Interview with Web Producer and Designer Sean Tice

Sean Tice is a web producer and designer for daily video shows Wallstrip  and the forthcoming Moblogic.tv , which launches Friday, March 7. He lives in Brooklyn and spends his free time silk screening and blogging on web trends.
 

1. How would you describe your profession?
      
Constantly evolving. This is an exciting time for the web – more and more people are turning to the Internet to find premium video content you can’t find anywhere else.
 

2. How did you get into New Media/Online publishing/Online communications?  Did you see yourself getting into this field early on?  What did you used to do “in an earlier life” (prior career, if any)?
 
I’ve been using computers from a young age and am mostly self-taught in front end development and design. I’ve also always had a strong interest in graphic design and how images, words, and layout tie in to usability, whether it’s an ATM machine interface or a subway station. I considered architecture for a while, but found that web design and community management is incredibly similar in terms of employing creativity and organizational skills. The web is all about sorting and organizing information into an easy to consume, enjoyable experience, and I enjoy contributing to that space.
 

3. What do you think are the turning points that helped make webmastering/online publishing/online marketing a lucrative business field?
      
Strong open source publishing tools are key to legitimizing online publishing as something you can monetize. Automattic’s WordPress is a great example – here you have a robust publishing tool that encourages developers to build plugins to suit almost any need. The end result is a product that can operate as a personal blog or a destination for tremendous amounts of information (i.e. a newspaper or television network). With a strong tool in place, the audience comes in and the money follows.
 

4. In your opinion, what is the most exciting recent development in online publishing/website development/web production?
 
How the dots are being connected. Web 2.0 is all about social interactivity and, to a large extent, short form video content. The next step? Web 3.0, and something we’re starting to see right now – take all of that content and information and organize it for user consumption. We can syndicate anything, but what do we do with all of those RSS feeds? It’s all just information floating around, and you need a way to connect the dots between ideas, products, videos, whatever, for the user. Products like NetVibes, Adaptive Blue’s SmartLinks , and to some extent Facebook are heading in the right direction.
 

5. What do you think are the essential skills to become a successful webmaster/website developer/producer?
 
There’s a need for custom management.  That is to say, you can’t just have someone with little programming knowledge moderating a site. It’s crucial to be responsive to evolving wants and needs, and you need a webmaster on hand who can deliver those custom goods.
 

6. Being a webmaster has gone from being a one-person job to a field that allows specialization. Is that a good thing or a bad thing for your business?
 
It’s an excellent thing. It’s good to be a jack of all trades, but a fresh set of eyes can  only improve how you manage and present information. To that end, partnering with individuals and companies who specialize in any number of niche areas -relevancy indexing (i.e. Sphere), video distribution (i.e. TubeMogul), etc. helps you deploy a better experience.
 

7.  Do you think the industry is regulated enough?  Have the authorities or the Net’s relevant governing bodies become too restrictive?  Which areas of online activity do you think NEED further regulation?
 
Regulation stems from two motives:  morals/ethics and corporate fear. The former is always a touchy area, but it’s important to respect the values of people, i.e. whether a parent wants to limit their child’s access to questionable content. Ultimately it’s the responsibility of the user to make sound decisions about what they want to see and not see, but I also question the actions taken by governments who seek to stifle the flow of information (i.e. the Pakistan/YouTube debacle that led to a global shutdown of the site last Sunday).
On the other hand, the web has leveled the playing field and changed the rules for publicly traded companies that thrive on controlling how information disseminates. This is particularly true for the record labels and increasingly for networks and studios. Many are adapting, but some still cry fowl when they can’t monetize their content. Like anything else - planes replacing trains, cells taking over land lines - companies need to accept that information on the web flows the way it does, and adapt their tactics accordingly.
 

8. What are the challenges the industry is facing today?
 
How to monetize content. While companies like Google have nailed down text ads, we’re still in an experimentation period with video content. It’s hard to retain eyeballs when users are programmed to expect online content without charge or commercial interruption. We’re also seeing a bubble of tremendous stupidity. A lot of people in the industry have long forgotten the fallout of the dot com burst, and all of a sudden sites like Facebook are valued in the billions while their books are still in the red. Again, we need to rethink how we’re going to make money off of things users perceive as being free.
 

