Information Sells

The League of Extraordinary Women

Do You Want to Learn How To Be A Better Educator  or Learn to Create Information Products?

If so, please come to the Web Sellers’ Circle’s FREE Master Mind Round Table Teleseminar on Tuesday – 5:00 PM Pacific – 8:00 Eastern

Here’s the scoop:

The Web Sellers’ Circle is proud to host the new “Presenter Series.” Online education is a growing field. It is a new way to reach students, clients and promote your business. New technology makes it easy and inexpensive to reach more people. Webinars and Podcasts are becoming a common way to communicate and build a community.

However, most educators don’t know where to start, what tools work the best or a host of other details.

This new course will cover a host of topics to help get online presenters off to a good start.

Covered In The Series:

• How to choose topics and guests
• How to define your audience – your purpose and theirs
• How to determine your budget
• How to find the technology works best for your presentations
• How to podcast, including distribution and syndication
• How to do a teleconference, what software works for your needs
• How to present a webinar, what service to use and how to record it
• How to record the broadcast
• How to turn your presentation into a product

To kick the series off The Web Sellers Circle is having an exciting Master Mind Round table conference call with industry experts: Janelle Elms, Marlene Gavens, Phaedra Stockstill, Sheryl Schuff , Cindy Shebley. I’ll be introducing the guests and asking questions.

This is a FREE call and I invite you to join us on the line.

When: November 3, 2009
Time: 5:00 PM Pacific /8:00 PM Eastern
How To Register: http://www.websellerscircle.com/public/331.cfm

This is going to be really exciting! Don’t miss it.

Tags: mastermind, podcast, teleseminar

Be Your Own Publisher

Would you like to learn to design and publish your own book with no up front investment using tools you already own?

Ghost Leg Press and The Web Sellers’ Circle are sponsoring a class that will demonstrate how to do exactly that – and the class is free.

Amazon’s CreateSpace makes it possible to publish your book and get it listed on Amazon.

But only you can make your work look like a professionally typeset and printed book.

Most writers already have Microsoft Word installed on their computers. But they don’t know how to change Word’s defaults so that it becomes a layout and design tool instead of a word processor. In this free class, Dany Byrne of Ghost Leg Media will demonstrate the untapped power of Word. Once you understand the potential of styles and settings, you can build your books they way a pro would.

The design secrets you’ll learn in this class can be used for paper books, ebooks, and newsletters – in fact, for any written document..

Learn how to follow publishing industry standards without spending a fortune in time and money.

Time & Date: Friday, November 6, 2009 2:00 PM – 4:00 PM PST (5:00-7:00 PM Eastern Time)

To register go to https://student.gototraining.com/8b775/register/2788145560820234403

These free downloads will be available for all attendees:

A Dozen Ways to Promote Your Book
Publishing Resources
Suggested Serif Fonts For Microsoft Word
Suggested Settings For Microsoft Word
Suggested Vertical Line Spacing

If you are interested in creating good looking ebooks, printed books or newsletters – please join us next Friday afternoon.

Registration is free: https://student.gototraining.com/8b775/register/2788145560820234403

Photograph by takomabibelot Released under Creative Commons License.

Upgrade to Word Press 2.8.4

Any version of WordPress older than WordPress v2.8.4 is vulnerable to a new attack.

So first, before reading any further, take a minute and upgrade your blog. Remember to

    1. Back up
    2. Disable all plugins

After the upgrade, re-enable you plugins and you should be back in business.

Now that your blog is up to date and is patched against further attack, here’s what to look for to see if you were hacked:

• A change in your permalink structure that adds a long string of gooble-de-gook to pretty permalinks. The words “eval” and “base64_decode” will appear somewhere in the new structure.
• The addition of a new (and possibly hidden) administrator in your User panel. It may appear as Admin(2) or you may find that when you tote up the users and administrators the total doesn’t match the total figure shown on the User panel.

Lorelle has more details and suggestions on how to clean up your blog if it was hacked.

