Thứ Bảy, 30 tháng 3, 2013

How to Create A Web-based Video Player

Preparation

As usual, before we get busy with the code, we need to prepare some stuff first, especially the video. In this tutorial, we are going to use this video from TED Talk by Kelli Anderson in Youtube. To download it, you can use this web tool, called KeepVid.com.
For wider browser compatibility, we need to provide two formats of video, MP4 and OGV. By default, when you download videos from Youtube with KeepVid.com you most likely will get the MP4 format. You can use Miro Video Converter to convert MP4 video to OGV format, it’s available for FREE for both Windows and OS X machine.
Furthermore, we also need an image file for video cover. To create this cover you can play the video with VLC and then go Video > Snapshot to take a snapshot of the video. Regarding the user interface icon, we are going to use FontAwesome. Lastly, we also need jPlayer, jQuery to run the video, as well as a new CSS file to store the video skin styles.
After collecting all this, put them in their appropriate folders, as shown below:

HTML Structure

Now, create a new HTML document and link the jQuery, jPlayer libraries as well as the CSS file in the <head> section, like so.
  1. <link type="text/css" href="css/style.css" rel="stylesheet" />  
  2. <script type="text/javascript" src="js/jquery.js"></script>  
  3. <script type="text/javascript" src="js/jquery.jplayer.min.js"></script>  
Regarding the HTML structure for our video player, it’s actually similar to the how to create an Audio Player from the previous tutorial.
Only, this time we have a button to turn the video into fullscreen format and a play button at the center of the video. Place this code below inside the <body> section.
<div id="jp_container_1" class="jp-video">  
    <div class="jp-title">  
      <h1>Kelli Anderson - Disruptive Wonder for a Change</h1>  
    </div>  
    <div class="jp-type-single">  
      <div id="jquery_jplayer_1" class="jp-jplayer"></div>  
      <div class="jp-gui">  
        <div class="jp-video-play">  
          <a href="javascript:;" class="jp-video-play-icon" tabindex="1">&#61515;</a>  
        </div>  
        <div class="jp-interface">  
          <div class="jp-controls-holder">  
            <ul class="jp-controls">  
              <li><a href="javascript:;" class="jp-play" tabindex="1">&#61515;</a></li>  
              <li><a href="javascript:;" class="jp-pause" tabindex="1">&#61516;</a></li>  
              <li><a href="javascript:;" class="jp-mute" tabindex="1" title="mute">&#61480;</a></li>  
              <li><a href="javascript:;" class="jp-unmute" tabindex="1" title="unmute">&#61478;</a></li>  
            </ul>  
            <div class="jp-volume-bar">  
              <div class="jp-volume-bar-value"></div>  
            </div>  
            <ul class="jp-toggles">  
              <li><a href="javascript:;" class="jp-full-screen" tabindex="1" title="full screen">&#61541;</a></li>  
              <li><a href="javascript:;" class="jp-restore-screen" tabindex="1" title="restore screen">&#61542;</a></li>  
          </div>  
          <div class="jp-progress">  
            <div class="jp-seek-bar">  
              <div class="jp-play-bar"></div>  
            </div>  
          </div>  
          <div class="jp-current-time"></div>  
        </div>  
      </div>  
      <div class="jp-no-solution">  
        <span>Update Required</span>  
        To play the media you will need to either update your browser to a recent version or update your <a href="http://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/" target="_blank">Flash plugin</a>.  
      </div>  
    </div>  
</div>  

Activating the Video

Activating the video is also similar to our previous Audio Player. The only difference is, this time, we need to link the video poster and the supplied formats are now m4v and ogv. Put all these scripts right below the jquery and jplayer links we have added before.
  1. <script>  
  2.     $(document).ready(function(){  
  3.       $("#jquery_jplayer_1").jPlayer({  
  4.         ready: function () {  
  5.           $(this).jPlayer("setMedia", {  
  6.             m4v: "vid/TEDxPhoenix-KelliAnderson-DisruptiveWonderforaChange.mp4",  
  7.             ogv: "vid/TEDxPhoenix-KelliAnderson-DisruptiveWonderforaChange.ogv",  
  8.             poster: "vid/TEDxPhoenix-KelliAnderson-DisruptiveWonderforaChange.png"  
  9.           });  
  10.         },  
  11.         swfPath: "/js",  
  12.         supplied: "m4v,ogv"  
  13.       });  
  14.     });  
  15. </script>  
At this stage, our video player still looks plain as shown in the following screenshot.

