How I Get the Most From Training Videos

As a student of marketing, I end up watching a lot of training videos and I've developed a system for making sure I get the most from them.

My problem with video is that like all of us, I grew up watching television and so I expect video to be entertaining. And let's face it, most training videos are not entertaining in the traditional sense.

So I had to find a way to avoid the "tuning out" that can easily happen when you're watching a training video, especially those that are mostly just talk.

Here is my system and I'd love to hear your tips as well!

Watch it through the first time, with no interruptions, just to enjoy the show and to just absorb. Don't worry if it seems like important details are whizzing by, you know you're going to come back again. I always have those "I need to write this down" moments as well, but resist the temptation and let it go - remain focused on drinking it all in.

At The Challenge, Ed tries to keep the videos to manageable lengths, but some videos will simply be too long to comfortably view in one sitting, so go ahead and hit the Pause button and get up and stretch your legs. It is important that you take your break away from the computer!

Do not switch to email or some other time sucking task on the computer. Get up and putter around the house a bit and then sit back down to finish the video.

After you've finished, go wash the cat or do some other non-challenging task to clear your head.

The Second Time is for Strategic Planning


This is when I take notes. I generally write down two kinds of things; key points and action steps.

One of the biggest problems with training videos is thinking that you've "got it" just because you understand what is being said. The way you know you've really got it is when you can apply the generalities to the specifics and can also see how the specifics can inform you about the generalities.

In other words, the training video may be about writing effective email messages, but the larger lesson is basic communication skills that can also apply to blog posts and even telephone conversations with your mom.

So in the second watching of the video, take notes on those key points and think about how they might apply to other facets of your business. Don't be afraid to pause the video often in order to give yourself time to take complete and coherent notes. Write down everything that seems important at all. You'll edit them later, so for now, just grab.

I'm also taking notes on action points. Be sure that you don't gloss over something just because it seems obvious at the moment. You want your notes to remind you of all the essentials no matter how long it has been since you watched the video.

Once you've been through the video and created all your notes, it is time to organize them into an action plan.

Generally, there will be one central idea to a training video and that idea is either going to apply to a particular project or to all of your projects. So how you take action is going to be determined by the nature of the information, but it is vital that you write it down. We all have our "to do" lists and I also have lots of notes stored in a "do it better" file that I keep for assorted tips. Plus, I always find a way to take immediate action in some way. "How can I do this right now?"

There is no point in training if you never put it into action, so watch the video and get the big picture, then watch it again and take notes. Then organize those notes into an outline for action and then take your new knowledge and understanding, put them into action and kick some butt!

Are you worth listening to?

I had an art professor once who said, "Learning to draw is like learning to speak a foreign language. But never forget that it's one thing to know the language and quite another to have something worth saying."

He was saying that drawing isn't just a skill; it's a form of expression. And the real point is to say something with your art. To say something worth listening to.

And so it is with the content we create as marketers. The point isn't to just put up some content. The point is to say something worth listening to.

OK, so that sounds good as a goal, but how to do I go about making sure that I'm creating content that is worth listening to? How do I achieve the goal?

Not surprisingly, Google has already figured this out. Here's what they say:

Engagement refers to the attention other people pay to your published content, like blog posts, news & articles. They see and read a post, and then because it’s interesting, inspiring, or controversial, they get “hooked” and decide to take further action.
Getting hooked and acting on it when you read something that makes you think, laugh, or get angry is engagement. The actions that people then take are called engagement events.

So there it is. You know you're creating content that matters, you know you're saying something worth listening to when people "get hooked and take further action."

At least that's how Google is going to judge you.

This is something you need to understand and act on. It's all right here: What is Engagement?

I know that creating great content is something that most people new to marketing seriously struggle with. It's frustrating. But never forget that it's nothing more than a skill. It's like learning to play tennis. With practice and perseverance, anyone can do it. And luckily for all of us, we know a guy who teaches that skill.

Content is everything. Do whatever it takes to make sure you're creating content that is worth listening to.

Easy SEO - Your About Me Page Matters

In this new age of Authorship, it is more important than ever to have a great "About Me" page on your site.

Many people new to marketing tend to shy away from doing much with this page, if they bother to do one at all, but that just doesn't fly these days and so I've scoured the web and I've assembled the best tips and ideas for creating the perfect "About Me" page for market leadership.

Be Real

The overriding principal is always to be yourself. Never try to present yourself as something you're not. There's no shame in calling yourself an "enthusiast" or "a fan of" or a "follower of." The fact that you like something enough to build a website about it is proof enough of your "fan" status. Take as far from there as is true.

I Never Forget A Face

Include a photograph. Preferably a smiling head shot of you. If you feel compelled to use someone else's face, be sure it is one you own the rights to use commercially.

Can We Have a Story, Please?


Human brains are hard wired for stories. We all love a good story. It's simply a part of being human, so give people what they want and tell them a story. Tell them why you care about the subject of your site and what problem you hope to solve. Make it as personal as possible.

What Was Your Name, Again?


You need to have a reason that you stand out from the crowd in some way. What makes you different? Have an opinion in your market and express it. Mouth off. Tell people straight up why they should listen to you. It really doesn't have to be anything more than "I'm going to do my best to always find the truth and bring it to you here." This isn't rocket science.

I'm So Glad We Had This Chat


Be welcoming and invite people to contact you. Use your email address as a link to your Contact Me page.

I would also suggest that you check out as many "About Me" pages than you can find. Here are some to get you started:

30 Beautifully Designed About Us Pages

Make A Great About Me Page

Onward and upward!

Keyword Research - Sculpting Results

As I revealed in a post in The Challenge Forums, one of my favorite super secret Market Samurai tips is to use words like "classes" in my "seed words" for keyword research.

This works for most activities and hobbies and even many products. So you could try something like "fishing classes" or "model railroad classes" or even "eye makeup classes."

It works because using a word like "classes" triggers Google to find other "information seeking" keywords that are relevant to the idea of learning about something. And while information seekers can be tire-kickers, they're also all secret shoppers and with good judo-salesmanship you can often win them over. Plus information seeking generally leaves tons of room for article topics.

The real point here is that Google associates different kinds of keywords together for different reasons and so you can guide your keyword research results in ways beneficial to you by using the right combinations of words as "seeds" for further research.

"Classes" is just one of the more obvious choices. I'm sure you can think of many better words to try as keyword modifiers.

Onward and upward!

The Best Google Profile Pictures for Authors

If you're here, then you know about or are researching the new authorship initiative that Google has now embraced. If you need to learn how to use this new and very powerful feature on Google, then here is my tutorial for WordPress users (Challengers): Easy SEO – Authorship

However, one of the key points in doing all of this is to get your picture displayed in search results which means, quite obviously, that you need a picture in your profile.

Here's what Google says about your profile picture:

Your profile picture must be a photograph of yourself and of high quality in order to be eligible for be shown as a thumbnail in search results.

So right away we can dispense with cartoons, icons, and any other sort of non-real-person type images. Don't even bother. They may seem cute on Facebook, but they aren't going to get respect from Google, so forget them.

That having been said, your Google profile picture doesn't necessarily have to be a photograph, per se, as long as it pretty much looks like a photograph.

For example, when I do a search for "best profile pictures" I see an article authored by Matt Silverman and I get his Google profile picture next to it.

As you can see, Matt's picture isn't really a photograph but it is sufficiently like a photograph to qualify for Google.

Now comes the question of whether or not this has to be your photograph and this is actually an area of some controversy. Women, especially, have raised privacy concerns about the requirement to distribute personal pictures and it is obvious that many people (such as authors) use pen names for professional reasons and many do, in fact, use "pen pictures."

In my thinking, this is related to what Google says about you profile name: Google Profiles requires you to use the name that you commonly go by in daily life.

In other words, they want your "real" name to go with your "real" photograph.

That's what Google wants, but what I want isn't always the same thing but you will have to decide for yourself what name to use and what picture to use.

But let's assume you're going to use a picture of yourself or at least a picture of a person which is a picture that you can legally use (no copyright problems). So the question becomes what sort of picture is best?

Short answer: use a head shot.

The main thing to remember is that when your picture is shown in the SERPs, it is in a small format (50 x 50) so it needs to be able to "read" well when small. This is why a conventional head shot works best. Human brains are hard wired to recognize faces so a profile picture that is "all face" is the best.

Let me show you what I mean. Here is an example of a very nice Facebook profile picture that I found here: The Best Facebook Profile Pictures.



The good things about this picture is that it is high contrast and she's looking right into the camera. But when you shrink it down to a 50 x 50 thumbnail, this is what you get:

As you can see, much of the impact is lost. For a Google profile picture, a much better choice would be to concentrate on the face like this:



Which makes a much more effective 50 x 50 presentation:

Here's another example from the same article that demonstrates another concept that you can use to your advantage.



By zooming in on the face and painting out the hand, I was able to make this picture which shrinks down to a much better thumbnail.

What I like about this picture is the unusual angle. This catches your eye and makes you want to see more.

Summing it all up is easy!

1) Use a head shot

2) Make it simple yet interesting

Please let your friends (and me) know if you found this article helpful!

Market Samurai Tips for Keyword Research

Here's a recent post I did for The Challenge Forums.


With Market Samurai, Google limits you on how many returns you can get and since Google is going to return what it thinks are relevant keywords no matter what you start with, the goal is to eliminate as much garbage as possible as early as possible. In terms of using Market Samurai, the first place this kicks in is to make sure you set the phrase length filter to at least two words. Single word keywords are market level keywords at best, so ditch them right away.

Once you get the list of returns, DO NOT analyze those keywords until you've gone through the list with marketer's eyes looking for what your common sense tells you are areas worth exploring. So if your seed word was "sports" and one of the returns was "sport socks" that would be something to open in a new tab, because it obviously represents a niche. It doesn't matter what numbers it has because you're going to use it as a "seed" for more research. At this point you're looking for niches, not keywords so the numbers aren't necessary and you'll get them later anyway.

Once you've pulled out everything that looks interesting, then go ahead and analyze the keywords, but DO NOT filter them in any way. Then what I do is order the keywords by SEOT highest to lowest. Again, I don't care what the actual numbers are because I'm still looking for niches. Now in this situation I'm looking for words with high traffic and relatively lower competition. So if the top ten keywords all have millions of competition but one of them is only hundreds of thousands, then that is one that I want to explore further and it gets a new tab too if I didn't already catch it in the first look through the list.

Next, I re-sort the list by Adwords Value highest to lowest and again, I'm looking for stuff that doesn't fit the pattern. Many times I find keywords that are high value, but significantly lower traffic and lower competition than it's neighbors, so it too gets a new tab.

Once I've mined the list this way, THEN I apply my Challenge guideline filters to see if any keywords of opportunity show up. 

Then I make my way through the rest of the tabs, repeating the same "look for niches first" process every time.

I start the ball rolling, then I let Google guide me.

Another trick is to remember is that market research works in both directions. For example, if I'm looking at what's hot on eBay and I see "radio controlled pickup trucks" I would still use that obvious micro-niche as a "seed" because Google is going to move up the food chain automatically. So radio controlled pickup trucks might not pan out, but it may lead you to some other "radio controlled" thing or some other "truck" thing that does work out. 

Basically, looking for keywords that meet the guidelines is the last thing I do. I consider my "looking for niches" steps just as important as looking for keywords that meet the guidelines.

I hope this helps!