Don’t shrug this off as something that happens to “other people.”  These attacks are run by robot; they are not aimed at any particular target. If your blog is vulnerable, it will eventually be hacked.

Here are some extra security measures that require no special knowledge or expertise before you can use them. They can keep you safe:

• Add the Antivirus plugin and use it.
• Don’t use “Admin” as your Admin name. In fact, don’t use any Admin name that is connected to you or to the blog or that can be easily guessed. Save the friendly name for the “Nickname” under which your posts will appear. Make your log in secure.
• Turn off automatic user registration
• Keep all your plugins up to date. Turn off or delete unused plugins.

Tags: security, virus, wordpress, worm

Are You Leaving Money On The Table?

I spent time on Friday helping a client update spreadsheets and Excel reports that used an incorrect formula to calculate the margin on bids for construction jobs. While this particular client was looking for a margin of 25%, he was actually getting one closer to 20%. On a $100,000.00 bid, that can be the difference between profit and disaster.

I see sellers new to retailing make this same mistake over and over again.

The seller wants a “mark up” of 30%  

So they take their cost (the wholesale price), multiply that by 30% and add the result to the wholesale cost to find the retail, or selling price.

Wrong!

You can certainly find a retail price that way, but it won’t give you a 30% margin. The confusion stems from

1. Confusion about calculating percentages
2. The difference between margins and mark ups

YOUR MARK UP IS NOT YOUR MARGIN

Although it is less important, let’s talk about mark up vs margin first.  Many people use these terms interchangeably to mean the difference between what you pay for goods and what you sell them for – that is, gross profit. However, they are not the same thing. Misunderstanding the nature of mark ups and margins can make it easier to calculate them incorrectly – which cuts deeply into your bottom line.

A margin is, most simply put, the percentage of the selling price that is the profit.

• If you pay $6.00 for an item and you sell it for $10.00, you made a gross profit of $4.00. 
• $4.00 is 40% of $10.00 – so you have a margin of 40%
• Notice this important distinction- the 40% margin is 40% of the final selling price, not of the wholesale cost.

A mark up is the percent of the cost you add to the wholesale price to get to the selling price.

• If you pay the same $6.00 and sell the item with a 40% mark up, you make a gross profit of only $2.40
• 40% of $6.00 is just $2.40
• A mark up of x% will yield a smaller profit than a margin of x% because the mark up is a percentage of the lower wholesale cost.

IT DOESN’T MATTER IF YOU MIX UP THE TERMS AS LONG AS YOU DO THE MATH RIGHT

Many people say “mark up” when they mean “margin.” If you are fussy about language, this is annoying but it will not lead to financial disaster. It’s just words.

However, if you’ve confused the two concepts and are calculating your margins by mutliplying the wholesale cost by the margin percentage, you could be headed for trouble.

Just remember – you want to calculate your profit as a percentage of the final value, not as a percentage of the original cost. When a customer hands you $10.00, you need to know how much goes into your pocket and how much goes to your vendor.

Do you need a 40% profit margin to survive? Then you want to keep $4 out of every $10.

Also keep in mind that this is a gross profit margin. It does not take into account overhead, fees, etc. You may put $4 into your pocket, then have to turn around and give $1.00 to the landlord, 75¢ to the tax man, 15¢ to the bank for processing fees, etc.

You might end up keeping only $1.50 (net profit) of the original $4.00 (gross profit). Which is why calculating your margin by incorrectly using the wholesale price can be such a disaster. You can actually lose money with every sale!

WHAT’S THE FORMULA?

Now that you know you want your margin to be a percentage of the final cost, how do you actually figure it out?

Relax – as long as you have a calculator handy, it is easy.

Say you want a 40% margin. We know that 100% less 40% leaves 60%. So your wholesale cost represents 60% of the final value. To find the remaining 40%, divide the wholesale cost by .6

• If  you want a 90% margin – divide the wholesale cost by .1
• If  you want a 80% margin – divide the wholesale cost by .2
• If  you want a 70% margin – divide the wholesale cost by .3
• If  you want a 60% margin – divide the wholesale cost by .4
• If  you want a 50% margin – divide the wholesale cost by .5
• If  you want a 40% margin – divide the wholesale cost by .6
• If you want a 30% margin – divide the wholesale cost by .7
• If you want a 20% margin – divide the wholesale cost by .8
• If  you want a 10% margin – divide the wholesale cost by .9

As long as you follow this formula for calculating retail price, you will get the margin you want.

