A lot of bloggers, too, are familiar with Google Adsense. It is the ultimate equal-opportunity blog monetization opportunity. Anybody can use it (unless you’re running an adult site or something of that ilk). And, with the right targeting and the right traffic, people can and DO bank with Adsense. (Quick Plug: Workshop On How To Maximize Revenue With Google Adsense).

While Adsense is easy, you’re also paying for it. The typical publisher split with Adsense is 68% (according to a 2010 announcement from Google, anyway). So, that means you’re giving Google 32% of the total revenue your site is earning. The big publishers (however they define that) often arrange custom splits.

So, that’s always an option.

Eventually, most bloggers who use banner ads think about direct-selling, removing the middle-man, and keeping 100% of revenue. For more on this, you can check out an older post I wrote on How To Sell Ads On Your Blog.

Many site owners end up getting confused on how to actually manage this in-house.

• How can you rotate ads on your site internally?
• How do you track performance?
• Does this mean I can’t use networks anymore like Adsense?

That last one ends up being a biggie for many.

You want to direct sell ads, but you don’t want to stop using ad networks. After all, they’re fairly dependable. You simply want to be able to use your own campaigns IF you manage to sell them and they make you more money.

OIO Publisher remains a good option for many. It allows you to run 3rd party ad networks along with your own in-house campaigns.

But, there is another option provided by Google. And it is free.

It is DoubleClick For Publishers (DFP) Small Business.

It isn’t super well-known that this solution is there. Most people just think of standard Adsense when it comes to Google. But, yes, Google bought the Doubleclick network back in 2007. Now, you can use the power of Doubleclick – for free.

DFP allows you to manage your in-house inventory AND integrate Adsense into it. You can also use any other third-party ad network with no problem. So, you can sell in-house ad campaigns and still seamlessly have Adsense use up your unsold inventory. The system can even maximize revenue by running whichever networks is paying you the most.

Setting up DFP has a lot of similarities to setting up Adsense… however, it is a bit more complicated. You have to take the time to set up the different ad placements and ad slots. If you sell a direct campaign, you set up an order, set up creatives, tell it which slots to deliver the banners to, etc. The first time or two you do it, it will take a little trial and error. They also have a Youtube channel with video tutorials for it.

You’ve also got pretty much any option you might need for campaigns. For example, sometimes an advertiser might want to limit display of their banner only to the U.S. You can geo-locate a campaign easily with DFP. You can also target campaigns to a user’s browser, language, operating system, or domain. You can do frequency capping easily (capping the number of times per day a user sees the same ad).

I also like the fact that it is all managed by Google. Less headache that way.

There is no WordPress plug-in that I can find to auto-integrate this into your blog. To set up the ad tags, you’ll need to modify your theme manually and insert the ad tags into the right spot.

If advertising is part of how you make your money online, then definitely check out DFP.

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It can also be one of the most frustrating things in the world – especially for people who have no idea how to code. Perhaps you are familiar with this one.

Well, there is a way where you can DRAW your theme. Practically like painting it on screen. No coding necessary. Just drag and drop, then setting up some settings.

The way you can do it is using the new release of Headway Theme – version 3. It is going to be released in about a week (as of this writing). Here is a quickie video to show you a bit of what’s coming…

This video only scratches the surface. I didn’t get that deep into the customization options. Plus, I didn’t show you the granular control which is possible. For example, do you want a custom post template on one of your most popular posts in order to highlight a related affiliate offer? No problem – because you can specify custom layouts for any single post, single page – anything on your blog.

Pick Up YOUR Copy Of Headway Theme and DRAW Your Site!   <— Click!

Update – Check This Out

OK, I know my video is super cool and all, but I just found out that the Headway folks have put out an “official” preview video of Headway 3. Behold…

Pick Up YOUR Copy Of Headway Theme and DRAW Your Site!

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So, what’s it going to be this time?

The bullet point version for 3.3 is this:

• Enhancements to the media uploader, including ability to upload multiple files at once. Perhaps some improvement of image manipulation.
• A new user wizard, to guide new users through the basics.
• Improvements to the admin bar. Possibly combining of the admin bar with the header in the admin area, to reduce vertical height.
• Enhancements to the automatic upgrade process, including partial build upgrades and ability to install child themes.
• Inclusion of language packs (good for internationalization)
• Admin area which displays better on different screen sizes and device types (i.e. touch-based devices)
• Performance improvements on permalinks
• Possibility that you can change your theme and your widgets will remain.
• API enhancements, including updated editor API. In short, this will allow plug-ins to easily use the main post editor interface.

The media uploader improvements will be pretty nice. The plan is to integrate a system called Plupload. It works via HTML5, Gears, Silverlight, BrowserPlus or the usual browser-based upload. It also supports drag-and-drop uploads – which will be awesome.

The admin area changes will be nice in that it will adapt to wider monitors as well as touch screen interfaces. So, perhaps we will get a WP interface which works better on an iPad, for example.

The permalink performance is not something most people think about. The way WordPress is currently set up, there is a performance hit when you use pretty permalinks for SEO purposes. The database query speeds are the issue. So, the idea is that WordPress 3.3 will get rid of the performance hit.

And the language packs will be great for non-English speakers, turning the WordPress dashboard into a native language. Of course, until this is official, you can always use the WP Native Dashboard plug-in.

So, there you have it. The “feature freeze” was set about 2 weeks ago, which means we should be seeing the release candidate in a few weeks. The target release date for 3.3 final is November 29th.

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It is actually pretty simple to implement something like that. But, first, let’s answer the question…. should you?

Does The Big Video Opt-In Work?

As always, you have to test it. Just because you see something on my blog doesn’t mean it is the best idea in the world.

For me, that opt-in form has been performing better than any other opt-in form on the site. But, still, not as well as I would have thought going into it. It is converting at about 3.7%.

Now, considering that typical sidebar opt-ins do less than 1% conversion, a 3.7% conversion is pretty good. It is nothing compared to what I can get on a squeeze page, but it is OK.

What would I do differently? The video. The video is a little bit too long. And the still shot is rather ridiculous looking. I just haven’t taken the time to re-do it yet.

The idea behind the setup should be obvious, though. A video landing page for a blog homepage makes a lot of sense – IF you can produce a halfway decent video. It stands out MUCH better than a typical sidebar opt-in.

The drawback is that, on most blogs, the homepage is not the most popular page on the site. Most people come into DavidRisley.com directly into one of the blog posts. In that case, they’ll never see the big opt-in form. And due to the size, I don’t want to implement it site-wide. So, another solution is needed for the rest of the blog.

How To Implement A Video Opt-In

Two words of warning going into this:

1. This is technical by nature and I can’t deliver a course on HTML and CSS here in this post.
2. The procedure will be a bit different if you’re using a framework like Thesis or Headway.

With WordPress, you can give any theme a custom homepage by simply having a home.php file in your theme folder. If your theme already has a home.php file, then you have a custom homepage (whether it looks custom or not). If you don’t have one, you can simply make a copy of your index.php file, call it home.php, and you’re good to go.

Now, once you have a home.php file, then realize that any changes you make to that file will reflect ONLY on your blog’s homepage. So, you can add your custom opt-in right there.

From there (and this is where the knowledge of HTML and CSS comes in), you have to find the place in that template which is before your posts and sidebar. You’ll know where your posts are being listed because it will start with something like:

<?php if (have_posts()) : while (have_posts()) : the_post(); ?>

Typically, your sidebar will be called in below all of that using the get_sidebar() function. So, ABOVE where the posts start – somewhere – you’ll want to place the code for your video opt-in. A good way to test if this is the right location is to place a little letter into that spot in the code, save, and see where it shows up on your blog. So, if you put a little “x” in your theme code where you think it should be, save and preview… if the “x” appears above your posts and sidebar, you’ve nailed it.

In that place, paste in the code for a video opt-in. Here’s a sample from my own blog:

<div id="homevideo">
[VIDEO EMBED CODE HERE]
</div>
<div id="homeoptin2">
[OPT-IN BRIBE TEXT - WHATEVER YOU WANT]
<div class="optinform">
<form style="float:left;" method="post" action="http://www.aweber.com/scripts/addlead.pl">
[HIDDEN FIELDS FOR YOUR OPT-IN FORM]
<input id="textinput" type="text" name="name" value="Your First Name" onfocus="if (this.value == 'Your First Name') {this.value = '';}" onblur="if (this.value == '') {this.value = 'Your First Name';}" size="20"><br />
<input id="textinput" type="text" name="from" value="Your Primary Email" onfocus="if (this.value == 'Your Primary Email') {this.value = '';}" onblur="if (this.value == '') {this.value = 'Your Primary Email';}" size="20"><br />
<div align="center">
<input type="submit" name="Submit" id="optinbutton" value="Get Access Today!" />
</div>
</form>
</div>
</div>
<div style="clear:both;"></div>

That’s the outline of it. You’d need to put in your own opt-in text, your own video embed, and the proper code for your own opt-in form.

Here’s the CSS code to go along with it:

#homevideo {
float: left;
width: 550px;
height: 343px;
padding: 3px;
border: 5px solid white;
background-color: #EEE;
}
#homeoptin2 {
float: right;
width: 360px;
height: 323px;
padding: 20px;
border-left: 2px solid #DDDEDD;
background-color: #F9FAF9;
margin: 0px;
}
.optinform {
margin: 0 10px;
}
.optinform #textinput {
width: 310px;
background-color: #FDFCDB;
padding: 6px 10px;
font: 14px 'Nobile', Arial, Helvetica, Geneva, sans-serif;
margin-bottom: 3px;
}
#optinbutton {
background: #318537;
border: 1px solid #1D7529;
cursor: pointer;
text-shadow: 1px 1px #1D7529;
border-radius: 20px;
box-shadow: 0 1px 1px #CCC;
color: white;
font-weight: bold;
font-size: 1.4em;
padding: .438em 1em;
}

You’ll need to modify this to suit your needs. You can obviously get fancier with it if you wish. The actual opt-in code I have on this blog is fancier than what I’ve put into this post. You can always “view source” on this blog to see the whole thing, if you’re inclined.

Tips For The Opt-In Video

You can host the video anywhere you want. I am using Easy Video Player. Youtube is always an option, however I’m not a big fan of using third-party sites like that for functional videos to my sites.

In terms of the actual video:

1. Keep it short. 2 minutes or shorter. This was a mistake in the one I recorded. It is a bit over 4 minutes and I think that’s too long.
2. Show them the opt-in bribe. What are you going to give them?
3. Make it live action. No screen recordings on this one. I really think a big part of the power of such a video is the personal nature of having you actually talking to your new reader.
4. Tell them what to do. In other words, make sure you actually TELL them to opt-in. And, if the video is going to be to the left of the opt-in, you can actually point to your right when recording the video and tell them to fill out the form.

Parting Words

Squeeze page work insanely well. And, you need to keep in mind that one of the import important roles of your blog is to get them onto your mailing list.

If people enter directly into one of your posts, then the content is key. But, if they enter your homepage, they’re a casual surfer. They should get an immediate and clear call to action to connect with you. Your homepage shouldn’t be a mere listing of your latest posts. To do that is to under-utilize the real estate.

Stay geeky!

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What’s the best length for standard stuff after a blog post.  For example, there can be a list of related articles, an about box, social media icons, newsletter subscription, quite a bit before the viewer ever sees the comment box.  I’ve wanted to add a newsletter subscription box to mine, but as you can see on this page, it seems like the end of the article is getting pretty busy.

Really good question.

The bottom of a post is a REALLY good place for a call to action. The reader has just read your post (if the post was good, anyway) and they’re now left with a decision of what to do next. So, you give them something to do.

Now, most bloggers tend to blow it by stacking way too many things under the post which don’t really accomplish anything. Most people could stand to thin it down. The ultimate answer is going to be based on:

1. Testing to see what combinations get the most action.
2. What you want them to do, and whether your primary goal for that spot is being accomplished or whether you’re distracting them with too much stuff.

One of the core marketing concepts in play here is this:

If you give people too many choices, they’ll usually make no choice at all.

So, let’s talk about what often goes in this spot under your posts.

Social Sharing Links

This is a good place to put social media sharing icons. Where most people overdo it with these is that they put too many of them on there.

You have to consider which social networks YOUR audience uses. Only display the ones that are relevant to them. I see a lot of bloggers who use various WordPress plug-ins for social media icons and they enable damn near every service the plug-in supports. Why? Just use the ones that matter. Facebook is the big one. Secondary would be Twitter. Google Plus might make sense, although there’s still many people who can’t get into that network (as of this writing). StumbleUpon might make sense, since it can be such a huge traffic draw at times.

