Push Button Marketer

This website is funny just for the videos of the guy in the shower with his monkey. What this software does it is designed to help you write reviews of products, you input your affilaite, click a few buttons as to what you felt about the review, and it pops out a review to past on your website, blog, article site, etc. Push button marketer comes with videos, blueprints and other marketing tools, but it appears to be a super maxed out macro software package that might be able to be used for more than its original purpose.

Appointment Plus Software

I’ve spoken about appointment software in the past. This one has Boo-Koo features. Everything from email alerts, to flexible scheduling, to event management including the number of attendees, you can have multiple locations, employees, exporting items to outlook, point of sale, and a secure way for people to pay for appointments online, it goes on and on. The interesting thing is its only $39 a month (there is a free trial available). While this is more expensive than other software titles I’ve spoken about in the past, it is by far the most feature rich of all that I’ve previously mentioned.

Message Rover

If you have a company that has people out in the field, and yet utilizes one central reception area, you may want to look into Message Rover. When someone calls, the receptionist uses this online system to instantly send a text message and/or email to the person in the field. The first 25 messages are free, and then its only $10 a month for each 100 messages.

Virtual Assistant Manager

You’ve probably heard about Rent a Coder, and all sorts of other sites that allow you to hire a virtual assistant (many times from places such as India). One of the biggest problems is the time difference and keeping people on the same page. Virtual Assistant Manager also a place for you to enter your tasks, that then automaitcally alerts the Virtual Assistant, who then performs their work and updates the status of the task.  Any communication between you and the assistant is saved in the system (and not list in your gmail). You can track time logged, and export that to Excel. A free trial is available and pricing is $39 a month.

Today I have a video to show off a software that I am really excited about. I’ve wanted a software like this for years, and I’m so glad this exists. It’s called Artisteer, and it allows you to create a wordpress theme from scratch in minutes.

You can customize every aspect of your worpdress theme. Choose your colors, your layout, the location of items like categories, etc, your header, your buttons, your menus, and on and on and on…

In making a video for the podcast, I typically try to keep them under 5 minutes. This is an almost impossible feat as this software has so many features (but I gave it a shot). The best part of this software is its price. You can download a trial version for free. If you like (and how can you not if you work in WordPress), you can buy the “home” version for $49. There is also standard version that regularly sells for $149 (NOTE: I ACCIDENTALLY SAY $129 in the video it’s normally $149) and you can buy that version (during this introductory offer for $99.95 The standard version will have the ability to output to Joomla, and drupal (in the future), it also has a library of textures and glares, and you can export to CodeCharge Studio. If you’re not working in WordPress it also exports as XHTML+CSS (so you can work with Dreamweaver, etc).

According to their FAQ, when it comes to selling themes created with this product, “Yes, as long as you do not include Artisteer photo objects within your header (Header -> Foreground Photo), as those objects are licensed from a 3rd party only for your own use. You may re-distribute any other designs you create, including those with Artisteer header background photos (Header -> Background) and your own photo objects.”

Watch the video, and for more information go to www.artisteer.com

Ebook Cover Generators

Nick from http://www.nicksjourney.com/ was looking for a cool ebook cover software that didn’t require photoshop. He had looked at:

http://www.virtual-cover-creator.net/   $90     create
http://www.adolix.com/ecover-engineer    $38    plain
http://www.3d-ebook-shot.com    $97     makes videos
http://www.3d-pack.com/#swf     free
http://www.absolutecovers.com  – subscription service?
http://www.ebooktemplatesource.com/ebook-cover-software.html — 3 free
photoshop templates

He wanted to know what I use. I’ve use a software package called True Box Shot for $45

Nick said “I found the mackdaddy of all the ebook cover creators.  Most of everything I found up to this point was either a simple graphics program that did basic 3D rotations -OR- a photoshop template. It’s Box Shot 3d and it’s only $57

Putting Advertising On Your Blog – Update

I had previously spoke about the OIO Publisher that allows you to sell banner, links, posts, and more on your wordpress site (and its widget ready). After using this for one of my podcast fast pass clients, I’m not a huge fan. It doesn’t allow you to sell clicks, or track stats based on a banner. You get stats for the whole system.  I’ve used Ad Manager Pro from PHP Webscripts and I tested it and it works great in a blog (as I found out that with the OIO publisher I ended up copying and pasting code anyway. While the OIO publisher is cheaper, Ad Manager Pro gives you the flexibility and stats to sell advertisements on your blog.

Comments on Esyndicat

Regular listeners know we use PHP Webscripts for our Link Section (using Link up gold). However, I always like to try new things to make sure I’m using the best, and that I am up on the latest technology for my clients. I had spoken about Esyndicat in a previous show. I thought I would try out their free version. While their system isn’t as robust as Link Up Gold, I did really like the interface. Both Link Up Gold and Eysndicat have a free version. Installing eysndicat was a breeze (once I got over the MySQL part, but that’s my bad). In general if you looking for something simple (and you don’t need the power of Link Up Gold) I would give it a thumbs up.

