Archive for the ‘podcast’ Category

The advantages of a small business custom integrated blog have been covered many times on this blog. Previous topics covered advice about the benefits of blogging, my services for integrated small business blogs, blog writing tips, and blog promotion.

From reviewing a wide variety of blogs, one common error for many small business blog owners is still apparent. The purpose, function, and format of blog tags and labels is not completely understood, so the search engine optimization value of many blogs may suffer.

To further assist my small business clients enhance their blogs, I just released a new podcast episode with details and a lesson on blog tags and blog labels. I strongly encourage bloggers to visit the podcast and listen to this advice to help overcome any confusion comparing and using tags and labels.

Based on what you learn, it’s okay to do edits on blog posts and republish each one.

Small business custom website design clients often ask about making page one in major search engines as part of website design projects. My latest podcast episode just released over the weekend with audio advice to Add an Integrated Website Blog helps answer that question. Here’s an excerpt from the show notes:

Listen to learn about case studies of new small business website blog integration, and the positive results others have experienced from this advice. The blog of a recent custom small business website launch that I designed made Google page one in 1 week.

Search engine results found in Google page one and Yahoo page one were emailed to me by some of my clients in as little as one week from the time their site launched. Having an integrated blog and posting often helps small business website owners get listed sooner, and obviously some are making page one in major search engines in weeks. Blogs add fresh content often which is one of the methods for search engine optimization that I teach.

My policy when describing my custom website design services is still no guarantee of page one results, yet following my advice and blogging certainly has proven worthwhile. Here’s the link, again, to listen to case studies of new small business website blogs in the Small Business Website Mailbag podcast.

The latest show on the Small Business Website Mailbag podcast was released last weekend entitled “Website Content and Copyright” and the program runs just under 13 minutes.

The podcast presents a case study of photograph copyrights on a small business website that involved verbal permission for use of work project pictures from the original owner. A friendly relationship went sour, and the verbal agreement was replaced with a cease and desist order demanding removal of the photographs.

Listen to the program for additional small business advice about site content subject to copyright, potential copyright problems to avoid, resources for acquiring copyright free material for your website, and tips about obtaining and protecting copyright.

The next episode of the Small Business Website Mailbag podcast entitled Mass Mailing Website Promotion was released today. The program presents small business mailing campaign advice that earlier this week saved a client over $1000 on just one post card mailing.

The show breaks down the mailing campaign cost analysis in detail, and to save listeners from taking notes, I included each dollar figure in writing in the show notes. Comparing a 4 x 6 to 5 x 7 and 1/2 page post cards, the total cost of one mailing ranged from $1700 to $2750. The client was thinking bigger is better.

In discussing the half page size post card flyer, I asked if their budget was closer to $1700 or $2700. The decision was easy once I explained that a professionally designed 4 x 6 could be just as effective.

When considering the value of my advice, and the $1000 savings, this client saved more than the price of artwork and printing! Listen to this latest podcast episode about mass mailing to learn how you could save on your next small business advertising campaign.

For clients interested in adding audio to their small business website, custom audio player color schemes can be designed to match your site. The graphic below shows 6 players slightly smaller than actual size, and the code used to generate these meets xhtml 1.1 standards per W3C to easily integrate into your website design.

Colors shown are two tone versions with light and dark each of silver, green, and blue. The choices for custom color schemes to match your site are practically unlimited with up to 16 million colors. The top view of each audio player is how it displays closed and ready to play on your site, and each bottom view shows the view during play.

Audio can be used for introductions, customer testimonials, a small business blog, or even regular shows similar to my Small Business Website Mailbag podcast. The latest podcast episode comparing dynamic and static websites was released earlier today if you want to listen and view a tan version of this player.

With the release of episode 002 of the Small Business Website Mailbag podcast, feedback and customer reviews from listeners has been positive and encouraging. USA and international email comments were received from two professional web designers and existing clients which included the following:

Just listened to your podcast. I found it to be excellent, clear and informative; your voice inflection is awesome. I’ll be tuning in regularly.

Excellent job, precise, direct to the point and informative. Who could ask for more?

