Dan Kaminski, of Web Video University fame has announced his “end of year” special and it’s a doozy; 3 of his most popular courses (Web Video ABC’s, Green Screen Secrets and Mobile Video Made Simple) for a mere $99.

Normally these courses retail for just over $300, but until Dec 31, you can get them for a third of the cost.

I haven’t done a full review of Dave’s Web Video University (I plan to in the New Year) but I can tell you this; I maintain a membership to it because it is a fantastic resource. If you’ve spent any time on this site you’ll know I have no hesitations about calling things as they are; I never candy-coat things. Dave’s course is simply superb. He’s put a ton of work into his products and it shows.

So if any these courses appeal to you, grab ‘em up now and save!

One of the biggest detriments to online success I have seen over the years is an unwillingness to invest in your business.

This is especially true for newbie marketers, many of whom want to see if the whole “online business” thing is going to pan out for them before they put any of their money on the line.

I can tell you from experience that this simply does not work.

When I started out online in the late nineties, I knew absolutely nothing about the Internet, and even less about marketing, advertising, or any of the net-specific skills required for earning a living online. I figured I could sort of “learn as I earned.”

Not so.

Without any practical background in fields that have “carry over” to the ‘net (like the aforementioned advertising, marketing, or business), I simply floundered around for a couple of years, wasted hundreds of hours of my time, and never made a penny.

Until I got my hands on Ken Evoy’s “Make Your Site Sell” in ’98 or ’99 (the book hasn’t been updated since 2002, but it’s still a great resource and it’s available for free here!).

When I read it, lights went on, bells rang and sirens wailed!

Read the rest of this entry »

By now, you’ve probably heard of IMReportCard.com, a site that provides reviews of popular internet marketing related products and then encourages visitors to share their own experiences with them.

On the surface, IMReportCard.com seems like it fills a pretty good niche. Who doesn’t want a impartial resource to check in with when you’re considering purchasing a new Internet Marketing related product? Who doesn’t want to read feedback and comments from everyday folks who have purchased and used the products?

The thing is, I’m a skeptical S.O.B.

That, and my main online businesses are in the body building and weight loss supplement industry, where it’s common for both retailers and affiliates to create “unbiased review sites” (which are nothing of the sort, of course) as a means to generate sales or referral income.

These affiliates frequently gloss over inconvenient truths and fail to question or investigate the retailer’s claims, instead parroting them and passing them on as “gospel” truth. I’ve made a good living over the past decade doing the opposite, because it’s both the ethical thing to do, and the only way to build long term business success.

So when I encountered IMReportCard.com, red flags started going up almost immediately…

Read the rest of this entry »

A few weeks ago, I wrote a post about Google’s newest algorithym update (now called Panda or Farmer) and my reaction to all the hullabaloo surrounding it.

Which was, of course, a resounding yawn.

Without sounding like a gray-bearded Internet marketing Gandalf, I’ve weathered zillions of algorithym updates over the years (as has any marketer who’s been online for over a decade). And I can’t think of one major upgrade – from any of the major Search Engines (SEs) – that has not provoked a reaction from webmasters. This reaction, of course, is always the same…

Outrage. Anger. Hand wringing.

Read the rest of this entry »

Argh.

I got a promotional e-mail this morning from a marketer advertising a “Secret FaceBook Loophole” that “accidentally” made its discoverer $35,000 in one month.

Yeah, I get it. Marketers have to push the envelope in order to make their offers stand out. After all, their messages are battling it out with every other message in your inbox for your attention.

But this… well, it’s plain dumb.

Read the rest of this entry »

The Internet “Traffic Myth” is probably the one most capitalized on by less-than-scrupulous “gurus” looking to pad their bank accounts.

Think about it for a minute.

How many times have you been pitched  a product, technique, or software tool that will – according to the guru in question – drive huge volumes of traffic to your web site and send sales through the roof?

I can’t even begin to count them.

Read the rest of this entry »

You’ve got to be freaking kidding me.

This morning, as I perused my e-mail over the first java of the day, I reviewed the notifications of visitor posts to my various WordPress-powered sites and sub-domains. As usual, there was a blend of both genuine comments and crap – spam comments that may have been posted manually, but were likely generated by some spammy software.

Normally, I just delete these outright, but occasionally, perhaps because of some bizarre mental defect, I actually check out the linked sites. I figure it may provide some insight into the type of marketer who considers posting spam on a moderated blog to be both an effective marketing strategy, and a good use of their time.

Anyhow, back to the case in point. Some genius going as “Jan”, posted this comment in response to my “Lis Sowerbutts’ BOGUS SBI! Scam Review” post…

“Remarkable post on the blog man, I absolutely like the look and also the feel of this excellent blog page. You write realistically well, you have got to be a aware guy. Will surely come back. Btw if you’re serious about your weight, here are good tips to follow.”

Read the rest of this entry »

It was with a great deal of annoyance that I read through Lis Sowerbutts’ “review” of the “SBI! (Site Build It!) scam.” For someone who maintains to be interested in presenting her visitors with balanced, fair and informative material, her argument is, in non-politically correct parlance, retarded.

Case in point; if you want to talk authoritatively about a product or system, it helps to have some first hand experience with it. If you do not – and to my knowledge Lis Sowerbutts is not, nor has even been a Site Build It! owner, it’s a bit difficult to allot a ton of credibility to anything the author says.

It’s also a little annoying for marketers like myself who go out of their way to be informed before opening a discussion with an audience about a certain product or service (I recently reviewed Adam Short’s Niche Profit Classroom; I paid the $67/month subscription fee, learned the system and wrote about its Pros and Cons. It took many hours of work to do so).

It’s too bad Lis couldn’t be bothered to conduct a real review of SBI!. She’d have a lot more credibility if she did. Because as things stand, she appears to be little more than an ill-informed, lazy, malicious twit with a “bone to pick.”

Read the rest of this entry »

Argh.

This morning I received yet another e-mail from some “marketer” or another, promising me the secrets of the guru’s for an unbelievably low price.

Uh-huh.

Amazing how such a large majority of marketers – even some of the most successful ones apparently – can’t seem to spell. Yep, they can dominate the search engines, suck ooodles of cash out of the pockets of hapless surfers, and effortlessly deliver truckloads of back-links to their web sites, without having mastered the basics of grammar.

Guru’s.

With an “apostrophe.”

Read the rest of this entry »

As you may have noticed, it’s been about three weeks since I last made a post here on No-BS-Marketing. Although my main “dot-com” businesses (UltimateFatBurner.com & Real-Customer-Comments.com) are always my #1 priority, I really hoped I would be more consistent posting material to this site. But sometimes, running a successful Internet business gets in the way.

And that’s the topic of today’s ramblings.

Read the rest of this entry »