What’s a Vlog, and How Can it Help Your Web Promotion?

By: Sherice Jacob

A Vlog, or video blog, is a unique spin on the popular blogging concept.  Rather than posting entries to your blog, a vlog is a video entry – much like the popular videos shown on YouTube and MySpace video.

But before you think posting video blogs is just something teenagers do – think again.  There’s a huge audience out there watching video clips right now – and if yours is catchy or unique enough – you’ll see a stampede of traffic to your website in a very short time.

But how do you make a video people will want to watch? And how do you add it to your website and to video sharing sites?  Here’s how:

1. Don’t make it into a sales pitch – No one wants to hear about how great your product is: unless you can show it in a way that puts a twist on the normal marketing campaign.  For example, you could showcase the amazing stories of some of your clients who have experienced spectacular results with your product or service.    Come up with unique and creative ways to get the word out in a way that will make other people want to share your video with their friends.

2. Let them create the video for you – Some companies encourage budding video producers to make a clip for them – and then let people vote on the winner(s).  Some notable brands that have done this include Doritos and Coca-Cola.  The good news is, you don’t have to have a huge budget to get some creative inspiration from your product buyers.  Plus, allowing other people to vote on the winner helps spread the word like wildfire.

3.  Make them take action – and evaluate it.  To see if your new vlog campaign is working for your business, be sure to tie your video in to a measurable action such as signing up to get a free trial.  Each person who views your vlog may not ultimately turn into a sale, but you can use the information you’ve captured to help market to this fresh new audience.

4. Get the word out – The last step is to post it on popular video sharing sites.  Most notably, YouTube, Revver, Google Video and MetaCafe.

That will help make sure that word is spread as quickly as possible – and you get the kind of results (and buzz) you’re looking for!

About the Author

P.S. If you enjoyed reading this article, you can find even more web design tips at http://www.iElectrify.com/resources/

Sherice Jacob holds an M.A. in Media Studies and has played an integral role in creating several successful web businesses – for herself and others. She currently manages a full service web design and internet marketing firm at http://www.iElectrify.com

iElectrify specializes in creating professional, affordable and creative websites that get results. With a strong background in internet marketing and niche marketing, iElectrify.com works with small to medium-sized businesses to help them easily create and manage their own websites.

(ArticlesBase SC #470623)

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Email Marketing Services – Best to Reach Targeted Audience

By Lalita N

Advertising had never seen such a big profit till the concept of online advertising came in the market. Advertising has always been an integral part of marketing and this is a reason why online marketing companies are making use of different techniques to advertise a product online. It is seen that among different marketing techniques email marketing technique is the most effective way to promote a good/service online. People use emails to communicate with their friends and relatives all over the globe and it is possible to target these people through effective email campaigns. Email marketing services help to provide marketers the best marketing techniques to reach their targeted audience.

Through email marketing services a producer can reach the customers at any part of the world without facing any kind of barriers. Utilizing an email marketing service does not cost much and this marketing technique helps to bring an immediate response. Utilizing opt-in email marketing technique can help to target a specific group of people who are actually interested in the product advertised by the producer.

Email marketing services deals with formating an email addressed personally to the users. This kind of a service makes sure that a user is not forced to use any good/service rather the service believes at simply informing the user. People who are really interested in the product even write back an email to know more about the product features. It is very easy to keep a trace of email marketing performance.

Email marketing service is the most effective form of direct communication that helps a producer to talk to every individual person. People have now become net savvy and they prefer email marketing concept because it is easy for them to access information about a new product and even place an order for it through online facility. Online marketing companies make use of email marketing services to drop information about their latest services in the inbox of the users. An online marketing company must make use of emails to target large groups of people sitting anywhere across the globe. Use the email marketing services to serve every consumer personally.

Author:

Author is expert in email marketing, presently render her services to Rupiz Xpress that helps you in building email marketing campaign, email marketing services [http://www.rupizxpress.com], custom lead generation, Customized Lead Generation [http://www.rupizxpress.com/email-marketing/customised-lead-generation.php].

