Archive for the ‘How-To’ Category

This presentation trick uses QR Codes, those funny little scrambled bar code looking things that you’re now seeing all over the place. Smart phones with QR Code scanners can scan these QR Codes and be taken to the associated web address that are embedded in the code.

What we’re going to do is to add QR codes to a presentation, then allow your audience to scan or link to a mobile version of your presentation. That’s right, they’ll have the presentation in their hands and don’t have to do things like take pictures of the screen or re-type every single note into their laptops.

This is how to do the trick:

1) Create a special link for your presentation. I use the “Pretty Links” plugin in WordPress to generate these redirecting links. For example, if I have a presentation for the Santa Paula “Good Morning Santa Paula” event, I’ll make the link be: “http://www.jpluna.com/gmsp.” Using Pretty Links, I can direct the link to anywhere I want on the Web, including pages that are not on my JP Luna Media site.

If you use something like Pretty Links, you can also build in tracking codes but that’s an advanced topic. If you don’t have Pretty Links, you can create a Web page that uses that name and do a Meta Refresh to the new presentation Web location or use your other preferred redirect method.

2) Create your Power Point presentation then generate a new QR Code that redirects visitors to your custom web address. You can use my QR Code Generator tool to create the QR Code. Yes, now you’re starting to understand the full extent of my geekiness.

Snapshot of QR Code Generator tool

3) Upload your Power Point presentation to Slideshare.net. This puts your presentation online immediately. Slideshare is a great tool because it has a strong social component and it works well on most smart phones.

4) Go back to your Pretty Links setting or your Web page redirect resource and make the pretty link redirect to the new slideshare.net web address for your presentation. The slideshare.net link will be something like “http://www.slideshare.net/yourusername/your-presentation-title” where “yourusename” is your Slideshare username and “your-presentation-title” is a portion of your presentation title.

5) At the beginning of the presentation, tell your audience that they can view the presentation on their mobile devices either by scanning the QR Code OR by typing in the pretty and shortened link into their mobile devices. This will direct them to a great mobile version of your Slideshare presentation and they can focus on your message and not on writing down everything they see on the screen.

Want to try a QR Code Scanner for you iPhone? So far, my favorite scanner is the ATT QR Code Scanner. You can either look for it in your iPhone’s app store or you can link to the online iTunes store. If you already have another QR Code scanner and want to try this one out, you can scan this code and it will take you to the app on your phone. This is a good example of why QR Codes are powerful.

 

It’s hard to describe the glee that shows up on people’s faces when they see the presentation on their mobile devices. This is especially true if their geekiness is rewarded for having a QR Code scan application on their mobile device.

First page of the presentation:

Note, I found that embedding Slideshare on a WordPress page/post works fine for Web visitors using regular PCs, but it will only show a link to the Slideshare presentation on mobile devices. Clicking the link takes the user to the Slideshare site that will then properly load the device. But that’s an extra click. That’s why I link directly to the Slideshare site now.

Would you like to see a VIDEO TUTORIAL of how I do this? If so, I will create a video once I get to a total of 100 retweets of this blog post, Facebook comments on the JesseLuna.com FB page and Facebook “Likes” on this post.

Resources:

• View the Good Morning Santa Paula presentation on Slideshare.net
• How to Add QR Codes to your blog (VIDEO)
• Create your own QR Code

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Did you miss HTML for Bloggers Lesson 1? If so, go to Lesson 1 then come back for Lesson 2. C’mon, don’t cut corners.

In Lesson #1, we learned about the basics of Web pages and started learning about marking up documents, literally. The purpose of Lesson #1 is to give you a visual understanding of how HTML works. We’ll continue driving that point here in Lesson #2 then we’ll start learning about the key HTML tags.

HTML Tags

In Lesson #1, we marked up a little Web page. In that exercise you wrote on the page and described what was going on in the page. You may have circled things or used arrows as I did in my marked up version below.

Each of those instructions could be described using HTML tags. Tags are little instructions used by the HTML scripting language to describe page contents.

For example, the heading on the document could have been described as being “large”. That could have been described using the “font” tag.

Then, there is a photo of the Ventura coast. We could have described that in the HTML code by using the “img” tag which stands for “Image.” The “img” tag allows us to set properties on that tag. We would have set the “src” property to be the Web location of that Ventura coast image.

