Category Archives: Featured

Featured content represents the best that SageRock has to offer. These are the articles, pictures, and other contributions that showcase the polished result of the collaborative efforts that drive SageRock Digital Marketing.

Using List.ly for my Pubcon Video SEO Presentation Planning

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I’m speaking at Pubcon this April in New Orleans.

I’m really psyched about that because:

  1. I’ve never spoken at Pubcon before.
  2. I went to the first Pubcon where it was at a bar and we drank all day.
  3. There are two people I attribute most of my base learning of SEO to. One of them is Brett Tabke the founder and CEO of Pubcon.

    Brett Tabke

    He has always been a major supporter of the SEO community. His WebmasterWorld was instrumental in getting a good, solid foundation of SEO principles.

Video is my bailiwick. I do a lot of video. And have done so since 2006. I joined Youtube
Feb 1, 2006, 

These are some of my top level stats of my Youtube Channel:

  • Videos: 903
  • Created: Feb 1, 2006
  • Lifetime views: 451,882

I’m definitely not a “top Youtuber.” But I’m pretty happy with my presence in the Web marketing niche.

At any rate, I’m putting my list of topics I want to cover in a new tool I’m trying: List.ly. This tool lets you create lists that other people can add to and engage with and also embed it directly on your site.

So, as you look through the list below, if you see something I’m missing you can add it to the list.

You can also share the list as well, if you think it’s worth sharing.

There are still many areas that aren’t being crowdsourced… which is probably a missed opportunity. But now we can crowdsource our lists.

So, here’s the list I’ve been working on. Let me know what you think and let me know if you have any other items I should include on the list as I pull my data together.

Video SEO Tips For PUBCON session
Listly by Sage Lewis

Video SEO Tips For PUBCON session

I'm speaking at Pubcon New Orleans on Video and Viral Multimedia Social Optimization: http://www.pubcon.com/new-orleans-2013

I'm going to build a list of potential topics I want to cover to help people optimize their videos with the latest techniques.

If you have any tips please feel free to add them to the list.

You can also rank the list. That will help me organize the best points.

    • crowd rank
    • curated
    • alpha
    • newest
    • queue
    1. Statistics - YouTube

      Statistics - YouTube

      Created in 2007, we now have more than a million creators from over 30 countries around the world earning money from their YouTube videos

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      • YouTube Keyword Searches & Queries Part of Google Trends

        YouTube Keyword Searches & Queries Part of Google Trends

        Google Trends now has YouTube searches going back to 2008. You want to know when certain topics are trending? Go to Google Trends and enter in some search terms. It's a good way to figure out some tentpoling opportunities, or just spending time analyzing good old-fashioned data.

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        • YouTube Hits A Billion Unique Views A Month

          YouTube Hits A Billion Unique Views A Month

          In the 8 years since YouTube has been with us, it's grown to be the second largest search engine in the world and the biggest online video portal by many a country mile. It's YouTube's world, we just live in it and now that fact has been confirmed by YouTube itself with the announcement that they have hit a staggering 1 Billion unique views every single month.

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          • The Top 10 Countries in YouTube Viewership Outside the USA [INFOGRAPHIC]

            The Top 10 Countries in YouTube Viewership Outside the USA [INFOGRAPHIC]

            In terms of total viewership on its top 100 channels, the biggest country for YouTube is still far and away the United States. However, YouTube is seeing big gains in viewer and subscriber growth in the rest of the world.

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            • 57% Of Online Consumers Have Confidence In Product Videos [Report]

              57% Of Online Consumers Have Confidence In Product Videos [Report]

              A new study from video distribution service Invodo and Ecommerce consultants e-tailing confirms that there is an increase in the amount of consumers who feel more confident in buying a product or service after watching a demonstration video before they purchase.

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              • Does Video with Obvious Fakery Detract From Overall Execution? Pepsi MAX and Jeff Gordon "Test Drive" Ad

                Does Video with Obvious Fakery Detract From Overall Execution? Pepsi MAX and Jeff Gordon "Test Drive" Ad

                What if you created a fake viral video?

