Integrating Online Video into your Digital Marketing Strategy

Also see,
Introduction to Search Engine Optimisation
Beyond SEO – The right traffic to your site
An Introduction to Google Webmaster Tools
Introduction to Google Analytics and other website analytical tools
Introduction to Pay Per Click Campaigns
PPC Pay Per Click Marketing and purchase process
Integrating online video into your digital marketing strategy

Everyone is banging on about the power of video and how companies can use it in deliverables, and as part of their Marketing collateral and I agree, it is a powerful tool, without it I would be jobless, but before you start to plan your next epic, pause to think about it’s delivery and the cost implications of this.

I have spent a year now developing a video service in a company and to some extent an industry that until recently could not see how video could benefit the product. The main issue has not been producing the video or encouraging execs to come up with new ways in which to use video, it has been the means of delivery. Like any digital marketing there is absolutely no point in producing something that is not viewed by a high volume of people and more importantly, performs a function. Similarly to the everyone creating a Facebook page merely because they can mentality, putting video out there and doing it badly has the adverse effect on proving your understanding of the landscape and damages the brand rather than enhances it.

So what are your options? Well of course you can invest in a bespoke video delivery platform, buy something off the shelf that meets the companies needs but this is large initial step and a large spend, especially if you have not been involved in video in the past. Much like eBay is no longer an online garage sale, blogs are no children’s online diaries, Youtube is definitely not an online repository for unprofessional home videos, in fact Youtube is now one of the largest online search engines and any digital marketer cannot ignore this.

So how do you make it work for your product? Well, while you cannot set out to make a viral video, you can maximise the exposure you receive from your production by setting clear objectives and planning far beyond that of uploading your one video to an account on YouTube and hoping people might come across it. My biggest rule is allowing people to decide upon their own browsing habits. Don’t dictate to them how they should arrive at your product because you’ll loose them at the first awkward click routine or navigation that takes more than a few seconds of their time. Although many of the online spaces provide a quick and easy means of providing link building to your website, pay every one due attention, think about the usability issues and make sure there are no awkward, dead or complicated links to your pages. Don’t presume that a person will take the time to navigate to the correct page on your site if you dump them on your homepage. More often than not they won’t complete this part of the journey.

So, back to video. Take time producing your online space whether it be on YouTube, Vimeo etc. Remember that just uploading it is not enough, promote your video with appropriate means, social media, press releases, email marketing etc. If you have produced your video well and it does the job then send the user to the relevant page on your site and to your product.

If you are in doubt about your video, usability or quality of the landing page then don’t do it! Unfortunately it’s far easier to damage a brand than it is to build it.

Understanding the science of PPC digital marketing – Make Pay Per Click work for your business

Also see,
Pay per click marketing and purchase process

I’m often approached for some pointers in the area of Pay Per Click advertising and I start by explaining how varied the subject can be. I often read Googles guides, and other readings but don’t reach the end a whole lot wiser as every industry, every product even time of day, week or the weather effects a large campaign. I have decided my new advise approach should therefore be, how to not get PPC Marketing or advertising wrong rather than how to get it right.

So, where to begin? Let’s start with the setting up of the campaign as this is where you will begin. A common mistake from the outset is to follow all of Googles recommendations and have your advert appear for every associated word that refers to your product. It is good to think of every combination of words your customer might search but be careful not to include to broader terms especially if you do not stock the full range yourself. A brand that has a huge product portfolio will generate traffic but if you pull traffic through for broad terms there is no guarantee you will have to specific product at the specific price your potential customer is looking for. Broad terms often result in a low conversion rate. Having said this in an uncompetitive market this will be another story.

Ok, we’ve targeted our specific customer looking for a specific brand and a specific product in that brand range, the next thing they see is our advert on the right hand side / top of the search engine. All too often retailers go for a catch all advert for their entire campaign. This poses two problems, firstly, most customers want to know at the search engine stage if the retailer has the product and so this approach might lead to no click at all if a competitors advert supplies the required data. Secondly the customer clicks on your advert unsure as to what they might find, browses your site for a short while and then leaves, resulting in low conversion rates and a high spend. The odd wasted click here and there may seem insignificant on a small account but I have handled accounts from between a £500 to £2000 weekly spend, if these clicks aren’t turning into sales then you will soon be running at a loss.

Usability doesn’t just become important when the potential customer reaches your site, you are dealing with a savvy shopper that doesn’t wish to continue searching once on your website. You have used the right keywords, captured them with a good advert now clinch the sale by presenting them on a landing page with the product they’re after and at a competitive price.

