Oh, fear.  What would advertisers do without you? The printed medium is a bit harder to get your (horrifying) point across, especially when it’s compared to it’s filmed alternative. Yet, a lot of companies are still managing to scare the crap out of people by using those limitations and using them well.

We’ve all heard that fear is a great motivator, and while that alone has been a fair chunk of the reasons behind the campaigns using the fear to motivate, there is still some debate if the Scary PSA really does push the message. Public service announcements have come a long way in visceral horror since the days of the now famous Reefer Madness so below, enjoy a look at some of the most horrifying (printed) public service announcements.

Some of the below aren’t funny, but instead use fear to accurately make their point. There are some subjects that cannot be tackled effectively without it, then there are others who really just go over the top. Some attempt at making a great point, but unfortunately wind up more offensive than they had indented (although, possibly a bit of common sense would have prevented that).

If you have seen one that you think should be included upload it using the form below (after all, there are a lot out there). Just make sure than you tell what the PSA is for.

You will need to sign up to upload, but it’s a quick and painless process.

This was originally posted 22/12/09. Below I’ve updated some of the content, and added a few more resources. If you know about one that has helped you, feel free to mention it in the comments (even if it doesn’t fall under one of the categories).

For those designers and artists out there who may not exactly be swimming in money, it seems like the only resource out there are the free ones. Mucking through those however, can make even the strongest will snap.

Invoicing

• WordPress 3 Invoice: Handy invoicing in WordPress plug-in form.
• Side Job Track:Web-based job tracking, invoicing, reporting and project management software.

Time and Record Keeping

• Open Office: Open source office suite, comparable to Microsoft Office. While it may have less features, it’s not by too much. It has the word processor (of course), spreadsheets, and a vast array of different plugins and more (not even counting the other great things that this has).
• Toggl: Available as web based or downloadable time keeping.

Free Commercial Use Images:

A good image can make a website that much better, while not everyone may have the ability to pay for them. Below, 100% free (commercial use) stock images. There are a few websites out there that claim to have ‘free images’ and they are either far from free, or there may be some questionable legality on them.

• Morgue File: Morgue File has a ton of images on it’s website. On their home page: “for your inspiration, reference and use in your creative work, be it commercial or not”.  The image library is vast, and you may be able to find some gems in there fairly easily.
• Open Clip Art Library: High quality (and open source) vectors, illustration, and other pieces all of it in the public domain.
• Stock.chng: More free stock photos.

Free Commercial Use Fonts:

• Larabie Fonts: Most of the fantastic fonts on this website have a free version.  They are all commercial-usable as well.  One feature that is seriously awesome?  The ability to change the display/ preview text to anything from ‘The Quick Brown Fox” to the latest headlines.

As a note, be careful when making your selection as not all the font options are free across the board.  If, upon check-out you see that there is a total aside from 0, scan the list.  While I would definitely insist one buys something from Larabie, to support the fantastic website.

• daFont: While you do need to make absolutely sure that the font you are getting is free for commercial use, the notification is right above the download link.  The website has a huge selection of all typefaces.

Information and Tutorials

There comes a time that anyone from beginner to masters of their trade may need some information.  The resources below are all personal favorites and have saved me some time and given their fair share of inspiration as well.

• Typedia:  If you happen to be a typography-o-phile** this website will ruin any chance you may have at free time for the foreseeable future.  It has a ton of information about typefaces, their use, their invention, and a ton of other information.
• PSDTuts:  This website has a brilliant set-up for their tutorials.  If you want to be able to download the sample files, you do have to join.  If, however you are looking for some new ideas or information- it’s free.  Even if you do pay, it’s only $9 a month.  So, just skip two lattes and you are set.

Copyright and Legal

If you are a freelancer, you need to protect yourself.  If you are normal, more than likely you aren’t fluent in legalese.  There are still some resources for when you can’t afford a translator (namely- a lawyer).  While these are far from being end alls, they will help protect you in the short run (at least until you can afford that lawyer).

• Creative Commons:For licensing and all that ‘fun’ thing.  It’s best to protect yourself early and avoiding any damages later.  For more information on Copyright, here’s the US government’s information page: Copyright Office.
• Contracts: About.com guide for designers.  This link has a bunch of resources for contract needs.

Miscellaneous

• Color & Code Cheat Sheets: In the interest of not repeating things, a handy list of cheat sheets (from this very website).
• Blender: Open source 3D software.

