• boast search engine rankings
• increase sales or conversion rates and
• define the popularity of a blog or web site

However, learning how to be an online copywriter comes at the cost of educating yourself, which can be very expensive.  Just a single copywriting course can range in price from hundreds to thousands of dollars.

That’s why I’m so excited about the upcoming Online Copywriting 101 telesummit.  For just 10 days, from September 1 – 10, 2010, you can get free access to 10 classes on various online copywriting topics.  All you have to do is sign up.  Then each day for 10 days, you will have access to one class for 24 hours, completely free of charge.  You do NOT need to give out any credit card information to sign up.  Just your name and email address and you are set to go!

The class line up is as follows:

• 9/1/10 – Copywriting’s First Commandment: Know Thy Target Audience
  by Karon Thackston
• 9/2/10 – Copywriting Basics & Planning: Two Steps Pros Never Skip
  by Karon Thackston
• 9/3/10 – Sales Letters 2.0: More Than Long, Scrolling Copy
  by Michel Fortin
• 9/4/10 – Busting the Press Release Writing Myths
  by Shannon Cherry
• 9/5/10 – Blogging Basics That Make All the Difference
  by Lynn Terry
• 9/6/10 – Article Writing Secrets Your Mother Never Told You About
  by Jeff Herring
• 9/7/10 – Dissecting, Diagramming and Delivering Exceptional Landing Pages
  by Brian Massey
• 9/8/10 – Applying the Science of Persuasion to Copywriting
  by Kevin Hogan
• 9/9/10 – The Myths & Musts of Writing Search Engine Optimized Copy
  by Karon Thackston
• 9/10/10 – Crafting Intriguing Headlines That Pull
  by Karon Thackston

Don’t forget, these classes are available for free for only a short period of time, from September 1 – 10, 2010, so sign up now.  You may chose to watch one class, a couple of them, or all of them.   Whatever you decide, they are a cost-free way for you to increase your online copywriting knowledge and skills.  Don’t miss out!

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Their books come in downloadable PDF format and many are also available in MOBI and EPUB formats as well so that you can read them on your iPhone or Kindle.

I own most of these books myself and I can tell you they are packed full of high quality information.  Some of my favorites include:

• The Principles of Beautiful Web Design
• Build Your Own Web Site the Right Way Using HTML and CSS
• Sexy Web Design
• Online Marketing Inside Out
• The CSS Anthology

It would normally cost $149.75 to buy 5 books, so this is quite a savings!  Use this link to access the sale.  Remember, this is a limited time offer, so buy your books today!

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In essence, Amazon gave all its Colorado affiliates the pink slip.

Amazon claims the new law is burdensome and unconstitutional. The response from the Colorado governor was that:

“Amazon is simply trying to avoid compliance with Colorado law and is unfairly punishing Colorado businesses in the process.”

This isn’t the first time it’s happened.  Amazon has shut down affiliates in several other states including North Carolina, Hawaii and Rhode Island because of similar tax laws.  This has the potential to become more and more of an issue as other states try to increase their  revenue by collecting tax on Internet sales.

Regardless of who’s to blame – Amazon.com or the government – this situation exposes a risk of doing business as an affiliate.  One can spend a tremendous amount of effort building up an online affiliate business, only to have the affiliate program go “poof” and disappear into thin air.

But, quite frankly, the risk of being an affiliate neither started nor ends with Amazon.com.  Affiliates are completely at the mercy of those running the affiliate program.  It can be pulled at any time for any reason.

While Amazon has promised to pay for any commissions earned prior to the shut down date, sometimes affiliates never get paid for what they earned.

I learned this lesson the hard way.

Some years ago, I teamed up with a friend and joined an affiliate program for a company located in Australia.  My friend was in direct contact with the president of the company.  We had his permission to use the product name in the domain names we purchased.  He was very friendly towards us and my partner spoke on the phone with him on a weekly basis.

We put in long hours and created several web sites that promoted the product.  They were all approved by the company owner.  We quickly rose to the top of the search engines and started making some pretty decent commissions, in the range of $500 – $1000 US/month.

But then the owner of the company got greedy.  He decided that he was losing out on the money he was paying to us affiliates.  We started getting late payments, then partial payments and finally, promises to pay us in the future.

At first, he claimed lack of finances to pay us. Then he claimed we stole his rightful spot in the search engine rankings.  He felt that his company web site – not an affiliate web site – should be the first listing in Google whenever the product name was searched for.

He demanded that we change the wording used on our web sites to reflect that we were affiliates.  He required us to add links from our sites to his as the official company web site.  We complied.  When that didn’t change the search engine rankings to his favor, he shut down our affiliate account.

We never saw the couple grand he owed us.  When we inquired about it, he threatened us with legal action.  A bad experience for us, and a very painful lesson learned.

Does this mean you should shy away from using affiliate programs to supplement your income?  I don’t believe so.  However, there are a couple of things that you can do to help protect yourself.

