Shane Eubanks - Internet Marketing Specialist

Genuine Internet Marketing Launched

shane — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 20:20:17 +0000

In an effort to separate my “personal” articles from my internet marketing-related posts, I launched a new site called Genuine Internet Marketing where I will be posting articles on various internet marketing strategies.

I’ll be keeping this blog for random, personal posts so if that interests you at all, cool. If you’re more into the internet marketing stuff I sometimes write about, then be sure to head over to Genuine Internet Marketing.

Cinemagraphs Bring Photos to Life

shane — Wed, 11 May 2011 15:51:01 +0000

Years ago, when I first started Visual Forces I had wanted to add motion to the photos to give them sort of a surreal look. Unfortunately, it was an idea that got buried and I completely forgot about…until now. What was once just an idea, has now become a reality and now has a term…cinemagraphs. A cinemagraph is basically an image that has motion in it. It’s not a video, but typically an animated gif that loops, but in a way that doesn’t necessarily look looped.

The beauty of this is that still cameras can often capture images with a unique look that can’t always be captured on video. Then when you add motion elements to the photo through either photo manipulation or by stitching multiple frames together, you end up with a photo that is being brought to life in a simple, yet attention-grabbing way.

Some of the best cinemagraphs that I have seen have been created by photographers Jamie Beck and Kevin Burg. Check out their cinemagraphs below!

“Meet me at the bar” by Kevin Burg

“Fillerup Please” by Kevin Burg

“Louboutin Samira Strass” by Jamie Beck

“Prabal’s Beauty” by Jamie Beck

“A charmed life… locked in love with Tiffany’s” by Jamie Beck

“Busy day in Manhattan… but there’s always time for the paper” by Jamie Beck

“Evening is coming in Savannah” by Jamie Beck

“Happy St. Paddy’s Day!” by Jamie Beck

The blogs for the above two cinemagraph photographers can be found at:
Jamie Beck
Kevin Burg

If you have seen other amazing images brought to life with cinemagraphs then be sure to share the link in the comments sections below!

How to Help in Cartersville, GA

shane — Fri, 29 Apr 2011 15:59:07 +0000

Tornado destruction in Cartersville, GA

On Wednesday night, April 27, 2011 a massive storm passed through a large portion of the Southeast and through the city I live in. In the aftermath, numerous homes and businesses were destroyed and many things were ripped apart…but not the families and friends of this community.

By the following morning, numerous volunteers pitched in doing literally anything that has been needed from cleaning up debris to packing sack lunches for families and workers that are picking up the pieces.

Before we get to the list of ways to help, take a few minutes to watch the following video of the damage done in Bartow County…yes, everything in this video is just from Bartow county alone…incredible.

There are a variety of organizations and groups that are now setup if you’re interested in donating, volunteering, etc. Here are the ones that I have come across:

IF YOU ARE IN NEED

Federal Disaster Assistance
“Individuals and business owners who sustained losses in the designated county can begin applying for assistance today by registering online at www.disasterassistance.gov, by web-enabled mobile device at m.fema.gov or by calling 1-800-621-FEMA (3362) or 1-800-462-7585 for the hearing and speech impaired. The toll-free telephone numbers will operate from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. (local time) seven days a week until further notice.”

Bartow County Response Team organized by local churches
Local area churches have an organized effort to assist anyone in need of tornado relief. Call their hotline at 770-382-6652 or visit any of the three help centers listed below for food, toiletries, necessities, chainsaw work, etc.

Graceland – Click here for a map and directions
Cedar Creek Baptist – Click here for a map & directions
Crowe Springs Baptist – Click here for map & directions

Red Cross
If you or someone you know has immediate housing or shelter needs, they can contact the Red Cross at 706-844-2233.
The Bartow Red Cross Office is located at:
320 W. Cherokee Ave.
Suite 109
(Beside Cartersville Library)
Cartersville, GA 30120
Telephone: 706-844-2233
Click here for map and directions

IF YOU WANT TO VOLUNTEER

Bartow County Response Team organized by local churches
Local churches have come together to provide an organized effort to assist those in need as well as coordinate donations, volunteers, etc. The command center is located at Grace Baptist Church in Cartersville and their hotline is 770-382-6652. If you’d like to volunteer in any way (organize clothing, do heavy lifting, deliver food donations, etc then be sure to start with them.)
Click here for a map & directions for Grace Baptist Church

Bartow County Emergency Management
If you would like to volunteer to help the cleanup efforts, call 770-387-5089.

