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May 16 2020

The Story Behind ‘Stories – With A Voice Like This’

Links directing to a purchase page may be an affiliate link.

This week I posted story number 30. For six weeks, I’ve been recording and sharing children’s books in the hopes that it will give parents a few minutes of quiet time and will entertain the kids.

When the current situation started back in March and we were put under a shelter in place order here, I had a friend tell me that I should read children’s stories everyday online with video. It would really help out parents and kids during this time.

With A Voice Like This started as a podcast back in 2007. While it was primarily about music, including making a completely DIY EP, I also included other information and featured live interviews. That experience meant I was comfortable with live audio work. At the time I also swore I’d never do video because I didn’t like the look of someone just sitting behind a microphone, but I digress.

I thought it was a good idea and I wanted to do anything I could to help in any fashion. So I decided to quickly (or at least as quickly as I could) set this up and get going, so I laid down my ground rules:

  1. The stories had to be free to watch and listen
  2. They had to help on as many levels as possible
  3. They had to happen on a consistent schedule
  4. The stories should be live

The Stories had to be free to watch and listen

This was my primary goal. I immediately thought of YouTube. With their recent changes due to COPPA (Children’s Online Privacy Protection Rule), they don’t allow personalized ads on children’s content any longer. They also don’t allow comments or live chat and that fit perfectly with what I had in mind. A low noise floor, where the entire focus could be on the story as it was being read.

I also wanted to include access to the book itself and with some books, that means links to how you can buy the book, and sometimes those are affiliate links. I don’t consider that an ad, as no one has to buy the book or even click the link, but more on that next.

The Cover of Beatrice The Little Camper Gets Rescued,  a link to the story on Stories - With A Voice Like This
(Click or tap the graphic to open the story Beatrice The Little Camper Gets Rescued in a new window.)

They had to help on as many levels as possible

Helping Children and Parents. Check. But there are others involved in children’s stories as well. So I needed to identify them and see if there was a way I could help them too, not just during this time, but on an ongoing basis.

First are the Authors and/or Publishers. The easiest and best way is to provide information on how to buy the book. As of now, 60% of the stories that are available for purchase are only available directly from the author/publisher. That information is shared in the video description.

The remaining 40% are links to online stores. Whenever possible and the first place I look is Bookshop.org. The reason for that is simple. 10% of the sale from that affiliate link goes to support independent bookstores. Another group that I can help and it’s by using a specific link. If you want to know more, it’s on their About BookShop page. They explain how they work with Independent Bookstores (It really helps to have an author for a wife). They just launched this past January.

Here was a bit of a wrinkle. I needed to have the rights to record the book and it needed to be at no charge, the trade-off is the exposure and the purchase information. But what to do when I don’t have a current book to read? I won’t read without the proper rights, so I fill with Children’s stories in the Public Domain. For that, I’m indebted to the Baldwin Library of Historical Children’s Literature at The University of Florida George A. Smathers Libraries and their digital collection. The collection has been a lifesaver, pure and simple.

The Cover of Into the Night,  a link to the story on Stories - With A Voice Like This
(Click or tap the graphic to open the story Into the Night in a new window.)

They have to be on a consistent schedule

This was a big point. At first, I didn’t know what I was getting into, so I had thought of possibly doing 7 days a week. I was quickly disabused of that idea by just trying to get the idea up and running. It took two weeks to get the first 5 stories complete. At that point, I thought 5 days a week was sufficient (I question my own wisdom and sanity on that decision at times still).

(Click or tap the graphic to open the story The Christmas Tractor in a new window.)

The Stories should be live

This was my one roadblock that could have done this project in at the beginning. I had a specific quality and method in mind and I found out that I had some experiential and technical hurdles that would prevent a live stream of the stories. The biggest one? I had no ethernet port on my laptop. I hadn’t realized that until went to set up the live stream. Long story as short as I can, There was no way I could achieve a consistent quality live stream over WiFi with my current setup. And I tried a bunch of technical workarounds.

