Posts Tagged ‘blogs’

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9 Steps to Properly Filming a Video Interview

Wednesday, August 11th, 2010

More and more, adding interviews to your website and blog are a great way to drive interest and traffic to your site. But many online marketers have yet to adopt this strategy out of lack of experience and equipment.

What you first need to have is someone to interview, or an interviewee. You can find someone just about anywhere – maybe a coworker or the CEO of your company. Or maybe even a client or a prominent figure in your industry who can share their views with your readers.

Once you have someone in mind and they have agreed to be interviewed, you need to prepare for the actual filming. Continue reading for 9 steps to properly film a video interview to ensure your interview goes as smoothly as possible and accomplishes your goals.

1. Know what your interview is about beforehand

First thing you need to do is develop your questions and send them to the interviewee ahead of time. The interview itself isn’t the time to figure out what your story will be about…be prepared for that before you even enter the room.

2. Take a moment and get to know the interviewee before setting up

Before you get your camera equipment out, take a few moments to build a rapport with the interviewee. This will get both of you in a more relaxed state of mind for the interview. If one or both of you are new to interviewing, you will need to calm down before going any further. Let the interviewee see you care about them and are appreciative of their time.

3. Setup camera equipment before they sit down

Wait until you have setup your camera equipment before having the interviewee sit down. Once you’ve set all of the equipment up, have them sit down to make your final adjustments.

4. Make sure you like where the interviewee is looking

Once your camera is setup and the interviewee is in place, be sure you’re okay with where the interviewee is looking. You will want them to maintain eye contact with you so don’t stand directly behind the camera but next to it a couple of feet away.

5. Stay in one place

The interviewee will keep looking at you so if you’re wandering around, that will look weird on film. Stay in one place and maintain eye contact with the interviewee.

6. Focus your camera closely

A big face in an online video is a good thing…focus your camera closely to get more of the interviewee’s face onto the screen.

7. Be aware of your background

Do your best to have a background free of any distractions. Don’t have anything going on behind them and check to see how any tall objects like power poles or trees look on the video. You don’t want to have your interviewee look like they have tree trunk growing out of their head!

8. Pay close attention to lighting

While you don’t want the interviewee to be squinting because of light in their eyes, you don’t want to have sunlight or strong light behind them either. This will make it difficult for viewers to see the interviewee. If you’re indoors, you may need to move lighting or get a lamp to balance out other light sources in the room.

9. Wear headphones to filter out abstract noises

Any kind of noise can come along and ruin your video. Keep your headphones on to monitor any abstract noises that may come along and ruin your video.

These are a few of the things you need to keep in mind when filming an interview. Below you can see some both good and bad ways to position someone on camera.

In the end, you can edit the film, post it on YouTube, link to it through your blog and include a short summary of the interview for those who prefer to read (…and to reap some of the advantages of SEO). And you can let the interviewee know when it’s up so they can link to it from their blog, giving you another high-quality link to your site.

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Posted in Online Marketing, Tip of the Day | No Comments »

Proposed Legislation Will Place Additional Burden on Webmasters and SEO Marketers

Monday, June 28th, 2010

In our periodic look at what’s happening on a regulatory level, two bills are currently working their way through Congress that could potentially affect webmasters and online marketers…making yourself aware of any new requirements is important for effectively managing a small business online.

Ignorance of the law is no excuse for the authorities so it’s important we’re all on guard so we don’t find ourselves in any trouble.

Privacy bill could mean increased disclosure requirements, privacy protections

One idea floating around Congress that’s seeing traction is an Internet consumer privacy bill being proposed by Rep. Rick Boucher (D-VA), chair of the House Energy & Commerce Subcommittee on Communications, Technology & the Internet.

Rep. Boucher’s bill is more of a privacy bill for consumers. Its main target is online advertisers who target consumers through behavioral advertising. Many online advertisers – including Facebook with their new ‘like’ features – examine behavior patterns online to target advertising to relevant parties, which in turn increases conversions.

Behavioral technology tracks a user’s searches, how long the stay on a page and even the sites they visit. Data is then taken by advertisers to establish behavior patterns and online demographics.

Web advertisers fear this bill will require web users to opt-in, causing them to lose an important tool in how they target potential customers. However, Rep. Boucher says he supports an opt-out option where web users can choose whether they want their information shared or not.

“If I were [a publisher or advertiser], I would want Internet users to have a sense that their experience is more secure, that they know what information is collected about them, and they be given much more control. They will be more trusting of electronic commerce. . . .it’s good for business,” says the representative from Virginia.

Whatever happens, there will certainly be increased regulation like new disclosure requirements and legal forms indicating how a site tracks data and uses it.

