Blogging - Part 3

FREE Software: Screen Capture + Audio Capture

Shruthi,

Q: I want to do some tutorial videos and do some voice overs for the skits that we often do. I have put all money into purchasing a good Camera, so can’t invest in software products. Are there any open source software that will let me record the computer screen and also do voice over or voice narration to my skits — all for free ?
For editing my video’s from Camera, I have got software
along with the cam itself.

Words Wisdom!
Just three years back I was using the word “Softwares” for referring to multiple copies of software and multiple software products, but it’s wrong usage. There isn’t a word called “Softwares“.

Usage Example:
Our company has 1 software product.
Our company has 2 software products.

Screen Capture + Audio Capture:

Authoritative
Good Video content is usually seen as authoritative by the users. People usually prefer to watch, than to sit and read. There are wide variety of devices from iPod, iPad, iPhone to a wide range of smart phones which enable easy viewing of video content, thus making it more consumable.

Part of the reason for considering video content creators as authoritative is because they stand out from the crowd: the crowd which usually produces text content.

Some Facts
The matter of fact being, YouTube is receiving more than 2 Billion hits per day. And more people who watch videos comeback and watch videos again, than people coming back and reading the same blog again when there is new content.

Free Software
There are two pieces of software to accomplish this. They are open source.

For Screen capturing use CamStudio.
For Audio recording, Audacity is the best.

CamStudio isn’t that sophisticated, but it has all the basic features with which you can easily start screen recording and produce some professional looking video tutorials without hassle.

Why Audio Record Separately ?
If you are using your Camcorder to record the video skits and later want to record the voice over! May be because your camera audio recording isn’t good and you don’t want to put extra money into purchasing an external voice recorder device for your camera.

Audacity is by far one of the best, free voice recording tool I have seen so far. It has lot of useful features and enhancement plugins. There are versions for Windows, Macintosh as well as for Unix/Linux. Give it a try.

Screen Capturing Software Also Capture Audio
All the above mentioned screen capturing tools also capture system sound as well as audio from external Microphone, but for people who want to voice over separately and want a open source one, check out Audacity.

Online Screen Capturing
You can even try Jing, it’s an online screen capturing tool from TechSmith.

Paid Software
If you can afford and want to look at some paid software, then make sure to consider:

Camtasia for both Windows and Macintosh.
Screen Flow for Macintosh.

I would recommend to check out “Free Trial” of these paid software; they are worth trying.

There are many other software for screen capturing and audio recording, if you have used any – please share your experience with us in the comment section.

12 Strategies to Make Your Blog More Interesting

This is a guest post by Michael Cash. If you want to guest post on this blog, check out the guidelines here.

One of the biggest (and most important) challenges that bloggers face is making their blog stand out from the masses and hit home with a group of readers. From generating the content itself to handling aspects of the blog’s organization and design, it can be difficult to come up with interesting ideas to add that personal touch to your posts.

Provided here are 12 strategies to make your blog more interesting. If you’re having trouble keeping your readers interested in your blog, the answer may be below.

1. Prove to your readers that you know what you’re talking about. Accomplish this with an About Me page, and include your education history, certifications and places where your content has been published.

2. Post a poll or a survey with software such as Blog Poll or Poll Daddy. Allowing your readers to interact with your blog beyond simply reading it can keep their attention. As a bonus, you can learn more about what your readers want to know more about.

3. Consider using SEO services to generate a list of keywords that will not only bring new traffic to your blog, but likely touch on some of the subjects that your regular readers want addressed. You might be surprised at some of the keywords related to your blog that are revealed – some that you may not have ever thought about before.

4. Respond to your readers’ comments. Blog readers like to know that their comments are taken seriously, and the debates you engage in may provide inspiration for future posts.

5. Create catchy titles. Words and phrases such as “how to,” “reasons why,” “lessons,” “secrets,” and “top” catch the reader’s attention because they imply that the information included in your post will be direct, actionable, specific and/or rare.

6. Include images and graphs to illustrate your points. Free charts are available from sites such as MarketingCharts.com and Compete.com. If you need to post an image that you didn’t originally create, be sure to use legally available images from sites such as Flickr and ImageShack that fall under the Creative Commons license.

7. Post your contact information to make your blog more personal. You don’t need to disclose sensitive information such as your phone number, but you can at least list your email address and perhaps your Skype contact name.

8. Link to a relevant Youtube video, or create your own video content. Most Internet users prefer to watch instead of reading. Videos are especially useful for product review blogs, live music blogs and other types of content that demand more than a text explanation.

