Travel planning is not fun for me. I was nearly ripping my hair out until I saw this.  And, the marketer in me found such joy that I forgot all of my planning woes for a spell.

See it live at  www.CelticCastles.com

They are doing so many things right that I don't even know where to start. God bless them! It makes my heart sing to browse this website.

What they are doing right…

1. First of all, let's look at their overall niche. They didn't try to be another “Hotels.com” and cover all types of places to stay in the United Kingdom. They also didn't try to be a site covering “All Castle Hotels” and try to cover castles in Italy, Spain, and China. They focused in on Celtic Castles. I LOVE this.

2. Next, their URL and logo. Celtic Castles. Branding? Check. Done and done well.

3. Now their tagline. “The Biggest and Best Value Castle Booking Company in the World”. – Clear. Concise.

4. Mission line. “We are Passionate about Staying in Castles”. Not really a customer-focused statement, but it is consistent and solid.

I do really like this better, but it's hidden at the bottom of the page –

5. They have a section just for “Child Friendly Castle Stays” – which answered my biggest question.

6. You can search by map. Brilliant. And, they show not only the castles but the nearest airports. Smart!

7. They are ready to close the big sales. “Multiple Castle Stays” – which was another area that I was confused about.

8. They  have a FAQ page. http://www.celticcastles.com/faq.asp It answers pretty much all of the remaining questions that I had.

9. They can help you if you want to do Corporate stays or Weddings.

10. They're on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, plus they have a direct phone number AND a mailing/ezine list.

They've pretty much got everything covered.

What's missing?

The only things I see missing are YouTube and Pinterest.  I can see them doing really well by offering video tours on YouTube and interviews with the owners.

I can also see them having boards of the castles on Pinterest divided up by country.

I also don't think I saw any testimonials. Again, those could go on YouTube, which would be awesome.

Oh, and adding a media section would be nice so that I could have gotten some info from Press Releases and maybe some graphics for this blog post.

So, now I'll ask you.

What do you like about this website?

Please share in the comments section below.

Warmly,
Nicole Dean

PS. I know what you're wondering… Where am I staying? Well, actually I don't know yet. I scheduled this before I headed off. I'll let you know soon…

The first part was “Why you should care about Facebook, as a business owner.”

This one is about Pinterest. So, why on earth as a business owner, would you care about a photo sharing site?

If you are on Pinterest already, please include a link to your profile inside your comment. I'd love to repin you.

Be sure to see the infographic below.

1. Pinterest users spend an average of almost 16 minutes on the site per visit.
Source: Mashable.com “Very Pinteresting” Infographic

2. It has grown from 10 million total visits to 17 million since the start of 2012
Source: infographiclabs.com “What is Pinterest?” Infographic

3. Pinterest receives over 1 million visitors each day.
Source: Mashable.com “Very Pinteresting” Infographic”

4. It is the 24th most popular website in the US
Source: infographiclabs.com “What is Pinterest?” Infographic

5. Pinterest provides more referral traffic to other sites than Google+, YouTube and LinkedIn combined.
Source: Mashable.com “Very Pinteresting” Infographic

6. 28.1% of users have an annual household income of $100k+
Source: Mashable.com “Very Pinteresting” Infographic

Pinterest – The Social Media Darling Of 2012: Infographic by Infographiclabs

Have a wonderful day!
Warmly,
Nicole Dean (I'm on Pinterest: Nicole Dean Pinterest )

RECOMMENDED RESOURCE!

Be sure to check out this amazing training from Tina Williams and Maria Gudelis all about the changes in Facebook, how to use Pinterest effectively, and how to get on Mobile. But, most importantly – how to tie all three together for the greatest impact on your business.

Join me at the Ultimate Social Challenge.

Friday is the day where I give you free content that you can use on your blog – with your affiliate link, to make money with. Hurray!

Not only that, but it’s copy/paste ready for you to profit.

So, yep. You can make money by publishing free stuff. Pretty cool eh?

Of course, rules apply.

So what do I have for you today?

It's a tour of the NAMS membership program. At the end of the video, I included a big arrow that points to under the video so that you can post your affiliate link under the video to earn commissions.