9. What would your advice be to someone who is just getting his or her feet wet in online business?
      
Keep content fresh and take user comments seriously. You need a reason for users to keep coming back, and while they’re there you want to make their experience as intuitive and enjoyable as possible. Users have a lot to say about how sites function so make sure you encourage their feedback

Optimizing your Word Press Blog

Everyone who has a Word Press blog understands the importance of making sure that it is optimized for best performance.  Not only should your blog be easy for your readers to understand and navigate, but it should also be optimized to ensure that it performs well in the search engines. 

The better your blog performs with search engines, the more traffic your site will receive. 

However, you’ll soon discover that there are more options for optimizing and promoting your Word Press blog than there are promoting a general website.

First, you will need to ensure that your blog has plenty of keyword-optimized content.  This not only includes writing blog posts that have keywords sprinkled throughout, but using a keyword rich meta tag description for your blog.  Though many people debate the effectiveness of meta tags, they are still important.  By adding them to your <Head> HTML tags, you’ll find that search engines more easily pick up your blog.  This can be accomplished by using the Head Meta Description plugin in Word Press.

Once you have keyword rich content and an appropriate head, you should then optimize your feeds.  Blogs are different from websites in the sense that your blog can be condensed into a feed.  Feeds are picked up in search engines are an excellent way to drive additional traffic to your site.  When you optimize your feed, you ensure that you will attract more readers to your blog and that Google will pick up your feeds more easily.

First, you should determine how many posts your feed will display.  You may want to double check and see how many posts your blog is set to display.  If it is between five or ten posts, you should consider increasing this number.  The more posts you display, the more that will be picked up in search engines, and the more content you will have on display to attract readers.

Additionally, many experts feel that if your feed has an image associated with it, you will attract more readers as well.  Consider using an image, graphic, or site logo with your blog.  Since you are using feeds to optimize and promote your blog, you should make it easy for readers to subscribe to your blog’s feed.   You can sign up with various blog rings and Technorati and include these signup tools in your blog.  This makes it simple for your readers to sign up and join your blog’s neighborhood.

One of the best ways to optimize your blog is to use tags.  Tags are keywords that help identify your blog posts.  It is important to realize that search engines will pick up your tags and categorize your blog posts accordingly.  Therefore, you should make certain that your tags are keyword derivatives and the best choice for your blog post’s content.  You should always make sure that your blog shows the most recent posts first.  This is just a simple way to be certain that your content is relative for your readers.  The only exception to this is if you have a sticky post.  A sticky post is a post that you have selected to always remain first.  If you choose this post carefully, you can increase your page rank by having your best post up front.  Your readers will appreciate the familiarity as well as the content and the search engines will index your page more quickly.

Using Article Directories for your Marketing Strategy

When someone creates a website they want to do everything in their power to ensure that their website is seen by as many people as possible.  One of the best ways to accomplish that task is to use article directories.

An article directory is a site that hosts numerous articles in a variety of categories
and topics.  The articles are written by authors who are experts in their field,
mostly webmasters, and contain what is known as a “bio” box.  The bio box is where the author places a link back to their website and adds some additional information regarding the authors expertise. 

The reason article directories are an effective marketing strategy is due to the fact that once a webmaster writes and submits and article to the directory, anyone can use that article on their website, granted that they keep the “bio” box intact.  This means that literally hundreds upon thousands of people can use your article, add it to their website, and provide a link back to your site.  These links back to your site will increase your page rank and will promote your site.  Not to mention the fact that thousands of people will give your website traffic as a result of your article advertising your website all over the Internet.

You may think this sounds wonderful, but what if you don’t write?  Don’t worry!  Even if you are an expert in your field, but are not an expert writer, you can hire the services of a ghostwriter, or copywriter, and have them write the article for you. 

As a ghostwriter, the author will write the article as if they were you.  When you
purchase the article, you will purchase full rights, meaning that the author will not
be allowed to share, post, sell, or distribute the article to anyone else.  This gives
you the freedom to pursue your business endeavors while accumulating many articles that prove you are an expert in your field.

Article directories are one of the main ways that people create a successful Internet presence and build their businesses.  Additionally, article directories are often given high status or ranking by major search engines.  This means that not only will other webmasters take your article (with the included bio box) and paste it on their website, driving traffic back to your main site, but also search engines will pick up your article. 

If you create a keyword driven article, your article will most likely appear within the top ten search results for that selected keyword or keyword phrase.

