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Monday, October 15, 2012
How to add closed captions to increase Youtube video views
The single greatest tip I could give anyone on how to improve their rank in Youtube Search is to add a close captions script to their videos. This is because Youtube Search cannot detect what is in your audio files anymore; they used to generate a "machine" script using voice recognition technology, but now Youtube uses this technology to match a pre-written script to timecodes in your video.
What this means is that if you write a text file with everything you say in your video, Youtube will be able to pull that data to generate a closed caption script for you. This is such an easy thing to do that there is no reason to not do it. And better yet every word and phrase in your script is going to be considered a keyword, helping your video gain more visibility in Youtube Search results.
How to choose the best tags for Youtube videos
In this video tutorial I show you an easy way to find the best tags to place in your videos. You can also use the Youtube Keyword Tool and the AdWords Keyword Tools but the information isn't always up to date. Using the suggest box you'll get the latest trending keywords for whatever topic you are titling your video, and be able to rank higher in the results.
Realize, however, that this isn't a secret tactic. Pretty much everyone does this already, so I wouldn't expect to get too much crazy traffic by doing this. However properly tagging your videos is a simple step that won't take too much of your time to complete, and will bring you at least a few hundred more views than you would get if you didn't tag your videos at all.
Tuesday, September 18, 2012
Fair Use and Cover Songs on Youtube
As Youtube gets bigger, Google has been working out deals with major companies to make more money. Some of these deals involve how Google interprets "Fair Use" on Youtube.
The most important thing people need to understand about Youtube is that it is a privately held corporation and they are free to decide what content they will and won't monetize!
By contrast, "fair use" is a legal doctrine intended as a defense against a lawsuit.
If no one is suing you, "fair use" is simply not applicable!
And despite what you may have heard, inserting something like, "This video is a review and is protected by the fair-use policy and was made for educational purposes" provides you absolutely zero protection from your video being disabled!
The reason is thus: because it is not cost effective to sue millions of people who upload copyrighted material, major corporations are working out agreements with Youtube to ensure they don't have to file lawsuits to have copyright infringement removed from Youtube. This means it becomes very important to comply with Youtube's policies concerning the use of material you don't own in your videos, which is described at http://www.youtube.com/t/copyright_permissions
If you are interested in making a cover song or song parody it would behoove you to obtain a license for the song to show Youtube when a Content ID claim is undoubtedly placed on your video, or your monetization request is declined by a member of Youtube's copyright team.
Obtaining a license is not always as expensive as you may think, because the entertainment industry is very complex. Although one corporation may own the rights to a song, many companies have licensing agreements to large libraries of songs and they are able to sell "sub-licenses" to others.
For example, https://www.songclearance.com/
This company tends to charge $15 to issue a license for making a cover song (which includes parody). You will also need to pay royalties of your song earnings, but this is better than the $0 you would be making without a license.
The most important thing people need to understand about Youtube is that it is a privately held corporation and they are free to decide what content they will and won't monetize!
By contrast, "fair use" is a legal doctrine intended as a defense against a lawsuit.
If no one is suing you, "fair use" is simply not applicable!
And despite what you may have heard, inserting something like, "This video is a review and is protected by the fair-use policy and was made for educational purposes" provides you absolutely zero protection from your video being disabled!
The reason is thus: because it is not cost effective to sue millions of people who upload copyrighted material, major corporations are working out agreements with Youtube to ensure they don't have to file lawsuits to have copyright infringement removed from Youtube. This means it becomes very important to comply with Youtube's policies concerning the use of material you don't own in your videos, which is described at http://www.youtube.com/t/copyright_permissions
If you are interested in making a cover song or song parody it would behoove you to obtain a license for the song to show Youtube when a Content ID claim is undoubtedly placed on your video, or your monetization request is declined by a member of Youtube's copyright team.
Obtaining a license is not always as expensive as you may think, because the entertainment industry is very complex. Although one corporation may own the rights to a song, many companies have licensing agreements to large libraries of songs and they are able to sell "sub-licenses" to others.
For example, https://www.songclearance.com/
This company tends to charge $15 to issue a license for making a cover song (which includes parody). You will also need to pay royalties of your song earnings, but this is better than the $0 you would be making without a license.
Thursday, September 13, 2012
How to monetize royalty free music on Youtube videos
This official Youtube video demonstrates how to monetize a video that has royalty free music included in it and for which you have a license to use the music.
Bear in mind, Youtube's full policy for monetization can be found here. You must still comply with all Youtube's policies for monetization.
How to monetize Youtube gameplay videos
As a Youtube Partner who creates video game reviews on my channel The RPG Fanatic, I frequently get asked about whether making video game reviews are allowed to be monetized or not.
The above video explains Youtube's policy concerning video game footage and fair use. This is important information to know because unless you have permission from a developer to use gameplay footage in your videos, you must abide by Youtube's fair use policy for videogame footage.
Youtube's policy is very strict. They will not allow you to place ads on gameplay if there is no audio commentary tracks you have created yourself, and your commentary must provide educational or instructional value. This means you can't just upload video game trailers and expect to make money; Youtube won't allow you to do that.
Youtube also has an official video that demonstrates how to file a claim for videogame footage if you are invoking fair use,
For more information about fair use and DMCA on Youtube, please check the following links:
Using some copyrighted content in your video:
http://www.google.com/support/youtube/bin/answer.py?answer=143457
Youtube Video Monetization checklist:
http://support.google.com/youtube/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=2490020
Partner Help Center: Video Game and Software Content
http://www.google.com/support/youtube/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=138161
Center for Social Media: Fair Use for Documentary & Online Video Makers
http://www.centerforsocialmedia.org/fair-use
Sunday, September 9, 2012
How to setup a Youtube Show page
A Youtube Show is more than just a playlist; it is a powerful tool for promoting your videos. Youtube Shows receive top billing in Youtube Search results. If you make a show title that is exactly the same as a keyword, you will always have your videos shown at the top of the search page for that keyword.