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Make Money From Free Blogging Services

By Keen Lex

So, you are thinking that you can’t have your own blog because it costs you and you don’t want to spend a penny in the process. Well if you are that kind of person I still encourage that you buy your own domain name and domain hosting services. A .com domain name (three years) + hosting for two months costs you about 36$.

Anyway later when your blog grows you will have to buy your own dedicated server which costs you about 150$. With a dedicated server you can add all the domains you want. Anyway if you are not the guy that wants to spend money you can always try the free blogging services.

Okay now let’s get started.

In the first place you will want to do a search query on google. A simple search like: free blog is more than enough for what we want.

Now we can see a list of free blogging services with blogger.com in the top. The majority of the free blogging services let’s you place your add. To place your adds and get ready to work you will have to sign up at google.com/adsense (in my opinion adsense is the most profitable). There are also several programs to choose from but for now adsense is the best.

Thinking it wide there are lots of blogging services that want you as a member for content (they are very happy about it).

(The majority of blogging platforms have a template editor which comes in handy for add placement)

Before you create your blog you will have to think about your blog title.

Ex: H2O-Reviews, Blog4Fun…

You can think on your own unique name or maybe you want it to be longer.

Ex: Drug information, description and news.

Ex: Camera phone news and technical details.

Ex: Tea recipes – Be more healthy.

Well you just think to a niche of content and start blogging about it. Like you want to write a review on a cellphone or maybe news about some phones or digital cameras or maybe camcorders or anything of your interest.

When you placed your adds now you most likely want to start making some money. Money is made by the amounts of visitors you have per site. Let’s say that is you have about 20 unique readers a day you can make about 6 to 10$ a month.

After you made some content you can ping lots of blog search engines which they will send spiders for your content with:

rpc.pingomatic.com

After that you will have some visitors from different blog search engines.

Now remember:

When you placed your adds you most likely want to start making some money. Money is made by the amounts of visitors you have per site. Let’s say that is you have about 20 unique readers a day you can make about 6 to 10$ a month. Now the best thing is you can make more sites that brings you 10$ a month and if you add content (about 3 posts a day) you can increase the amount of 10$ a month per site.

Have fun and enjoy blogging.

Daniel M. aka (Keen Lex) Blog Directory [http://www.weblog-city.com]

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How Using A Social Bookmarking Service Will Boost Business

By: Deep Arora

Although it would be nice if we could take care of every aspect of our Internet business ourselves, it is often necessary for us to employ a variety of different services in order to get everything done. One way in which this is especially important is in doing things that will get our new website listed in the search engines and ranking fairly quickly. The Internet is full of different ways that we are able to do this but one of the most popular at this particular time is social bookmarking.

Social bookmarking has really only come about in the past several years and it is a way for you to interactively share your bookmarks and have them online so that they are easily accessible from any computer. It also provides a unique opportunity for us, as Internet marketers to be able to attract the attention of the search engines to our new websites. Unfortunately, posting our pages on the social bookmarking networks is quite time consuming and cuts into our ability to take care of more important things. That is why employing the use of a social bookmarking service is going to help you to make sure that all of this is done in a timely manner.

There are several different things that you should look at when it comes to a social bookmarking service. First of all, you need to make sure that they are going to automate every step of the process for you and take care of everything, from the initial sign up to the posting of the individual pages. They should also be willing to change with the times and to keep up with any new social bookmarking websites that pop onto the scene. Finally, they should be willing to vary the link text and tags that they are going to use on the individual bookmarking websites. This will help you to rank for as many keywords as possible and to avoid any penalties that may come your way from something that appears to be spam.

Hiring a social bookmarking service is one of the best things that you can do to ensure that your new pages are listed quickly. It can also help you to let go of something that is better taken care of by somebody else and not micromanage every part of your business. It is simply one more rung in the ladder to your success.