Rather than just looking to the Google keyword tool as this will bombard you with every possible combination of key words know to man (well computer) you should use webmaster tools, google analytics and other 3rd party sites or tools to influence your choice of keywords. More detail on these in a later post.

All of the above should be done with measured targets in mind. Without bench marks there is no guarantee you are achieving a good ROI. I always stand by that PPC marketing is a short term fix and that the foe the bulk of the advertising or sales should not rely on PPC Campaigns. Your Pay Per Click should run alongside your SEO campaigns and other digital marketing, targets and goals should be set that work in synergy with a view to improve organic search conversions and digital marketing with a higher ROI. Remember some of the most innovative digital marketing costs virtually nothing.

If you have a large AdWords spend be sure to make use of your Google account manager, they are only at the other end of the phone and will work with you to improve your campaign. Be sure to provide a clear brief and if you doubt that they completely understand you brand do not ask them to make ad hoc adjustments to the wording of ads. They are extremely useful for performing repetitive time consuming jobs. Alternatively you can speed up your editing by using tools such as Google AdWords Editor, you can have more control over your adverts and if you are a whizz with exel can export and import files allowing you to work in a more familiar format.

Just a taster for now! But do ask more specific questions and I shall rage on additional posts.

Understanding RSS feeds and making them work for you

RSS feeds even now are something that people don’t really understand and utilise to their full advantage. Twitter is a great example of a site that took this sort of concept, created a searcheable platform, easy to update that users just seemed to just get, possibly helped by the status update function of facebook. So, how does RSS work and how can you make best use of them?

As a user they are a stream of information that you can subscribe to, the provider then adds to their stream on a regular basis but rather than you having to check back from time to time to see if their is new content, you asign a desktop program or website to do that for you. Each time you load that software it will check the feeds address to look for update and download them for you, just like your emails. This means at a glance you can see there is new information and read it at your leisure, or not.

As a provider you should consider RSS feeds for exactly the reasons above. Your users often will not have a not in their diaries to check your we site once a week to see if you have any updates, if they are subscribed to your feed they don’t have to, but they are as up to date as they possibly could be. Also a major point to note that search engines favour sites who’s content is continually updated and RSS feeds provide a simple and efficient way to do this. Granted, many won’t be able to write the XML document that powers a feed but there are programs and integrations that will simplify this process, I’ll save that for a different post but if you are keen to get started and add an RSS feed to your web page or website but do not have any coding knowledge why not look into a blog such as WordPress or Typepad as your RSS engine. That way you have a nifty little editor that will allow you to create fancy looking stories and your subscribable RSS feed will be created as you go.

iTunes (podcasting)
My first engagement with rss feeds and XML for that matter came about while studying my Design for Digital Media degree at Chichester University. I made it a personal learning project completely understand the workings of video podcasts, not using a third party solution but using a host, writing my own XML document and uploading my videos to a website. So podcasting is another great example of RSS feeds and uses the iTunes platform as the RSS reader, each time you load your iTunes the program checks your subscriptions for updated content and downloads it, simple as that. Don’t be scared of them!

Basic Filming and Video Camera Technique

Training Module – Filming Technique

Purpose
The purpose of this module is to raise the understanding of video production and emphasise the level to which we should strive to output video to clients. During this module we shall look at the production process; that’s pre production, production and post production. You will go away with an understanding of the importance of planning your video. You will learn good filming technique and also good post production practice.

Theory

Pre Production – Preparation
Callsheet (Download to come)
A simple one but often overlooked. A call sheet provides all involveds contact details, responsibilies, location details and anything else you may wish to include in order to keep everyone on the same page and the production running smoothly.
Storyboard (Advanced Storyboard (1133))
Often there will not just be you working on a shoot, in order to convey the image you intend to shoot, it is important to scetch is and make any notes to put this across.
Script / Interview technique
Interview technique for camera differs slightly from that which you may be used to.
• Coerce the subject to say what you want them to say but in their own words.
• Ask a question in a way that encourages them to repeat the question back in their sentence.
Example:
- Yes, I enjoyed it, it was really tasty! (makes no sense without the question)
- I enjoyed the cake, it was really tasty! (makes sense on its own)
• Try and get into the habit of nodding or using facial gestures to encourage the interviewee rather than verbally agreeing
Release Forms (Sample Release Form (275))
Permission from the respondent or subject to release their image to you, the production or the company.

Timecodes and striping tapes
Logging, Viewing, Capturing, Batch Capture, Editing, DV to VHS Transfer, Camera to DVD Transfer

Post production paperwork
Logging (Download)

Sound

The onboard microphone is not sufficient in most situations to record good clean sound. The mic picks up the wirring of the tape and also any wind blowing across the tiny holes that cover it. We need to develop an understanding of the options and there usage.

