NE Emmies I Won

I came across this video from Khan Academy in the comments of the issue on Matt Carter’s blog and am embedding it so you can get informed about this very important issue.

It has serious implications for how information is shared on the web.

Now I understand the concern Hollywood and the big media companies have. They don’t want folks stealing their content.

I produced content for television for over 25 years so I get their point.

I just think this approach is not the right way to go about it.

While the intent of these laws is benign and understandable, the devil is in the details and this video illustrates the dangers by citing some of the language of the proposed law.

Now, for the moment, the law has been shelved. But rest assured, this issue will come up again. So you should be aware of what is going on and contact your Congressional reps if you are a US citizen and stay informed.

Stay with it stay well and talk soon.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzqMoOk9NWc

New YouTube Channel Navigation Bar

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=75Dfr2sdf8A

The new YouTube Channel Navigation bar is a compact three tab nav bar that offers a streamlined way of managing your channel.

The three tabs are the Featured tab, the Feed tab and the Video tab

Featured Tab

If you select the Featured tab as your default, what you will see when your Channel page displays is your latest uploaded video in the featured video display at the top of the channel and your uploaded videos listed in chronological order below.

This is what I have chosen for my channel.

The right sidebar displays my about information and a run down of my featured playlists and featured channels of other YouTubers who I think offer a good insight into how a successful channel is organized and designed.

Feed Tab 

Feed tab is probably the most popular as a selection because it shows all the latest activity of what you have been doing on YouTuvbe.  It shows the videos you have liked, commented on, favorited,uploaded subscribed to or added to a playlist.

Anything of note that you have done on YouTube will show up in the feed.

It’s a great way to let your subscribers know when you have new material and offers a great way to follow you on YouTube.

The right sidebar under the Feed tab displays the About information and Featured channels but does not show any Featured playlists that you see with the Featured tab.

Videos Tab

The Videos tab is self explanatory.  It displays all the videos you have uploaded to your Channel.

There is no right sidebar displayed when the Videos channel is loaded.

How To Configure The Navigation Bar

To configure the Nav Bar you go to the Edit Channel button on the upper right of the Main Nav bar and click it

You then go to the Info and Settings tab and select it.

And then you go to the drop down menu on the right under the Defautl Tab heading and select the default tab you want.

That is how you select the default tab you want for your channel.

You’ll note that the default tab that is selected will have a black background while the other two tabs will have gray backgrounds.

There is a check box under the Default tab drop down that you can check to send your subscribers to your Feed tab. This overrides whatever selection you have made in the drop down and ensures your followers will see your latest activity. That is an option you can take if you so choose.

And there you have it. The Channel Nave bar and how to use it.

Hope this has helped. Stay with it, stay well and talk soon.

If this post and the video have help don’t forget to give it a “like”, a tweet or a Google +. Many Thanks

 New YouTube Design

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ulw1g53ReLg

New Channel Design

If you have a YouTube channel then you may have noticed that there is a new YouTube Channel redesign that has happened in the past couple of weeks.

The new look and feel makes it easier to find and watch the content you have to offer, or at least that is its intended goal.

It offers you the channel creator a better way to organize and showcase your work and give your viewers the information they are looking for.

In YouTube’s own words the benefits are the following:

• A more streamlined and consistent design
• An easier way to find and view videos
• New, more flexible layouts for featured content, and
• A way to keep your audience engaged even when you don’t have new uploads

There are some things that don’t change. Again, according to Youtube, here is the list of things that stay the same:

“The following will remain intact and will not be altered as part of the Channels migration:

• Videos
• Playlists
• Comments
• Subscribers
• Likes
• Account Settings
• About this user
• Title
• Tags
• Visibility
• Redirect URLs
• Vanity URLs
• Tracking Pixels
• Google Analytics Account ID number
• Avatars, and
• Backgrounds images

All of these elements can be updated in the new design.”

So what does this all mean to the channel creator.

