A couple of weeks ago I touched upon the fact that I have not been updating this blog frequently as I have been spending my time learning more about recording good audio and video.
I miss connecting with my readers on a regular basis, however I realise that I need to take a step back from writing from time to time if I am to learn new skills.
I still have a lot to learn about recording good video, though I feel that I have reached a point in which I should throw myself into the deep end and start recording videos regularly. It is the best way for me to become more comfortable in front of the camera and gain more experience editing videos.
Ask Me a Question
Over the last few weeks I have been planning out future screencasts that I will be recording in the future, however I do not want to limit my videos to screencast tutorials.
I want to use video to give advice and share my thoughts on a number of internet marketing issues. I talk about this in more detail in the video below in the video below.
Do you have a question that you you would like me to answer? Do you need advice about a WordPress plugin? Are you stuck for an idea on how to improve your website? Are you unsure about the best way to market your blog?
If so, please leave a comment below and I will do my best to answer your question. I encourage you to leave your website URL in the comment field. If you do, I will ensure I reference your website in my video response.
Additionally, I encourage you all to subscribe to my YouTube page as I have a lot of great content coming for you guys in the coming months :)
Thanks.
Kevin
Thanks Tarranum.
Ok. Thanks. I am posting..
Hi Tarannum.
Thanks for the question.
I believe this is something that is best asked on Rise Forums. For two reasons. (1) You have asked a lot of different questions, and, (2) I do not consider myself an expert in SEO. Therefore, it is better to ask in the forums so that other members who have more experience can contribute to the discussion.
If you post the questions there, I will respond tomorrow (it’s 1am here) :)
Kevin
Kevin sir,
I want to know how to rank competitive keywords. They may be few but very beneficial. Please suggest me keyword research tools to use for it and how to do keyword reasearch through that tool, link building ( I don’t have much idea of it/ is it necessary? domain name ( if I start new site) etc. for it. What is beneficial – starting new site specifically for that category or continue with blog I ran ( which has 4 to 5 categories? I want to rank keywords related to my service area.
Thanks in advance.
Here’s the answer to your question Heather. Hope you are feeling better :)
Hi Ben.
Here’s an answer to the second part of your question :)
Kevin
Thanks Ben. I haven’t perfected it yet.
Some of my latest videos have been around the ten minute mark. Ideally, with this kind of format, I should be keeping videos to three to five minutes.
Thanks Kevin,
Great video and a very detailed answer and path to follow.
The video format really suits your style – looking forward to more of them, and you really go over and above with the depth of your answers.
Best Wishes!
Hi Ben.
I have answered the first part of your question. The second part has been answered too and will be uploaded in a few days.
The first video refers to your question about learning how to develop WordPress plugins and themes.
Hope you like it :)
Kevin
Sorry for responding to this so late. I think these questions are better answered via Rise Forums, however your other question is suitable. I will try and address that this week :)
Sorry Gurdeep. I thought I had already responded to this comment.
I published a reply to your question some time ago. You can view more information in this blog post.
:)
Kevin
I have been running forums for fourteen or fifteen years. What I can say is that they always need attention.
I have some other forums that I stopped hanging out on so much because they were not profitable, and when I stopped moderating and driving things forward, traffic started slowing.
Unless you have a high traffic website, it can take years to take a forum to a point where the owner can take a step back.
But I love hanging out in forums so it is not something that puts me off. Just be aware that when it comes to the time you will invest in a forum, there are other things on the internet that would be more profitable for you and your time :)
Thanks for the info/advice!
I actually have a developer already so I apologize for not making that clear.
I will definitely look into phpBB. I may have looked at it briefly in the beginning but because my original plan was to do Buddypress (with BBpress integration) I guess I didn’t look at it all that closely and just kept going with BBpress.
I’m totally green when it comes to setting up and managing a forum so I’m not too surprised there isn’t much going on in the forums area of http://www.recoveringminds.com. We have some plans for the future that will hopefully make our forums a lot more active and when that day comes, I’m probably going to want another solution to manage it.
Thanks again Kevin!
-Matt
There are WordPress designers/developers on Rise Forums who may be able to help you with this issue. I’m not a developer myself, but if you post a thread there I will do my best to help out with the parts I can help with.