I found the answer on YouTube. They have a Premiere function where you can prerecord and release a video at a specific time so everyone can view it at the same time. At that point, YouTube was the only service that I found had that feature, though I didn’t look too hard anywhere else at the time. I was set on using YouTube anyway.

Based on all of that, the Premiere time was Set for 10:00 am CT Monday-Friday.

And that’s how I got to 30 stories.

The Cover of Denslow's Jack and the Bean-Stalk,  a link to story #30 on Stories - With A Voice Like This
(Click or tap the graphic to open the story Denslow’s Jack and the Bean-Stalk in a new window.)

Where will it go from here

I have at least a couple more weeks before that decision needs to be made. It may continue after the current shelter in place is over, but not 5 days a week. But even if it doesn’t, I have a body of work that can and will help long term. A body of my work…And as an Artist, that helps me define what I did and how I used my talents at a time when it was needed and benefited as many people as possible.

If you would like to be a part of the work I’ve done, you can subscribe to my YouTube Channel, view my playlist or, I’ve built Stories – With A Voice Like This where you can watch the stories, submit a story if you’re an Author/Publisher and browse an archive of all the stories.

Written by jim · Categorized: Media, Projects

Feb 05 2016

Embedding a large video file in WordPress

Video Play Icon

[Note: While serving large video files from your hosting service using WordPress is not the recommended method for many reasons (flexibility, host issues, bandwidth and storage space to name a few), sometimes it is necessary for proprietary reasons. Keeping that in mind, this video shows you how to do exactly that.]

Links to tools mentioned in the video

WordPress download page

Filezilla Download page

Add From Server WordPress plugin Homepage

Transcript from the video

Embedding a large video file in WordPress

If you have a video file over 50 MB, you won’t be able to upload it using WordPress. First, you’ll need to upload via FTP.

I use Filezilla. Once you’ve connected to your Hosting server, on the right side double click the wp-content folder to open it, then double click uploads, then double click the year folder and then double click the month.
To upload the file, click and drag it from its location on your computer to the open month folder and it will begin uploading.

I use Filezilla because it’s a free program and works the same way whether you’re using Windows, Mac or Linux, you can find a link below. Your hosting service will also have an FTP program available.

Once the file is uploaded, you’ll have to make an entry in the database for WordPress to recognize it. I use a plugin called “Add from Server” for that, you can see a link below.

Once you’ve logged in to you WordPress site, on the left hand side of the dashboard, hover over Media and click Add From Server. This takes you to a new window and you’ll see the uploads folder is one of the quick jump destinations.

Click that and you’ll see the file you just uploaded. Click the checkbox for your file and then click import.
When it’s finished importing, you’ll get a success message and you’re ready to Embed your video.

To do that, hover your pointer over Posts or Page Click add new, title it, then click in the content area and click the add media button.

The insert media window will open, click the file you want to embed. Information about the file will appear on the right side and in the lower right double check that the Embed or Link dropbox says Embed Media Player.

Click the Insert into post button. The video is inserted.

Click the publish button on the right and the embedded video will be saved. Once it’s saved, click view and you will see the embedded video and you can click the play symbol to check that it’s working.

If you have any questions, let me know in the comments.

Written by With A Voice Like This · Categorized: WordPress How To, Media, video · Tagged: How to

Sep 28 2015

Everyday basics for Posts using Yoast SEO

SEO

One of the biggest internet buzzwords is SEO (an acronym Search Engine Optimization). I use Yoast SEO Plugin for WordPress and I tell everyone I work with to do so as well. There are a few excellent plugins to help, but what puts Yoast SEO way out in front is its ease of use and it guides you to good SEO practices.

This guide is not comprehensive. It focuses on the process to set up good SEO on a post or page, the everyday stuff. It deals with the General and Page Analysis tabs of the free Yoast SEO plugin for WordPress and includes some SEO  best practices. This guide is built so you can run through the steps on your own at any time. Here we go!

Accessing the SEO Interface

When you create a new post, the Add New Post window opens. In the Publish box on the right side of the page you will see SEO: N/A Check with a gray dot next to it.