Financial Reform Bill grants new powers to FTC

Tucked inside the financial reform bill passed by the House last November was a provision expanding the Federal Trade Commission’s powers to allow them to impose civil penalties on companies engaging in “unfair” or “deceptive” trade practices.

Since the mid-1970’s, the agency had to hear public testimony and a congressional review had to occur before any penalties could be imposed on the business. With this new power, the agency will basically decide for itself with no public scrutiny what constitutes unfair advertising practices.

Ad industry groups fear this could lead to the FTC acting as an “unelected legislature,” basically giving it free rein over regulating Internet commerce.

The financial reform bill is currently being debated between the two chambers. The House passed its version late last year and the Senate this past April. Both chambers are reconciling their differences, which will need to pass. President Obama has indicated he will sign the bill when it arrives on his desk.

This bill seems more dangerous than Rep. Boucher’s privacy bill since it directly expands an agency’s enforcement authority.

Appointees to the FTC are chosen by the President so vesting this much authority in a centralized executive authority could be dangerous from a checks and balances perspective.

Boucher’s privacy bill is understandable in a big way but it will certainly add new requirements for webmasters and SEO marketers. The combination of the two could be a double whammy for any of us marketing our businesses online.

Stay tuned…

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Posted in Forum Watch, Online Marketing | No Comments »

8 Tips for Utilizing Testimonials for Good Reputation Management

Friday, April 23rd, 2010

Potential online customers look for reassurance that your products or services will meet their needs – one way they do this is through testimonials. They want to know what others think of their experience before purchasing, signing up or booking.

So it’s no surprise that sites like Yelp.com have sprung up to meet this demand…and if you’re a B2B firm, you may be faced with providing another form of a testimonial – references.

Providing customer testimonials on your own site is a great way to keep prospects engaged within your site.

Continue reading for 8 tips on how you can best integrate testimonials into your website and/or blog…these tips were provided to a web site promoting cabin rentals in Georgia but are applicable to a wide range of industries.

1. Leave testimonial in original text

Testimonials have a lot more credibility if they’re left in the writer’s original text. Of course you will want to edit it if it has a lot of typos or any profanity but the testimonial will be much more believable if you leave it in its original text.

2. Include person’s full name and other relevant data

To make the testimonial as meaningful and credible as possible, include the person’s full name, company, job position or location and age. Doing so makes the testimonial transparent to the reader – meaning they will trust it more.

3. Post small snippets in main site to support message

To make testimonials more meaningful, take relevant snippets and include them within your main site’s copy or on the side. Let’s take the rental cabin company for example. If you have a paragraph professing how much fun your cabins are for kids, include a testimonial supporting that fact somewhere nearby.

4. Create a dedicated testimonials page

Have a separate page where you include all testimonials in full in addition to using bits and pieces in your site like tip #3. Include a link entitled “see what others are saying here” after each snippet peppered through your site so visitors can easily access the full testimonials page.

5. Bold important parts of testimonials, points you want to get across

Bold parts of sentences to draw the reader’s eye to main points you want them to come away with – especially on long versions or on your dedicated page. Since most of us scan text online, we will notice bold face text. This will help customers understand what you want them to even if they don’t read the full testimonial.

6. Include testimonials in your blog too

While you have to be creative in the context you use testimonials, including them in your blog presents a great opportunity. You could perhaps include a section – “Customer Stories” – where you could provide a brief intro that would be interesting to someone checking out your services. You can then link to the full testimonial page on your site.

7. Encourage testimonials at each interaction with customers

If a customer expresses something nice about you, ask if they would be willing to allow you to use their words as a testimonial on your site. If you have any reviews on Yelp.com or other review sites, migrate them over to your site as well.

8. Encourage the use of pictures and videos

Give your testimonials an even bigger boost by including a picture or video from the customer. You can include the photo or video next to their testimonial and send them a link once it’s live so they can share it with family and friends.

Testimonials can sure be a fun part of online reputation management, providing you with kind words that you’re doing the right thing and motivating you to keep striving for the best.

As a side, remember there are rules governing the use of testimonials – now you must clearly disclose any material connections (like providing compensation for the testimonial) along with being transparent when a testimonial depicts results that are not typical.

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Posted in Articles, Online Marketing, Tip of the Day, Writing for search engines | No Comments »

Using Social Media and “Old” Content to Drive More Traffic to your Blog

Monday, April 5th, 2010

If you have been blogging for a while like we have here at SEOe, you probably have a stock pile of content that your readers may find interesting and valuable.

Saying your content is “old” however can be a bit misleading…if your blog has tips, insights and other general observations about your niche, readers will find it useful long after you initially write it. Content like this can be referred to as “evergreen” content.