Link Building Strageties : Ways to improve your link bulding methods

Link Building is a one method of search engine optimization. This method is designed to:

* Drive targeted web traffic to your website
* Improve your sites poplarity and Google Page Rank
* Improve your sites rankings in organic results

3 ways to improve your link building stargeties are by adding your web address to the following sites:

* Article Submissions
* Press Releases
* Web Directories

Outbound Linking vs. Inbound Linking

Inbound Links are one of many ways links coming from directories and other websites to your home page or web pages. The link is usually a hyperlink of your websites address on another persons website. eg www.phpsoftwaregeeks.com This is a simple link. A higher quality link would be when the link contains some relevant keywords to your sites product or service. Eg Live Chat Software , Membership , Shopping Cart Script

Sometimes if content on your website is attractive and contains great information about your business or profession, other sites that view this content as useful will provide links to your site or a particular web page on your website without you knowing. So it pays to have valuable information on your site that will increase your sites online popularity through increased one-way links.

An Outbound Link is a hyperlink on a particular web page within you website to another person’s website. Outbound links can boost your search engine rankings when you provide links to other similar web pages that are relevant to what you are discussing. Outbound links to authority websites is also valuable.

Rules Of Social Media Optimization

By Justin Brooke

Before you can put any of these rules to use, you may want to understand a little more about the differences between social media marketing and social media optimization.

SMM = Social Media Marketing

Social Media Marketing is strategically using the big social sites to spread your brand name or drive traffic back to your web presence.

SMO = Social Media Optimization

Social Media Optimization is adding key elements to your websites or content that make them easy to spread across the big social sites.

Rohit Bhargava Developed Social Media Optimization Rules 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5

1. Increase your linkability

Linkability is the willingness of other websites or articles to link back to your site. One way to increase your natural Google listing is to increase how many authority sites link to you, so to increase your linkability with social media optimization is to make your site more informative and useful to others. You can do this in many ways; blog, white papers, press releases, keyword targeted articles, RSS feeds, etc. This is the most important step in Social Media Optimization and should be your first priority.

2. Make tagging and bookmarking easy

The act of tagging is to bookmark the website to social bookmarking websites. For example, if you like the content or services provided at a website you tag it. This will show others that you approve of this site and they will check it out, making viral traffic. To include social media optimization tagging on your site, you can add tagging links such as Digg, Del.icio.us, Technorati, etc. Also, add the tagging links to other pages in your site (not just the homepage) and when visitors click the tag button make sure that there is a suggestion box to help your visitor list a relevant tag and notes.

3. Reward inbound links

As I mentioned before one way to increase your natural listing with Google using social media optimization is to get more back links. You can do this by rewarding people/websites that link to you (inbound links). Inbound links are links that send people to your site from somewhere else. One way to reward people for linking to your site is to have a “Recently Linked” that lists all of the websites that have linked to you.

4. Help your content travel

Social media optimization focuses on providing useful content to your market. When you publish content such as an article, video, or audio file you must help it reach as many people on the web as possible. You can do this by submitting to relevant high traffic websites. When the word gets out about your great content (no matter what format) you’ll receive backlinks to your site.

5. Encourage the mashup

To mash up is to use two websites content and mash them together. For example, Youtube makes it easy to mash their content (videos) onto your site. In addition, because it is so easy you have added a video to your site that has a Youtube logo on the video as well as a link back to you tube. So to encourage a mashup with social media optimization is to make it easy for other websites to use your content and reference it to drive traffic back to your site.

Jeremiah Owyang Developed Social Media Optimization Rules 6 and 7

6. Be a User Resource, even if it doesn’t help you.

One thing all visitors appreciate is honesty. With social media optimization you should include links to other websites that will help your visitor reach their goal or find the information they want. Do this, even when it doesn’t benefit you. By linking to competitors or information not created by you, you reap the benefits of having the all inclusive information on a particular topic. In the end, more people will link to you because you have lumped all information (or links) on a topic on one location.

7. Reward helpful and valuable users

Valuable users are your best friends. A valuable user can be determined in many ways; they may send traffic to your site, add valuable content to your site, or assist visitors at your site. No matter what their doing, if it benefits you, your site, or your service you need to reward them. This could be by sending a personal message thanking them for their dedication. Other ways to reward your valuable users is to create reward systems, advertise for them or promote their efforts on your homepage.