IF YOU WANT TO DONATE

Bartow County Response Team organized by local churches
Clothing, personal items, toiletries, non-perishable foods, etc can be dropped of at the primary distribution center at Grace Baptist Church. From there, the items will be delivered to various pickup points or directly to those in need.
Click here for a map & directions for Grace Baptist Church

United Way
United Way President Brenda Morehouse is encouraging residents to deliver monetary donations as well as contributions of food, beverages, generators or hygiene items to her office at 140 Douglas St., Suite 104, in Cartersville, GA. Also available by calling 770-386-1677.
Click here for map and directions

Bartow County Commissioner’s Office
The Bartow County Commissioner’s Office will be opening a collection center starting Monday, May 2nd to collect and distribute items for the tornado victims.
Click here for map & directions

Bartow County
Bartow County will be collecting items such as trash bags, shovels, first aid kits, hand sanitizer, etc for the tornado victims that can be delivered to 1657 Cassville Road (Stars Pre-K facility – building behind the gymnasium) from Monday – Friday, 9:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.
Click here for a map & directions

Bartow County Social Services Department (Monetary Donations)
Monetary donations can be made payable to the Bartow County Social Services Department, with a notation that it is to be used for storm relief efforts. Donations should be mailed or delivered to the Bartow County Commissioner’s Office, 135 W. Cherokee Ave., Suite 251, Cartersville, GA 30120.
Click here for a map & directions

For more information, contact the Commissioner’s office at 770-387-5030.

NorthPointe Church in Adairsville
NorthPointe Church in Adairsville, 30 Orchard Road, Adairsville (770) 387-8135 is feeding families, taking donations and offering shelter and showers for residents in need from the storms. We also have a food pantry that is open Tues 10am, Thurs 6pm and Fri 10 am each week.
Click here for map & directions

The Salvation Army
Clothing and monetary donations are being accepted by the Salvation Army.
17 Apex Dr
Cartersville, GA
Click here for map & directions
You can call 770-387-9955 or 770-386-6256 for details on that as well.

Good Neighbor Homeless Shelter
Food, clothing, blankets, and toiletries are being accepted at:
Physical Address
110 Porter Street
Cartersville, GA 30120
Phone: 770-607-0610
Click here for map & directions

The Daily Tribune
Anyone unable to take donations to designated drop off sites can bring non-perishables, toiletries, boxes, etc. for the disaster victims to The Daily Tribune office, 251 S. Tennessee St. Mon-Fri. 8 a.m.-5.pm. and they will deliver to the appropriate agency for distribution.
Click here for a map & directions

There are so many ways to help out and so much that needs done. If you’re feeling “called” to help out, it’s because numerous people are “calling” out for help right now.

If you know of more ways to help that are not listed above, please use the comment form below and we’ll get it added!

God bless all of you that are involved!!!

How to Stop Friends from Checking you into Facebook Places

shane — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 18:19:48 +0000

With the launch of facebook places, people now have the ability to “check friends in” or “tag friends” as being at places with them….whether the friends are there or not.

Say what? Whether the friends are there or not?

Correct…let’s say someone checks into a place on facebook and then tags you as being with them (whether you are or aren’t…doesn’t matter…facebook doesn’t care). Not only will it show on their wall that you are with them at that place, but it will also show on your wall that you are with them…at the place they checked into. It won’t even ask you to verify that you are with them! It just happens…and this feature is enabled by default once you “activate” places feature in facebook. Creepy huh?