9. List your sources. Phrases such as “studies show” or “according to some” don’t mean much unless they’re attached to a credible, authoritative source.

10. Include some humor. Even the driest, most rigid, most academic subject matter can benefit from some irony or a light jab. Including humor in your posts reminds the reader that you’re a live human being, not a machine simply spewing facts.

11. Include hashtags in your posts. A hashtag is a # symbol attached to a word of interest, such as #Obama or #Lollapalooza. You can use hashtags to categorize your posts, and make the keywords attached to them easier to follow. For example, your reader could click a word affixed with a hashtag and see all of the other posts on your blog that include that hashtag.

12. Don’t post “walls of text.” Break up your content with white space, headings, subheadings, shorter paragraphs, and bulleted lists. Judiciously using bold text, italics and even colored text can help to emphasize a point. Keep introductions short and pointed, and ensure that your reader knows exactly what to expect from your post after reading the first sentence or two.

This post was contributed by Michael Cash, an expert in SEO and Social Media @ iNetZeal.net

The Best Freelance Writing Course: DailyWritingTips

If you have been reading our blog for quite a while, then you know how much I admire Daniel Scocco and his works. In all his products(free and paid) he provides maximum value and he never compromises with the quality of the content.

We know how he took his highly profitable OnlineProfits.com Marketing course from $392 to almost free so that he can make it affordable to as many people as possible.

Now Daniel has teamed up with one of my favorite writer Ali Luke ( The same Ali Hale, is now Ali Luke as she got married in September 2010 ). I have been following her blog from a long time now and I really enjoy reading her articles. If you haven’t, then make sure you check out Ali’s blog aliventures.com.

A quick glance at what will be covered in Freelance Writing Course:

Week 1: Website Setup, Promotion and Guest Blogging

Week 2: Writing Content For The Web, A Totally Different Beast

Week 3: Finding Clients and Developing High Paying Jobs

Week 4: Running A Freelance Writing Business Efficiently

Week 5: Using Social Media To Promote Yourself and Land More Writing Jobs

Week 6: Increasing Your Writing Productivity to Multiply Your Profits

(At the end of each week there will be some assignment tasks to help you take action)

By the way, the course runs for 6 weeks. As usual, you will have a private forum(i.e., members only) where you can exchange your thoughts, experience and ask questions to other members or Ali or Daniel.

Here most of the linkbait stuffs and the marketing stuffs will be covered in detail by Daniel. He is a master in this area. Daniel has a lot of experience as a freelance writer too. At one point in his early days of blogging, he was making good income by freelance writing. He knows the strategies to land big freelance writing projects which pays more i.e., as much as $2000 per post. So if you ever thought of becoming a freelance writer and want to know ins and outs of it, then this is the course you must be in.

Daniel is providing 60-day moneyback guarantee. For more details about the topics covered and to know about some of the cool bonuses which you get along with this course, check out Freelance Writing Course

NYTimes Style Slider: Next Post WordPress Plugin

You might have seen NYTimes and even some blogs have incorporated a cool animated Fadin/Fadout or Flyout style of showing next post, once user scrolls down the article. Its light-weight and looks cool.
There is a WordPress plugin called upPrev: NYTimes Style “Next Post” Animated Button, which lets us add this cool little feature to our blog, within 2 or 3 clicks of the button. Just drop the plugin into plugins folder and activate it from the WordPress dashboard.

There is little to no configuration needed. You can set the style of animation: Fadin/Fadout or Flyout style. We are using Flyout style on this blog. Scroll till the end of the article and you will see a small window popping with a Flyout effect.

You can set the appearance of this window depending on the user scroll action, by mentioning the class name or the id name within your WordPress theme.

For example, in our theme we have a class by name otherstuff at the end of each article. So when user scrolls till this class element, this window will Fadin. When user scrolls up above otherstuff class element, the window automatically fadsout.

Just like the NYTimes button, upPrev allows WordPress site admins to provide the same functionality for their readers. When a reader scrolls to the bottom of a single post, a button animates in the page’s bottom right corner, allowing the reader to select the next available post in the single post’s category (the category is also clickable to access an archive page). If no next post exists, no button is displayed.

Right click and see your blog/website source code and get the class name or id name and use it to set this plugin. Make sure to put # “hash” before the ID name, or . “dot” before a class name.

Usually comment section will have id name as #comment or class name as .comment

10 Tips to Increase Your Rates as a Freelance Writer

This is a guest post by Ahlam Yassin. If you want to guest post on this blog, check out the guidelines here.