Cameron Olthuis Developed Social Media Optimization Rules 8, 9, 10, and 11

8. Participate

With Social Media Optimization you can participate by joining on the conversation about your topic (or targeted keyword). Simply posting articles and sharing content isn’t going to keep the buzz going. You should continue to share information on other websites. This participation will share your knowledge with more people. One way to do this is to find people that are blogging on your topic and to give input on the conversation. Also, participate in forums or other social groups that are discussing your topic. Read comments on your articles, videos, and audios and respond to them.

9. Know how to target your audience

Social media marketing is about sharing content/information. Not everyone is interested in your topic, so be sure to do your marketing research and post your information and knowledge where it will be understood and appreciated.

10. Create content

Content is considered to be any form on information that benefits a visitor. Content can be a white paper, article, video, audio, widget, the list goes on. Your job is to find a piece of content that will spark interest in visitors. No matter what market you enter there is always a form of content that they will share with others. Find out what it is and give it to them. This will in turn have them coming back for more useful content. If this happens, then you know that your social media optimization is successful.

11. Be real

Internet users are searching the web for specific content. If you are providing content that links back to a website, be sure that the website is relevant. You will not be rewarded for coaxing a visitor to a site that has nothing to do with the content they just read (or watched depending on the type of content you provided).

Loren Baker developed Social Media Optimization Rules 12 and 13

12. Don’t forget your roots, be humble

It’s easy to let popularity get to your head. When you become the shining star in your market be sure to recognize those that helped you get to the front of the pack. (this ties into #7 a little)

13. Don’t be afraid to try new things, stay fresh.

Any one on the internet knows how quickly things change. Keep up with new media content, new types of websites, and new interests in your market. By staying on top of new information you can maintain top rankings.

Lee Odden developed Social Media Optimization Rules 14, 15 and 16

14. Develop a Social Media Optimization strategy

Social Media serves multiple purposes. You need to identify what your purpose is and then publish content that will promote that purpose. Some purposes for Social Media Optimization include: branding, reputation, charity, increase traffic, build reputation, increase sales, credibility, etc. Make sure that as you develop content that you are publishing and creating with that purpose in mind.

15. Choose your SMO tactics wisely.

Of all the content available on the web only about 10% of people on the web are content creators. The other 90% are consumers and are willing to share your content. Make your content easy to consume and spread. Also be sure to create content that will have the most impact on your original purpose (which could be any of the following: branding, reputation, charity, increase traffic, build reputation, increase sales, credibility, etc).

16. Make Social Media Optimization – SMO part of your process and best practices.

We all know that there are specific Search engine optimization tactics that every website should include. Just as you include keywords in your title tags and keywords in your H1 tag, you should find ways to include social media optimization aspects into the building of your website. This can be small details like including social bookmark tags on your site or encouraging incoming links with the “recently Linked” list I covered in #3.

17. Don’t be afraid to let go of a message or idea and let others own it.

Finally, when you create a movement, spark and idea, or develop a new topic don’t be afraid to let others run with it. Collaboration is key. Others can improve upon your original idea and give you credit for the start. Be sure to give credit where it’s due.

Justin Brooke started with just a $2/day marketing budget and grew his business past 6 figures in just 1 year. At just 25 years old he has been Vice President of a multi-million dollar company and nominated “Best Marketer of 2007″ by the American Business Awards. Justin’s award winning social media optimization company wants to handle your social media marketing needs.

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How To Start A Video Blog

By Jim Edwards

Web logs, commonly referred to as “blogs,” came into the mainstream about 2 years ago.

Not really a newsletter or traditional html page publishing, blogs resemble more of a web-based diary where the creator records their thoughts, posts links, or responds to questions.

Initially, blogs contained only text and pictures, but then came “audio blogging,” which entails the use of audio on a blog.

Audio blogging also gets referred to as “Podcasting” because of the ability to let people with iPods and other portable MP3 players download your MP3 audio.

The simplest form of video blogging, or “vlogging,” means putting a video file online, linking to it from your blog, and anyone subscribing to your rss feed (automatically created by your blogging software) will get notified about your new video.

They can then open up your latest blog post in their “feed reader” and view your video by clicking the link.

