Well, we made some rumblings that a change was coming and now here it is.  No we did not really "sell the company" so much as I and Mark purchased Ben's ownership in it.  This has freed Ben up to do some other things he wants to pursue and will allow Mark and I to make some really cool changes.  We have some immediate plans such as opening up the forum so free members can have access to it, we also plan to introduce new lower pricing that will let anyone participate.

Existing paid members will experience no changes to their accounts.  All that may happen at some point (and probably will) is your monthly fee will go down.  We also have plans to do "something cool" for our lifetime members for the initial capital they provided. The other big change will be a commitment to at minimum 8 new videos a month (again at minimum) which will begin in February.  We will also be redesigning the site to make it easier to use and easier for you to find videos as you want them.

We never meant for Marketing ICE to be just a group of courses you took once and done.  There is that aspect of course but we also want the list of videos to be huge and to become basically support on demand.   We want if you are trying to say do something in blogger or word press for you to be able to go strait to the video about that to refresh yourself.

What we really want from you is tell us where you struggle the most, what you most want to learn how to do.  What sites you want to learn to use better?  Etc.  

One cool site we just found is a new site to release press releases.  You may not know but now both PRWeb and PRLeap charge for any distribution of releases.  Unfortunately this new service does not yet allow "anchor text" links but you can do up to three http links in each release.  We tried it out with our Press Release about the new change in ownership.  You can see our Press Release here…

SEO Training Company Announces Changes in Ownership

I will be doing a video on using this new PR Service (called PRLog) very soon.  I want to again reassure our members (both paid and free) that this change will not have any negative impact on your service. We have great things in store for you, give us just a week or two more and hold on tight!

Jack Spirko 

There has been some questions lately about ICE and new content for our video training.  We have been in low gear in producing new content for a few months and we apologize for that.  There were a few issues that came up along the way, personally I spend two months dealing with my wife having brain surgery and we have had a few other issues to deal with.

What I can tell you is new things are coming very soon.  We are currently making some changes that will let us do a better job of growing and serving our customers.  New cutting edge content, a more active forum and easier to use layouts are all coming.  There will be an announcement with in a week that will make things a bit more clear and give a better view of what is to come.  One thing we can promise is every bit of the existing training, content and service will remain in place.

Please bare with us just a few more days until we can tell you a bit more.

Jack Spirko

We have had a lot of request to add some basic skill sets to the video library.  These two are the next steps in building out what we are calling Newbies Corner.  

The fist video teaches you how to use a Cpanel Host to install a Wordpress Blog.  While we have a video that shows you how to download the software and FTP it to your server and do the install in a manual fashion, if you have a web host that uses Cpanel and Fantastico it is MUCH easier to do and much faster to do.  The video is only about 6 minutes long but you will be able to actually do the install in about 60 seconds once you watch it.  That video is located at,

• Setting Up a Wordpress Blog with Cpanel and Fantastico

The next new video teaches you some really simple photo editing skills with MS Paint.  We provided this video primarly because most web marketers need to edit images at times and anyone with a PC has MS Paint, this video is located at.

• Resizing, Cropping And Text Editing Images With Microsoft Paint

I also wanted to let our paid members know that the video on Wordpress with Cpanel video is going to be very valuable to you in the future.  I am doing some "black hat experimenting" with a few really cool Wordpress Plugins.  I can't and won't really explain that on our public blog but this will be one of the first new things we will be teaching in our other new area.  We are calling that area the "Dark Basement - Beta" for the time being.  All I am saying is if you don't have a host using Cpanel you might want to pick up some cheap Cpanel (with Fantastico) hosting some time soon.

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

We have been getting some questions on how to get more traffic to your blog.

One of the biggest advantages I mention in my video, why blogs are sometimes better than web sites, is that blogs include rss feeds.  The purpose of an rss feed is to allow people to subscribe to your blog so that they can get automatically updated when you have something new to write about on your blog.

Another great element of rss feeds is that there are a lot of blog oriented web directories and search engines.  Some of them allow people to compile their own "news paper" that contains the latest articles from the blogs they like.  You can submit your rss feed to these directories because they want to compile as many blogs as they can to entice users to come back to their web site.

It's almost like the internet in the 90s when people like Yahoo allowed you to list your site for free instead of paying for it.  They wanted to build Yahoo into a super search engine so you could list your site for free, where now you have to pay $300 or more to get your site listed.

With blogs you can submit your blog or your blog's rss feeds to tons of free sites. So I just spent the last hour or so compiling a list of sites where you can submit your blog

 Submit rss feeds to these 74 blog directories and search engines.

If you have any new sites you want to add or if you have questions, please let me know!

 - Ben Fitts 

Hi Everyone,

I just had the chance to finish my series on how to outsource software using Rent A Coder.  The latest video is on how to finish your project at Rent A Coder,  pay your programmer, and rate them. 

I also uploaded a couple of new videos on Elance.  Elance is an alternative to Rent A Coder that supposedly has 2 or 3 times as many freelancers registered.  One of the interesting things about Elance is they also have categories for things like "writers", "project managers", and "part-time administrative assistants".

The Elance videos were on how to setup Elance for credit card billing, and how to list your project at Elance.

Please keep in mind that with these web sites you can not only outsource software but you can outsource web design, programming, and copywriting.  All important aspects of your internet marketing business. You may think it is expensive to pay someone else to work for you, but the prices are actually very affordable.  Check out these videos to get a feel for how easy it is to outsource software.

- Ben Fitts

Please Note This Announcement Only Effects Customers Who Joined During our Beta Period.  Anyone who joined Marketing ICE ON or AFTER May 3rd, 2007 Does Not Need to worry about this announcement.

On May 3rd we officially came out of our beta period and while we are still improving Marketing ICE a great deal we are now full bore and taking in new customers left and right.  For those new customers we have be remarkably bug free despite the massive amount of custom Programming Ben Fitts has done in the past 60 days.  But Beta members are having some confusion due to the change.

Here is the deal we opened our Beta and offered monthly cost of 99 dollars a month with a deep discount on the first 60 days for monthly beta members.  Annual members paid 495 for a full year of access.  During the Beta we analyzed the cost to deliver services and determined we could at least in the beginning sell for a much lower rate.  This required a complete change of our process though.  Here is how each type of Beta member was effected.

1.  Free Members - Your membership was simply deleted.  You can now access the 12 free videos by opting in on the home page.  Using your old information won't work.  Free members now only get access to the 12 free videos.  The forum, the rest of the videos and all the other perks are for paying members only.  When you see our new pricing you will understand why.

2.  Monthly Paid Members - We wanted to thank you for your help so we rebated our monthly members 100% of their cost of membership.  That is right their full access during beta was totally free.  Unfortunately this required us to delete your membership information as well.  You now can choose to resign up with a new account at a much lower cost or just keep your refund.  Most of our monthly members have already chosen to sign back up.  But a few have been confused by the deletion of their old account.

3.  Annual Paid Members - We wanted to do something really really special for our annual members.  So here is what we did, we gave them lifetime access to the site with no more charges ever.  There were only a few that took us up on the annual membership and they made out pretty good on the deal.  Annual members were manualy converted so they do not need to resign up or anything at all like that, they can just continue to enjoy full access and will never get another bill.

Again any members that joined in the past week or so are not effected by any of this.

Let us know if there is any additional confusion,

~ Jack