One thing we are really trying to do at Marketing ICE is teach the exact things we do in our own efforts.  As our members know there are a ton of blogging lessons on Marketing ICE and there is a reason we started there.  Blogging is one of the easiest ways to get started fast, make connections and get links there is.  While we are going to do more and more SEO, Black Hat and Advanced videos we will still keep doing more on blogs and Social Networking.

I wanted to take just a moment to show our members a project I just launched on my personal blog Comtech News.   I won't go into the full details here, you can just read the post called

Top Bloggers - A Call for Guest Posting

to learn all about it.

Basically it is pretty simple though I made a list of my 25 favorite bloggers who talk about business, marketing, internet marketing and sales.  Each has an opportunity to submit a guest post to my blog.  Some are huge name bloggers and some lesser known.  The beauty of this post is

1.  I am seeing some of these big name bloggers on m blog already, getting even a mention from some of them can really do a lot for your blog.

2.  Those who submit a guest post will add unique value to my blog

3.  Some of the lesser known bloggers are now associated with some big names 

4.  I will forge new friendships and relationships 

5.  My readers now will learn about new and really cool blogs

The key to this is I listed 25 bloggers but I am only accepting 15 guest posts.  So those listed have an incentive to claim a spot.  Additionally I did contact any of them directly, I simply put their blog names and proper names in my Technorati Tags and gave them a link.  Many people monitor thier links and own name in Technorati and like Google blog alert.  So I am relying on that to reach my guest bloggers.

So far as I know I am the first person to do something like this.  That makes it also creative and opens up things like Digg and PlugIM on that note if you read the story please consider plugging, bumping or digging it.  There are buttons for that at the bottom if you would like to.

So the bigger lesson here for everyone is about creativity!  Think about the techniques and skills we teach at MarketingICE, everyone is learning the same one, the key is the creativity you bring to the table, what ideas does my project give you or what ideas can you apply to our other training videos?  

Try to think of some creative things you can do that have never been done before.  Many times it is nothing more then using an old concept in a new way.

Again you can read my post about Guest Bloggers at Top Bloggers - A Call for Guest Posting. 

One very important thing to understand though is this, that list I made was not trumped up to get big name folks.  They are all actually blogs I have read for a long time, I find them all to be among the best there are available.  So if you try anything similar to this remember don't do it as a marketing thing only, be genuine.  The internet can seem like a big place but its communities are a lot like a small town.  If you are sincere you will do very well if you try to trump thing up, well, word gets around and fast.

~ Jack Spirko

Technorati Tags: blogging, blog, social networking, digg, plugim, bumpzee

OK members we heard you!  FTP is a very basic skill that any webmaster or anyone doing any work with a web site needs to have.  We have had a great mix of new users sign up from rookies, to amateurs, to novices and even experts.  We have tried to keep the blend of material right for everyone with our production schedule but we seem to have be a bit light on teaching the basic skills that many very new marketers.

So while we are about to really ratchet up some of the more advanced and more black hat techniques on one side we are also trying to add some very basic videos for rookies to get a good start and foundation with.  The most requested skill we have been asked to teach thus far is basic FTP.

So I have done a video on How to FTP and How to CHMOD Permissions with SmartFTP.   As I write this Ben is adding it to our table of contents and to our navigation menu.  This video is of course available to our paid members.

If there are other basic skills you would like to see us add to our rookie skills section, please let us know what they are, just comment below or suggest them in the members only forum.

~ Jack

Technorati Tags: smartftp, ftp, webmaster skills, chmod, marketing, web design, seo, sem, search marketing, seo training

I just wanted to take some time to direct you to some posts across the web that mention MarketingICE.com.  Recently, PayPerPost had a post on their blog featuring our site.  The guys/gals at PPP were pleased to see our videos on how to use their system and wanted to share that info with their readers.  Thanks to everyone at PayPerPost for recommending our videos to your readers - and to any posties that found us at PayPerPost, thanks for joining!

Also, I ran across a few other sites that have given our videos some love.  The Fit For Freedom blog passed along our Wordpress Upgrade video for all of their readers to use.  Francis Simisim also referenced our video for using PayPerPost on his blog which is about how to make money online.

I am sure there are many others, and thanks to everyone who has spread the word about Marketing ICE.  Keep spreading the word so that our community can continue to grow!

Also, I wanted to let you all know that I recently added a video explaining how to use Trackbacks and how to use them to increase your traffic as well as your search rankings.  Check it out and let us know what you think. 

Jack is on vacation so I thought I'd answer a few more questions today.

When is the price going up? 

We're not sure, but we have an idea.  We have some membership goals in mind, and once we hit that goal and are satisfied with the site, satisfied with the number of videos, and content, then we will raise the price.

Will my existing subscription go up in price? 

No. Your subscription will remain at the current price so it is a good idea to KEEP your subscription active.  Don't let it go inactive or you may have to resubscribe at the new higher pricing. 

Can you do a video on X? 

Of course! If you need a video on a specific topic you can just ask in the forum.  As long as it is something we use we'd be happy to do a video (or expand on an existing video) for you.  However if you want us to do a video just because you don't like the software we use, we probably won't buy new software, learn how to use it, and create a new video for you.  I hope you understand?