For example, I made a show called "Online Games" for my MMORPG related videos. Online Games receives several hundred thousand searches on Youtube per month. My videos now rank at the top of Youtube search results simply because they are connected to my show that has those keywords!
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| Youtube Shows are more than just a playlist! |
Shows also appear on their own special search page, http://www.youtube.com/shows. They can also have the episodes made available for rental through Youtube.
Unfortunately a Youtube Show is an exclusive option for select Partners. Youtube does not give it to every channel. However networks tend to allow all channels associated with them to have a Show, so this tutorial can be useful to helping networked Partners learn how to use a Show page.
When naming a show, you should use the Youtube Keyword Suggestion tool to decide on the name. Try to pick something that is receiving lots of searches but doesn't already have a Show created for it. Youtube Search rarely displays more than one Show on the search page, unless that keyword is getting millions of searches every month.
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| It's important to fill out everything correctly to have a show approved! |
Several things can get your show rejected;
- Making a show that has the same name as an existing Show
- Adding videos which have "extra tags" in their description. All tag blocks should be in the "Tags field" of the video. If you want to use keywords in your description, put them in the form of a sentence.
- Not submitting high quality images for your Show.
- Not including any videos as episodes for your Show.
- Having video titles that are much too long or repeat words too much (for example, if your show is called "Bob's Game Reviews" then don't put "game review" in the title of your videos. Your show title will automatically be part of the title of all episodes attached to the Show page).
If a show is rejected, the Youtube employee will have notes saying what needs to be done for the show to be approved. Unfortunately you won't get an email if your show is approved or rejected, so you will need to check back on your Show tab to see if it was approved. It may take up to a week for someone to review your submission.
Sunday, September 2, 2012
Mod Abuse at Animeshinbun.com and other social sites
Originally written on August 26th, 2012
This is why I hate the internet and social media sites like reddit, n4g and Wikipedia. They are such a pain in the ass to submit to, even when you're following the guidelines. And it has nothing to do with whether the site is user friendly or not; it's because these companies give way too much power to a select few users called moderators.
I was doing my usual social bookmarking of recently published articles from my website. In particular a piece about a Masquerade Ball held at the San Japan anime convention.
Because the event is anime related (it took place at an anime convention and more than a few of the people in the video are dressed in cosplay) and was Legend of Zelda themed, I submitted it to Animeshinbun rather than n4g (which is owned by the same company as AnimeShinBun.com, HavaMEDIA), because, in my experience, n4g's crowd tends to be extremely anti-anime and even more anti-cosplay.
My belief is the article would do better on Anime Shin Bun than n4g, and anyone who knows anything about these websites would agree with that assessment.
However, as sometimes occurs with these sites, some mod named lavalamp 1138 flagged it for "not being anime related" and told me to go post it on n4g.
I protested the flagging and so did several other users using the "Disagree" option, but lavalamp1138 manually set the submission to "Fail" when it looked like his report was going to be automatically over-ruled by all the Disagreements against his report by the user base.
Not one to give up easily, I decided to resubmit the submission but lavalamp1138 instantly appeared to reject the submission again.
Because I am so freakin tired of this crap constantly occurring, I decided to fight back.
I messaged lavalamp1138 with a declaration that I was reporting him, as well as PMing every other mod I could find on the site about what he did. Then I sent a ticket in the admins of the website as well.
I would show you a screenshot of the original submission and report filed by lavalamp1138 but in response to my threat, he used his mod powers to transform my failed submission back into Pending status in order to delete his original action against the submission (turning it to Pending deleted his original report and that he manually made it Failed), after I told him flat out I was filing reports against him.
I view this change of status to my article as only as an attempt to hide the evidence of what he was doing and most likely has been doing to many other user submissions. My belief is that he would manually set an article to Failed that belongs on the site so that his own submissions have less competition from high quality articles like mine which could be very popular with the users.
And that is why I've made this article; if he is doing it to others, it needs to be brought to light so his mod powers are revoked. Who knows how many other people he has been screwing over? Hell, who knows how many other mods are doing the same thing he is doing?
It would NOT be the first time volunteer mods at social book mark sites have abused their positions to get better exposure for their own promoted work. Such has been reported on by other news sources, and here are a few examples,
Realize I don't have any proof that Lavalamp1138 is a marketer, but it's the only answer that makes any degree of sense to me. His actions are completely out of character for what a mod at Anime Shin Bun should be doing with his powers if his goals are in line with those of the site he works for.
I mean, one look at Lavalamp1138's own submission feed shows he posts about many videogames which have nothing to do with anime. And as I pointed out in our conversation, The Legend of Zelda has way more manga books based on it than The World Ends With You does.
But it shouldn't even matter because the article I submitted took place at an anime convention and Anime Shin Bun is for anything about Japanese anime AND videogames. And Zelda is one of the most well known Japanese videogame franchises, right up there with Mario and Sonic.
And for the record, I did try submitting the article to n4g, where it received no votes and one troll comment,
By contrast, in the same amount of time the story has a 90 degree rating on Anime Shin Bun,
Now you might think this is nothing to get worked up over, but you'd be wrong. For an upstart website like Weekly Texas Jump which has no money for advertising, social bookmarking sites like Anime Shin Bun are vital for news to reach their intended audiences. Within a few hours of something hitting the front page of Anime Shin Bun, it can receive thousands of views.
This is a very big deal, because information sharing is now community driven. Users being barred from sharing information because it might be more popular than someone else's submission is a huge issue, and it's something I've been repeatedly experiencing from volunteer mods -- for example, a few months back I was banned from GiantBomb by a mod who deleted a several long threads where users were talking about one of my videos, and from GoNintendo's forums for daring to put a link in my signature that went to my Youtube channel.
And it's not like I submitted a beta key giveaway or something; this is a quality article and video which can demonstrate why Weekly Texas Jump is a good source of information related to anime and anime conventions in the Texas area.
Also unlike reddit, Anime Shin Bun encourages web masters to submit content from our websites,
It's basically like saying, "Hey you there Mr. Marketer. Would you like to be able to block other people's submissions from our website so you can get to the top easier?"
