Nifty SEO/Website Grader

The guy I go to when I’m stumped on the web is Brett Bumeter.  He’s responsible for convincing me I needed to step-up my blog, and then he almost single-handedly made it happen.

Then he outdoes himself by turning me on to a wonderful, simple, and free website/SEO grader for virtually any website.

WebSiteGrader.com.

Did I mention how simple it was?

Seriously, log on, type in your URL and go.  You can type in a competing website if you want, or even your email address for a full report, and the wait is less than a minute for your complete analysis.

They’ll offer your grade out of a-hundred (this blog got – ahem – a 91), then proceed to tell you a wealth of other information, meta-tags, links, social-media connections, readability level, heading and image summaries, domain info, MOZ ranking, SEO anaylsis…and on and on and on.

This will seriously take a minute to generate, and five minutes to read.  SIX minutes to a better website.

‘Can’t do better than that!

Thanks, Brett!!

CourVO

Important WordPress Update

Matt Mullenweg of  WordPress on Dec 29th says: “…I would rate this release as “critical.” (for security reasons).

Update from your Dashboard, clicking “Updates”, or see the info on Upgrade 3.0.4 their WordPress Website.

CourVO

Gist for Gmail

There must’ve been a time when I used email without Gist…but now I can’t fathom it.

Even better, now Gist is available for Gmail…great combo!  (It also works stand-alone from the gist.com homepage, and with MS Outlook).

I’ve blogged about Gist before.

Gist works alongside your email and gives you instantaneous  news, social profiles and automatic updates for all of your contacts.

If you consider it an important plus to know all you can about a VO prospect, client, peer, new contact, or if you’re just nosy…Gist is a must.

Get the Gist extension for Google Chrome or Flock.

Get the Gist plug-in for FireFox.

Gist for Outlook.

Gist also works with iPhone.

You’ll come to think of it as essential equipment, believe me.

CourVO

Easiest File Sharing Evar

This is unbelievably simple simple simple.  ’Makes Google’s home page look cluttered.  Quick.  Reliable. Free.

GE.TT

Seriously. type:  GE.TT  in your browser’s URL, sign-up in seconds, and start sharing files instantaneously.

When you hit the “create share” button, it launches your Windows Explorer, you choose a file, it uploads and creates an abbreviated URL for you.  You then copy the URL and send it to anyone…they paste it into their browser, and find your file!  Like I said, simple, quick.

Put this in your online toolkit.  Definitely.

CourVO

LinkedIn Signal

After the Social Media presentation at VOICE2010 this last June, I was surprised to find out how many voice actors told me they subscribed to LinkedIn, but had no idea the power they held in their hands.

As an update, you may want to now consider one of LinkedIn’s newest experiments, called LinkedIn Signal.  LinkedIn rolled out the new functionality at the end of September, and the beginning of October with limited subscribers using a beta version.  Now, though, just about anyone can get on.

Dubbed “TwinkedIn” by some pundits, Signal is LinkedIn’s attempt to make sense of the considerable info stream generated by Twitter and FaceBook.  Signal does this in a very “LinkedIn” way.  For instance, playing on LinkedIn’s strong suit, you can configure a search for keywords, topics, or people across the stream.

Anyone with a LinkedIn account can get to Signal by using this URL:  http://www.linkedin.com/signal.  That’s the Private Beta page.  Click on the “sign in with LinkedIn” button at the top, enter your sign-on, and you’re there!

This is a fun interface to try new things…play with the search configurations…watch the stream.

Tools.

These are tools, people.  Use ‘em if they work for ya.  Forget ‘em if they turn into a non-productive time-suck.

All I know is, the proper use of LinkedIn’s search tools WILL lead to VO work.

CourVO

New Online Toy

Y’all wouldn’t love me if I didn’t come up with a few new virtual gadgets once in a while, right?  :)

This tip is about a total remake of the browser FLOCK.

Wait!

I know most people are VERY loyal to their chosen browser…FireFox and MS Internet Explorer have the lion’s share…with Google’s Chrome, Apple’s Safari, and Opera bringing up the rear.

But seriously, browsers wars are heating up, and I”m telling you today, you might really want to at least take a look at the new offerings.

Flock  has always been a browser that integrates Social Media into it’s very fabric.  I thought it did a pretty good job, but there were two drawbacks:

1)  Previous versions were based on the FireFox browser.
2)  It’s blogging feature was pathetic when compared to ScribeFire or Windows Live.

That’s all changed.

