New YouTube channel allows homepage link

Posted by David Whitehouse

For all your people out there who are big fans of YouTube but have always been disappointed that the homepage link has been nofollowed – then you will be glad to hear that this is all about to change! See the picture below:
youtube_straight_link

I couldn’t believe my eyes, I thought my FireFox Nofollow plugin wasn’t working properly, so I checked the source code by hand:
youtube_straight_link_html

All you have to do is log into YouTube, edit your channel and it will ask you if you want to upgrade to the Beta, do it and there you have it!!! Just make sure you add me as a friend on YouTube afterwards!

SEO Podcast

Posted by David Whitehouse

Well when I say SEO podcast, what I actually mean is my blog is available on a podcast through the power of text to speech thanks to Odiogo.

I’m new to podcasts, I’ve been provided two links, the first is more user friendly for noobs like me. The second is for the pro’s who probably already listen to podcasts (I just don’t have the time).

Anyways, it should be good for a laugh, especially if you hear it try and say a few swear words or words such as nincompoop.

Anyways, if you want to get one for your own blog, you can do so for free by signing up at www.odiogo.com.

Enjoy :)

Weird YouTube Fetish Requests

Posted by David Whitehouse

So I was online the other night, catching up on my RSS feeds that I subscribe to when I got a strange message through YouTube:


hey mr!

just a quick wicked request as I’m trying to help out a mate based in the US who’s got a rather unique fetish …

If you have a car or a bike, would you be able to do a wheel burnout right over a teddy bear I can send you and film it? Obviously, for some £/$ :) .

The camera should be aimed at the tyre and the teddy placed by it, but in the film you should be able to see your trainers or boots and the lower part of some faded jeans …. bit specific, but if interested let me know and we can arrange.

Cheers.

Luke

Weird or what! I thought it was a prank from the guys at work, but if you check his profile out on YouTube it is full of this kind of weird fetish stuff, for example:

I think he must have thought I had a teddy bear torture fetish or something due to my blending of Winston last month. Needless to say I declined the offer…

How to be successfully re-tweeted on Twitter

Posted by David Whitehouse

So if you want to get RT on Twitter, here are a few things you need to bear in mind:

1. Keep the tweet short – it makes it easier to copy and paste and you need to leave room for “RT @yourusername” as well, so make sure you keep it short!
2. Tweet at the right time, I’ve read in some places that a tweet at around 4pm GMT is good, I’ve also read between 9am and 12am PST is also a good time to tweet (these times overlap, bear that in mind).
3. Try and use keywords in your tweet – for instance some people re-tweet all tweets with a word in, such as chocolate (as long as it includes a tweet).
4. Encourage your friends to re-tweet – you never know it might snowball!
5. Use a RT button on your website, if you have one.

There are many other ways out there – I’ve just not discovered them yet! I’ll update this post as I learn more :)

Review of Net Words, written by Nick Usbourne

Posted by David Whitehouse

This book was the second book I have read on copywriting. The first book (which I got half way through) was more for offline print advertising – where as this book is specifically for online.

I must say I found this book difficult to get into and a long hard read. The book is written by a copywriter – but unfortunately they lack the ability to write text in a way that makes it easy for you to learn. With that said I did come away with an overall understanding of how I should write for the web – although there weren’t many explicit rules, it was one of those books where you either “get it” or you don’t (similar to some of Seth Godin’s books). Personally I feel that a good author should be able to take their knowledge and explain it simply – Nick doesn’t seem to be able to do that (like many copywriters). Which is a shame.

On the whole though – this book is definitely worth reading, and towards the end Nick does give some more useful, specific advice. I’ve also come to understand that the best way to learn how to copywrite is through split testing – which is what I plan to do from now on.

Overall I give it a 7/10.

If you are interested in buying a book on copywriting, then I would recommend this book: