Video Blogging

Video blogging also volgging and vidding vidvlogging.it is form of blogging for which the medium is video.Video logs (vlogs) also often take advantage of web syndication to allow for the distribution of video over the Internet using either the RSS or Atom syndication formats, for automatic aggregation and playback on mobile devices and personal computers .

Video on the Internet does two things — it puts people on equal footing versus the top-down communication of broadcast media and it allows for direct talkback from the audience.Videoblogging offers a richer Web experience than text blogging because it combines movies, sound, still images, and text,

increasing the information—and potentially emotions—shared

with users. Rich media allow authors to explore new ways of

communicating—many videobloggers believe that video allows

more natural expression than writing.......Read more at http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ELI7005.pdf

SOCIAL MEDIA FOR RESUME OPTIMIZATION AND EMPLOYEE SEARCH

Social media or social networking sites no more serve only as a tool for connecting with friends and relatives, but also a tool used by many recruiters to get the best talent for their organization. We all are familiar with LinkedIn, a social networking site, which allows one to connect people with different professionals in their field and industry. However, it is not only LinkedIn that is used for professional linking now, but sites like Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and You Tube have helped people land up into their dream jobs.

Today digital resumes are in huge demand. The concept of a resume website, a personal website that helps an individual to present his/her resume to the employer by sending a link of his/her resume website is very much popular. Using social networking sites one can promote his/her resume website, and thus reach the right person. Today job applications is seeing a paradigm shift from mere word documents to more creative, audio- visual resumes, resume website, and info-graphic resumes.

Not convinced yet, the facts will speak it all -

Companies using social networking sites:

1. LinkedIn is the most widely used medium for recruitment – approximately 80% of the companies
2. Approximately 45% of the companies use Twitter for recruitmentpurposes
3. Facebook is used by at least 50% of the companies.
4. As per a survey, almost 56% HR professionals make use of social networking sites to pool talent for their organizations
5. As per a survey, almost 65% companies have hired employees via Social networking sites
6. Approximately 79% of the recruiters verify a candidate based on his/her information presented on social networking sites

These facts and figures make it clear that social media is a viable option for hiring, used by many organizations. This popularity of mixing social and digital media withrecruitment has led to the development of some software that help employers is simplifying their search process further.

RezScore is one such web application. Gerrit Hall the CEO & founder of RezScore came up with this web application. This application helps in grading and analyzing of resumes instantly. However, some still prefer to stick to the age-old method of resumes in word documents. You can still combine social media with it for better results. The four tips given below will help you optimize your resume with social media –

1. Give a link to social networking site:

A link of your LinkedIn profile or any other social media profile, provides transparency and thus makes you look more authentic. Around 10.9% of resumes provide one such link in their resumes.

2. Cross-Check the information:

The information on your social media site and your resume should not contradict. Keep everything updated.

3. Do not make your social media information look like your resume:

Do not copy information from your resume and paste it on your social media site. The link to this site is sent so that the employer gets additional information about you and gets to know you more, which your resume does not allow you to do. Thus, make your online information more authentic and interesting.

4. Search Engine Optimization using Keywords:

Specific keywords related to your field and job profile will help you boost your resume in the resume search by the employers. This will help your resume, clear the search filter of Google and Applicant Tracking Systems used by many employers these days.

Start optimizing your resume, right away and move a step ahead towards your dream career.

Source:http://pr-usa.net

Google Cleaning

Going away include:

• Google Bookmarks Lists
• Google Friend Connect
• Google Gears
• Google Wave
• Knol
• Renewable Energy Cheaper than Coal (RE

New Google Advanced Search Page Drops Links To Page

Google has updated their advanced search page with the new design, cleaned up some search options and removed some page specific search tools.

The removed tools include the ability to:

(1) Find pages similar to the page

(2) Find pages that link to the page

They have also renamed some of the search options, but most of the other search features remained.