So, I’ve been at this freelance writing business for a little over a year now. It’s been exciting, actually earning money (not yet a living) doing something I enjoy. However, my first year of freelance writing has been one stuck in the content mills. The few hundred dollars a month I made from this type of writing may have been o.k. when I was living abroad and that was the equivalent to a teacher’s salary. However, I’ve moved back to the greater New York City area, and life is expensive! Here’s what I’m doing to earn more as a freelance writer.

freelance 5 Financial Mistakes New Freelancers Make

1. Want to Earn More? Write the part.
Here’s the thing, getting trapped in the content mills can be dangerous. You can easily get comfortable writing repetitive content. If you want to earn more as a writer, you have to put your heart into it. Start a blog and showcase your best writing. Having a place where you can direct potential clients to in order to reference your work is so much better than saying; ‘I’ve written hundreds of ghostwritten articles’.

2. Breaking the Pay Raise to Existing Clients
I have a client I really enjoy writing for, and there is a lot more work in discussion. Today, I was on the phone trying to break the news that my rates will no longer be as low as he is accustomed to. Just like a dream, the international phone call was cut off! When I do get him back on the line, we’re going to talk about my rates. The time it takes to get the academic writing done, and how I would like my pay to match the quality of work I am providing. He may say, no thanks, how can I pay you X when I’ve so used to getting it for Z? If this is the case, I’m going to have to live with it, drop this client and move on. I have $1 a word aspirations buddy.

3. Find a Successful Mentor
I’ve been finding a wealth of information online from people who have actually succeeded at this writing game. Yes, these writers are my hero, and I am a sponge for the information they are putting out, for free! I can not afford their mentoring services, but I can afford the time it takes to learn everything they are teaching on their own websites and personal writing blogs. Carol Tice and Anne Wayman have been awesome inspirations.

4. Show up and Write
It’s so tempting to get caught up in the learning process; in all actuality if you want to succeed you’ll never stop learning. This is why you have to make time to actually write. This is how you want to earn a living, so don’t forget to practice. A great resource I’ve found is Angela Booth’s ebook “Write and Sell Your Own Writing”, which is free when you subscribe to her blog. She details a mechanical process to get you writing, even when you’re not in writer mode.

5. Believe in Yourself
As a writer, it may sometimes be a little hard to match the words that are typed out on the screen with the person other people see. In order to achieve great things, including higher pay, you have to believe in yourself and your ability to communicate effectively. You have a talent, have worked hard on it, and there is a market for your skills.

6. The Power of Networking
You may not consider your aunt Sally as a contact person, but don’t underestimate who aunt Sally may know! Use your friends and family as starting points to network. This will help you practice marketing yourself to a (hopefully) more sensitive audience. Let them know you’re trying to expand your business and are looking for new clients.

7. Business Cards Matter
So, when you’re done talking to aunt Sally about any prospects she may know ask if she wouldn’t mind taking a few of your business cards. Just having a business card can get you out of the content mill mindset and help you feel like a professional.

8. Don’t Hesitate
Too often, you may walk away from a potential client feeling like you didn’t quiet make the right impression. When you hesitate too often, you may be losing a valuable opportunity.

9. Open Yourself up to the Possibilities
The best things have happened to me when I’ve completely opened up to great things happening. Why not? Why shouldn’t great things happen (like excellent resources of income) happen to you? You’ll be surprised what the right mental attitude can bring you.

10. Learn to Say No
It’s tempting to fall back into the grind of the content mill if you’re having a slow week, I know, I’ve been there. However, find the power to say no. Instead of investing so much of yourself for such little pay, work on a great article to pitch to a magazine, track down prospective clients or get inspired through reading. When you’re having a slow patch, do any one of these things and have the power to say no to low paying content mills.

Ahlam Yassin is a freelance writer with a passion for personal and career development issues. You can find out more at www.prowriterinc.com. You can follow her on twitter @prowriterinc

5 Financial Mistakes New Freelancers Make

This is a guest post by Deborah Dera. If you want to guest post on this blog, check out the guidelines here.

Let’s be honest from the start, shall we? I’ve been freelancing for 5 years and have been working independently for the past 2 years. If I knew 2 years ago what I know now, I might have waited longer before quitting my full-time job to make it on my own. That said, I’m still alive and kicking and I’d like to share some of the mistakes I and others have made in the hopes that you’ll be able to launch your own freelance career without as much financial strain.