-> The only thing I ask is that somewhere in the post you mention me and link to any post on my blog that you've enjoyed.

Here's the video:

Grab and Go:

• Video is on YouTube here: NAMS Tour on YouTube
• Here's the MP4 version if you prefer to use that: MP4 Version of NAMS Tour. (Right click to download to your computer.)

You are welcome to post the video on your blog and promote NAMS under it. Here's an example that you might use:

JOIN ME IN THE NAMS COMMUNITY!
Click here to check out NAMS
(be sure to look for a coupon code on the page)

Would you like to become an affiliate for NAMS? 

You have two options.

•  Join the NAMS Community here and you'll automatically become an affiliate, too. (Recommended.)
  OR
• Click here and Sign Up for a Free Affiliate Only Account

Thanks!

Warmly,
Nicole Dean

I've begged. I've pleaded. I've jumped up and down waving my arms and screaming.

But, still … you're not listening.

Another of my dearest friends suffered because she wasn't using a separate and unique password for each and every site she signed up for.

The hacker got hold of one password and used that info to get access to her domain registration. He took her main domain.

So, once again, I hate to be a pest but I'm going to be one anyway. Because I HATE to see good people suffer. It really makes me angry and sad.

One more time for posterity. Here's how you're at RISK.

—– STEPPING ON SOAPBOX —

Have you EVER signed up for an account anywhere online (including signing up for affiliate programs and article directories)? Maybe one or two?  Or 200?

Well, if even ONE of those sites gets compromised, it may or may not be a big deal, right?

Right.

UNLESS you’re using the same exact email address, username and password on other sites.

If so, you could be in for a world of hurt. That hacker can now use automated software to keep trying that username & password on other sites – where you may also have accounts.

Perhaps you have credit card info stored, your Social Security number, important business contacts, or an established social media presence (like your Twitter account).

They now can lock you out of your own accounts and at least with Gmail, it's VERY difficult to get it back.  Plus, if they get your Gmail account, they'll also likely get your YouTube account if they're connected. (Another reason to backup your YouTube videos.)

So, if this person hits those other accounts, you could lose money, have your identity stolen, turn off a bunch of your best fans, and ruin your reputation overnight.

And, you may not even realize that the first site has been hacked until after the damage has been done.

—– STEPPING OFF SOAPBOX —

That’s the bad news.

The good news is that it’s mostly preventable.

I’ve already shared my thoughts on the importance of password safety above. (To sum up: It’s important!)

“But, Nik”, you’re thinking, “how do you manage all of those passwords? It sounds like a lot of hassle to have a different password for every site!”

Well, I’ll tell you. I use a tool to handle it all for me, of course. Otherwise, it would be a mess.

I’ve used a few different password management tools over the years and they’ve all worked well, to an extent, but they’d only help so much.

Essentially, we usually have four pieces of data required for each account:

1. login page
2. email
3. username
4. password

and if any of those four pieces of info was missing and I had to look it up, it would eat up my time.

The biggest problem for me was the time involved in each step. Let’s say I’d get an email that said “You need to log in and update your paypal info to get paid on your affiliate commissions….” but it didn’t say where or how. That’s when the trouble started.

First, I’d have to track down the log in pages. (WHY do people hide them so well?)

Then figure out my usernames. (Which, are often different.)

If I couldn’t guess my username, I’d try to recover it.

But, if I didn’t remember which email address I’d used, I was stuck.

And, that’s all before I got to the password part of things.

So, I’d get very frustrated. And it wouldn’t take much, because, as my husband says, I have the attention span of a gnat. So anything that I am stuck on for longer than about a half a second feels like an hour. (It’s not pretty.)

The tool I ended up choosing (and have used for awhile) is Roboform. I was using a free program, but it actually got corrupt and is now unreliable or I’d recommend that one, too, even though it isn’t as powerful.

I recorded a free video that you’re welcome to watch to learn more about how Roboform works, and to see it in action on my computer. While it isn’t perfect, it’s good. (I’d be lying if I said any program is perfect.)

Here’s the video and there’s my referral link under it to try Roboform free –

If this tool looks like something that can help you in your business, here’s the link to try it…

Click Here to try Roboform Free!

Please share your suggestions for managing your passwords below. I’m always open to alternatives.