                A new Pepsi MAX ad with Jeff Gordon in disguise taking a car salesman for a reckless spin has gone immediately viral. The problem is, once you know the legal wrangling that has to take place for a stunt like this to go off without a hitch, it immediately becomes apparent that it's a fake prank.

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                • 5 Secrets to YouTube Search Engine Optimization

                  5 Secrets to YouTube Search Engine Optimization

                  Sage Lewis | November 2, 2010 | Comments When you think of search engine marketing, we live in a much bigger world than just Google, Yahoo, and Bing. At the Search Engine Strategies Conference in Chicago, I sat in on sessions for YouTube and Facebook search optimization.

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                  • How to Optimize YouTube Videos - YouTube SEO - ReelSEO Presentation

                    How to Optimize YouTube Videos - YouTube SEO - ReelSEO Presentation

                    This is a very thorough presentation on YouTube Video optimization by Mark Robertson.

                    http://bit.ly/cFLKJX - The following is my presentation detailing optimization tips and marketing tips for YouTube videos. I presented this at the Dallas Fort

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                    • Creating a Video Sitemap - Webmaster Tools Help

                      Creating a Video Sitemap - Webmaster Tools Help

                      You can use the Google Video extension to the Sitemap protocol to give Google information about video content on your site. You can create a new Sitemap based on the Sitemap protocol, add video infor

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                      • Building a Video SEO Strategy

                        Building a Video SEO Strategy

                        This is an interesting discussion that includes the importance of video rich snippets:

                        Videos for conversion should also almost always be self-hosted or hosted with a secure third-party solution, rather than put on YouTube. Why? Because these videos should invariably also be used to get rich snippets and drive additional traffic to the "money pages" of a website.

                        Youtube videos will not give you rich snippets back to your site. And links with rich snippets get a higher click through rate.

                        The core tactics of technical Video SEO are pretty easy to pick up. You can read through the bulk of what there is to know about getting rich snippets, optimizing for YouTube, and driving links back to your site within a couple of hours.

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                        View more lists from Sage Lewis

                        Bing It On – Microsoft Throws Down the Gloves

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                        Bing It On

                        Bing It On: Win, Lose, or Draw?

                        We’re not sure if you’ve heard of the latest marketing campaign by Microsoft or not but they have recently released “The Bing Challenge.” It’s also known by the catchphrase “Bing It On.”

                        Regardless of what you call it, it’s pretty straightforward and here at SageRock, we’ve decided to reward you for participating. (No, neither company is paying us to do this.)

                        The SageRock “Bing It On” Contest

                        Here’s the deal:

                        Bing wants you to use their search engine instead of using Google (duh), and is proposing to take it on one search at a time. You put in a search term, and Bing shows you two separate results: one from Google, one from Bing. You then are asked to choose which one you liked the best. The catch? You aren’t told which is which until the very end.

                        Want to Participate in the SageRock Contest?

                        Don’t worry, it’s very simple.  You are going to take the Bing Challenge with your own searches, but based around our suggestions. Why? For science! (or something) After you complete the Bing It On Challenge, take a screenshot of your final screen and send it to: bingiton@sagerock.com
                        The winner (chosen at random) will get either a Google or a Bing Coffee Mug, depending on their results*

                        Here’s the Step by Step Guide:

                        1. Visit the Bing-It-On Challenge
                        2. Enter your 5 Searches in this Order
                            1. Your First and Last Name
                            2. Name a Smell
                            3. Any Search Engine
                            4. Name of a Porn Star or an Illegal Drug
                            5. Local Restaurant and city (example: Pizzeria Uno, Chicago)
                        3. Take a screenshot of your Bing It On results:

                          SageRock Bing Challenge

                        4. Email the screenshot of your results to: bingiton@sagerock.com

                        We will compile all entries into a blog post giving the results at the end of March. We will also give the winner(chosen at random) either a Google or a Bing coffee mug depending on what their results were.

                        Best of luck to all of you!

                         

                        *The Winner will be chosen at random but we will combine all entries into a future Blog post to showcase the outcome and determine who the winner really is!