Here are before and after screen shots:

Old:

New:

Source:seroundtable.com

Yahoo Sunsets Site Explorer (A Eulogy)

Bing, Yahoo!, members of the Microsoft family, Tim, distinguished guests, inbound marketers and fellow Mozzers today we say goodbye to competitive link intelligence as offered by one of the Big 3 Search Engines. The SEO world will remember the brainchild of Tim Mayer, Yahoo! Site Explorer, as the first comprehensive tool that allowed users to find out which sites and pages were indexed, inbound links to any site and submit and track XML feeds. Yahoo, the search engine that could -- and did invent the precursor to not only Bing and Google’s Webmaster Tools but also link indices such as LinkScape/Open Site Explorer and MajesticSEO. Yahoo Site Explorer was born September 29^th, 2005 and has been laid to rest November 21^st, 2011; you had an amazing run.

Yahoo! Site Explorer or YSE as you were known to those closest to you, we will remember your sleek easy to use “Don’t Make Me Think” user interface. It was very clear what you wanted us to do and once we did it you generously shared your data with us as though we were family. You asked no questions of us unless of course we were trying to change your mind. Only then did you require us to prove ourselves.

We will remember you for allowing us to submit feeds, URLs, sitemaps to “Tell us what we don’t know. If you don’t find a URL that you expect to be in the index, use free submit. In case you hadn’t heard, we are also accepting lists of URLs, so you don’t have to provide us one URL at a time” as Yahoo! declared at your birth.

YSE we will remember you for charming ability to show us more about ourselves and where we could improve to be better in the eyes of the Internet. You shared what information you knew about us almost as fast as you could collect it.

YSE we will remember you for your special ability to tell us about everyone else that knew about us and where they’d shared it on the web, before you there was no comprehensive way to do that. Sure Google had the “link:” operator but it was never as forthcoming as you were.

Most importantly YSE we will remember you for telling us who linked to our competitors. This is how you truly changed the world. We respect you and commend for all your efforts and the API that once fed a variety of tools such as BackLinkWatch and the SEOBook Link Tool Suite. Your knowledge, speed and freshness will be missed.

Many Search Marketers will pause and reflect on Yahoo Site Explorer with feelings of inspiration and serenity:

“Y!SE was the inspiration for me to raise capital and build the Linkscape index w/ Nick+Ben. I felt the web's link graph should be a resource that's available to anyone, and that's why we always made sure that users of OSE could get the same functionality Y!SE offered for free (up to 1,000 links, unlimited runs, etc.)” - Rand Fishkin (CEO & Co-Founder of SEOmoz)

“YahooSiteExplorer, to me, has become like a well-loved piece of furniture, think Grandma's old couch, that served its purpose at one point, but now sits forgotten in the parlor. Much like Grandma's old couch, I have not used it much in the past year, since I have had full access to OpenSiteExplorer and MajesticSEO, but YahooSiteExplorer will always be remembered fondly." –John Doherty

“Feels like I'm one of the few that will miss it! I used to love some of the combinations of operators you could use on it” - Paddy Moogan

“cos 'All good things are wild, and free' - Henry David” –Himanshu Sharma

"Free backlink research on your competitors will never be the same" – Dennis Goedegebuure

“YSE was simple to use and a great way to find links to competitors other tools might miss.” –Joe Youngblood

"I 'grew up' with it as an SEO, had a nice little link from my desktop, was easy and convenient to access." – Carla Marshall

“No alternative is as fast as YSE. Gone are the days of same-week link reports. We'll have to get smarter (as always in SEO).” - Tre Jones

“I will miss it because it was a very fast way to see if a link was there. And because it was my 1st SEO tool (with other)” –Gianluca Fiorelli

"Even after I switched to OSE for everyday use, it was always strangely comforting to know that YSE was there. It was kind of like that friend you rarely talk to, but you know will be on the other end of the phone if you need them." -Dr. Pete

While others will dance on your grave and celebrate your death:

“YSE was an inspired flank-attack by Yahoo on Google at the time and was the SEO tool of choice for years. But its time has come.” - Dixon Jones (Marketing Director of MajesticSEO)

“I actually won't miss it! Sorry YSE!, it was good while it lasted.” –Richard Baxter

“I won't miss YSE. There's really been little to no value in site explorer since Yahoo gave up on being a search engine.” –Bill Slawski

“I won't miss it, it was a brain melt of information with no logical organisation. There are plenty of tools that give better data” –Wayne Barker

“I agree with Bill Slawski I quit using YSE 2 years ago.” –Joe Hall

However no one can deny that you’ve changed the game and gave birth to variety of children that have continued to walk in your large footprints.

Save for Blekko, no search engine offers the transparency that you did YSE. And while some third party tools have surpassed you in presentation, metrics and breadth of data most are still attempting to attain your speed, freshness and accuracy. Although via the Bing-Yahoo! alliance Bing Webmaster Tools is your named successor Open Site Explorer and MajesticSEO clearly lead the pack with their extensive link indices and in-depth analysis of that link graph only time will tell which of your offspring will emerge victorious as the king of backlink analysis.

• Open Site Explorer
• MajesticSEO
• Link Diagnosis
• Google Webmaster Tools
• Bing Webmaster Central
• Blekko (search [domain] /SEO)
• SEO Spyglass
• RavenTools Research Central

The Creator in his Own Words

I've asked Tim Mayer, the father of Yahoo Site Explorer to say a few words about his about his brainchild, particularly about how it came about, the pitfalls, how he feels it was handled and the future. Without further ado I give you Tim in his own words:

"There were a few reasons for launching site explorer in no particular order:

• Improve comprehensiveness of the Yahoo Web Search Index so webmasters could let us know what pages were missing in a very transparent manner

• Attempt to move the Webmaster robotic queries off of the user interface and move these queries onto another interface/api where we could more easily and separately manage it. This would provide cleaner user metrics for the search team

• Create a site where Yahoo search could interface with webmasters and site owners and improve relationships between webmasters/publishers and Yahoo.

The need was that webmasters needed to know who was linking to them, which of these links were being recognized by the search engines as well as how many and what pages were being indexed by the search engines.

There were not many pitfalls as I saw them and it became a popular tool for many people. I am sure some SEOs such as Dave Naylor, Greg Boser and Rae can give you some pitfalls...

I feel it was handled well [by Yahoo! after I left] for a while. Now Yahoo is no longer an algorithmic engine and the responsibilities to engage and interact with the webmasters and publishers has now become the responsibility of Bing. I have had the opportunity to spend some time with Duane Forrester at Bing and he is a great interface for the webmaster community for Bing. Google has always done a great job interfacing with the webmaster community via people like Matt Cutts, Vanessa Fox and Mail Ohye. It was fun working with them on standards such as open site maps. We also developed some webmaster features of our own such as NOODP and NOYDIR tags to opt out of using directory data in the search engine title and descriptions.

I think it is awesome that others have created similar tools such as Majestic and SEOMOZ [Open Site Explorer]. I am always very excited when people come up with upgraded features that site explorer did not have such as when Majestic came out with historical link data which is so cool. I have always been interested in this space having launched a very basic product called URL Investigator when I was at FAST/All The Web in March 2003 then Site Explorer in September 2005. It is important for search engines to focus on the users but also to interface with webmasters and publishers as well. I feel that there are a lot of great tools in the space. I do see a lot of opportunity for these tools to improve and progress in the future as well.

For the last year I have been in the Paid Search space working for Trada, a company in Boulder, Colorado. I left Trada the week prior to Pubcon and have been working on a new product. There are a lot of new marketing channels which are causing fragmentation to occur. These new channels are often influencing one another such as social's influence on search which will become more influential in the future. These shifts bring tremendous opportunity for someone with my passions and experience."

