Web Tools Radio

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 [email protected] 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)

Canva is a great tool for creating graphics online. They have an ipad app, and some great graphics. If you use one of the stock photos, the charge is $1. I recently made some artwork for a podcast that cost me $1. Now if I was a person that blogged frequently, tweeted frequently, and created youtube videos frequently, this could add up.

YouZign is also an online tool for creating graphics. It is (currently) $47. It is a one time fee. When I tried it out, it is very flexible, and easy to use, but the graphics that they include are more clip are than photographs. If you're making flyers, and such for the Church cookie sale this might work, but not so much in online business. The cute little cartoons might work in video, but my jury is still out for using them in marketing materials.

The way they keep the price low is they are building more templates and you can get $100 more for around $65.

They do have a nice preview so you can see how the graphic would work (for example) on an  actual Facebook page.

Conclusion:

If you make LOTS of graphics, the price savings would make it a wise choice. In the video below I used it for about 5 minutes (so you may be seeing operator error). I wanted to show you the learning curve (if there is one).

See  www.weeklywebtools.com/279 (http://www.weeklywebtools.com/279)

Today we have a tool to help create copy for your website. It's Call Script Doll, and it's pretty cool. You put in the demographics of your audience, you put in your product, and from there you can have it spit out sales letters, email blasts, video sales letters and more. It's impressive. It's not perfect, and like everything I had to go back and tweak some stuff as it is taking your input and putting it into what amounts to be a template. The templates are created by copywriting gurus, and I must say that after ready the first thing it spits out at me, I was thinking, "Man when I write copy it just sucks". I was getting sucked into my own product. As there is no "one size fits all" there will be some tweaking. Script doll gets you most of the way and you tweak the rest. The price is $61 a month. I can see some folks purchasing this for one month, getting all the copy they need, and canceling their subscription (which is why it's probably $61 a month). Now let's think about this. One of my favorite books on copywriting is by Ray Edwards. You can learn alot about copywriting from this book It will alos take you more than 20 minutes to read it. So if you want good copy, that you can edit (the program gives you your copy in a word document or pdf), and use on your site in a matter of minutes (not days) this is an impressive tool. There is a video at weeklywebtools.com/278   For more information go to weeklywebtools.com/script doll

Pingdom Speed Test with Website Grader

I found tools.pingdom.com to be very cool as it shows you how long it took your site to load, what slowed things down, and gives you a grade. The best part is its free.

Vallue Add On Membership Site Tool

I was using Digital Access Pass (protection and processing), Wistia (videos), and Optimizepress (theme) to create a membership site. Using those three tools I put out $624 a year or $52 a month. The tool I found is $197 for the first year and $37 a month after your first year. There are no bandwidth limits (like Wistia), and I can create a website in minutes.

Who Needs That Many Details

Using Optimizepress the good news is you can control everything. The bad news is you can control everything. In many cases there are features that I'm just not using. When I watched the video for this tool I was amazed and they have great features I will be using such as:  

Progress bars as people go through your content (looks alot like Udemy)

Integrates with Facebook groups

Super easy merchant account through Stripe and JVZoo

No limits on videos and bandwidth. The videos are converted for multiple formats and html5 complaint so people can consume content on their iPads/iPhones, etc.

Great looking user interface with the ability for students to take notes in each lesson that are saved on the site.

I love that I don't have to worry about plugins, and my site's speed. It's all handled by ValueAddon

Valueaddon is co-owned by JVZoo which is a HUGE Affiliate network (so I know its not going anywhere)

So far the support has been quick and helpful.

You can allow downloads or not of videos and other materials

Here is a video of me showing the before and after.