An invitation to share can help. You’ll notice the big red letters at the bottom of this post which point right to the retweet button.

Lastly, remember that negative social proof can harm you. If you have social buttons with a bunch of zero’s on them, why not just remove ALL of them? Your audience obviously isn’t using them anyway.

About Box

In most cases, there is no point for this. If your blog is a solo-author blog, you have no reason to have a bio box on your blog. Just ensure the author name is clickable.

If you run a multi-author blog, especially one with routine guest posters, then it might make sense for you. Just limit the height.

Related Posts

I generally recommending leaving this one in place. It helps people get into your archives and derive more value from your blog. The only downside here is that it can distract people from clicking on anything else.

You could approach this in other way, however. You could drive people through your opt-in (to get them on your list), then route them directly into a “best of” list where they can find your best stuff. If you wanted to get really ninja, you could have different opt-in forms for each blog category, thereby allowing you to target not only the list content, but the stuff you route them to, depending on what drove them to subscribe to you.

Opt-In Box

I think the opt-in is your most important real estate under the post. And, if you had to rank your calls to action in terms of importance, I think your opt-in is #1.

So, the question remains… will including those other things (above) distract from your opt-in form?

Yes, it will. Zero question about that. Again, it comes down to testing and tracking. You should be monitoring the opt-in rate on the form under your posts and play around with arrangements and/or remove elements. See how high you can get your opt-in rate.

You can also try different calls to action for opt-ins. For example, you may have noticed that I removed the opt-in form from the bottom of my posts. It is a test. I replaced it with a link to my newsletter signup page. This is a bit of a non-standard way to do things, but the opt-in rate on a squeeze is so much higher than other pages, I thought I’d give it a try.

Your Comments

All bloggers want people to comment on their stuff. Problem is, most of us end up pushing comments so far down the page that it becomes forgotten. In markets which are used to comments (like, well, bloggers), they’ll go find the comments anyway. But, in many markets, communicating back to the author by way of a comment isn’t natural. So, you have to walk them to it.

You can use arrows to direct people’s attention to comments. You can always change the call to action. Instead of something default like “Add New Comment”, you can change it to something more inviting. Play with colors, fonts, and font decorations (i.e. bold, italics, etc.).

It Is A Balancing Act

There’s no single right answer for this one. It comes down to ranking your priorities, then monitoring performance so as to drive your reader into your target calls to action. Sometimes, it will involve sacrificing things for the sake of reducing clutter.

But, I encourage you to think through it. Make sure that everything you put under your posts has a reason for being which aligns with what you’re trying to accomplish.

Then, keep playing with it and testing things over time.

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Actually, it might not be as high as you think. Perhaps you can stop thinking you’ve done something horribly wrong.

Let me explain…

First, What is Bounce Rate?

The bounce rate is simply the percentage of people who come to your site then immediately back away and go somewhere else. In other words, they don’t click anywhere else on your site.

Pretty much every stat solution out there will give you this information. So, if you have a bounce rate of, say, 50%… this means that half the people who come to your site simply leave.

But, 50% is actually on the low-end for many sites. It isn’t uncommon to see people with bounce rates upwards of 80%.

But, here’s what you need to know…

Not All Stat Systems Are Created Equal

DavidRisley.com has a bounce rate of 76.3% according to Google Analytics. Definitely nothing to be proud of. But…

Luckily, I don’t run only one stat service on this blog. I also use Clicky Web Analytics. Clicky reports that I have only a 32% bounce rate. That’s a HUGE difference.

Why the two services are so different, I don’t know. They’re different in other ways, too.

Stats over last 30 days (Google Analytics):

• Visitors: 25,447
• Bounce: 76.3%
• Avg. Time on Site: 1 min, 45 seconds.

When you look at the same data from Clicky:

• Visitors: 23,306
• Bounce: 32%
• Avg. Time on Site: 4 min, 28 seconds.

So, for some reason, Clicky shows about 2,000 less people overall, but their behavior on the site is significantly better. People stay longer and they’re more involved.

So, The Motto Is…

Don’t depend on just one stat service. They obviously don’t all compute the same, so if you want the whole picture, you need to use at least two.