There are two main types of microphone, cardenoid and directional. Examples of each are a lapel mic (cardenoid) often seen on a news reader or interviewee or a shotgun mic (directional) as you would see being carried by a film crew.
No matter how you obtain the sound it is essential you monitor it during recording using headphones. It would be very costly to return to the edit suite with an image and no sound.

Where would we use each?
Lapel / Radio Mic – This microphone is best suited to the planned interview or studio interview. It will pick up sound from within a close vicinity and cut out background noise. It provides a clear sound and resonance of the chest. It’s harder to use the radio mic on location without a power source unless you have a professional sound setup.

Things to look out for
• Microphone can often rub on clothing or a moving subject. Don’t be afraid to hold up proceedings to make sure you have the sound set up correctly.
• Untidy wireing. Sometimes your subject may not have appropriate clothing and it may be hard to conceal the mic and transitter.
• Remember the foam cover is meant for windy conditions, you will not need it indoors, it will, if anything create rubbing issues.

Shotgun / Directional Mic
The shotgun microphone can be used onboard the camera or on a boom pole. Best for on location and spontaneous shoots. As it is a directional mic the onboard camera can pick up sound directly in front of the camera and cuts out most sound left, right, up and down. The boom mic requires a specific sound person or appropriate stand. This microphone is extremely accurate as you can get up close to the subject and the directional properties reduce background noise.

Things to look out for
• Keep a close eye on the camera operator, as a boom mic can often appear in shot.
• An onboard boom mic will still pick up camera noise and remember you are close to the mic, although it is directional it will pick you up to some extent.
• Be aware of surrounding noise. If a dog barks, phone rings or siren goes off, don’t be afraid to stop the recording and inform the interviewer the sound is not useable.

Shotgun microphone – for impromptu Vox Pops and sound recordings, also in situations where there is a considerable amount of surrounding noise.
Lapel and transmittable microphones – Studio recordings, planned location shoots. Benefits from clear sound from the resonance off the chest but also pics up close surrounding noise (not noise at a distance)

Sound Recording Checklist (282)

The microphone plugs we use are 3.5mm (1/8″) “Mini” and XLR; both have a male and female (socket and plug) connections. In short the XLR connection carries the best signal and is considered professional standard, also benefits of the XLR connections are that they lock into place leaving less room for error or tripping in a working environment. Even with the a quality, expensive microphone, poor quality cables and recording Device will produce poor sound.

3.5mm_Mini_Jack

Image

Rule of thirds
The rule of thirds refers to the composition of the image on the screen.
By dividing the screen up into thirds (see figure 1) it provides guides to compose your shot
Filming for interview requires the cameraman to think about the eye line and looking space.

mis en scene
Mis En Scene- literally “placing on stage” refers to arrangement of all the visual elements

Choice of Lighting
“Texture and Colors”
Use of Space
Make-Up
Costumes
“Interiors” Used to Convey Meaning

Equipment

Tripod

The importance of a tripod should not be underestimated. It adds an instant professional look to the video. As a rule you should not start shooting handheld until you have understood and mastered filming with a tripod. Three types of tripod are shown below the key differences between tripods will be stability, levels, fastening and controls. Where you might utilize each depends on the type of filming, I base my decisions based on compact and portable or fixed and precision shoots Also it is important to keep the equipment clean and check the clips regularly.

Lights

3 Point lighting system, key, fill and backlight.
Safety, handling with gloves, flagging and gels, wooden pegs.

Key Light
This is the main light. It is usually the strongest and has the most influence on the look of the scene. It is placed to one side of the camera/subject so that this side is well lit and the other side has some shadow.

Fill Light
This is the secondary light and is placed on the opposite side of the key light. It is used to fill the shadows created by the key. The fill will usually be softer and less bright than the key. To acheive this, you could move the light further away or use some spun. You might also want to set the fill light to more of a flood than the key.

Back Light
The back light is placed behind the subject and lights it from the rear. Rather than providing direct lighting (like the key and fill), its purpose is to provide definition and subtle highlights around the subject’s outlines. This helps separate the subject from the background and provide a three-dimensional look.