Adding Styles

After adding those script, you should now be able to run the video. But, the player still looks unpresentable, so let’s make it nicer by adding styles.
Open up the style.css file that we have created earlier in this post.
We will start off by adding the @font-face rule and remove the underlines from all the links.
@font-face {  
  font-family"FontAwesome";  
  srcurl('fonts/fontawesome-webfont.eot');  
  srcurl('fonts/fontawesome-webfont.eot?#iefix'format('eot'),  
       url('fonts/fontawesome-webfont.woff'format('woff'),   
       url('fonts/fontawesome-webfont.ttf'format('truetype'),   
       url('fonts/fontawesome-webfont.svg#FontAwesome'format('svg');  
  font-weightnormal;  
  font-stylenormal;  
}  
a {  
    text-decorationnone;  
}  

Video Width

Then, we specify the width of the video container and place it at the center of the browser window, like so.
.jp-video {  
    margin: 0 auto;  
    positionrelative;  
    font-familyArialsans-serif;  
}  
.jp-video-270p {  
    width480px;  
}  

Video Title

We turn the color of the title to dark grey, specify the font-size and align it to the center.
.jp-title h1 {
font-size: 1em;
text-align: center;
color: #555;
}

Play Button

Then, we style the play button. We place this button at the top over the video and to display the Play icon, we assign FontAwesome font family to it.
.jp-video-play {  
    font-family"FontAwesome";  
    positionabsolute;  
    top: 45%;  
    left: 46%;  
}  
.jp-video-play a {  
    font-size: 2em;  
    color: rgba(255,255,255,.7);  
    displayinline-block;  
    width50px;  
    height50px;  
    line-height55px;  
    text-aligncenter;  
    background-color: rgba(0,0,0,.8);  
    border-radius: 5px;  
}  

Video User Interface

The User Interface for our video player will look similar. It will have a gradient with the orange color scheme while the icons to control the video, like the Play, Pause and Volume will be in white.
.jp-interface {  
    width:100%;  
    bottombottom: 0;  
    positionrelative;  
    background#f34927;  
    background: -moz-linear-gradient(top,  #f34927 0%, #dd3311 100%);  
    background: -webkit-gradient(linear, left topleft bottombottomcolor-stop(0%,#f34927), color-stop(100%,#dd3311));  
    background: -webkit-linear-gradient(top,  #f34927 0%,#dd3311 100%);  
    background: -o-linear-gradient(top,  #f34927 0%,#dd3311 100%);  
    background: -ms-linear-gradient(top,  #f34927 0%,#dd3311 100%);  
    background: linear-gradient(to bottombottom,  #f34927 0%,#dd3311 100%);  
    filter: progid:DXImageTransform.Microsoft.gradient( startColorstr='#f34927', endColorstr='#dd3311',GradientType=0 );  
    overflowhidden;  
    -webkit-box-shadow: inset 0px 1px 0px 0px rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.1);  
    box-shadow: inset 0px 1px 0px 0px rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.1);   
}  
  
.jp-interface a {  
    color#fff;  
    text-shadow1px 1px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.3);  
}  
.jp-controls, .jp-toggles {  
    padding: 0;  
    margin: 0;   
    font-family"FontAwesome"  
}  
.jp-toggles {  
    positionabsolute;  
    top14px;  
    rightright14px;  
}  
.jp-controls li, .jp-toggles li {  
    displayinline;  
}  
.jp-play,.jp-pause {  
    width55px;  
    height40px;  
    displayinline-block;  
    text-aligncenter;  
    line-height43px;  
}  
.jp-mute,.jp-unmute {  
    positionabsolute;  
    rightright85px;  
    top: 0;  
    width20px;  
    height40px;  
    displayinline-block;  
    line-height43px;  
}  
.jp-progress {  
    background-color#992E18;  
    border-radius: 20px 20px 20px 20px;  
    overflowhidden;  
    positionabsolute;  
    left55px;  
    top14px;  
    width: 55%;  
    -webkit-box-shadow: 0 1px 1px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.2) inset;  
    box-shadow: 0 1px 1px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.2) inset;  
}  
.jp-play-bar {  
    height12px;  
    background-color#fff;  
    border-radius: 20px 20px 20px 20px;  
}  
.jp-volume-bar {  
    positionabsolute;  
    rightright40px;  
    top16px;  
    width45px;  
    height8px;  
    border-radius: 20px 20px 20px 20px;  
    -webkit-box-shadow: 0 1px 1px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.1) inset;  
    box-shadow: 0 1px 1px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.1) inset;  
    background-color#992E18;  
    overflowhidden;  
}  
.jp-volume-bar-value {  
    background-color#fff;  
    height8px;  
    border-radius: 20px 20px 20px 20px;  
}  
.jp-current-time {  
    color#FFF;  
    font-size12px;  
    line-height14px;  
    positionabsolute;  
    rightright115px;  
    top13px;  
    text-shadow1px 1px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.3);  
}  
At this point, our video player start looking nice, as shown in the following screenshot.

