This is a warning for anyone who has ever bought resale and usage rights for templates, artwork or image packs. Ignore it at you peril.

I’m pretty angry right now and I can’t name names because of legal issues (mores the pity) but the bottom line is that there are some ‘marketers’ out there who are acting illegally and you and me are the ones that will end up paying.

Here’s why.

These ‘marketers’ provide you, me (and whoever else) with packages to use or resell as our own. These packages contain images that are in fact licensed by another company and these ‘marketers’ don’t actually have the right to even use them. Let alone sell them or give them away. And don’t get me started on what will happen if you actually sell a licensed image. Even by mistake.

How does it cost you money? Read the rest of this entry »

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In my last post about Tim Brocklehurst’s Freedom Class Videos I’ve been told that I should really have explained just how good the quality was. And these PM’s weren’t just talking about the quality of Tim’s training.

The videos that Tim had had produced and encoded for the web are exceptionally high quality. I can only imagine how much bandwidth is required for the viewable size and the speed at which they are streaming even with good video optimisation.

Even if you are not interested in how to build viral profits into your business, you will be very interested in the video quality. I can only urge you to see for yourself what can be achieved with online video.

As with all launches, Tim has run into a couple of teething problems which were overcome. Interestingly it seems that lack of bandwidth wasn’t the biggest issue. That happened when Read the rest of this entry »

As you’ve no doubt seen yourself, video is everywhere on the internet and it’s helping the people that are using it properly to make bigger profits online. Making money and using video are what this post is about.

For the last year I’ve been researching some of the new video technologies to discover what’s needed to make and distribute great looking videos to help sell just about anything.

I’ve found free video editors, great places to upload too and places to stream your content from. I’ve discovered short cuts, monetization channels and more than a few clever (but simple) ways to make your video efforts … profitable.

Put simply, there is a video that you can have, that will improve your profits. It doesn’t matter what business you are in. Motion makes money.

Over the next couple of weeks I’ll be sharing some of what I’ve learnt so keep your eyes peeled. If you haven’t already done it, subscribing to my feed will be the easiest way not to miss out so why not subscribe now.

So How do I Make Money Online? Read the rest of this entry »

Over the past two weeks there have been some significant changes that as internet based marketers we can’t ignore.

Pulling the facts and the rumours together it would look like Google just put itself at the hub of Web 2.0 just after making some sweeping PR rank changes that will lead to quite a few website models to suffering financially.

On the flip side those web based businesses based on solid content and principles look set to prosper even more!

Here’s what I know that you need to keep an eye on. Peter Kafka of Silicon Alley Insider reported earlier that Myspace was joining the Google OpenSocial movement. If you haven’t come across that yet read his post on how OpenSocial looks set to flatten Facebook . As it was so nicely put over at techcrunch. Checkmate? MySpace … “Suddenly, within just the last couple of days, the entire social networking world has announced that they are ganging up to take on Facebook, and Google is their Quarterback in the big game.”

This really struck me as something powerful but I didn’t twig just how important this was until a post by Seth Godin explained it. It allows users to take their social graph with them from one site to another. - Now that does open up some marketing opportunities.

So how might this relate to PR Changes.

The waters are a little muddy still and there are lots of thoughts and rumours doing the rounds. Some folk are pulling thier hair out as they have lost page rank. Wow.

With some notable exceptions, whatever changes Google made look to have been targeted at paid link sites and link farms. It’s not unexpected as far as I’m concerned as it is probably a continuation of Googles stated aim to improve search result quality.
<Side Note> I’m going to draw my line in the sand here regarding the use of duplicate content … on any type of site. While the search bots may find and list your content initially, as more data comes in and the numbers get crunched your visibility will decrease. Try thinking further ahead than 3 months.

What did catch my eye was a rumour that Google will be doing away with PR altogether at some point in November. This will of course have some SEO folks running round in circles crying blue murder but it will apparently be replaced with an alternative called VR or visitor rating. If all of this is bang on the money then your PR toolbar will be reset to zero and phased out to be replaced with a VR toolbar. (someone start writing a book on how to ).