Thank you Tim for you and your teams hard work and Yahoo Site Explorer, thank you for everything you shared with us and may you rest in pixels.

Source: SEOMOZ

4 Graphics to Help Illustrate On-Page SEO

For many SEO professionals, on-page optimization is back to basics. But sadly, there seem to be a lot of us who still make some very basic mistakes. In this post, I'll try to add on to my previous writing on perfecting on-page optimization by sharing some visuals that can hopefully help to hammer key points of the practice home.

#1: The Value of Optimization and the Danger of Overdoing It

I generally abide by the 80/20 rule when it comes to keyword use. 80% of the value to be had comes from 20% of the effort. Nail the title, the headline and make sure the phrase is on the page (and the page is actually on the subject of the keyword) and you've done your job. The additional impact on rankings to be gained from perfectly calculating the number of repetitions or ensuring every paragraph fits into the "theme" of the keyword and document is likely to be a waste of time better spent on other priorities. That's what this graph tries to illustrate:

Nothing in the on-page world is going to provide exceptional ranking influence, but getting perfect is often only marginally better than just nailing the title and headline. If you're spending a ton of bandwidth on the last 80% of work (providing 20% of value), I might re-consider your to-do list.

#2: On-Page SEO is More than Keywords

When I first got into SEO in the early 2000's, the search engines seemed to have a fairly naive algorithm for content analysis, which led to SEOs adopting equally naive tactics for on-page optimization. Years later, these tendencies, sadly, still persist.

Yes, it's essential to effectively target your keywords in your page titles, headlines (or early in the body copy), URLs, etc. But content analysis has become far more sophisticated with engines "reading" pages almost the way humans do and pattern-matching good content, design, layout and usability. There may even be some elements of on-page analysis that look at the authenticity and passion of the written word (or something that approximates it).

In the graphics below, I've tried to illustrate this:

I'm not suggesting one shouldn't optimize for keywords or that using terms and phrases that stay relevant and on-topic won't help. I'm merely noting that optimizing for the experience real, human users have and the value they derive from your work can produce outsized returns to simple, classic on-page optimization.

#3: How Search Engines Can Measure a Page's Value

This one's less of an illustration and more of a text-based diagram. I wanted to help explain all the signals Google can measure from their many sources of information, and how this can potentially affect SEO:

Google's tremendous reach across the Internet, measuring nearly everything and every way people interact with web pages brings with it powerful data. That data is likely used to improve the quality of search results by helping the stuff that appears authentic, editorial and high quality to rise up while the junk falls to the bottom (at least when the data+algorithms work properly).

For on-page optimization, this means we can't merely focus on keyword targeting. We need truly great content.

#4: Consolidation vs. Multi-Page Targeting

The question of whether to target two keyword terms/phrases on the same page or build individual pages for each seems to be a consistent struggle for SEOs. I field a question like this almost every week, and in 9/10 cases, the following flowchart would provide the right answer:

It's not complex - and that's the beauty. When targeting similar phrases or phrases that can work together and target the same intent for most users, a single page should suffice. When the phrases cannot logically work together in a title/headline or when the intents don't have a high likelihood for overlap, it's time to build different pages and target the keywords separately.

Source: SEOMOZ

Using Google+ Ripples to Connect with Influencers

Two weeks ago today, Google released “Ripples” for Google+ and most of the world went on with their daily activities. Personally I thought it was just another one of those features that was interesting but nothing I could really use. That was until this Whiteboard+ video which I filmed with Rand. Both Rand and I were blown away at the amount of data a Ripple gives you and what you can do with it.

What is a Ripple

The definition of a “ripple effect” is: a spreading effect or series of consequences caused by a single action or event. When it comes to Google+ a Ripple is an interactive diagram that shows how a Google+ post spreads as it’s shared by users. You can find the Ripple of any public post using the dropdown to the right of the post.