Video Fullscreen

We are able to switch the video to fullscreen. For that reason, we also need to add styles to specifically target when the video is in fullscreen mode, including adjusting the width and the height of the Play button, the width of the progress bar and the video should be on top of others by specifying the z-index larger.

.jp-video-full {  
    /* Rules for IE6 (full-screen) */  
    width:480px;  
    height:270px;  
    /* Rules for IE7 (full-screen) - Otherwise the relative container causes other page items that are not position:static (default) to appear over the video/gui. */  
    position:static !important;   
    position:relative;  
}  
/* The z-index rule is defined in this manner to enable Popcorn plugins that add overlays to video area. EG. Subtitles. */  
.jp-video-full div div {  
    z-index:1000;  
}  
.jp-video-full .jp-jplayer {  
    top: 0;  
    left: 0;  
    positionfixed !important;   
    positionrelative/* Rules for IE6 (full-screen) */  
    overflowhidden;  
}  
.jp-video-full .jp-interface {  
    positionabsolute !important;  
    positionrelative/* Rules for IE6 (full-screen) */  
    bottombottom: 0;  
    left: 0;  
}  
.jp-video-full .jp-gui {  
    positionfixed !important;   
    positionstatic/* Rules for IE6 (full-screen) */  
    top: 0;  
    left: 0;  
    width:100%;  
    height:100%;  
    z-index:1001; /* 1 layer above the others. */  
}  
  
.jp-video-full .jp-video-play a {  
    font-size: 3em;  
    height80px;  
    width80px;  
    line-height95px;  
}  
.jp-video-full .jp-progress {  
    width: 83%;  
}  
 
And this is how our video player looks like in fullscreen mode.

Add Shadow

This is only optional, but I would like to add shadow to make the video player look nicer and more prominent.
.jp-video-270p .jp-type-single {  
    -webkit-box-shadow: 0px 0px 5px 0px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.5);  
    -moz-box-shadow: 0px 0px 5px 0px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.5);  
    box-shadow: 0px 0px 5px 0px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.5);  
}  
 
And, that’s all the codes we need, you are now able to see the video and download the file source from the following links.

Thứ Năm, 28 tháng 3, 2013

10 Firefox Add-Ons for Designers

1. ColorZilla

Working with color is part of every designer's life. A color tool that can aid in both basic and advanced color tasks, positioned within your browser, could prove invaluable.
ColorZilla provides three ways to choose a color: Color Picker, Eyedropper and Palette Browser. You can select precise colors by pinpointing on the hue/saturation canvas, or by entering the RGB, Hexidecimal or HSL/HSV values. Give a selected color a unique name for future reference and add it to your favorites. Colors can be copied and pasted into other programs (in CSS, RGB, Hexidecimal and other formats), and you can even analyze a page and inspect its entire palette of colors.
The DOM Color Analyzer inspects the colors on any webpage, locates corresponding elements and helps determine which specific CSS rules set the colors. Interestingly, you can even create advanced multi-stop CSS gradients.
Colorzilla

2. Pencil

When designing a website we often need to draw and plan the content architecture and navigation. Pencil is an open-source tool for making diagrams and GUI prototyping, available as either a standalone application or a Firefox extension. It provides a built-in shapes collection for drawing various types of user interfaces, including flowchart elements, UI and general purpose shapes, for use in both desktop and mobile interfaces.
Export documents in a range of formats, including PNG, PDF, ODT and multi-page SVG files. With the clip art browser tool that integrates with OpenClipart.org, you can easily find images by keyword and import them using a drag-and-drop interface. Elements can be individually linked to a specific page in a document, then converted to HTML hyperlinks when exported into web format.
Pencil

3. MeasureIt

Creating pixel-perfect designs with perfectly aligned elements can be a challenge. With MeasureIt, accurately measure screen elements in pixels, so you can verify their width, height and alignment. The dimensions are displayed right next to the selected area. The resize cursor handles allow adjustments to the area after drawing it, while the drag-and-drop handle lets you move the highlighted measurement area around the browser window.
Once installed, simply click the icon, which lives on the left of the status bar, and click and drag anywhere on the page. A tiny tooltip showing the dimensions of the selected elements appears. Please note the latest release means the MeasureIt Icon doesn't automatically display in the status bar. To fix this, simply right-click on any Firefox toolbar and choose 'Customize.' In the pop-up, drag the MeasureIt icon onto your toolbar. Overall, MeasureIt is a fast, simple, single-purpose tool that is easy to get comfortable with.
Measureit