HTML Page Structure

Once again, think of HTML tags as sets of instructions. Each instruction starts with a beginning tag, such as < html > then ends with an end tag which begins with a ” < /", such as < /html >. The end tag gives the page the instruction that it can stop doing whatever it was previously doing.

This is the main tag structure of an HTML document (the Web page).

Another way to think about this start tag-end tag convention is the old Simon Says game. “Simon says, pat your belly.” In the game, you start patting your belly. In HTML, you start a new tag. “Simon says, rub your head.” In the game, you keep patting your belly then start rubbing your head. In HTML, you don’t end a tag just because you started a new one. That means that whatever HTML element you started is still in play and now you’re starting a new one.

Now that we learned about HTML tags and its basic structure, let’s create our own Web page from scratch. Follow along on the video.

If you watched the video and did the little “homework” then you should have created your own Web page. Did you? Prove it by uploading it to Flickr and adding a link in the comments.

The only way to know if you like this mini-course is by your comments and questions. Don’t be shy!

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HTML knowledge is one of the biggest stumbling blocks for small business owners looking to manage their own blogs. On a blog platform like WordPress.com, a non-techie can configure 80-90% of their site without knowing any HTML. On Posterous or Tumblr blogs, 95% of the blog site can be well configured without HTML.

It’s that 5-10% that can stop a small business owner in their tracks. The intent of this post and the whole course is to help you get over that learning hump so you can manage your blog effectively and go on and do what you do best, run your business.

Let’s get started.

Web Page Basics

* Web pages are created using the scripting language called HTML.

* HTML stands for HyperText Markup Language

HyperText Markup Language

HyperText

* Web pages may include text, images, videos, and links to itself or to other Web pages or documents.

* Links are also called “Hyperlinks.”

Markup

*HTML is used to describe a Web page’s layout.

Exercise

For this part of the lesson to be most effective, you will need to print out this worksheet (PDF). This page has the two examples below and some instructions.

Now, get a marker or crayon and have it handy (red ones work well). Look at the first example and describe what you see. Pretend that you’re on the phone describing to someone what you see in the little Web browser. Then write those same descriptive words on the paper with your marker or crayon. Write them next to the element on the Web browser that you are describing.

This is the most important part of the entire course. There’s no wrong way to do this. You’ll see.

Ok, so you marked up the first little Web browser on the worksheet. That wasn’t so bad, was it?

You’re wondering if “you did it right”, aren’t you? That’s natural. Click here to see how I marked up the first little example. If you did it a different way then that’s fine.

Now go to the second little Web browser on the worksheet and do the same thing. Mark it up. Remember, you’re writing down words that you would use to describe it to someone else. Don’t be afraid to draw arrows and circles to make things super obvious.

You can see how I marked up the second example here. Once again, if you did things in a different way that’s Cool and the Gang (movie reference).

Congratulations, you just finished Lesson 1! The purpose of this little exercise was to practice the “marking up” process. We essentially just created our own little language for describing Web content. The language was made up of descriptions in English and maybe arrows and other marks.

In the next lesson we’ll learn the formal way to use the HTML scripting language to describe Web content. You’ll learn about the key HTML “tags” and the structure of an HTML document. You will also learn the first tips for using HTML to update your blog content with confidence.

Have questions on this Lesson? Was it useful? Leave a Comment or “@” me on Twitter, @jesseluna. While you’re at it, subscribe to the blog so you don’t miss Lesson 2.


[Update: HTML For Bloggers Course - Lesson 2 has been posted!]

Photo credit: Studiocurve on Flickr – License

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Email is still the killer app of the Internet. I wrote about unleashing your message a couple of months ago but forgot to include one important method – including social links. It’s easy to take email to the next level by adding social media friendly links to your messages.

In the example below, the EDC-VC (Disclaimer, I’m a business advisor there) is sharing information about an upcoming workshop for startups in the Ventura County, CA area. The EDC-VC uses Contact Contact for its email services.

Let’s take a closer look at the social links at the top of the email:

By adding an offline version of the email newsletter, you unlease the email content to be shared across the Web. That means allowing people to:

* Share it on Facebook. When someone shares an item on Facebook it will be added to their Profile page. Or, they can take the web URL and share it on any of their Facebook Pages.