Ignoring Your Savings
One of the worst things you can do as you prepare to embark on your career as a freelancer is to ignore your savings. Most financial experts recommend always having a buffer of at least 6 months in savings in case of financial emergency. Having that kind of a financial safety-net before starting your freelance career might be niche but isn’t always possible. The truth, however, is that you should have some money in savings to help you cover your rent, utilities, and grocery bill while you search for new clients. Make sure you have a month or two in reserve and don’t forget to continue adding to your savings as you begin earning more.

Living Beyond Your Means
Let’s say you’re working a 9-5 job in corporate America. You’re probably used to buying a cup of hot coffee on your way to work in the morning and you might buy your lunch every day. When you first start freelancing you’ll need to be more careful about your expenses – every penny will count. That $5 cup of gourmet coffee, while nice, may add up to the amount of money you need to pay your electric bill. Your lifestyle will change as you grow your business, but it is important to recognize that you may not be as well off in the beginning as you hope to be.

Not Adjust Your Expenses
We often take our day-to-day expenses (or lack thereof) for granted. Your office job probably gave you access to long-distance telephone calls, fax machines, and copy machines – whether you should have been utilizing them for personal reasons or not. Now you’ll have to pay for these and other expenses on your own and they can quickly add up. Adjust your cell or home phone calling plan to include long distance, invest in an online faxing service, and look for some all-in-one office equipment (printer/copier). The more you can do in-house, the more you’ll save and have available to grow your business.

Not Tracking Your Expenses
As a freelancer, almost every single penny you spend will count as a tax deduction. Keep track of expenses – from office supplies to medical appointments – and organize your receipts accordingly. Your accountant will be able to help you determine what you can legally write-off when tax time rolls around – and you may just be surprised at how much you’re able to save.

Redefine Trust
For me, the hardest part about launching my freelance career was redefining my definition of trust. I was suddenly on my own and wanted to trust everyone who recommended a product or service that would make my business better. I subscribed to blog feeds, read countless newsletters, and subjected myself to “shiny new object syndrome.” I bought product after product, trusting their promoters and believing each would help me to grow. I would buy one thing and then purchase the next before I had finished with the first. This type of spending will eat into your profits and, if you aren’t careful, cause you to quickly build up a significant amount of debt.

As a freelancer you’ll want to gain control of your financial situation from the very beginning. Take your time and build your business slowly. Don’t waste your money on things you don’t need and make future investments wisely. Treading carefully, especially in today’s economy, will ensure you’re always able to put food on the table!

Deborah Dera is a full-time professional writer specializing in personal finance, credit repair, bad credit loans, bankruptcy, blogging, search engine optimization, and PLR content creation.

8 Best WordPress Caching Plugins

This is a guest post by Kip. If you want to guest post on this blog, check out the guidelines here.

Slow page loads cause visitors to leave your site and go somewhere else, leaving you without sales and without subscribers. Slow page loads can also prompt Google to downgrade your page rank, causing you even more lost revenue. WordPress pages can be slow because of the large number of files and database calls the system must process while the visitor waits to see it. By saving these dynamic pages as static HTML after they are viewed, subsequent page views are served much faster. Fortunately, adding caching to WordPress is as easy as adding a couple files to your server. Here are the 8 best WordPress caching plugins you can use to make your Web site more responsive and profitable.

1. WP-Cache is one of the first WordPress cache solutions ever to be created. With this plugin installed, WordPress can serve up hundreds more pages per second. This reduced server load accommodates hundreds or even thousands more visitors to your blog without any noticeable performance degradation. Although this is not the fastest cache plugin, it remains one of the most popular.

2. WP Super Cache uses three methods to cache data (Mod_Rewrite, PHP, and Legacy Caching) to make your content display quickly to your visitors even when your server is under a heavy load. With its recommended settings, WP_Super Cache will compress pages and cache PHP code while serving original pages to known users. The makers of the plug-in say that 99% of your visitors will see static pages, suggesting that search engines and visitors will all have a good experience on your site.

3. DB Cache is a WordPress plugin that professes to speed WordPress beyond traditional HTML caching to make it the fastest cache solution that is available. With DB Cache installed your WordPress cache takes less space and your server deals with a lighter load than with other cache plugins.

4. WP Widget Cache will cache WordPress widgets to make your blog go even faster than it does with a page cache only This is especially important for bloggers who have an above average number of widgets in use. Since widgets are found on most pages, this plugin can speed up every page (including unpopular pages) so users and search engines will have positive feelings about your blog.