Camera

Show both cameras and explain the benefits for each. Talk about different capture formats and the benefits and intensions for each. DV, HDD, DVD explain the difference between HD and HDD (not to be confused)

I have documented the camera setting I used during most shoots
Sony Camera Settings (Download)
JVC Everio Camera Settings (Coming Soon)

Summary

Questions to ask yourself before you shoot,
Is your subject positioned correctly within the frame?
Framing – Rule of Thirds
Framing – Looking space

Where’s the sun?
Where is the sun or where is the light source? Possibly one of the most important questions, as a silhouetted image is extremely hard to correct in the edit, so it is important to think about this at the point of filming. As a rule, make sure the light source is behind you (the camera person) and not your subject. This will ensure the subject is well lit and all features are visible.
- Top Tip, you should attempt to correct a poor image by adjusting the camera and light source before fiddling with camera settings.

Does the white look white?
Cameras know what all the colors in the spectrum should look like based on its perception of white and white changes in different light. Most cameras have an auto white balance but you should familiarise yourself with adjusting the white balance. Hold a piece of paper in front of the camera with the main light source reflecting of the paper. Adjust the camera setting until the white looks white and all other colors should now look correct.

Is there any background noise?
Sound – Always check for background noise
Sound – Use headphone to check the sound that is actually being recorded

What is in the background?
Often paying a lot of attention to your subject we often forget about the background. Be sure there is no annoyances in the shot. If you are telling a stroy or filming particular respondents, try constructing your backgrounf to reinforce the story or message.

Can I see the subject clearly?
Be sure that your subject is in focus and make sure nothing is likely to obscure them during filming.

Top Tips
• Always Monitor the video through the view finder or LCD especially when lighting is affected by the environment
• Do not adjust the camera mid sentence – try and get used to adjusting (if necessary during a pause)
• Avoid moving around during the shoot, this will reduce the risk of unwanted sound, getting into shot and camera shake as floors often have movement in them.

Exercise (Set up a shoot)

Exercise One You have been allocated a room and have 20 interviews to conduct. Each respondent will be arriving in 15 minute intervals and the interviews will last between 10 and 15 minutes each. Discuss amongst yourselves and choose the best selection of equipment for this scenario and have a go at setting it up.

Exercise Two It’s a bright sunny day, you are out in a busy location and will be filming short vox pops, you cannot expect the respondents to come to you so need to been portable and quick to respond to a agreement to be interviewed.

Beyond SEO, getting the right traffic for your product

You may often wonder why you might get such a high bounce rate on your websites pages and how you can improve this. For those who religiously follow their web analytics and spend time and money on ppc accounts, understanding your organic traffic can also help improve the quality of your traffic. When I first started to look into search engine optimisation I presumed it was all about achieving perfect accessibility, perfect code and checking in an seo browser to make sure your title, meta, and content achieved 100%. I later moved into the world of ecommerce and realised that it’s all very well being optimised, but it was as important, if not more so to be achieving high positions for the right search terms and following this up with content. A real life example I thought about recently, came about when walking past a little arcade that contained a computer shop / repairer. In the window he had placed a remote controlled helicopter. I went in and asked if he had any more helicopters to which he replied, ‘no… I just put that in the window to get people through the door’. My point is that the likilyhood of someone in the market for a helicopter is unlikely to just pop in and want their computer fixed or to buy a stick of ram. So, this is where it gets even more time consuming and complicated, whilst you think about all the points made in the introduction to search engine optimisation, you must also be thinking about the copy on the page and the words you use. For this reason, it always baffles me when companies offer to come in and optimise your site, unless they completely know your product and industries, they will optimise your site but you will attract all the helicopter buyers!

So, you will develop your own technique to get the balance right, you will often have no choice on the content of your page if you are running somebody else’s site, but you must insist on the freedom to rewrite the content. Use google adwords keyword tool to assess the key words you have used and use the traffic estimator to best drive traffic. Once you have your content choose the highest traffic drivers (keywords) to build into your h1 tags, follow this up with a similar technique for the page title, then for now copy this page title into your meta description. Based on your choice of keywords for the page content, copy 5 to 10 of the most used AND most relevant to your site into the meta keywords. Don’t make the mistake of listing as many possible keywords as you can think of into the meta keywords this will have the opposite effect and google will see it as spamming. Give it a few days and check the site in domain tools to see how each individual element we have just talked about scores. Once you start tweaking things, monitoring is extremely important, record your figures and make one change at a time, if you see an improvement then implement it site wide. If you see things get worse you know what had this effect and you can change it straight back.

Intoduction to Search Engine Optimisation – SEO Learn at lunch

Using free VOIP and online chat tools to improve your companies communication

Companies often seem afraid of the word free, it seems that a paid for product and someone accountable is the popular choice, but the Internet has brought about companies that have re-invented their business model and found new ways to make their businesses profitable, which provides us with a solution that far exceeds that of a conventional business. Software is a prime example and should be used to best effect. At about the time companies banned MSN on the work computer there was a bigger lesson to be learnt from this. Employees were spending more time chatting to the friends because it was easy and a relatively private affair to do so. More importantly one of the largest companies in the world were researching how the user interacted with the platform, which led to the ability to include status updates, so others new that you were out to lunch or busy.