I am not a big fan of bbPress. It needs too many edits and plugins in order for it to do even basic forum functionality.
If money is tight at the moment, I would recommend starting off with a good free forum solution such as phpBB. You can then migrate to premium forum software at a later date if you need to :)
Kevin
Thanks for the input/answer/advice.
The main thing setting us apart from Amazon itself will be the curation part of it. We are targeting a specific niche and plan to curate/categorize books they can benefit from and make it easy for them to find the best stuff. We’ll also be going into detail with select books/products via reviews on the blog and discussions in the forums.
The only thing holding me back right now is time. We just launched 3 weeks ago and the response has been overwhelming and surreal. But as I’m sure you know, the more people like/want what you’re doing, the more pressure there is to keep creating the stuff they want.
On the technical side of things, I’m having a bit of trouble with a custom post time I’m using as my “Marketplace”. This post type will will eventually include everything from affiliate products/books to our own products/books/services/tools/etc. The technical problems I’m experiencing thus far is some issues with URL structure, random 404 redirects and featured image sizing.
For some reason, items I’m creating under this custom post type are being redirected to my 404 page even though the URL is correct. I have a developer that’s helping me with some other parts of the site (performance, security and implementing a new chat solution) so I haven’t bothered him with this issue yet, but I might have to.
The other issue I’m having is that I’d like the featured image size to be different for this particular post type (only) and I’m unsure how to edit/change/add that. Featured images for the blog are of a landscape orientation (and I want them to stay that way) but for the Marketplace (which was originally a custom post type for portfolio works), I’d like the featured image to be a portrait orientation so that it can show the full product image (like a book cover).
Not sure if you can help with that or if I explained it well enough, but this comment is getting long enough as it is so I won’t go into any more detail unless you think you can/want to help.
I may come to you down the road with some questions regarding my forum solution (BBpress with WP eMember integration) as I’m not pumped on how it’s working out. I’m not in a position right now to purchase a really good forum & membership software/plugins so I’m trying to make do with what I already have. We’re not making money off this site yet (purposely as we are more concerned with growing the community and creating a valuable resource for our niche) so we’ve had to slow down on expenses/investments until we either create a product/service worth selling or we finish our pitch deck and meet again with some investors who have shown interest in some of our other ideas (web/mobile app, educational material for hospitals, rehabs, etc and a few other less developed ideas).
Anyway, that’s where I’m at. As you can see, brevity doesn’t come easy for me…lol.
Thanks for the quick response and your engagement & accessibility is much appreciated.
-Matt
Hi Matt.
Yes you could certainly do that. The key would be to making such a bookstore valuable i.e. give them something that they are not getting directly on Amazon or Apple stores. For example, you could do reviews for each book and at the bottom provide links to buy the book in each store. And curate your book list so that only the best books are listed.
Is there anything holding you back from doing this (from a technical point of view)?
:)
Kevin
Hello Kevin,
Thanks for the all the great info your site & newsletter provide. I’ve enjoyed it immensely. I even had the honor of winning one of your contests, although if you remember I passed on the prize as I didn’t have a need for it and figured it would be better utilized by someone else.
Anyway, I have a question about affiliate programs/links. Not sure how much experience/knowledge you have regarding this topic, but something tells me you can help.
I’m creating a “bookstore” for my site and have signed up for Amazon Associates. We have some users that are telling us they use ibooks for most of their reading. What are your thoughts about a site that includes affiliate links to Amazon, Apple (iBooks), Audible and Kindle for each product. Basically giving the reader the chance to buy their preferred version, ensuring that if they do we get credit from the respective affiliate program.
I’ve done some major Googling trying to find answers (or even someone else asking this question) have come up empty thus far.
Any thoughts on the matter? If this isn’t worthy of a video but you can spare the time for a quick email, feel free. I’m more interested in getting some outside input than the method of receiving said input.
Thanks again for the quality site/service you provide!
-Matt
No problem Diego.
It was a good question. I totally understand why you have went down the route you did, but I think it makes much more sense long term to do everything under one website.
Hi Kevin, thank you very, very much! I didn’t hope for such a deep analysis, great. I also feel silly because I didn’t even look at what other WordPress developers were doing on their sites. Now I have to roll up my sleeves and re-organize everything. Thanks again.
