It’s impossible to deny the benefits of producing online video. Everywhere I look I am seeing articles, statistics, and blog posts about the increasing effect video has on traffic, sales, and search rankings. And yet, many marketers are reluctant to employ this proven marketing strategy.

I was just watching another amazing webinar by video gurus Nick Logan and Matthew Miller when I realized that so many beginner bloggers are ready to dive into video marketing yet the only think holding them back is thinking  they need to spend hundreds or thousands of dollars in video editing software to get started. This is NOT TRUE. With they help of Linc Wonham, Associate Editor of Website Magazine, I have added a list of five Free Online Video Editing Tools to help you get started in the wonderful world of video marketing.

JayCut

Visit JayCut Video Editor

Business users can create marketing videos or product slideshows quickly and simply with JayCut’s online video editor, which is browse based and can run on mobile devices. The editing functionalities include the ability to remix and trim videos; add music, transitions, effects, captions, subtitles, automated transcoding and one click export to YouTube and Facebook. JayCut’s video editor is a free tool, and the Swedish company offers an array of additional, fully customized Web video services.

Kaltura

Visit Kultura Video Editor

More than 60,000 Web professionals use Kaltura’s flexible open-source online video platform to enhance their websites and market their businesses. Among the company’s many offerings are two free online video editors, the standard and advanced versions. Both include a robust set of editing features, but highlights of the advanced editor not found in the others mentioned within this post include video and audio layers, timeline-based editing and a library of effects, overlay and transitions.

Adobe Premiere Express

Visit Premiere Express

This is another free tool specifically designed for newcomers to online video editing, allowing users to create videos in minutes without investing in Adobe’s higher-end video products. All you need is a Web browser and Adobe Flash Player to reorder, split and trim video clips, add music, transitions, and titles, and mix in photos, graphics and animation. The drag-and-drop controls are perfect for a beginner in video editing, and you can edit your videos from any Internet connection and share right on many of the popular sharing sites using this free online video editing tool. To start remixing, set up a Photobucket account and start remixing video instantly! Just sign in and go to the “create remix” link at the top of the My Albums page.

Movie Masher

Visit Movie Masher

For free online video editing, users can go to this site and download free online video editing tools that will enable them to trim, composite and timeshift video, mix and fade multiple audio tracks, add effects, transitions and titles. Then an XML API can be used to further customize the tools by colorizing and repositioning the panels, reskinning and binding interface controls, reconfiguring bundled effects and integrating with CGI scripts. Edited video can then be deployed to any site for free under an open-source license.

Pixorial

Visit Pixorial Video Editor

Another free, browser based tool, Pixorial’s simple online video editor allows you to assemble the footage in a storyboard and merge clips together with transitions and titles. The site gives you 10GB of storage space for your video files and the capability to upload 800MB of files at a time., including AVI, FLV, MP4, MPEG, DV, and WMV. Users can download the edited videos onto their own sites, post them across social networking sites and order DVD copies from Pixorial for about $10 a piece.

Overall, there are five free online video editing tools to get you on the road to video fame!

In early January 2010, Hungry Bear, also known as known as Paul Vasquez, spent an hour videotaping, and marveling at, a beautiful double rainbow at Yosemite National Parks. His reaction to the rainbows have made this video nearly an instant hit with currently 13.2 million views on YouTube. See the double rainbow guy’s reaction video below.

His love for rainbows and nature has ultimately gained him exposure on popular television talk shows and most recently his very own Windows Live Commercial. All because of a simple video he record while being passionate about something. Watch the Windows Live Commercial starring Hungry Bear below.

I was not shocked in the slightest when I saw that he was able to land a deal for a commercial after seeing how much instant exposure he has receive just through YouTube. What does this tell me? That no one should every doubt the fact that their videos can go viral. You just need that special element to make them unique and attractive. Don’t be afraid to express some humor into your videos or to really share some information that people are looking for. Share what you have to offer because there will always be out there looking for it.

Yosemitebear Mountain Giant Double Rainbow 1-8-10

“Double Rainbow” — Windows Live Photo Gallery

“Meet Bear” — Windows Live Essentials

If you have a Digg button on your blog or website that lets your visitors easily submit your content to the bookmarking website, Digg.com, and it’s no longer displaying properly, don’t worry because they are aware of the issue. I follow their Developer Blog and they have listed this as a known issue.

After doing just a bit of digging (no pun intended) into the code, I realized that the JavaScript file that the Digg Smart Button Widget is dependent upon has gone missing and only receives a “Http/1.1 Service Unavailable” error message. Once this file has been repaired, I assume that the Digg Smart Button will be live once again.