I recently attended a training course for an ecommerce software platform and the company had embraced free applications. Every employee on a 3 story building had Skype installed on their PC and they all had a Skype account using their work email address, resulting in that anyone could sign in from any computer (improving the ability to hotdesk for starters) but here is the scenario that got me thinking. During the session (from the training room on the bottom floor) I posed a question that the tutor could not answer, he looked at his Skype and said “frank” is away from his desk at the moment but I’ll ask home and we’ll come back to it. So, what were the real world solutions in that situation – blag an answer? A popular choice! Pick up the phone only to realize that “Frank” is not at his desk? Or physically go to the first or second floor leaving the trainee alone in the room only to find that “Frank” is currently tied up on a conference call and cannot be disturbed. In the new scenario we were able to maintain the flow of the session and when “frank” had finished having a cigy he was able to report back, the tutor was able to read the information and relay it back at a convenient time.

Sure these things have security implications but we shouldn’t be put off by the fact that the software, because of this companies have far outgrown the competition that charge for a similar service. During times of travelling budgets being cut and volumes of money being spent on video conferencing systems, there are relatively few issues to overcome to integrate into your business and how cool would it be if in later releases you could call direct to say a Polycom unit, with the simple addition of a webcam this could in theory be possible and would encourage breaking down the fear of using the high tech solutions in the workplace.

Yes, there will be bandwidth issues and a peripheral cost but I’m guessing for small companies this would not cause too many problems with modern day broadband speeds and depending on the communications set up a of larger companies you may need to increase the allocation or re-balance the bandwidth allocated to data, that’s not my area of expertise, but I have spoken to the people in the know. Admittedly, I have not calculated the ROI, but the improvement to efficiencies and potential large scale cost saving make this concept a very interesting proposition for consideration.

In particular in the context it is important to make clear your intentions of quick and easy contact with your customers. Even today there are websites out there who believe it would be more efficient to bury their contact details and even then only make an email address or contact form. Although many security fears have been broken down with shoppers and shopping online, this is one of the biggest mistakes you can make. Shoppers browsing a new store online will want to know if they can return an item and and exercise their consumer rights if something goes wrong. If you have a high bounce rate on your product landing pages and do not freely present your contact details, this is often the problem. At the same time it is important not to bombard your customer, provide them with the popular and most accesible means of communication and allow them the choice. If you have a chat assistant installed, watch your customers as they browse your site and identify those who need help before you initiate a chat. Undoubtidly for the less tech saavy, you are more likely to scare them off than encourage them to buy if they were not looking for assistants.

Just a thought!

Adobe Premiere Pro – Setting up a Project, Device and Folder Structure

One major point to remember is that Adobe Premiere Pro’s settings or preferences sit independently from the system preferences on the machine. This can often be confusing at the early stages of playback. I can’t emphasize enough how important it is to get your project settings right at the beginning to avoid not understanding why premiere is behaving in a particular way in the future. The first few times you begin a project check each setting independently until you are familiar with what each one does, also be sure to understand the folder structure, which I shall talk about in a short while. Let’s take a look at the new project settings. Unless you have double clicked on a project you will not avoid seeing the open or new project screen. Select new project and you will be faced with the first of two opening screens, let’s look at each setting separately. Firstly choose New Project and you will be faced with the first of two options menus.

Adobe Premiere New Project

In the first new project window leave the Action safe and Title safe areas as is, next to Display Format be sure this dropdown is set to Timecode, Capture Format should read Quicktime but will be different if you are using a windows PC. Next set the Location to the location of intended project folder (See folder structure below) and then name the project something convenient. I recommend something searchable so you can find files easily as your project portfolio builds.

Premiere Pro New Project

Next swtich the top tab to Scratch Discs and you will see the options below. Set all to Same as Project (see Folder Structure below for details) Now click on OK and move onto the second set up window.

Premiere Pro Scratch Disks

Under the Sequence Presets tab select the native video format you have been working in or your intended output if you intend to output to a format of a lesser dimension i.e. Mobile Device. If you know what you would like your first sequence to be then name it accordingly. I shall go into the benefits and uses of sequences separately.

Premiere Pro New Sequence

The majority of the settings under the General tab are governed by your choice of setup on the previous tab. You should not need to change any of these settings.

