Just about every business that has a website on the internet is now adding some sort of video advertising to their sites. This ranges from car dealerships, travel agents, real estate agents and even manufacturers. They realize that they get the attention of a viewer right away if a video comes onto the screen instead of a simple advertisement.

Department stores are also beginning to use video advertising on the internet not only on their websites, but also on internet advertising engines such as Google. It simple captures the attention of a potential buyer more than just a plain photo.

Imagine that you have a website that sells T-shirts, for example. A person goes to your website and sees a variety of T-shirts that are for sale. These are often pictured in photos either by themselves or on models. The prices are included, along with an ordering form. Most websites have a search option so if someone is looking for a particular T-shirt, they can find it easier.

The reason models are depicted in T-shirts is to make the product more attractive. More people are apt to purchase a garment featured on a striking model than an average person or on a mannequin. This is simply another way people are visual. They imagine themselves as the model in the T-shirt and feel that they will also look this way once the garment is acquired.

Now imagine you have this same website but decide to implement video advertising as part of your campaign. Instead of clicking on to a website that just depicts a bunch of models in T-shirts, you have a video where a model is wearing the T-shirt and talking about how much she loves her T-shirts from your company.

Or, you decide to go the humor route. A video depicts an unpopular, geeky kid wearing a white shirt with a pencil protector in the pocket and getting his books knocked out of his hands at school. He says something like “I’ve had enough of this, I’m getting myself over to XXX T-shirt company!”

The next clip shows the same student wearing one of the T-shirts and surrounded by a bevy of women. He winks at the camera and says, “XXX T-shirt changed my life – they can change yours, too.”

Corny? Yes. But entertaining and memorable. As a matter of fact, the more humor or unusual aspects you can add to your video, the more people will remember it. They may even like it so much that they post it on their blog or on “You Tube.” Then you get even more advertising for your business. For free.

Travel agents are quickly discovering that video is the way to go when it comes to advertising on the internet. More and more travel agencies are not just depicting photos of exotic places, but videos of the attractions that can be seen when visiting these places. People feel as though they are taking a trip. They sometimes call this a “virtual tour” and it is really quite effective. A virtual tour takes the viewer on a mini vacation all from their home computer. They get to see highlights of the wonderful sights, the hotels, the beaches and a lot of people enjoying themselves. This sparks their imagination. They envision themselves on the tour and it makes them want to visit as well. The more someone knows about the positive aspects of a particular tour, country or vacation spot, the more apt they are to want to book a vacation to this destination.

Speaking of virtual tours, we have already talked about real estate agents in the last chapter. Many real estate companies are now adding video advertising to their websites. Instead of just seeing photos of a home, they see the entire home, just as they were touring it.

In addition to large businesses and professionals using video advertising on the internet, musicians are learning the value of this technology to promote their music and bands. Music videos came out in the 1980s and were frequently depicted on MTV. This was a very popular concept, but soon became very competitive. More and more money was being used to make a more ‘creative video” for the band. Bands who had creative videos depicting models or something unusual were selling more music than other bands who did not have the capital to create such videos.

In the 1980s, video cameras cost over $1,000. And if you wanted the video to look professional, you had to hire a director and some actors. The music videos of the 1980s were actual commercials for a particular artist or a band. And they cost a lot of money to produce.

Today, not only professional musicians advertise by video on the internet, but amateurs as well. Video cameras no longer cost over $1,000. They are easy to use and the content can easily be downloaded into a personal computer. It is just as easy to upload a video into your webpage as it is to upload a photograph or music. So amateur musicians began promoting their bands on the internet. On MySpace, for example, there are thousands of artists doing this. They do not even have to pay for their MySpace page. It is free. They simply have to have someone film their act with a camcorder, upload it to their site and they are advertising for free on the internet. It sure beats the old days of recording demos for thousands of dollars and trying to find someone on the radio to play them.

Individuals who have something unique to sell are also using video advertising on the internet. They can do this with little or no expense if they choose a venue like You Tube. You Tube allows anyone who is a member to upload their videos for others to see. The more clever the video, the better chance of it being discovered. If you want to draw people to your website, mention it in your funny video and put it on YouTube. Millions of people use this website every day. The videos are often either e-mailed to friends or put on blogs and other spaces. Suppose you have invented a special item to sell. You have a patent but have no idea how to sell it. You have a website and are trying to promote it, but are not having much luck. You can advertise on television, but it costs a fortune; even on cable TV.