Photo by MrVJTod Released under Creative Commons License

Tags: margin, mark up, profit

A Good Lavalier Microphone

New videographers often overlook one crucial piece of equipment – the microphone.

And no wonder they do. It’s almost impossible to find a decent camcorder for sale for less than $1,000.00 with an external mic jack. Newer camcorders have built-in stereo microphones instead, which promise great sound. But the microphone on your camcorder is probably omni-directional, which means it will pick up room noises to the side and back of what you are filming. It is subject to vibration and humming from other components and cables on your camcorder. And it can pick up the noise of the camcorder motor as it turns the tape.

For clean, bright sound, you cannot rely on a built-in microphone.

WHICH MIC IS THE RIGHT MIC?

Experienced videographers often have a bag full of microphones. One may be perfectly suited to a particular situation, but a poor choice in any other video.

Consumer camcorders usually have microphone mini-plugs – similar to the plug on your iPod’s headphones, for instance. More expensive camcorders will have XLR plugs. XLR cables can carry sound better, over longer distances, and high end mics will always use XLR jacks. If you want to use an XLR microphone and your camcorder is equipped with a mini-jack, you will need something like the Beachtek XLR Adapters

A lavalier, or clip on, microphone is perfect for how to videos and product demonstrations where there is just one person speaking. A reasonably good lavalier, like the Audio Technica ATR-3350 Lavalier Omnidirectional Condenser Microphone costs about $30.00.

If you want a wireless microphone, your choices are more limited, unless you have a very large budget. An excellent wireless microphone is a serious investment.

But, if you can control the environment, the AZDEN WMS-PRO Lavaliere System with Hand-Held Microphone for under $165.00 comes with a transmitter, a handheld microphone, and a lavalier mic. It gives good results up to about 50 feet. This system is a good compromise between quality and cost. (However, note: you can use the lavalier or the handheld mic – you cannot use both at the same time.)

Many videographers looking for a wireless solution try Bluetooth microphones. They are almost always disappointed, despite the hefty price tag. I’d recommend that you steer clear of Bluetooth microphones for camcorders.

The handheld microphone is useful for “man in the street” interviews. Of course, if you truly are filming “in the street,” dangling cords can be hazardous unless you have a crew to keep track of them. The AZDEN WMS-PRO Lavaliere System with Hand-Held Microphone might be a good budget choice. But if you plan on doing a lot of outdoor filming, think about a boom mic instead.

A boom microphone is simply a shotgun microphone mounted on a long pole (known as a boom pole). Someone holds the microphone above the speaker, out of frame. If you are shooting outside, you’ll want to cover the mic with a wind shield. These are those big, fuzzy covers, sometimes called a “dead cat.”

The Rode VideoMic Directional Shotgun Mic w/Mount makes both an excellent boom microphone and a camera mounted shotgun mic. It comes with a shock mount that snaps into your camcorder’s hotshoe. The microphone should run about $165.00.

You can add the Rode DeadCat for anther $50.00.

A good boom pole needs to be light, well balanced, and expandable. If you want one for the Rode Videomic, take a look at the Rode Microphones Mini Boompole for about $115.00

If you are planning to use a boom mic, look for package deals. The microphone, dead cat, and pole can often be purchased together at a discounted price.

DO YOU NEED ALL THIS RIGHT AWAY?

As you can see, a collection of microphones for all occasions can become expensive. Luckily, you probably won’t need more than a wired, lavalier microphone to start making your own How To or product demonstration videos.

As usual, the key to finding the right mic is planning. Know your audience and know your project before you shop.

