So if you’ve noticed a few problems over the last couple of days won’t worry, some features have been up and down during the redesign, and a lot of testing and tweaking was needed to make things look right in all the major browsers.

Well the good news is that the redesign is complete.  There are a few minor tweaks still to do in the background, but for you as a visitor the site is all working 100% so welcome to Online Business Logic 2.0

The aesthetic changes are pretty obvious, but there are also some changes to navigation, search and the way the site functions which should make the site easier to use, and you should now find the content you want faster.

So, hope you love the new site.  Leave a comment if you want and let us know what you think, and get ready for some awesome content we have lined up for the next few weeks…

Oh – and while I have the chance, let me just say thank you for being a visitor, and I hope the next 2 years will be even better than the last 2!

From reading emails from visitors, and comments left on posts, and also due to the changes in my own businesses, I will be changing the focus on the blog to a degree.  While it will still be focussed on online business, working from home, and building multiple streams of income using the web, my future posts are likely to be less elementary.

In the past I’ve blogged about such topics as time management, building CMS sites with Wordpress, and creating content, I believe that the majority of my readers are looking for information which is of more immediate use.  So I’ll be sharing tips and ideas to help you develop your online businesses, which you can implement today!  From great tools I’ve found online, to methods for increasing traffic or conversions, to methods for improving site design, I’ll still be sharing everything I find but many of the posts are likely to be shoerter, more to the point, and of more use to the average online entrepreuer.

I hope you like the new format, and if you do I hope you join in the conversation and leave the odd comment.  Over the next couple of weeks I’ll be sharing some background about businesses successes I’ve had in recent months, including my results from trialing the Niche Profit Classroom system which I blogged about in the spring.  I also have a freebie for anyone who uses Flash, and a way of using Twitter to actually give real results fast and increase your traffic.  So watch out for those, and add me on Twitter, Facebook or join the email newsletter to stay in touch…

It’s good to be back!

Niche Profit Classroom are relaunching with a whole bunch of new features, and for the relaunch promotion they are offering a month’s trial for just $1.

The offer runs only for the next week, and is never to be repeated so head over to Niche Profit Classroom and check out the in depth video to see what it’s all about.  You can even grab a couple of free sample videos there teaching you exactly how their “Money word matrix” system works and how to find profitable niches really easily.

If you’ve been following my blog for a while you’ll have ready about my successes with the NPC system earlier this years.  It’s by far the best coaching system I’ve come across for building profitable websites fast, and the information and support given are suitable for complete beginners to more advanced marketers.

The system includes all the core video training, plus loads of extra videos on specific subjects, software tools, monthly coaching webinars and a private forum.

If you’re at all interested in building an online income, or supplementing your existing income then do yourself a favour and head over to the site and watch some of the free videos to see just how good their conten is.  I promise you won’t regret it!

[Visit Niche Profit Classroom]

This is 100% free content, not a sales pitch for a course or product.  It’s all video based, and broken down into modules so you can pick and choose the bits you want to learn!  Pure gold…

Since March I’ve got married, launched 2 new websites, been travelling in Europe, been to one of the biggest music festivals in the world, AND been putting plans together for a new business which will launch in a few weeks time – whew!

To be perfectly honest with everything that’s happened over the past few months, it really has been a  ride, and I was unsure whether or not to continue with this blog. Well the good news is, I’ve decided that I WILL continue to post to this blog on a regular basis. In fact, part of my new business plans are to have planned, regular posts here both to share my experiences as I launch my next business, and to help me stay on top of what’s happening elsewhere online.

Over the next few weeks I’ll be ‘catching up’ a little after not blogging for so long, posting about some of the things I’ve done in my own businesses recently that you may be able to emulate, and some new tools and services I’m finding really useful. After that I’ll settle down into a regular mixture of news, thoughts and tutorials!

Anyway, it’s great to be back, and hope you didn’t miss me too much!

Bill

That is pretty much all I could say when I decided to log in and check stats on a new site this morning.  I joined the Niche Profits Classroom training program last week (You can watch a video all bout it here) and after going through the first few modules I decided to give it a try.

I followed the niche research advise, found a niche which looked profitable and did my keyword research using only free tools… That was 7 days ago today.  I found and registered a domain, and started writing my first content using the guidelines from NPC.  The first content went online about 4 days ago, which is why my reaction was “WOW!” when I found myself on page one of the Google results for one of my primary 2 word keyphrases this morning!

I’ve been building websites for over 10 years, and I’ve never had natural search traffic that quickly but today I’ve had a slow but steady trickle of tragetted visitors direct from Google – no Adwords, no tricks, just simple to follow and very powerful SEO.

I’m just hoping that this isn’t a fluke and that if I keep following the system I’ll steadily increase my traffic, and start making sales!  My sales letter and product should be online in about 7 – 10 days so I’ll post another update then, but so far this is without the best Internet Marketing course I’ve ever found…

If you havn’t done so already, go watch the free Niche Profits Classroom video

Today I’m discussing Flash files, but don’t let that put you off.  I’m starting with Flash simply because it is a skill I have – I’ve been developing Flash sites, applications and games for close to 10 years!  In fact, the whole inspiration for this series of posts was the realisation that I had a collection of Flash files sitting on my hard drive doing nothing, which I could potentially be earning money from.  Much of what I discuss today however is just as relevant to other types of media – photos, sound samples, video clips, articles… the list goes on!

Flash and Flashden.net

I’ve been earning an income from Flash development for many years, but usually on a contract basis – a client pays me to develop a site, animation, game or application.  I do the work one, and get paid once, end of story.  What interested me about Flashden however was the ability to generate a residual, or passive, income from Flash.