4. Stylish

Stylish allows easy installation, management and authoring of userstyles, which are CSS rules that let you change and customize the appearance of websites, within the browser. They work similarly to Greasemonkey and UserScripts.org. You can remove irrelevant content, change colors or completely redesign an entire website.
There are thousands of (user-created) styles and themes available at its companion website, UserStyles.org, so you can tweak your favorite websites to your heart's content. It also works well in combination with other extensions, such as AdBlock. Plus, help remove annoying popup ads and other distracting elements to make your browsing a cleaner, leaner experience.
Stylish

5. View Source Chart

A neat extension that allows you to visualize DOM structure accurately and efficiently, Source Chart pictorially delineates element boundaries. As the DOM becomes more complex, navigation becomes a pain, but Source Chart provides an instant, complete visualization by color coding hierarchical nesting of any tag in the viewport. This can be a huge productivity boost when compared to the standard tree-style source presentation.
To view the DOM structure, just right-click on a webpage and click on "View Source Chart." A new tab will open showing the structure of the page. Each section is color coded and clickable, so you are able to easily jump between sections of code. A bookmarklet is also available, which can be styled and customized to suit. Also of note is DOM Inspector, which inspects and edits the live DOM of any webpage.
Sourcechart

6. Firesizer

An incredibly simple extension, which ignores bells and whistles and instead concentrates on delivering a genuinely useful experience, Firesizer provides a menu and status bar to resize your current browser window dimensions. Unlike similar extensions, Firesizer sets the size of the entire window, not just the HTML area, which better reflects the environment users will actually be using. It is neat and unobtrusive (sitting in the "Add-On" toolbar) and scales with the browser window, so if the window is expanded, the values on the status bar increment in proportion.
Firesizer comes with three screen sizes by default; however, you can add custom sizes and access them all in the status bar (using a right-click). You can even store the "current size" of your browser window. For quickly testing how your website design displays at various resolutions, it's a very useful extension.
Firesizer

7. HTML Validator

This nifty extension helps you write well-formed HTML by checking your markup for standards compliance. Based on HTML Tidy and OpenSP (SGML Parser), which were originally developed by W3C, the algorithm is embedded inside the browser, with the validation done locally on your machine, without sending HTML to a third party server. The extension works by adding a small icon to the status bar, which instantly validates the code as the page loads. The details of the errors found within the document are located within the HTML source code of the page. The automatic "Clean Up" button will also suggest improvements to the markup.
The SGML parser used is the same as the one running behind the W3 Validator, and the extension has an accessibility check for the three levels defined by the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI). While the extension is officially Windows only, it is available on other platforms.
Htmlvalidator

8. Font Finder

This add-on finds the properties of selected text within the browser. It's especially useful when researching fonts used on various websites. Font Finder lets you analyze the CSS font detail for an element and modify those specifications as non-destructive edits, allowing you to conceptualize your site with an alternative font. Copy an element's information to the clipboard and disable font-families to test browser degradation. Also, adjust the style of a font (color, size or family) inline.
Access these options by highlighting the selected area and right-clicking, or by toggling the icon in the status bar. The information captured for each element is extensive and includes font color, background color (RGB or Hex), font family, font size, line-height, alignment, weight, decoration and an element's type, class and ID. It's a fantastic time saver and eliminates the need to launch Firebug and use the inspection tool, for example.
Fontfinder

9. CSS Usage

This extension, which integrates into Firebug, allows you to scan a website to uncover unused CSS style rules. It identifies which CSS rules you do and don't use and suggests unnecessary styles which can be removed, to help keep your CSS files as lightweight as possible. Colors identify elements, classes and IDs within the markup, and numbers indicate how many times they appear. Unused styles are not deleted but have the word "UNUSED" at the beginning of each style declaration, which makes for a neat, non-destructive method. The stylesheet can then be exported and edited to remove these unused styles.
To use the extension simply press "Scan," located in the "CSS Coverage" Firebug tab. This extension can prove a huge timesaver for both cleaning up and speeding up the loading time of your CSS files.
Cssusage