I think it means a better way to showcase your videos and organize them so that your best material gets highlighted.

The Header

The header is clean and gives a quick view of the channel’s view count.

Four Template Formats

And the format is offered in one of four templates each w ith its own way to present your channel content and the content of other channels you think your viewers would enjoy looking up.

The Video

The video above is an overview of the new channel design and what it has to offer you. So take a look and see for yourself.

And if for any reason you are not satisfied, there is the option of going back to the older design if you so choose.

So take a look, give it a try, check out what some of the leaders on YouTube are doing and go for it.

Stay with it, stay well and talk soon.

If you want to read up on it you can read the YouTube Help document on the New Channel Design.

The video below explains how to figure out if you have been sandboxed or banned. It also lays out steps you can follow to get back in with Google and reappear in the index and the SERPs.

Stay with it, stay well and may your travels be prosperous.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PgnOOnAIAks

 
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Google Mobile and Mobile Search

Google has two sections of the Google Search Engine Optimization Guide devoted to Mobile search and mobile sitemap set up.

That means that if you want to stay up on SEO best practice by Google standards, you will want to make sure your site is mobile friendly.

You want to make sure that your visitors can access your site from their mobile devices without any hassles.

The flip side to that is that you want to make sure the seach engines can crawl your site with their mobile bots.

To do that you have to make your site available in the right format.

With WordPress this is easier to do because there are plugins that do that for you.

The first video below takes you through the Google Search Engine Optimization Guide and shows what has to be done.

You’ll see how to set up a sitemap and get it into your webmaster toolbox so that the google bot can crawl your site.

Google Mobile and Mobile Search are important to understand and implement for you wedsite ranking.

Hope you find the video useful.

Stay with it, stay well and may your travels be prosperous.

What is anchor text and how important is it?

The video below answers that question and shows what anchor text looks like.

Basically, anchor text is a keyword phrase that is linked to another page.

According to the Google Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide, anchor text has four basic best practice characteristics.

Best Practice One

Best practice number one is that anchor text should be descriptive. It should be clear what the page it is linking to is about.

You don’t want it to be general like “click here” or “page” or anything that doesn’t clearly convey what your are linking to.

Best Practice Two

Anchor text should be short and to the point.  No long descriptions or rambling text are appropriate.

Best Practice Three

Anchor text should be formatted to be easy to find and click.  Underlining and using a distinctive color such as blue is the standard practice for formatting anchor text.

Best Practice Four

Use anchor text to link to internal pages of a website as well as linking to external sites. There is a habit of focusing on external links over internal links. The Google Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide makes it clear that internal links are just as important and you should not overlook them.
These are the key points to take from this section of the Starter Guide.

The video below takes you through the steps so check it out.

I hope this is helpful.

Stay with it, stay well and may your travels be prosperous,.

Best Practice for Content

I have a video below that reviews the section of  the Google Starter Guide regarding creating relevant and useful content for your readers.

Best practice number one is to write easy to read text.
Google wants you to write for your reader in easy to understand text.  No typos or bad grammer,just plain good writing is the best way to communicate.  Another the way to put it is to write as if you were talking to a friend and explaining something you knew would help solve a problem or feed a passion.

Best practice number two is stay organized around the topic.  Stay focused on the problem,passion or whatever you are writing about that you know will help the reader.  Keep the information relevant to one specific area of concentration. Don’t go off on tangents or go on too long.

Best practice number three is to write original, fresh content. There lots of auto posting programs to automatically populate websites with information.  While that may be an easy way to fill a site and take a short cut, it also has the problem of putting duplicate content that has already been indexed. That could result in low quality score or page rank and even a penalty in some cases.  The search engines are getting better at reading replicated or copied content so over the long haul it pays to write and create your own material.

Best practice number four is write for your reader and not the search engine.  There is always the temptation to stuff keywords and use tactics that may be perceived to please the search engines but that may be unnatural and hard for a reader to understand.  The best way to write is in a way you talk to other people in a social situation.