Enjoyed the podcast very much. Actually I think it’s a much better idea than video in a way because it can be totally scripted and read. You just can’t do that with video.

Looks like a home run Jim!! I would like to set up something for people that have questions, too.

The podcast show topics cover websites for small business owners and each episode features a tip of the day, plus a catchy opening and closing theme song. One reply included a tutorial request for a new custom video production as featured on this blog, also.

Feedback is certainly appreciated, and I’ll be sure to give serious consideration to listener requests taken from the website mailbag. Thanks.

Today’s announcement is the launch of the Small Business Website Mailbag podcast, a new feature with an audio version of small business advice so you can hear me rather than reading it. The first podcast Episode 001 is entitled Small Business Podcast Intro and includes the following outline in the show notes:

• My reason for starting this show
• The podcast content and outline
• Options for listener interaction
• My qualifications for offering advice
• Website quick tip of the day

0:00:00 Podcast Theme Music and Introduction
0:00:45 Main Topic – Small Business Podcast Introduction
0:09:38 Tip of the Day – Writing for Blogs versus Websites
0:11:01 Podcast Outro Theme Music and Credits
0:11:32 End of Small Business Website Mailbag Podcast 001

For those who have viewed my custom website video productions, the podcast includes the same theme song which reinforces my market branding.

All podcast shows focus on websites for small business owners with expert advice that you may now hear online instead of tolerating my (sometimes) long-winded phone calls. Please visit this new advice podcast for small business and post a comment or email me with feedback or suggested topics.

After experimenting with several audio players, I recorded Twas the Night Before Christmas in mp3 for my personal blog, Growin’ Up in Maine. Adding audio to your website or blog can be a nightmare if you care about aesthetics and presentation. Here is the Christmas poem for the custom audio player demo.

Audio Notes (Press Right Button to Play)

http://www.jimdegerstrom.com/player.swf

Title: Twas the Night Before Christmas
Narration: Jim Degerstrom
Play Time: 00:04:18

Most blog services do not host audio files, so your recordings must be hosted elsewhere and linked from the external source. This blog is hosted on my server, so this post demonstrates a custom streaming audio player to test the function here. This simple player only uses MP3 format sound files which is my standard, so it’s perfect for websites or blogs.

Having a player that is cross browser compatible requires overcoming the quirks of Internet Explorer which is the only browser still using the tag. As a result most designers code two players in the HTML or XHTML to display properly in all browsers. The preferred method to add audio or other multimedia and meet current standards in XHTML with a player that is cross browser compatible is to use the

This was fun to record and only required one take. If time permits, I may add a podcast to this commercial site answering small business custom website design questions featuring comments or emails from readers. Stay tuned for an announcement, or send in your questions now if you feel you might prefer listening more than reading my small business advice. That may prompt me to begin sooner.

In addition, small business website owners may want to consider adding an audio intro or testimonials for their site. I can help on the technical end including designing a player to match your website’s color scheme, so call or email me with any questions.

After searching long hours for quality sources for background music I discovered royalty free music from The Music Bakery for an upcoming custom website project that will include audio. Looking ahead, I may launch a weekly podcast within the next 30 days, and online radio is much more interesting if there’s a musical theme to your show.

If you are unfamiliar with podcasting and wondering why you would need royalty free music, you may want to visit the How to Podcast Tutorial by Jason Van Orden. He’s done an excellent job explaining how in easy to understand language.

The Music Bakery, Dallas Texas, offers a vast selection of music including many with live recordings by studio musicians playing real instruments versus so many other choices that I reviewed with cheaper sounding synthesized tunes. The staff was especially helpful by phone, and the price range for a license is modest in my opinion. Selections include single songs that have the full version averaging over 2-3 minutes, and mixed clips around 60 seconds, 30 seconds, and 15 seconds.

In addition, their website features album collections of mixed genres that offer a variety of moods and style to fit your audio needs. Each song has a low-fi sample of each selection for preview. The products I purchased were shipped by priority mail the same day ordered. The 2 albums arrived in individual cases with detailed labels, and the envelope was well packaged in bubble pack.

Pros: Quality, variety, service, and pricing
Cons: None

I recommend The Music Bakery when you are considering quality sources for royalty free music.