Tips on Using Affiliate Programs

1. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket. Make use of at least a couple different affiliate programs.   That way if one program goes under, you will at least have a couple others to back you up.
2. Do your research. How long has this company been around?  Do they have a history of paying their affiliates on time?  Research might turn up valuable information and help you decide whether or not you want to do business with this company.
3. Find out what system is being used to track and pay affiliates. Many companies use a 3rd party company to track and pay affiliate earnings.  3rd party companies that issue payments directly to affiliates tend to be more dependable.  Other affiliate tracking methods require the company itself to issue payments to their affiliates.  These are often less dependable as the company may decide to withhold payments or make late payments.
4. Go by your personal experiences. Apply for affiliate programs where you have purchased the product yourself and your overall experience with the company is positive.  Chances are, if they take good care of their customers, they will take good care of their affiliates.

Keep in mind that there are no guarantees when it comes to affiliate programs.  With the economy struggling, many businesses are tightening their belts and some are going under, both of which will affect affiliates.

Affiliate marketing, however, can still a good way to earn extra income.  Treat it as making an investment.  Take the time to choose wisely, don’t rely too heavily on just one source, and be aware of the risk involved.

Have you had a bad experience with an affiliate program?  Let’s talk about it!  Have some tips to share?  Leave them in the comment section below.

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Why We Hated Flash

Years ago, one of Flash’s biggest strikes against it was that it used a lot of bandwidth.  Web sites containing Flash took forever and a day to download on a slow Internet connection, but high speed Internet has become the norm (at least in most areas of the United States).

Another argument against Flash was that it was not search engine friendly.  However, since mid-2008 Google has been able to index text and follow URLs contained in SWF files.  It’s true that other search engines might not be able to index Flash, but that doesn’t have much relevance as long as Google continues to dominate the search world.

Finally, Flash requires a plug-in in order to work.  But these days, many computers come with the plug-in already installed.  If not, the user is normally prompted to download Flash and provided with a link to the download page, making it easy for most people to install it.

So why did an innovative company like Apple purposely leave out a technology that is so widely used?

Why the iPad doesn’t support Flash

As far as I know, Apple hasn’t released a statement as to why the iPad doesn’t support Flash.  However, there is a lot of speculation going on in the blogosphere.  Here’s a summary of what other people are saying:

1. Flash is a resource hog. It uses a significant amount of CPU and drains the battery.  The iPads 10 hour battery life would be significantly reduced if it supported Flash.  Mac OS X users have long complained that Flash freezes up their browser or crashes their computer.  Maybe Apple thought that eliminating Flash meant eliminating headaches.
2. HTML5 has the potential to replace Flash. HTML5 allows you to embed audio and video directly into a web page without using a plug-in. It also works along with Javascript to allow you to insert interactive animations - no Flash required. See a cool example of an HTML5 animation here.
   
3. Flash is a usability nightmare. I recently experienced this first-hand with an online shopping cart that was completely designed in Flash.  Navigation was a disaster.  I couldn’t use the back button without being forced to completely start over.  When I tried to use the search box to find an item, it stalled…and I once again had to start over.
4. Security is questionable. Flash security flaws exist that have been deemed unpatchable by Adobe themselves.  How scary is that?

Many anti-Flash commentators also pointed out that Flash blockers are some of the most highly downloaded add ons for Firefox and other browsers.  Flashblock, for example, has been downloaded more than 8 million times.  This leads me to believe that although the use of Flash has increased, not everyone has embraced it.

So the question remains:  Is Flash about to make a quick exit or are Web designers so used to relying on this technology that they will be resistant to change?  Will Apple’s non-support of Flash help force their hand?  Only time will tell.

What do you think?  Leave your thoughts in the comments box and let’s discuss it!

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“Do my videos give my customers content that is unique and interesting?  Is it valuable enough that they are willing to spend their precious time watching it?”

Compelling content that is targeted to your customer is important, even in online videos.  Content is what increases the time people spend on your web site and decreases your bounce rate.

But if you are convinced your video content is first rate and people still aren’t sticking around to watch it, there could be several other factors playing into the mix.

It could be that your viewers are in situations where they either:

1. Can’t turn up the volume
2. Can’t hear or understand the audio

It makes perfect sense when you think about it. In public places such as an office, library, or coffee shop, and sometimes even in the privacy of their own homes, people are hesitant to turn up the volume because they don’t want to disturb those around them.

On the other end of the spectrum, people are often in loud situations and environments where they can’t hear the audio over the background noise.

There are also those who can’t hear what’s being said on videos due to hearing loss.  Statistics show 36 million people in the United States alone suffer from hearing loss, with more than half of them under the age of 65. (It’s not just old folks, young people are affected, too).

If you’re thinking that there’s nothing you can do about this – that the situation is out of your control – you are wrong.  There is one very simple solution that will solve all of these issues and that is:

Caption or subtitle your videos!

According to a trial done at PLYmedia, people will spend up to 40% more time watching videos that have captions or subtitles.  The trial also showed that when captions or subtitles appeared in the video, 80% more people watched the video in its entirety compared to the same video without captions.

That tells us that captioning your videos is a powerful tool that works to keep people watching for a longer period of time.  It knocks down barriers and eliminates excuses.

If that doesn’t completely convince you to caption your videos, than this might:  It’s a good possibility that search engines will soon be able to index the text contained in videos.  They can already index the text in Flash files, so the technology to index video files is very likely just a heartbeat away.

No matter how you look at it, stats like these simply cannot be ignored, in my humble opinion.  There is a need out there that is waiting to be filled.  I believe smart marketers will be quickly moving on this information and adding captioning to their videos. Will you be one of them?

Related posts:
Should You Use Video on Your Blog or Web Site?

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