Maybe you can come up with a funny video that will draw people to your website that involves your product. You can post this on your site and then wait for people to discover the ad. You can also place it on such video websites as YouTube.

Have you ever dated on the internet? Guess what? You are advertising yourself. You are adverting yourself in the hopes of finding a perfect mate. Many people put false photos of themselves on these sites and many internet daters have grown leery of some of the ads. Yet internet dating is big business. In today’s busy world, few people have time to go out and meet a special someone. So many people are taking advantage of the internet dating world.

Some internet dating sites offer their clients a way to communicate with another individual through video instead of just plain text. For a small fee, they can post a video of themselves on the site and talk about their likes, and dislikes. In addition to just seeing a photo, a person who is interested also gets to hear a voice and finds out a little bit more about the person he or she is thinking of contacting. It is very difficult to ascertain what a person is like from a photograph. They may have a voice that sounds like Mickey Mouse and really gets on your nerves. Or they may have such an engaging smile and a sexy voice that you really find attractive. This person may look similar to many others who have turned up as your “match,” but chances are, you will watch the video and, if you like what you see, you will be more inclined to contact the individual. They will seem like a real person to you, instead of a photograph and text profile.

Car dealerships are another business that are using video technology to advertise on the internet. Car dealerships have always been known for their “over the top” approach to advertising. They sometimes run specials depicting happy customers getting great deals, or they show a video of a car being driven down the road and being able to make great turns. This cost them much less than advertising on television.

No matter what business you are in, video advertising on the internet can help you attract more customers, gain more exposure for your company and generate new leads and sales. Best of all, it is easy and relatively inexpensive to use. We will discuss how you can do this in the next chapter.

Chances are you know how to do something that other people need to be educated in. Maybe it’s as simple as you being a plumber. You could easily make videos about how to fix common household problems related to plumbing and sell them for a small fee online. Maybe even give some away as a way to build reciprocity with your audience. If you don’t have a formal education or training, perhaps there is something that you have learned recently that you could leverage into a product.

Something as simple as setting up a proper profile on twitter, YouTube, Google maps etc. might be second nature to you. But a small business owner may not have the first idea about setting these things up. That’s the business that almost anyone could do in their hometown.

It has never been cheaper to start a new business than today. You can have a free website running in less than 30 minutes. There is no excuse for not trying something new every day until you find what works for you. Your online business is no different than the off-line business world. You need to try new things constantly to see what works. Once you find something that works all you need to do is work on scaling it as large as you can.

If you are still asking the basic question, “how do I make money online?” Consider that you might really be asking “what do I want to do when I grow up? If you still don’t know the answer you should probably consider looking at additional education for yourself.

There are two major approaches to decide between to this end: working as a generalist or a specialist. There are pros and cons in deciding between the two, and both options need to be looked at seriously when you’re considering working with offline clients.

Approaching your clients as a generalist has several advantages. Namely, being able to talk about a wide variety of subjects when it comes to putting a business online is likely to pique the interest of potential customers more than just speaking on one subject. Also, offline customers may have very specific preferences when it comes to online marketing – they may be all about Facebook but have reservations concerning Twitter – and being able to address the concerns and wants of different clients can be a great boon in making you successful in this field. You may encounter problems if potential clients outright ask you for a specialty, though.

Insofar as specialists are concerned, the major advantage that they have is the appearance of expertise. If you can bring a portfolio of projects all specializing in the same area, it creates a sense of security in your clients – if you work with the same facet of online marketing all the time, you must really know what you’re talking about. Being able to speak in depth on certain topics can get your clients to open up to you more and your obvious well of knowledge certain subjects will encourage them to speak with you further. However, if you’re over specialized and can’t present a breadth of knowledge, certain clients might be turned off.

Many people find success in combining the two approaches – that is, a general knowledge of all subjects and then a specialty or two to try and reel clients in that way. Whatever makeup works well for you and your company, be sure that you understand if you’re a generalist or a specialist or some kind of combination before going in and speaking with clients. When you have mastery of what you are trying to be, your clients will pick up on your certitude. This will make getting business easier – and if you know what you’re able to offer, getting the deed done will be swifter than you ever thought possible!