Google Analytics is a great service – especially being free. I recommend everybody use it. But, I also recommend using something else which isn’t Google-owned. It might completely change the outlook of what’s happening on your site.

My personal preference is, of course, Clicky. The other thing I like about it is the real-time nature of it. Stats are all updated in real-time, and I can even “spy” on visitors to see what they’re doing right now. Analytics has a several-hour delay, by contrast.

If you want some more information on reducing your bounce rate, check out this post I wrote about plugging the “leaks” in your blog.

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“Shit happens”.

And it is particularly annoying when said shit happens to YOUR blog. Whether it be an upgrade, a plug-in, or you get hacked… at some point while running your blog, you’re very likely going to come face-to-face with the truth in the saying, “shit happens”.

Which brings up the obvious topic of blog backup. Now, I’ve talked about developing a blog backup strategy before, but since then many other solutions have come out. Some of the more robust solutions include Backup Buddy and Vaultpress.

Vaultpress is a monthly service and, at least in my view, isn’t exactly cheap. Backup Buddy is actually pretty darn nice and is just a 1-time fee.

But, recently, I hung out with Jason Fladlien and came to know WP Twin. WP Twin is marketed as a solution to clone your WordPress blog. Different terminology and perhaps aimed at a different market, but don’t get confused – this is BACKUP.

Why is cloning a better, more automated way to go?

Well, most (free) blog backup solutions are manual. You have to remember to do it manually unless you set up an scheduled job with CRON. Plus, many free solutions only back up your database. As for the files, that’s up to you to backup separately. When it comes time to restore from one of those backups, its a royal pain in the butt. And if it is hard, you’re less likely to do it.

The more robust (non-free) solutions can backup EVERYTHING. And the idea of “cloning” the blog means that restoration is designed to be easy.

See, why might one want to clone a blog? Well…

• To backup a blog before an upgrade or before trying a plug-in.
• To create a COPY of a blog for testing purposes. (like testing a new theme, but you want to do it in a private “sandbox” of your live blog)
• To quickly create a copy of a blog on another domain (quick setup of niche blogs, perhaps?)
• To quickly set up new sites with all the right settings. For example, you can set up a WordPress-Optimizepress-Wishlist combo for a membership site, get all the core settings and pages just right…. then clone it. Now, whenever you want to set up a new membership site, you just restore the clone on your new domain. You’ll have the entire setup done for you in a few seconds, then you can get right into populating your content. HUGE time saver.

The two solutions best suited to something like this are Backup Buddy and WP Twin.

Personally, I recommend WP Twin over the other… and here’s why…

• WP Twin doesn’t run as a WordPress plug-in. Think about it…. how secure is it, really, to have your backup solution depending upon the very thing its supposed to backup? What if your WP installation gets hacked and your plug-ins just can’t run? WP Twin runs independently and is just a matter of a single script.
• WP Twin can be used on unlimited domains for one price. With Backup Buddy, it starts at $75 for 2 sites. But, again, this comes down to the targeting of “backup” rather than “cloning”. If you want to be able to easily do BOTH and not have to worry about how many domains you want to use it on, WP Twin is the way to go. I mean, if I want to clone a membership site onto a new domain, I really don’t want to have to worry about whether I have a licencing restriction. And, if you want an unlimited license with Back up Buddy, its more expensive than WP Twin.

On the flip side, Backup Buddy is pretty nice. Their interface is quite nice. Plus, they have integration into Amazon S3 and Dropbox (a nice feature).

Really, what it comes down to is: backup or cloning? The approach makes a big difference. A backup is usually a lot more of a singular thing, whereas a cloning system is designed to work quickly and easily on any domain you want. After all, that’s the purpose of cloning.

So, your quickest way to clone a blog and quickily deploy it to anywhere you want is WP Twin. It is a REAL time-saver. As a guy who has manually done clones before – it is a HUGE pain. I have a “sandbox” version of PCMech.com for private testing and it has always been a real PITA to sync updates.

Not anymore.

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Combine that with the know-how of doing design and coding – and the fact that I enjoy it – and it makes for a deadly combination. One that can easily lead to a lot of wasted time tinkering with a web design (wasted because it doesn’t really make me money).

But, it WAS time for this site to get a makeover. A lot of people seemed to like the old one (I routinely had people asking me who designed it… the answer is me), but it was time to re-do things with some adjusted specs.

