Web Tools Radio

Web Tools Radio

di Dave Jackson

Technology Updates – Everything is Looking the Same

Today I'm sharing some insights about Digital Access Pass (http://weeklywebtools.com/dap) (Data Protection) and Gumroad (e-commerce) Videos are at www.weeklywebtools.com/289 (http://www.weeklywebtools.com/289) Digital Access Pass Updates (http://weeklywebtools.com/dap) (DAP) is one of my favorite membership site tools. I LOVE their dripping feature. In the past you could not only drip content, but you could drip email (auto respond). The somewhat bad news is when you send email with your shared hosting server it may be seen as spam. Recently Digital Access Pass now integrates with Aweber. This uses Awebers API and thus enables you to bypass the double opt in. You can pass the password to Aweber and Aweber can send it to the customer. DAP also now seamlessly integrates with Clickbank, JVZoo and WarriorPlus. Now when people purchase your product and get taken back to your site they will automatically be signed in. A rarely-mentioned feature of DAP, is that DAP lets you take advantage of all of these different Affiliate Networks and sell the EXACT… SAME.. PRODUCT… on all of these networks… ALL the at same time! (http://weeklywebtools.com/dap) is a membership script, affiliate script, shopping cart, all in one. Pricing starts at $167 (one time fee) or $40 a month. Value Add On Takes Stripe Usage Up a Few Notches I talked about Value Add On in the past. The problem I had with my membership site wasn't protecting it, but the layout. After beating my head against the wall with OptimizePress 2.0 I switched to ValueAdd on to make the layout of my membership site. New Feature: Paid Trials and Payment Plans Allowed Posted on June 25, 2015 in Updates (http://www.valueaddon.com/category/updates) If you’re using Stripe.com to process payments, watch this video above and learn how we’ve totally re-written our built-in shopping cart to give you even more options to accept payments from your membership subscribers and customers. We’re excited to announce that your ValueAddon membership site has been upgraded to accept even more payment options including Paid Trials, Recurring payments with an end period, and more flexible payment plan options. By using Stripe.com and ValueAddon.com, you can create: Paid trials Multi-pay options Payment plans Split pay Paid trials to recurring Paid trials to split pay and much more… ThriveThemes Page Builder I was checking out (http://www.weeklywebtools.com/thrivethemes) A friend of mine told me that these were cool and flexible themes. I watched a ton of videos and they seem to focus on flexibility and fast loading themes. They offer a monthly ($20) or yearly ($147). that is for sites you own. If you want to put these themes on a clients site it's more. Their content builder is impressive. It just seems like I'm back in the 80's and I can't tell the difference between Faster Pussycat, Poison, Cinderella, and LA Guns. Different names with the same results. Thrive has some cool integrations to optimize your images automatically which will speed up your website and save you bandwidth. If I had to pick a motto for them it is speed and flexibility. They have lots of documentation, and videos. I was surprised that in one video the person doing the demo couldn't get the color of the text to stay white. While I appreciate the honesty, I did scratch my head. Here is a video showing of their Content Builder Divi 2.4 Have the Kitchen Sink As a creative person, I love that someone can draw me a layout and I can probably reproduce it with (http://www.elegantthemes.com/affiliates/idevaffiliate.php?id=4473) Pricing for Elegant Themes is $69 a year. $89 if you want to have access to their plugins (which I will be covering over the next few weeks). Elegant Themes has 87 themes (and you get access to all of them for $69). I have been using Divi on www.powerofpodcasting.com (http://www.powerofpodcasting.com) and (as

