Youtube Optimization

Off late I had been pretty busy. Nothing was just going right in life. I hardly had the time to research. Thankfully, this appear smoother now. Sometimes you just have to be thank God for the peace resting in your heart; though happiness just seems a light year away :)

Ok... no more mumblings for now and lets get down to something more serious. I would just like to discuss something about Youtube optimization. Sounds strange? I've used the word "optimization" and not "Youtube marketing". That's the point. Why do I call it optimization? B'coz that's what is primiarily required in Youtube.
A good number of marketers believe that Youtube is a video sharing website composed of user generated video content. Agreed! But is that all ? Youtube is also a video search engine powered by Google where you get to search videos related to particular topic by justt inserting tags in their search box. Right? That's it. Now two questions buldge in your mind.

1. Why do I optimize a video in Youtube?
2. How do I optimize?

Coming to why part. The reason is almost similar as to why do you optimize a site in Google. Simply to get your video noticed. Your video result scours first and you give an edge to your comiptitor.

Now the most important part is to understand how you can possibly do that.

• Make your video studded with keywords. Not your monlogue! But the description, title and tags that your put in while uploading the content.

• That's about the on-page part. You can experiemnt with some off-page techniques as well. Get relevant websites and bloggers post your video in their blogs. And once they do that, ask them to link to that video somewhere within their content. This would enhance link popularity of your video and help you get some brownie points from Youtube.

• Last but never the least; make an awesome content and get visitors review, comment and tag your video. The more these responses are, Google aka Youtube perceives it to be in good books of visitors and there you go!

Adobe to acquire Omniture

Perhaps this is not the first time you've heard it. Its true. Adobe is gonna take over the Web Analytics giants pretty soon and possibly by the end of this year. The deal is under government scanner and is impending to be finalized.

Adobe is scheduled to acquire Omniture at a transaction value of $1.8 billion on equity-value basis.

Researchers evaluate the impact of the deal upon the web sphere and they conclude that it would be huge. The combination of Adobe's content creation tools along with Omniture's expertize in measurement and optimization would simply give Adobe a new dimension. It would position the company to deliver acutely optimized, engaging digital content that would serve the interest of the masses and enrich their user experience. Some marketers opine that Adobe's acquisition would facilitate it to come up with tools that would have optimization capabilities embedded in it. Thus it means publishers, marketers and advertising agencies will have more room to exploit advertising opportunities and simply multiply their revenue and returns on investments.

Site stickiness-bad matrics to measure performance

I always find it hard to interpret site performance form Analytics. It is just fine as long as it is about tracking visitor's sources or calculating the site's bounce rate. but what about the time spent on site? What does your instinct tell you when the time spent on site is more? Does that mean that the user found your site interesting and spent a longer time there? Well sometimes even our instincts go wrong; the reason being that we fail to take into account all factors which can possibly manipulate the stickiness factor.

So, do you think that a visitor spends more time on you site just because they like it? I bet your assumption could go wrong.. lets check why

Firstly, if your site is well decorated with an impressive video in the front page; its quite obvious that the visitor would like to check it out. Watching a video automatically demands a bit longer time and this doesn't have much to do with the rest of the content.

Now imagine another situation. You are on the verge of buying something from an e commerce website and just then your fiance calls you up? What would you possibly do? Pick up the phone and engage in a long discussion and forget all about the site. The server would record this as time the visitor spends on site though you practically are aloof from it.

The human beings have this propensity to deduce one way interpretation. When the stickiness is lo, we assume that the content was not appreciated. But what if the visitor just found what he was looking for and made an instant purchase? On the contrary, increased stickiness could also mean that the content was not upto the requirement and the visitor spent hours searching for his product and ultimately got frustrated with the site! That means that the particular visitor would never return!


Do these sound scary? Well, its nothing but fact. What them is the right parameter to measure the performance? The bounce rate which is diagonally opposite of stickiness is pretty lame. So there's just this one thing which counts to measure a site's performance, its increased, consistent and ever growing sales.

How do you create an Email Marketing Campaign?

I just found this nice tutorial about email-marketin... It explains in details the tidbits of the process and is an excellent resource for newbies eager to try it out themselves...Here it goes

Video Marketing-Surefire way to make your product go viral

For quite sometime I'm trying to explore. I'm trying to explore new horizons, figure out new ideas which can add some zing to my work. There is nothing as bad as stagnation of creativity. Well, I just buy the point that creativity alone never reaps returns and it has to be coupled with cost-benefit analysis and calculating ROI. But then without being creative in marketing pursuit you just tend to stagnate letting your competitors taking an upper hand. Coming to the point, off late I indulged myself into some researches on new marketing ideas and the one which completely bowled me off was video marketing.


WHY do we need video marketing?

1. That's right. We just need to know what exactly are the benefits. Well an online video is an AUDIO VISUAL MEDIUM. So, your chance of making sales is just multiplied several times. It takes a lot of effort to make a pitch by text alone or by flashing banners and graphics. A video when delivered correctly delivers the right message in a quick span of time.
2. Lets admit. Reading a text is boring. The netizens today prefer interactivity. An online video is the most interactive medium that arouses interest and buys the visitors' confidence.

How to deliver the video?

• First Impression: It is the first few seconds which makes the spell work. The introduction should be alluring enough. There should be a strong punch line, a message which would make an impression in the visitor's mind.

• Visibility: Making your video visible is the rule of thumb!Put your video in the front page of your website where the visibility is high and do not forget to add an invitation note coaxing your visitors to see it.
  

• Keep it short: A long video message kills visitor's attention. Its important to keep your message short, direct, to the point.An ideal marketing video shouldn't be longer than five minutes. Mostly an average man forgets what he hears within a short time; what he remembers is the core point. Try to highlight the core point in a nice way without sounding too much promotional.

• Adding Slide feature: Nothing works better to grab attention as power point slides. Slides works into human psychology like ("here is something shown rapidly, I gotta grab the content before it blurs out")

• Audio Effect: A video is an audio-visual medium. For making online video tutorials, make it a point to add an audio which would simultaneously guide a visitor throughout the process. Even if your video does not demand an audio instruction part,, make sure you add some nicely compatible background music which would make the viewing a nice experience.

• Go Viral: Finally, make it viral. Upload it to Youtube or Metacafe. If the video is a long one, segregate the same into playlist. This would give the visitor the independence to view the parts that he wants to without the pain of being obliged to view the whole long one. Post it to online social medias, video platforms and social networks. The more you engage the people to talk about your product, the more the visitor is inclined to check out your website/ product. Your video should ideally end with a prominent display of your website address. Ask them to visit your website and post their feedback on the video through a quick form. The more service you are able to facilitate the more you are bestowed by their trust.
  

Google Caffeine-taste made better!

I am back! and this time with a buzz! You've guessed it right...I'm talking about the latest buzz that have swept the web since yesterday... Its Google once again; Google Caffeine.
The name sounded pretty strange; especially it never gives you an impression about what it is all about. I went ahead to do some Googling and unfortunately couldn't find anything comprehensive.

To quote Matt Cutts "Google is quite serious about scrutinizing our codebase regularly and rewriting the parts that don’t scale well to make them more robust, more elegant, or faster."
What I decipher is that Google aims at revamping their Algo as it always does but this time on an ultra massive scale. With the use of superior GS42 technology, it aims at accomplishing the following results

• Indexing the web pages which had been way beyond its territory. It aims at delivering more real time content generated mostly by Social Media honchos like Twitter, FacebookHerein the factor temporal relevancy comes into play. This means, the new Google better understands what an user might be looking for. While the keywords are still important, but it understands when a user is looking for real time data and when you look for terms like "China Landslide" it is the news results with updated data that scours up the results instead of Wikipedia explaining what a landslide is all about.
  

• Indexing at a faster rate and a greater speed. This means that the tie taken for delivering results would be even lesser than what it used to be. I guess this hardly makes any difference for an average searcher.

• Delivering results that are more relevant to keyword query; thus aiming at better accuracy.

• This time Google aims at something bigger. If you would refer to the Sandbox, you may easily find that the number of search results delivered to a particular keyword query has just trippled!

So that's what its all about...if you would want to check manually the difference between the old searches and the new one, visit Google Sandbox@ http://www2.sandbox.google.com and post your expert feedback!

Why do we need PHP?

Well to start off, this is the question I've been asking myself for quite sometime. I just Googled it and found plethora of sites which possibly have the answers; I however stumbles upon About.com page and got some insights on the subject.