Premiere Pro General Settings

Again you should not need to touch the settings in the Tracks tab unless you anticipate needing to add more video tracks to your timeline or output your projects audio to 5.1 surround sound. Otherwise leave these set to 3 tracks of Video and Audio set to Stereo.

Premiere Pro Tracks Settings

Click OK and Adobe Premiere Pro creates your project.

Folder Structure
As I mentioned before I like to keep all my files in one place just in case I want to put the project on a hard drive and work on it at home. Also working on projects across multiple user set ups on an operating system can cause errors. Files that reside in a users documents folder will appear offline signed in as another user and will be impossible to reconnect. For these reasons I set all my Scratch Discs to Same as Project. This keeps everything together but the folder can soon get cluttered once you have begun capturing a few videos. When begin a project I drag and drop a folder structure comprising of the following folders, images, after effects, sfx, buzz tracks, music, voice over etc download the example project to see how I have set this up. It also means that once you have populated a particular folder you can drag the file into your projects, creating a new bin and maintaining an efficient structure within your project. I also create a new bin for assets created from within premiere such as titles and also for every scene, cutaways, gv’s, chapter, camera etc so that I can immediately ring my clips as and when I need them.

Capture Device
Setting up the capture device or video camera can bring about a few headaches. Premiere recognizes most firewire decks and cameras but if you see a black screen in the capture window, check your settings. You can find the Settings on the second tab on the capture window under the Device Control section. Be sure on the dropdown you see your device, if not restart the program with your peripherals plugged in and you should achieve success.

Fortunately Premiere seems to be keeping up to speed with all HDD cameras to. Most require you to install additional drivers or codecs on your machine but once installed allow for a simple drag and drop to your projects and playsback in their native format with no need for a further conversion.

Example Adobe Premiere Pro Project (413)

Now see Basic editing technique

Making a smooth transition from Final Cut Pro to Adobe Premiere Pro

This is the first in a series of guides on Premiere Pro. Up until now I had been an avid Final Cut Pro user and always considered Adobe Premiere Pro to not quite be a professional standard editing platform. Perhaps my judgement was unfounded as I had only limited experience using the editing software but my new job meant that this would my new primary edit suite. Armed with a Mac Pro Dual Quadcore I got stuck in and once I got started I found many pros and cons with the platform, this is what I noted down as I made the change.

First let me touch on what I consider to be the main pros and cons of the software’s. For me premiere pro biggest asset is it’s seamless integration with the other adobe products. I have cs4 and in this most of the niggles associated with bringing unrendered files such as psd’s and aep’s has been ironed out. A hefty after effects file will slow down the display of an image in the preview pane but if you can live with this the time saving benefits are worth it. The other major time saver is the ability to drag and drop differing video formats to your project, place them in the timeline and not have to convert the video to the projects native video format or even render it out before previewing. Adobe has not seemed to complete the cross program synergy though at a crucial point. As you come to export your final piece premiere passes the project adobe media (the program we used to use merely to encode our flv’s. Unfortunately exporting a video file to full quality pal DV produces poor results especially for projects with text titling and linear shapes and effects created within premiere pro (more on this in a later post). Final cut on the other hand outputs perfect quality video.

Windows and Mac – There are some differences between the windows and mac versions of Premiere Pro that you should be aware of. Firstly when capturing video the files are saved as the operating systems preferred video. Mac saves as .mov and Windows saves as .avi. If you are hoping to export your files to be used directly in a Powerpoint Presentation on a Mac then you will struggle, there is no export to WMV option as there is in the windows version and the Mpeg formats are not supported in powerpoint. I shall write a separate detailed blog on my workarounds in this area.

Quicktime – I believe it is a necessity to have Quicktime Pro installed on your computer to save frustration with Adobes video Exports. I tend to export to the highest quality possible in Premiere and then re export them for purpose using quicktime. A bit long winded but I don’t have to do this for every export, as I mentioned it often depends on the graphical content of the video.

Making the change – There are a couple of pointers that will save you some time. With regards to making cuts in the timeline, unlike FCP there is no button for toggling the linkage between video and audio off and on, instead hold down the alt key as you make the cut or drag the clip around the timeline independently from the sound. Also another major difference is the ability to edit sound in the timeline by simply adding pushpins. For those familiar with After effects they will have no issues, simply click on the effects tab next to the source tab effects_tab and drop down the volume control menu followed by the level dropdown, place your scrubber in the timeline where you wish to begin the effects on the sound and click the stopwatch icon stopwatch_button this adds a keyframe and indicates the beginning of your change. Scrub along to where you wish the loudest or quietest point to be and add another keyframe. While the small triangle is black adjust your volume you should see the volume level in the effects pane reflect your changes. This is a skill you can also apply to motion and scale changes over time, and can also be useful in getting your head around the motion graphics program After effects. Any static graphical elements to your projects I would fully recommend building in Photoshop to the exact dimensions as your project and not resizing in premiere pro. These are the main things that I had to go looking for as most other differences were pretty intuitive or even the same as in Final Cut Pro. I’m sure there’s more I haven’t discussed so just ask in the comments box below.