This is great news for me since I have added this Smart Button to the Empowered Theme‘s floating widget. So if you are currently running the WordPress Premium Theme for Empowered Blogs, than you may have noticed the Digg Button isn’t showing up but don’t worry because it will reappear once Digg fixes their issues.

Update: Digg.com has just published that this issue is now resolved.

Source: http://developers.digg.com/known_issues

Wisestamp

This addon easily adds a custom signature to your emails and email replies. Set it up to append a link to your latest blog post and links to your social media accounts.

SearchStatus

SearchStatus is a toolbar extension that allows you to see how any and every website in the world is performing. Designed for the highly specialized needs of search engine marketers, this toolbar provides extensive search-related information about a site, all conveniently displayed in one discreet and compact toolbar.

SimilarWeb

Discover related blogs/websites while viewing your favorite blogs and use this tool to help your comb your competitor blogs.

SEO for Firefox

A well known SEO analysis plugin for Firefox that has a wealth of  features to help you optimize your blog’s search engine optimization and keywords.

Adding Plugins/Addons to Firefox

If you aren’t already utilizing the huge library of wonderful addons for your Firefox browser, then you need to get on it and start taking advantage of some of these great tools out there. Note: This does not mean that you must go out searching for every Firefox Addon you can find and installing it to your browser.

Discover Five Firefox Plugins for Internet Marketing

I am really excited about all of the feedback I have gotten about my brand new WordPress plugin and the latest product in my Internet Marketing Arsenal for becoming a Blog Rockstar.

Click Here to see Clifton’s Lightbox Plugin in action.

Watch the video and listen to me talk about the features of my popup lightbox plugin for WordPress. After downloading and installing the plugin, you can set up your option by adding a photo, web copy, and your autoresponder optin form.

Adding an affiliate banner to your sidebar

Another tutorial for those using the Empowered Theme for WordPress. A great way to utilize your side bar and your blog’s traffic is to offer great affiliate products within the side bar. The Affiliate Widget built into the Empowered Theme makes that super easy. You only need to upload the affiliate banner (or copy the Image URL), add it to the widget. Add your affiliate link and save.

Check out the video below for more details.

Readers want to see you.

I follow so many blogs and read posts by some amazing authors but there is almost always something missing, their photos. Humans are very visual beings and we enjoy watching other people. When I read a great article on a blog, I like to have a visual of the author, not to judge their appearance but to create a better of understanding of who the author really is offline. We may have additional common interests and even strengthen my commitment to follow their future tutorials and posts.

People love looking at photo galleries.

Some of my more popular pages within my blog are the photo galleries. It gives my readers a glimpse into my life and understanding of who I am and the life I live. I am not just some kid hiding behind a blog and my words but I am a family man who loves to share his knowledge of blogging and internet marketing. That is something you can see in my photos and I take great pride in that.

I put together a video on how you can also take advantage of the photo gallery function within your WordPress blog. If you like, please share with your Friends on Facebook and Followers on Twitter.

Utilize more of your blog

An under utilized tool within your blog is Links. You can use this function of WordPress to categorize and organize your links and easily display them within your Widget areas. Some great examples of ways to use your Links would be to exposure your visitors to affiliate programs through text advertising, recommend your favorite blogs, or keep some static links in your side bar to some of your most popular blog posts.

Check out the video below where I show you how to use your Links function and even add them to your widget areas.

If you like, please share with your Friends on Facebook and followers on Twitter. Let’s share the love.

I hear this question so often that it could turn it into a full time job. Then again, I won’t have any time left for my family or myself…and that isn’t even the worst part. The worst part is that so many people entering the blogosphere just don’t know where their resources are located. Of course there are people like me and others out there ready to coach you and answer your questions but imagine the thousands of people out there asking us so many questions everyday…there are a lot. That is okay, but it may take us a while to send back an answer. Or worse, you may not have given us enough information to answer your question in full or correctly which may cause for another few more days to receive a reply.

Get your answers right now with Google

There are so many resources available to find the answers to your questions about WordPress. I try my best to post video tutorials and blog posts that answer some of the more popular questions I receive so visiting my blog often is a great WordPress resource. The #1 resource for finding answers to your questions is Google.com. My motto is Google It. I often feel bad when someone asks me a question about WordPress and it takes me a few days to reply with a simple answer that they could have simply searched for using Google and had their answer within a few minutes.

There are several other great resources available for answers to your WordPress questions. I put together a quick video showing you the built in Help function of WordPress and that you can often find the answer you are looking for within WordPress Support Forum or Documentation. Remember there are millions of people using the same publishing platform you are using, chances are good that you aren’t the only person asking that question or having that problem. They may have asked your question last week and already received the answer in the Support Forum and all you have to do it look it up.

Life is simple, when you make it simple. :) Share with your friends.