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Friday, April 10, 2009

Two Great Tips for Optimizing Your Linkedin Account

Written by Ross Dunn and published at 1:33 PM

I came across a video on Twitter yesterday (thanks to user @mypluginplay) and after watching it I learned a few things about LinkedIn (a property where I have a profile but I haven't researched yet) that were definitely worthy of sharing.

You can change and thus optimize the public URL for your profile.
I changed mine from my name to http://www.linkedin.com/in/websitemarketer
Personally I would rather have both URLs but I like this a little better. NOTE: if anyone knows how to secure the second URL for the same profile (w/o creating a second profile) please let me know.
Where you add your website URL you can actually make a small change that allows significant customization (select the "Other" option where the link drop-down is shown). See the video for a far better example or go to my Web site marketer profile where instead of seeing "My Website", "My Blog", etc. in the list of "Websites" you will see some great customized titles that I created.

Here is the video on YouTube if you can't see it shown below; just don't click on the strange link in the YouTube description of the video - it is lame advertising.

By Ross Dunn, CEO, StepForth Web Marketing Inc.
"Step Forth and increase your bottom line, online at www.StepForth.com"

Labels: Ross Dunn, SEO Tips, Social Marketing, Tutorials, Web Marketing Tips, YouTube

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This SEO News was posted by Ross Dunn @ 1:33 PM.

Copyright ©2006-2012, The SEO News Blog, StepForth SEO Services
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Friday, February 13, 2009

You Tube yanks audio

Written by Timothy Rule and published at 11:17 AM

Last night I was looking through some of my favourite You Tube videos and stumbled across something of which I was completely unaware. You Tube is muting sound from a lot of user’s videos.

I am a huge Lord of the Rings buff and avidly seek related content on You Tube. One of my all-time favourite videos is called Namarie, a recitation of Galadriel’s lament. This is a poem taken from the Fellowship of the Ring book, recited in spoken Quenyan, an Elvish language created by J.R.R Tolkien. The original audio consisted of a reading by the person who posted the video, over a background sample of the Lothlorien track from the Fellowship of the Ring soundtrack.

This was one of the most hauntingly beautiful pieces I have ever seen on You Tube and I have watched it often. I say “was”, because as I found out last night, You Tube has completely ruined it by removing the audio.

According to the person who created and uploaded this, she wasn’t notified of this change and has no way of retrieving this even for her own personal collection.

I did some research to find out what this was all about and it didn’t take long. There were over a million results for a “WMG and You Tube” search, including quite a few of them with some pretty explicit commentary from angry users who have had their own videos or a lot of their favourites ruined.

This started back in December of last year with this official post from You Tube, which seems a little vague on what was to follow. In that post they mention the options available upon receipt of a takedown notification. However, many of the complaints I viewed were from people upset at the fact that they weren’t notified before or after this was done.

Perhaps they aren’t getting takedown notifications because, rather than actually taking the content down, You Tube is just chopping out the audio.

Upon looking into this further, I came upon a more detailed reason for all this…money. Warner Music Group wants more money from You Tube for users viewing videos that contain any portion of music copyrighted under any of their many labels.

One would think they’d like having the free advertising. Do they really think having their music removed from You Tube is going to generate more sales?

I find it difficult to believe that I can’t hear this video anymore because it contains a small part of the movie soundtrack, and yet I can watch the Lord of the Rings movies in their entirety on You Tube for free.

Ironically, it was this video that encouraged me to go out and buy a copy of the movie soundtrack, which is in fact owned by Reprise Records, a Warner owned label.

I checked out a lot of videos of many artists under WMG labels on You Tube and there are large numbers still unaffected by this. I suppose it’s a lengthy process to effectively neuter so much content.

In the long run, I think this will hurt both You Tube and WMG. You Tube for the poor treatment to their users and the end result of having a ton of useless content when this is all done. And now, rather than receiving “too little” WMG will now receive zero revenue from this media.

Personally, I tend to agree with the headline of this post. This whole thing is ludicrous and it’s too bad for WMG if the advent of technology is making them obsolete. Perhaps they should just accept the inevitable and fade away.

“Two thumbs down” to both Google-owned You Tube and the Warner Music Group on this one.

Labels: Google, Rants, Tim Rule, Video, YouTube

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This SEO News was posted by Timothy Rule @ 11:17 AM.

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Tuesday, February 10, 2009

SEO Answers: How a Search Engine Ranking is Created

Written by Ross Dunn and published at 3:32 PM

At least a few times a month I get asked various questions about why a search engine ranking looks the way it does.

For example, someone might ask me how they can influence the description and/or title that Google gave their website in their search engine ranking. But easily the most prominent question is "what are those links that show up under some #1 rankings? How can I get those?"

