Okay I have spent almost two hours trying to figure out how to prevent a YouTube Video on my featured video sidebar from standing on top of my PopUp Domination mailing subscribe box that opens as a popup.

I tried tweaking the Z-index of the plug-in .js file itself as well as various configurations of Z-index on the YouTube embed code but nothing I did would let my PopUp Domination stand in front of the embedded YouTube Video.

It looked like this, which prevented someone from filling out the form in the popup:

Finally, I found a solution but it was a pretty ugly solution.

So this is what typical YouTube Embed Code looks like when you copy it from YouTube video directly:

<object width="359" height="227">

<param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/3pIcGU6Ith0&amp;hl=en_US&amp;fs=1">

</param>

<param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param>

<param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param>

<embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/3pIcGU6Ith0&amp;hl=en_US&amp;fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="359" height="227">

</embed></object>

Well, I learned that the <embed> tag is not exactly very good HTML and that if you redo the code so you are using just an <object> tag like such:

<object type="application/x-shockwave-flash" style="width:360px; height:330px;" data="http://www.youtube.com/v/3pIcGU6Ith0&amp;hl=en_US&amp;fs=1?rel=0">

<param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/3pIcGU6Ith0&amp;hl=en_US&amp;fs=1?rel=0" />

<param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param></object>

Plus you have to add the <param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param> and this will cause the YouTube video to work just fine and any popup to take precedence over the YouTube video.  This is a bit inconvenient to do every time and I am hoping that I can figure out how to modify the plugin I am using (or have the developer do it) so that I don’t have to constantly rework my YouTube Embed code whenever I want to add a Google YouTube Video to my WordPress Blog.

In the meantime, changing your YouTube Embed code will allow CSS or Javascript Popup to go in front of your embedded YouTube Video.

-Dragon Blogger

EMAIL

Being a successful blogger is like trying to pull weeds in the open Arizona desert, you will clear some patches but you will get bit by cactus along the way. No matter how hard or dedicated you are as a blogger you will go through periods of excitement, frustration and even in some cases “depression” when success waxes and wanes as it does for many blogs online.

Many bloggers exit the market after determining it is just too difficult to carve out a niche, replace your day job or find that it consumes more hours of your time than you get in return. The rest however persevere and know that to really make your mark you must continue to stay the course and hone your strategies, trim the fat and adapt in ways you may not have considered.

So lets talk about the three things you can do to help overcome some blogging plateaus and pitfalls that all but the few lucky bloggers encounter during their blogging ambitions.

Hone Your Strategies

This means it is time to re-evaluate what you are doing for your blog and start prioritizing your time and effort into your site. Take your weekly time you are spending on your blog and break it down into the following categories:

• Content Writing
• Promotion
• Advertising
• SEO
• Social Media

Find out how much time you are spending in each category per week and then re-prioritize to focus on spending more time working another category. If you are writing content but not spending at least 30% of your time doing promotion or SEO, then it is time to switch focuses and make sure you shore up your promotional areas.

Trim the Fat

Simply put this means cut out anything and everything that doesn’t give provide you with value for one of the five area’s listed above. Drop any services or programs that bring you less than 5% of your monthly blogging traffic, unless you see potential for some to improve in the near future. Find out which of your blogging topics are most popular and focus on writing content to match your most popular topics, I have found I had to cut content from my own site after seeing much more traffic coming for specific categories and virtually no traffic arriving for others. Part of this is also adapting which is the next bullet.

Triming the fat also includes cutting out time wasters, and this means don’t spend another minute dropping Entrecard Drops, CMF Spikes or other traffic generation methods which require you to “invest time” to send traffic in order to receive traffic. These are typically a losing proposition and only help the most beginning stage blogs that don’t yet have a foothold on search engines or readership.

Adapting

Adapting your blog is perhaps the most prominent and I have seem many bloggers change the focus, theme and structure of their blog in order to attract or retain their audience. This could mean stripping out categories that don’t resonate well with your readers, or experimenting with a new topic or niche altogether and seeing how well it digests with your fans. The internet is ever changing and you sometimes may need to look and see if your Theme is also something that detracts from your audience and I have seen some themes that really take away the enjoyment of reading articles because they are either too distracting or too plain to really stand out.

Trim out all unnecessary plugins, widgets and other items which will slow your site down, lower your PageRank due to the external links and tend to make your blog look more like a personal blog. A facebook fanpage widget is fine, but having a Google FriendConnect, FaceBook, NetworkedBlogs and half a dozen other badges and widgets all running on the same site is distracting for readers. Pick one clear service you want them to join you on and stick with it, it is hard to pander six services to “follow your blog” and expect your readers to choose any but one or two of the six.

In Summary

The answer to the question “When Should You Give up on Blogging?” is Never. Because you can always adapt, change your strategies and test new methods to reaching an audience. The older and longer lived a website/blog is on the Internet the better for the site, and even if it takes you three or four years to start increasing your blog audience you will always have time to continue when you can. Never stop innovating and if you start to lose the passion and drive for blogging dig down deep and find out why you wanted to blog in the first place and reach for inspirations that will help fuel your passion again.

Only the truly passionate bloggers stand the test of time and you can see how they have risen and shine above the rest.

-Dragon Blogger

EMAIL

Everyone who lives in a service area for Charter Communications is luckier than I am, because on black friday you can sign up for the Charter Communications Ultimate Service Bundle. I have not found a better online and telecommunications package bundle anywhere out there from any of Charter’s competitors.

This one bundle package includes:

• 10mb internet connection for your computer
• Digital Home, Charter HD, Sports View, Digital View, HBO/Cinemax, Starz/Encore and Showtime/The Movie Channel for your Television
• And Unlimited Calling for your Phone:

This for $165.97 per month and if you sign up, you will get a $250 gift card just for purchasing the ultimate bundle, which basically gives you some extra holiday shopping money or you can go out and buy something nice.

In addition to the $250 gift card, you will be entered in a sweepstakes to win an Xbox 360, if you are lucky you could be a winner, I know I don’t have one yet.

If I lived in a Charter Service area I would be on this deal like a bee drawn to honey because I pay almost $150 in Satellite TV and Internet right now, and I don’t have 1/3 of the features that this bundle deal offers. Plus I really could use the $250 gift card right now.

I encourage anyone to visit Charter Communications and see if you live in their service area, add up your phone bill, internet bill and satellite or cable bill. If your three bills add up to more than $165.97 per month then you need to sign up for this service, this deal includes premium movie packages, so you really can’t beat that price. We are talking about HD package as well. Compare wisely and you will see there is no better offer out there, and you can get the $250 gift card just in time for the holidays.

I feel there is no better deal out there and I have 3 different providers each for my phone, television and broadband right now, and they almost add up to more than this deal, I don’t even get HD Television or Premium Movie Channels either.

-Dragon Blogger

EMAIL