                         

                         

                        Why auto-posting blog posts to social doesn’t work

                        2 Replies

                        Social_Media_Grungy_Watercolor_by_WebTreatsETC

                        I’m now on a mission to try to get to two blog posts a day.

                        To do that I’m writing ahead, sometimes as far as a week. I schedule the posts to come out in the next available spot.

                        I’m trying to do a post in the morning and a post in the afternoon.

                        The problem I’m having is that because I wrote the post a while back I usually forget to post a notice in my social media channels.

                        To deal with that I’ve been trying a series of plugins and third party social media posting tools to help with the process automating social media notification.

                        The tools I’ve used in my recent testing include:

                        I have two requirements for an auto-posting tool:

                        1. It has to send a picture up to Facebook.
                        2. It has to actually send the post.

                        You would think those would be relatively simple requirements. But they are near acts of god. 

                        They all seem to not meet one or both of those requirements at any given time.

                        The tool I finally rested on was: Social Networks Auto Poster {SNAP}

                        It requires you set up apps at each social media site. But I have a belief that’s a good thing. I think it makes it more likely that it’s actually going to work.

                        IFTTT is also really powerful. But I couldn’t figure out how to get it to post a picture to Facebook. That very likely could have been my fault.

                        But even if I could get my two requirements to work flawlessly, there is one other fatal flaw.

                        The posts look boring. They look synthetic. There’s no humanity to the posts. And I think people can tell.

                        The key to good copywriting is to get someone to do the next thing.

                        • A good title gets you to read the first paragraph.
                        • A good first paragraph gets you to read the rest of the article.
                        • A good article gets you interested in who wrote it.
                        • An interesting story of the writer gets them to call.
                        • A good call gets you to request a quote.
                        • A good quote gets you to buy the product or service.

                        It’s all about the story. And it starts with a good title.

                        These automated tools can’t come up with a catchy headline for a specific social media channel. The way you talk on Twitter is different than Facebook which is different than LinkedIn which is different than Google+.

                        You simply can’t have a script write your attention grabbing headline. 

                        And so, I will figure out a system to come in and manually post to my social media channels. It’s worth the extra effort.

                        The Restless Tiger

                        Leave a reply

                        image

                        One of the benefits to heavy drinking was that I would subject myself to a regular self inflicted flu-like conditions. Hangovers are hell. I was usually out of commission the entire next day. Week after week after week.

                        But at least it kept me occupied.

                        I’m going on 10 years of not drinking. I feel so much better. I highly doubt I’ll ever go back.

                        The amount of kinetic energy I have these days is palpable.

                        I’m always looking for the next “thing.”

                        I have significantly more energy than I ever used to.

                        It makes me look for something to fill my time, to give me a buzz.

                        The Tire King across the street is for sale. The Seniors Helping Seniors franchise interests me. DogVacay.com is a concept I’d like to pursue.

                        This is the entrepreneur’s curse. I’m not the only one to feel this way. I know many entrepreneurs who feel the same way I do. Starting things gets in your blood. The new project is so compelling. Most entrepreneurs need the fix. The new business.

                        But the ennui, the restlessness, it weakens you. It diversifies your attention. It steals your persistence.

                        That becomes the serial entrepreneur’s greatest threat. Boredom.

                        But we know this: Everything succumbs to persistence.

                        Discipline and dedication are the keys to the entrepreneur’s success.

                        Don’t walk away. Don’t get distracted. Keep your focus.

                        Do what you have to do to stay in the game you’re in.

                        Change roles. Set high goals. Expand your market. Just don’t leave.

                        And if things become too unbearable figure out how you can sell. Don’t walk away until you get something for your effort.

                        I know it’s hard. I know you don’t want to be where you are anymore. And I know you are the kind of person that takes big, drastic actions. Just don’t walk away.

                        I see people do it all the time. Get something for your efforts. There are plenty of other people who don’t like the “thrill” of starting something new.

                        You can give them what you love and they hate.

                        Just don’t walk away.