If you are building a brand, or looking to improve upon a present one developing a good strategy for social media is a good investment of your time and efforts. While searching for some advice is full of buzz words that really don’t mean anything, there is some sound advice that you can follow to help out with the success of your social campaign. Personally, I cannot stand buzzwords. They are up there with office-speak with the annoyance factor, so this article with be buzzword free (you’re welcome).

• Sign up: Sure, it is obvious that you need an account first.  However, it does need mentioning. If you don’t have a website yet or not, sign up using the name you plan on using. Go ahead and register the domain if you would like, but getting the name out there will help out later.
• Put in the time: Fill out your profile and actually use it. Don’t just set it up and pretend it doesn’t exist, that will not accomplish anything. Use the service as more to just promote yourself. Use it as if you were anyone else, which means updating and interacting with others on the website.
• Link it: On your main website, list (and link) to your profiles.
• Don’t spread yourself too thin: Nobody can update a thousand different websites. So, pick the ones that you think fit best and use them. It’s better to legitimately use a few websites, than have a ton of profiles that don’t do much else besides collect dust.
• Check out your competition: While yes, it is best to do your own thing- it may do some good to check out what similar websites to yours are doing with their own marketing.
• Offer a reason to sign up and connect: If it is a special discount, or something extra just for those who follow you on the network, give them a reason to do it.
• Maintain a steady voice: If your company uses a certain type of message, continue the theme in any social networking as well. If you are funny, use humor. If you are snarky, serious, whatever else – use that. Keeping it steady among all the different areas is important.

While each company needs something different, finding a way to use social networks for yours can help to increase sales and provide a community for customers. If it’s more comfortable for you, start out small on only one or two and build up from there.

Anyone can start a business.  It’s easy; write out a few things, set up a website and domain and you are good to go.  Really, even the out of pocket expense is minimal.  One can easily find $10 hosting with a domain, and with that comes a large abundance of business ventures.

Due to this easy nature, there are of course a lot of business out there vying for customers.  Most will sink quickly, and others may falter a bit but still succeed, or maybe if there is a lot of luck at play they will succeed right off the bat and keep growing.

Having a good business, is a huge undertaking. One may be tempted to buy into one of the many fly by night operations or even employ some shady business practices, but that would signal the death knell fairly quickly. Especially considering that many of the shadier practices will do little more than alienate any customers you already have.

While there is no ‘secret’ to a business’ success, at least nothing guarded by armed men and only told to a select few, a surprisingly large portion of people will quickly become frustrated and turn to a fairly shady avenue that they may hope will bring them success.

So, what is the solution?

Patience:

It takes time to get a business to grow.  If your product or service is worth it, it will be able to last, of course you do need good marketing methods in place and some tenacity as well,

Effort:

The more effort you put into your business the more you are giving it a chance, don’t simply ‘set it and forget it’ but work on it, write up blog posts and refine your overall networking, social, and marketing approaches.

Customer Service:

It don’t take too much to lose customers and faith in your business.  Heck, a simple search can reveal a lot.  Good customer service and an approach based on the customer and their satisfaction can help you get further than anything shady can.  A good customer will stick around and come back.

1) Answer your phone.

2) Don’t make promises unless you WILL keep them.

3) Listen to your customers.

4) Deal with complaints.

5) Be helpful – even if there’s no immediate profit in it.

6) Train your staff (if you have any) to be ALWAYS helpful, courteous, and knowledgeable.

7) Take the extra step.

(Source: About.com)

I’d like to add in: Believe in your product. No matter what it is, if it is something you aren’t sure about yourself, you shouldn’t be selling it.  No matter if it is anything from furniture to eBooks, if it isn’t of any actual use- avoid it.

In a nutshell: If it is something you wouldn’t use, or even believe in- don’t push it to others.

What would you like to see in a business?  Is there something that should be avoided (or even encouraged) that isn’t mentioned? Tell about it in the comments!

Working online with a primary focus on blogging, more specifically, for the last few years has taught me a bit about the business end of it.  Considering I’m also a freelancer, finding and securing those jobs that help me pay all my bills is obviously an important factor.

I can wholly admit, I never intended to be a blogger, let alone a freelancer.  It had never occurred to me that I could even make money online, especially a livable income.  I did enjoy writing even though most of my earlier bits were considerably shorter than my present standard of about 300 words (or more).  While I did enjoy it, I wasn’t in need of a job until some of life’s little things came my way at once and I had mounting bills and other financial problems that needed to be taken care of.  At the time, I did turn to the internet and found a few editing and writing gigs that I had thought would be only temporary.