* Tweet out a link on Twitter. You don’t even have to be active on Twitter to allow people to share links to the offline version of your email newsletter! I just tweeted out a link to the email below. Wouldn’t you want someone with over 8400 followers to be sharing your content?

I customized the default message that Constant Contact provided after clicking the little Twitter button. Here’s the tweet:

* Post to LinkedIn. More and more business users are posting information to LinkedIn. For some, LinkedIn is the only social networking site that they are allowed to post to during the work day so they like to share great and relevant content.

Viewing the email online

The other powerful link on this email message is the “Having trouble viewing this email. Click Here” section. By clicking the link, viewers are able to go to the online version of the site then use all their usual methods of sharing information. This is subtle feature but extremely powerful.

The power of content re-use

By adding social links to your email newsletter, you extend the reach of your message and are reusing that content for different platforms. How awesome is that?

Review

So if you’re building an email list for your business, I strongly suggest you look into any feature that allows you to share your content via social networks. It will help your messages run wild!

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One of the greatest benefits of video is its ability to end up all over the Internet. You post a video to YouTube, the message resonates with viewers, and they share the video with the world. For example, after helping my nephew tie a tie before his first job interview, I decided to do a video of the process. To my surprise, the video took off and now has over 5,500 views.

Now imagine these 5,500 people were viewing and sharing your small business’s content.

Some users will share your videos on other social networks like Twitter and Facebook. Others will actually embed the videos in their blogs – very common on video and music blogs. Then there are blogs that automatically display your videos on their site for the sole purpose of driving traffic to their site. There may be little or no attribution on these different posts.

Note: In this post, I refer to YouTube content but most of the tips also apply to other video platforms like Vimeo, Viddler, and Animoto.

Here are five tips for taking control and branding your video content.

1. Mention your name and company Web site at the beginning and end of the video.

I learned this tip from video blogger Steve Garfield. You’ll always hear Steve’s video start with “Hi this is Steve Garfield from SteveGarfield.com.” If your video ends up at the far reaches of the Internet, away from the main YouTube site, this tip can help connect viewers to your brand.

2. Actually display your name and company URL in the video.

Feel free to be creative here. Write your name and URL out longhand as part of the video, spell it out in the sand on a beach walk, do some animation, whatever. Just make sure your company information is visible and a part of the video. Once again, as your video runs wild, viewers will be able to refer back to your site.

3. In YouTube, start your video Description with your Web site URL.

This little trick is amazing at connecting your video content with your company site. If you start the description with the URL it also creates a clickable link.

4. Once you start adding your site URL to your Description field, you can start to track mentions of your video.

I use Google Alerts to check for mentions of my different blog sites. When I receive an alert over “jesseluna.com” and see the name of a video next to it, I know someone embedded the video or linked to it.

If your company strategy is to let your videos run wild, then tracking where they end up isn’t as important. However, I personally still get flustered when I see my videos being sucked into a site that is obviously using the content for the sole purpose of driving users to click on ads. Basically, they’re using my content to make tiny sums of money.

But that’s the balance video producers must make. Do we share and let the content spread or do we try to over-control it and keep it from getting out? The answer will depend on your own strategy.

5. Maximize the way videos are presented on your own site.

In the mad rush to prepare quality videos, sometimes they only end up on YouTube. Using video on your site or blog is a huge opportunity to extend the reach of your video and brand. It will also provide compelling content for your blog.

I just relaunched this blog to help highlight my video tutorials. I’m displaying “featured videos” on the right widget bar and I created a page that displays a 20-video playlist of tutorials. The Tubepress WordPress plugin is an excellent tool for displaying YouTube and Vimeo videos.

Ironically, the Tubepress plugin can be used to suck in other people’s content as well. But you don’t have to use it that way.

Do you have any extra tips?

We’ve just stepped through five ways to brand and take control of your videos. This is not an exhaustive list but should get your brain juices going. Take control of your content and maximize its use.

Did I miss any obvious items? Please share your experiences and tips in the Comments section.


Photo Credit: Cookieevans on Flickr - License

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I love sharing information, including technology trends, social media How To’s, breaking and local business news, and information on advocacy groups. On Twitter, I’ll share 5-10 items per day, sometimes in a rapid fire method. On Facebook I’ll “Like” or “Share” several posts a day. Multiply these activities by the number of Twitter and Facebook users and you have an unprecedented amount of sharing and re-sharing.

