OnlyWire is a great concept. It has a number of dimensions but in essence they all do the same thing – bookmark a URL to lots of bookmarking sites with one action (you do need to have accounts at each of these accounts – RoboForm is a great way to create these). The OnlyWire options are:

• toolbar button – click it and the bookmarking begins
• WordPress plugin – all your posts automatically bookmarked
• API – use PHP to bookmark several URLs simultaneously
• button on your website for visitors to bookmark using their OnlyWire account

I have tried all of these. In fact, with the API I thought I had found the secret of efficient bookmarking.

Unfortunately, the reality is a little different. Many of the sites require CAPTCHA completion. This means logging into your OnlyWire account and completing the CAPTCHAs – this can be very time consuming (and possibly a bit of an irritation if you have to do this after every blog post.)

However, this is not the main issue. The big problem is that many times, despite what the program tells you, the bookmarking is unsuccessful. Secondly, the service is free providing you have an onlywire button on your blog or website. Every so often OnlyWire checks that the button is there. If it isn’t, your bookmarking is cancelled. Fair enough – except their checking system continually fails to identify their own button and you end up with a message like this on your OnlyWire page.

Click on the Check Status and everything is fixed. However, your bookmarking has failed. Incredibly frustrating – and this happens a lot!

Finally, there is the OnlyWire button on your blog or website. The image for the button, together with its script, is stored on the OnlyWire server. This means that for your webpage to finish loading, data has to be brought from the OnlyWire server. At times this is busy and so your page cannot finish loading.

It’s a real shame that the OnlyWire tools don’t work – great idea but just too much hassle.

Who else is really exhausted by all the ‘guru’ products on the web these days? It looks like everyone has published a course, an ebook or some other product that ‘guarantees’ making you successful. The reality is though, the vast majority of these courses are a complete waste of effort and money. However, if you are a newbie, you need some guideance – there is a lot to learn and a lot of mistakes that can be made. However, determining which programs are worthwhile can be extremely difficult. Most people end up being taken in by a product that ends in disappointment once – if they are lucky – usually people get taken several times.

AffiloBlueprint however, was not a disappointment.

Let me tell you a little about AffiloBlueprint. Created by Super-Affiliate Mark Ling. AffiloBlueprint claims to be a complete system for creating money-making affiliate sites. In the first release of the course last year, Ling actually used this blueprint to create a site before a live audience; a site that generated $500 per in profit! In this latest version, Ling builds on that same methodology, but with an improved format and much more comprehensive lessons.

So what is the ‘blueprint’? The fundamental principle of AffiloBlueprint is that you can make multiple sites, in virtually any niche, by employing an identical process over and over. Therefore you can make a whole bunch of small $25 per month sites, and then just increase your income by building lots of sites. If you then reinvest reinvest a chunk of that money back into the sites by building content and using SEO techniques, you can very quickly transform your earnings into the thousands a week – just by starting with a few $50 a week sites. This must be one of the simplest but yet most believable approaches I’ve seen for producing this level of income through affiliate marketing.

Let me share with you some course details. AffiloBlueprint is a 12 week program with fifty-five video lessons. Beginning with how to identify a profitable niche and market research, the program moves through picking keywords, creating content, building a website, search-engine-optimization, creating newsletters, analytics and troubleshooting (the troubleshooting lesson is brilliant!), and pay per click. You have to admit, pretty comprehensive!

The downside (I’m struggling here!), is that you could be tempted to rush ahead, skipping parts.. Don’t do it! Everything in this course is there for a reason, and if you follow it as it is laid out, you will almost certainly be able to develop a successful site.

AffiloBlueprint also comes with a bespoke Wordpress template, so if you have never produced a website before, you can simply use a template created by affiliate marketing experts to build your site. It is evident that Mark Ling has gone to a lot of trouble to make this product as newbie-proof as possible. Everything is really clearly explained and there is no assumption of knowledge, so if you’re just starting out, this product if for you. Should you have some knowledge of affiliate marketing however, you will still find the systematic approach of AffiloBlueprint useful. This could be what you need to build up your income or fix your under-performing sites.

All in all, I highly recommend AffiloBlueprint as one of the best affiliate educational products I’ve seen. It is not always possible to subscribe as the doors are closed to ensure that the appropriate level of service can be given to new memebers – so don’t waste any time:. Visit the AffiloBlueprint Website now!