5. Hyper Cache is a WordPress cache pluigin designed for installations on minimal hosting providers. This is important because the average low resource Web host doesn’t have the space and the horsepower to support a full blown hosting solution. This plugin serves cached pages without any database access and minimizes cached storage space to so that even low-end packages can host speedy WordPress blogs.

6. DB Cache Reloaded is a WordPress cache plugin that branched off of the original DB Cache after the original author didn’t promptly update the plugin for newer WordPress versions. This cache will work with the most recent versions of WordPress.

7. 1 Blog Cacher is an ultra lightweight cache that is gaining in popularity even though virtually all of its configuration options are set in a single PHP file. This is an HTML cache, meaning that dynamic pages are saved as HTML for future visitors. Because of its low profile, this plugin caches only GET requests on the server. The plugin also supports the ability to define the length of time before pages expire.

8. W3 Total Cache Is billed as one of the most robust caching plugins available. It offers impressive speed gains “out of box” with plenty of options to tweak it for your particular preferences. Several options for caching for pages and databases, minifying, and content delivery networks makes this an attractive option for experienced bloggers.

Try one or more of the 8 best WordPress caching plugins listed here to improve your page loading speeds. Your effort will be rewarded with more satisfied customers, better search engine ranking, and a bigger bottom line.

Kip is a tech writer for BroadbandCompare.com.au, an Australian website where you can compare broadband plans and deals from the best broadband providers.

7 Tips for Researching a New Business

This is a guest post by James Adams. If you want to guest post on this blog, check out the guidelines here.

New businesses need care, loving, and attention to grow. Before you set up shop, you need to research the market and examine the trends. Discover the relevance and importance of your idea before investing your life’s savings. Here are ten tips for researching that new business.

1. Planning: Before you open the doors to your new business, have a plan for success in place. What is your exit strategy? Are you planning on running the business forever, or are you planning to sell your built company to a competitor? Do you intend to keep your business small? Would you rather grow your business to gigantic proportions? What defines your company’s success? Do you want to quickly divorce yourself from the sales process and establish a new business?

2. Define your business idea: What are the key features of your business? What products and services does it offer? Focus on the specifics of the idea. If you want to sell information products, what kinds of information products do you sell? How do you plan to make money off of this idea? Many businesses fail because they do not adequately distill the idea into a salable product. Are you a warehouse of information products, or do you have something exclusive to your business? State your idea as succinctly as possible.

3. Talk with friends and family: Many underestimate the value of friends and family in the formulation of a business plan. They might not be part of your industry, but they can offer unique insights which are related to their own experiences. What do they suggest? After hearing about your new business, would they buy your company’s products and services? Where can you change your ideas? A different set of eyes can be extremely fruitful for the direction of your new business.

4. Who are your clients?: After you have fully defined your company’s products, decide your target demographic. What kinds of clients do you want? Are you selling to individuals or businesses? It is easy to say that you want to sell your product to the planet, but not everybody needs what you are selling. Does your business cater to recent graduates? Soccer moms? Are your products and services geared toward a market which was heretofore untapped? If you have a manufacturing business, in what stores would you expect to see your products?

5. Look at the competition: Now that you have defined what you are selling and to whom you are selling, you need to find out who is already providing that product to the market. A quick search will yield the results you desire. When listing the companies which sell your product, think about the factors which make you different from them. Examine their products and pricing structure. What kinds of guarantees are offered? Identify your primary and secondary competition for each of your products.

6. Discover your unique selling proposition: What factors set you apart from the competition? Are you offering the same services for a cheaper price? Do you give your customers a better warranty? Instead of one pricing plan, are you going to offer several? If you invented the red widget, use that as your selling point. If you are selling services, what benefits are available? Some companies pride themselves on offering the most of a product. Others thrive on scarcity. Still others attempt to be the cheapest within the field. If you are the best rather than the cheapest, what is that unique thing which makes you the best?

7. Demand for your product: Is your product being talked about in publications? Are you bringing a new innovation to the industry? Is the market saturated with suppliers of your product? Look at Google Trends to find out about the latest and greatest in your arena. What is on the minds of your potential customers? This will help you pinpoint your marketing strategies.

The success of your business depends on the strength of your research. What sets you apart from the other suppliers? How do you define your own success? What steps do you plan to take? Your business flourishes when you have a concrete plan of attack.

This post was contributed by James Adams who works at a leading office supplies shop offering in office furniture for businesses. His favourite topic is productivity and how it affects profitability.