As I write, I have decided to break this subject down into separate blog posts and go into greater detail.
- Setting up a Project, Device and Folder system in Premiere Pro.
- Exporting Video and preparing it for Powerpoint Presentations. (Workaround)
- Issues, Observations and Top Tips for using Adobe Media Encoder.

Intoduction to Search Engine Optimisation – SEO Learn at lunch

Search engine optimisation is now far more than putting some keywords into a page and mimicking them in your meta data. Search engines have brains and combine a whole heap of site tests in order to assess where your site should appear on the search results.

Most importantly, it is vital that the content in your page is correct and reflects the pages purpose, this is not just in the text but also, the images should be named accordingly to reinforce the content and ALT Tags used to aid the visually impaired user. A good example of this would be a product on an ecommerce site. The product has a brand, possibly a model and what it is. This text will no doubt be on the page but the search engines will check the pages images to see if it matches the content and so imagery should be named accordingly.

In this example the image should be named Dakine_101_Rucksack.jpg the underscores allow the search engine to see the text as separate words and therefore understands exactly what it is. The ALT Tag should read Daking 101 rucksack.

Approach – Assessing the site

A good place to start is to access the site. I use Domain Tools to get an initial overview of how the pages are scoring and the Alexa page rank gives you an idea of your website overall placement out of all the websites in the world (more detail on the Alexa site) I then move onto the SEO Browser located on the right hand side of the whois lookup on domain tools.

By clicking on here you will get to see how a search engine views the site and what the true content looks like. In the top right hand corner you will see a percentage score for the site. By clicking on the I button on the top left of the browser you will see a break down of the score and what needs improving in order to achieve 100%

The SEO Optimisation notes on this page are broken down into the following categories; Meta, General, Keywords, Composition, Links, Images and Terms. All are very important and getting everything right will result a massive shift in search engine placement.

Note: Achieving 100% on this assessment is all well and good and is quite easy to do but the score must reflect your initial copy, content or purpose for the website. Getting this wrong will not attract your target audience and even run the risk of being seen as a spam site.

As touched upon earlier search engines are also very conscious of accessibility for disabled visitors. The Images category in the SEO Browser reflects some possible issues such as alt tags (alternative text) missing and also images not having height and width attributes assigned within the html.

At this point I would move to the W3C (Web Standards) website and use there tools to check the page for accessibility and also for correct use of html. The Markup Validation Service will identify missing code (often accessibility issues) and also errors in the code. Again two identical sites one with errors and one without would affect the websites position on the search engine.

Using Google as a benchmark is always good as search usage figures of their competitors does not even come close to that of Google, as you can see using analytical software on any website. To begin with, installing Google toolbar to your web browser will allow you to see the Google page rank of every page you visit marked out of 10. This is not only useful in accessing your own page but also that of your competitors.

For far more detail on page ranks and how they are achieved you can also use the webmaster tools in your Google account. The webmaster tools are generated when your Google sitemap is submitted and pages are indexed on the Google database. This service provides various assessments broken down into the following categories, Overview, Settings, Diagnostics, Statistics, Links, Sitemaps and Tools.

This sitemap should not be confused with a sitemap page within a website. These pages are designed to ensure there are link trails throughout your site and do help the spiders navigate your entire site but are not used to index your site on a search engine.

Sitemaps in another session!!

Note: Similar sitemap submissions are necessary for other major search engines including yahoo and msn.

So… knowing what we now know and lets say we have applied all our changes to improve naming conventions, errors, accessibility etc, how do we climb the search engines?

I like to work backwards and reinforce what we have already achieved. At this point it’s good to know and assess where your existing traffic is coming from. This can be easily identified with Google analytics or AWStats. and allows you to identify the terms that users are searching for and arriving at the site. With this information, greater density of keywords and terms can be added further in the copy and stressed back through the meta data page title etc as identified with our earlier tools. Also it is useful to quickly identify keyword and term frequency, a useful site for this is LinkVendor words appearing a number of times within a page are not always used in the Meta keywords, description and title and as a search engine does not understand subject matter these words should be considered. Finally, and this is one of my favourites SEMRush formally known as seodigger. Pop your domain name in here and it will reveal loads of search terms, where you appear on Google for each term and the traffic they generate. SEMRush are now providing the same for adwords keyword terms.