The people who submit the most content to social book-marketing sites are marketers. Don't think it's not true, because it is. Every action anyone takes has a motive and the simplest motive for submitting hundreds of entries to a site like Anime Shin Bun is because you're trying to market something for someone.
And I believe too many of these social bookmarking websites allow people to become mods because they prefer volunteers to do most of the community management tasks (so they don't have to pay them salaries) without ever questioning why a regular user would want to become a mod.
For many mods, their "volunteering" allows them the opportunity to deny others the ability to promote on a website while ensuring they and their company are able to. This abuse of their positions has been reported on by many other websites.
So here is what I propose. If you've stumbled upon this article because you've also had trouble with moderators on sites owned by HavaMEDIA, here's the contact form on their website. Send some complaints about their moderators, along with a link to this article.
Maybe if enough people complain they will make some changes to get rid of the volunteer mods and hire real employees who've had background checks and can ensure they won't use their mod tools to block rival news companies from posting to the service.
UPDATE: As of September 1st, 2012 the article is now public, but not before it entered Failed status one more time. Because the article ended up at the very bottom of the Pending feed nobody saw it. Fortunately one of the mods manually approved it, archaic, who is apparently the site community manager.
Though it finally went live, it is rather absurd it took over a week for this submission to to go live, all because of what lavalamp did. The silliness of the situation was even commented on by another user,
I'm not privy to what occurred between the mods but I hope lavalamp1138 was told to never do something like this again. But that's probably too hopeful.
What I do know is that the article has a 160 degree rating on Anime Shin Bun a day after going live,
...and on n4g it has a 20 degree rating even after 5 days on the site.
In the end I was correct to put it on Anime Shin Bun. This is where the submission belonged.
Enjoy this article? Follow Carey on Google+ to stay up to date!
This is why I hate the internet and social media sites like reddit, n4g and Wikipedia. They are such a pain in the ass to submit to, even when you're following the guidelines. And it has nothing to do with whether the site is user friendly or not; it's because these companies give way too much power to a select few users called moderators.
I was doing my usual social bookmarking of recently published articles from my website. In particular a piece about a Masquerade Ball held at the San Japan anime convention.
Because the event is anime related (it took place at an anime convention and more than a few of the people in the video are dressed in cosplay) and was Legend of Zelda themed, I submitted it to Animeshinbun rather than n4g (which is owned by the same company as AnimeShinBun.com, HavaMEDIA), because, in my experience, n4g's crowd tends to be extremely anti-anime and even more anti-cosplay.
My belief is the article would do better on Anime Shin Bun than n4g, and anyone who knows anything about these websites would agree with that assessment.
However, as sometimes occurs with these sites, some mod named lavalamp 1138 flagged it for "not being anime related" and told me to go post it on n4g.
I protested the flagging and so did several other users using the "Disagree" option, but lavalamp1138 manually set the submission to "Fail" when it looked like his report was going to be automatically over-ruled by all the Disagreements against his report by the user base.
Not one to give up easily, I decided to resubmit the submission but lavalamp1138 instantly appeared to reject the submission again.
Because I am so freakin tired of this crap constantly occurring, I decided to fight back.
I messaged lavalamp1138 with a declaration that I was reporting him, as well as PMing every other mod I could find on the site about what he did. Then I sent a ticket in the admins of the website as well.
 |
| My brief conversation with mod lavalamp1138 |
I would show you a screenshot of the original submission and report filed by lavalamp1138 but in response to my threat, he used his mod powers to transform my failed submission back into Pending status in order to delete his original action against the submission (turning it to Pending deleted his original report and that he manually made it Failed), after I told him flat out I was filing reports against him.
 |
| The altered post. Notice his report has been deleted, but the last change before was Failed. Rather than let the community decide, he manually blocked the submission until I raised hell. |
I view this change of status to my article as only as an attempt to hide the evidence of what he was doing and most likely has been doing to many other user submissions. My belief is that he would manually set an article to Failed that belongs on the site so that his own submissions have less competition from high quality articles like mine which could be very popular with the users.
And that is why I've made this article; if he is doing it to others, it needs to be brought to light so his mod powers are revoked. Who knows how many other people he has been screwing over? Hell, who knows how many other mods are doing the same thing he is doing?
It would NOT be the first time volunteer mods at social book mark sites have abused their positions to get better exposure for their own promoted work. Such has been reported on by other news sources, and here are a few examples,
Realize I don't have any proof that Lavalamp1138 is a marketer, but it's the only answer that makes any degree of sense to me. His actions are completely out of character for what a mod at Anime Shin Bun should be doing with his powers if his goals are in line with those of the site he works for.
I mean, one look at Lavalamp1138's own submission feed shows he posts about many videogames which have nothing to do with anime. And as I pointed out in our conversation, The Legend of Zelda has way more manga books based on it than The World Ends With You does.
But it shouldn't even matter because the article I submitted took place at an anime convention and Anime Shin Bun is for anything about Japanese anime AND videogames. And Zelda is one of the most well known Japanese videogame franchises, right up there with Mario and Sonic.
 |
| Final Fantasy is so anime, right?? |
And for the record, I did try submitting the article to n4g, where it received no votes and one troll comment,
 |
| 10 degree rating on n4g. As expected, n4g's crowd hated it cause it was cosplay. |
 |
By contrast, in the same amount of time the story has a 90 degree rating on Anime Shin Bun,
Now you might think this is nothing to get worked up over, but you'd be wrong. For an upstart website like Weekly Texas Jump which has no money for advertising, social bookmarking sites like Anime Shin Bun are vital for news to reach their intended audiences. Within a few hours of something hitting the front page of Anime Shin Bun, it can receive thousands of views.
This is a very big deal, because information sharing is now community driven. Users being barred from sharing information because it might be more popular than someone else's submission is a huge issue, and it's something I've been repeatedly experiencing from volunteer mods -- for example, a few months back I was banned from GiantBomb by a mod who deleted a several long threads where users were talking about one of my videos, and from GoNintendo's forums for daring to put a link in my signature that went to my Youtube channel.
And it's not like I submitted a beta key giveaway or something; this is a quality article and video which can demonstrate why Weekly Texas Jump is a good source of information related to anime and anime conventions in the Texas area.
Also unlike reddit, Anime Shin Bun encourages web masters to submit content from our websites,
"Submitting your stories to a newsboiler site can be a great way to promote your site and to gain new readers."I'm really quite fed up with the lack-luster attitude many social bookmarking sites have when it comes to how much authority they give a select number of users who are chosen not for real-life credentials but because they are active on the website.
It's basically like saying, "Hey you there Mr. Marketer. Would you like to be able to block other people's submissions from our website so you can get to the top easier?"
The people who submit the most content to social book-marketing sites are marketers. Don't think it's not true, because it is. Every action anyone takes has a motive and the simplest motive for submitting hundreds of entries to a site like Anime Shin Bun is because you're trying to market something for someone.
And I believe too many of these social bookmarking websites allow people to become mods because they prefer volunteers to do most of the community management tasks (so they don't have to pay them salaries) without ever questioning why a regular user would want to become a mod.
For many mods, their "volunteering" allows them the opportunity to deny others the ability to promote on a website while ensuring they and their company are able to. This abuse of their positions has been reported on by many other websites.
So here is what I propose. If you've stumbled upon this article because you've also had trouble with moderators on sites owned by HavaMEDIA, here's the contact form on their website. Send some complaints about their moderators, along with a link to this article.
Maybe if enough people complain they will make some changes to get rid of the volunteer mods and hire real employees who've had background checks and can ensure they won't use their mod tools to block rival news companies from posting to the service.
UPDATE: As of September 1st, 2012 the article is now public, but not before it entered Failed status one more time. Because the article ended up at the very bottom of the Pending feed nobody saw it. Fortunately one of the mods manually approved it, archaic, who is apparently the site community manager.
 |
| And also the admin for Bulbapedia.... |
Though it finally went live, it is rather absurd it took over a week for this submission to to go live, all because of what lavalamp did. The silliness of the situation was even commented on by another user,
I'm not privy to what occurred between the mods but I hope lavalamp1138 was told to never do something like this again. But that's probably too hopeful.
What I do know is that the article has a 160 degree rating on Anime Shin Bun a day after going live,
...and on n4g it has a 20 degree rating even after 5 days on the site.
In the end I was correct to put it on Anime Shin Bun. This is where the submission belonged.
Enjoy this article? Follow Carey on Google+ to stay up to date!
Sunday, August 26, 2012
How to use Tumblr to increase Youtube views
Tumblr is a blog format designed primarily for sharing images, and it has some easy to use share functions that can make content quickly go viral. Users primarily find content by subscribing to keyword tags like "gamer" or "roleplaying", and will then see any submissions users' post with those tags in their activity feeds.
For example, here are all the recent tumblr posts with the tagged keyword "youtube" and here are some with youtube-community.
For example, here are all the recent tumblr posts with the tagged keyword "youtube" and here are some with youtube-community.
Some people actually use Tumblr as their primary website but I personally find it more suitable as an auxiliary site to compliment my primary website with back-links and provide extra reach; for example, my tumblr RPG Video Reviews focuses on reaching gamers on Tumblr by using videogame related tags for my submissions.
Now there are a few ways you can use Tumblr to increase your Youtube views and in this article I'll talk about each one.
#1 Photo Sharing
This strategy works best in conjunction with the Pinterest strategy for getting traffic to your Facebook Page. Ideally, you want to add a funny or shocking image to your tumblr and then have the click-through link be to your Pinterest board where you already have images pinned from your Facebook Page and primary website, along with videos from your Youtube channel.
It's important to ensure you tag your articles so they will be seen. Fortunately tumblr will suggest popular tags for you based on what you are typing into the tag box, which makes it a'bit more useful than Stumbleupon which expects you to psychically pick up on what the most popular tags on the site are.
#2 Video Embedding
You also can embed your Youtube videos directly into Tumblr. The process is identical as it is with adding photos. Better yet, you can embed videos from your Pinterest boards into Tumblr posts, which gives back-links to both your Pinterest boards and your Youtube channel at the same time.
#3 Tumblr Communities
Additionally, Tumblr has some special communities you can submit video content to. Here's a couple of my favorites
http://reblorg.com/about
http://storyboard.tumblr.com/
http://www.pinterestyouaredrunk.com/submit
http://stupidshitonpinterest.tumblr.com/
You can also make your own Tumblr community; for example, I've made one for the Youtube Gaming Community to submit their videos to.
You can find information on how to add a submit button to your tumblr at their official help page.
#4 Customize your Tumblr to promote your social network accounts
You can customize your Tumblr to have your Facebook Page embedded into the sidebar, along with a link back to your Youtube channel. I also like to include my Twitter feed.
For instructions on how to customize your tumblr, check out this page. You'll need some HTML knowledge to do this.
As with anything else, always use social bookmark services like Stumbleupon to drive traffic to your recent Tumblr submissions.
Enjoy this article? Follow Carey on Google+ to stay up to date!
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| Set a click through link to something you want to promote! |
It's important to ensure you tag your articles so they will be seen. Fortunately tumblr will suggest popular tags for you based on what you are typing into the tag box, which makes it a'bit more useful than Stumbleupon which expects you to psychically pick up on what the most popular tags on the site are.
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| Tags are vital on Tumblr! Don't forget them! |
#2 Video Embedding
You also can embed your Youtube videos directly into Tumblr. The process is identical as it is with adding photos. Better yet, you can embed videos from your Pinterest boards into Tumblr posts, which gives back-links to both your Pinterest boards and your Youtube channel at the same time.
#3 Tumblr Communities
Additionally, Tumblr has some special communities you can submit video content to. Here's a couple of my favorites
http://reblorg.com/about
http://storyboard.tumblr.com/
http://www.pinterestyouaredrunk.com/submit
http://stupidshitonpinterest.tumblr.com/
You can also make your own Tumblr community; for example, I've made one for the Youtube Gaming Community to submit their videos to.