Keep your early videos simple. Shoot inside, where you can control ambient noise. Have only one narrator, whether in front of or behind the camera. The more complicated the shoot gets, the less likely it is to be done. If you can avoid adding an extra person to handle the sound, at least in the beginning, you will finish more projects.

In Part 4, we’ll look at microphones for use in screencasting.

Tags: boom, lavalier, microphones, rode videomic, video microphone

If your videos will be mostly software demonstrations and tutorials, you may need nothing more than a copy of Camtasia.

However, if you plan on making live action videos, even if only for You Tube, you will be adding complexity to your project. You will certainly need additional hardware, including camera, lights, and a microphone, and additional software, such as Sony Movie Studio.

The question isn’t so much, “What should you buy?” as “How Much Must You Spend?”

Let’s look at cameras first.

Again, it helps to know your audience. Will they expect online video similar to what you find on You Tube? These days, that means wide screen format (which can be different than high definition) video. Viewers tend to pass by standard 4:3 format videos as out of date. If your information is at all time sensitive, be sure your camera can shot in wide screen!

If you plan to shoot only the occaisional video, you might find that the best way to test the waters is with the equipment you already own.

Webcams, Digital Cameras and Flips

You don’t need an expensive camcorder for You Tube or web site videos. In fact, you’ll find plenty of videos that were shot with webcams and room lighting. Unfortunately, these videos are poorly lit, poorly framed, and sound tinny. If you want your video to represent your business, you’ll want better quality that that.

Most digital cameras have a video mode, and they can take suprisingly good short videos. Check you still camera and see if it fits your needs. One big draw back to be aware of: the microphone pick up on digital cameras is usually not very good. So don’t forget the audio when you are planning your video. If you want good sound, you may need to find another way to record voice-overs or add a musical backing track.

The next choice is a Flip camcorder. These small, inexpensive camcorders take excellent video for the web. Newer models shoot in hi-def or wide screen. Again – audio is a problem. Flips do not have external microphone jacks. The sound on a Flip video isn’t terrible – but it can be echo-y and full of background noises. So be careful where you record, paying special attention to the acoustics. (Drapes, rugs, and soft surfaces absorb and deaden sound. So a video shot in a livingroom will sound much better than the same video shot in a kitchen.)

The final choice is a “real” camcorder. The question of how you plan to use it now comes into serious play. For exclusively online use (and maybe family vacations), a decent, low end camcorder can be bought for less than $300.00. Look for brand names you recognize, and read reviews carefully. You are unlikely to find a camcorder with a microphone jack in this price range, so that will still be a limitation if you ever want to use your videos in any offline environment.

Tape or Flash memory? Hard Drive or DVD?

Should you choose a camcorder with a hard drive? One that records to memory cards? One that records to DVD? The answer may suprise you.

While digital is always better in 99.9% of electronics, camcorders are still the exception. The very best quality comes from shooting to DV tape. That is because video shot on tape is uncompressed. The only limitaion on quality is in the quality of the camcorder’s lens and sensors.

Video shot to memory cards, discs, and hard drives is compressed in the camera. This means quality is already compromised even before you begin editing. When you edit that compressed video, you’ll compress the already compressed video for a second (or third or fourth) time. Depending on the quality of the compressor and format used, you can begin to see “artifacts” almost immediately. They may appear as square drop outs or jagged edges or other visible imperfections on your video. The more it is enlarged (i.e., on a 42″ high definition TV screen instead of in a small 320×240 window on your PC monitor), the more obvious the problems will be.

So you can see, there is no simple, one size fits all answer to “Which camera is best.” Are you willing to sacrifice some quality for the convenience of recording to flash memory? Will poor quality discourage high end buyers who might otherwise have been interested in your products?

Better Qualty, Bigger Expense

Knowing your audience will help you choose the right camcorder. If a low end camcorder is not for you, you still face all the same questions: tape or flash memory; CCD or CMOS sensors; external mic jack, etc. Fortunately, at this end of the scale, the choice is pretty simple. There aren’t many camcorders that record in hi-def and have external microphone jacks. In fact, you are basically looking at Canon and Sony.