First Impressions of Fresh Books

I have been using (http://try.hrv.st/3-60715) for tracking my time. Then in another Excel spreadsheet I track things like affiliate sales, books sales and other ventures that I have going on. I thought storing the Excel Spreadsheet on Microsoft One Drive would make it easier, and it did. But report meant pivot tables, and all sort of stuff. It wasn't hard, but I felt like I was painting with peanut butter. The price of (https://schoolofpodcasting.freshbooks.com/refer/www) if you want to have unlimited clients $29. This is more than Harvest, but then again it does more than Harvest. I can track time with Freshbooks just like I did with Harvest. First Impressions It took next to no time to setup my company, my preferences, etc. It integrates with Paypal and Stripe (you can use them as a processor if you'd like 2.9% + .30). You can customize the colors, emails that are sent, set up taxes, and track all your expenses. There is also an app which makes it super cool. Harvest has an app, but for me I would get notified that an old domain renewed and I would have to login to onedrive, find my file, now I just open the app and add it. You can track pricing by the employee, by the job, by the skill. The best part if they have tons of little help bubbles to walk you through (http://weeklywebtools.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/freshbooks_pricing.png) Not As Pretty, But Not As Ugly Harvest invoices look better, but that doesn't mean Freshbooks Invoices are ugly. There are little things that I'm still searching for like how to adjust my signature in my emails. Support is Good I received an email from someone assigned to my account. I emailed her two days later and I thought it was cool that she was out of the office for a few days, and another employee jumped into make sure I got a speedy answer. My question was what about digital sales (I sell a spreadsheet for Companies looking to hold their own Biggest Loser contest (https://gumroad.com/l/blxls) ). I have affiliate sales. These are already invoiced or don't need an invoice. Their support explained how I can set up a dummy customer for "Affiliate Sales" create an invoice, and save it as a draft and then mark it paid. This way I can track my income. Expenses Made Easy When I looked at their free app, I was super pleased by its simple design that's going to make tracking expenses a snap. I can also track time if I'm doing consulting on the road. Everything feeds back to the cloud so it stays accurate. Features I Won't Use But are Cool There is a ticket support system so if someone has a problem with their bill, they can open a ticket. I use Rhino Support for my ticketing system. You can use a document system, this would be like your own private Google Docs or OneDrive. You can have administrators and staff each with different rights to different areas. What's Missing? I think the software will work for me. They have videos to show you how to track time, and create invoices, but that's about it. Their help system seems extensive, but I guess I was looking for more videos. They do offer beginner level webinars at many different times to match your schedule. Here is a Freshboooks Video Overview http://intelliplayer.com/watch/25b29tffu (http://intelliplayer.com/watch/25b29tffu)

Super Amazon Affiliate Stores That Look Great and Earn More

I'm not sure how I found out about Best Podcasting Gear (http://www.bestpodcastinggear.com) , and it was super easy to setup and it's already converting and earning income. What Is it? It's a script (not WordPress - but more on that later), that makes it super easy to create an Amazon affiliate store. Top Features 90 Day cookie (instead of 24 hour) Great looking Site Super Easy to Add Products and Categories Completely Customization You can setup your store, but keep it offline (so when you flip the switch you don't blow your fist impression) Supports all Amazon websites USA, UK, Germany, France, Spain, Canada, Italy, India, China, Japan and more! Your products are automatically added (if desired) and updated for you. Your store will run itself Is it a WordPress Thing? If you purchase the Fresh Store Builder, you can purchase a Wordpress Plugin that allows you to run your store on Wordpress (this is great for those who want to have a blog in addition to their store). They have demos of their sites on their website using their script and using Wordpress. I will probably be purchasing the WordPress plugin ($37) and moving the site to WordPress (I'm familiar with WordPress). Fresh Store Builder Overview Check out this video (http://intelliplayer.com/watch/b89a6521f) If you're interested in it, check out Freshstorebuilder.com

Headlines – So Simple Even Your Kids Can Do It With Headlinr

We hear it over and over and Blog Post Titles, Podcast Titles are the headlines to your story. It's what gets your audience's attention. The problem is most of the time, its the thing we do last. We are tired, we just want to hit post, and we come up with something "that will do" and hit post. I just spent a few bucks to get a tool called (http://jvz6.com/c/59893/160856) that installs in Google or Firefox and it gives you HUNDREDS of examples of headlines. It provides a swipe file of some of the most popular headlines. So when you're tired, maybe a little cranky, and creativity is at a low, this tool comes to the rescue. What's the catch? Well they are going to try to upsell you to another product called Winnr which is a split testing tool. So now you can make great headlines and then use winnr to test and see which one works best (or you can skip it and stick with just headlinr. This is a one time fee ((not monthly) and I'm glad I purchased it. Here is a video of me using for the first time. Click here for example video I made (https://schoolofpodcasting.wistia.com/medias/3kmqmaim96)