More advanced forms of video blogging include getting your “vlog” accepted by Apple’s iTunes so their subscribers can find and subscribe to your vlog (which gives you access to 19 million users at last count).

Vloggers use a variety of video file types (like Windows Media, Quicktime, Real Media, and MPEG) and there’s no restriction on which file type you use to be considered a “vlog.”

However, two file types stand above the rest if you want to reach the widest possible audience.

For video Podcasting, you must publish in either the FLV (Flash Video) or SWF (Shockwave Flash) file formats if you want people on both MAC and PC to view your video files.

FLV is better suited for full motion video, but they both work on smaller length video files.

For Video PodCasting, you must publish in the MPEG4 file format or Apple’s proprietary version of that format known as M4V.

Apple’s QuickTime Pro software rates the simplest and easiest way to convert your video files to the proper video PodCasting format.

To create a basic “vlog,” you need the following list of equipment and software: a web cam or digital camcorder; a microphone, production software; a blog; an rss feed to “syndicate” your content.

A webcam will work for a basic vlog, though a digital video camera will create much better results because they contain better optics.

Using a separate microphone instead of the microphone built into your web cam or camcorder will also produce a much better sound quality.

Once you shoot your video you need to produce it to display on the Web. At a minimum, if your computer operates with Windows XP, you can use the Windows Movie Maker software that comes free with XP.

Though you can’t save as an FLV or SWF, you can save as a Windows Media file (wmv) to get you started.

For a blog, you can use the free Blogger.com service. To create a feed to syndicate your site, you can use the free service at FeedBurner.com.

Though audio blogging received mediocre acceptance from the mainstream Internet audience, “vlogging” should do extremely well simply because of our fascination with moving pictures.

If you’re looking for a precedent, look how far TV has come in the last 50 years compared to radio.

Copyright 2005 Jim Edwards

Jim Edwards operates a Video Newsletter at http://www.IGottaTellYou.com – He specializes in helping non-technical people get the most out of the Web! Check out his Cutting-Edge “I Gotta Tell You” FREE newsletter now

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Pick the Best Email Marketing Services: to Make Your Brand Noticed

By: Lalita N

Email marketing services indeed help your brand noticed, but, only if you have noticed capabilities of marketing service providers. Email marketers who are able to understand can meet your business needs and target well. We all know email marketing campaign is considered to be one of the most convenient and cost effective means of promoting a website and its ranges of products or services. Along with this it is an email marketing campaign with which web masters can communicate with their customers for endorsing their business, for following them up and or simply to ‘keep in touch’ with old client base for retention purposes.

Emails are always good media to boast off what’s new, what’s hot and what’s happening and also allow users to keep their prospective audience upgraded about their enterprise and and product range. Like an email marketing is capable of pushing your company higher level, it is potent enough to push your company to the trash bin if your audience find your mails Spamming and jamming in their inbox like unwanted intruders.

Therefore, the most vital and foremost part is to pick up the right and reliable email marketing company before you kick start your promotional campaigns. This is the only way to get benefits from email marketing services and prevent your company from spending potential time and money in vain. If you cannot afford investing time in extensive Internet researches, use following quick tips and quickly spot the best email marketing services provider to achieve optimum benefits of niche marketing.

To determine which email marketing services are the best to suit your business needs, start with little base work. First of all, decide if you want an all encompassing or full service email marketing services comprising auto-responders, shopping carts, email templates, comprehensive textual and visual support, delivery tools, tools to monitor customers’ responses and many more. Some of the email marketing campaigns can be available as free, low cost or premium as well as can be simple and the most basic ones. Therefore, decide what kind of services will correspond to your marketing needs appropriately. Not all email marketers offer same range of services. Therefore, make sure you know what you need and what your email marketer is able to provide you.

About the Author

Author:
Author is expert in email Marketing, presently render her services to Rupiz Xpress that helps you in building email marketing campaign, email marketing services, custom lead generation, low cost lead generation.

(ArticlesBase SC #600643)

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Directory Submission Starter Guide

By Lauren Haugh

What is Directory Submission?