Here are my suggestions:

If you are willing to spend the money, get the Canon VIXIA HV40 HD HDV Camcorder with 10x Optical Zoom. It has everything you need for first class video, including an external microphone jack and stunning hi definition video. If you can’t afford that price tag, take a look at the Canon VIXIA HF200 HD Flash Memory Camcorder with 15x Optical Zoom. Although it records to memory cards instead of tape, it still takes great footage for several hundred dollars less. It also has an external microphone jack and excellent Canon optics.

Next – Microphones

Throughout this article, I’ve emphasized the ability to use an external microphone with your camcorder. Microphones come in a variety of shapes, from tiny clip ons to overhead boom mics with big fuzzy covers. They can be wired or wireless. And they range from $25.00 to several thousand dollars in price.

We’ll look at mics more closely in the next article – but for the budget minded, rest easy. You can find an excellent microphone for less than $40.00.

Please look for Part 3 of this series to learn which mics work best with which camcorders and in which situations.

Tags: camcorder, canon, flip, You Tube

On Monday, we will be drawing the name of the winner of the How to Make Money Online With Free Web Sites Giveaway contest.

The contest is open to any member of the Web Sellers Circle - even the $1.00 Trial Members.

You can find full details and rules here: Register To Win

In a nutshell, here’s what’s happening:

You supply the domain name and a web host with CPanel. We’ll do everything else

We’ll

• Help you choose a profitable niche
• Help you sign up for a Google AdWords/AdSense account
• Help you sign up as an Amazon Associate
• Help you create a Commission Junction account
• Help you register for eBay’s Partner Network
• Build a web site using WordPress
• Optimize the web site for best Google rankings for your longtail keywords

In return – you’ll own the web site and keep all the money generated through affiliate links!

What’s the catch?

1. You must be a member of The Web Sellers Circle to be eligible ($1.00 Trial members are eligible)
2. We cannot guarantee your acceptance in any 3rd party affiliate program (Amazon, EPN, CJ etc)

Nor can we guarantee that you’ll make lots of money. In fact, it is rare to strike it rich with just one web site. But by working with us and observing how to build a site, you’ll have all the tools you need to add another 5, 10, or 100 such sites to your web hosting account. The more you do – the more potential you’ll have to make a tidy affiliate income.

So don’t miss this chance to put the Web Sellers Circle to work for you. There just isn’t a down side.

Tags: affiliate income, web sellers circle

I  have been using Camtasia since version 3 was new. I have made hundreds of hours of screencasts for myself and for others.

I receive many requests for help with Camtasia and have frequently heard, “You should teach a class.”

So I am wondering – should I teach a class?

I’ve created a brief (6 question) survey to help me figure out if there is any interest in an in depth Camtasia class. No risk – no obligation. But if you might take such a class, please take the survey.

Click Here to take survey

Tags: classes, screencasting, survey

Overly Complex and Expensive?

Making videos of any kind – whether Camtasia training screencasts, video for You Tube, flash videos for your own web site or blog, or How to DVDs for sale on Amazon – can be dauntingly difficult if you don’t know where to begin. But don’t despair.

Although video production is full of unfamiliar jargon and new (to you) software and equipment, learning the fundamentals of video is surprisingly easy once you dive in.

Here’s all you need to get started:

A clear vision of your project.

Notice, you don’t start off buying a camcorder or editing software or a new computer. You start of with a pencil and paper and you write down an outline of your project. This will be no different than planning any other project. You’ll want the answer to these questions:

• Who is your customer?
• How will the product be delivered?
• How can you simplify your project?
• What need are you filling?