IntelliPlayer - Wisitia Video Functionality without the Monthly Fees

I've spoken about Wistia in the past, and I love it. I use Lead Player on this page, but what if you want an alternative? (Lead Player is not available any more). Well I found one that has all the functionality of Wistia player without the monthly fees. It's call intelliplayer. The best part its (as of now) $59. for multiple sites ($29 for a single site). How is it so inexpensive? Because you will be greated with an upsale for more templates (so you can make your video in something that looks like an ipad, etc - some pretty cool stuff). You don't need to purchase the upsale. You get all the features without the upgrade. For more information go to Intelliplayer (http://www.weeklywebtools.com/intelliplayer)

Video Motion Pro

There are a ton of Video creation tools that have come out over the last few months. If you can't afford Camtasia ($300) wait till you hear about Video Motion ($67). This software has the following tools This software makes it super easy to: Record your camera and/or screen Do green screen effects. You can edit on a time line You can upload directly to YouTube Includes 20 audio tracks for videos Includes auto updates. 30 logo animations (to make your own intro) I really liked the Video Outro creator. This is that shot at the end of the video where you see multiple videos at the same time with a subscribe button. It really makes it easy and the best part is it's only $67. Now they will try to get you with an upsale ($67) for more animations and audio, but you can always decline. They then try to upsell you a player. If you keep saying no, you spend $67 for a great piece of software. Check out Video Motion Pro (http://jvz4.com/c/59893/128623)

Flyzoo Chat System

Build Your Own Inforgraphic For Free - WP Scroll Depth

(https://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-scroll-depth/) is a free plugin that works with Google Analytics to help you see how far down your visitors are scrolling. You also have the option to track events of three different types: Percentage: Percentage events are fired at the 25%, 50%, 75%, and 100% scrolling points. There’s also a Baseline event which fires as soon as the page loads. Pixel Depth: Pixel Depth events record the scroll distance in pixels, rounded down to the nearest 250px increment. While the percentage events provide a relative measure of scroll depth, pixel depth events provide an absolute measure. This can be useful for comparing across devices where the relative percentage heights vary greatly (e.g., desktop vs mobile). Elements: You can also track when specific elements on the page are scrolled into view. On a blog, for example, you could send a Scroll Depth event whenever the user reaches the end of a post. https://youtu.be/SzI9RzvnwZA

Pablo Vs Save As Image - Cool - Quick - Graphics

If you read any article about getting more traffic, they will say to include images in your posts. Today we have two tools that make great looking images and they cost next to nothing. Pablo By Buffer This is a great tool that allows you to create images with text, multi-line if needed, and you can add an icon. Their images are limited, but you can upload your own. It's free, and you can make a great looking image in next to no time. weeklywebtools.com/pablo (https://bufferapp.com/pablo) Share As Image Share as image is more versatile, and it can be used without going to the Pablo site. You can use it on any browser (including IE). The cost is $12 unless you buy a year in advance. In that case it is only $8 a month. For more information go to weeklywebtools.com/shareasimage (http://www.weeklywebtools.com/shareasimage)

Slack - Team Communication Tool

Slack is an interesting tool for those people who work on teams. It enables you to have all of your communication in one place. All of your items in Google Docs, Dropbox, and many other tools can be organized and made searchable with Slack. You can make a team, and then have categories (public or private so if you have different levels for team members you can have a category just for management). It's easy to sign up. For me, its kind of hard to bring team members into the fold (I can make it recognize an domain, so here again it is made for businesses - not podcasters). I was bmmered there is no way (that I could see after using it for 10 minutes) to make a page where people could go in an request to join my team (there is a tool for that it's call facebook). It turns out that Slack is from one of the co-founders of Flickr. It has been growing quickly for just being around a little over a year. The more I play with it, the more I see its potential. I do with they had more of a "step by step" video If you're interested in playing with my Weekly Web Tools team, send an email to weeklywebtools@gmail.com and put the word SLACK in the subject. If you are looking to start your own Slack team go to weeklywebtools.com/slack (https://slack.com/r/03ufcr3p-03uhu3gy)

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