New Google Insights Tool

Kind of a cross between google trends, and their key word tool. Check it out at http://www.google.com/insights/search

Do You Know of a Good Craig’s List Submission / Automation Tool?

I’ve seen a few at www.uneeksoftware.com and www.adsoncraig.com but I haven’t seen one that heps me post and thats it (not looking to be a giant spammer). Got any ideas? Let us know at 888-563-3228

As a podcast consultant, I needed a way for my potential customers to see my schedule and book an appointment. This would eliminate the “what day is good for you” and then the whole confirmation, etc. I wanted to streamline things a bit. So I went looking for an online tool. My goal was to find a script I could throw on my site (with no monthly fee) if those exist I couldn’t find one. However what I did find (in some case free) were very powerful and very cool.

Genbook.com
genbook.com

I found this site via a google search. After coming across a couple of sites that didn’t let you see the service (the whole “Call for a demo” routine) genbook.com is a great website. They have some cool demos, and more importantly no strings. That’s right if you want to try their free version for a while – go ahead. (the full version has additional notifications, the ability to get into the customer database a bit deeper, and the ability to accept payment right at the scheduling point).

It really look simple, and since it was free, I jumped right in. It turns out, it IS THAT EASY. Here is the cool part. You end up with a “book now” button that you can put anywhere. So I can put it on my website, my myspace page, facebook, craigs list, etc. (This really got me thinking). You can have multiple services at multiple prices (this is also available in the other services). I also love the way I can customize the look of it, how easy it was to set up my working hours, block hours I didn’t want to accept appointments. It was two very key words: easy and powerful. Ok, that’s three words, but you get my point. I’m using it at www.schoolofpodcasting.com and I’ll let you know how it goes.

Wev-Appointments
web-appointments.com
This site has many of the big sites, it is cheaper than some of the other services I looked at. The problem I ran into was the interface. I’m not sure you can customize it alot as most of their demos had the same layout, etc. Also their flash demo was very 1992. It might be worth a shot. Their customer interface seemed pretty fairly straight forward. They have a 30 day free trial at

Booking Calendar
bookingcalendar.com

This site has a ton of features to their site. Easy to use and fully customizable Online Appointment Scheduler and Event Registration Software. The ultimate onlinee-booking Calendar software for any business type. The only thing I thought was strange is they limit the number of bookings per month (300 bookings for $20 a month. $30/month for 600). They have the most features and a very slick site. You can try it free for 30 days at bookingcalendar.com

Today we have a few tools for you to play with. You can check out a free version of photoshop at www.photoshop.com/express/landing.html

The next tool I heard about at www.454n5.com it’s called Crawltrack at www.crawltrack.fr which allows you to track search engine spiders and their visits along with other interesting details. It also blocks hackers. Its free.

Scribe Juice creates sales pages, generates power words, helps with the layout, built in analytics, it has research tools and more. It has a ton of stuff built into it, and why spend years becoming an expert when you can use this software. For more information go to scribejuice.com

Pic2coloris an interesting site where you point it at a graphic (locally or on the Internet ) and it will come up with a matching color scheme.

www.designsnack.com is an interesting site to get some constructive criticism on your site.

In the News
Ebay and Half.com affiliate program is leaving commission junction and going in house starting April 1.

Starting Your Own Affiliate Program
There are sites that will help you through this like Paydotcom.com and Shareasale.com but if you want avoid any monthly fees, and have all the data on your server there are scripts out there. The two I see the most are:

iDevaffiliate $99

I’ve used this tool before and it was easy to use, and very flexible. It works with about every payment system on the planet. You can load this on one website, and the use it on all of your websites.

iDevAffiliate Overview
Adding affiliate tracking software to your site is one of the most effective ways to achieve more sales, more traffic and more search engine ranking!  Our affiliate software installs in just minutes and through the use of Smarty Templates, easily integrates into your existing website.

The Industry Leader
Since 1999, iDevAffiliate is the original in self managed affiliate software!  iDevAffiliate was hand coded from scratch by the same team that provides your technical support!  iDevAffiliate is not a product we’re reselling for someone else and it isn’t something we’ve pieced together from several other lesser quality products.  For more information go to iDevaffiliate.com

Ultimate Affiliate from Groundbreak $200

This program I see all over the place. It again lets your set up products, commissions and more.