Right about know you’re probably thinking of the funny places you could check your friends into……..and now you’re saying, “whoa…what if a friend checks me into some place I don’t want”. Yeah, you’re now wanting to quickly turn that feature off and stop friends from checking you into places on facebook!

So here’s how to disable friends from tagging you in places on facebook in 3 easy steps.

Step 1:
To disallow people from checking you into facebook places, the very first thing you need to do is go to your “Account” dropdown at the top-right of the screen when you’re in facebook and select “Privacy Settings”.

Step 2:
Next, make sure that “Custom” is selected in the left navigation as shown below and then click “Customize settings”.

Step 3:
Finally, scroll down to the “Things others share” section as shown below and disable the option for “Friends can check me in to Places”. That’s all there is to it! Now your friends will not be able to tag you as being anywhere with them and check you into places on facebook.

Vacation Destination Coupons

shane — Sun, 18 Jul 2010 19:22:16 +0000

I was raised in the tourist town Pigeon Forge, TN and was often asked where to get coupons, deals, discounts, etc for the various restaurants, attractions, lodging, and such in the area. As I figured out the best ways to get deals, I started applying what I learned to my own vacations so that I could save money the exact same way I was sharing with others about my hometown. In the process of figuring out the best websites to get printable coupons for various vacation destinations, I decided to put up some websites for each to share with others who may be interested in visiting those destinations. The list below has the coupons and discounts I found for some popular vacation spots. So if you plan on visiting any of these areas in the near future, I definitely suggest checking out the links below to help you save some money!!

Apple Will Kill Adobe Flash

shane — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 22:15:18 +0000

What was once just a faint, pondering thought that usually ended with “naaahhhhhh” has grown into much more of an actual possibility.

Will Apple kill Adobe Flash?

Sound crazy? It may have a couple of years ago. But now with the iPhone & iPod Touch with their gazillion users (sorry, too lazy to look up actual numbers, but I think that’s close) and with the recent introduction of the Apple iPad…what trend do you notice? Right…no flash support on any of those devices. Hmmmm. Conspiracy? Reality? Let’s go deeper.

Does Apple use Flash on their website? No. They use a mix of javascript/quicktime/h.264 and are leading the way to html5 support in web browsers with their latest version of Safari.

So…millions of people worldwide with devices that do not support flash but DO support fancy javascript and slick video using the “right” code.

Who’s move is it? Who will budge? Apple? Adobe?

Neither.

So what happens? Websites have been modifying their code to strip out flash and replace it with javascript and h.264 videos to be able to reach more users. And why not? Why wouldn’t websites want to dip into the extra millions of users carrying Apple mobile devices? Quite simply, Apple is controlling the market and the ultimate fate of Adobe Flash. Website developers are finding ways to tweak the snot out of javascript and do many of the things that has made flash so…well…flashy the past however many years. All of this coming from a company that motivated masses to “think different“.

Over the course of the next year, you will find that websites will be giving users less reasons to be upset that Apple mobile products do not support Flash. Website owners will have to. When you add on the impact of the currently weak economy, businesses are clamoring for every customer they can get their hands on. Why in the world would they willingly block their products/services to millions of potential customers? The smart ones won’t. They’ll adapt, push forward, and scoop up all of the customers that their competition remains invisible to. In short…the “visible” have the higher chance of survival.

Look, I like Flash. I love Adobe. Apple is cute too. They’re both pretty. I really wish they could get along. But they don’t.

Adobe is pulling the “I’m pretty too!” card with their latest “turn your Flash apps into iPhone apps” capability, but that’s not much more than desperate conformity at this point. It’s nice and all, but Adobe is playing into Apple’s hand.

With the strength of Apple’s App Store and the implications of providing Flash support on their mobile devices, Apple simply isn’t going to let it happen. They’re winning the fight. People are buying their products. Major websites such as YouTube and Vimeo are switching from Flash to HTML5/h.264 support. The tide is turning. Apple is riding the wave while Flash is getting lost in the ripcurl…ready for the wipeout. Whether we like it or not, Apple is the Big Kahuna now.