When you can answer those questions, you’ll know exactly what sort of hardware and software the project requires. For instance, if you are planning to make a video demonstrating how to use the GoogleBase Connector with Bonanzle, you know a few things about your audience:

• They like to buy and sell products on the internet
• They need precise, easy to follow directions
• They will watch the video online
• They are unlikely to pay for this particular video

Knowing this – especially the last point – leads to the following decisions:

• For online video, you want to keep run time to somewhere around 5 minutes.
• For software demonstrations, you’ll want to use Camtasia or some other screencasting software
• You can edit and produce the clip in Camtasia, so you won’t need other editing software
• You can upload the finished video to You Tube, your own web site or blog
• You can record, edit, produce, and distribute the entire project for free

So, from a huge world of choices, you’ve narrowed down your options to a simple 5 minute demonstration of a single task that you know a lot of people have questions about. You’ve kept the project focused, so that it can be accomplished in a day (which means you are much more likely to finish it, and not just talk about doing it). You’ve removed expensive camera and lighting equipment from the equation, lowering your costs. And you’ve (maybe) added screencasting to your skills.

Notice I said you can complete the project for free, but I also suggested using Camtasia. Since Camtasia is a pretty expensive program, isn’t this a contradiction?

Not exactly.

If you don’t already own Camtasia, you can download a free, fully functional, 30 day trial copy from TechSmith. You’ll be able to produce your first video for free. After the video has been online for a few weeks, you’ll be better able to judge whether this is an area worth pursuing for your business. Will Camtasia screencasts bring in enough new business to justify buying the software? If you are still undecided on the pruchase, will one of the less expensive (or even free) screen recorders do a good enough job for the occaisional, simple screencasts you plan to make?

After completing just one short project, you’ll have new data that will help move your business forward. The trick – the single, most important piece of the whole puzzle – is just to start.

This article is Part 1 of a series on video production that is being published on the Web Sellers’ Circle. In Part 2 of this series, we’ll look at live action video and the equipment it requires.

Photo by MK Media Productions Released under Creative Commons License

Tags: Camtasia, info product, screencasting

Who Will Break The Bank?

If you were an Amazon affiliate in California, North Carolina, Hawaii and Rhode Island – you already know that Amazon has canceled affiliate programs in those states to avoid dealing with sales tax. Other affiliate programs are following Amazon’s lead. And this follows last year’s cancellation of most New York state affiliate programs.

Back in the Clinton years, the Congress passed a moratorium on internet taxes, to give new online ventures a chance to grow. It worked.

But states watched their sales tax revenues shrink as online sales took a bigger and bigger bite out of traditional retail sales. They are now searching for ways to recapture that revenue, especially as the sour economy shrinks revenue in general.

The problem is complex – more than just an “I hate taxes!” kneejerk reaction is required.

The sales tax issue can get very complicated depending on which state legislature’s latest salvo you are talking about.

Last year, Commission Junction and a number of other affiliate progams dropped all their New York State affiliates (Amazon is suing NY right now), because NY passed a law saying that having an affiliate in NY was the same as having a physical presence in NY.

To collect sales tax, a business must have a physical location in that state. Any business with an affiliate in NY was suddenly a NY based business (with some dollar amount restrictions).

Amazon’s problem isn’t whether affiliate sales were taxed – Amazon doesn’t collect taxes for third party sellers, even in Washington state. The real problem was that all of Amazon’s own sales in New York became taxable sales.

States like New York have hundreds of tax jurisdictions.  Big, populous states have state sales tax, city sales tax, county sales tax and added excise taxes for football stadiums and rapid transit and who knows what all. And the taxes change all the time.

So it isn’t just a matter of collecting one more tax – it is a huge, complex undertaking to tax each purchase based on the buyer’s address anywhere in the USA. You have to know when the voters of Back End Of Nowhere, Anystate, USA pass a .001% sales tax increase to build a new library – whether you’ve yet sold anything there or not.

As anyone who had to deal with the switch to buyer-based sales tax change in Washington state this year will tell you, location based tax collection is a bookkeeping nightmare for internet sellers, even in a small state. Multiply the problem by every single, tiny tax jurisdiction in the US – and the scope of the looming problem becomes clearer.

WHY THIS MATTERS EVEN IF YOU AREN’T AN AFFILIATE

Each state legislature is trying to deal with this piecemeal right now, and it is a horror show. Whatever your preferred solution (and we have to admit, internet sales are a tax drain on local economies – whether we support sales tax or not, someone has to pay for schools and roads and sewer systems), the solution needs to be national rather than local if it isn’t going to strangle business entirely.

