Do you do videos for your blog posts with some regularity?

If you don’t, you should!

I have not done a lot of videos but, I have done some off and on. My goal is to do at least one video a month over the next year.

A while ago I took part in a video challenge hosted by Barry Wells and that month I did 4 vidoes.

Why do vidoes though? Isn’t a written post as good?

Videos Get Traffic

Sometimes it may be true that written posts are as good as videos and this post is not going to be a video post even though it is about videos. I may however include a video in this post.

YouTube videos get a lot of traffic separate from your post. If you put a link to your blog in your video as well as in the description on YouTube then your blog will also get some traffic from the video.

If you put videos in your post with some regularity you have a better chance of producing a video that gets lots of traffic and in turn sends traffic back to your blog.

My Best Video

Back in September of 2011 I did a post called Pinterest – Bookmarking Fun!

Now at the time Pinterest was not popular like it is today.

I had been visiting at my son’s home and my daughter-in-law told me about it.

I would love to pin some of the internet marketing posts that I find.

When I first looked at Pinterest, my only thought was “I would love to pin some of the internet marketing posts I like here!”

At that time posting anything but craft ideas was absolutely unheard of and Pinterest was thought to be for only women.

I came home and immediately wrote a post on Pinterest. Not only did I write a post I also made a video. In the video I told what Pinterest was and showed how to use it. I showed how to pin internet marketing posts and talked about it being similar to bookmarking.

At the beginning of this post I said this post was going to be about using videos in posts, not a video post and that I might include one video. Here is the video.  This is the YouTube video I made on Pinterest. You may of already seen it when I posted it back in September so, in that case you will probably not want to watch it again.

When I decided to do a post on Pinterest, I could have just used text and screen shots but I like doing videos so I decided to make a video.

I made the video, wrote the post, put the video in the post and forgot about that post a few weeks later.

Fast forward to March 29, 2012 … 

I for some reason was looking at my YouTube account and how many views different videos had. Most of my videos had between 25 and 200 views.

I Never Dreamed …

Then I saw the Pinterest video made 6 months or so earlier. It had 9500. I never dreamed I could create a video that would get 9500 views. The views continue to increase and today it has been viewed 13,475 times. The number of views has increased about 4ooo views in the last 6 or 7 weeks.

I know this is nothing compared to some of those videos on YouTube that have millions of views but, for me this is a lot.

In addition to the video getting all of those views, the post the video was in is my most viewed post at 542 views. This is also at least twice the number of views as most of my posts get.

It Pays To Make Video

If I had only done a written post for Pinterest I would never have received the traffic I have.

This is a great reason to put a video post on you blog with some regularity. You never know when you will make a video that will get lots of views.

Do you make videos? Have you had a video that has lots of views? Leave a comment and let me know about your videos.

My 1st Year Blogging

One year ago I published my 1st post on my blog after I had deleted the entire blog a couple of weeks earlier.  I had only written 3 or 4 posts previous to deleting it and managed to retrieve them.  I did repost these posts and back dated them.

It is hard to believe that I have been doing this for a year.

My Year In A SnapShot

I think I have come a long way over this past year.

A year ago…

my alexa ranking was in the millions or maybe the billions

I did not know any other bloggers

I had no idea how to comment on other bloggers posts

I did not know how to write a post as I had never written on before

I don’t think I had a Google page rank

I am sure there are many other things I could say but can not think of them

Today

My alexa ranking is 176,801 and has been as low as 132,000 or so.

I have many Blogging Buddies and am so glad that I have met them all.  Many of my Blogging Buddies I consider my friends.

I know people all over the world and communicate with them on a daily basis.

I have written lots of comments and I figured out that writing a comment is not a hard thing to do

I have written 50 posts. My goal was 1 a week and I have come close to that.

My Google page rank is 2

This has been a great year.  I feel like I have accomplished the goals that I set out.

Things I Have Learned

Back up my blog all of the time.  I have only been blogging for about 3 weeks when in one click of the mouse I managed to delete my entire blog and it was not backed up.

Ask for help when I can not figure out how to do something instead of spending countless hours trying to figure it out on my own. Other bloggers tend to be very giving and helpful. I love running things that I can not figure out past fellow bloggers.

What to do when someone steals my blog content.  About 6 months ago I realized that someone had stolen all of my content and it was the only new content on their blog. That was a really a feeling of being invaded.

Set goals and work until I have achieved them.  I have jumped around in the past and that got me no where.

I am sure there are many more things I have learned but I will just stop there.

Year Two

In Year Two I want to continue to blog and meet new people.  I have fallen down lately on my commenting and I really miss doing that.

