether you use a video camera or a smartphone, creating a 30-second clip for every item in your catalog could be the best way to convert a browser to a buyer.

As for production value, while outrageous videos can draw a crowd on YouTube (think stupid pet tricks), this isn’t the best practice when trying to sell something to someone online.  Online customers want to be reassured that they are dealing with someone who is both reputable and knowledgeable.  Keep your videos simple and to the point and you will generate far more sales than by trying to be cute or funny.  Besides, there is a better way to generate a crowd.

Properly optimized online video can generate page 1 Google results.  In a process known as Video Optimization, a video can be optimized just as you would a website.  Since the googlebots can’t see the contents of your video, you need to describe it in both the title and body text.  Then you need to complete the remainder of the video information in its entirety.  This means designating tags (think keywords) and your location (geo-targeting). While every one of your videos won't make it to page 1, if you produce enough of them the results could be substantial.


What’s even better about utilizing online video is that while you only need to shoot it once, you will be able to employ it in a number of different ways.  Besides embedding them on your website, you can also embed them on your blog, link them to your social networks and even include them in your printed ads and literature by simply including a QR code that you can generate online for free.

The Cutting Room Floor

That doesn't mean that you should short sheet quality in any way.  Nothing is less likely to make someone want to buy something from you than a video that is shaky, poorly lit, or has terrible audio.  Conversaly, no one is expecting Steven Spielberg either. By keeping your production values simple but focused, it is a snap to create decent video in one or two takes.  If you need to invest in illumination, you can get a decent studio light with stand for around $50.  Provided that you aren't standing outside during rush hour or in a windstorm, you shouldn't need anything more than the microphone in your smartphone. 


You needn't worry about having to be picture perfect either, since editing video is now easier than ever. When it comes to amending your clips, either use the editor on YouTube, or the one built into every computer.  They are sufficient to get the job done. For a more polished look, there are a number of low cost editing solutions such as Pinnacle Studio that cost around a hundred dollars.

Any way you look at it, when it comes to expanding your existing business’ reach or starting a virtual business from scratch, when it comes to online business success,  the devil’s in the etails.

Carl Weiss is President of W Squared Media Group.  Since 1995 he has been helping businesses generate exposure and results online.  To see samples of his online videos, go to:  http://jacksonville-ideo-production.com