10. Tab Mix Plus

Tab Mix Plus enhances Firefox's browsing capabilities and makes managing tabs less of a grind. Features include duplicate tabs, undo closed tabs, controlled tab focus and much more. It has more options than you could actually imagine using. Once installed it is configured using multiple categories, each of which contains related settings to configure the extension to your own style of browsing. It also contains a Session Manager with crash recovery that can save and restore combinations or opened tabs and windows. You can even set keyboard shortcuts to allow for faster browsing and tab setup.
The protected and locked tab features are so useful you will wonder how you used Firefox without them. You can protect a tab from being accidentally closed, and lock a tab to prevent navigation from one page or URL to another.
Tabmixplus

Source mashable.com
10 Firefox Add-Ons for Designers

Thứ Tư, 27 tháng 3, 2013

Four Steps for Maximizing the SEO Potential of Your Mobile Site

The online mobile market is possibly the most rapidly expanding one at the moment – and this almost in spite of current economic outlooks, which still speak of the aftermath of the global financial crisis. The number of smartphone users in the United States literally exploded in 2012 and all experts in the field forecast a similar pattern for 2013. That being said, building the SEO potential of a mobile website is something of a paradox. On the one hand, it is very similar to search engine optimization for desktop sites, when it comes to the broader strokes. On the other, however, there are a few essential differences when it comes to the actual implementation of such a strategy.
SEO for mobile website or blog
Here are the four steps all SEO agencies should follow, when articulating this type of campaign, also accompanied by some noteworthy amendments.


1. Research Your Audience

Recent surveys have revealed that most of the webmasters who use Google Analytics for their desktop website will fail to do the same for their mobile sites. As a matter of fact, of the top ranking one million websites around the world wide web, only about 40 per cent of desktop website owners who have a Google Analytics widget installed, as well as a mobile version of said site, will analyze the traffic flux of the latter. This, of course, is not acceptable, since the metrics provided by Google are the essential starter point of any digital advertising and marketing campaign.
It is imperative that you know how your visitors are responding to your mobile site, which pages they spend most time on, and how they reach the site, in order to achieve the best possible performance results.


2. Develop Your Mobile Site

As any web dev will tell you, building a mobile site is very different from developing a desktop site. First off, you need to take into account the type of site you’re handling. E-commerce sites will want to allot a significant amount of screen real estate to their price comparison tool. A site for a brand that also has offline stores should prominently feature a ‘store locator’ tool, for people who browse on the go. Face it, when you’re checking a commercial site via mobile, it’s either for price comparisons or location seeking, most of the time. Beyond this, publishing platforms also need to be streamlined for easy access to information, as well as improved readability on smaller screens.


3. Optimize Judiciously

The actual optimization process needs to be refined according to the devices you’re targeting. Remember that tablet users had best be directed to the desktop version – while smartphone-friendly sites need to be careful how they treat Googlebot. In most cases, using the ‘m.’ version for your mobile URL will also keep things ‘cleaner’ from Google’s perspective, by avoiding tricky redirects, while also helping you manage your traffic stats with more ease.
Lots of newbie mobile site developers and webmasters are concerned about infinite loop, when it comes to putting a mobile site up online. In other words, they worry that their mobile site should not provide a link to the desktop site and vice versa, for fear that the mechanisms behind the interface will fail to subsequently redirect according to the device being used. Which brings us to the final point:


4. Keep an Eye on Those Metrics

The final point somewhat goes without saying, but it’s worth mentioning nonetheless. Website metrics should be under constant monitoring, since, with time, they will do two things for you, the webmaster.
  • Firstly, they will give you clear hints on what remains to be done, toward the goal of full mobile SEO optimization. Say you notice pages that get a high bounce rate from mobile users. You will need to look into that and find a way to make that content more easily accessible.
  • Second, metrics will help you monitor your progress toward each landmark, turn by turn, be those landmarks related to hits, clicks, social media activity, or conversion.
Remember that when you’re doing SEO, either for mobile or desktop sites, your ultimate goal is traffic. It is, however, very important to segment your progress toward your desired threshold, in order to avoid getting sidetracked along the way.

This article is in http://www.bloggersentral.com









Thứ Bảy, 23 tháng 3, 2013

Writing Tips For Bloggers

There are lots of ways you can create your blog, and the beauty of the process is that you are allowed to be as creative and original as you like. You can follow the guidelines and rules of others but there is nothing stopping you from trying something new and running with it.

Just because other blog posts are 500 words does not mean you cannot create one that is 2000 words. Just because other blogs have one picture does not mean you cannot add 12 pictures and turn the blog into a comic book style.

Your freedom from restriction is what makes blogging so fun. Here are some tips for blogging, but they are not rules (and even if they were, you should still break them at your discretion).