Gray SEO indicator on a blank WordPress Post

 

Click or Tap the Check link
     –
This will take you to the bottom of the Add New Post and the Page Analysis tab of the Yoast SEO section with a “No focus keyword…” error message.

Yoast SEO No Focus Keyword Error message

To set a focus keyword, click or tap the General tab in the upper left corner of the Yoast SEO box
– This will open the General tab of the Yoast SEO section

NOTE: When you view the General section for the first time, the Snippet Preview will show what the search results would be based what is in the title, URL and text area of the post/page. The Focus Keyword will be blank, the SEO Title will show what is in the title area of the post/page and the site title and the Meta description is blank.

Yoast SEO General Tab Blank

The four areas of the General Section are:

Snippet Preview

This sections shows you what displays as the search results of a Google search. The example above is blank, but if you have information in the event itself, it will display what would be pulled by Google by default.

Focus Keyword

This is a word or phrase about the event and is the basis for the scoring of the SEO on the event itself. It should be a combination of:

  • Specific to your post/page (longtail)
  • Audience targeted (Who are you most trying to reach with this post or page?
  • Audience friendly language (What words would they use to search for this conference?)

As you begin to type, a drop box with possible keywords will appear, these are results from Google Suggest and will change real time. Once the focus keyword is filled out, the event will be ranked based on its usage and additional factors.

SEO Title

This is the Title that will show in the search results. It defaults to the title of the event. Recommended length of a title is 40 – 70 characters. If the title is too long, it is cut off and an ellipsis (the three dots “…”) is added to the end. For good SEO it’s not recommended to have a title that is too long. By default, WordPress adds the site name to the end of every title.

Meta description

This is a brief description about the post or page. The section is limited to 156 characters and by default pulls from the beginning of the event, so it is best to have a short, descriptive paragraph about the event ready to place here for anyone searching the web to help them know what the event is about immediately.

The following is an example of a completed General section with a good ranking:

Yoast SEO General tab complete

To start (or update) the SEO scoring, enter a focus keyword in the Focus Keyword field, then go to the top of the post/page and click or tap one of the following buttons in the Publish section in the upper right of the page:

  • Save Draft – recommended if you haven’t already published the post/page
  • Publish – least recommended as the first step
  • Update – Use when the event is already published, the Update button replaces the Publish button

Publish Box from a WordPress Edit Post or Page

NOTE: Clicking or tapping to Save, Publish or Update to show the scoring will not be necessary starting late October or November of 2015. The upcoming upgrade will change to real time updating once you enter a focus keyword.

-Once you have entered a focus keyword and saved it, you will see one of the following 4 SEO scoring indicators:

Yoast SEO Good indicator

Yoast SEO OK indicator

Yoast SEO Poor indicator

Yoast SEO Bad indicator

To improve your score, click or tap the Check link to the right of your indicator
– The screen will return to the Page Analysis tab of the Yoast SEO plugin.

NOTE: The circled phrase “focus keyword” in the example below is replaced with the actual keyword you use.

Yoast SEO Suggestions

IMPORTANT: Don’t forget to save your revisions/changes or they will be lost and you will have to start over!

Some SEO targets:

  • 300 word minimum in the event/article
  • Use of focus keyword (target is 2.5 – 5% for entire post/page) in these areas:
    • Title
    • URL
    • Content
    • Meta description
  • Use of subheading tags (H2, H3, H4, H5 or H6) Think outline headings!
  • Outbound links
  • 40 – 70 character Page title length
  • Uniqueness of focus keyword
  • Use of images (photos, graphics)
  • Readability of content based on the Flesch reading ease scale

NOTE: these targets are not hard and fast rules, different combinations will still score the good SEO ranking! The biggest factor in good SEO is to start with good content!

 

Conclusion

SEO works best when it is a habit, whether it’s a page, article or post. Yoast SEO gives you an easy to use, logical framework to help develop SEO at every level.

Download

If  you want to print out a copy of this guide, you can download the pdf guide. You can just have it, No e-mail signup, no joining anything, it’s yours.

Written by With A Voice Like This · Categorized: Media, Voicings from Jim

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