To begin with PHP is not as difficult as it may sound. It is a server side programming language used by developers to develop dynamic web pages. If you have been familiar with servers and Admin panels you must have had some idea regarding how it works. If not then you need to spend some time browsing and getting an idea about what they exactly are.
You need to know

• What is a server and its utility

• What is the use of CMS types of free CMS applications available

• Some ideas on FTP; types of FTP software available

Once you are done with these, you would be able to figure out that creating static web pages are easy. All you need is to write the pages in HTML and upload the same to your web browser via FTP. At most you need to call images, banners, videos and other web apps from other files and integrate them in your main page which is easily attainable by writing a few CSS codes. But what about when you want the web pages to interact with the customers? Is the data they enter via forms correct? what if they are wrong? who would rectify them with this regard? And what if a customer wants to buy a particular product from your online store? Who would maintain their records and make the process smooth? PHP is the answer to all of these questions. It is the programming language used in combination with HTML which help developers create dynamic web pages for users.

Now when we talk about PHP, the concept of MYsql follows automatically. MYsql is nothing but a database that is used to store data and information that is required while executing a PHP code.
So you can do a ot of stuffs by PHP.

• Write web pages in conjuction with HTML codes to develop interactivity to websites.

• Create independent CMS for websites that would make it easier to add new content/edit pages without having to logging into the server.

• Create dynamic web applications that would add glitz and glamor to your web page.

I hope this would give you soe ideas regarding the language and its functionality. To learn more about PHP and its applications, visit their learning centre@ http://in3.php.net/tut.php

Behavioral Marketing-revisited

Off late I came across an article that had quite an informative discussion about behavioral marketing. The term seemed quite unfamiliar and I took some time to research about it. To my surprise, behavioral marketing is a domain of expertize for most online marketers and yet only few are familiar with the term. Wikipedia defines it as "Behavioral targeting uses information collected on an individual's web-browsing behavior, such as the pages they have visited or the searches they have made, to select which advertisements to display to that individual." The methodology is mostly used by online marketers and publishers who study user behavior, analyzes their web browsing behavior and collects data about their preferences which is then effectively utilized to cater them with advertisements pertaining to their interests.

Traditionally the behavioral marketing technique were used by mainly advertising networks who studied particular user behavior on the basis of sites he visit. For instance when a particular user visits a site, an id cookie is being stored in the hard drive of his computer which makes a note of his online surfing behavior. On the basis of that his specific user profile is being created and the information helps the advertising network to identify his preferences and helps them in their business decision. Some prominent providers of this service include Tribal Fusion, Audience Science, Burst Media and more.

Lets now shift our focus on some newer advertising models. Search Engines like Google, Yahoo! run their advertisement campaigns based on the keyphrase typed by an individual searcher. The Google Adwords use user search information to display targeted ads based on his need and preferences and also store your searches in their database for further reference. Thus the age of concept of behaviorial targetting is revisited; only with a more upgraded technology and yet with more sophistication.

Emergence Of the mass media

There has been a long decade since the concept of individuated media had taken form. I still remember to have memorized almost television ads that was being delivered during commercial breaks in between daily soaps. It is interesting to note that the scope of the word media could never be defined fully. The upliftment in technology gradually paved way for some targeted avenue that was slowly being exploited by the marketers.

The gradual improvement in technology and democratic bent of mind of people led to the evolvement of the mass media. Unlike its former counterpart, it is not the marketer, publisher or the advertiser who sketches the blue print of what the content should be. It is the user who determines the kind of content the want to see. The best platform where the you can possibly find a reflection of mass media is the web. The websites like the wikipedia, social media sites like Digg, Del.icio.us, and also the social networks are the advocates of this school of thoughts. To be more explicit, the social media sites are not alienated from the traditional individuated concept; rather it is a nice blend of the two. It simply mixes the ingredients of the individuated forms and generates a conglomerated picture of the mass media.

When you make a profile with a social network, it is you who decide upon its content, the friends whom you want to add, share feeds and add applications. Again the sites like Digg value individual opinions of its members and denotes the efficacy of a particular content which reaches the hallmark of fame. It is the media generated for the mass by taking into account individuated opinion.

Stepping into the realm

Hi all.. myself is Antara. A web-marketer by profession I had long had the desire to start off my own blog and finally made one. Web matrices is a snapshot about of my knowledge and experiences in the course of my professional path.
I my blog I would like to embrace topics like social medias, their utility as online marketing tool, types of social medias and their trends. It would also include topics like search engines, their individual optimization strategy and and their impact on attracting traffic for websites.

Pay Per Click advertising is yet another area which would be highlighted within my posts. Apart from those mentioned above I would also try to explore the significance of other marketing strategies like Newsletter marketing, RSS, email marketing, affiliate marketing and more. In a nutshell, web matrix is all about exploring every nook and corner of the online media that has a bearing on the web marketing process. That's all about it.. to catch up with the details.. stay tuned!!