When this happens, they miss out on some great opportunities. Here are just a couple of reasons why original web copywriting is not only important, but essential to the success of a web site.

Firstly, original copy helps to make the website stand out from the millions of other sites that are already up and running. Even if the subject matter is the same that is found around the Internet, orginal copy is the chance to put the data into word combinations that are a little different. When the content of the site is not a copycat of thousands of similar sites, the chances for ranking higher on searches is much better.

Along with making the site stand out a litle more, creating original copy also makes it possible to use keywords to the best advantage. This can also help to push the ranking up a few more notches in search engines.

Strategically placing keywords that are part of common searches online help to improve the chances of showing up in the top ten results. Higher rankings mean more visitors. If the purpose of the site is to market an idea or product, this is a very good thing.

Lastly, copywriting provides a creative outlet. Drafting original content makes it possible to show the world what you have to offer in the way of ideas, style, concepts and opinions. You simply can’t do that if the content is borrowed from another source.

While it is true that coming up with original content takes longer than simply cutting and pasting canned content onto the site, the benefits far outweigh the time spend in the endeavor. When given a choice between going with tired old copy that can be found all over the Internet and coming up with something new and different, always go for the fresh web copy.

In the business world, money is the definition of success or failure. That’s why it’s vitally important that every entrepreneur has a good understanding of money – even if their business is still struggling to get off the ground.

Have you ever noticed that people who have a lot of money are magnets for more money? I’ve listened to the gripes and accusations of onlookers who accuse them of being born with a silver spoon in their mouth among other things, but it’s more than that. The secret is that they UNDERSTAND money.

Financially successful people can spot opportunities to create more money in a heartbeat. They understand the money system and how it works. They know the magic of creating money. They have experience under their belt.

Understanding money is a key ingredient to becoming someone who has money, and fortunately it’s getting easier instead of harder to do just that. Think about it. A checking and savings account used to be the only options within realistic reach of the “average Joe”. If you’ve been paying attention, you know that there’s an amazing menu of options available at any bank or savings and loan company you walk into.

What does that mean? It’s time to get busy and become students of money. If we’re going to have a lot of it, we need to understand how to invest and manage it. I can already hear it… So what if you don’t have much to manage and invest at the moment! Prepare for the future

Here are 3 easy steps to get started…

1. Think like a millionaire

I know that’s tough to do, when you’re struggling just to pay for your overhead, but attitude is half of the battle. If you think like successful business owner, you’ll soon find out that money really is attracted to the “rich.”

2. Become Financially Literate

There are a million-and-one self help books on the market for people looking for information on money investments. Learn from the best. Find a few reputable authors and read, read, read. Subscribe to money magazines and “The Wall Street Journal.” Read what the rich read.

3. Make Informed Decisions

Once you know the ins and outs of the money world and have studied the successes and failures of others, it’s time to put your knowledge to work. When the opportunity knocks, you’ll be ready to open the door and greet it with a confident smile.

Your new knowledge and attitude will make you a marketer to be reckoned with. No more slouching around and pointing fingers at the rich marketer down the block. You’ll be one of them. You’ll have the tools to use every opportunity to create more success.

Basically Social Bookmarketing sites allow users to create a set of content bookmarks. These bookmarks are organized by tags, which are (usually) arbitrary words or phrases the user can assign to content. This gives the user a way to classify, rank and organize content using tags. The most popular Social Bookmarking Site is del.ici.ous, which has millions of users.

Social Bookmarking sites have an intrinsic advantage over search engines and other bots — people choose what to bookmark rather than relying on a program to categorize and qualify content. There is an implied quality in something that someone has taken the time to select.

Social Bookmarkers read other people’s bookmarks and add them to their own if they like them. There are also RSS feeds so people can see what others are tagging, which I think is really cool, and a textbook example of viral marketing.

About 4% of my referrers this month are del.icio.us related, including .8% off the home page, meaning that people click on my link when they see it pop up in their RSS feed. I get a goodly amount of traffic from technorati as well, but I would call that site a business bookmarking site, so I’m not going to mention it here.