One of the best aspects regarding using article directories for your Internet marketing strategy, is that it is a very budget friendly alternative.  If you can write your own articles, then this will cost absolutely nothing.  However, even hiring a ghostwriter to write your articles doesn’t have to break your budget either and the cost will soon pay for itself as you’ll find your business soars as traffic to your site increases. 

There is no doubt about it, article directories are an important marketing tool that every successful webmaster should implement.

Is Your Site Ready for Google ?

When it comes to having a website one thing is key to its success, making sure that it is Google friendly.  There is no doubt about it, Google is the number one
search engine and if anyone wants to ensure that their website becomes popular, they will need to make certain that Google finds their site, gives it a high rank, and links to as many pages as the site contains. 

Here are some tips that will help you make certain that Google finds your site friendly.

First, your site needs to have keyword driven content.  Yet more importantly, you
should make sure that the content on your site is also relevant for your readers. 
If you make the mistake of using repetitive keywords but don’t have your content
written in an easy to understand format, you may gain placement with Google, but you will lose your visitors.  The key is to have a balance between the keywords that will attract Google and having a site that is easy for your readers to navigate and understand. 

Using keywords in the first paragraphs of your content and making sure that you don’t repeat them too frequently throughout the content can accomplish this.  If you use too many keywords, you run the risk of Google identifying your website as spam.  You should aim for a keyword density of 3% to make certain that your content is both Google friendly and readable for your visitors.

In addition to using keywords in your content, you should also include keywords in the title of your website.  If you are creating new pages, then make sure to put your chosen keywords in those titles as well.  You may also want to include those keywords in your URLs as well. 

Search engines notice things that are bold, with headings such as the HTML tag <h1>, or  <h2>, and lists.  You’ll find that if you put the HTML bold tags around several of your keywords in the first paragraph of your content, that Google will find your site friendly.  However, it is a good idea only to bold one or two keywords and not to overdo it.  Likewise, if you create lists and create keyword headlines in bold, you’ll draw Google to your site as well.  Creating valid content that appeals to readers as well as Google is the best way to improve your ranking and climb in Google’s search engine results.

It’s a good idea to have at least ten pages of content before submitting your site to
search engines.  You should submit your site to Google and never trust another company to submit it for you.  You’ll also find that if you join Google’s Webmaster program that your site will be indexed faster.  When you join Google’s Webmaster program, you’ll have an option to upload your site map.  Sitemaps are a great way to drive traffic to your site, as Google will have an easy way of discovering all of the pages contained within your site.

The Search Engine Friendly Web Site

There is a great deal of competition when it comes to keywords and coming in the
top ten search engine results on the major search engines.  If you are new to the Internet, you may be excited to create a website and promote your business online.  However, many new webmasters are dismayed once they realize that all of their hard work has resulted in very little traffic. 

In fact, if you are a new Webmaster you may feel completely lost at bringing new people to your website.  If the only people who seem to visit your site are those
who you’ve handed your business card to, don’t lose hope.  By using a few simple
techniques, you can ensure that your website will be seen by search engines such as Google, Yahoo, MSN, Ask, and AOL.  The trick is to create a search engine friendly website. 

Once you perform these simple steps, you’ll find that search engines will index
your website and traffic will soon be arriving in droves.

Search engines look for certain elements when they visit a website and decide whether or not they will index it.  First, they love text.  If your website is filled with great graphics, Macromedia Flash animations, and logos, but has very little text, chances are you won’t do well with search engines.  Also, spiders and robots (the tools used by search engines to find new websites) will scan your site and make a determination based upon how easy your site is to navigate.  If a spider or robot cannot access your other pages easily, they will not give your site a good ranking or placement in search engines. 

Not only does easy navigation pertain to your links, but it also relates to the overall color and layout of your website.  Text is best in black and backgrounds are better if they are light.  If you use a yellow font on a neon blue background, with bright blue links, spiders and robots are going to assume that your website would be difficult for people to use. 

Therefore, you are not going to get good placement in search engines. 
Create a website that is friendly towards your users and you will create a site that is  search engine friendly as well.

Search engines run on words, keywords to be exact.  This means that you should choose the words that best represent the content of your website and use them in your content, headings, titles, and URLS.  Use programs such as Wordtracker to find other keywords that compliment your website and use these as well. 

Search engines will find your site easy to navigate and your placement in all of the major search engines will improve.  One of the easiest ways to invite search engines to your site is to create and submit a site map. 

