Confabulations

In the last post we discussed how videos can be used by internet marketing teams as another tool in the battle for search engine rankings. Following on from this story I have been investigating other ways on which movies and animation can be used in SEO, and have come across a great site called GoAnimate. This website allows you to create characters and cartoons which can then be embedded onto blogs, bookmarked and shared around the web, with the potential to go viral should they get enough views.

In a fun activity that shouldn’t really be called work, I have been playing around with the characters, themes and sounds available on the GoAnimate website, however you can also import your own music and images from around the web or your own computer. Just like my video in the last post, I do not claim to have totally mastered the art of animation just yet, but it does give you a good idea of what can be done.

As a little bit of blatant promotion, my cartoon focuses on the SEO services offered at my workplace, 9xb.

GoAnimate.com: SEO at 9xb by fruitbat

There has been a lot of discussion recently concerning the value of multimedia including videos. pictures and audio appearing in search results. Google is now displaying more and more information on each page of its search result and this is valuable for users.

I have been using the internet for over a decade and do not have that same length of experience with SEO, and I know that as an internet user you are likely to click through to the more interesting multimedia results thatn the website links. This way the client is sure to get traffic through these forms as well as with high ranking web page results. They could end up being the only company above the fold when they have well optimized results for video, images, web pages, blogs and local search.

With this in mind I have had a look around the web for some sites with which you can create images. You can use computer software or internet based services to create basic and more technological videos. I have had a go at designing a video for this blog-but be warned-it is very very basic! It does however show you the type of information that you can fit into a multimedia video.

Enjoy!

For all of you festive folk on the internet, you will be glad to know that there are only 100 days to go until CHRISTMAS DAY!!!!

We had several inches of snow overnight and it’s turned our town into a winter wonderland. Also a scene of complete gridlock with cars sliding into hedges, pedestrians falling over and other chaotic happenings. I had to actually abandon the car on the way to work this morning. After half an hour sat in traffic, having moved about 20 yards, I dumped it in a side street and walked. Some time later with frozen feet and absolutely covered in snow I made it into work and was greeted by the unsettling fact that only 3 other people had achieved the same.

If you’re lucky enough to live a long way from work I hope you’re enjoying your day off. We built a snowman in the car park during lunch so haven’t missed out completely. We’re still waiting for it to come to life and dance around, but I’m not so sure the old beanie hat we found is magic.

Snowmen are popping up all over the place. Even the most cold-hearted, never-cracks-a-smile old sod will go out and build a snowman. It’s physically impossible not to. You can also tell who has psychopathic tendencies by watching them commit snowman-murder. That person is a ticking timebomb.

After scraping the ice off my car this morning I decided that winter is well and truly here. For some of us this means a magical time when we make Xmas cards, sing carols and learn how to make mince pies. For the rest of us who are over the age of 11 it means freezing walks to the bus stop or spending 10 minutes every morning trying to defrost the car and getting your fingers stuck to the steering wheel.

Winter is a perilous time. You spend each daylight hour ensconced in an office and leave in pitch darkness, either back to a freezing house (you can’t afford the heating these days) or down the pub, where at least warm air is paid for by someone else. Outdoor activities are basically a no-go and all that’s left is drinking and The One Show. It’s no wonder winter sees the highest level of suicides during the year.

What can we do to dispel the winter blues? I’ve found the solution…The Slanket! You may feel stupid wearing it, until you realise that no-one will see you and you don’t have to tell anyone.

Slankety goodness!

Has anyone seen that drawing of a spider email going round? Well, it seems that someone has sold the original drawing on eBay. How he can prove it’s the original is beyond me, but there you go. You can view the auction here (for 90 days I reckon).

For a spider that was originally worth just over £200 it’s certainly seen a huge appreciation. Spiders are the new oil – let’s all invest!