Easy…FREE…Screencasting for your Blog

Post #8–Two Women Business–Kendra Bonnett and Matilda Butler

If you read much about Search Engine Optimization (SEO) for your blog, you’ve probably heard that video is a fast, easy, and powerful way to improve your standing in Google. All well and good…but most authors and entrepreneurs don’t know where to start. “I don’t have a video camera,” they tell me. “Do I need some complicated piece of software?”

Inexpensive video cameras and powerful software tools do exist. But today I want to give you an easy alternative…something that will get you started with video. It’s a new browser-based screencasting tool called ScreenToaster. “Browser-based” means the tool runs on your Web browser. There’s no software to download. It runs equally well on both PCs and Macs. And it’s FREE. “Screencasting” is video technology that captures action on your computer screen in real time.

You can see a quick demo of ScreenToaster:

So let’s say you wanted to do a short PowerPoint or Keynote presentation and then post it as a blog. Here’s what you do:

1. Request your free ScreenToaster account today. The product is in Beta so you’ll first register for an invitation. Within a day or two they’ll be back to you with your access code.
2. Create your presentation and practice giving it.
3. Open your ScreenToaster account. And get ready to record. To start recording you just press ALT-S.
4. Bring your presentation up on the screen, start play mode to get a full screen image of your slides. With ScreenToaster running in the background, press ALT-S to start recording.
5. Now here’s the tricky part (for now any rate). You cannot currently record audio while capturing the video. This feature is coming soon, but for now you need to go through your presentation slide by slide while you read your script. This will ensure you stay on each slide long enough to make your points.
6. When you are all done, press ALT-S again. And you have a screencast.
7. Go back to the ScreenToaster website and your recording will be sitting there…waiting for you to edit (add captions or record audio). If you select audio you’ll then play the recording while you read your script into your microphone. Think of it like lip syncing.
8. And you’re done. Now you can post the code for your recording on your blog or even on YouTube for all to say. Don’t forget to add tags…this too will help SEO.