In today’s business environment, having a web-site is needed in order to stay competitive. There are some companies out there that want a web-site for free and can have one with Google Sites.

Simple and easy to use, Google Sites makes the process of creating web-pages an effective business tool. By simple logging onto http://sites.google.com, business owners can create a web-site using a pre-made template. Web-site content such as text, video, and pictures can be added with a simple click of a button and can be updated on a daily basis. Business owners can use this online tool to make multiple pages and the entire web-site will be stored securely in one place. Site owners can make the web-site public or private and can control who can and cannot edit the content.

Those without web-site design experience can simply use different templates to create their web-pages. These templates can be used to give the web-site a certain look, structure and can have gadgets added to them. Utilizing these templates also reduces the amount of time needed to create the web-site and can help get the business owner get an online presence.

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Since being introduced years ago, closed captioning, subtitles and video captions have been useful television consumers who are hearing impaired or deaf. Closed captioning allows users who have hearing difficulties to enjoy a television program or video by displaying subtitles and words at the bottom of the screen. Closed captioning has already made its way to online video and YouTube has added two new features that are useful for both the hearing impaired and everyone else.

YouTube, which is owned by Google, recently added in “automatic captions” to its online videos. Available on most education channels, “automatic captions” transcribes and adds captions to the bottom of the screen. “Automatic captions” also allows for the captions to be translated into other languages. Even though the captions are not 100% accurate at times, it still allows the user to understand the video content.

In addition to “automatic captions”, YouTube also added an “automatic timing” feature. To make adding closed captioning easier, “automatic timing” shows videos owners when words are mentioned in the online video. With the help of a simple text transcript, Google will help the video owner save a file of the words said in the online video to add later on. Once this transcript is saved, a simple upload is needed to add closed captioning to the video.

Though it is designed to help the hearing impaired, these new features could help search engines find online videos in the near future. Search engines employ a spider (also referred to as a-crawler) look for certain keywords within the text, title tags and content of a web-site or description of an online video. With closed captioning and text being added to online videos, this could be an opportunity to optimize online video content for a search engine. Spiders are designed to look for specific keywords and if keywords can be found within an online video closed caption, it could help optimize the video for a search engine.

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Anyone living in the Midwestern portion of the United States and looking to learn more about web marketing, search engine optimization or social media can do so at the Search Engine Strategies in Chicago. Taking place December 7-11^th, the Search Engine Strategies Conference is considered one of the biggest conferences in web marketing, search engine optimization, social media and a great opportunity to learn more about connecting with customers through the Internet.

Just a few of the keynote speakers at the Search Engine Strategies Conference consist of the following people:

Jeff Jarvis- the author of What Would Google Do? will be speaking on Day One of the conference. Jarvis serves as an associate professor of interactive journalism at City University of New York’s Graduate School of Journalism and consults for media companies such as VH1, Guardian, USA Today, The New York Times and many more. Jarvis is also the author of Buzzmachine.com, a blog about technology, business and media.

Peter Morville- author of Information Architecture for the World Wide Web and Ambient Findability and president of Semantic Studios will be speaking on Day Two of the event. Morville has consulted for companies and organizations such as Harvard, IBM, and Microsoft and is the co-founder of the Information Architecture Institute.

Dan Siroker- the former Deputy New Media Director for the Obama Presidential Transition will be speaking on Day Three of the event. Siroker was in charge of developing a strategic plan for Obama Administration’s use of Internet and technology during the transition and developed other ways for people to comment, propose ideas and ask questions about certain policies. In addition to his political work, Siroker developed Carrot Sticks, a web-site designed to help children learn.

Several other speakers, including Web Marketing Watch’s Sage Lewis, will be on hand throughout the entire conference and conducting web marketing and search engine optimization workshops. Sage will be doing a workshop on social media with interactive pictures, videos and other features.

Web Marketing Watch is offering an opportunity for subscribers and guests to win a three day platinum pass to the conference! Anyone looking to enter to win can visit http://www.sagerock.com/ses to sign up for the SageRock newsletter. Over the next few weeks, Sage will give clues as to when winner will be announced through the newsletter.

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We’re just getting rolling on our SEO class and it’s already very exciting!

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Every year I like to show you want comes in the bag they give us at the show. It’s usually filled with interesting goodies. Check out what was in this year’s bag.

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This seems like a cool new feature that you might find fun and useful to use:

We on the Google Maps team are committed to organizing all the local places and businesses that can be found online. To show you the range of all this interesting local information, we’ve teamed up…
We on the Google Maps team are committed to organizing all the local places and businesses that can be found online. To show you the range of all this interesting local information, we’ve teamed up with local experts around the world to share some of their favorite places. We invite you to explore their maps by visiting google.com/favoriteplaces

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Orkut is Google’s answer to a social media space… like Facebook or Myspace. It hasn’t seemed to catch on as of yet. But you never know. This landscape changes quickly.

Watch this video to learn how to use orkut promote, a free tool that lets you spread the news to all your friends.

Orkut promotions are sent to all your orkut friends. Your friends can then pass it along as well.

You can attach pictures or videos to your promotions. You can offer things for sale in a promotion or let people know about events. It could be interesting.

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This is a good example of how to do an interesting, easy to create video. Edwin Kelly, Director of Education at Equity University gives useful, current information in an interesting, entertaining way.

He then uses the information within the video to talk about how his business is a solution to the news he featured.

Nicely done.

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Find out how you can use Street View on your mobile phone.

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This is a fun example of the power of flashmobs when mixed with Twitter. These people were instantly creating musicals out of nowhere. They used Twitter to instantly notify people to unite to create a fully coreographed musical instantly.

The advice at the end of the video is excellent for all kinds of social media:

Have fun, never second guess yourself, don’t hold back, go for it.

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