I want to publish my 1st product.  This is going to be a membership site about Blog Security.  I am really excited about getting this product up and running.

I will continue to write one post a week when ever possible.

Thank You

Thank you to all of my Blogging Buddies who have come to my blog over the past year and commented.

Thank you to all of my readers who do not comment but are faithful to visit my blog and read what I am writing.

I look forward to this next year and everything that it will bring with it.

Leave Me A Comment

As always I love comments.  Leave me a comment and just say “Hi” or let me know what you think of my 1st Year Blogging.  I look forward to hearing from you.

It drives me crazy when my blog loads slow and mine seems to keep loading slower all of the time.

I knew some of the reasons for my blog being slow and I started researching other reasons for a blog to be slow.

I have spent the last week trying to fix my blog and found it was much more involved than I thought.

I am going to go through what I did to fix my blog and try to make it load faster.

Why Should I Worry About A Slow Loading Blog?

When your blog or website loads slow people tend to leave the blog without looking at what you have to say.  This leads to fewer visitors spending any amount of time on your blog.

The whole purpose of having a blog is to attract people to it and have them spend some time reading what is there.  The end goal is to actually have people click on something that is being sold or at least a free product that has an upsell to a paid product.

If the blog is loading slowly and no one stays on the blog then none of the above will happen.

Does Your Blog Load Slowly?

Besides just sitting and watching a blog load, I found a couple of tools that you can use to find out just how fast your blog loads.

This tool allows you to put in your blog link or any other link you want. It will then tell you how long it took to load each blog. Get iWebTool Here

This is another tool that will allow you to find out how fast or slow your blog is loading.  With pingdom you can join for free and it will generate reports of how your blog is doing over time. Get Pingdom Here

What To Do To Make A Blog Load Faster!

There are actually a lot of things that can be done. Some involve going into the code for your blog and adjusting it.

I am going to concentrate on the simple and easy to do solutions that do not involve code!!

Get Rid Of Anything You Are Not Using.

Delete any plugins that are loaded onto your blog that you are not using. It is not enough to deactivate plugins, you also have to remove them.

You might also want to go through the plugins you are using and decide if they are all really necessary for the functioning of your blog.  While plugins are great they tend to slow a blog down.

Widgets are something else that you need to delete if you are not using them.  Keep the number of widgets to a minimum also.

There are a lot of fancy widgets out there that might make your blog look pretty but are really unnecessary.  The one that comes to mind is the tag cloud that spins.  I love that widget but it can slow a blog down.  I got rid of it on my blog for the present time.

These fancy widgets very often are associated with plugins so if you get rid of a fancy widget it also gets rid of a plugin.

Condense Your Images

This is something I have been really bad about doing.

Before loading an image onto your blog you should condense it.  I spend a couple of days going back through all of the images on my blog and condensing them. I found some really large images that I had been lazy and just uploaded.

I use Microsoft Office Picture Manager to condense my images.

There is also a plugin that will condense images as you upload them. It is called wp-smush.it .

Check For Broken Links

Broken links can also slow down your blog.

When I was going through each post to compress my images I checked all of my links within the post as well but, I would not recommend that unless you really want to spend some time at it.

There are Free Link Checkers out there that will go crawl through your website and find all of the broken links.

I used BrokenLinkCheck. I would recommend that you use a broken link check with some regularity.  Most of the broken links that BrokenLinkCheck found on my blog were in my comments.  Someone will put a  comment up and a link back to a post they wrote, then later they will remove the post and it leaves a broken link on your website.

Make Sure You Have Good Hosting

There are a lot of good hosting companies out there.  I personally like Hostgator.

It is not only the hosting company though but, what kind of hosting you have.  If you have shared hosting this could be slowing down your website.

Talk to your hosting company about what is available in the price range you can afford.

Your Links

Whenever you insert a link into your post put a slash ( / ) at the end of the link.  This will tell the server what kind of a link it is and the server will not have to spend time figuring it out.

It is also good to set up your permalinks using “/%postname%/”.  To do this go to Settings – Permalinks – Custom and insert /%postname%/ then click save.

Externally Stored Images

If at all possible do not use externally stored images.

You might have used an externally stored image for a banner that is associated with an affiliated program or something you were giving away.  Any image not stored on your server is stored externally.

When you use images that are stored on someone else’s server, the time needed to retrieve the image is much longer than if the image is stored on your server.

Any images should be downloaded and placed on your own server as to help your website run efficiently.

Optimize Your Database

The database can very quickly become quite large.