If you are an internet seller – even if you are only a small affiliate of Amazon, this is your problem as well as a problem for big retailers.

Here’s a peak at what independent sellers may soon encounter. In Western Washington, the population is concentrated in King County (Seattle) with smaller cities and towns going south into Pierce County (Tacoma) and north into Snohomish County (Everett). All three counties have different tax rates. And different cities and towns within those counties also have different tax rates.

If you have a physical business, you know the tax rate for your location and that one rate is all you need to know. But if you have an internet business, you need to know the tax rate where your customer lives, not where you ship from.

The town of Bothell straddles the King/Snohomish county lines. Some Bothell addresses are taxed at a higher King County rate. Others are taxed at a lower Snohomish County rate. Zip codes won’t tell you which county tax to apply – because the county line actually goes right down the middle of some streets. You need to know which side of the street your customer lives on!

This drives Washington state businesses wild. But at least we know the problem exists. Now imagine you are an internet seller in a small town in Indiana who has never heard of Snohomish County, let alone the city of Bothell.

How are you going to find the correct tax rate? Will your sales tax database have to be accurate down to the level of individual street addresses?

Internet sellers need to get on top of this issue, somehow, soon.

Photo by danielbroche Released under Creative Commons

Tags: sales tax

Bluehost.com has a limited time offer that is an amazing bargain for anyone who wants to start or move a blog, web site, forum, or Google AdSense page(s) – or any combination of all of the above.

Bluehost’s normal price for unlimited domain with unlimited bandwidth is $7.95 per month. The sale price is

• $4.95 per month with a 12 month contract
• $3.95 per month with a 24 month contract

BlueHost uses web standard LAMP servers – Linux, Apache, MySql, PHP – with Fantastico and Simple Scripts so you can host a WordPress blog or a SimpleMachines forum with just a couple of mouse clicks.

I’ve hosted my sites with BlueHost for years, and I recommend them from experience. If you want to take advantage of this offer, click on the banner below.

It is an affiliate banner and I will earn a commission if you click on it. But that’s not the primary reason I’m mentioning this offer on this blog (which is hosted on BlueHost). I recommend BlueHost because they are reliable, inexpensive, and they have good customer service.

If you’d prefer not to use an affiliate link – just go directly to www.bluehost.com and sign up. You’ll get the same offer at the same price either way.

And either way, it’s too good an offer to pass up if you need a hosting service.

Tags: bluehost

If you have a blog or web site, you have probably spent time trying to crack Google’s secret code.

You want visitors, so you want to rank well on Google. There are plenty of SEO’s ready to tell you exactly how to do that. Some are reputable, some are sleazy, some are incompetent. Then, there is Matt Cutts – the Google guy himself.

Matt has a series of short videos on You Tube answering questions about web site optimization. You can find out whether too many H1 tags will hurt your ranking, whether excessive use of no follow tags will hurt your ranking, whether great content trumps mediocre links.

The channel is called Google Webmaster Central and it is well worth a subscription.

Tags: google, seo. webmaster tools, web site optimization

Of all the videos I have uploaded to You Tube, none has been as controversial as an innocuous demonstration of how to use You Tube’s Audio Swap. It has more views and comments than all my other videos combined. What’s so fascinating about that video?

Well, nothing, really. It’s the topic that has blood boiling.

You Tube sometimes yanks videos that violate copyright law.

Kids (mostly) want to use their favorite song as a soundtrack for their latest video, and record companies want You Tube to pay royalties or remove copyrighted material.

As a compromise, You Tube introduced audio swap – a limited (and admittedly feeble) collection of royalty free music that can replace your illegal audio track.

This is not popular with people who are heavily invested in their music.

However, if you are invested in your business rather than in your background music, you probably want to avoid Take Down notices and other copyright problems.

American University’s Center for Social Media has plenty of material that will help guide you through these stormy waters. They’ve just released an excellent new video called Remix Culture: Fair Use Is Your Friend and a Code of  Best Practices in Fair Use for Online Video.