So why limit the scope of your message? Let it run wild!

Here are five tips to help you set your message free.

Give Your Email Legs

Ok, so you spent two weeks working with a team to create the perfect email message. Maybe you’re about to launch a new product, announce a new conference, drive donors to your non-profit site, or share your latest video creation.

There are three important items to add to your email deployment checklist:

1. Do you have an online version of your email with a link to that page on the email? I can’t tell you how many times I’ve received a juicy email that I want to share with the world and struggled or have been unable to find the online version. If I don’t have a link, I can can’t share it with my online network. What a missed opportunity.
   
   If you do have an online version, please think clearly before deciding to host that content on the email management tool’s site. Do you want to drive content to Constant Contact’s site or to your site, for example?
2. Do you have a Twitter or Facebook share feature on your email? This makes sharing one step easier. With the click of a button, your message can flow to two of the most supercharged sharing sites in the world.
3. Is it easy to forward the email to a friend? Some email messages have nifty “Forward to a Friend” features that make it easy to share content. I rarely use this feature but there are some people who like it, especially if it is from an authority site like a news agency or major publication. If the email is breaking news or highly relevant to your personal or business contacts then this could help your message take off.

This Kodak email has an online version and ways for users to subscribe to Facebook and Twitter. The email could be enhanced with actual tweet buttons that automatically format the Twitter and Facebook messages, so posting is only one click away.

Let’s look at this from a numbers perspective. If you send out your email message to your permission-based list of 10,000 contacts and you don’t add any sharing features, then your message is limited to the number of recipients plus the number of times your email is forwarded to other contacts. Let’s be generous and say that 100 of the emails were forwarded to contacts. That’s a reach of 10,100.

If you add a link to your online content and have a Facebook and Twitter share then the numbers shift. Your initial contacts receive the message and can then re-post the message to their followers via Twitter or Friends on Facebook. If I tweet about an item, the message is instantly available to over 8,400 followers! That’s almost double the reach from ONE contact. Factor in retweets and other people sharing and the reach can get to 100,000 very quickly.

From your Website to the World

1. Add a Tweet button and Facebook Share and/or Like feature to your Web pages and blog posts. Yes, this is the same tip as for your email messaging but it’s important to give your site/blog readers a way to share content with their networks Clear a path.
2. Do you have a compelling image on your web page or blog post? A good photo or graphic will catch a persons attention and make it more share worthy. On Facebook, the image will show up as a thumbnail picture. Your Facebook friends will be much more likely to Like the post and to re-share it.
   
   Note: if you don’t select a photo to go with your page/post and someone “Facebooks it” then they will either get a selection of random image options (icons from your sidebar or unrelated content) or they won’t have any option.

(Link to The Spice Spoon blog.)

Review

We just reviewed how to clear a path for your important messages. If your message is clear, relevant, and timely then these tips can help your message spread like wildfire.

Do you have any other design tips to help your messages spread?

Photo Credit: Vestman on Flickr – License

(Originally posted on jesseluna.com)

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The secret is out. Video blogging is a powerful way to engage blog readers. Video adds another multimedia dimension to a blog, it helps create a closer bond to readers, it reinforces your blog’s message, and it is great for expanding your message to other social networks, especially YouTube.

I started messing around with Web video back in 2005 while testing out the kids toy, the Vidster. At the time, I had no idea how to embed the video into a site or blog (I wasn’t on YouTube until 2006). Now, things are much easier and there are a variety of ways to get started.

Getting Started

If you don’t already have a YouTube account, do yourself a favor and go create one now. I’ll add you as a friend and subscriber if you drop me a message (I’m @cinemaluna on YouTube). YouTube is a top 5 global site and has its own rich ecosystem. And, you don’t have to “live there” to get many of the benefits.

Equipment

Dude, I dont’ even have a camera.

If you have a computer and an Internet connection, you can start recording video right now. You don’t even need a camera. You can go to Screenr.com, and do a screen recording of your computer. I do this all the time to create video tutorials and it’s a great way to add video to your site. Screenr allows you to record, embed, tweet out the video link, download the video to your computer, and upload the video to YouTube. Screenr has a 5 minute maximum on screencasts.