Everything you do on your blog is stored in your database.  By optimizing it you will allow the database to run better and faster, hence your website will load faster.

The best way to optimize your database is by using a plugin.

I am using WP-Optimize.  Using this plugin you can optimize your database as well as remove all post revisions, auto draft posts, spam comments and unapproved comments.  When I first ran this plugin I had over 1600 post revisions stored in my database.

Cloud Flare

Cloud Flare is a free service you can sign up for.  When using Cloud Flare your site will load twice  as fast, use 60% less bandwidth and is more secure.

Cloud Flare distributes your content all over the world so that someone on the other side of the world will download your site from a point close to them thus making your site load faster for everyone.

I hope this helps if your blog is running slow.  I have done all of this to my blog and I have seen some improvement.

I did sign up for Cloud Flare and am waiting for that to become active at the time of publishing this post.

Leave me a comment and let me know if any of this was helpful to you or if you have more suggestions on ways to make a blog load faster. If you use Cloud Flare I would love to hear what your experience with it has been.

Pinterest is taking the internet by storm.

If you are not using it you are missing out on traffic.

If you still need an invite to Pinterest leave me a note in your comment and I will send you one.

Sometime back I did a post – Pinterest – Bookmarking Fun! - that contained a video on Pinterest and I can not believe how many hits that video has received.  I know that other people do videos all of the time and get hundreds of thousands of viewings but my videos are not like that.  I might get a hundred or two and I think that is good.

My Pinterest video has been viewed 11,310 times as I write this post.  More and more people are joining Pinterest everyday.

Monitor Your Pinterest Account

Up until now it was impossible to monitor your Pinterest stats. There was no way of knowing what pin was drawing the most traffic and how many times a pin was being viewed.

There are two new pieces of software that will allow you to monitor your Pinterest stats.

Pinerly is still in beta form as far as I can tell.

In order to get Pinerly you have to sign up for it and they will send you an invite when they are ready to go live.

Go to Pinerly.com in order to get on the waiting list and get a sneak preview of just what it will do.

Pinerly is supposed to provide analytics as well as several other features to help you monitor your Pinterest account.

WP Pinner is a WordPress plugin to manage your Pinterest account directly from within your own WordPress admin area.

With WP Pinner you will be able to easily manage who you follow, schedule pins based on your WordPress posts or external sources and keep track of your account.

You will be able to track CTR, clicks, likes, repins, reach, and other stats that will help you manage your Pinterest account to your best advantage.

Sign Up Now

Head on over to Pinerly and WP Pinner to get on the list to receive these new programs for managing your Pinterest account.

What Do You Think?

I always like to know what my readers are thinking.  Leave me a comment and let me know what you think about Pinterest. How you think Pinterest compares to other social networks. If you use Pinterest and do you like it? Do you think having a better way to manage your Pinterest account would be of value?

In my other life … Do you ever feel like you have another life or maybe your life is split?

That is how I feel lots of time.  I have my life on the internet and my life out in the “real” world.

My Online Life

In my online life…

I know all of you and am involved in a great community of bloggers and internet marketers from all over the world.  I have met several of my best friends.  I have friends that I can call at 1:00am when my blog crashes, friends that help me when I do not know what I am doing or what to do, friends that will teach me what I do not know and friends that are there for me when ever I need help.  I love my online friends and community.  Without all of you I do not know what I would do. Sometimes I feel more connected to people online than I do off line and I know I have more friends online.

Online I write blogs, Ebooks, articles, comments, make membership sites, take e-courses, and try to market my products as well as products of others.

Sometimes though I think I can learn valuable lessons from my offline life that apply to my online life.  If you have read some of my other posts you know I have talked about lessons learned in A Fish Story! and how they apply to the internet.  I also have shared a little about “My Other Life” in My Life Off The Internet, and Taking A Break Can Be Fun And Productive!.

I want to again look at “My Other Life” and some lessons learned.

My Other Life…

My Bus or At Least The Bus I Drive

So in my other life I have a husband, 5 children, 3 step children and 9 grandchildren.  Two of my children still live at home, a son 14 and a daughter 17.  I home school my son and my daughter is a Junior (year 11) in high school and a Freshman (1st year) in college, she is dual enrolled in high school and college.

I go to work everyday or at least when there is school and I drive a School Bus.

12 Rows of Seats Filled With 55 Children When I Have A Full Bus. This is my rear view mirror view.

In this challenge each participant will create 4 videos between February 29 and March 29, 2012. The participant then adds the videos to their blog.

These videos are to be on some aspect of Internet Marketing.

Barry is trying to get as many people as possible to create videos and ad them to their blogs.

