Effective Video Marketing - Ways to Do it for Free

Videos are a great way to increase online engagement and speed up brand awareness. Don't hide your videos by producing without promoting. Any way that you can encourage people to find your video, is a step in the right direction. And it doesn't have to cost you any money.

1. Embed videos in your blog - It might sound obvious, but even though you're uploading videos to YouTube, you should still write a blog post and intro to the video and embed it into your blog. Remember to include in the title that a video is included, and include a good description.

2. Add a keyword-rich title - The title of your video should also include some keywords that help search engines find it. A keyword-rich title is the best thing you can do for every blog post, video or not.

3. Write descriptions - Don't forget to include a description of your video when you upload it. It's important to use the space you have to its full potential to include a link to your website and any products you are promoting.

4. Share your videos - Sites like YouTube, Flickr.com, Vimeo.com and others allow you to share all your videos. The more eyes on your video, the better. Don't disable the ability for people who like your video to embed it into their own blog or website. This will give you more exposure.

5. Cross-link to other videos - When you write any blog post that is relevant, you can add the link to the video at the bottom as other information that your audience might want to see.

6. Ask people to share your videos - In every video you create, ask people to like it, share it, and tell others about it. The more you ask, the more likely it is to be shared.

7. Keep comments open - Always let people make comments on your videos. Yes, in some cases you'll get spam, and from time to time people will be mean or disagree, but that's part of the process. How you respond will make a huge difference in how you're perceived.

8. Repurpose videos - You can cut up longer videos into shorter quick videos to share with your audience, and even turn videos into blog posts, or transcribe the videos, add to them and turn them into an eBook or report.

5 Productivity Techniques Every Entrepreneur Should Know

The amount of time we have available every day is limited. Not every entrepreneur can put in 18-hour days -- personal obligations and family life take up time, making it important that we maximize the time we do have allocated for business. 

Here are five time-wasting habits that many entrepreneurs are guilty of. Eliminate these and watch your productivity increase.

1. Trying to do everything yourself. You have to learn to delegate if you are ever going to be productive. All entrepreneurs are guilty of this at some point, especially in the beginning. You think you can handle everything -- but as tasks and responsibilities stack up the weight on your shoulders becomes unbearable and everything collapses. Delegating those tasks to other people that handled them more efficiently made a significant impact. You can’t do everything yourself, and the sooner you realize this, the better off you will be.

Source: UNSPLASH

 2. Saying ‘Yes’ to everything.One of the hardest things to do is say no. Personally, it took me a while to learn that it was physically impossible to try to accommodate every request that was presented to me. This circles around to point number one above -- I thought I could do it all. I didn’t want to disappoint anyone. If I received a request for a quick 15-minute chat, I would squeeze it in.

3. Waiting for perfection.Perfection doesn’t exist, and if you sit around waiting for it you’re going to miss the boat. When people are hung up on a task they will often say they are trying to perfect it before moving on to the next one. They are simply procrastinating.It’s important that you understand perfection is a unicorn you most likely aren’t going to encounter. Imagine if companies such as Uber and Airbnb waited to expand into new markets until they perfected all of the working components of the business. They would still be sitting there wasting time, scratching their heads, waiting for something that wasn’t ever going to happen. Look how fast both companies have grown because they were extremely productive.

4. Allowing distractions to constantly interrupt your day. Distractions will only interrupt your day if you let them. You have to create a work environment that provides you with some distraction-free time, allowing you to stay 100 percent focused. Every entrepreneur is going to have different distractions to deal with. Here are a few of things I do to eliminate some distractions:

No personal text replies: When I’m working I don’t reply to personal texts. It’s a time suck, but it also tells the other person that your work time isn’t valuable. Just because someone is bored at his or her desk or on a day off, it doesn’t mean you have to entertain them. When you ignore work-time texts and begin to reply to them in the evening when you are done, you will notice your mid-day interruptions will decrease significantly.

Airplane mode: If I’m working on something extremely important that requires complete focus I’ll switch my phone to airplane mode. When I simply silence my phone I still see the notification icons and I’m apt to pick it up and check emails and messages. Airplane mode prevents this and allows me to fully focus.

Block off calendar time: I have specific time blocked off on my calendar every day. When you get into this habit, you know without a doubt that you have a period of time without meetings, conference calls or distractions. This time will quickly become your most productive daily block of time.

5. Constantly refreshing your email inbox. If you are constantly refreshing your email inbox, you are pissing away valuable time. It can become quite addictive. I suffered from this myself, and had to create a system to check and respond to emails that wouldn’t dig into my productivity.

I check my emails at set times every day and I also have someone screen them. The screening eliminates a lot of wasted time deleting junk, unsolicited requests and spam. When I do jump into my inbox it’s in and out, as I know everything waiting for me requires my attention and I fire back replies and address each one without having to waste time identifying the emails that are important. It’s a habit that isn’t easy to break, but once you do develop a system that works for you, the time saved will be very noticeable.

Quick Thoughts on Updating and Rebuilding Your Website

There are no rules when it comes to updating your business website in a regular manner. Deciding on whether to update, redesign or re-engineer your site should depend entirely on your business goals, objectives and economic considerations. It should not be dependent on a superficial time frame not based on facts.

A variety of factors can make a redesign worth considering rather than rebuilding it.

• For example, you have new branding and color standards this year, and you need to make sure your new look extends to your website. Moreover, your bounce rates - few converts from visitors - are extremely high. A well-thought-out redesign can turn this around.
• Another example is, your business has grown and you will need to have new products and services. Your website’s design may need to reflect that change. 
• Lastly, your customers complain about your site looking outdated, not working or too slow.

Source: UNSPLASH

 
What developments might be required to re-engineer any website from scratch?

• Making it adapt to mobile device screens. Fixing this is an absolute must in today’s mobile-driven world. Anyone in your company should be able to learn and use your content management system (CMS) to update your site. 
• Keep things simple: If your site takes forever to load, you need to re-engineer the back end. Nobody puts up with long waits anymore.

Customer opinion and feedback give you the kind of insights that convert visitors into customers. Start by asking what they think of your proposed design and if it appeals to them. Then,

• ask about the problem they’re looking to solve
• ask if the information they need access to is easy to find in the new design. 
• after you relaunch the site, ask them again if they like it. If they say no, address their concerns through incremental design enhancements, which your new site should allow you to do without starting over.

In short, you want to follow the lead of sites like Apple.com and Amazon.com, which rarely undergo complete facelifts. Instead, their sites evolve over time using an iterative process that results in near invisible refinements that have the bonus of maintaining the user experience that customers know and like.