You can find information on how to add a submit button to your tumblr at their official help page.
#4 Customize your Tumblr to promote your social network accounts
You can customize your Tumblr to have your Facebook Page embedded into the sidebar, along with a link back to your Youtube channel. I also like to include my Twitter feed.
For instructions on how to customize your tumblr, check out this page. You'll need some HTML knowledge to do this.
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| Customizing your Tumblr will also help you look more professional, encouraging visitors to pay more attention to what you post! |
As with anything else, always use social bookmark services like Stumbleupon to drive traffic to your recent Tumblr submissions.
Enjoy this article? Follow Carey on Google+ to stay up to date!
Friday, August 24, 2012
Submit your Youtube videos to related Wikis
Did you know that many niche wiki sites allow Youtube video submissions?
For example, the Shin Megami Tensei wikia has a helpful feed appearing on nearly every page of their site which displays an assorted number of videos users have added to the feed. So I added several of my own videos related to that franchise to increase their exposure.
Here's a screenshot of some of my videos added to their database.
Just make sure your video actually has something to do with the article in question or you'll find your videos deleted by mods.
You might also want to keep tabs on these articles, because competitors like to delete links from wikia sites. Yes, there is an unfortunate dark side to wikias. This is the #1 reason why I made my own wiki game database website, RPG Fanatics. We don't allow regular users to delete user submissions and encourage everyone to share their videos.
Anyway, when submitting to the wikia feed app, keep in mind the videos tend to be organized by their titles alphabetically. You should also try to make the title something that will be at the top of the page.
Lastly you can also attempt to embed your videos into wiki articles, though this can often attract the attention of competitors who want to delete your videos and insert their own, or simply delete any videos or links added to an article they have links at. This can be hit and miss, and getting involved in edit wars is something you should try to avoid because it nearly always ends poorly.
After submitting your video into a page you should then share the link on social bookmarking sites like Stumbleupon and Reddit. This will help them gain visibility. Sure, other people's videos are on these pages too but if your video has an attractive enough thumbnail and title you can stand out of the crowd!
Enjoy this article? Follow Carey on Google+ to stay up to date!
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| A wikia's "Add A Video" popup! |
For example, the Shin Megami Tensei wikia has a helpful feed appearing on nearly every page of their site which displays an assorted number of videos users have added to the feed. So I added several of my own videos related to that franchise to increase their exposure.
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| My videos at the top of the feed |
Here's a screenshot of some of my videos added to their database.
Just make sure your video actually has something to do with the article in question or you'll find your videos deleted by mods.
You might also want to keep tabs on these articles, because competitors like to delete links from wikia sites. Yes, there is an unfortunate dark side to wikias. This is the #1 reason why I made my own wiki game database website, RPG Fanatics. We don't allow regular users to delete user submissions and encourage everyone to share their videos.
Anyway, when submitting to the wikia feed app, keep in mind the videos tend to be organized by their titles alphabetically. You should also try to make the title something that will be at the top of the page.
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| Embedding videos is a great way to get views BUT can also attracted unwanted attention from wiki editors who delete competitor links. |
Lastly you can also attempt to embed your videos into wiki articles, though this can often attract the attention of competitors who want to delete your videos and insert their own, or simply delete any videos or links added to an article they have links at. This can be hit and miss, and getting involved in edit wars is something you should try to avoid because it nearly always ends poorly.
After submitting your video into a page you should then share the link on social bookmarking sites like Stumbleupon and Reddit. This will help them gain visibility. Sure, other people's videos are on these pages too but if your video has an attractive enough thumbnail and title you can stand out of the crowd!
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Monday, August 20, 2012
Pinvolve App allows Facebook Page images to be pinned!
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| Pinvolve is pretty sweet! |
The Pinvolve app launched last April and has already taken the internet by storm because it fills a niche with a big demand; allowing you to pin images from Facebook Fan Pages to Pinterest boards. Normally you can't do this, which sucks because Pinterest boards would be a terrific way to drive traffic to your Facebook Fan Pages.
That's why Pinvolve is so great. It makes it possible to do just that. In a couple minutes I was able to create this Anime Cosplay Photos and Pictures web album from images hosted at my Weekly Texas Jump Facebook page.
The service was even endorsed by George Takei, whose been using image sharing to build his massive Facebook following.
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| Upload images to FB that people will want to share and you'll build an audience! |
Now let me give you a really great tip. Not many people realize this but one of the most effective tactics for getting 'likes' to your Facebook page is uploading images people want to share like internet memes. Normally it is hard to get people to pin a Facebook image, because Pinterest makes it hard to do so.
But the Pinvolve app makes the process simple and fast.
I hope this article has empowered you on how to better promote your Facebook Page. In the comments below please let me know how things go for you as you use the app, because I'd love to know!
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Looking for more information about what you can do with Facebook Pages? Check out these other articles I've written.
- The Importance of Facebook for Youtube Partners
- Buying Facebook Ads
- Send a Mass friend invite on Facebook
- Facebook Pages now show Reach
Myvidster.com for social sharing your video bookmarks
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| Myvidster.com |
I made an account the other day to promote my Youtube videogame videos and I'd like to share with you some tips on how to effectively use the service.
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| Web Albums are key to using Myvidster |
Firstly, you should create your collections using long tail keywords, such as Video Game Video Reviews. As I've talked about in previous articles these phrases are easier to capture search engine traffic for because fewer people use them but many people search for these terms.
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| Long tail keywords are the most ideal! |
Your profile also has an RSS feed (for example, here's mine). Just as you would with any other RSS feed you should submit them to directory sites that accept them.
Lastly you can create a group where other members are allowed to share videos to your albums. For example I created this MyVidster group for sharing Video Game Videos .
There's not much else I need to say about the service. It's a social bookmarking tool focused on videos and many categories have little content, so early adopters can take advantage of the site to drive traffic to their videos.