Interested in Flash alternatives?

There are plenty of technologies available that can allow you to do many of the things that Flash has been famous for over the years. Definitely get a firm grasp on HTML5, javascript libraries, and encoding video using h.264. Here are some resources to get you pointed in the right direction:

Javascript

HTML5

HTML5 Cheat Sheet

h.264

What others are saying:

Apple, Adobe, and Flash by John Gruber at DaringFireball.net
Adobe on Flash and the iPad: ‘Apple is continuing to impose restrictions on their devices’ on Engadget

What about you? Are you a website owner that uses Flash? Are you planning on replacing it with something else? Do you think all of this is hogwash? I’d love to hear your opinions!

Build a Better Blog in 31 Days

shane — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 04:23:29 +0000

I don’t promote too many “internet marketing” products and the ones that I do end up sharing are ones that I firmly believe in and have full respect for the author(s). I simply want to avoid wasting your time and instead offer you the best resources available to help learn as much as possible in the shortest time possible. What I’m about to share with you packs a whole lot of punch and can take your blog to the next level…or numerous levels higher. If that interests you at all, then read on…because this has been an incredible resource that has helped to get me where I am today.

Over the years I’ve come across way too many people running way too many blogs/websites that promote way too much recycled junk that can send one through information overload and “paralysis by analysis”. I spent a lot of time “learning” and “studying” before actually doing something and taking action. Too many internet marketers want your “action” to be purchasing their up-sell, down-sell product or whatever the hot affiliate product of the week may be. It’s a vicious cycle that can easily suck you in and keep you from doing anything productive. Fortunately, there is someone has has stayed consistent and provided solid advice dating back to around 2004 that I’ve followed and has shaped a lot of what I do in internet marketing. That man is Darren Rowse.

Darren Rowse is the founder of problogger.net and also runs successful blogs including Digital Photography School and TwiTip – Twitter Tips. He uses the problogger.net site to share numerous blogging and internet marketing strategies to help websites of all sizes become successful. I’ve personally applied numerous tips of his on my sites that I can honestly say have increased traffic/conversions/income/etc over the years. I can 100% recommend Darren and his website/products to anyone that runs a website/blog of any size. This is why I’m excited about his latest product!

Darren ran a series of blog posts over the course of a month titled “31 Days to Build a Better Blog”, which was a huge success. Each post featured a single task to perform on your website each day along with why that task should be performed and how it can impact your websites. It was a very action-oriented series of posts that contained a ton of useful tips. Well, now Darren has packed all of those popular posts into a downloadable ebook available to purchase.

There are plenty of internet marketing books, dvds, ebooks, etc available on the market…some going for thousands of dollars, so the cost of 31 solid, action-oriented tasks that will boost your website could easily be high. You’ll be surprised…it’s less than a dollar per task!

$19.95

That’s it…just $19.95…that’s about $1.55 per task. You could easily make that many times over with this series of tasks. I know I did.

People ask me all the time:

“How do you make money online”
“Can you give me some tips on running a website?”
“How can I bring more traffic to my website?”
“How can I get more people to buy my products?”
“How can I make more money with my website?”

…the list goes on and on.

I love helping people make their websites successful, but I can now easily recommend this ebook to those that really want to knuckle down and take action in making their blog/website the best that it can be.

If you want a better blog…if you want a better website…this is the ebook to get.

Click here to get more details and start building a better blog

*note*: If you purchase the ebook through the link above, I do receive a commission from the sale. If you would rather me not receive anything you can make your purchase directly at http://www.problogger.net/31dbbb-workbook/.

How I Saved over $1,000 on Airfare with Twitter

shane — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 02:43:32 +0000

Some people don’t know what twitter is or maybe they do but they don’t understand why anyone would want to post everything they are doing or read what everyone else is doing. Some people just don’t “get it”. I usually try to explain it to someone only to hear “why would anyone do that?” or “I don’t have time for that”.

Well, this post will show you why twitter rocks.

