What you don't need:

A massive marketing budget, full camera crew, expensive video editing software, the technical skill to operate camera equipment and software

What you do need:

A great idea, an iPhone or iPad (Vine isn't on Android yet, but there are plenty of alternatives!)

You also need to be clued up on social media! Unfortunately, it's not as easy as just posting some videos and watching the money roll in. Our social media courses will help you market your brand through social channels using tools such as Vine. Combined with content marketing training you will be ready to make the most of social video.

You may think that 6 seconds is restricting, but that restriction forces you to think - What can I fit in 6 seconds? Think of it as the video version of an elevator pitch.

A 6 second video is a viable way of getting your message across in today's crowded social networks. It's easier to convince a passer by to stop for 6 seconds than for 6 minutes.

What you don't need:

A massive marketing budget, full camera crew, expensive video editing software, the technical skill to operate camera equipment and software

What you do need:

A great idea, an iPhone or iPad (Vine isn't on Android yet, but there are plenty of alternatives!)

You also need to be clued up on social media! Unfortunately, it's not as easy as just posting some videos and watching the money roll in. Our social media courses will help you market your brand through social channels using tools such as Vine. Combined with content marketing training you will be ready to make the most of social video.

You may think that 6 seconds is restricting, but that restriction forces you to think - What can I fit in 6 seconds? Think of it as the video version of an elevator pitch.

A 6 second video is a viable way of getting your message across in today's crowded social networks. It's easier to convince a passer by to stop for 6 seconds than for 6 minutes.

UPDATE JULY 2014: Google has now withdrawn authorship photos from SERPs. With this in mind it is unlikely that publisher info will start showing. We still recommend implementing authorship & publisher markup as results will still have a byline and your content will rank better for your Google+ connections.

Recently, while testing out some new titles and markup for our Photoshop courses using Google's Rich Snippet Testing Tool, I was surprised to notice a new addition to the preview:

This will be a familiar sight to those who have marked up their blogs with rel=author already, which we highly recommend. Author info in SERPs is highly visible and many sites (big and small) are seeing a marked increase in click through since implementing author markup. Pages with author markup look similar in the testing tool but usually show the author info on the left of the result in SERPs:

As yet, I haven't found any example of Publisher information appearing in SERPs but if Google is showing it in Rich Snippets previews it can only be a matter of time before they go live.

We have covered how to customise your profile, how to manage your privacy settings, any new features that have been rolled out since our last post and how to delete your account. Because there's so much info we've provided a helpful contents list to help you navigate to the right section!

If you're looking to use Facebook as a marketing tool then you should come on our Social Media course. This 2-day workshop is perfect for learning how to use social media for marketing and can be booked as a package with SEO Training and Content Marketing Training. Call us on 01273 622272 to hear more about the course or to discuss your training requirements.

Update: This post has been updated to include some even newer updates recently made by Facebook.

We have covered how to customise your profile, how to manage your privacy settings, any new features that have been rolled out since our last post and how to delete your account. Because there's so much info we've provided a helpful contents list to help you navigate to the right section!

If you're looking to use Facebook as a marketing tool then you should come on our Social Media course. This 2-day workshop is perfect for learning how to use social media for marketing and can be booked as a package with SEO Training and Content Marketing Training. Call us on 01273 622272 to hear more about the course or to discuss your training requirements.

Update: This post has been updated to include some even newer updates recently made by Facebook.

The full BrightonSEO 2011 Round Up is the most comprehensive available. We feature our pick of the best round ups alongside our own round up with video, slides and comments.

The second speaker at BrightonSEO 2011 got everyone talking and tweeting. John McElborough gave his advice on building a private blog network and added a pinch of controversy to the morning. The usual twitter buzz was rising to a crescendo and #BrightonSEO was trending, but spattered amongst the "Best ever" tributes and tweets of resounding praise were a few disgruntled SEO'ers in the audience tweeting about lack of ethics and Black Hat tactics. I'd like to point out that this is a FREE event. If it were highly priced, superbly slick and full of uber expensive Key Notes we wouldn't see the likes of John McElborough and his honest account of Quick fix SEO. He didn't claim to be ethical, and he was quite open about the fact that in the near future this may not work, he was aware that the Panda Update was still being tweaked and that tomorrow he could be wiped off the face of Google.

He also admitted that Fake Whois identities may not be a great long term plan. I loved his honesty. If it were expensive we probably wouldn't have the privilege of seeing John and having a good debate about it. We probably wouldn't see people like Dave Peiris - @sharkseo. I like the eclectic mix of speakers. If Brighton SEO continues to grow the way it has over the last two years (far from it's humble beginnings upstairs in the pub) we may begin to see less of the Johns of SEO and more high profile Keynotes and polished presentations, then we might be missing something.

I think Kelvin Newman put on a great show. He "owned the stage" as Simon Cowell would say, "he nailed it", Kelvin has the XFactor.

Don't forget to watch the video - juicy debate recorded as well as the presentation.

Building a Private Blog Network - a controversial talk by John McElborough at #Brighton SEO

John McElborough - Brighton SEO

McElborough told his audience to leave ethics behind, asking them to make their own minds up on whether his strategy is white hat or black hat.

John McElborough's method (building a private blog network) is to create a network of anything from 20-100 private blogs, all linking back to a main site. He went on to tell you how to make the domains all look as if they are on different servers with unique IP addresses, and even suggested that you fake your ID on Who-Is when you register the domains. The idea is to build up lots of easy links from each of the domains to each other and to your main site, as well as building up the authority of each private blog using traditional link building techniques.

Black Hat tactics?

He started by talking about the content of the blogs, starting with 5-10 posts on each site, he suggested using interns, students and writer samples. The acquisition of content by these means didn't sit well with the copywriters at the event as explained on Ensign Jen's blog. He is obviously going with the quantity not quality angle here.

The full BrightonSEO 2011 Round Up is the most comprehensive available. We feature our pick of the best round ups alongside our own round up with video, slides and comments.

The second speaker at BrightonSEO 2011 got everyone talking and tweeting. John McElborough gave his advice on building a private blog network and added a pinch of controversy to the morning. The usual twitter buzz was rising to a crescendo and #BrightonSEO was trending, but spattered amongst the "Best ever" tributes and tweets of resounding praise were a few disgruntled SEO'ers in the audience tweeting about lack of ethics and Black Hat tactics. I'd like to point out that this is a FREE event. If it were highly priced, superbly slick and full of uber expensive Key Notes we wouldn't see the likes of John McElborough and his honest account of Quick fix SEO. He didn't claim to be ethical, and he was quite open about the fact that in the near future this may not work, he was aware that the Panda Update was still being tweaked and that tomorrow he could be wiped off the face of Google.

He also admitted that Fake Whois identities may not be a great long term plan. I loved his honesty. If it were expensive we probably wouldn't have the privilege of seeing John and having a good debate about it. We probably wouldn't see people like Dave Peiris - @sharkseo. I like the eclectic mix of speakers. If Brighton SEO continues to grow the way it has over the last two years (far from it's humble beginnings upstairs in the pub) we may begin to see less of the Johns of SEO and more high profile Keynotes and polished presentations, then we might be missing something.

I think Kelvin Newman put on a great show. He "owned the stage" as Simon Cowell would say, "he nailed it", Kelvin has the XFactor.

Don't forget to watch the video - juicy debate recorded as well as the presentation.

Building a Private Blog Network - a controversial talk by John McElborough at #Brighton SEO

John McElborough - Brighton SEO

McElborough told his audience to leave ethics behind, asking them to make their own minds up on whether his strategy is white hat or black hat.

John McElborough's method (building a private blog network) is to create a network of anything from 20-100 private blogs, all linking back to a main site. He went on to tell you how to make the domains all look as if they are on different servers with unique IP addresses, and even suggested that you fake your ID on Who-Is when you register the domains. The idea is to build up lots of easy links from each of the domains to each other and to your main site, as well as building up the authority of each private blog using traditional link building techniques.

Black Hat tactics?

He started by talking about the content of the blogs, starting with 5-10 posts on each site, he suggested using interns, students and writer samples. The acquisition of content by these means didn't sit well with the copywriters at the event as explained on Ensign Jen's blog. He is obviously going with the quantity not quality angle here.

Step 2:

Open up the template in Photoshop. We've left the images of my face in the template so you can see how it all works - but if you don't want to see my face (and I can sympathise with your position if you don't) then either hide or delete the "Colin" Layers!

Next you'll want to import the image (or images) that you want to use in your own profile.

To do this, select File > Place and select your image file.

Drag and resize it so its in the correct position, and hit enter to place it:

 Click on the image for full size version