My Response to Gideon Shalwick Video Blogging Course

This post has been lying around for over a month now and I think its about time to have it up for all to read.  I would like to just post my response to Gideons competition that took place sometime back regarding video blogging.

After listing to the video I decided to plot down a  number of pointers that relate to me on why I have not yet implemented video blogging on my blog.  Do any of the points below relate to you?

- the main issue why I have not gone further with video blogging is because I feel that I do not look good on camera. ( its hilarious but every time I record a video I go through the video and find things that I don't like – like the way my hair falls, the facial expression,etc)  And that is really a big issue for me as I just don’t want to share the videos with people as I feel that people would not watch them.  But now I realized that people are visiting my blog to hear what I have to share with them and not judge weather I have a big nose or not.

- I love the idea or recording a video in the park like Fran shares in her interview.  I always think of it this way – would I like/be interested to see my own video? If I do ( and I’m very critical to myself) then I do not see a reason why others would not be interested. And the idea of filming in the park with beautiful nature around – I think I will try this idea for my new blog.

• The solution for this problem of mine Gideon actually gave in his previous videos on his blog at gideonshalwick .  Thank you for your tips on how to feel comfortable in front of a camera. I guess it takes time and with practice you just become better! The tip on jotting down the questions you are going to answer is very good as I always tend to loose direction when talking on camera and start jabbering in all directions. And having the focus of the picture on your fridge – genius idea! ( also if you use that method I think if you have a picture of a friend up then it would be easier for you to talk to them when you record cause you can relate and maybe change you intonation or expressions as if you were actually talking to a friend)

- Another issue I realize I have is that the niche that I’m in or trying to be a part of is very competitive.  The truth is I have never really had any passions like collecting things or being crazy on diets/etc.  The only thing I really loved I think was athletics but that was back in school.  In the last couple of years blogging has become my passion and the thing is its not blogging about a specific product or hobby its about blogging itself. Helping people set up a blog, getting traffic, etc.  I love researching on the topics of SEO, social media, marketing and anything to do with blogging.


- Also during the video Fran shared a thing about selling affiliate products through her YouTube channel with a an affiliate link below the video.  And although she mentioned that people would click anyways cause most have no clue that's its an affiliate link, Just wanted to make a quick comment on that – I would use something like bit.ly to shorten the link and then people would not have to wonder when why click cause when you shorten the link you can white anything in the title. Just a quick comment on that from me.

- About capturing your Mac screen ( in my case I use a Mac) – as I’m not a professional (yet ☺) in creating video posts I use this free program from apple.com called screenium. Well lets put it in other words – it does what its supposed to do and is very easy to use.

I think I should stop now.  Sorry if this comment is a bit too long! Also Gideon you have been such a great motivation for me to proceed with the video blogging.  I have registered a domain a few months back which is going to be a blog on blogging solutions and now am so eager to actually get into it.  The biggest mistake with this blog so far is not having it hosted on my own domain but having it on Blogger which I just want to comment is real bad for your blogging career as it is something that you don't own and can get closed down anytime and there is pretty much nothing that you can do. So important TIP: Buy your own domain – OWN YOUR BUSINESS!

Let me hear your opinion - are these issues also a problem you might have faced with video blogging?

Where Does Your Inspiration Come From?

Its been a while since I last posted, honestly haven't been inspired to write a good post lately. So I decided to dedicate a quick post to a very important topic I think.

What inspires you to do what you do?

 Without inspiration I don't think a person would be able to come up with good content - and in this case content can relate to either a blog, website or anything in your daily life.

As for me - honestly I usually get my inspiration while I'm either walking around, browsing, thinking,etc.
I could be walking in a middle of a street and then see something that I feel relates to me and I feel I just need to do something.

Also I have this awesome widget on my HTC Hero - its an Android application and its called Success Quotes. For example today's quote was:

Obviously, there is little you can learn from doing nothing. - Zig Ziglar

Please share your quotes of inspiration or people who inspire you in your comments below!

Using Google Wonder Wheel to Find More KeyWords

Today I would like to spend a minute talking about keywords! The real importance of picking the right keywords.

In my example below I will start with 2 basic keywords - "credit card".  If you try to master and rank for these two specific words first in Google - trust me that will probably never happen as the big shots such as banks, financial institutions,etc have already taken up that niche.  So what is it that you and I can do to try to get a share of this huge pool of money going around? First off you have to go deeper!
For example people who have a credit card might be searching for a card that they can pay less interest on, there you go. You have your main keywords to work with -  "low interest credit card".

After entering "low interest credit card" into a Google search box and selecting "Wonder Wheel" from the left-hand menu, the standard view changes to display your keyword in the center of an orb that's surrounded by a few different related terms.

NOTE: You may have to click the "More search tools" link first before you can see the "Wonder wheel" option.
After you select the Wonder wheel view, the keyword you searched in Google will look like this...

As you can see, the Wonder wheel lets you dig deeper into your keywords to find others that Google believes are related to it.
While my initial keyword research from the last step already uncovered the keyword "0% interest credit card", looking at the Wonder wheel helps me understand that Google thinks the names of credit companies are closely related to this search term.
Given that information... I would take those keywords and use them as modifiers to pretty much all of the keywords I find.
Here's what I mean when I say that...

Instead of only having "0% interest credit card" or "0% apr credit card" as keywords on my list, I'll add the credit card company names before each phrase to expand my list further.
Using this kind of logic, I can easily turn 2 keywords into 10:

• discover card 0% interest credit card
• American express 0% interest credit card
• capital one 0% interest credit card
• Citibank 0% interest credit card
• bank of America 0% interest credit card
• discover card 0% apr credit card
• American express 0% apr credit card
• capital one 0% apr credit card
• Citibank 0% apr credit card
• bank of America 0% apr credit card

No matter which niche I want to target, there should always be opportunities to expand my keyword list using simple modifiers - fast, quick, best, quality, city names, state names, etc.
If I'm having a hard time coming up with modifiers I can use to expand my keyword list, I'll spy on the competition to see what they're doing.

Although there are quite a few different options available (SEMRush, SpyFu, KeywordSpy) when it comes to spying on the keywords your competitors are using, they limit the number of results you can see unless you pay for the service.

Since you need to pay a monthly subscription to see the full list of keywords, you can use the Google Search-based Keyword Tool instead which is FREE.

Although the number of results will still be limited as they are for those with free accounts at the keyword spy services listed above, you should be able to get what you need from Google.

This is pretty much it, have a wonderful weekend everyone and see you back next week!