Jon Reed's Blog, page 22

How to submit a podcast to iTunes

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Delivering a podcast can seem dauntingly technical. But a podcast is really just a collection of audio (or video) files hosted on your blog – either a blog set up specifically for the purpose, or a discrete category called, say, 'podcast'. The thing that transforms it from a collection of static audio files to a subscribable, downloadable podcast is the RSS feed for the blog or blog category used to host the files.

You don't need to do anything to create this RSS feed – it is a standard...

Why you need a business website

A website is the most important marketing tool for your business – if you do nothing else to market your business online, you absolutely must have a website. Fortunately it is much easier to establish a web presence than it used to be. There's no need to put this off for a lack of geeky coding experience: whether you hire a web developer or build it yourself using an easy-to-use content management system, creating and maintaining websites is more straightforward than ever. You can even add...

How to Use 3-point Lighting

If microphones are essential to the quality of your podcast, lighting is essential for video. If you’re doing quick and informal clips, you may be able to get away with your handheld camera or iPhone and use the available light. Sometimes you want something more professional-looking, such as studio-based interviews and pieces to camera. For […]

How to use three-point lighting

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If microphones are essential to the quality of your podcast, lighting is essential for video. If you're doing quick and informal clips, you may be able to get away with your handheld camera or iPhone and use the available light. I recommend the Flip or the Kodak Zi8 for this. The Zi8 even allows you to plug in an external microphone, for better sound quality.

Sometimes you want something more professional-looking, such as studio-based interviews and pieces to camera. For this you will need...

How to claim a 'vanity URL' for your Facebook page

A relatively new innovation in Facebook is the introduction of 'vanity' URLs for both profiles and pages. There's nothing terribly vain about them – it just means you can have a shorter, more meaningful, unique URL (web address) for your Facebook page than the default string of numbers.

I've just got one for the Facebook page for this book/blog. So, I no longer have to direct you to
www.facebook.com/pages/Get-Up-to-Speed-with-Online-Marketing/133980626621610 but to the more concise, memorable, ...

Facebook reaches 500 million users

Yesterday Facebook announced it had reached the milestone of 500 million users – about one in every 14 people on the planet, or 28% of those with Internet access. Here are some more world Internet usage numbers, for stats fans. Facebook is by far the largest social network in the world, and an ever-growing percentage of your ideal clients and customers are using it – so it makes sense to go where your market is and establish a presence for your business, ideally with a Facebook page.

Facebook ...

How to increase your followers on Twitter

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Find top tweeters by topic on WeFollow

Once you're on Twitter with a nice branded profile, tweeting appropriately and engagingly and following key people in your community, it's time to build your followers. Why do you want to do this? Because building followers on Twitter is like building up your email list. Once you have a sizable list, you can announce your latest product, service or event – so long as it is genuinely of interest to your followers and you're not doing a hard sell. Like an e...

WordPress.com or WordPress.org?

[image error]WordPress is the blogging software I always recommend. It's free, powerful, flexible and endlessly customizable.

But there are two versions – and one of the questions I'm most frequently asked is which version to choose: WordPress.com or WordPress.org? Here are the pros and cons of each to help you decide.

WordPress.com

WordPress.com is the hosted version – i.e. WordPress themselves host your blog on their servers.

Pros

You can be up and running with a blog in about 20 minutes – simply create an...

5 Ways to Increase your Search Engine Traffic

If you don’t have a website, you don’t exist online. If you don’t have a search engine strategy, you exist – but you’re invisible. Fortunately, there are plenty of things you can do increase your findability by Google – and other search engines – which will boost your traffic, and won’t cost you a penny. […]

Five ways to increase your search engine traffic for free

If you don't have a website, you don't exist online. If you don't have a search engine strategy, you exist – but you're invisible. Fortunately, there are plenty of things you can do increase your findability by Google – and other search engines – which will boost your traffic, and won't cost you a penny.

1. Start a blog. Google loves blogs. This is because Google likes regularly updated content, incoming links, and lots of pages to index – all of which you're likely to have with a blog.

2...