In the past I’ve already spoken about Dimdim.com and Sitepal.com and since those reviews things have drastically changed for the better.

Dimdim.com Adds More Cool Features

Dimdim.com came out with a new version of their system that allows you to hold a webinar for free. If you want to have up to 50 people (you can do up to 20 for free) its only 25 bucks a month (compared to the $60+ I was spending at webex.com ) Here are the cool things I like about dimdim.com

A way to put a widget on the site for people to register for the webinar.You can also collect information about attendants (optional). This was the feature I needed, and I love it.

You can record your webinar and make it available to hear/see afterwards.

They still only allow three people to have microphones, but they do have the ability to use a telephone line as well.

I just know I’m enjoying the savings.

Sitepal Adds the Ability to Turn Yourself into a Cartoon

Sitepal.com recently added a feature where you can upload a picture of yourself, record and upload your voice, and their system turns you into a cartoon that looks real. The feature is called “photo face” and it allows you to upload an image of yourself and then you cut out your face and it will animate it. It’s pretty cool. I would suggest a picture of you where you are staring straight forward for best results. In the picture on the left, I went and traced around my head to make sure only my head was copied into sitepal.

When I played with the preview, I can see where my picture was not the best for this example, but it still worked. When my photo faced version of me would watch the cursor, I looked a little high.

I know what you’re thinking, “Why not just use a video?” Well you can update what you say by phone. You can also have the character as a lead generator where it collects email addresses, and it can also be programmed to answer frequently asked questions (much like those pop out virtual assistants everyone has now that show up when you close the browser). These feature make it a very powerful tool, and shows you are on the edge of technology. If you don’t want to animate yourself, you can also pick from any of there many characters. You can go over and play with the demo at their site. it’s fun.

This weeks web tools is great if you are looking for some feedback on a project. It’s free, and it seems to have a nice community of marketers, designers and developers who provide feedback on your advertisement, logo, flash presentation, web design. Best part is free.

Each reviewer has a reputation score. You can improve your Reputation Score by posting and reviewing concepts. It sounds liek a great place to learn and improve your deisgns.

SmartDD is a awesome looking tool that allows merchants to sell digital products without people sending the download link to all their friends (or worse, posting it at digg.com ). What it does it when someone purchases the product, it emails them a dynamic link. When the download is done, the link is inactivated. The following the smartdd follows up via email to make sure the download was successful. The best part of this software is there is a free version for those who only have a few items. You can try it and in the event you need more flexibility you can upgrade to the full version for around 75 bucks. Sign up for Free Version

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

In last week’s show we talked about how drop down and fly out menus suck because it takes such a steady hand to get through the navigation. I currently use a program from Xara. It turns out they have software, and a ton of online tools you can use (but no expandable/tree menu software )So I went looking for a menu system that would stay open until I closed it. Some call this tree menus, or expandable menus. Here is what I found.

Emenu Tree
http://www.emenutree.com/
This site and its software look like they were designed in 1991. No thanks.

Tree View
http://www.treeview.net/
$29 and a very nice site with good examples of how it works.

Cool JSTree
http://javascript.cooldev.com/scripts/cooltree/
$49 This looks to be a very flexible and easy to use software. One of the front runners.

Soft Complex Tigra Menu Pro
http://www.softcomplex.com/order.html
$29. This site seemed ok until I went to look at the price. It seemed like they had so many options that I had a hard time finding out how much this software is, and what is a configuration service? Is your software so hard I need this?

CSS Tree Menu
http://www.pluginlab.com/dreamweaver-extensions.asp
This site is great looking, and if you are using Dreamweaver they have a ton of stuff (some of it free). It’s 79 for their product, but I’m seriously considering it.

Tree Menu Magic
http://www.projectseven.com/products/menusystems/tmm/index.htm
$90 This was alot like the previous Dreamweaver plugin site only more expensive.

NEW NETWORKING TOOLS

Entrecard.com is a networking tool where you upload a 125X125 jpg file into the system and you can “Drop” your card on blogs and people. The more people drop cards at your site the more you can earn. You can even sell credits (um, ok I don’t know about that), but it is easy to transfer your credits to another person. It looks interesting. See my entrecard in my sidebar >>>>>

NEW SEARCH ENGINE IN BETA “Search Me”
This new search engine provides results as a graphic. Interesting, and it makes my previous points that the first impression of your site should be a good one. Check out the video at www.searchme.com

There are times when you read a book that is based on some sort of technology or software, etc and you always worry that it’s going to be bland. You don’t have to worry when it comes to Larry Bailin’s book “Mommy, Where Do customers come from? How to market to a new wold of connected cutomers.”

Larry’s no nonsense approach to reviewing techniques and tools is a refreshing change from the melba toast “I don’t want to offend anyone” approach. For example, “fly out menus suck”. You don’t really have to wonder what Larry means by this. If you’re looking for more opinion there is plenty to go around. He talks about flash, frames, e-mail lists, search engines, usability, and more. One of my favorite points is that search engines don’t by products customers do. We get so hung up on getting good placement that when we do get a visitor on the page it doesn’t address their needs.

The other thing that I really liked about this book is the stats that Larry brings to back up his comments. For example if someone offers to list you in 10,000 search engines, Larry points out that there are really only 11 search engines you should worry about. His information on e-mail lists, guarantees, and other staples of websites has me rethinking a lot of what I am currently doing.

The best thing about the book is the style. It’s as if Larry is sitting across the table talking to you and trying to stop you from making the most common mistakes on the Internet. This is a cliché, but I had a hard time putting down the book. It was not only educational but entertaining as well. If you have some marketing specialist at your heels telling you that they can get you number positioning n Google by tweaking your keywords, you REALLY need to read this book.

But the book at Amazon.com

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 )

We have boosted our links section by installing Link Up Gold from Phpwebscripts.com so now our listeners and community can let us know what cool web tools they find. We have also created a Weekly Web Tools Google Group. These two tools combined with our forums makes Weekly Web Tools a great place to share information about Web Design, Getting more Traffic, and Selling more items.

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.

Adam from www.seydoggy.com (Graphics and Web Design) says this free tool at http://www.kimai.org to track yor time on projects. He plans on having multiple users login to track time on projects.

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

When I went looking for some web tools I didn’t expect to gind such a large amount in one place. You name it they have it at iwebtool.com

Want to know if your website has been banned? Want to know how much to pay for a link? Domain checkers, Reverse IP lookups, Clean up your HTML. The best part is they are all free (in hopes that you buy their SEO Checklist book).  Very interesting site. Worth a bookmark.

I found a widget that is kind of a small stats package in a widget. You can see the number of visits, etc, as well as geography and more. You can get it for your site at http://www.visitwidget.com/

This is “OK,” but I will be taking it off my site shortly.

Our news is how do the search engines use Meta data in terms of your website and how it is described.

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