To find all of the videos being created for the challenge go to The Video Blog Challenge on Barry’s blog.

My Videos

I am doing a series of 4 videos on Photoshop.

In these videos I will be showing some Photoshop basics for the beginner. You may learn something though even if you have used Photoshop before as I will be showing several different ways of doing some things.

Photoshop Made Easy – Part 4: Styles

My fourth video is on how to use Styles.

Styles are used to make text more interesting.  These come in handy when making a header or when placing text on an image for a brochure. They are also just generally fun to play with.

In this video I will show you how to use and adjust styles.

After watching the video I hope you will go out and try your hand at Styles.  I have a lot of fun playing with these.

As always I love comments.  Let me know what you think of my video and/or what you think of Barry’s challenge. Also let me know if you have other  ways of blending pictures on Photoshop.  One thing I have learned about Photoshop is, there are multiple ways of doing everything.  Some of the ways are easier than others and no one source tells you every way.

Be sure you go to The Video Blog Challenge on Barry’s blog and check out the rest of the videos.  You will find a lot of really good information.

In this challenge each participant will create 4 videos between February 29 and March 29, 2012. The participant then adds the videos to their blog.

These videos are to be on some aspect of Internet Marketing.

Barry is trying to get as many people as possible to create videos and ad them to their blogs.

To find all of the videos being created for the challenge go to The Video Blog Challenge on Barry’s blog.

My Videos

I am doing a series of 4 videos on Photoshop.

In these videos I will be showing some Photoshop basics for the beginner. You may learn something though even if you have used Photoshop before as I will be showing several different ways of doing some things.

Photoshop Made Easy – Part 3: Blending Images

My third video is about Blending Images.

Blending images comes in handy when you have 2 or more images that you want to make into one.  Maybe you want to make a header or just a picture that shows multiple aspects of a trip you took. There could be lots of reasons to blend two images together and it is pretty easy using Photoshop.

In this video I will show you how to blend images together in two different ways.

After watching the video I hope you will go out and try your hand blending images.  I have had so much fun doing this.  I have made collages and many other blended pictures using these techniques.

As always I love comments.  Let me know what you think of my video and/or what you think of Barry’s challenge. Also let me know if you have other  ways of blending pictures on Photoshop.  One thing I have learned about Photoshop is, there are multiple ways of doing everything.  Some of the ways are easier than others and no one source tells you every way.

Be sure you go to The Video Blog Challenge on Barry’s blog and check out the rest of the videos.  You will find a lot of really good information.

In this challenge each participant will create 4 videos between February 29 and March 29, 2012. The participant then adds the videos to their blog.

These videos are to be on some aspect of Internet Marketing.

Barry is trying to get as many people as possible to create videos and ad them to their blogs.

To find all of the videos being created for the challenge go to The Video Blog Challenge on Barry’s blog.

My Videos

I am doing a series of 4 videos on Photoshop.

In these videos I will be showing some Photoshop basics for the beginner. You may learn something though even if you have used Photoshop before as I will be showing several different ways of doing some things.

Photoshop Made Easy – Part 2: Actions

My second video is about Actions.

Actions are short cuts that make doing something with several steps automatic.

In this video I will show you how to upload actions to Photoshop, use actions and make your own actions.

After watching the video I hope you will go out and try your hand at actions.  They are fun to use and make many things on Photoshop easier.

As always I love comments.  Let me know what you think of my video and/or what you think of Barry’s challenge.

Be sure you go to The Video Blog Challenge on Barry’s blog and check out the rest of the videos.  You will find a lot of really good information.

In this challenge each participant will create 4 videos between February 29 and March 29, 2012. The participant then adds the videos to their blog.

These videos are to be on some aspect of Internet Marketing.

Barry is trying to get as many people as possible to create videos and ad them to their blogs.

If you are interested in participating please go to Barry’s post at  An Internet Marketing Video Challenge.

To find all of the videos being created for the challenge go to The Video Blog Challenge on Barry’s blog.

My Videos

I am doing a series of 4 videos on Photoshop.

In these videos I will be showing some Photoshop basics for the beginner. You may learn something though even if you have used Photoshop before as I will be showing several different ways of doing some things.

Photoshop Made Easy – Part 1: Removing Backgrounds

My first video is on removing backgrounds from images.

In this video I will show you 3 ways to use Photoshop to remove the background from an image.

After watching my video, I hope you can now easily remove the background from an image.

I love comments so, leave me a comment and let me know what you think of the challenge or my video. Did you learn anything from my video?

Thank you for coming by and reading my post.