Using YouTube For Marketing

Why Organizations Should Be Using YouTube For Marketing

* search engines love videos – YouTube videos are incredibly popular and so search engines reckon that searchers would probably itemke videos in the search results
* Google owns YouTube – your video on YouTube is itemkely to get indexed quickly and you can provide itemnks to your other sites
* videos go viral – people pass on interesting videos
* you can create / become part of a community at YouTube – people can subscribe or become fans of your videos – every time you upload a new video they will be informed – free automated marketing!!
* videos provide a richer experience, allowing you to make your point with greater impact
* videos inspire trust (assuming that you are on-screen or talking for at least part of the time)
* you can include YouTube videos in your own webpages without incurring massive bandwidth costs

Using YouTube For Marketing – Essential Tips

I am going to focus on YouTube for marketing since it is the biggest video site. Many of the same principles will apply at the other sites.

* be friends – find videos that are related to your target market and add the creators of the videos as your friend. You may then use the Share feature to share your videos with your friends
* submit your videos’ RSS feeds
* comment on other peoples’ videos
* encourage people to subscribe and vote for your videos
* join groups
* promote your videos through blogs, articles, websites, facebook, myspace etc and don’t forget to bookmark them on the social bookmarking sites itemke Digg
* tag your videos using your keywords – you can do this when you upload your video
* make your videos “remarkable” in the Seth Godin sense – ie worth making a remark about. You want your video to go viral and your traffic to skyrocket

You will probably have noticed that many of the tips for using YouTube for marketing relate to becoming involved with others. This is a principle that applies right across all internet marketing activities. It is connections that drive success.
Using YouTube For Marketing – Tools

There are many software tools that will make outrageous claims about how they can automate YouTube marketing. The problem is most of these tools will eventually lead you to being banned. Since Google took over YouTube, anti-spamming measures and penalties have increased dramatically. Many tools will fail after a couple of weeks as YouTube changes login procedures or finds new ways to identify automated actions. If you are going to use video marketing tools, ask yourself – what would make my video look suspicious? A sudden burst of viewings within a short space of time, possibly from the same IP address (or one recognised as being used by automated software) will alert YouTube. And once that happens you will be on the radar and may even be penalised when the traffic is legitimate.
TubeMogul

A very useful site that I can recommend is Tubemogul. Not only will Tubemogul submit your videos for you, it will also allow you to track your videos. And it’s free! To use Tubemogul, you will need to create accounts at each of the video sites.

And more at: using YouTube for Marketing

If you ever visit any of the article sites and search for an article on virtually any topic, the chances are you will be swamped with articles – many of which appear to be saying pretty much the same thing. How many articles do we actually need with “5 Top Tips for Saving Money” or “Secrets of Top Chefs”.

The problem is, there is no way to distinguish quality from dross. Since so much of search technology is based on keywords, the article that is likely to appear at the top will be the one that has the best keyword optimization or whose author has got most of his mates to vote for it.

I haven’t got a solution for this but it does make me wonder how Google will distinguish quality in the future. I can’t believe that it isn’t working hard on overcoming the reliance on keyword optimization and backlinking, both of which are easy prey to self-promotion.

In the meantime, keep sending in those articles, but don’t expect it to last forever.

I created a hub on this topic: article marketing rules.

Technorati Tags: article marketing, internet marketing, seo

School Blogs just became easy

If you are new to school blogs, then please visit the main site at: school blogs.

The purpose of this post is to share with you the great news about the launch of the WP.MU school blogging platform. It is not only for school blogs – any kind of community can benefit. However, it is school blogs that have seized the opportunities offered.

The platform is based on WPMU (WordPress Multi User) – exactly the same system used to run WordPress.com, hosting millions of blogs. So you can trust the technology. However, there have always been problems with WPMU. It is:

• difficult to set up
• requires many tweaks to get it running the way that you would like
• demands time for on-going maintenance
• lacks critical features

For this reason, it is not as widely used as it might be. Except by those who know about WP.MU’s solution!

As long-time users of WPMU and developers of plugins, the team at WP.MU are the experts. They have packaged their expertise, together with all their plugins, themes for customizing the look of your school blogs and video training for users, into an out-of-the box solution for school blogging.

In the past, there was an on-going monthly fee to gain access to their plugins – that has all changed. Now you can pay a single fee (and you will be amazed at how small that is) and WP.MU will do all the tricky installation for you, leaving you with a working solution ready to go. And active support forum for any snags.

Find out more about school blogs and the total school blogging platform.

How To Set Up A School Blogging Platform

The platform I recommend is from WP.MU. Built on the same foundation that runs millions of blogs at WordPress.com, the WordPress Multi User software has been tried and tested for many years.

WP.MU builds onto this solid platform, adding significant functionality through plugins, extensive design options and the easiest possible installation (they do it for you!).