Those are the key points for best practice content creation.

Take a look at the video and then go and create great content.

I hope this is helpful.

Stay with it, stay well and may your travels be prosperous.

The rel=”nofollow” attribute means that you are asking the search engine to treat the link you are designating as nofollow a certain way.

What you are asking is that the rel=”nofollow” link not pass on any link juice or authority to the site on the receiving end of the link.

Why would you do this?

You would do this to prevent or inhibit spam sites from getting any of your good will.  And you also prevent yourself from being harmed by being associated with sites  that are considered bad company.

If a search engine sees you have links with a site considered to be low in trust and authority, you will get penalized.

You can prevent penalties with the use of the re=”nofollow” attribute.

Now search engines may follow the links anyway to index and see what there is out there, but the rel=”nofollow” will be respected and no link juice will be passed on and no negative action will be taken for the site issuing the rel=”nofollow”.

This is why many comment sections of websites and blogs use the rel=”nofollow” attribute.  It deals with the spammers and junk site webmasters trying to game the system.

In WordPress there is a plugin called Platinum All in One SEO that lets you set up rel=”nofollow” in your posts.

Take a look at the video below. It goes into greater detail on how to use the rel”nofollow” attribute and how to set it up in WordPress.

I hope you find this information helpful.

Stay with it, stay well and may your travels be prosperous.

The Robots.txt file

In my video series about the Google Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide, I cover a section on the Robots.txt file.

Basically, this file is used to tell search engine robots not to crawl a particular page or post on a site.

This is a way to streamline the crawling process and avoid having content that is not current or is not in need of indexing from having to be crawled.

It’s a way to avoid having duplicate content from being indexed, though you can use 301 and 302 redirects to avoid the duplicate content issue as well.

Webmasters have the ability to determine what portions of their websites get crawled and indexed.

The file also has the function of showing search engines where they can find the sitemaps for a site. And they can also determine the speed with which a search engine can crawl a server.

One note though; some search engines may ignore the Robots.txt file and crawl the information anyway. This is true especially of some less reputable search engine crawlers.

So if you want to protect information from being crawled, you may want to store it elsewhere.

How to implement

To implement a Robots.txt file in a self hosted WordPress website, all you need to do is to your plugin page, select add new and enter Robots.txt.

When the search results page appears, select the plugin of your choice and click install, then activate and your plugin should appear in your plugin list and in the drop down menu under settings.

Click on it and go into the configuration page and  check and see if you want to customize the settings.

Click save and you are all done.

The Video

The video below takes you through the process of selecting and configuring your Robots.txt implementation, so have a look and go from there.

I hope this information is helpful.

Stay with it, stay well and may your travels be prosperous.

When I was doing some research on where one of my sites was ranking for some keywords, I found the search results were placing it in the number one position.

I knew that that was not the case and that the personalization and real time features of the latest Google search updates were skewing my search results.

One way around this in to sign out of your Google account if you are signed in and then repeat the search process.

Another way is to find and turn on Google incognito mode.

Here is what Google says happens when you go incognito:

“You’ve gone incognito. Pages you view in this window won’t appear in your browser history or search history, and they won’t leave other traces, like cookies, on your computer after you close the incognito window. Any files you download or bookmarks you create will be preserved, however.”

“Going incognito doesn’t affect the behavior of other people, servers, or software. Be wary of:

• Websites that collect or share information about you
• Internet service providers or employers that track the pages you visit
• Malicious software that tracks your keystrokes in exchange for free smileys
• Surveillance by secret agents
• People standing behind you”

So there you have it. A way to avoid leaving a trail in your  browser history, your search history or collecting cookies.

This comes in handy if you are on someone else’s machine and don’t want to leave a trail behind you. And it is a good way to see results free of personalization if you are checking site ranking for a particular keyword.

To find the Incognito mode function in Chrome, go the the wrench in the upper right hand corner for the menu bar and select the New Incognito Window from the drop down menu.