A site map is a text based document that details all of the pages of your website.  It is a great way for search engines to scan your entire site and index multiple pages.  When you have multiple pages indexed, you’ll find that your traffic will increase.  There is no doubt about it.  If you want to drive traffic and increase visitors to your site, you must take the time to create a search engine friendly website.

Internet Marketing Tips for Forum Owners

Forums are an excellent way for webmasters to make money.  Not only are they great for webmasters who run Google Adsense ads, but they are also a great way to promote affiliate programs and earn extra money.  However, many new forum owners struggle with the various ways to promote their new forums and are often disappointed when they don’t see the results that they expected.  Internet marketing is absolutely imperative to every forum owner’s success.

Before you begin promoting your forum, you will need to ensure that your forum is attractive to new members.  One of the best ways to do this is to be very involved with your forum.  This means that you must take the time to engage in conversation on your forum.  You may also want to offer some incentives to new members who join your forum.  A very popular method to gain new members is to offer a prize or contest.  You may decide to offer a prize to the person who makes the most posts in a certain amount of time.  This is always a great marketing strategy that builds up your forum and increases the amount of posts.

You may not think that it sounds like the perfect plan, but many people find that the best way to get a new forum off the ground is to pay copywriters to post on the forum. 

These posters will create identities that coincide with your forum’s theme and will engage in conversations that will jumpstart your forum.  There are professional companies that you can contact to hire forum posters.  You can order a certain amount of posts as well as the number of posters that you would like to hire.  Many forum owners find that this is the fastest and simplest way to get a new forum the content that it needs to be picked up in the search engines and ready to promote.

One thing is certain, even if you hire forum posters, you must make yourself known on your forum.  You must be ready to participate in discussions with the posters.  Because of this, it is important that you don’t just pick a forum topic out of the air for the sake of earning a profit.  Since you will be actively participating in your forum’s discussions, you must choose a topic for your forum that you are passionate about.  This ensures that you will be seen as a qualified expert in your forum.

Speaking of experts, you may also find that a great way to promote your forum is to have other experts participate in discussions on your forum.  You can simply email experts and invite them to come and participate on your forum.  You’ll be surprised how many experts will be flattered at your invitation.  If you allow the expert to promote their services as well, you can rest assured that they will take you up on your invitation.  As people come to your forum and find real advice, and helpful content your forum will increase in popularity naturally. This is one of the best ways to grow your forum without needing to pay for promotional or marketing services. 

Basic Steps for Search Engine Optimization

In today’s Internet market, it is important to make sure that your website is
properly optimized for search engines.  Having good placement in the search engines is the best way to drive traffic to your website, however with so many website vying for the top spot, it can be frustrating trying to ensure that your site gets the placement that you need.  Therefore, it is crucially important that all webmasters understand the importance of search engine optimization and take steps to make sure that their sites stand apart from the competition.

The best way to ensure that your site is the best that it can be is too offer a unique
aspect on your niche.  In this manner, you should pay close attention to what your
competition is offering and find a way that you can offer something that is needed but at the same time, unique.  Once you find a way to offer something of value to your customers, you’ll find that your visitors will continue to stay at your website
and return.

One of the most important goals of successful search engine optimization is to create repeat visitors.  Many webmasters use strategies that may drive traffic to their site,  but if they have nothing of value to offer their visitors, they will lose them quickly.  In the long run, this is very ineffective.  Some sites may even achieve placement in Google, Yahoo, MSN, or AOL’s top ten but lose their traffic by not creating repeat visitors.  Therefore the first step for successful search engine optimization is to create a site that will attract visitors and encourage them to return.  A great way to create return visitors is to encourage visitors to sign up for a newsletter or leave their email address in exchange for something free.

Once you have your website in order and have devised a plan for creating return visitors, you should then make sure that your site is fully optimized for the major search engines.  This includes checking your keyword percentage on your pages, including keywords in your URLS, headings, titles, and Meta tags, and adding pertinent keywords in your navigation links.  These steps may seem small, but they will have an enormous affect on the amount of traffic that you generate. 

After ensuring that your content is keyword rich, you should submit your site to social networking sites, search engines, and directories.  Advertising your site on social networking sites is a great way to drive traffic to your website and ensure that your site receives plenty of link backs.  It’s also important to realize that you do not need to submit your site to search engines repeatedly.  Just submit your main page one time, and let the search engines discover all of your pages.  This is why it is important to have a website that is easy to navigate.  If you create navigational links that are composed of keywords, search engines will index your pages easily.  Directories are an excellent way to give your website the recognition that it deserves and to let search engines know that your site has valuable content.  By using these methods, you’ll find that your site increases its placement in all of the major search engines.