You can quickly see who the top sharers of your content are, the timeline for which it was shared and other statistics. A quick look at this post shared by the Dalai Lama shows that there have been 1,414 recent public shares of this post. You can zoom into each circle and see the sharing within different circles.

At the bottom of the page, Google shows you the top Influencers, stats about how the post spread and the different Languages of the sharers. We’re going to dig into how to use the Influencer information to help you get your content shared by the right influencers, not only on Google+ but on other social sites as well.

Make That Ripple Effect Happen

Sometimes getting an influencer to share your content can be very difficult, if not impossible. Ripples provides an easy way for you to investigate who are the influencers of the influencers. Let me give you an example of how this might work in a real world situation. Let’s say I write a blog post on Google Analytics and am hoping to get Avinash Kaushik to share it, since he is a leader in the Analytics area. However, I don’t have a direct relationship with Avinash, so I need to find someone approachable who does.

Step 1 - Find an influencer

Look at Avinash’s Google+ page and see what type of content he is sharing with his circles. Find a post that he shared that has quite a few shares and view that Ripple. Look for a Ripple where the original poster has an account that is in a reasonable amount of Circles. Below is a Ripple I found that is perfect since it was originally shared by user with a small but strong following.

Since Avinash shared Michael’s content, there is some form of trust between Avinash and Michael. Even if it’s a fluke, there is a good chance that Michael may be an influencer on a different social network and could still be worth contacting.

Step 2 - Make a connection

Reach out to Michael and make a connection. All of his contact methods are displayed in his profile on Google+. Most users have linked their Google+ account to their Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn accounts which gives you plenty of ways to reach out and make a connection. Establish some sort of “relationship” before asking him to share your content. I suggest that you provide something of value first or other comment on something he has posted as the first point of interaction.

Once a connection is made, share your content with him via Google+ and ask him to share. With luck he will share your content and it will catch the eye of Avinash and he will re-share it exposing it to thousands of more people than you had before. Even if Avinash doesn’t re-share it, you did get Michael to share your content and expose it to another group of people outside of your norm. Plus there is a chance that he will expose your content on other social networks which he may have more visibility on.

Step 3 - Rinse and repeat

Obviously you don’t want to put all your eggs in one basket with Michael. Continue to see who Avinash is re-sharing and reach out to those people as well. Soon you will have contacted a large number of people who Avinash trusts and the chances of him seeing your post are much higher.

Another Ripple Effect Example

Below is a Ripple of a post recently shared by Cyrus Shepard. His post was re-shared by Jason Morrison which then John Muller of Google shared. Now even though only one person in John’s circles re-shared it, it was still put in front of a much wider audience thanks to John’s share.

Future Ripple Uses

If Google+ continues to create things like Ripples that share large amounts of data on how users are interacting with your posts, I could see Facebook stepping up their game with the current version of Insights. Think about if you could see how your Tweets were shared and what effect power users have on sharing your content.

Lastly, Ripples is “very experimental” according to Google which means that there is no clear vision where this is going. There have been no rumors of this ever making it to an API version or anything beyond what the current Ripple version does. Do you have any plans to use Ripples and how do you plan to use it?

Source: SEOMOZ

GuideLines For A Writing A Press Release

A press release is a written communication whose sole purpose is to report an event.Mostly, it is carried out by third party and is provided to the news media for the purpose of promotion.

Before you start writing a press release, you should know the following things:-

1. What is the purpose of writing it?

2. Who is the target audience?

3. Does your news provide usefull information?

Few Points of Consideration

1. Grammatically correct and unique content.

2. Concise and Factual

3. The Press Release is between 200- 250 words minimum.

Format of the Press Release

1. Headline: One sentence

2. Paragraph1: A summarized view of the press release

3. Paragraph2,3 or 4: Details of the news. The final paragraph restating the key points of the release.

4. Additional Information: Physical Location, Company/agency name, telephone, email address, website location, etc.

Note: The additional information can also be provided after the Headline.