How does the affiliate program work? 

With the affiliate program you are given a special link you will use to promote our site.  When you use this link we track the visitor. We also write a cookie to the web browser. The cookie is actually good for several YEARS. We want to make sure you get credit when they signup.  As long as they don't delete their cookie your referral will be tracked.

- Ben

As we are growing we are getting a lot of questions about Marketing ICE.  Here are a few.

1.  What is the difference between the free and paid memberships.

Answer - Well, there really isn't a "free membership" at all.  We simply understand that our form of interactive creative education is hard to understand with out experiencing it so we have 12 videos that anyone can access with a simple password.  We ask you to join our mailing list for that but it doesn't make you a real "member", you have no userID that way just a password.   You don't get access to our affiliates program, our members only forum or our conference calls or coming MP3 downloads.  You get access to 12 videos and nothing more.

Now paid members get full access to the site and benefits that include

• Access to about 20 hours of video training that is growing
• A members only forum with a thread for every single video lesson
• The ability to request new video subjects
• A great affiliate program and a coming awesome contest
• Site Critiques
• Conference Calls and MP3 Audio Lessons
• More!

It is pretty simple right now we provide this for 19.95 and one benefit to our customers is knowing what others do not.  To keep the value of what we have very high we limit access.  So free members, you are not actually members you just have access to some amazing videos.  Honestly we may be giving away to many videos free and may cut back on that number soon.  Many of our paid members have actually suggested that to us.

2.   Do you have an affiliates program?  and How do I join it?

Answer - Well if you are a paid member you already are an affiliate.  Just log in to your account and click on Affiliate Program to get your affiliate link. There are also some nice banners under promotional tools.  We have been testing the program with some select Joint Venture partners to be sure it tracked accurately and everything worked so we have not really pushed the program yet.  Everything has checked out so feel free to refer others to Marketing ICE.

Some have asked if you have to be a customer to be an affiliate, the answer is yes.  This is to limit the program to affiliates that actually use the product themselves and reduce competition.  It is another benefit of being a paid member.  We currently have no plans to change this policy in any way.

3.  Is there a JV (joint venture) program for people with large mailing lists, etc? 

Answer - Yes we pay a higher JV commission along with some other benefits to JV partners.  A JV partner must have a verifiable large mailing list or be able to organize a teleconference with a minimum attendance of at least 100 people.  We'd love to help you promote our site by hosting a teleseminar or webinar with your list. We have the software to host webinars up to 1000 users and teleseminars up to 250 users. If you can guarantee at least 100 users on the seminar we are more then willing to set you up as a JV.   We do expect JV partners to produce sales so we generaly give a reasonable quota for the first 60 days for our JV's to maintain the higher commissions and other benefits.  

4.  How often will you be adding new videos?

Answer - In the last two weeks we added about 8 new videos for another 3 hours of training.  We try to add a few videos a week and have no plans to change that.  Figure on 4 a week and consider there are about 26 weeks left in the year and we will be adding  over a hundred new videos just this year.  Honestly we may do far more.

The important thing to understand is Marketing ICE will never be a static system.  From the interactive forum to the new videos each week we will aways grow, expand and adapt.  Much of what we produced initially was pretty basic, that was to lay down fundamentals.  We are moving into more and more advanced topics as we go forward.  We will always keep Marketing ICE useful for the new user as well as the most advanced users. 

5.  Do you teach Black Hat Techniques?  If so why?

Answer - Yes and because they work!  Honestly there is a bit of stuff on the site now that is black hat depending on how you define black hat.  We don't do anything illegal and don't teach anything that is illegal either.  Some people think that is black hat it is not.  We don't spam and that is not black hat either.  Black hat is "manipulation of systems to artificially influence the search engine results".  That means when you take any specific actions to try to drive your rank up you are getting into the black hat relm at least the way a pure white hat would define it.

Now those in the know, understand that real black hat is much more systificated then that!  We have as I said in the last question started with a lot of basic fundamentals.  We are going to be adding some real black hat techniques very soon.  Some things like rotational content, rss feed manipulation and more.  The reality is a lot of gurus and experts claim to be white hat, they teach white hat, etc.  Yet any SEO worth the salt in his body knows all the shades of SEO, be they white, gray or black!

Honestly lots of people would prefer that we not teach this stuff, not because it is bad but because it works and they want as few people to know as possible.  Our mission is to make our customers the most successful marketers in the world and we can only do that by telling you everything we know that WORKS.  So white, black, gray, what have you, if it works, we will teach it.

Now we will tell you when we are showing you a real black technique (not that it will be hard to tell).  Black hat is like a gun , it is a tool, it works and at times there is nothing better for the job at hand.  However, like a gun you can hurt yourself with out proper training and safety.  So we will teach you black hat techniques and how to mitigate the risks as well.

If you have any additional questions just post them here, we are happy to answer them.  However, it will be Ben and Mark answering for the next week because I am taking a well earned week at my vacation home in Hot Springs Arkansas.  A full week with no internet access!

~ Jack Spirko

Technorati Tags: seo, blackhat, black hat, seo blackhat, marketingice, internet marketing, arkansas, jack spirko, affiliate programs, affiliate marketing