Now FLOCK 3.5.0 is based on the Google Chrome browser, so those of you who loyally use Chrome will find all the same functionality PLUS lots more.

First of all it’s FAST…much faster than FireFox.  Secondly, it’s practically crash-free, and thirdly, it’s absent that pesky 10-sec delay I could never seem to eradicate on the FireFox engine.

All of your Chrome extensions work on Chrome too…so far I haven’t found a way to import them from Chrome, so it’s a one-by-one install.

The Flock SIDEBAR is very simple to set up, configure, and start using.  It displays feeds from all your social media sites in real-time on the side.

Also, Flock 2.6 institutes a new feature that creates an account for you.  A quote from the Flock site about this:  ”Flock provides you the option of creating a free account that stores your favorite sites and feeds, your social networking accounts, and all the groups you make for your sidebar. You can access your account from any Flock browser.”

Since I’m a Google Chrome user, and a big Social Media user, this is a no-brainer for me.

At least take a peek.  Who knows, you might even switch loyalties!

CourVO

Vopedia

Wiki’s are here to stay.  The grand-daddy of them all…WikiPedia is an astounding compendium of the world’s knowledge… in many languages.

So, why shouldn’t voice overs have their own Wiki?  I’m sure that question must’ve crossed the mind of Mahmoud Taji at some point.  Being a guy who acts on his creative ideas, this Cairo-based voice actor and marketing expert launched just that…a voice over Wiki.

You can read more about the Vopedia on his blog.  You’ll find quickly, though, that this is a participatory venture.  Meaning the VO Wiki is only as good as all those who participate.  I know, I know…ANOTHER online site to contribute to?  Your decision, of course…but in time, this could turn into something really helpful.

If you’re already familiar with Wiki pages, you can just go directly to the page and start in:  Vopedia Wiki.

Nice going, Taj!

CourVO

New Mikey!

Blue Microphones is launching the newest edition of their innovative “Mikey” for virtually all iPod, iPhone, iTouch Apple devices.

I’ve blogged previously (Audition by iPhone) about the distinct possibility these tools now present for auditioning on the fly with your smartphone from almost anywhere.  No, I don’t think it approaches the quality of your studio (yet), but this combination produces a sound that gets your audition there quicker (with acceptable quality), rather than later and top quality. You make the choice.

The new Mikey comes with it’s own recording app, boasts a 3 position gain setting, and claims CD quality audio.

Information about Blue Mikey V2.0.

The Blue Microphone website.

Online Blue Mic sales partners where you can buy V2.0 ($79.99 — ouch!)

CourVO

Handy VO Tools

Emerging from the fog of what was a seminal week last week, I. just. want. to. get. back. in. the. groove.

For me, that means auditioning, blogging, Social Media’ing, and — of course — tending to my bread ‘n’ butter job at the TV station.  In trolling around for information to go into today’s blog, I found a couple of utilitarian tips from voice-over talents I respect a lot.

I’ve met both Jeffrey Kafer and Anthony Mendez in person, and love watching their voice talent careers develop.  Our interests intersect at many nodes, but especially under the general heading of “internet tools”.

Jeffrey, posted a link to a site I hadn’t seen before.  HOWJSAY.COM.  Thanks for this , Jeff!  I use Forvo.com, the ubiquitous wikipedia, and other sites that help with pronouncing esoterica of medical and technical narrations (see my blog Pro-Nouncers)…but I had not seen HOWJSAY before.  Very handy.

Anthony — a man wise beyond his years — developed a tool for shortening URL’s.  The site is called: THEVO.BIZ…a name very close to Courvo.biz…so I kinda like the way he thinks!  The world doesn’t necessarily need another URL-shortening website, but the advantage to this, of course, is that your newly shortened URL now has the letters VO in it.

Mendez admits:  “…This will not get you work, make you famous, or magically turn you into a social media guru.” Yeah, OK Anthony, but it’s still kinda cool, and adds to a certain professionalism that some of your clients may notice and appreciate.

Thanks, guys!  You rock!  What can I do for you?

CourVO

SEO.VO.OK?

Jodi Krangle presented at Voices of Vision on SEO.  Jodi did SEO marketing as a job, before finding her true place in life as a voice-actor…and Voices of Vision was a September Voice-Over Conference in Canada.

She makes her presentation available to all in her document:  Website Promotion For Voice Actors.

I’ve posted about this before, but just in case you missed it.  True gold in them thar words!

Thanks Jodi!

CourVO