Submitting your website to online directories is an off-page optimization technique used to gain backlinks (or incoming, inbound links) which can help boost natural search rankings and improve your online presence. It basically involves finding an online directory and submitting your information such as domain and a brief description to be included in the appropriate category.

Three key types of directories include vertical market (industry specific), general purpose, and local business directories. Some directories allow you to submit your information for inclusion for free, while others require you pay an annual or monthly fee (known as paid directories or paid inclusion).

What are some guidelines for choosing quality directories?

It’s worth getting listed in all types of directories, but it’s especially important that you identify where your competitors are and get listed there too. Select a directory based on relevance to your industry and target market.

1. Once you have identified a few directories of interest, check them out to make sure they are reputable, relevant, have a decent PageRank (a numeric value, between 0-10, that Google uses to represent the importance of a webpage in relation to all other pages on the Web), and are up-to-date – all characteristics of a quality directory.

2. Take it for a test drive. Check out the volume, quality, and type of the listings as well as the functionality of the site. If you don’t recognize any of the businesses in your industry and region, or only find one or two listings in major categories when conducting a search, it’s likely that submitting to that directory is not worth your while.

3. Also, reference online forms, blogs, and industry sites to find out what people are saying about the directory you’re considering.

4. Be careful of directories that require you to provide them with a backlink. If this does not make sense to you and you can’t see how your visitors would benefit from it, search for a different directory.

It’s important to note that many of the good, free directories hand-select their listings and do not guarantee inclusion – as opposed to automating this process. In these cases, you may have to wait several months before knowing if you have been included in the directory. Check back with them regularly and follow up if you have questions.

What are some trusted General Purpose Directories?

To help you get started, here is a list of good general purpose directories we recommend:

Free:

Dmoz (The Open Directory Project)

ExactSeek

illumiRate

Paid:

Yahoo Directory – $299/year

Best of the Web (BOTW) – $99.95/year or one-time fee of $249.95

Business.com- $299/year

What are some tips for finding good industry specific directories?

Find industry specific directories by searching online for “name of industry + directory” and research to find the sites your competitors are listed in by going to Yahoo Site Explorer or typing “link: + www + competitor’s website” into a search engine (Google, Yahoo, Bing, etc).

How do I get listed in local business directories?

Get listed in Local Business Listings via GetListed.org. This is a great tool for getting listed in local search results of Google, Yahoo, Bing and others, determining listing status and finding general information and resources about local marketing. Visit the website and enter your business name and zip code to get started.

Also consider getting listed in others such as CitySearch (data from this site feeds Ask.com and Bing) and Yelp (data from this site feeds Bing and Yahoo).

I encourage you to be proactive and engage in directory submission as it’s a great way to jumpstart your link building efforts and increase your online presence. This is a continual process that deserves regular attention and will pay off over time, not over night. But, the benefits are well worth it.

Lauren Haugh is the Search Marketing manager at Sitepro.com, a web design and development company serving small to medium-size businesses, where she provides clients with Search Engine Optimization and Marketing services. She believes in educating people about SEO/SEM to help them make better, well informed decisions.

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Which Article Distribution Service Is The Best?

Article submission service can be very useful for everyone who is doing article marketing on a regular basis. So if you also prefer building quality natural backlinks through article marketing then you need to choose the best mass article submission service in order to work more productively.

Below You Will Find Out Top 3 Features You Should Look For In Article Submission Service:

1. Free Trial

It is important to choose the service which offers a free trial. Why? – Because every buyer would like to try the service for free for a limited time before he/she pays for it. Especially if this article distribution service is going to charge on a monthly basis, first you should ensure its quality.

2. Article Spinning Feature

This feature is very important when it comes to building natural unique backlinks through article marketing. This is also necessary in order to avoid Google
penalty. So you are recommended to buy article submission service which comes with special article spinning tool in order to get multiple unique spinned versions from one seed article.

3. Submission Scheduling

Google does not like these mass article submission campaigns, especially if you do it again and again every day. Therefore you can apply a little trick to look as if you are building natural links. So you should choose the service which allows you to schedule article submission per day.