Dominate Your Local Market!

Now that WordPress 2.7 has been released, work on the 2.8 version has begun. The folks at WordPress.org have asked for input on what users would most like to see in the upcoming upgrade (you can participate in the survey here).

What do your customers really want? You can use polls and surveys to find out.

The folks at Automattic have created PollDaddy.com to help users create polls and surveys that you can then place on your blog, website or link to from an email. A simple interface walks you through the process of creating your poll or survey. There are 19 themes that you can use or you can use the built-in tool that helps you create a custom theme.

Once you have your poll set up, PollDaddy offers several ways for you to publish it. A simple JavaScript snippet can be placed on your web page by you or your web designer, and there’s a direct link method to include in emails. There’s a WordPress plugin for your blog and a MySpace app let’s you easily insert your survey into your MySpace profile.

In addition to the free version of PollDaddy, there are two premium versions for those who require more power and features.

We created the poll below using the free PollDaddy app. It’s a live poll so pick and click for an example of how PollDaddy works. You can then sign up for your free PollDaddy account.

Have you ever wanted to learn basic HTML so you could build or update a website? If you have, the HTML For Beginners Video Tutorial Series may be just what you’ve been looking for. This 14 video series will have you creating or changing web pages like a pro even if you think you are technologically challenged.

Why are these tutorials so unique? Well we all learn things in our own way… I understand this and I’ve made an easy to follow, visual program that offers all the learning tools you need - as well as showing you fantastic ways to succeed using the ever popular HTML code.

The HTML For Beginners Video Tutorials contain information about building a site with HTML ‘from the ground up.’ This tutorial series is overflowing with techniques and methods that HTML experts use day to day to create fantastic looking web pages, well structured content and visually exciting sites… and now you have the same opportunity!

Get a complete list of what you’ll learn and more information at the HTML For Beginners Video Tutorial website.

If you’ve been reading my posts on this blog, you know how I’ve been advocating video as a way to drive traffic to your blog or website. I just wanted to give you a little idea of what posting a video to the best known video sites can actually do for your site.

Last week, I uploaded a video aimed at the target audience of one of my websites, AREIP.org. That site has been steadily serving about 22,500 pageviews per month – or about 750 per day.

On Tuesday, August 27th, I uploaded the video to YouTube, Google Video, Revver, Metacafe, Yahoo Video, MySpace and AOL Video. My pageviews for the following day were 2,118. That represents a 184% increase in traffic over average. (Click on the graph image to see an enlarged view)

How would you like to do that?

I know what you’re thinking - it takes a long time to upload videos to all of those sites and I just don’t have the time. How would you like to be able to upload your videos to all of those sites (and a few more) with just one click?

Using TubeMogul, you can upload to all of those sites and more at absolutely no cost. Here’s a video from the folks at TubeMogul showing how the system works:

Paul Colligan, of Podcast-Secrets.com, has posted a video on 7 best practices for leveraging the power of TubeMogul. You can view that video here as well. Paul gives some great tips on how to use TubeMogul to your best advantage.

What? You’re still not creating and posting videos? That’s OK. This is not the last that you’re going to hear from me about this, so get ready to for some great info on what your own videos can do for you.