1. Keep your paragraphs short and sweet

Writing long paragraphs is going to bore your readers and they will leave to find easier reading. Unless your blog gives out valuable information that the reader is lost without, there is little chance that you are going to impress them with long paragraphs.

2. Do you switch from 1st, 2nd and 3rd perspective?

This is a common mistake because it takes a keen eye to spot when you do it. Do you go from writing "I" to "We" to "one"? It is hard to spot, which is why you should check each paragraph separately for which perspective it is from.

3. Do not make silly spelling mistakes

To avoid making mistakes it’s best to nip it in the bud – during the writing phase. Be sensitive to spelling mistakes like there and their, it’s and its, form and from. The occasional slip is not going to lose you a lot of readers, but making the same mistakes repeatedly is going to annoy people.

4. Do not use txt talk

Txt talk is the language used by people on mobile phones, which will save character space and make writing easier and quicker. It has its place and its uses on mobile phones, but not on a blog. It makes your blog harder to read.
The people reading your blog have been reading since childhood to the point where they can glance at text and know what it means without needing to physically read it. Txt talk however requires thought in order to interpret it, so do not use it.

5. Proof read your blog post four days later

When you have just written a blog post you cannot look upon it with a cold and clinical eye. The text is still fresh in your mind and you will have more trouble reading your text without skim reading. If you look at it a few days later you will have to read every line again, and you will pick up more of your errors that you missed the first time.

6. Proofread line by line

This may seem a bit excessive for a blog post, since it need not be perfect. Nevertheless, you will find a marked improvement in the flow of your writing and the overall quality if you consciously concentrate on one line at a time when you proofread. You may also like to find a cheap online proofreader to check for your mistakes.

7. Check for contradictions

Do not forget to check the message/content of your blog post. Some people will contradict themselves in various minor or glaring ways and be completely unaware of it because they proofread their text without noticing the theme or content. Do you say that you were not present but then describe part of the event in the first person? Do you claim that you were upset by the incident whilst also mentioning how much you laughed about it?

8. Write about things you’re passionate about

Good blogger should remember to start with content first. What does that mean? You need to have something to say before any other part of the writing can begin.

Original article was post in hongkiat.com
Writing Tips For Bloggers

How to Boost Your SEO Using Video

Tips On Using Video to Boost Your SEO

Welcome to the new MyCommerce Corner. Thank you everyone who followed us over to the new site. For our first post on the new site, I wanted to dive into another subject that Mike McAnally touched on in our webinar - videos and how they can provide a boost to an SEO strategy.

It has been said that a picture speaks a thousand words; well, videos take that to the next level. Adding videos to a website can provide a huge boost in SEO. The videos provide an Guy in_Picture easier and more exciting way for consumers to get information than reading pages and pages full of text. Youtube has grown to become the second largest search engine behind Google with the average internet user watching more than 200 hours of video online in a year. With that many people online watching videos, it would be a smart decision to create a channel and start sharing.

Here are a few tips to use the power of videos to increase the traffic to a website:

Create a YouTube or other Video Channel
Like all other social media pages, creating a channel on video sites is free and easy to do. When a video is posted it needs to be tagged with keywords and indexed, and with Google owning YouTube it is even more likely that content will appear in search results. Make sure to embed the videos posted onto other areas of the web like company website, blogs and other social media channels. This opens up the videos to the possibility a greater audience and has more links pointing back to your pages.

Stay with the keywords
Here is another place to use the same keywords from all of the other SEO activities. Before the video is even made, be sure to consider what the most popular keywords and topics are. Why waste time creating something for a target audience if it is not something in which the audience is interested?

With videos, it is important to include them keywords in the title of the video as well as in the description. Try to get 10-15 keywords for the video. Make sure to include them as close to the beginning of the title as possible and to use them in the tags associated with the video.

Link to Your Website
Here’s a trick for gaining a high-quality link back to your website. Always make sure to include a link at the front of the description back to your website followed by a well-written paragraph around a keyword or phrase. For example, if you were to visit our YouTube page you will see this as the description for our second webinar:
 
www.mycommerce.com- In 2013 Search Engines are no longer analyzing JUST your site content and keywords, they are also monitoring your overall site presence. In the second installment of our Optimizing SEO webinar series we will be looking at areas outside of your web site that need to be optimized for SEO. Blogging, social media, local/geo, linking and reviews are just some of the contents that will be covered.

The description of the video is important because it is what Google will display in search results and the keywords will tell it where it should be ranked. Words like "SEO," "Social Media" and "webinar" give Google the insight into what the video is about. After the video is posted, make sure to let your audience on every platform available know whether that is through an email, social media, website or any other method. As the website starts to get more views, it will start showing up in search results.

While it is true that video SEO can be difficult and takes time to do correctly, videos add value to the internet in an entertaining way that people like to use. With 800 million users and over 4 billion views per day, the potential audience for content is enormous. The more value a website provides to the audience, the better the search engines will rank it.
An article from http://www.mycommerce.com
How to Boost Your SEO Using Video

Thứ Năm, 21 tháng 3, 2013

How To Use Torrents

This guide is to help users in getting started in bittorrent, the most popular protocol for the transfer of music, videos, ebooks, software and other content.  There is a great deal of content available through torrents and this guide will help you to find and download that content.

What is Bittorrent?

Bittorrent is a decentralized peer to peer (P2P) distribution of content which uses the upload bandwidth of each individual who is downloading the content, and those who have downloaded, to transfer the content.  Click on the header above for more information.
  • No central server
  • Content is distributed by active users
  • Transferred content is an exact copy of the original
  • Content associated with a torrent can not be altered
  • Downloads may be stopped and re-started

Best Free Bittorrent Client

To get started in torrents, you first need to have a bittorrent client.  Click on the header above for a selection of the best free bittorrent clients.

Optimizing Bittorrent Clients for Speed

After you have chosen a bittorrent client, there are a few steps to set it up properly to be able to communicate to the other active users and to get the best speeds.  Click on the header above for guides for all the bittorrent clients that are (and have been) suggested here at Gizmo's Freeware.

Finding Content

There is over 20 million torrents and over 25 PetaBytes of content available through those torrents.  Torrent search sites offer the best way to filter results to find the clean and real content that you want.  Since the content associated with a torrent can not be altered, comments and ratings may be used to make sure that what you are getting is the quality you want.
Bittorrent is a decentralized protocol, so the content offered is not from the bittorrent clients, but from independent torrent search sites on the web.  There are two pages here at Gizmo's Freeware with information on where to find the free content you are looking for.
Searching for Torrents (Best Free Torrent Search Sites)    
  • over 20 million torrents in their listings
  • over 25 PetaBytes of content
  • although there is a great deal of legal content at these sites, there is also content at these sites that is copyrighted and not legal to distribute.
Finding Legal (and Free) Torrents 
  • over 3 million torrents in their listings
  • all the content offered at these sites is legal to distribute

Additional Help

In addition to the setup guides, above, there are other pages here at Gizmo's Freeware to help with additional features of the bittorrent clients.  If there is a feature that you would like help with on a particular client, you may post here or on the help page for that client and I will try to put a guide together

µTorrent & BitTorrent Help - Contains the help articles below and support links

These two clients are identical, so the help pages will work for either.

Vuze Help - Contains the help articles below and support links

qBittorrent Help - Contains the help articles below and support links

Conclusion

Hopefully, this guide has helped in getting you started in bittorrent.
If you have questions or corrections on any of the features listed here, please post in the comments below or at the Internet, Webware & Networking section of Gizmo's Freeware Forums.

How to Improve Your Affiliate Marketing

5 Tips to Improve Your Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketingWelcome to the new MyCommerce Corner. We’re going to start a new section of this blog with information designed more for our affiliates. Since I’ve started this blog, I have received several questions from people asking for tips on how to market their products using an affiliate network. So I spoke with several members within the different affiliate teams at Digital River and we put together some best practices to keep in mind when marketing within an affiliate network.

While there is not one specific way to market online products, there are some best practices that vendors can use to make the most out of their affiliate programs:


  • Choose the right program
There are hundreds of affiliate programs run through different networks. Make sure to do some research before joining one, as joining the wrong one or purchasing the wrong software could hurt you in the end. Take the time to go through all the different options and services that each program offers since affiliate programs can offer different payment scales, products, services and promotions. Choosing the right programs will ensure that your product is seen by the right people. It may take time before you find the right network.