If you’re unfamiliar with Flash don’t worry, very simply it’s just a platform for developing rich web content.  You know the animated banners you see on sites like Yahoo or Facebook?  Well they tend to be built in Flash.  If you’ve ever played a simple game in your browser the chances are that was built in Flash too!  As I already stated, the medium is not important, but the idea is – do the work one, get paid again and again!

Flashden.net is a site where anyone looking for Flash files and components can search for, find, and buy what they are looking for easily and at a very reasonable price.  Small files cost around $2 and even large, fully featured web applications and site themes are rarely priced over $30 making the site a very attractive place for web designers and developers to acquire shortcuts to developing their next project.  The files sold by Flashden are not created by them however, rather they are developed and uploaded by a community of developers who earn a commission on their sales.

If you’re a Flash developer, or designer, chances are you have many past projects, unfinished sites, snippets of code and animation which were never used which could be of use to other people.  All you need to do is prep the files, upload them with correct descriptions and titles, and watch the money come in month after month.

How much money can you earn through Flashden?

Since Flashden pay by commission, the amount you earn each month depends on the quantity, and quality of files you upload.  By default they pay 25% of the sale price in commission, although you can choose to be an “exclusive developer” meaning that the files you upload must not be sold anywhere else – you can still sell Flash files on other sites, but the ones you sell through Flashden must be unique to them.  Exclusive developers earn a minimum of 40% commission, but this can rise to 70% and the exact amount depends on your total sales – the more you sell, the higher your commission!

Now, all this talk of “sales” and “commissions” make this sound like a sales job, but nothing could be further from the truth.  Flashden take care of the sales, and the marketing, all you need to do is provide the content in the form of useful Flash files and components.  This is a common theme which you’ll see again and again throughout this series – you use your skills to create/develop a ‘product’ (whether that’s a Flash file, photograph, WP theme or anything else) and leave the rest to the experts!

Case study of selling through Flashden

As a real life example of how this works I decided to upload some of my own Flash files and see if I could make a profit.  As a web designer, and Flash developer I’ve collected a number of files over the years which I thought people would find useful.  I decided to upload 5 as a test and see what happened – here are the results…

The upload process is very simple.  Just got to Flashden.net, sign up for a free account, and after completing a short test to prove you understand the terms and conditions (basically to ensure you are not going to violate copyright by uploading work which isn’t your own!) you can start uploading.  Each file needs a little prep work.  You need to supply the actual Flash file, a preview file which allows potential customers to see what they are buying, a small thumbnail image, and some sort of help file.  Flashden are quite flexible about the help file – it can be a simple text file, PDF, even video if you want – just so long as the customer gets some instructions on how to use the file.  You upload all of this via a simple form where you fill out a title, description, choose a category and tick a few boxes.  Once done your files are added into a queue for approval and you are updated via a control panel as to your position in the queue.  Once reviewed you get feedback via email.

I uploaded 5 files as a test and of those, 3 were rejected.  The reasons given were that 2 of the files were too similar to files that Flashden were already selling, and the other was because I didn’t give enough details about some images included in the file to prove that I was not violating copyright.  The other 2 files were approved however and went on sale immediately.

The 2 files were a Sudoku game I created several years ago for my Kwikgames website, and a simplified version of a shooting game.  You can view them at my Flashden portfolio.  I made my first sale within 24 hours, and in the first 2 weeks I had made 12 sales, and a total commission of $35.50

OK, so I admit that won’t be paying the mortgage anytime soon, but it’s a start and is a profit from files that had been sitting on my hard drive earning exactly zero!  This is from a basic commission of 25%, and I can choose to become an exclusive developer at any time which would increase that to 40%.  I’ve decided not to do that yet as I may decide to also sell these elsewhere, but if I did decide to sell these exclusively that would work out to a minimum of $113.60 per month from these 2 files… all for 30 minutes work prepping and uploading the files!  Assuming that this is an average return, I could expect over $1000 per month if I have 20 files approved.  I don’t know many people who would say no to an extra $1000 coming in every month without having to do any additional work!

I will certainly be uploading more files over the coming weeks and will report back here with updated results in the future.  There is a forum on Flashden and from reading some of the posts there, it seems that sales tend to be higher once you have more files on the site.  This is due to building up a ‘feedback’ style reputation, and also by cross linking files (you can add links to you other files in your file descriptions).  With that in mind I’m quite confident that with some effort I can generate a regular 4 figure monthly income from Flashden which would be a very nice added income stream, at a time when most people are worried about the credit crunch.

Of course, Flashden isn’t the only site which works in this way – far from it!  FlashComponents.net is another site which allows you to sell Flash files in a similar way, but more exciting is the fact that many other sites allow you to generate similar passive incomes from many other skills – not just Flash!

Hopefully this first post has given you an insight into earning an extra income from your existing skills.  If you are a web designer and/or Flash developer then head over to Flashden and sign up for a free account.  If you’re not don’t despair, over the coming weeks I’ll be discussing ways of making money from other skills including photography, programming, web design, video, animation, writing and more!  There really are so many opportunities to increase your profits online, recession or no recession, so join me for the ride and let’s see how profitable 2009 can really be!

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Now don’t tell me you can’t get something for nothing!

The cost of the call is being promoted at $77 but there are free spaces left. The call is being hosted by Joe Lavery, so it should be good.

If you’ve not heard of Matt Bacak before, he’s the guy behind products such as Secrets of the Internet Millionaire Mind and Ultimate Lifestyle Workshop so he knows his stuff!

To register for the live webinar click here. It’s not an affiliate link since this will get you free access to the call. It should be good and I can’t wait so I’ll see you there!