Web 2.0 - The Latest Internet by Avi Srivastava - HTML preview

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Audio/Video/Podcasting

Why do I Need Audio, Video or Podcasting on My blog?

Successful internet businesses all depend upon one common factor. That common factor is traffic. Traffic equals sales. Sales equal profit.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that a successful business must make sales and a profit and in order to make sales and profit it is essential that there are customers.

Getting website traffic is exactly what all the fuss is about when marketers are discussing SEO (Search Engine Optimization).

The higher a site ranks in the search results that search engines provide to those using key words to find products and services, the more visitors will visit. More visitors = more sales = more profits. It is just as simple as that.

Blogs have proven themselves to be very, very useful tools in the drive to creating more and better website traffic. People love blogs. Web 2.0 is built upon the idea of a user driven web and users want a voice.

Blogs give them that voice. It is a simple technology and it can even be found free on the internet. If you don’t have a blog site or a blog on your website, you are simply missing the SEO boat.

The popularity of blogs has, of course, increased the number of blogs on the Internet many fold over this last year or so.
With the increase in numbers of blogs online comes an increase in competition for visitors to those blogs and, of course, stiffer competition for PageRank by search engines.

So, the question, “Why do I need audio/video/podcasting on my blog?” is one that can be answered rather easily. You want visitors. You want a high PageRank. You want sales and profits. That’s why.

Successful blogs are all about content. You’ve been told a million times that, on the internet, content is king and it is true. Search engine spiders consider content as one of the factors that determine page rank and there are two parts to content that are considered.

The first is how often the content changes. This is why it is very important that posts be made to blogs every single day...multiple posts are better than one long post. Key-work density is the other content factor that is considered by search engine spiders.

Links found on the Internet to your website by search engine spiders is another factor that determines PageRank. That is the reason you should always make use of social bookmarking sites and add the links to your blog posts.

Each time you make a post the search engine spiders count it but the number of links to that post is even more important.

You can create one link but when others pick that link up and add it to their own favorite’s lists more links are created for search engine spiders to count.

You probably already knew those things but did you know that the duration of visits to your site is also considered? Most visits to websites last thirty seconds or less. You can even actually see this statistic in the web-stats for your blog or website.
Search engine spiders like for visitors to websites to stay longer than thirty seconds and you like that, as well. The fact is the longer a visitor stays on your website, the better the chance is that he will make a purchase.

That begs the question, ‘how do I get them to stay longer than thirty seconds?’ The answer to that one is audio/video/podcasts. It is a very simple calculation.

If a visitor is watching a video that lasts for say two minutes, how long will they stay on your site? Two minutes! Videos and podcasts are mesmerizing.

When a visitor begins to watch either, they will stay awhile. Search engine spiders love that and the longer they stay, the longer they are exposed to your advertisements for products and services that you sell. The longer they see the advertisements, the more likely they are to make a purchase.

Now you should be aware of the fact that search engine spiders cannot ‘read’ audio and video content.

That is audio/video is not going to aid you in search engine optimization but it will help with the length of the visits made to your website.

The fact that search engine spiders can’t ‘read’ audio and video content also eliminates the duplicate content problem.

How do I get audio and video for my blog?

Just to set your mind at ease right away, you don’t have to shoot your own video or record your own audio.

You can do that, of course, if you want to and if you have the equipment and the know-how but you really don’t have to.
There are an abundance of sites on the internet that will happily (and freely) provide video and audio for you. All you have to do is download them, upload them to your site and tag them. That is pretty much it.

Google has videos that you can use. The link is right there on the Google search page. Recently Google purchased YouTube for a reported one point six billion dollars.

You can find free videos there on almost any topic that you can imagine and likely a few topics that you would hope to never imagine.

You can find videos on topics that are related to the topic of your website or your blog that will be of interest to your visitors and when visitors are watching videos they aren’t surfing away from your site.

How Do I Get Podcasts For My Blog?

Now, podcasts you do have to create yourself. The good news is that is a fairly simple process that can be done without a lot of technical knowledge or ability.

The term ‘podcast’ was actually coined by Ben Hammersley in the Guardian on February 2004. The word is a blend of the two words, ‘ipod’ and ‘broadcast’ but you don’t have to have an ipod to see a podcast or even to create a podcast.

Very simply; podcasting is a way to publish audio and video online which lets software automatically find and download new broadcasts over a period of time by using RSS feeds that contain a link to the multimedia broadcast file.

You can create and publish your own audio program or video program or audio/video program and feed them to your audience who can then listen to or view them when they have to time or are so inclined.
With nothing more than a personal computer, some software and a webcam if you are doing video, anybody can create a podcast and publish it. It isn’t rocket science.

What Will My Blog Visitors Think About Audio, Video or Podcasts?

The short answer is that they are going to love them. A term that is sometimes used is ‘User Enhancement Optimization’.

You know what SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is but it is possible that UEO (User Enhancement Optimization) is equally or maybe even more important.

Remember...it is all about content. Content is what keeps a visitor on your website and content is what makes them make return visits to your website. It is a well known fact that purchases are seldom made on initial website visits.

A customer will likely return to the website up to seven times before he actually drags out his credit card and buys something.

You have to get them to come to your website for that first crucial visit but keeping them making return visits is just as important.

I can’t really think of a better way to keep them coming back that giving them something as attention getting as audio or video or podcasts. Can you?

While it is true that people do read blog posts, we are a nation that is more geared toward audio and video than toward the written word.

We watch television...a lot. One picture really is worth more than a thousand words in today’s technologically centered world.
Web 2.0 has created an internet that is user driven. The users are the ones who determine the success or failure of an internet business.

They are the determining factor of the way that websites are constructed. It once was said over and over that ‘the customer is always right’. That is still true but in the Web 2.0 world of internet marketing, the user is not only right, he is in charge.

Web surfers no longer simply go to websites to read information. They go to websites to GET information and the love for that information to be delivered in audio and/or video formats.

Your blog website has got to be outstanding. It has got to be original. It has to give the user a reason to visit in the first place and a reason to return often.

Think content, content, content and SEO as well as UEO and you can make your blog website successful. Audio, video and podcasts are the quickest, easiest and most efficient way to reach that goal.