Once the correct network is chosen, now you need to recruit good affiliates for your products. Use the keywords for the product in searches and find websites or publishers that could bring in the best audience. Reach out to them directly through email or a contact form on their websites asking about interest in a potential affiliate partnership. Many affiliate networks will provide you with a signup URL that can be promoted on a homepage. Be sure to post this to promote the affiliate section on a website.
  • Communicate with your network
Putting together a communication plan is a good idea to make sure all your affiliates are updated with everything going on with your products. A good place to start would be with a monthly newsletter that announces any new products you may have, what sort of commissions are being offered, company news, what coupons or promotions are being run and even any best practices you may have.
Beyond outbound communications, it is also important to respond to any communications from the affiliates in a timely manner. Make a habit of reviewing and approving new affiliates within two days; nobody likes being strung along. Also make sure to respond to any email communications as soon as possible. This will ensure the network knows that they are important to you and will increase their effectiveness.
  • Create appropriate content
Quality content should be the foundation of a marketing plan; remember, content is king. Without quality content, affiliates will not want to market your products and people will not come. Nobody knows your product better than you, so it would be best to create marketing materials for affiliates to use yourself instead of relying on an outsider to do so. Provide the affiliates with proper product descriptions that contain keywords, links to images that can be used in promotional material or with specialized marketing materials for any promotions that you may be offering.
  • Don’t be afraid of coupons
While it may not seem to be the most ideal way to gain a wide following, coupon sites are very popular with online shoppers today. Offering these is a great way to get other affiliates to place your products on their websites. Make sure to evaluate the success of coupon codes as time goes on. Give the coupon at least 30 days before checking on the progress. This gives affiliates a good amount of time to publish and capture sales on the product. If a certain coupon is not working, have the flexibility to change what is being offered. It also is acceptable to have multiple coupon codes available at a time.
  • Be Patient
Just like SEO and social media, seeing significant results from an affiliate marketing program can take time. I recently read on some blogs and message boards that people were disappointed because they saw affiliate programs as a get-rich-quick plan. Nothing could be further from the truth. It takes time to build an effective network, find the appropriate promotions to offer and see sales start to come it. Keep this in mind if you do not see immediate returns from the affiliate efforts.

Affiliate programs are often overlooked by business owners. While search engines, email and social media drive much of the attention of online businesses, using affiliates to market a product is often forgotten. However, properly using an affiliate network is an easy and effective way to increase an e-commerce company’s sales. Follow these steps and it will be only a matter of time before this powerful network can be used by you too.
Article from http://www.mycommerce.com
How to Improve Your Affiliate Marketing

Thứ Ba, 19 tháng 3, 2013

How to Boost Website Traffic

5 Ways to Boost Website Traffic


For the past few months all of the topics I’ve blogged about have centered around one underlying theme: getting more people onto your website. After all, the Internet is a numbers game, right? The more people find a website, the more people visit a website and the more people purchase from a website. And since everyone is always looking for more traffic, here are 5 great ways to getting more people to see your site:
Computer
1. Study the keywords
Knowing what words customers are using to find a product is essential in that they touch almost every aspect of a website. They’re needed for product descriptions, blog posts, social media, Adwords and reviews. Make sure to check on exact matches, phrases, and in particular, negative keywords. Using these correctly can be the difference between a busy website and a ghost town.

2. Use the Google Tools
The Google website tools portfolio has enough tools inside it to make it nearly impossible not to get traffic on a website. With Webmaster Tools, Analytics, Adwords, Keywords, Disavow and more, a website owner can see almost everything that is going on with a sit e. Use wisely all of the data provided, and adjust any marketing/pricing/site design strategies accordingly.

3. Invest in social media
This doesn’t mean there needs to be a presence on every social media platform - that’s just not possible. What this means is that you need to find out where your customers are and establish your presence there. Make sure to do more than just post about your products too. Provide your customers with a value that your competition does not. Make sure to give just as much as you get.

Also make sure to intertwine your efforts on social platforms with yo ur website; small enhancements can help spread the word. Make sure to add buttons for Like, Tweet, +1, etc., to every page of a website. Also try adding videos in place of descriptions. With people now turning to Youtube as a search engine, a quality video can be a great sales tool..

4. Get reviews
Most people like to share their opinions. Every time you ask a customer to provide feedback on a purchase, it makes them feel valued - like you actually look at them as more than a transaction number. Reviews help with more than just how a company is perceived; they are a great way to boost SEO efforts. If customers are not reviewing when they make a purchase, don’t be afraid to ask.

5. Blog
Setting up a blog is an excellent way to get your message out, provided it is used correctly. Using a blog essentially as a written infomercial is the best way to turn off potential customers. The best method is to follow the same rules as for social media. Focus on what customers want. How-to guides, interesting industry information, news, etc., are great places to get started. Give the customers value first, and then you can find creative ways to intertwine some sales information. Think of it like product placement in the movies. .

Take advantage of these 5 methods and people should start flocking to your site. Are there any other tips you can share? I’d love to hear more, post them in the comments section below!
Article from http://www.mycommerce.com
How to Boost Website Traffic 

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