Then as if that wasn’t enough to contend with, in the same article I find that Google are going to make sweeping changes to the adsense model that’s going to have millions of plain adsense site owners income slashed to almost nothing. Or not?

Here’s the principle (and don’t forget this is still a rumour at the moment). Instead of getting paid when your adsense ad is clicked once … now that person will have to click TWICE. {Click: - [box with message says] = HEY you’re clicking an advert! Do you really want to do that? Yes or No?}

That’s going to make people think isn’t it?

At first glance this looks like it’s going to rip the market and income will suffer and to start with some sites may see a decrease. However, people are funny creatures and we soon get used to change. The other argument is that because this will reduce click fraud the actual amount Google would be able to pay may actually go up.

By combining their dominance of Web 2 with improved adsense/adwords algorithms and introducing visitor generated page ranking in favour of link ranking. I can see you will end up paying more per valid click through from user valued sites.

The future looks very interesting for certain website income models. What do you think?

Find The PR Rank of Social Bookmarking Sites

We all know that you need to get your posts read if you want to make cash. We all know that getting good back links from sites with a good PR rank (that are preferably on topic) will help you with improving your natural search engine optimisation rank. And all of this helps people with interests similar to yours to find your site.

Not so long ago I put up a list of social networking sites which has proved popular and useful. Well in my search for other opportunities I found another really useful list of Social Bookmarking Sites With PR Rank put together by Joe Justin.

I first bumped into Joe, who runs Arsenal Marketing, at Web 2.0 Wealth Unleashed which is a great site to visit if you are new to blogging or web2.0 and want to get up and running quickly. (The support provided by Alex, who runs the site, is excellent!)

Being a Brit, I thought that the Arsenal part referred to one of our football teams but that can’t be the case as he’s based in Fort Lauderdale

Anyhow, He’s worked hard and you’ll find the PR rankings of over 100 social networking sites which should help you decide where to start your promotional efforts.

As a foot note - don’t forget to check that the networking sites you become members of cater to your niche. Some are generic but some specialise and you don’t want to upset people.

Have fun.

Guys and Girls in the US and anywhere else for that matter take note, especially if you want to make more cash. This little tip might make a huge difference to your bottom line.

As some of my readers know, I’ve been involved in IM since 1997. It would be fair to say that I’ve seen the good, the bad and the ugly when it comes to products and money making ventures but there is one thing that still irritates me like nothing else.

Timezones. Or more specifically lack of information in your emails about them.

This problem affects everyone and I’m really surprised at how few ‘experts’ still tend to ignore the problem and do nothing to make life easier for their readers and customers.

We know that most of the big marketers are US based and we can assume that most of their customers are based in the US to. BUT (notice that’s a big but?) - a growing percentage of customers are based outside of the US. So why is it, with very few exceptions, these marketers send out emails or postings asking us to attend webinars and conference calls at say … 8PM EDT and then they don’t put a link to somewhere where readers in other countries can find out what time it is for them?

We know that you have very little time to make a good impression.
We know that you need to make it simple

So why not help your readers work out when ‘8PM Eastern’ is in their part of the world?

Make it easy and we will turn up.

A simple link at the foot of your email or post makes all the difference. Just ask those who do it and you’ll find that they get more new customers in other parts of the world which means bigger profits.

Try these:

http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/converter.html
http://www.timezoneconverter.com
http://www.time.gov/

Blogrush is a new free service that is using viral syndication to bring more targeted visitors to your blog. It’s simple to set up and works.

The brains behind this Blogrush is John Reese who is well respected in Internet Marketing circles and although the concept of adding widgets to your blog is not new the viral element that John has added makes this possible one of the simplest ways of getting free targeted traffic to your blog.

There is a very useful video that explains in detail how it works and shows just how powerful this can be, I strongly suggest you go and watch it sooner rather than later.

You can see the widget on the right of this page (I haven’t made it look too good and can’t see anywhere to tweak the setting - but the service in new and in beta - it will be improved) - the principle is that every time a visitor clicks on one of the post links in the widget, you will get a credit and your post will show in someone elses widget.

There’s lots more to it and well worth giving it a try.

See the blogrush video here to see how it will help you or click on the widget.