Hi all, thanks for stopping by.

Many of you already know that I am currently taking part in the Learn With Sally coaching and regular visitors to my blog would have noticed plenty of changes to my blog since I started the coaching, proof of which you’ll find at the bottom of the post

As the coaching got under way Sally told us that she would be holding a competition to see who could generate the most traffic to their blogs for the last few weeks of August.

So I brought forward my plans for the Video blog challenge and held it…… during August

On my part there were 3 posts to the challenge:

The first was to announce it, explain the guidelines and invite everyone to take part, as well as explaining the Two posts that would follow.

The second post, Challenge Takers: Experts, 2nd Timers, Video Virgins and A Dark Horse, detailed and linked to all of the entries, with some fantastic tutorials, and the third post to detail my Top Ten Traffic Sources for the challenge period.

Hi all, thanks for stopping by.

Everyone working online knows how important it is to start building an email list and having an opt-in form available for people to subscribe to our lists.

Unfortunately, in my opinion, I see so many blog owners using the wrong method of applying their opt-in forms to their blogs. One of my pet hates is getting to blog, start reading the content and then 60 seconds later up comes a pop up that covers the screen and stops me reading.

Now I know that it’s their blog and they can apply what they want to it. But isn’t the point of a blog to allow people to read our content?

So why would we want to interrupt our visitors when they’re reading?

I don’t like pop ups on a blog or those ones that slide up from the bottom and I know I’m not alone in this. Personally if I get to a blog, start reading the content and a pop up then stops me reading I’m going to leave the blog altogether, unless those few lines that I’ve read have really grabbed my attention.

Hi all, thanks for stopping by.

Since getting over my blog issues, which I detailed in my last post, I’ve been busy catching up with my Learn With Sally coaching, which had been going really well until the blog issues kicked in Obviously those issues took priority as without a blog there’s not much point in trying to apply more to it

Anyway I’m now getting back on track and have been catching up with the modules. I now had to create a Power Point Presentation so I thought; Ok I’ll create one about the Learn With Sally coaching and my journey so far.

Although I’ve created many videos before I’ve never created one with Power Point and I don’t mind admitting that it caused some frustration.

During the first recording the animations came in really slow and seemed to sit in mid flight for what seemed an age whilst I was talking about the relevant point. I stopped recording after the first slide and went to check my work: Rubbish, delete it and start again!

Second attempt: Close all other programs and try again. Same issues with the same results, animations sitting mid screen whilst I’m talking about them. Delete it and start again!

Hi all, thanks for stopping by.

What a busy Bank holiday weekend I’ve had. It’s a shame the calender on my phone doesn’t show Bank Holidays, wedding anniversaries and the day my daughter goes off on her first ever holiday without the parents

I said that I would put the Top Ten Traffic results on my blog today and after a very busy weekend I’ve finally managed it……. ye-ha

You see after receiving the entries for the video challenge I just had to put some of them to use, which meant more learning, applying, correcting, applying, correcting again arggg but I got there and am I pleased, you betcha I’m pleased, so much so you can have another ye-ha

As well as watching the videos from the challenge I’ve also had the pleasure of watching the ones from Learn With Sally. As this weeks module is about creating videos, I thought I’d kill two birds with one stone and create a video of The Top Ten Traffic Sources for the period of the video challenge.

Hi all, have I had busy week or what…

After announcing the video creation challenge in my last blog post I’ve been blog hopping, Tweeting and setting up an event on Facebook to help get the word out there, and what a response I’ve had.

I’m really excited about every video that entered. We’ve got lessons and tours from experts, some from 2^nd and 3^rd timers and some from video virgins that have never created videos before.

oh and watch out for the dark horse, he’s stepped out of the stable and will soon be galloping around the net.

I take my hat off to every one of you that created a video (or two or three in some cases) for this challenge and I have listed them all below in the order that they were submitted to me.

Please bookmark this post as you have some fantastic lessons and demonstrations below and I know you’ll want to watch them all throughout the week

Oh and please use the tools available on each post to help spread the word of their video creations.

So without further ado allow me to introduce…….

Hi all, thanks for stopping by.

I’ve got an idea for a bit of a challenge and want to invite you all to take part….

The challenge is to make a video and post it on your blogs. It can be of anything you feel comfortable doing and if you’ve never created a video then this is your push to do so.

We’re all able to carry out certain tasks on our PC’s so why not record yourself doing one of them?

I’m no Spielberg but I have created a few videos and how I got started was by recording myself setting up an auto reply message on Outlook Express. It’s a simple video, which is displayed lower in the post, and it has been my most popular with over 2,900 views. It was created with free software so all it cost me was my time, so there’s no excuse!

Here’s a few ideas you could start with:

Cloaking affiliate links

Adding an image to a page or blog

Creating a payment button

Creating an Image

Creating an eBook cover

Creating a Hyperlink

Branding an eBook

Hi all, thanks for stopping by….

I’ve just completed the second module of our Learn With Sally coaching and I have to be honest and say that this coaching, although only at week 3, has already highlighted some errors that I have been making online.

The module was Traffic Foundations and setting up accounts on Social Media sites. Now I don’t mind admitting that other than Twitter and more recently Google Plus I haven’t tapped into them at all.

My thinking was that they would be a time magnet and I wouldn’t be able to get anything done in my already busy schedule. So I just left them to those that use them and carried on regardless.

What a foolish mistake that was because nearly all of them can be automated.

We are all aware of Alexa Ranking so let me pass on some info that Sally gave us this week.

Google Plus: The brand new Google social media network, that is Google’s attempt at taking on Facebook, gained 10 million users in just 16 days. Any google site will automatically rank as number 1 so the ranking for Google Plus can be a little misleading but 10 million users in just 16 days tells us all we need to know about its popularity, especially when we bear in mind that it is currently invite only.

Hi all, thanks for visiting my blog.

I’m really excited today as I’ve just purchased Camtasia Studio and have been checking it out. I’ve previously created my videos using CamStudio Pro, which I thought was ok for the price but now that I’ve tried Camtasia I’m kinda blown away.

Having received an email from one of my readers, asking how I’d set my blog up with automated emails to thank people for commenting, I thought I would kill two birds with one stone.

So today I’ve created a video showing everyone exactly how I’ve set the emails up, which I’ve placed below.

If you’ve ever created videos you’ll know that you get those eerrr ummm moments that sound terrible when you play the videos back and those delays when the screen change seems to take forever. Well I’m still having some of those er um moments and the screen change delays are part and parcel I think. Normally if I have to many I would stop the video and start all over again getting a little more worked up with each new attempt.

Not any more!