Doc Metrics Blends Flash and PDFs to Provide Analytics for PDFS.

You can put flash forms into your PDF and get information about how each reader is using your pdf (how long, what they’ve read, if they’ve printed it, and much more). It can be as low as 99 a month. That was the one thing I did NOT like about the service is there is no pricing sheet. You HAVE to sign up to get that information. You can see it at . http://www.docmetrics.com/

Viral PDF Tool

If you have affiliates you may want to look into this tool. It allows you to make brandable ebooks in pdfs.  You put some code into your word document, and later the viral pdf tools replace those tools with the affiliate links. So an affiliate opens the branding tool, point it at the pdf, enter their information into the prompts and “poof” the same ebook now has their affiliate links in the pdf.

This could be very useful if you have an ebook that is a teaser for a product. Your affiliate can promote the book with this free ebook (that contains their links). You can provide the rebranding tool to all your affiliates. It’s only $37 in July 08. Check it out at viralpdf.com

Free PDF Printer Allows You To Control Web Links

http://www.pdfprinter.com/
PDF Printer is a free tool to create PDFs. This free tool allows you to Convert documents—text and/or graphics—to PDF from any of 250 different formats. Create clickable hyperlinks, quickly and easily, to transfer viewers elsewhere.

Make Your Own Comics

One way you can help your viral efforts is to make something funny and outrageous that people want to forward to their friends. Over at http://comiqs.com/ you can add “bubble text” in minutes to pictures and more. It’s free, and its easy to use.

Ticket Desk Pro
Another cool script I am now using is Ticket Desk Pro. This is an amazing piece of software for the price (less than 20 bucks when I purchased  it). This has a ticketing system, a F.A.Q. feature, a “frequent responses” feature, and a LIVE HELP option. I really figured it was too good to be true till I saw it on the Download Guard site (and I know Sam wouldn’t use it if it wasn’t quality). Check it out at ticketdeskpro.com They are using an interesting script that raises the price by a nickel (.05) every time someone purchases the script. Very interesting. That script will become available on Thursday 5/16/ at www.frankhaywood.com

Make WordPress Themes From Scratch
I found a great article in Website Magazine (it’s free, and its awesome subscribe today). It has a list of online (and offline) WordPress Theme generation tools.

http://www.cssez.com/

http://templatr.cc/

http://www.yvoschaap.com/wpthemegen/

http://www.wppal.com/

http://www.wordpressthemegen.com/ (offline tool).

The WordPress Theme Gen tool allows you to create themes offline. The rest of the tools provide you with the ability to create WordPress themes online quickly and easily.

Debut Free Video Capture Screencast Software
NCH makes a number of free titles all intended to get you to buy their “next level” software.
You can find debut at http://www.nchsoftware.com/capture/index.html

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

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 )

Want to create your own online database? Maybe you want to build a project management system, or a customer relations database, etc. I went looking for affordable systems, and here are a couple if found.

Coghead (www.coghead.com )
$9 a month for

Trackvia (http://www.trackvia.com )
$9.95 a month

Dabledb (http://dabbledb.com)
$10 a month.

Most of them have a free trial.

Ad Peels has been update to have ever corner have a “peel” as well as add scrolling text.

Looking to Track the ROI from www.passiveincomemachine.com/max_cpc.html

Want to have a GROUP Chat on your site for free? Check out www.chatango.com

Got a web tool you think is cool? Leave a comment over in the forums

Today we received a question from Laura at www.mbaworkinggirl.com

I am helping a family member with a website that
sells product through PayPal.  We’d like to capture
the name and email address of customers as they
purchase product.  This would enable us to contact
them in the future when new accessories for the
product are available.

Right now they are manually adding this information
to a contact group in their email address book as the
notifications of sales get emailed from PayPal.

Is there an easier or more automated way to do this?

I know you can accomplish this with aweber (an email list and autoresponder program). You can set it up so that when someone purchases your product, it automatically adds them to an auto responder (a series of emails that are automatically “time released” to your reader). They explain how to do it in this article. If you do decide to go with aweber, please order using my affiliate link (it would be great appreciated and help support this show). We did talk about some email list tools back in episode 10 as well.

The Next email from Adam Merrifield of www.seydesign.com and www.seydoggy.com (very nice sites).

I think I was listening to episode 5 or 6 and you were talking about
download servers. One you missed that is the BEST in the world is
E-junkie.com

Thanks for the tips and questions. Keep them coming.

Sponsored by Live Help Messenger

Forms and Surveys

If you want to know something about your visitors – ASK. Here are some tools I’ve used in the past.

Poll Daddy A free service (so you’ll have some poll daddy logos on the poll).

Survey Monkey GREAT service (Free up to 100 respondents). You can create very deep surveys for only 20 a month (more than 100 respondents)

csMailto $49 A great form creation that emails you the answers as well as keeps a copy of the results in a CSV file on the server. It also allows visitors to attach files (graphic, music ,whatever) so you receive their information and their files all at once.

There use to be few tools for this, and now there are many. In today’s show I share my thoughts on these, and which one I am using now.

Payloadz (Free Service, depending on how much you sell)
Great tool if you are looking for an easy to use service (and if you have 1, or just a few products).

Paydotcom.com (Free Runs on your server, cost $29 to sell more than one product).
Great service that protects your links, and has a built in affiliate program. You can set up links and graphic for your product, and have other sell your items, and at the same time maintain your products, view reports, and more. I currently have 60 active affiliates promoting my ebook for musicians.

Download Guard
This is my favorite. It does require some up front costs, but you get so much more. You have the ability to work with multiple payment options, you can offer coupons, bonus items, and then limit the number of downloads, and the time that the link to the product is active. You can also use this same software to create a membership site. In theory you could then sell a product and automatically place the customer into a membership service (for example for 3 months). Then when the time expires the customer has the option to continue with their membership. POWERFUL STUFF.
Watch an overview video
For more information go to www.trydlg.com

SEO BOOK a great book, and also LOTS of tools on their site (click on tools if you’re not interested in the book).

Nichebot A great tool that searches Google, Yahoo, Wordtracker, Keword Discovery. I’ve got money on account as I have yet to do a search that requires money. A very handy tool.

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