There is a cost involved but I think you will be very pleasantly surprised at how little this is. Click on the image below to visit the WP.MU site and find out more.

School Blogs for Fundraising

Using the WP.MU platform for your school blogs offers tremendous opportunities to generate revenues for school projects – whilst providing an enhanced learning environment and greater sense of community.

The easiest way to generate revenue is to include Google AdSense on your blog. Contextual Google ads will appear around the blog pages and every time someone clicks on an ad, the school makes money.

Of course, you can go further by adding advertisements or sponsorship from local businesses – you have a highly attractive audience of parents and students. Plus, with the ability built into the WP.MU system to send messages to all bloggers, you can charge a premium for "special offer" mailings. As a business you might be accused of spamming – but provided you don’t do it too often, who could complain about a school raising funds?

Another option is to charge a small fee for parent blogs.

Generating revenues with the WP.MU blogging platform is exceptionally easy through the use of the customized plugins. In fact the developers of WP.MU funded development of the platform through their own public blogging system (using exactly the same software) which now hosts tens of thousands of blogs.

Parent Blogs

At first you may wonder about why parents should have blogs. The reason is: involvement, participation and communication through blogs will bring parents closer to the school. It encourages parents to recognise that education is a partnership, not something for which they cede responsibility to others.

Parent blogs are also a potential source of revenues. Firstly, parents may wish to make a donation for their blogs – the school blogs can easily be self-financing. More than this, however, parents are the first element in a potentially enormous viral network (some viruses are good to catch).

Through their (and their children’s blogs), parent can reach out to family, friends and colleagues. They can publicize school events and campaigns, whip up support for teams, spread the good news about achievements – generally use their contacts to create a positive buzz around the school.

The Benefits of Student Blogs

Student blogs are an excellent alternative to purely written work. They allow students to use a much greater range of creative skills.

On the Teacher’s Blogs page I discuss how teachers can set and receive assignments through blog pages and comments. From the student’s perspective this has many benefits:

• student blogs can incorporate video – not just downloaded from YouTube, but self-produced. For many students the technology is already in reach through mobile phones and webcams.
• using a wide range of media helps students to develop skills that will be extremely useful in their future careers
• creating blog pages encourages students to think and develop their own opinions. Of course, there are many ways in which they can ‘lift’ content from other websites but it is also easy to copy from a book
• the student blog pages can form part of an online portfolio of their achievements to be shown to parents and grandparents – and possibly prospective employers
• the blog pages are a vivid reminder of the work that they have done through their school career and a valuable revision resource

Of course the blogs needn’t only be about study. They can encompass all the activities in which the student is involved:

• sports – team and individual
• drama, music and dance
• interests – photography, astronomy etc
• field trips
• events

Through their blogs, students can feel a greater sense of belonging and at the same time share their experiences with family and friends.

All of these benefits can be achieved as a by-product of what students already do. Creating their student blog simply means working slightly differently – it does not mean extra or distracting effort.

The Benefits of Teacher Blogs

If you are a teacher, let me reassure you that teacher blogs need not involve you in more work!

In fact, teacher blogs may actually save you time. Here are a few ideas about how you might use teacher blogs:

• create a blog page around a topic area. For instance, if you teach English and are covering Shakespeare, write a few words yourself then add:
• a link to the Royal Shakespeare Company’s website
• a video of a performance – lots free on YouTube – or use last year’s school production
• images (from Google images) or from last year’s school production
• a few questions for the class to consider
• you can even produce videos yourself – very easy to do – have a look at this article on How to Create Videos for YouTube (you don’t have to put them onto YouTube)
• the students read your blog entry then add their comments or create their own blog pages (incorporating any of the elements listed above) as part of their assignments

This approach enables you to complement your class-based teaching with substantial content from the internet and proves the students with an opportunity to be creative.

This will not replace books and written assignments, but it adds variety and a richer learning experience. Students are encouraged to develop their own opinions in their blogs – and to share each others. Naturally there will be issues around plagiarism but these are easily overcome and below you can see an example of a real live teacher’s blog.

A Record of Work and Achievement

Your teacher blog and the blogs of the students provide a record of the work and achievement. This can be made public. It is often hard for people to understand what goes on in a school. The school blogs can keep parents updated on progress throughout the year – and offer a great opportunity to showcase the school to a wider audience.

Student Revision

Students can use your blog and their own blogs as revision resources – and how much more vivid will their recollection be when it encompasses so many different types of media.

An Example Teacher’s Blog

Use this link to view a Teacher’s Blog.