I only provide a facility on AffiliateBlog for del.icio.us tagging. There is a terrific WordPress plugin called Sociable that allows direct tagging for tons of Social Bookmarking sites. If you don’t have it as part of your blog you should get it and install it today. This blog is being redesigned and should be done in a few weeks. The new design will incorporate Sociable.

So…what can YOU do to get the social bookmarking virus ramped up? I see two basic considerations:

1. Write good content. Darren Rouse had an interesting observation about del.icio.us items that make it to the top of the site. You can take a look, but basically he observes that lists, how-tos, technical articles and humor get to the top faster.

2. Give people the tools to bookmark easily. If you have a blog, use Sociable. It’s terrific. If you have a site, there are plenty of interesting tools that will help you make it easy for your visitors to bookmark your content. AddtoBookmarks.com is a good one.

There are Social Bookmarking sites popping up all over the place. Here are the Top 10. Where did I find them? In someone’s bookmark list on Listable, of course.

Del.icio.us

Listible

Digg

StumbleUpon

BlinkList

Spurl

Magnolia

Furl

BlogMarks

Reddit

1. Is the release brand new? If the latest WordPress release is brand new you might want to hold off for awhile. They do a great job of testing and re-testing their releases. Going live always brings up a hiccup or two, it is just the nature of the beast. If you hold off a week or two that will give the WordPress development team time to address any bugs. So for example, instead of upgrading to WordPress 3.0 maybe wait a couple days and see if WordPress 3.1 is going to come out.

2. Backup! Yeah i will admit I have upgraded WordPress before without backing up, and nothing happened. Why tempt fate though? Why take the chance. I know I never want to be the guy on WordPress support forums saying “I didn’t back up my site but…” Make sure you back up your site before an upgrade.

I usually use the cPanel of my host to create a database backup. You will have to figure out how your host handles back ups. I also back up my wp-content folder by downloading it via FTP. I zip it and create a copy to store a couple different places. Lastly, I do an export from the back office of WordPress. I navigate to Tools and then Export. This way I get a small XML file that will cover all of my pages, posts and comments.

3. Plugin Compatibility – One of the best reasons for waiting to see if a release is stable is that it gives plugin developers a chance to catch up. When you upgrade there is always the chance your plugins won’t make it. If you have a certain plugin that you find indispensable, you might want to monitor it to see if it gets updated to match the WordPress upgrade. Some plugins will work fine anyways, and if you keep an eye on the plugin homepage or forums you will find that out as well.

If you remember these three steps or rules, you will have no problem with your WordPress updates. The biggest key is to back up! Years of hard work can be flushed down the toilet if you don’t! Enjoy your WordPress site and may all your updates be smooth and trouble free!

Place the ad on the free sites. You never know, the one person who really needs what you are selling may just be looking there right now. Why anyone would ignore such a good resource is beyond me but even I know someone who has listened to the naysayers and she has not been very successful in her internet business endeavors because she has no online ad traffic. Just think of the millions of people she could have reached if she had just placed that ad on the free sites.

Learning how to write a n effective ad will put you one above the rest. If you can’t write or are intimidated by the process then hire someone to write it for you. You will need to make sure you have the budget for this.

The cheapest way is to learn to write for yourself. My advice to you is to take a look at what is out there for writing samples on the internet. If you can speak English and can hold a pen in your hand you are qualified to write your own ads. Some of the stuff you find out there is so bad it will leave you shaking your head in wonder as to how they ever got published in the first place. Some of it doesn’t even make sense!

Anyway, you can do this, I have faith in you. First, make a list of, say, ten free classified ad sites you think you can trust. Then, research them to be sure you can trust them. Make sure they are on the up and up with no funny stuff going on. When you get ready to submit your ad, be sure to follow their rules for submitting ads closely. Remember you are trying to get more traffic to you website not the other way around.

Read all of the directions before you do anything. Find out if you can upload a picture of what you are selling. This will help increase sales. The free sites may not allow pictures but check it out and if they do then put one up. It can’t hurt.

These free sites may not have categories of ads listed so your ad may get lost in the jumble but like I said if it is not out there then it surely will not be seen. Use every advantage you can find when it comes to trying to drive online ad traffic to your site. Use the free sites to start and then graduate to paid sites when the money starts rolling in.