The process of recording your screen is called “screencasting.”

Here’s a screencast I did for a WordPress.com tutorial. This video content was actually featured on the WordPress.tv site.

Or, you can go to Animoto.com and create a video based on photos. Animoto uses an ingenious system that can combine photos, video, and text then “automagically” generate the video by matching the multimedia elements to the selected soundtrack. Here’s a simple video I created using pictures (plus a micro video) from my “staycation” a few months back. The free version of Animoto limits the video to around 30 seconds.

Wait a minute, I have a little video feature in my digital camera. Can I use that?

Many newer digital cameras have a video feature. You might only be able to record a few seconds but that’s all we need to get started today. I have an “old” HP Photosmart 320 digital camera that I bought years ago and even that has a 30 second .AVI video feature. You can use a site like http://media-convert.com/ to convert from older and non-YouTube supported file formats to a more current format. Note: I haven’t actually used Media-convert.com so use at your own risk.

In case you’re counting, this is our third way to get video up to our blog today.

I also have an old-school digital video camera. But I’ve only used it to edit things in my computer. Will that work?

If you have the right cable connection for your older digital video camera, you’re in business. I have a JVC digital video camera (model GRDVL517U) that I bought around 2000, that’s 5 years BYT (Before YouTube). I can plug in the digital video cable and connect it to my PC and have access to all the video files.

If you’re going to use an older camera like the JVC then you may run across issues like missing cables, lost mini-dv cassettes, and missing user manuals. If that is the case then you can still find many of those items, but the older the digital video camera, the higher the price you’ll have to pay. My JVC user manual is over $10, and that’s from the JVC site.

That would be the fourth way to add video to your blog.

Wait a minute, we gave my kid a little camera a while back. Would that work?

There are actually several toy cameras out there that record digital video. Cameras like the Vidster by Mattel and RipRoar’s Creation Station sold for around $80 and they both record digital video. I purchased the Vidster, uh, for myself, back in 2005. Both of these toy video cameras come with cable connectors and you’ll need them to access the digital video files. You may also need to download the software for each.

Even though there are two cameras here, I’ll only count this as one way. We’re up to five ways to get video onto your blog.

I do have a web cam, but I’ve never used it.

Now’s the time. Fire up the Web cam, go to your YouTube account, click on “Upload” at the top of the page, then select “Record from webcam” and you should be able to connect and record your video. Your cam will also come with some kind of software. You can use that if you’re not ready to dive into the YouTube pool.

A web cam is the sixth way to add video to your blog.

My cell phone records video. I assume that’ll work?

You betcha. You can record on your video-enabled cell phone and send it to your email or you can post it to one of many video posting services. I’ll list those sites towards the end of this post. I use my iPhone video as a promotion machine.

That was the seventh way to add video to your blog.

I’m hip, I use Flip. Don’t hate, I also use the Kodak Zi8

Flip video cameras are small, easy to use, and very powerful. I’ve been using a Flip Mino HD for the past year and it’s served me very well. Even though the Flips have been out for a few years, they are still very cool and discreet. There’s a big difference between recording using a Flip vs. one of those huge paparazzi cameras. You’re less likely to get the stink eye from people if you’re out recording in public.

I just got the Kodak Zi8 (thanks again @sugarjones) and so far it’s the bees knees. I’m still testing it out and have only posted one video to the site so far.

Once again, we covered two cameras but we’ll count that as one more way. That was number ocho.

How To Embed Video Into Your Blog

Thanks to YouTube, embedding videos into blog posts is super easy. Once you get your video uploaded to YouTube, all you have to do is get the Embed code and add it to your blog.

Here are some blog by blog specifics.

WordPress.org (custom install) blog

Just paste the embed code into your blog post area and Save. That’s all you need.

WordPress.com

Paste the embed code or paste the video page’s URL into a shortcode field. Actually, if you paste in the Embed code then save the post, WordPress.com will turn it into a shortcode for you. This is an example of the YouTube shortcode:” [ youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1zJJGLJ714&hl=en_US&fs=1&rel=0 ] ” .

Tumblr

Log into your Tumblr account, click on the “Video” button then paste in the Embed code and create the post.

Posterous

Log into your account, click the Settings button in the upper right part of the page, then click on the “Posts” tab. You’ll see a big “Post by Web” button, click on it. Paste in the Embed code and add a Title then click on the huge “Post” button.