Of course that was also about 4 years ago, and I’m still working in writing.  I wound up falling in love with the hours, and the ability to work wherever I wanted, with no real ‘set-times’.  Getting started is harder now it seems that it was when I started, but once you get the ball rolling jobs will come easier.

Setting up your own website for writing, and potentially impressing a prospective client isn’t easy and you will need to work on a few basics before getting into the full swing of things.  Once you do however, all that work will be more than worth it.

Read:

Read other blogs in your intended niche.  While you do not want to copy them at all, it can help to see what voices are already out there are see what you can add to the discussion.  If you have an inspiring thought that you think should be said, write down the general idea for the next step.

Write:

Consider first your topics and intended audience, and think up a few entries to get you started.  Write out at least 10 or so full posts before your launch, and write and polish them until they are the best they can be.  While you don’t have to use them all immediately, it really helps to have that cushion in case you won’t be able to post on a few days or so.

Design:

Having a special design for your blog can help create a more memorable feel for it.  While it doesn’t have to be too fancy, it does help.  Make sure it is what you are looking for as switching constantly typically can make you look unprofessional and chaotic.  Your design can set the tone for the rest of your website, so think long and hard about it.  It should fit nicely into the theme of your website, and while it doesn’t need to be overblown or outrageous, a nicely designed website can really help out and work wonders.  At times, the perfect design will be unique and mesh well to the point of not really being noticed.

Research:

A fair portion of the typical blogger’s time is spent on research.  From chasing stories to looking up relevant links to add to those stories.  It’s not the easiest thing for a good portion of the time, but the more consistent research you put into your writing, the more knowledgeable you will be.  Being knowledgeable is a good chuck of where your readership will grow from.

Learn:

It’s the same with anything that can payoff, it really is a continuous learning process.  If someone offers you advice, it may be wise to take it under consideration.  Be it through contacts, or comments- constructive criticism will help you grow not only as a writer, but as a blogger as well.

Keywords are important sure, but a lot of times they are avoided or just glossed over due to confusion or being pressed for time.  Having automatic tools is helpful, but actually finding some good ones with the thousands available is a imposing job.  Below you will find 5 automatic keyword tools that are easily available and free (because if you are anything like me, you can really get behind the whole ‘free’ thing).

Keywords can be useful little things, by helping out your search results or even just looking for an idea for a blog post.  At times, just looking at a list of related terms can help out immensely.

Wordpot

Wordpot has some interesting extras, while just like all of the others on this list it will give you keywords, it will also give you the exact amount a word was searched on the day you search spanning different search engines).  It also gives you related terms to help, associated words, definitions, and synonyms.

They have some subscription based services, and free account creation.  They are fairly new in the market and seem to be adding more services soon.  They are more advertising driven, with an intent of helping those who are looking into search engine marketing keyword tools.

Visit Website: Wordpot

Wordstream

Wordstream has some really useful free extras aside from the generated keywords.  A fairly nice service is their grouped keywords tool, which allows you to paste your top terms and will give you related broad terms, that narrow down further.   They also have some other informative and free tools available to the public (and you don’t have to sign up).  One of the more interesting tools is their Negative Keyword tool which advices you on which terms to avoid.

Altogether they seem to have a fairly good and robust suite of tools for the public’s use.

Visit Website: Wordstream

Wordtracker

Wordtracker will give you 100 free keywords, and some articles to help you boost your knowledge.  If you aren’t looking for much more than that it may suit your needs.  If you however want anything more, you will need to shell out a bit.

This tool would be best for someone just looking for words alone without any bells or whistles (keep in mind that this article is focusing on the free).

Visit Website: Wordtracker

Google Adwords Keyword Tool

If you have heard the term ‘Keyword’ you have almost assuredly heard of Google’s tool above.  They offer a ton of choices aimed at those looking for advertising options.  However when it comes to it’s keyword tool for other uses, it can be just as useful.  Being the most popular search engine around (and one of the most powerful companies) Google knows a few things about searching habits.

Visit Website: Google AdWords Keyword Tool

Google Search-Based Keyword Tool

Of course this tool can give you keywords and ideas based on them, but it can also tell you how robust your usage of those keywords are on your website.  It’s of course easy to use, and the results are based on actual searches for both what you enter and the related keywords.