I’ve been looking to take a trip back to Hawaii with my bride since there have been some great deals on hotels and such down there with the down economy. The only thing there hasn’t been great deals on is airfare. From Atlanta, the tickets usually hover around $850 per person roundtrip. So that would be about $1,700 just in airfare! Ouch!

That’s where twitter came in…and boy did it pay off! Here’s how I snagged 2 roundtrip tickets to Hawaii for LESS than the cost of a single ticket!

First of all, I use a desktop app called Seesmic to track twitter and facebook status updates from people I follow. The cool thing about Seesmic is that you can creates “groups” of people that you want to track. So I have a group called “travel” as you can see below, which contains only the twitter users that post travel deals and updates. This allows me to see the best deals as soon as they are announced (deals almost always show up on twitter before any website has time to make a post about it). Trust me…twitter is the fastest way to find out about deals and jump on them!

So one night I was about to go to bed, when I noticed a tweet from beatofhawaii (a twitter user who also has a great website about Hawaii) that said United Airlines was having a crazy sale for $250 roundtrip to Honolulu. Well, we had been planning to go to Kauai and Maui, but I figured I’d see if the deal worked for those…and it did! The price jumped to $376 a person since an extra flight was required (from Honolulu to Kauai and then from Maui to Honolulu), but I jumped on the deal and snagged 2 roundtrip tickets for a total of $752! That’s less than it normally costs for 1 ticket! So with taxes and fees I ended up saving right at $1,000! Within 24 hours the entire deal disappeared. If I hadn’t seen the post on twitter I would have completely missed the deal.

So…why do I use twitter? Well, for many reasons, but this is a big part of it! If you have an interest in just about anything then there are people “tweeting” about it on twitter. You don’t even have to be following them to see their posts…I use the search feature in Seesmic to search for a word and it automatically updates any time someone posts a tweet with that word included. For example, if I was interested in smoothie recipes, I could do a search for “smoothie recipe” and it would show me anyone tweeting about smoothie recipes…very nifty.

So getting back to how I setup a travel group, I actually follow a specific set of people…here are the twitter users I currently follow in my “travel” group…some of them are specific to Hawaii. If you’re looking for great travel deals (especially to Hawaii) then this is a great list of people to follow on twitter:

Conclusion
So basically, you can dive deep into just about anything that interests you using twitter (in this case, I was looking for the best deals for a trip to Hawaii). To do this, here’s what I suggest:

Signup for twitter.
Download Seesmic Desktop and set it up using your twitter account info
Setup groups of people you want to follow or do a “search” for a keyword or phrase in Seesmic and leave that window pane open to see live updates as people post about what you’re looking for

It really is that simple.

See Where Shortened URLs Redirect To

shane — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 06:16:01 +0000

I’m sure you’ve seen shortened URLs posted in various places across the internet as it is insanely popular in social media such as twitter where posting a long link is a tweet suicide. Perhaps there has been a time where you weren’t sure about clicking a link because you had no idea where you would end up. Perhaps you work in a corporate environment where not knowing what site you’ll visit could cost you your job. It happens.

I happen to work in a corporation where I don’t want to land on oddball sites that are going to get me canned and since I work in interactive marketing, I am often staying in the loop with news, blogs, social media, etc. I often see links that I’m not sure about clicking and often don’t unless the person describes what it is and where it leads to. Here are just a few that popped up tonight:

http://bit.ly/HDrh
http://tinyurl.com/7umr6s
http://bit.ly/13OS2
http://is.gd/gMwH

Obviously, without some clues from the people who posted these links I’d have no idea where they go. I don’t know about you…but I like to know this stuff! I searched for a tool where I could slap a url like the ones above in a form and it would them show me the final url that I would end up at. To make a long story short, I couldn’t find one that did what I wanted. Most had way too many bells and whistles. All I wanted was to preview where a shortened url links to. That’s it.