We’ll count each blog type as one way. We’re up to twelve ways.

Blogger

Log into your account. Create a new post, switch to HTML Edit mode, paste in the Embed code and you’re all set.

TypePad

Log into your account, create a new post, click on the Edit HTML tab, paste in the Embed code and that’s it. I haven’t used TypePad for a while so please correct me if this process has changed and I’ll update things.

And, we’re at fourteen ways to add video to your blog. But wait, there’s more!

How do I resize the YouTube player. No offense, but it looks horrible in my blog at the default sizes.

You’re in luck. I wrote a blog post entitled, “How To Create and Resize A Custom YouTube Player.” The YouTube interface changed since the blog post so there may be some differences in the way things work though.

Other Very Cool Video Sites

Do I really have to use YouTube for everything? What are some other options?

You don’t have to use YouTube. There are many other video sites out there. I’ll list a few (so I can get to 20 ways )

12Seconds.tv

This is a great site and one that I have used many times. 12Seconds.tv allows users to record, upload, or post mobile uploads of 12 seconds of video. If you’re intimidated by the camera, this is a great way to do a super quick post. You’ll have to be brief!

Vimeo

Vimeo is similar to YouTube only it’s a smaller community. The Vimeo video player is less clunky looking than the YouTube one.

Viddler

Viddler, a favorite site of mega video star Gary Vaynerchuk, is also a smaller video community. A smaller site means you can build a stronger following and have a chance at communicating with the company.

We’re at 17 ways!

I do everything via my iPhone. What do you have for me there? Any mobile app suggestions?

Once again, you’re in luck and these iPhone apps will take us to the end of this post’s journey.

Animoto

Yup, Animoto has an app that allows you to create videos from your iPhone. It works almost exactly like the Web version that we discussed above.

Qik

We didn’t really get into streaming video but the Qik iPhone app allows your 3gs phone to stream live video. You can then log into the Qik site and access the video and add it to your blog. Or, you can get crazy and embed a Qik player on one of your blog pages and have it stream live from your blog!

UStream Broadcaster

UStream is another streaming video site and it has an iPhone app.

Reel Director

Reel Director is a paid iPhone app. It allows you to edit video and combine photos, video, and text. It’s similar to Animoto but bumps things up a notch. This is a bonus “way” to add video to your blog today.

I’m looking forward to seeing your video creations, whether they are life vloggings, sales promos, tutorials, documentaries, or interviews.

I appreciate your feedback and look forward to continuing the conversation in the Comments.

[Originally posted on jesseluna.com]

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[Originally posted on jesseluna.com]

Facebook Pages allow businesses and individuals to create rich branded pages within Facebook. Every major brand in the world is running to build engaging and “sticky” pages on Facebook, because that’s where the people are.

Are your customers, non-profit supporters, constituents, and neighbors on Facebook? You betcha. So why not give them an opportunity to connect with you and your brand?

This tutorial will show you how to get started on building your own Facebook Page (I refer to them as “Fan Pages” in the video). This is Part One of the Facebook Fan Page project so make sure you bookmark this page, subscribe to the email blog posts, and/or subscribe to the RSS feed to keep track of further developments.

Your feedback is golden. I love Comments like a fat kid loves cake.

And don’t forget to view the full Transcript below.

Transcript

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Your assignment: Report back on how people are finding their way to your blog via Web searches. Take that information and make a change based on that finding.

You could dig into your blog’s built-in stats feature (if it has one) and find one or two interesting tidbits about keyword searches. Or, if you’re a masochist, you could try to access your raw log files and parse out referrer search strings. Lastly, you could walk into your sophisticated analytics program and start running massive reports and get deluged with data.

But, there is a simpler way. Enter Wordle.net. Wordle.net is a word art site that works by analyzing text. Paste in a set of words and it returns a beautiful word cloud. Simple.

I created this first word visualization by pointing Wordle.net to my jesseluna.com blog URL. This won’t tell me about visitors to the blog, but it will give me a quick look at what the blog is really offering up in terms of content. The larger the word, the more times it is being used throughout the blog site.

Now that you know what you’re serving up to search engines, you can see what web searchers are really looking for based on keyword data.