Hey, have you heard about Youtube Money Storm? Click Here To Learn More!(Advertisement)
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Sunday, August 19, 2012
Get more Youtube views by using Yahoo! Answers
The other day I came across this blog article that does a great job of running through the basics of how to use Yahoo Answers to drive traffic back to your blog, but felt I could give some additional tips for how you can use the service specifically for promoting Youtube videos.
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| Plug links to your videos to answer questions |
You will have competitors attempt to flag your responses as "spam" but if you are chosen as the Best Answer by the person who opened the question you will get the top spot on the page.
I like to use the shortened URLs for articles on Yahoo Answers!, using a service like the one Google offers. It tends to make the article look tidier and more attractive to users, especially if your video URLs are massively long because they are connected to playlists.
Unfortunately back-links from Yahoo Answers! are nofollow tagged so they don't add link juice but search engines still use links from the service for determining authority, which does help your rankings in the search engines.
One thing I'd suggest doing is make a video response to common questions people ask on Yahoo Answers! and then post the video URL as an answer to every open question where that answer applies.
Note that Yahoo Answers! won't make it terribly easy for you to start off as a new user. All brand new accounts begin at level 1 and any links you place won't become clickable backlinks; people will need to copy and paste the urls to see your content.
However once you gain about 250 points you'll be made a Level 2 user and all links you have ever posted as an answer will become click-able backlinks.
The most important value of using Yahoo Answers! is you'll get a tiny amount of authority ranking of your videos to search engines, and your answer will be seen by other people searching the site for answers to a similar question. Occasionally Yahoo Answers! posts become the top Google or Bing search result for a common question.
Lastly, you can also help your answers rank higher in search engines by plugging them in your Squidoo articles or using a service like Netleeks, both are services I've written about in previous articles.
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Saturday, August 18, 2012
REVIEW: Netleeks bursts your links for quick page SEO
Today I'm going to let you know about a cool new site that launched this year called Netleeks.
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| Netleeks allows you to make great little back-link articles in minutes! |
What I love the most about Netleeks is that it allows you to quickly create a link wheel, which helps increase Page Rank rather effectively. All you need to do is submit several articles that all have back-links to pages that eventually back-link to whatever website you want to promote.
The key to using the service effectively is to submit links that share common title header (for example, the keyword 'review'), then erase the pre-generated descriptions and write original ones (this way Google won't punish the article for having duplicate content as the pages it is linking to).
In just one click you'll then have a nice little article linking to all of the articles, which will add some link juice between them all if your link wheel is setup correctly.
Here is an example of one of my bursts.
The final step of this link wheel is to submit the link burst to Stumpedia, which will add some link juice to the article since Stumpedia also grants dofollow links.
Netleeks was released in June 2012 and is quickly becoming a power player in the SEO field. I suggest you take advantage of the service now before they become more selective in who they allow to create accounts. I can see this website taking off like a rocket.
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Friday, August 17, 2012
TopBlip.com offers views and prizes to music Youtubers
I stumbled upon this website today, TopBlip.com, which is designed to integrate with Youtube videos to get them more views in the form of a contest. Unfortunately for me the site is oriented toward people who sing covers for music owned by major labels and I don't make that kind of content BUT I figure there are enough music Partners out there that someone who reads this blog might be interested.
For more information I was able to find this interview with the founders of the site, Sean and Justin Bingham, as they promote their service.
Sunday, August 12, 2012
Google Webinars provide some advice on how to SEO
Some of these webinars offer generic information but a few of them are focused on very particular niches, such as how to be a better Youtube Partner. Some of these webinars are invite-only and sent to select Partners but some of them allow anyone to sign up. Google also does a lot of webinars to help people learn how they can get their websites to rank higher in search results or how to more effectively use AdWords or Analytics.
If you're interested in checking out upcoming Google webinars, just click on the link to their page. You can also access a modest list of pre-recorded webinars which you can watch any time.
Wednesday, August 8, 2012
How to get Pinterest traffic to your videos
At first it doesn't seem obvious how Pinterest can be used to generate traffic for Youtube videos. If you simply pin your videos to the service and do nothing more, you end up with the same problem we have on Youtube; our pins get lost in the sea of other submissions and it is difficult to stand out from the crowds.
However the problem is many people use Pinterest in an ineffective way, pinning all day long without doing any actual marketing of their pins. Youtubers are no exception, and in fact many users just pump out video after video to their channel without even considering that they should embed the videos on other websites.
It's easy to get the tunnel vision because many Partners focus exclusively on thinking their only product is their video content. So they don't have a website, they don't market any products and they attempt to make money solely off the ad overlays on their videos.
This is the wrong approach.
Instead you should be trying to use your videos as part of a larger offering of content and products. Youtube views shouldn't just be about how much ad revenue you make-- the views are more valuable for their ability to drive traffic to websites. Anyone who wants to use Youtube for business purposes should be taking full advantage of this fact.
While I have a network of websites I control, my main focus of late has been on RPG Fanatics, a wiki database of games that also has powerful community engagement systems. One of the unique things about us is the way we display game box art and Pinterest gives us an excellent way to take advantage of this to market our site.
So I'll take you through the process I use to create my Pinterest boards in order to capture search engine traffic (which is how the site should be used!)
For deciding what keywords to tag our boards with, we once again turn to Google's AdWords Keyword Tool.
The keywords I decide upon are,
- "game cover" - 135,000 searches
- "boxart" - 60,500 searches
- "game covers" - 60,500 searches
- "games covers" - 49,500 searches
- "video game box" - 14,800 searches
- "game box art" - 6,600 searches
- "video game covers" - 6,600 searches
- "vg box art" - 4,400 searches
- "video game box art" - 2,900 searches
- "video game boxart" - 1,900 searches
Using these keywords means that if I can get my board to the front page of Google Search then it has the potential to reach around 67k people every month.
To make things easier on myself I install the Pinterest button add-on for Chrome. I've got hundreds of box art images on my site so I need to quickly be able to index them all.