It is also good practise to look at your Google Adwords and your Google organic traffic as a cost saving exercise for your Adwords account and also to identify terms to work into your natural traffic sources but that’s a whole other project.

Final Thought – All this is useless if you make a number of changes at the same time as you will not know which has worsened or improved your placement also unless you monitor your progress you have no means of knowing if it is working.

Useful Tools

Also available from my head.

Sitemaps, PPC Campaigns, Analytics, quality linking, usability,

My experience of Social Media and how I predict the linking of online spaces and applications.

My first experience of online Social Media was Myspace. After being introduced to the promotional power of the platform through a friend in the music industry I thought I’d give it a go. Although I think if I am honest the the largest breakthrough for me in keeping in touch with my friends had to be in 1998 when I got my first mobile phone and discovered text messaging (this will become apparent later), I later discovered Facebook and used this for my personal social networking mainly because it excelled in the uploading and tagging of pictures which far exceeded the capabilities of Myspace. I had no need for flicker or other image banks because as far as I was concerned Facebook did it all and I soon reduced my usage of Myspace. I was aware of twitter and until recently didn’t see a purpose for a platform that merely mimicked the Facebook status field, although I was fascinated that it could be updated from a mobile phone whilst going about your everyday business.

It all became clear when I recently upgraded to an iPhone. I already used a PDA phone that integrated well with my PC applications but was always keen to take this further, the iPhone allowed me to do this. The free internet access made a huge difference but it was as I installed apps I realised the true power.

My prediction: Quite obviously we see trends in social media and if you read the magazines they will say this one is in and that one is out, which I believe is true to some extent. My prediction is linking, not just that of your online spaces but also the linking of your devices (which is why I mentioned the forgotten mobile phone earlier) and now apps that offer massive extensions to your device. Here is an early example; I use mapmyrun to work out how far I run, which in itself has become a social network site with profile and the ability to share runs and view others, but none of my friends are on Mapmyrun!! So I installed iMapmyrun on my iPhone which automatically maps my training using the inbuilt GPS then sends my data to the site when I complete my run, upon receiving the data the website then updates my tweet on twitter and adds it to a box on Facebook, Genius! And all I needed to do was hit save, a perfect example of the linking of web 2.0 and mobile applications.

So I have Facebook, I have myspace, twitter, mapmyrun etc, but I do not have the time to maintain them all. As an experiment I have taken this one stage further. I have set up my first blog to provide the link in the chain (in fact I think this will be my first post). In theory my twitter which I can operate from my phone now updates my Facebook status and is included in a mini feed both on my Facebook page and my blog, this is also fed by the app iMapmyrun which also populates a space on my Facebook. Facebook will also offer a direct link to my Myspace profile and each blog entry now offers the option to post to Facebook and the users can post each blog post to their own profiles using “share this”, now one update from my phone will spread across my own network. I also have plans for my Youtube and Ebay accounts! But I am aware of how much I have written! This will all be monitored with Google analytics installed on the blog and sitemaps regularly submitted to all major search engines.

A little bit round the houses but here is how I think this has implications on research. I recently researched QR codes, one of the largest mobile phone functions in Japan that despite been taken onboard by some large UK companies still doesn’t seem to have caught on. As I discussed with a colleague this in itself has research implications although I think it carries a greater message. It offers a choice to the user that they do not receive when they are stopped in the street, answer a call or a knock on the door. In an age where most now fear identity theft and not all are embracing shifts in technology, I believe it to be beneficial that the user now believe it was their decision to be forthcoming with information and this is where apps, applications and social network style platforms can play a role.

My final thought and an example of how this has been achieved is Pruhealth. I found out through the Martin Money Saving Expert website forum that I could achieve free gym membership if I signed up for Pruhealth medical insurance and became a frequent user. They have designed a point scoring system whereby the more points you score the cheaper your gym membership. The clever trick is that my Pruhealth account links (reoccurring theme) to my nectar card and Pruhealth know when I buy fruit and veg (I’m sure they know when I buy chocolate bars and pork scratchings too, but I don’t get points for that). Pruhealth also follow my ebay account and know when I buy sporting goods, again I’m sure they are not just watching my healthy purchases. Most importantly and in my case, every time I swipe my card at Nuffield Health Centre formally Cannons gym and for others it might be Virgin Active or LA Fitness they know about it. This has allowed for me to achieve £4 a month health insurance and free gym membership, but most importantly this is achieved because Pruhealth are safe in the knowledge that I am a low risk customer.