Watch the video then download the Best Practices Guide.

h/t to WebUniversity Blog

Tags: Copyright, fair use, You Tube

Stones Optional

Do you shiver from a scummy feeling at the very mention of affiliate marketing?

Does the topic bring SPAM, ClickBank, and Satan to mind?

It doesn’t have to be that way.

Advertising and marketing are essential parts of selling – cheating and scamming are not. You can keep your integrity and make a few dollars by following simple guidelines (and you already know what they are).

1) If you wouldn’t promote it for free, don’t promote it for money.

2) Believe every word you write – don’t hype an affiliate product just to boost sales.

3) Be transparent – let your readers know you are an affiliate.

4) Don’t shill for products you don’t use.

5) If you would be ashamed if your customers, clients, readers or friends found out you were doing something – don’t do it.

I was inspired by Aweber recently when I visited their site. They were promoting a service that their subscribers could use. They had two links: one a clearly marked affiliate link and the other a bare link for those who didn’t want to use the affiliate link.

What a brilliant idea.

Is there a clearer way to say, “I would promote this even if I weren’t getting paid,” than to offer an unpaid link to the product?

Is there a clearer way to demonstrate that you have your customers’  best interests (and not your own monetary interests)  in mind?

Treat your clients with respect. Tell them the truth. Trust them to make a decision that can benefit both you and them.

If you do that, you won’t be making excuses – but you may be making money. Win/win.

Photo by seier+seier+seier Released under Creative Commons License

Tags: affiliate sales

Adapt While You Still Can

Change happens rapidly.

Sometimes you go along, very successfully, doing what you’ve always done – doing what has always worked – and suddenly – BAM! – the tipping point is reached.

Overnight, it doesn’t work at all any more.

You are too late and too big and too invested in what you’ve already done to change.

Instead, you keep doing what you’ve always done… and you slowly become irrelevant.

Change creeps up on you and you never notice until it’s too late.

You’re successful. Your competition is nothing but a pack of annoying, yappy dogs, sqarming around your ankles. No one can challenge your pre-eminence.

Until that day that the new market you thought was a fad becomes the only game in town. And you are so far behind, you’ll never catch up… because all your energy went into securing your spot as #1 in the game no one plays anymore.

You’re Small – Be Nimble

You’ve seen big businesses and mighty institutions fail. Not just banks, but more to the point – auto companies, newspapers, broadcast TV, downtown department stores, computer big box chains…. the list is long and frightening.

The one thing they have in common is an inability to adapt.

They captured their market and then they protected it from the armies they’d already vanquished. They were blindsided by the real challenge, which came from nowhere.

They were too slow to change, too big to adapt.

Never Get Comfortable

Although the hype and triumphalism around all things Web 2.0 can be hard to take, something different is clearly happening.

• The mass media is doing a wretched job of covering Iran – but Twitterers are sending reports from every street corner in Tehran.
• Major metropolitan newspapers are disappearing, while blogs proliferate.
• Retail chains disappear, online shopping grows, but established online giants like eBay continue to lose market share.

You, as an independent small business owner or information product producer, are in the perfect position to benefit from the shake ups and the chaos, if only you are ready and can change directions in an instant.

No one really knows what will happen next year (or next month).

• Will Google still rule the universe?
• Will the changes they are making to their ranking algorithms lock out the little guy – or will they rocket you to the top?
• Will blogging become so mainstream it’s boring and people stop reading?
• Will Amazon turn into the online Wal-Mart or will some new business model take them down?

I certainly can’t predict – but I do know that trends are easy to spot if you are watching for them. And easy to exploit if you are not afraid.

Don’t be tomorrow’s CNN, forced to turn to some kid with a cell phone and a Twitter account to do your job.

When you see a trend, divert resources to it. Be ready to catch the wave as it builds. Learn, investigate, invest. Don’t just be the leader in your niche – be a leader.

Photo by Lin Pernille ? Photography Released under Creative Commons License.

Tags: change, media, social media, twitter