Warmly,
Nicole Dean

PS.  If you’d like to learn more about online business safety, I have created a short ebook about keeping your business safe.

You can check it out here if you’d like:

Keep your online business safe and profitable.
Click to Learn How.

Just in case you haven't seen the hullabaloo about YouTube.com – I'll update you.

YouTube is an entertainment site. It's owned by Google.

Google is an advertisement site. They make money through advertisements.

YouTube is a free video site. It's also high page rank and gets a lot of traffic – which means that spammers went crazy putting crap on there along with advertisements for their own products and services.

Google decided they didn't like giving free advertising to people on YouTube. Which I can totally understand.

So, they started banning accounts – even legitimate ones – if their videos were promotional in nature or talked about making money online.

Since Google is the boss when it comes to YouTube, their opinion is the only opinion that matters.

You following so far?

So, how do you protect yourself?

Make sure that you're not using the terms “Make money” in either your titles or your tags. If you are – then change those, pronto. Also, read their terms of service regularly in case they change.

Understand that your goal isn't to try to game Google. (You try to game Google, and you'll lose every time – eventually.) It's about playing by the rules.

The only problem is that you can *THINK* you're playing by the rules and still be cut – if Google disagrees with you.

So, just in case…  you should also do these two things.

1. Submit your videos to other sites, too.
2. Make sure that you have backups of ALL of your videos. Get it organized now.

Here's how to get your videos from YouTube if you need to do it.

1. Login to your YouTube account.
2. Go to “My Videos”
3. In your list of videos, there's a dropdown box. Click it and you'll see “Download mp4.”

Do that for any videos if you don't have copies of them.

Note: It appears that you can only download 2 at a time and then you have to wait awhile. I think they're protecting their bandwidth.

So – go through your files on your computer first. Locate any that you're missing and just grab those few.

I hope this saves some of you some heart-ache.

Hugs,
Nicole Dean

PS. This doesn't just apply to YouTube.com. If you've got 100 articles submitted to EzineArticles.com – I'd have those backed up, too. If you're doing a BlogTalkRadio.com show – I'd have backups of your episodes, too. I would not trust any of your content that you care about to 3rd party sites. Back that up!

Recommended Resource:

Protect Your Online Business BEFORE Disaster Strikes

Check it out here: Teach Me How to Protect My Online Business

Friday is the “freebie” day where I give you free content that you can use on your blog. Hurray!

Today, I'd like to talk videos. Did you know that it's super-easy to embed YouTube videos onto your blog? That didn't use to be the case.

While, I don't want to encourage you to add video just to add video, it can certainly add value IF you can find a channel with helpful, expert videos (like mine – hint hint). If so, you should do it!

Here's how easy it is: (Actually, it just got easier. See below this video.)

The new easier way that was brought to my attention by Scott of Scott J. Smith  is below.

View the rest of this post here: http://codex.wordpress.org/Embeds

So with that method, you just copy and paste the URL of any YouTube video or Vimeo video into your blog and then make sure it's on it's one line.

I tried it, of course, before I posted here. It works.

If you'd like to grab ANY of my YouTube videos, you can get them here:

Nicole Dean's Awesome YouTube Channel <- Click there to grab videos

Or, if you're in a different niche, then look around and find some videos that your blog visitors will love!

I hope you've enjoyed this “Free Blog Content” Friday. I know I have! If you'd like, please share your YouTube channel in your comment below – to encourage my readers to embed your videos.

Thanks, as always, for another wonderful week of fun.

Warmly,
Nicole

I finally got a copy of Camtasia and felt compelled to record a video to put my money to use.

So, here's my first attempt. This one is targeted towards moms, so I'll be publishing it on ShowMomtheMoney.com, but I wanted to give you a peek, too, to show you — It doesn't have to be perfect. Just do it!

Do you have a YouTube Channel yet? If so, show it off here.

Warmly,
Nicole

In fact, I just got to see this insane video about a guy standing in the mall giving out free hugs.

I hope it makes you smile!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vr3x_RRJdd4

Nicole

PS. You'll notice a link at the end of the video. Have you considered using UTube to promote your business in a creative way like this? It's definitely something to consider.