The old layout

The new layout

There are still some tweaks to be made. Plus, I’m working on something new that will really highlight archived posts quite nicely… and be damn helpful in the process. Plus, it’ll be great for SEO. But, that’s not ready yet.

I thought I would share a few of those specs I had going into this – to the degree you can apply them to your own site. Let’s rock…

Video Squeeze Homepage

Most people who come into this site go directly into one of my posts. In that case, they get the post (of course).

The homepage’s purpose, then, is simply to get a new visitor to connect and stick around. The best way to do THAT is to get them on the email list. So, instead of exclusively showing the list of recent posts and the typical crowded sidebar, I turned the above-the-fold area into a video squeeze into my list, then below that are the recent posts (so that I don’t throw people off) and a simpler sidebar which features my stuff.

This type of homepage design should be much more effective in terms of opt-in (it is way too early to have any actual test results). Plus, it gets rid of the duplicate opt-ins (I had 3 calls for the Blueprint report on the prior homepage).

We all know squeeze pages work AWESOMELY for list building. So, why not bring some of that into the design of your blog homepage?

Better Featuring Of My Products

The old layout did a bad job of highlighting any of my products. That was because the design was created before those products existed.

The new design will feature the products in the sidebar. The products page was re-designed as well so as to have a better presentation.

Lastly, the Inner Circle program was pretty much just slammed into the sidebar of the old design. In the new one, it has been built into the header menu, but in a fashion which clearly delineates it from the rest. We’ve designed the menu bar so that it turns into arrows which point right at the Inner Circle (which is also obviously shown in a highlighted orange color). You’ll also notice how the little RSS and Twitter icons have been designed to appear as arrows pointing – where?… to the Inner Circle.

More Efficient Opt-In Funneling

The trick with opt-ins is to attract it when the person is in the mindset to want it. A lot of bloggers simply smack the opt-in into their sidebar and hope people notice. That’s almost the old-school retail mindset… stick it in your face and hope for the impulse “buy”, right? That doesn’t work very well on a blog and people are much more likely to be blind to an opt-in in your sidebar.

Now, don’t get me wrong – you SHOULD have an opt-in in your sidebar. Preferably right at the top.

But, other areas which are ideal for opt-in placement are:

• Beneath all posts. Rather than only display social media links and/or related posts, present them the opportunity to opt-in front and center.
• About page. For new visitors, the about page is often one of the most visited pages on your blog. So, use the opportunity to “sell” them on the value of your information, then present an opt-in. In my case, the first part of my about page answers the question “what’s in this for me?” – as asked by my new reader. I then present an opt-in. I also present another opt-in toward the middle, and another beneath the bio photo collage on the right side (since that graphic will naturally draw people to it).
• On other main navigation pages. A good rule of thumb is that every page linked to in your main navigation should have an opt-in. This does depend on the purpose of the page. For example, my consulting page doesn’t have an opt-in because the call to action is different.
• Category Pages. This one is still on my todo list (hey, I was in a hurry here), but having an opt-in on your category pages is also good. You can even “theme” your opt-ins on different categories so they can get more info about whatever the category is.

Just remember, the purpose of a public blog is to attract people, then ultimately EARN THEIR LEAD. If you don’t do that, you have no chance of really making real money at this in the future.

What’s Next?

I have some more tweaks to make to this design, but nothing too major.

I also want to thank Shawn from Virtuous Giant for his help with the design. Working with a client like me – who knows how to tweak CSS and tends to be the DIY type – might have been pretty different than the usual. Shawn took my criteria and designed the header and several other elements. I can do CSS and coding all day, but I straight-up suck with Photoshop. So, Shawn helps me out alot with that. Thanks, dude.

What I am working on are several new guides to address different aspects of this business. These guides will be here on the site, designed to be helpful reference pages, and also link into some of my best, related posts here on this site. These guides will be prominently featured and is part of my strategy of bringing some of my best stuff out from the archives. I have almost 1,000 posts on this site and the homepage only shows a few at a time.

So, stay tuned for that.

If you notice anything odd or just want to make a comment in general, feel free to post a comment below and let us know. If something isn’t right, please also mention what browser you’re using. Thanks!