If you want to see how to do it, check out the video below.

There you have it. Stay with it, stay well and may your travels be prosperous.

One of the most important tasks in setting up an affiliate online business is finding a legitimate and reliable affiliate online program. How do you know where to look and what to look for in selecting an internet marketing program?

Here are some things to consider.

Is the business reputable?

Is the merchant or owner a reputable business? Here you have to do some research. Use an affiliate network service like Clickbank and Commission Junction where merchants are vetted and information is easy to check out. Do a Google or Yahoo Search to see sponsored listing for the product or service you are considering. The larger the results the better it is for you. Check out some of the product sites and see what you find. Patterns and trends will emerge and you will see who’s hot and who’s not.

Affiliate Agreement

Is there an affiliate agreement? There better be one and you had better read it thoroughly to find out the terms. Is it easy to join? Is it easy to drop if things don’t work out? Is there a fee to join? If there is, there better be a very good reason for it.

Commission Rate

How you will be paid is one of the most important questions to have answered. Different affiliate programs have different commission structures and different payout rates. This will affect which products you will promote. Some affiliate network services will sort information for you by payout per lead or payout per sale. This allows you to compare programs and determine which one is more likely to mean a better revenue stream for you. Obviously you want to start with the companies that pay the highest payout per lead or payout per sale. But there are circumstances when high volume sales of a low priced product can mean higher revenue for you.

You will also want to know whether you can get lifetime commissions that are a commission for each and every product your customer buys from that merchant. Are there residual commissions? These are commissions you get every time your customer renews the subscription or purchase of a product.

Some programs will pay you not only for the product sales you generate but also for referring new affiliates to the merchant. This is called a 2-tier program. While this is a nice way to supplement your income, your focus in starting out should be on product sales.

When and How do I get Paid?

Payments will vary from program to program. Some programs give the option to pay by check or through a third party provider such as PayPal, Clickbank or Paydotcom. The recommended choice is to get paid by check if you can and then opt for the third party options. The reason is that with check payment you collect a full commission. With third party payments you will pay a service fee and that will get taken out of your commission.

Different programs pay on different time periods; they can be weekly, biweekly, monthly and quarterly. That is something that is spelled out in the affiliate agreement.

Cookies

A cookie is some code a computer carries that identifies it during a visit to a web site. They are harmless text files and pose no threat to your computer in any way. When you refer a lead to a merchant, a cookie on that lead’s computer will identify that person as your referral and you will get a commission. That’s great. But there is a very important thing to look for. How long is the cookie coded to last? Merchants can code cookies to last one day, one month, one quarter, one year or even a lifetime. You want to get lifetime or at least year long cookies because the standard number of contacts a lead typically makes before deciding to purchase is seven. So the longer the cookie lasts the better your chances of getting paid. If a purchase is made after your cookie has expired, you are out of the commission you worked hard to generate.

Marketing Tools and Customer Service

A good affiliate program will offer marketing tools and training on how to use them. They will also offer an affiliate center where you can check your stats and get your promotional tools and links to sell your product.

Customer service means good and timely communication with you and your customer base. How long does it take for the merchant to respond to any question? A good affiliate program will get back to a request within 24-48 hours. Often there will be an FAQ section you should check out before you send in your question.

Conversion Rate

One item to check out is the conversion rate the merchant gets with their sales page. The standard conversion on the low end is 1.5-2%. Some of the Super Affiliates can achieve 6% up to 20% on some of their offerings. You want to ask and see what you find out. One indication is the quality of the sales page. Is it well written? How does it present the product or service? Are the testimonials believable? Can you check them out? Does the sales page reflect a professional and high quality standard?

What to Look out for

Some programs will have sales minimums before you get paid. You have to be careful here. For a low payout, that will mean you will need high volume and that is not always possible. You will have to do the math and see if the numbers make sense to you.