Hi Diego.
I have just published my response :
Hope you find it useful :)
Kevin
Thanks Kevin. I look forward to your video answer when it becomes available.
Cheers,
Warren
Thank you!
Thanks again for all the questions guys.
I will do my best to address questions in the order they arrive, but may jump around from time to time as some questions will require more time for me to prepare the video and prepare an answer (for example, if I am recommending a plugin or having to talk in-depth about something).
Be sure to subscribe to my YouTube channel so that you see my latest responses to questions. I will also try and post updates about them here :)
Kevin
Thanks for the suggestion of SpeakPipe Warren. I will look into it.
That’s a great question about forums. I started my first discussion forum back around 2000/2001, so I am looking forward to answering this one for you :)
Kevin
Hi Kevin.
I think this is a great way to connect with and help your audience. I advice that you use speakpipe.com to either record their question and help organize it for you, or even have the question sent via email.
Nevertheless, here’s my question: How can one build an audience for a forum (let alone be able to charge a membership fee) when he/she is just starting from scratch with no traffic and no members?
Thanks and keep up the good work!
Warren
Thanks for the additional questions people. I will do my best to get through these.
If possible, can you keep future requests to one question unless the questions are very closely related. It is better for me to stay focused on one specific topic per video :)
I will keep you all updated when the videos are published :)
Kevin
Hi Joseph.
Can you clarify what you mean by this question:
Thanks,
Kevin
How do I get my first article to remain in first place when I submit a new article? The next question is: How do I put a list of all my articles on the right side of my blog?
Hello! One more that I just remembered is, How can you make your own landing pages? I’m looking for a way that is quick, easy, and ideally free or very inexpensive. Do you know if there are any good plugins for this? In a way it seems like a simple page should be simple to create, but I’m not sure if that’s true. Anyway, thanks again! :)
Great idea! And way to put yourself out there and go for it. You’re right, that’s how you learn.
I need to polish up my website, as I feel like it’s been in a state of being “almost done” for too long.
For one thing, I need a more professional looking header. Maybe you could talk about how to change the header and ideas for getting one that looks good, either through hiring someone or making your own. I have thought about doing something simple with Canva.
I also need to put in page breaks so that just an excerpt of each post will show and more posts will show up on the home page without having to scroll down a long way. I think the solution is simple, but I can’t remember what it is and whether you have to do this manually every time you write a post.
I’m sure I have more, but these are a couple of items I’ve been thinking about lately.
Thank you so much!
Hi Kevin,
I look forward to your videos and hope to learn from you.
I would love to know the best resources for learning how to develop Wordpress plugins and themes.
And also how to develop a brand and monetise a site. I realise this is very general, and your name is your brand and well recognised, but I am looking for ideas on how to begin from scratch and try to make an online income.
Regards,
Ben
@Diego & @Gurdeep
Thanks for posting questions so quickly. You have both posted interesting questions and I can understand the dilemma that both of you are facing. Ideally, I will respond to both of these questions tomorrow, but please allow another day in case something unexpected comes work.
@Gurdeep – Thanks for the kind words. I hope it does help me connect with readers like yourself. And I hope that everyone will enjoy the videos, not just the ones who are asking the questions.
:)
Kevin
Hello Kevin
That’s a great idea of making videos and practice your new profession by replying through videos. That way you can have more practice and more connection with your subscribers.
Now I have a question about promoting the blog that I have recently started a blog on my website “http://gdesignz.ca/blog/”, but I don’t have idea how I could take it to the people so more and more people could read it and connect with me. I need your advice on this issue.
Thanks
Gurdeep
Hi Kevin, I develop and sell WordPress plugins. My problem is that I currently have many websites, one for each plugin, and every site has a different style and theme. I’d like to have a unique style, a brand identity, but I also want to keep the unique identity of my plugins, so I don’t want their sites looking almost the same. What do you think is better for me? Keeping different sites and style or having them all under a unique brand style? Is it better having a domain for each site or many 3rd levels of the same brand domain?
These are my sites:
http://final-tiles-gallery.com/
http://mikado-gallery.com/wordpress/
http://circles-gallery.com/
http://icc.greentreelabs.net/