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Now, I could get into a whole thing about how to optimize videos on Youtube and get more video views, but I’ll leave that for another day. What about bringing your videos to your blog?

You can embed your Youtube videos on your blog posts. This is certainly the most common way it is done and, of course, I recommend doing so. However, there is value in having a “one stop shop” for your videos on the blog.

I’ve had several people ask me how I set up the Videos page here on DavidRisley.com. The answer is brain-dead simple.

TubePress.

Just a simple WordPress plug-in. And while he does offer a “Pro” version for $25/year, the free version will be more than enough for almost everybody.

The plug-in works with both Youtube and Vimeo.

So, why something like this rather than simply relying on the standard video embed?

• It looks cool as hell.
• It helps some of your best videos stand out rather than getting lost in the archives of your blog.
• It allows your readers to browse your videos without the need to leave your blog and go to Youtube.com.

Now, obviously you have to send them to Youtube.com in order or get them to subscribe to your Youtube channel, right?

Actually, Youtube has a subscribe widget that not too many people seem to know about. (I just recently found it myself, actually). Just add this code somewhere on your blog:

<iframe id="fr" src="http://www.youtube.com/subscribe_widget?p=add YouTube Username here" style="overflow: hidden; height: 105px; width: 300px; border: 0;" scrolling="no" frameBorder="0"></iframe>

You’ll get something like this:

So, now they can both view videos and subscribe to your channel, without leaving your blog.

From there, all you have to do is make some videos. (I’m looking in the mirror as I say that. )

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So, what happens is you end up using the default opt-in forms you’re provided. Either that, or you use one of the pre-designed opt-in forms provided by your email manager. The problem is… most of them are downright corny. Even Aweber (my personal favorite email solution) offers a wide variety of pre-designed opt-in forms that I wouldn’t personally be caught dead using.

So, without the HTML skills, how do you customize your opt-in forms? Here are some ideas…

Pay Somebody To Do It

This is, of course, the easiest way to go. It also goes without saying that it’ll cost you a little bit of money. How much money is completely dependent on who you hire.

Now, this isn’t likely anything new to many of you, but I’ll mention it anyway…

Fiverr. Pay somebody $5 to do things they’re willing to do. So, you can use the site to find somebody who is willing to spice up your opt-in form per your specs – for five bucks. You can either search the site for people who offer something like that (there are a LOT of people advertising HTML/CSS help), or you can use the “Request Gigs” thing in the right sidebar to directly ask for what you want.

Think you can afford five bucks? Of course you can.

Do It Yourself – The Easier Way

Another option is to use a “what you see is what you get” (WYSIWYG) web design program. With these programs, you can create what you want and it’ll make the HTML for you. With these programs, you can get as fancy as you wish. Obviously, to really trick it out professionally, it is still best to know some HTML on your own, but there is a lot you can do without knowing much (if any) code.

If you don’t yet have a WYSIWYG editor set up on your computer, check out KompoZer, NetOBjects Fusion Essentials, or Amaya. Those are all free. Of course, there are also the paid solutions like Dreamweaver. These programs (like any software) will still come with a learning curve, but the idea is that they operate on a push-button approach (like a word processor).

Now, the question, then, is… how do you make that work with the supplied HTML given by your email list provider?

First of all, when you get your opt-in form HTML, make sure you get the unformatted version. With Aweber, it is the default form (with no styling). Get the “Raw HTML” code, and be sure to UNCHECK the “Include beautiful form styles” box. What you’ll get, then, is just the raw, unformatted HTML code for the form itself. That’s all you need because you’re going to make your own styling in your editor.

Copy that HTML into your editor (in HTML view), then go back to WYSIWYG view and format the look and feel as you see fit.

Here’s a video I put together kinda showing what I’m talking about:

To include the finished code on your site, you can either manually input it into your sidebar.php file of your theme (the geeky way), or you can use the text widget in WordPress and copy/paste the HTML into that widget.

Now, please realize something… this can take a little time to get it right. Especially if techie stuff is usually foreign territory for you. Just don’t get frustrated and be patient.

OK, hope that helps.

Learn How To Master Your List

As of this writing, there are only 4 spots left to get into the “first 25″ group for the live class on list building and managing your list.

I am closing the course to new signups completely on Monday, April 11th – at midnight.

Click Here To Learn How You Can MASTER Your List

Booyah!

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