Run your OWN affiliate program! The script helps you build your own network of affiliates who will promote your products and advertise your website. Keep your affiliate links on YOUR domain, have control over YOUR own program – and forget about large monthly fees and click traffic fees. This one-time purchase will save you money! Fully featured, you can run a simple web-store affiliate program or an advanced multi-level matrix based replicated website affiliate program.  For more information go to Groundbreak.com

Need Some Affiliate Tips? Check Out This Book
Successful Affiliate Marketing For Merchants

If you’re an online business, instead of paying for an ad, like a banner, you pay for the result – the sale. This is called affiliate marketing. Pay for Performance will show anyone conducting business online, how to plan, implement, and manage a successful affiliate marketing program. The reader will find valuable Web resources such as tracking software and contract templates with the guidance of this book. There will also be direction for the reader to focus the content and develop the right affiliate model for the type of business. It will also provide case studies of successful programs as well as failures and scams to demonstrate and teach the lessons of building a successful program

FAQ Generator (free)
http://www.expinion.net/software/app_FAQGenerator.asp

Check out this great Interviewer with Matt Cutts on Duct Tape Marketing
List at the DuctTape Marketing Site and check out Matt’s blog

Google Is Going to Start Using Demographics in their adsense program. (information courtesy of Website Magazine )

In this week’s show we talk about managing and obtaining links, we have a great SEO A Great Add On For Firefox courtesy of Marcus Couch of http://www.thescenezine.com/

SEOBOOK SEO Add On FOR FIREFOX
This add on performs the following:
Pulls useful market research data right into Google’s and Yahoo!’s search results, including the following data near each search result.

• PR: (Google PageRank) an estimated measure of global link authority
• Age: age pulled from Archive.org, shows the first time a page was indexed by Links: (Yahoo! linkdomain) shows a rough estimate of the total number of links pointing at a domain
• .edu Link: (Yahoo! .edu linkdomain ) shows a rough estimate of the total number of .edu links pointing at a domain
• .edu Page Link: (Yahoo! .edu link ) shows a rough estimate of the total number of .edu links pointing at a specific page
• .gov Link: (Yahoo! .gov linkdomain ) shows a rough estimate of the total number of .gov links pointing at a domain
• Page Links: (Yahoo! link) shows a rough estimate of the total number of links pointing at a page
• del.icio.us: number of times a URL has been bookmarked on Del.icio.us. Technorati: an estimate of the total number of links to a site from blogs
• Alexa: rank based on website traffic .
• Cached: (Google site:) shows how many pages from a site are indexed in Google
• dmoz: searches the Google Directory to count the total number of pages from a site that are listed in DMOZ.
• Bloglines: shows you how many people are subscribed to a particular blog via Bloglines.
• dir.yahoo.com: is a site listed in the Yahoo! Directory or not.
• WhoIs: makes it easy to look up the whois data for any site.

List and Traffic: How to Grow and Profit Opt-In Lists and Web Site Traffic

This is a membership site ($20/month) that I belong to that has in depth articles on traffic building, list builing, increasing your market reach, lead conversions,  and more.

ARELIS Professional Link Building Tool

The other tool I’m talking about this week is Arelis from Axandra.com I use this tool to create our LINKS SECTION every week. I put in the URLs, add a category and publish (it does the rest). If I want I can use it to send out link exchange requests, as well as help me find sites to link with (and who my competitors is link to) and more. It can be ordered separately, or combined with the IBP software (Internet Business Promoter). I may talk about this software in the future. It helps find keywords, it automates submitting your website to search engines (and reminds you if you try to spam them.

Comment in the Forums at weeklywebtools.com/forums

Episode #16 Has us looking at Live Help solutions for your website and Time Tracking software for those of us who need to track billable time for clients.

LIVE HELP MESSENGER
It gives you the ability to add Live Help to your website without a monthly fee. I’ve looked around and finally found . Live Help Messenger from Star Develop. Here are some of the things I like about it.

NO MONTHLY FEE
Unlimited operators and departments.
Ability to store frequently asked responses, links, and the ability to “push” a visitor to a page (like a sign up / sales page).
You can easily customize the look and feel of the chat window.
Very easy to install. (Less than 15 minutes from start to finish).
I can see where my visitors are coming from, how long they’ve been on my site.

I liked it so much I asked them to sponsor the show, and they said yes. AND they are offering discounts on the software and will be giving away a copy of Live Help Messenger to someone who contributes to the forums

Standard Time – Billable Tracking Tool
I needed an easy way to track my time that didn’t have me doing a bunch of double entry. I have tried a few, but this is one that does what I want to do. It’s called Standard Time, and its $150 (again no monthly fee). It is flexible in the way I can charge my clients, and I love the fact that I can have an icon in the system tray and when I need to start billing people for my time its a few clicks away.

It also has a desktop and mobile version so I can track meetings, phone calls, etc on my smart phone, and then synchronize with my desktop when I get home. It does have an invoicing feature, and you can track customer payments, but to me its strength is in its time tracking (it does tie in with quickbooks if you are using it).

Leave a comment in our forums