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In this series of nine free videos Tom Leung from Google discusses how Google optimizes its own webpages.

He talks about the free Google Website Optimizer tool and how you too can use it to maximise the conversions from your site visitors. Split testing and few tweeks here and there – adding or removing images – can this really have a major impact?

Some of the results and revelations may surprise you.

WATCH ALL NINE VIDEOS HERE

My son wrote this song during the summer when he was 11 years old.

His guitar teacher took him to his studio to record it and then added the lead guitar to Luke’s rhythm guitar and drum work.

Unfortunately, he has since decided the guitar is not for him.

I think it is something he has a real talent for – certainly the writing – this took him about 10 minutes! And I’d really love you to comment below with any encouragement.

I hope you like it…

Strained Emotions

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I still haven’t really worked out the full marketing benefits of Google Friend – take a look over there in the sidebar.

Scroll down and you’ll see a box that looks like this – unless someone else has joined since writing this:

But, although I’m not yet sure of the ultimate benefits, right now I’m really pleased I put it on this site.

It’s Christmas time and I just saw that Randy had joined me. 

I looked at the links in his profile and the other sites he had joined and spotted Qloud

Now I’m a little on the nosey side and was intrigued about Qloud. In fact there’s a clue as to the value of Google Friend – the links you add are seen by anyone looking at your profile within the widget on any websites you’ve joined. Think about the enormous potential benefits of that!

Any way – back to my story. I clicked on the Qloud link and found something I didn’t know existed.

A whole new world opened up before me.

An online video jukebox for want of a better term. And there right before my eyes was my favourite Christmas song of all time:

Fairytale of New York by the Pogues with the late Kirsty McCall (she wasn’t of course late at the time!)

I really should be creating some more videos for BloggingBeginners but I took 5 minutes out to watch the video. And then I did some exploring into the site and found you can download a plugin for iTunes that results in anything you listen to in iTunes appearing in Qloud.

Well I never.

So Randy, you’re to blame when my videos are late! And for anyone interested here’s the video I was listening to as I wrote this post.

Merry Christmas – & don’t drink as much as these guys!

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I recently created a video for Blogging Beginners that demonstrated the use of a Favicon plugin that I’ve been using for some time on a number of blogs. You know – make yourself stand out from the crowd by branding your RSS feed and the address bar etc.

One of the thoughts I had when filming the video was that many beginners just wouldn’t know how to go about creating an icon to use in the plugin or would have to fork out cash to get one made for them.

This morning I found another Favicon Plugin that resolves that problem as it comes pre-loaded with a wide range of icons that can be used until you are ready or able to create your own.

It follows the usual pattern – download, unzip, ftp to site and activate. At that point there is a slight deviation from the norm in that you have to register with an email address for the plugin to work.

Don’t worry, I’ve used other plugins from these guys and they aren’t too bad with the emails they send out. Once you’ve given your email address they’ll send you the usual “opt-in” confirmation at which stage you’ll be taken to a sales page. Frankly I don’t know what it was for – I just scrolled to the bottom and clicked No Thanks.

The plugin then works – all you need to do is go to it from your admin area – select the icon you want to use from those shown and the job’s done.

If you don’t like any of the icons provided there are links to obtain more or you could always create your own and upload it to the “icons” folder.

Tom, the author of the Mandigo Wordpress theme showed me the best way to avoid losing any customisation in the event he releases an upgrade to the theme.

He has built in some automation that makes it so easy – I’m really impressed with this theme!

The following video shows the steps to take – it can be done in minutes, so you have no excuses. Don’t run the risk of losing your customisation. Create your own customised scheme right away.

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