The Importance of SEO

The importance of SEO cannot be underestimated.  It simply isn’t enough to create a website that simply expresses your passion, hobby, or business endeavor without taking into consideration how spiders and robots will find your site.  In fact, if you don’t take the importance of SEO into consideration, you run the risk of having your site flagged by major search engines and not being indexed at all.

With so many websites competing for traffic and subsequently business, it is important to understand that your knowledge of SEO is the key to unlocking your business potential. Therefore, you should never trust an SEO company to perform all of the work for you, especially if that means not understanding the principles of SEO for yourself.  You should take the time necessary to learn and understand the basic guidelines of SEO and base your Internet Marketing strategy upon that information.  Often times, people don’t understand the nature of Search Engine Optimization and put all of their confidence in an SEO company, only to be disappointed.  You must take the time to become a diligent student of the principles that will either make or break your business to ensure your success.

It’s important to realize that SEO takes time and patience.  You must take the time to learn how SEO works, but then you will need to take the time to create a plan or strategy that you are going to use to promote your site.  You will then need to wait a period of time for your efforts to return the results that you desire as well.  Patience is one of the main ingredients that ensures successful SEO marketing so take a deep breath and relax.  You cannot expect to gain instant results overnight, and you should be wary of any SEO company that tries to sell you on the belief that they can gain you instant placement.  Though there are many experts that can help you reach your SEO goals, you should also realize that there are many companies that are only looking to make a buck, you should always as SEO companies for contact information for former clients so that you may ask them personally how they felt regarding the company’s performance.

Many webmasters place a lot of importance on page rank and spend much of their SEO efforts on obtaining a higher page rank.  Though ranking is important it is only a small part of the puzzle.  However, you can improve your page rank by having quality sites link back to yours.  Again, the best way to do this is to create a high quality site that has content that people need.  You’ll find that if you have a great site, you will automatically get the links back to your site, but you can also submit your site to directories, post in forums, and use articles and link exchanges to get the back links that your site needs.  By making certain that your site contains information that will not only appeal to search engines but to your visitors as well, you will find that your SEO efforts will be successful.

How Internet Marketing Affects Dating Sites

Dating sites are a hot niche.  Current trends show that people continually use
dating and social networking sites to make new friends, meet new people, and find potential mates.  Because of the extreme popularity of these sites, many webmasters are entering into the dating site arena.  With all of the new sites that are vying for members, it is important to have a well-defined Internet marketing strategy to ensure that your site gets the attention and traffic that it deserves.

There are many different strategies that webmasters use to promote their dating sites and one thing is certain, your efforts will either make or break your business. 
Just as it is important to know what you are going to do, it is just as important to
know what not to do in Internet marketing.  Simply put, many people are turned off by certain methods that some people use for promotion.  For instance, some webmasters think that pop unders are a great way to draw people to their website.  However, studies show that most people do not approve of pop-under or pop-ups and feel that a site that uses them is not trust worthy.  It is very important to make sure that visitors to your site trust you, or else they will not feel comfortable paying you a membership fee to join your site.

Some of the best ways to market your dating site is by building a great site that attracts search engines.  The best way to do this is by adding plenty of SEO rich content.  Since many webmasters may not feel comfortable placing their member’s profiles online, it is important to add keyword rich content in the form of articles. 
Once you have plenty of content, you should submit your site to not only search engines, but to Internet directories as well.  Since you may need to pay a fee to have your site submitted, you should create a budget for Internet marketing before you even begin to advertise your site.  There are many ways to save money on your marketing plan, but you should never expect to advertise your site without paying anything.  You must have a budget, as you will need to pay for certain elements of your marketing plan.

Some webmasters prefer to move up in the search engines by paying for pay per click advertising.  This is an effective way to ensure that your website is seen on the major search engines.  All of the major search engines offer a pay per click advertising plan, again, you should pay careful attention to your budget and create a plan that works best for your business needs.

Forums are also a great way to promote your website.  This can be done inexpensively, however you may find that if you pay professional writers to join forums and promote your dating site that you will receive a great deal of traffic.  Forums are an excellent way to promote your service and search engines pick them up as well.  Additionally, when forums contain links to your site the ranking of your site will increase, more search engines will find your site, and traffic will increase.

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