Also be careful to see if there are other links, ads or Google Adsense postings on the sales page or web site to which you are sending your leads. You really don’t want to have your lead click away from your product or service because of competing ads on the landing page you are sending them to. So check out to see if there are any distractions or reasons for your lead to go elsewhere when they land where you send them.

Finding the right internet marketing program for an associate affiliate is an important part of the business development process. Obviously you want to do your market research, traffic testing and conversion testing as you go about choosing a product. But once you have an idea of what product or service you want to market, then you are ready to start researching and selecting the right online affiliate program for you. Online affiliate marketing can be a very satisfying and rewarding business if you take the time, put in the effort and stay focused along the way. Follow the steps above and you should be well on your way to success.

May Your Travels be Prosperous.

I’ll be setting up more product lines but I need to get my blog and web site theme set up and also get a newsletter thought through. I will be creating outlines for my articles and getting those going again after a 2 week hiatus.

So there is where we stand. I’ll be back…ciao

Anyway I haven’t written my article this week so that is what the week end will be for along with going over stuff I learned and also looking for some resale product. That’s another thing…I signed up for a resale service and bought WINRAR a piece of compression software.

All in all a productive week but there’s alot more to go so I’m off to do some writiing.

Ciao

I picked up NVU to do some HTML editing. That is taking a chunk of time and I didn’t get my writing done. I’m moving on two fronts with so when one program gets on overload, I move to the other for a change of pace. So far that means moving more slowly but at least it gives me the time to let things sink in.

We’ll see what tomorrow brings.

Ciao

Getting through the tutorial will tell whether I can make some income with ACS or not. We’ll see.

Off to cruise the forums.

Ciao

First of all there are the tools needed to get going. Autoresponder software, article software,html editor,ftp software, hosting site, domain registre site, set up with cash affiliates, list building service (I’m working on that) not to mention the periodic cross sell on some product that distracts and makes you waste time from focusing on getting the fundamentals down. And that is only the beginning…then you have to buy resell rights, that’s another site with a monthly fee and flash and video …another monthly fee… meanwhile there’s no cash flow yet……

The only thing keeping me going is the determination to make a business out of this. But you have to want to do it.

So now I’m off to get a product to resell and see what happens.

May our travels be prosperous! www.cpelanne.com

Ciao

Time to write…off to the races.

PS –Picked up article submitter pro for good– really like it.

Will also work JV ideas to get going on some affiliate products like Cash Secrets. It’s been interesting working the forums too.

Later I’ll work on concepts for Site Build It.

Aloha-may our travels be prosperous!

The second scheme was a thing called Project Payday–This was a system, but it was very tedious and limited on the upside and exceedingly complex for a newbie, so I moved on.

The third program was called the Millioinaires Club. While it does offer alot of written material and lots of videos if you buy the enhanced level, I found the initial report badly written ( probably outsourced to someone in the Phillipines) and difficult to follow. I will go back and use this program as a resource later.

The fourth program is called My Data Team and is the first truly helpful program that I found was worth it. I have learned alot and it gives you some tools and links that are helpful to get started in defining what you want to do with an online home business. I used it for ten days and tried out all the tools except for the PPC programs that I felt I would only use when I knew what I was doing. These are adword resource tools that you pay to start your online business. They are definitely not for beginners.

I found another program called Affiliates Cash Secrets that has a very specific system in place and also tools with which you can design squeeze pages, pre-sell pages, sales pages and all sorts of reports that are necessary to the establishment of an online business. I set myself up in this program and am testing to see if it works. It is not free, it costs $37 a month but that is worth it just in terms of what I have learned in the process.

By the way all these programs come with additional costs for things like Wordtracker or an autoresponder so you have to be prepared to subscribe to ancillary services as you move along. You’ll need these services no matter who you end up with.

I have also found through a forum another program called Site Build It which I think is the another viable option and which I am now also implementing. It is run by someone I am familiar with and whose logic makes perfect sense.

That’s my report for now. I will follow with more tomorrow.

May our travels be prosperous.

Claude Pelanne