So what did I do? I whipped one together. I call it “url snoop”. It’s simple to use and could possibly save your ~~butt~~ job one day. So check it out, bookmark it, and let me know what you think!

url snoop – preview shortened urls before you click through

How to Increase Your Adsense Revenue Dramatically

shane — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 02:55:16 +0000

If you have a website with Google Adsense and would like to increase your adsense revenue without increasing your daily visitors, then this article is money in your pocket. I recently stumbled through this and the results have been incredible. Lucky for you I’m going to lay out exactly what you need to do. These are some very simple steps that you can do today that will instantly increase your adsense revenue overnight…seriously. So let’s get started.

I was going to do a screencast of this, but wasn’t sure what data would violate any Google terms of service agreements. So, as much as I love all ya’ll I’m taking the safe route and will just list the steps necessary.

First off, you need to have a Google Analytics account and the analytics tracking installed throughout your website. If you don’t have Google Analytics, just click the link above to go sign up. The next step (if you don’t already have this) is the most important step: you have to link your adsense and analytics accounts together. If you don’t have them linked, you can go to Google’s Adsense Blog and click the link that says “interest form” at the top of the article on the page. Fill out that form and you should get linked up fairly quickly. Once you have adsense, analytics, and they are linked together you will need to wait at least 24 hours for Google to start providing some decent data. Once you have some data to look at you’re good to go!

So here’s where it all happens…here is exactly how to dramatically increase your adsense revenue.

The Research

Login to Google Analytics, choose your website profile, and then click on Content on the left side of the page and then Adsense and finally Top Adsense Content. Here is where the magic happens.
At the bottom of that table, choose to show 25 or 50 rows so that you get a good sample of pages
Next, sort the rows by eCPM (estimated cost per thousand impressions). This shows you the pages that earn you the most money…in order. That rocks! While this is awesome, don’t stop here! You’ll miss a very important step!
Now…take a look at the next column over…CTR (click through rate), which is the percentage of clicks those ads get. You need to find the pages with high CTRs…as well as a decent number of page impressions. The page impressions are important as higher page impressions mean more accurate data for the eCPM and CTRs.
Jot down your #1 page….the one with a high eCPM, high CTR, and decent amount of impressions. This is your money-maker and the golden egg of your research. Well done! Now the fun stuff…

You can grab a couple of the next highest pages with high eCPM, high CTR, and high impressions, but picking just one page will yield great results…and choosing just one will help you get something implemented right away and see how it works.

The Implementation
Ok, so you have your bread-winning URL…the MacDaddy of all the pages on your site. What do you do with it? This is where it gets crazy cool, so buckle up.

Think of your website as a funnel. All of your pages are the top of the funnel. What you want to do is take everyone that lands on your pages and funnel them into your “Big Kahuna Page”. To illustrate it, I put together this incredibly detailed and fancy graphic.

Ok, so now you see what I mean by “funnel”. The graphic may not be fancy and detailed, but you get the point. Simply put, no matter how a user gets to your site you want them to end up on your money page. Here are some tips to make that happen.

Sitewide links – This is an obvious and easy action to take, which is where you can immediately increase your adsense revenue. To make it even stronger, think of it as more than a standard “link” on all of your pages. Consider featuring it as a cool graphic or an obvious “button” that entices the user to click. Also, if it is a sitewide link then it has the added benefit of looking more important to search engines, which can help your money page rank higher…double sweet!
Share the URL in your social networks (you are social…right?) or on any other website/forum/ect where people visit. Don’t spam it, though…unless you want to kiss your money page goodbye.
Consider guest posting on another blog/website and pointing a link back to your money page
Do some keyword research to see if you can rank your page higher in search engines. Is the page about a certain topic that is highly searched? Is there much competition? I’ll get into keyword research methods in another post, but I use a combination of Google Adwords’ Keyword Tool and Nichebot. That should lead you down the rabbit hole.

There are many ways to get visitors to your money page, but those few should help increase adsense revenue dramatically.

So there you have it. Basically, find your high eCPM/CTR page(s) and funnel your traffic to those pages. It really is that simple. That’s my google adsense secret. If you have other methods to increase visits to a single page or have anything you’d like to add to this, please share it in the comments below.