There was a time when the internet was used only for research. As the popularity of the internet grew, so did the way that it was used. Today, millions, in fact billions, of individuals rely on the internet for entertainment.  If you are one of these, there is a good chance you have heard of YouTube.  You Tube is an online video website that allows visitors to view homemade videos and much more, you can now easily make and share your own videos online.

Making your own video – that sounds like fun?  Internet users of all different ages are making their own videos.  Many are used to share information with others, showcase favorite family scenes, express their beliefs, or just for pure fun.  If you are interested in making your own video you have to start with an idea.

The really good news is if you are planning on making a video for You Tube, you can relax and concentrate on producing the content, because the uploading process is probably one of the easiest  you will find online.  This is great news as so often people have good ideas for a video but are put off by the complexities of how to get the finished product onto the internet.

To make a start you will need a standard video camcorders or webcam.   You can make just about any type of video that you want but it is important to remember that your video may be seen by thousands of internet users, so it does need to be appropriate and NOT boring.

When making your video it is  important to note that You Tube does have small limitations which include the length of your video and the size of the file. Currently your video must be no more than ten minutes in length and  You Tube now compresses it when you upload via their site. The content cannot be copyright material such as snippets from TV shows or other peoples work. This also applies to music, if you use an artists music as background without permission You Tube will either remove the video or the soundtrack.

I am a member of a highly regarded online forum and one of the contributors posted a link to the video below. I know we receive all types of video fodder every day in our emails and it can be very time consuming trawling through to establish which if any are worth our time.

However there are certain things that capture the imagination and this video certainly made me watch all the way to the end. Its based around the a well known movie and creates a unique atmosphere.

What is it that creates the success many strive for?

You can have a website with everything working the way it should, plenty of links, good SEO and traffic visiting your site, but NO SALES. This is a huge problem that many online marketers have and it is not getting any easier. The thing is there are more people looking to the internet to help provide an income creating much more competition.

The one mistake with many businesses, both on and offline is not having a plan.

A plan does not need to be something that fills pages and becomes complex, it needs to be clear and simple to implement. Above all it needs to be achievable and you need to have the passion to make the plan come alive by taking the necessary action.

If you draw up your plan with a practical time frame it will put you ahead of a high percentage of the competition because most do not bother.

So for 2010 consider where your business is going and whether you need to take time out to properly plan your goals to help you make things happen and if it fits on a matchbox so be it.

Search Engine Optimisation is a subject that many people think they know what it means, yet when asked often say ” It’s what gets you onto the first page of google isn’t it?“  This is true and yet it is such a small part of the whole SEO story. There are so many myths and variables associated with this subject that books, websites and internet guru’s have committed themselves to just this one element of what really makes your website work on the internet.

I will not be going over all the historical facts of the rise and rise of SEO other than to say it is one of many things that needs to be considered when building a presence for your business on the internet. I am therefore going to lay out in a very simple and explanatory way the essential elements required with SEO.

Ok to start with when we speak of search engines, we tend to say Google because it accounts for the vast majority of searches carried out on the internet. There are many others eg MSN, Yahoo, Altavista, Lycos to name a few, and they should not be dismissed as they often do searches in a different way and can give superior results.

Search engines are essentially a document retrieval program that follow links on the internet and catalogue web pages. They analyse the pages and with the inbuilt sophistication they can figure out what the pages and websites are all about, so when you enter a search term into the the search bar you are presented with the most relevant web pages. The best analogy would be to a dating or match making service, trying to get the best match with the information available.

The three main elements of website optimisation are:

1. On page
2. Off page
3. Keywords

On page refers to the elements of your website that tell Google what to index your page under. This is achieved with things like the HTML title tags, the image ALT tags, the image file names and the textual content. The most important though is the title tag (best described as the label for your page ) which will synchronise with any off site work and help create some good results.

Off page is all about links coming in to your website. This can be achieved in so many different ways, here are a few to give you an idea: Article submissions, video with links built in, forums, and links to directories. What you are aiming to do is get your website as much exposure as possible and lift it up through the ranks in the search engines.

Keywords are important and a common sense approach would be to write down all the terms you think people would be searching for in your website product or services. For example with a cake decorating theme, maybe people are looking for icing techniques or cake design. You then need to research and expand your list as though you were anticipating what someone was actually typing into the search bar. A good free tool for this is Wordtracker, there are many paid services available, but this is a great starting point.

These are some of the basics and the good thing is if you wish to build your own website there are many tools out there that can help.

I will be writing about my absolute favourite website software shortly, so take a trip back soon.

Grahame

SEO – search engine optimisation, I know it’s enough to make your eyes roll back with boredom, this is for the techies and geeks isn’t it?  Well no I don’t think so, you see many are into this in a big way and spend hours, days, weeks, months and even longer trying to ensure their websites are tuned as best as they can be. Like most things in life there is a balance to be struck and I have found doing many of the things that need to be done takes time and patience. Making sure people who visit your website have a good experience is the most important, why?.. because if the site is bad your visitor will leave and never come back. All the SEO work in the world will not make a poor website good. The resounding answer to having a great website is having great content. This means having something that your visitor will find interesting and help be of use to them.