I then created a copy macro for pasting the keywords "Video Game Cover / Boxart" after the name of each game.
After an hour of this I end up with 416 pins to my video game box art Pinterest board. I can now plug this board as a link, just as I would with any other article.
You see, I already have a modest network of game related blog articles built up on various websites, so I can add this board as a back-link to any of those articles with the anchor text using the keywords I listed above. This will send signals to search engines that they should be ranking my board for searches involving game cover art. Additionally, users on Pinterest who like the images will re-pin them to their own boards BUT the URL for my website will remain. The re-pinning is really great because it allows you to tap into audiences other users have been building with their boards.
One thing you might do is create a board for you and many other Youtubers to have your videos pinned to. For example, I've got this board titled, Videogame Videos on Youtube which my friends and I pin our videos to. I do the same back-linking with it to help it rank highly in search engine results.
The important thing to realize about Pinterest is that the boards are just an article of images with backlinks to whatever website the images are hosted on. So you could make images of cooking recipes or schematics for hacking iphones-- whatever it is your Youtube channel is about, you could make a Pinterest board to help advertise it -- but only if you have a website for your Youtube channel that is hosting the images.
So if you haven't made a website yet, go make one!
Update: I've made another article pertaining to Pinterest, this time about an app called Pinvolve that integrates with your Facebook Pages. If you plan to use Pinterest you NEED to be using this app!
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5 Easy Steps to Become a Youtube Partner?
Today I'm sharing with you an infographic that has been floating around the web, created by http://www.comescaricaremusicadayoutube.it. It uses data from the Youtube Creator Handbook which Google released several months ago and is supposed to summarize the necessary steps to become a successful Youtube Partner.
Personally speaking, I take issue with some of the facts in that book (for example, joining a network will boost your subscriber count by 90%? Not necessarily. Many networks just scheme to monetize as many channels as they possibly can and do absolutely no promotion for the overwhelming majority of channels they take in) but I thought the infographic at least summarizes the basic idea of what you're supposed to do with a Youtube channel. So I'm embedding it here for your viewing pleasure.
Before you read on I want to say the most important thing to understand is none of this stuff is special.
These are the basic things everyone should be doing, and because everyone is doing them they aren't necessarily going to bring you a ton of traffic. But they are required in order to for everything else you do to make any difference.
Nobody can find your videos if they don't have key-word rich titles, descriptions and tags; Youtube is a social network so communicating with your subscribers is vital; making videos that provide value to people's lives, rather than re-uploading someone else's music video, etc etc
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Personally speaking, I take issue with some of the facts in that book (for example, joining a network will boost your subscriber count by 90%? Not necessarily. Many networks just scheme to monetize as many channels as they possibly can and do absolutely no promotion for the overwhelming majority of channels they take in) but I thought the infographic at least summarizes the basic idea of what you're supposed to do with a Youtube channel. So I'm embedding it here for your viewing pleasure.
Before you read on I want to say the most important thing to understand is none of this stuff is special.
These are the basic things everyone should be doing, and because everyone is doing them they aren't necessarily going to bring you a ton of traffic. But they are required in order to for everything else you do to make any difference.
Nobody can find your videos if they don't have key-word rich titles, descriptions and tags; Youtube is a social network so communicating with your subscribers is vital; making videos that provide value to people's lives, rather than re-uploading someone else's music video, etc etc
Follow Carey on Google+
Tuesday, August 7, 2012
REVIEW : Youtube Subscriber Train Can Help you Get 150 New Subscribers a Month!
I'm always excited when I can tell people about a way to successfully market your channels and today is one of those moments!
There is a website called the Youtube Subscriber Train that integrates with your Youtube channel to automatically subscribe you to the last 5 accounts to use the service. Then the next 5 people to use the service will be automatically subscribed to you. In this way it is possible to get 5 subscriptions per day, and the software also penalizes users if they unsubscribe from people right away so the subscriptions tend to remain.
You can think of the service as a sophisticated "sub 4 sub" operation that ensures people don't cheat.
You can also purchase "tickets" to ride the train multiple times per day, allowing you to get subscribers faster. Another thing you can do is get a "V.I.P." pass for $7.99 which allows your channel to be in a banner rotation on every page, plus you will also appear on the page that someone sees after they ride the train. This allows thousands of people to see your channel every day!
I tested the V.I.P. service out and it actually is pretty effective at earning subscribers. The only downside is that only a handful of people can be a V.I.P. and you are bumped off the list after several other people sign up for the V.I.P. service. However you can remain on the list as long as nobody else signs up for the service, so by strategically signing up when the site is likely to get a lot of traffic (such as a weekend) you might earn a lot of subscribers if nobody bumps you off the list.
Personally I received 158 subscribers from the service during the period I was a V.I.P. and the majority of them signed up because they were genuinely interested in my channel (there are no perks for people to sign up to V.I.P.s).
The site also has a page where you can see a list of all the Youtube accounts that subscribed to you. This is useful for gauging whether people are staying subscribed to your channel or not. I like to check the lists to discover new channels and get an idea of what other kind of users are signing up for the service.
One of the things I've learned by looking at channels on the site is that many users have really poor quality videos, so it's not surprising they have difficulty getting subscribers and need to turn to a service like this. However that doesn't mean Youtube Subscriber Train can't be useful to people with high-quality videos; one of the most difficult things about building a Youtube channel is raising awareness of your videos, and my verdict is that this website does indeed build awareness of your channel.
Will the results be quick? No, because you generally only obtain 5 subscribers per day (unless using the V.I.P. service) but if you do it every day then you are getting 150 subscribers per month! That is one hundred and fifty more people who will see your status updates and latest videos, and who might share your videos with other people!
I hope you've found this review to be helpful to you!
There is a website called the Youtube Subscriber Train that integrates with your Youtube channel to automatically subscribe you to the last 5 accounts to use the service. Then the next 5 people to use the service will be automatically subscribed to you. In this way it is possible to get 5 subscriptions per day, and the software also penalizes users if they unsubscribe from people right away so the subscriptions tend to remain.