Well, I think it is time to introduce you to a great little video featuring Google's own Matt Cutts in November 2007. The video is an excellent section by section walkthrough of what you know as a search engine ranking but Google calls a snippet. Enjoy!

by Ross Dunn, CEO, StepForth Web Marketing Inc.

Labels: Google, SEO, SEO Answers, SEO Tips, Video, YouTube

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This SEO News was posted by Ross Dunn @ 3:32 PM.

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Friday, March 28, 2008

YouTube Introduces Insight

Written by Scott Van Achte and published at 1:40 PM

Have you ever wondered exactly when and where viewers watch your YouTube videos? YouTube Insight, a new tool has been created by Google's engineering team in Zurich, to allow users to dive deeper into the statistics behind their posted videos.

Guardian.co.uk reported on the new addition Thursday morning.

"We know a lot of data about video consumption and we want to give some of that back," Jacobi said. "A lot of bands use the site, and YouTube Insight is a very easy way to work out where in the world your fans are. That's very important for planning, marketing and touring, and helps tailor their product."

Users will now be able to see statistics such as how often their videos are viewed in different geographic regions, overall popularity against related videos, the lifecycle of videos, and what happens to your videos as popularity peaks. Soon they will also be adding additional features including what time of day your videos get the most views, and how viewers discovered them in the first place.

To view statistical information about your Videos, follow these simple steps:

Log into your YouTube account

Click "account" at the top right

Near the top left, hover over "My Account" and select "Videos, Favorites, & Playlists"

Click the "About this Video" button to the right of the video you are interested in.

More information can be found in the YouTube blog.

Labels: Scott Van Achte, YouTube

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This SEO News was posted by Scott Van Achte @ 1:40 PM.

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Tuesday, March 18, 2008

Google, Youtube, Blocked by China

Written by Scott Van Achte and published at 2:50 PM

In order to help curb the possibility of rioting, the Chinese government has blocked all access to both YouTube and Google News to prevent the viewing of news reports and video footage documenting riots and protests in Tibet. Other web properties blocked include giants Yahoo, CNN, and the BBC.

Cnet reported on the blockage over the weekend and many others such as the New York Times have also picked up the story.

Google has before been blocked by the Chinese government. Back in 2002 searches through the internet giant were blocked to the Chinese population leading into a Communist Party congress in November of that year.

In 2002 the Chinese government reported that an estimated 45.8 million Chinese were online. In July of 2007 this number had increased to approximately 137 million. Since then the total of those online has continued to skyrocket. According to Nielsen/NetRatings, and reported at the Register, the communist country, exceeded that of the US and reached an estimated 216 million online users by the end of 2007.

Labels: Google, Scott Van Achte, YouTube

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This SEO News was posted by Scott Van Achte @ 2:50 PM.

Copyright ©2006-2012, The SEO News Blog, StepForth SEO Services
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Tuesday, March 04, 2008

Today's Social Media Linkforth

Written by Andrew Clough and published at 12:48 PM

When building a new site you want to create a powerful and respected reputation on the web. A company or individual can do this by having a great homepage (lots of great content and a blog), finding the appropriate communities to share their expertise, creating publicity, and building their brands image (expanding community).

A structured social media campaign can provide lots of traffic to your site. Social media can be indexed in organic listings and provide links to your site. The important point brought out in this article is to not just make a few attempts at social media but to keep on trying. A business should be encouraged to consistently provide new content to social sites because its a great way for their content to be promoted.

Social media ideally helps to find the best (current, peer reviewed) information available on the web. To be seen as "highly important information" people must be able to find it, want to link to it, and it should be so good that people want to share it with people who have similar interests. The best way to do this is to provide informed, engaging, and unique content.

More and more people who grew up with the web are using it as a trusted space to find unbiased news. Surveys have shown that people are becoming frustrated with traditional news sources because they lack quality and are out of touch with today's generation.

Youtube will be allowing live video this year. That means that people can broadcast themselves and what they are up to 24/7 and promote it to an already large user base. It should make for some interesting content and provide an exciting new venue for people to interact.

Labels: Link Forth, Reputation Management, Social Marketing, YouTube

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This SEO News was posted by Andrew Clough @ 12:48 PM.

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Sunday, February 24, 2008

YouTube Offline

Written by Ross Dunn and published at 12:51 PM

It appears that YouTube is having some serious problems because it has been unreachable for over an hour now. I checked with a fellow Twitterer and there is no question this is a widespread outtage.

What I find the most odd... Is there isn't even a error page provided by Google which is highly irregular and does not bode well.

I hope you are all having a great weekend. Tomorrow I am off to Santa Clara for SMX West... I hope to see some of you there. If you want to hookup drop me a note: Ross at StepForth and that dot com thing.

Labels: Google, Ross Dunn, smxwest08, YouTube

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This SEO News was posted by Ross Dunn @ 12:51 PM.