Our friends over at HubSpot recently conducted an experiment with their evergreen content – using social media tools like Facebook and Twitter to get the word out about the rich content that’s on their blog, not just what visitors see on the main page.

At SEOe, we publish 3 feature posts/articles each week so it’s likely visitors and subscribers have not read every one of them. But considering the structure of our blog and what we write about, something from 6 months ago is likely relevant today.

Continue reading to see how over the course of two months, HubSpot promoted carefully selected “evergreen” blog posts, podcasts and other things to promote on social media sites. Their goal was to generate additional traffic without spending time creating new content.

1. Content Selection

To narrow down what they chose to promote, the team found prior articles that received the most comments, traffic and links. Timely content like breaking news events was excluded as were articles they felt were no longer relevant.

2. Promotion

Over the course of two months, the team promoted 57 items on Facebook and Twitter. Considering differences between the two, the team promoted 3 content items per workday on Twitter and 1 per workday on Facebook.

Another factor they considered was positioning the content…which was important since they didn’t want to interfere with promoting their new stuff.  And they didn’t want to make people think they were clicking on something old so they promoted items in a conversational tone rather than listing the title like they do for new articles.

Here’s an example of one of their “tweets,” which they posed as a question:

Stuck in a lead generation rut? Learn some new tips & tricks in our comprehensive Lead Gen Marketing Hub! http://bit.ly/LeadGenHub

To see the effectiveness of this experiment, the HubSpot team tracked the change in social media traffic to the blog. They also created unique “bit.ly” links to each of the content items and tracked clicks to those. On average, evergreen content received 198 clicks along with more traffic from Facebook/Twitter to their main blog.

Here’s one easy way to drive more traffic to your blog that doesn’t require much effort to research and implement. If you have a blog that serves as a “knowledge” resource for your readers, consider particular posts that are still relevant and promote them through Facebook, Twitter and other social media outlets.

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Five Really Dumb Grammatical Mistakes

Friday, April 2nd, 2010

We’re back talking about grammar today!!

You certainly know from reading web pages and blogs that a lot to good online writing is presenting your copy in a conversational tone…using written words to converse with your reader. In order to do this, we may have to break a few grammar rules. Ending sentences with prepositions, dangling a modifier or using ellipses liberally are just a few examples.

However, there are some grammar mistakes that are blatantly obvious to just about anyone who knows anything about grammar. Some mistakes, to put it bluntly, make you look stupid and can harm your credibility with potential customers.

Continue reading to learn five of these mistakes and how you can recognize the correct term to use when writing for your blog or website.

1. Your vs. You’re

Extremely common among bloggers, it’s easy to avoid this mistake if you take a minute and think about what you want to say. “Your” is a possessive pronoun – “your computer”, “your job” – things like that. You’re on the other hand is short for  you are, a contraction you use to say for example “you’re crazy for using bad grammar in your online copywriting!”

2. It’s vs. Its

Another common mistake that’s fortunately easy to spot. Again, take a minute and figure out what you’re trying to say. “It’s” is short for it is while “its” is another possessive pronoun. An easy rule of thumb – say the sentence out loud using “it is.” If it sounds goofy, then you should use “its.”

3. There vs. Their

A pretty common mistake that’s easy to make – especially in the rush of getting your thoughts down. I even make this mistake, catching it while proofreading.

“There” can be used to refer to a place (ex: I want to go there) or as a pronoun (ex: there is no need). “Their” on the other hand is a plural possessive pronoun (ex: their stuff, their jobs). Do a “that’s ours” test to see which one you should use. If you’re talking about more than one person and something they possess, “their will get you there.”

4. Affect vs. Effect

Another common mistake that even veteran online copywriters have to think about for a minute sometimes.

“Affect” is a verb while “effect” is a noun…it’s actually pretty easy to figure out which one you should use.  You cannot use “the” in front of a verb so think in terms of “the effect” and you can determine which one to use in your particular sentence.

5. Dangling Participles

Perhaps the most difficult to spot, this error can perhaps damage the flow of your entire piece and even confuse your readers. Basically, you’re opening phrase should modify what immediately follows. Consider the following:

After rotting in the cellar for weeks, my brother brought up some apples

This sounds like your brother is bringing some rotten apples to you – what a gift!

Instead, this sentence should probably say:

My brother brought up some apples that have been rotting in the cellar for weeks.

Readers mentally expect the opening phrase to always modify what immediately follows. If the opening phrase doesn’t do this, you’ve left a dangling participle along with some confused readers.

These are just a few common online copywriting mistakes many writers commit. It’s important you carefully review copy at least a couple of times before posting. In fact, you should give your copy a good once over and solely focus on grammar to ensure you catch any mistakes.

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Posted in Tip of the Day, Writing for search engines | No Comments »

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