You can think of the service as a sophisticated "sub 4 sub" operation that ensures people don't cheat.
You can also purchase "tickets" to ride the train multiple times per day, allowing you to get subscribers faster. Another thing you can do is get a "V.I.P." pass for $7.99 which allows your channel to be in a banner rotation on every page, plus you will also appear on the page that someone sees after they ride the train. This allows thousands of people to see your channel every day!
I tested the V.I.P. service out and it actually is pretty effective at earning subscribers. The only downside is that only a handful of people can be a V.I.P. and you are bumped off the list after several other people sign up for the V.I.P. service. However you can remain on the list as long as nobody else signs up for the service, so by strategically signing up when the site is likely to get a lot of traffic (such as a weekend) you might earn a lot of subscribers if nobody bumps you off the list.
Personally I received 158 subscribers from the service during the period I was a V.I.P. and the majority of them signed up because they were genuinely interested in my channel (there are no perks for people to sign up to V.I.P.s).
The site also has a page where you can see a list of all the Youtube accounts that subscribed to you. This is useful for gauging whether people are staying subscribed to your channel or not. I like to check the lists to discover new channels and get an idea of what other kind of users are signing up for the service.
One of the things I've learned by looking at channels on the site is that many users have really poor quality videos, so it's not surprising they have difficulty getting subscribers and need to turn to a service like this. However that doesn't mean Youtube Subscriber Train can't be useful to people with high-quality videos; one of the most difficult things about building a Youtube channel is raising awareness of your videos, and my verdict is that this website does indeed build awareness of your channel.
Will the results be quick? No, because you generally only obtain 5 subscribers per day (unless using the V.I.P. service) but if you do it every day then you are getting 150 subscribers per month! That is one hundred and fifty more people who will see your status updates and latest videos, and who might share your videos with other people!
I hope you've found this review to be helpful to you!
How to increase Squidoo Lens Rankings
As I've mentioned in previous articles about Squidoo, embedding videos into articles I add to the website is an important part of my SEO battle plan for driving traffic to my Youtube videos. In this article I'll talk about some very easy ways I increase traffic to my lenses so they pass link juice to my primary websites.
There is a step by step PDF about what to do titled, Squidoo Step by Step. You should definitely read it before the rest of this article.
Add your articles to Squidoo focused directories
The key is to submit your lenses to directories that specialize in Squidoo content.These websites are,
Every lens you make should be submitted to all of these directories, as they will provide high PageRank backlinks to the lenses and the sites are followed by people who are looking for great Squidoo articles.
Create and submit an RSS feed for your lenses
You can also create an RSS feed for your Squidoo lenses. Normally Squidoo doesn't provide a link for this but through a third party website called http://squidutils.com/ you can obtain it. By associating your account with them you can generate an RSS feed of all your lenses, and then submit them to the directories. There is also a tool for allowing you to ping search engines when you update an individual lens.As an example, here is my lensmaster RSS feed,
http://www.squidoo.com/xml/syndicate_lensmaster/carey-martell
There are many RSS directories you can submit your feed to that will boost your rankings just by getting listed but these directories are also used by hundreds of thousands of people every month. Getting listed will introduce new audiences to your articles.
Check out this article from me for a list of directories you can submit to, as well as some info about Youtube channel RSS feeds.
Cross Promote with other Squidoo authors
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| Cross promoting with other authors is great! |
Another great technique is to reach out to other Squidoo authors and cross-promote each other's lenses and blog articles which have related subject matter. This is effective because everyone wants backlinks to their articles, and including backlinks to one another's content saves both parties from having to manually create another link.
There are even Facebook Groups formed specifically to allow Squidoo authors who wish to network to find one another.
- Post a Squidoo Lens Here
- Squidoo Facebook Community
- Squidoo Farm
- Squidoo For All
- Squidoo It All
- Ask a Squidoo Expert
- More than Squidoo Share
- Squidoo and Tweet
Granted not everyone in these groups always understands what you are trying to do. Many people do not fully understand the Penguin and Panda updates to Google Search, and seem to be under the impression cross-promotion is not allowed by Squidoo or Google.
Some of the conversations I've had with people about the topic of cross-promotion leads me to believe that they think Google can detect the motivation of every link on every article, when that is impossible. What Google does is punish content mirroring, because content mirroring is obviously being done for promotional purposes. Google also punishes linking to articles which have no relevent keywords to the page the link is coming from; for example, making an article about Dora the Explorer link to an article about astrophysics wouldn't be considered relevant, but linking Dora the Explorer article to another about cartoons would be perfectly fine.
The unfortunate reality is that many people would rather sit at their laptops all day writing their own articles on thousands of websites than collaborate with other users to maximize efforts.
In the end, it may take a lot of effort and approaching people individually to get some results with cross promotion.
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| Despite what naysayers claim, mutual backlinking is allowed on Squidoo |
Buy other people's lenses
Another thing you can do is just buy other people's pre-made lenses that have established search engine rankings, and then use them to add link juice to other articles you've made. To assist with the buying and selling of lenses, check out this Facebook Group, "Buying and Selling Squidoo Lenses".There is also this page over at webnuggetz.com where you can buy pre-made Lenses for $5.
The benefit of buying lenses is you can use them to add links to your other lenses, increasing the reach you have and expanding your network of articles.
Constantly revise your articles
Due to the way Google works, the "freshness" of an article matters. The more you update an existing page, the fresher it is valued by Google. So because of this "fresh factor" many Squidoo authors take advantage of it by revising their lenses every week and then alerting search engines to the changes by using a service like Ping-o-matic.Personally I find this tactic requires too much time and effort, largely because I already have a heavy workload. Constantly making tweaks to existing articles just to bump them a little higher isn't as worthwhile for me as creating brand new articles so they can send link juice to other articles. Still this tactic may be worthwhile for you to try.
I hope this post of mine has given you a lot of useful ideas on how you can increase views to your Squidoo Lenses and boost their rankings.
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