These are the steps I took:

1. Log into Google Analytics account.
2. Navigate to the site you want to analyze.
3. You’ll be on the Dashboard. Go to Traffic Sources > Keywords
4. You’ll see a list of keyword phrases under the “Site Usage” tab on the main part of the page.
   
   
   If you’re using Google Analytics or any other stats tracking system, you should become very familiar with this keyword information. These are the words and phrases that people are searching over to get to your Web site.
   
   
   Go to the bottom of that data table and select “500″ from the “Show Rows” drop down menu. The page will refresh and you’ll see the top 500 sets of keyword phrases.




5. Export that view by going to the top of the page and clicking on the “Export” drop down and selecting .CSV or .XLS. Download it or just open up the file.







6. In the Excel file, scroll down until you get to the Keyword data and copy all the keyword phrases in that column.
7. Go to Wordle.net’s “Create” tab then paste those keywords phrases into the “Paste in a bunch of text:” text area.
8. Click on the Go button and in a few seconds your word art will appear.
9. Use the tool bar to filter for language, change the color scheme, layout, and color and explore.
10. You can now save the image to the Public Wordle gallery, take a screen shot of it and save it on your computer, or if you have Adobe Acrobat installed, you can print to Adobe Acrobat and save it as a high resolution image in PDF format.

This is the resulting keyword visualization.

From this visualization, I can tell which of my blog posts have driven the most traffic to the blog. I can see words related to my How To Add A Facebook Fan Badge To Your Blog post which included “Facebook”, “Tumblr”, and “Badge” keywords. When I compare the first visualization at the top of this blog to the one just above, I see that there are a lot of matches between what I’m writing and how visitors are reaching the blog. That’s what Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is all about.


Take Action
If you do try out Wordle.net and analyze your site’s keywords, don’t just sit on any new insights, take action. For example, I rarely write about Tumblr because I primarily focus on writing and teaching about WordPress blogs. But now, I’m going to schedule a couple of Facebook + Tumblr blog posts this month. I’m always looking for good tutorial topics.

Review
In this blog post we learned how to create a word visualization of your site’s content using Wordle.net. We also learned how to create a visualization using actual keyword search data from an analytics program. Lastly, we learned that we have to take action on our insights.

I hope this blog post was useful. If you created a visualization, feel free to comment below or post your Wordle.net art to the JesseLuna.com blog Facebook Fan Page.



Image Credit: Wordle.net

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I love promoting awesome people, great causes, events, and organizations/businesses that are doing interesting things. My favorite tech tool to help me do this is the Apple iPhone 3Gs.

There’s a reason the iPhone 3Gs is such a hot seller, it is a mobile promotion machine. I use it to check email on the road or at home when away from my laptop. I use it to take pictures that I post to my Twitter and Facebook status feeds and to various blogs. The built in video allows me to post to my YouTube Channel, post via email to my Posterous account, send short videos via 12seconds.tv, and to live stream using Qik.com and UStream. With this single tool, I can immediately share what’s going on with my life or at an event.

Here’s an example of how I used my iPhone for shameless self-promotion. A couple of months back, I noticed Nancy Rodriguez’s Twitter update where she mentioned that she and the crew from Q1047, the local Hip-Hop and R&B station, where going to be live broadcasting from a nearby McDonald’s. It was around 7am so I grabbed a fast shower then zoomed over to McDees. I had chatted with Nancy before via Twitter so it was great meeting her and the rest of the Rico and Mambo show. I took a couple of photos of them in action, posted the pictures to Twitpic and Twitter, spoke to Nancy, then headed back to go home.

Now, I’ve been listening to Q1047 since I moved to Ventura County and it’s my favorite station. So I was glad to post pictures and tweet about them on Twitter. But as I headed back to the car I realized that I could have plugged my new online blogging course. So I decided to grow a sack and went back to ask Nancy to send a shoutout to my BuildYourFanBase.com readers and she kindly did so.

Fifteen minutes after I left the live broadcast, I had uploaded the video shoutout to YouTube and had already tweeted out a link to my blog post on the event. Minutes later Nancy retweeted the link and gave my blog and new blog class an on-air shoutout.

Now that’s promotion at the speed of light!

Do you have any other mobile promotion tech tools that you swear by?

[Cross posted to www.jesseluna.com]

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