I am back blogging

I am excited to be back in front of the camera after 7 months away.  I am shooting the videos in my home office now and over the coming weeks will tweak the various components from lighting to audio to support.  I have trial a direct upload from my screen capturing software, what do you think?  Do I need any of the intros etc?  I thought I would whack this video up as a test though.

Anyway I am excited to be back and look forward to being able to announce details of an exciting course I am writing on Online Video Production.

Advanced Web Ranking

It has been a while since I last blogged and quite a bit has happened to me since then.  Briefly I have left Stew Art Media and I have taken up a contract with NMIT as the Online Coordinator.  I will maybe delve more deeply into the reasons behind this decision at a later time but rather now I would like to walk you through the proccess of establishing an SEO strategy at NMIT, specifically setting up the reporting tools.

The two main pieces of software I am purchasing will be Market Samurai and Advanced Web Ranking.  Market Samurai because I love the ease it provides for doing keyword analysis and Advanced Web Ranking specifically for tracking the ranking result.

This blog piece will review the process so far in installing Advanced Web Ranking other blogs will focus on other steps in the process.

Joel Krigsman and I have been talking about anchor text for a while.  Yes he has no girlfriend and I have no life. But seriously we have been talking about how Google registers anchor text in sites.  We know that Google crawls the web via links and rewards sites with lots of good links and can penalise a site with too many bad links.

 The test comprises of the following:

• This page on this blog aaatestaaa
• Links off this page to
  •  a page on a partner site dddtestddd
  • a pdf hosted on this site eeetesteee
    • the pdf also links to the page on the partner site

We are using and stuffing keywords in all these pages phrases that currently don't rank in Google Australia Search (pages from Australia).  We will report further on this test in the coming weeks.

Christian iPhone App

I recently made a christian iPhone app for my wife's site, Daily Devotions.  I used a app making service online from appmakr.com.  I added Google Ads so I could better track impressions and use, and hopefully make a dollar or two to support the site.

Appmakr don't provide any reporting stats but the reports from both Feedburner and Google Adsense indicate between 700-1000 impressions a day and a reach (Feedburners term) of approximately 300-500 users per day.  Also we have seen a massive jump in listeners to the podcast.  The most recent sermon in the podcast section of the app has had over 500 downloads according to Feedburner.  This is a massive jump from the 10-25 downloads the files used to receive.

Later blogs I will provide statistics as I have today begun a SEO campaign to try and rank for the phrase Christian iPhone App, I will keep you posted.

Server Hosting

I have been thinking lately of changing my server arrangements.  I would be very interested in anyone opinions on the following suppliers: Web24 and WebCity

Its not that I am unhappy with my current arrangements in fact the prices are fantastic, but I think I need to experiment a little more with CPanel and the like so I can become more proficient in its use.

Maybe a reseller account where I can have multiple sites on the same account, any thoughts??

Intro Video as a Brand Video or Brand Statement

This week we discuss the benefits of an intro video.  Should we add one to our YouTube videos. We look at some samples from oztablepc (http://tabletpc.com.au/) and Ben (http://mechanicalmashup.tv/)

Converting Video for YouTube

Converting Video for YouTube is this weeks blog topic. Specifically a real world example from a client this week, we encode a wmv file on the MAC to the H264 CODEC for YouTube.

MSN Video becomes Bing Video, Should we care?

MSN Video is being replaced by Bing Video.  Bing Video has been re-launched and as online video producers should we be concerned? Should we pay attention to Bing Video at all?

White Balance and Correct Framing

White Balance and Correct Framing are the topics of this weeks online video production vlog.  Thanks to Barry Schwartz,  @rustybrick on twitter, for letting me use his video as an example.

Recording Sound For Video

Recording great quality sound for your video production or webcam is very important.  This week we look at some of the techniques involved