Visit Website: Google Search-Based Keyword Tool

When looking for inspiration or a full logo don’t discount stock websites.  There are many very talented designers who use them and you may be able to find a perfect logo for your business.  Below is a gallery of a very small sampling from the very talented individuals at Stock Logo. `

It is just a very small sampling, all using the simple theme ‘Green’ just to give you an idea of the many amazing logos that can be found there.

Do you have a favorite? Admittedly, I’m personally partial to the bike to the left.

Simply click an image to start the slideshow:

Right off the bat, there needs to be some apologies for that punny title, so consider this that apology.

Facebook has a new position that is giving it even more control of the web.  While the OpenGraph is still being adopted and heavily debated over, considering the amount of people using it already, it looks poised to take over Google’s link positioning.  Google’s algorithm depends on websites linking through to each other, while Facebook’s OpenGraph is more user-oriented.

People are coming down on the new features fairly hard, some are worried about privacy others just aren’t sure.  This could all be the normal concerns that new technology tends to create, but they could be validated soon.  Facebook also announced the new rules for their advertisers and they don’t have to delete your information anymore after 24 hours, naturally this is one of the main points of contention.

The new ‘Like’ button runs off your own group.  For instance, if you click the like button at the top of this article, only you and your own Facebook network will see it.  It don’t post to your profile, or really much else than show your approval of an article or website to your Facebook Network.

Right now it just seems to be eye candy for those fairly limited websites that use it.  One day sure, it may replace Google’s linking algorithms, and websites will be forced to conform to a new web standard, but until it is picked up a lot more than it is presently, Google simply isn’t going anywhere.

While they may be able to to position itself as the new web standard, how many people will now turn to Facebook instead of Google?  Would you?

Or, you panic or anything here (because I’m sure that so many people continually hit refresh at paradox9.com *sigh* sarcastic blogger moment).  The website has taken a bit of a newer look, it’s a lot cleaner and much easier to navigate (the almost invisible links in the sidebar are now replaced with really easy to read ones, among other things).

I also have a brand new section- paradox9 now has (and I’m working on more) premium template.  You can see them here: Premium Templates.  While it’s fairly slim picken’s now- I’m hoping to get a bit more done within the next few weeks.  Of course the fab free ones will remain (and more than likely be added to also) I’d like to have a better collection of higher-end ones.

I’ve been coding like mad, so I do suppose it’s spilling over to here too (although WordPress isn’t my normal code plaything, that may change as well). 

Before I go off on some unimaginably long and tedious tangent, I’ll just close with asking: Is there anything else you’d like to see here?  Post it on up in the comments!

I really should  have just called this: Marketing advice that annoys me- but I decided to be a bit classier.

Do you have a marketing plan?

No, crossing your fingers and wishing upon stars doesn’t count.  At all.

Sorry champ, but you do need an actual strategy and plan (besides, it’s rather overcast around me right now- if I can’t wish on any stars- no one can).

Look around the ‘net for ‘marketing plan’  I dare you, you will find lists upon lists of what to do, and well- if you don’t already have an audience you really aren’t going far.  Many of the people who are looking online for a marketing plan don’t have too much of an audience. 

See the problem there?

Many of them tell you to ‘Leverage your audience’ (at least, if you do have one)  and have such brilliant ideas as- tell the people who go to your website about your product.  Oh hey, I have a website- did you know I also make and sell things? 

So, am I rich now?

Sure, that was a sarcastic example- but it was an example none-the-less.  If it were as simple as mentioning something on your website, or posting a thing or two, most people would be swimming in money right now. 

It’s not.

You need to actually work your product.  Say you sell flowers, you really want to talk up those flowers bad.  You need to show stunning images, and detail them.  Potential customers need to know what to expect.  The same is true for other products as well cars, shirts, boats, and shoes.

It’s not too much different for the creative fields either. 

You see your creativity and abilities are your product (creepy as that may sound).  Your ability to put words to use, or graphics software to use- that’s it. 

That is what you are selling. That is what you need to really talk up, post images, go nuts.  Out there online are people who are interested in what you will say.  You obviously need to get their eyes to your website. 

Another popular suggestion is commenting on blogs.  No. 

This is not a marketing plan. Just don’t use it (save in some cases). 

Why?  Even if your company is completely legit, as more and more people use this one this as the entirety of their ‘plan’ more and more websites are being inundated with one-off comments that are more than likely to just get deleted. 

A better idea?  Become an avid commenter on a blog- or forum- then start including your link in your name.  Only after you have built up your respect.  Otherwise it’s unlikely your link will even be clicked.

Comment on things you enjoy, not just because it’s ‘in your ‘niche’.