Easy Video Sales Letter

If you've seen those cool videos where the words and the audio are in sync, then you will love Video Sales Letter. You simply type in your script record your voice and the software does the rest. you can add transitions and more. It's only $47 for a single user license. You can find out more at  easyvsl.com (http://jvz5.com/c/59893/136368)

You can check out a video on their website  www.easyvsl.com (http://www.weeklywebtools.com/easyvsl)

Content Gems

This tools goes out and find great articles on subjects you specify. This is great for people doing content marketing to bring traffic. The good news is its free (for your first two topics). You can have ten topics for $10 a month. I tried their free version and I was impressed with the content that it brought in my direction that I can then have emailed to me. If I want to subscribe to that information via RSS I need to have at least the $10/month plan. Find out more at  www.contentgems.com (http://www.contentgems.com)

I had a client that told me about this plugin (but it also works without Wordpress). It's called Sumome (www.sumome.com) This tool allows you to have the following: Heat Maps Analytics that show how far people are scrolling down Multiple tools to provide ways to sign up for your e-mail list A tool that shows link to share your information. here is a demo of the share feature

Today I started playing with Wista Video Hosting. This company understands their audience, what they need, and they make it easy to use and the have a GREAT job of holing your hand virtually the process. Here is a video I made showing the back end of wista. Realize I just stared using the service, and this is my first impression

http://schoolofpodcasting.wistia.com/medias/vlfk4ozsn5 (http://schoolofpodcasting.wistia.com/medias/vlfk4ozsn5)

Their interface is awesome.

Their support seems to read your mind and answer your question before you ask it. They aren't trying to help you make better videos (that's your job). They are helping you make your videos be shared (or lock them down tight) with a simple point and click interface. The one thing I really like is you can see not only how many times the video was played, but how far people watched. That is crucial. You can see if it was replayed. This can point out two things. 1. The video is great - and people watch again and again 2. The video is missing the point, and people need to watch it again because they are confused. I am really impressed.

Wisita Vs Vimeo

Let me say I am a happy Vimeo (http://www.vimeo.com) user. Comparing the two, it seems like Vimeo is has a split personality. One one hand they want you to watch videos on Vimeo, and on the other hand they are a Video hosting company (with tools to help you share, brand, and protect). Their interface is just not as good. Yes, the have help. It's not as intuitive. One scenario that might be happening here is I've been a Vimeo user for about a year (so I forget their first impression). It just seems like there are features I'm not using (royalty free music for my video) that kind of clutter up the place. Where is my call to action? Where is my email integration? These are  features I will use (and may exist, but I'm unaware - but I don't think so). Wistia has a great tool, and as a trainer, are doing a great job of making me understand how to get the most out of their product. After playing with Wistai for 10 minutes this morning, I'm going to be checking to see when my Vimeo account renews. That is another issue, Vimeo only allows you to order their Pro service in yearly intervals ($200). Wisita is $25 a month for the features I need (Small Business Account). This means that Wisita is $8 more a month (but I pay in smaller amounts over time), but if I'm getting more subscribers, I'm getting more sales, then Wisita could easily pay for itself.

Over the past month I went to fiverr.com to get a kindle book cover created. It was fine. It took a couple of days. It cost me $15 since I wanted the photoshop files. Then later last week I needed an ebook cover. Thats when I discovered ecover authority. Its a web based solution that I've seen other places (so they must have a reseller account). This one is different as its $37 ONCE. There is no monthly fee. If you are a person who makes guides, ebooks, software, or needs to show your product on a tablet or phone, you can make some pretty cool graphics with this tool. Check out the video www.weeklywebtools.com/273 (http://www.weeklywebtools.com/273)  

For more information go to ecoverauthority.com (http://www.weeklywebtools.com/ecover)

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Backup Creator

I purchased  (http://backupcreator.com/bc/?e=podcastcoach)

Canva Design School (http://designschool.canva.com/)  is a free list of tutorials to help you make better graphics.

Elegant Themes Divi Theme Forever?

Divi Theme is super powerful (http://www.elegantthemes.com/affiliates/idevaffiliate.php?id=4473&url=18621) , but it uses a TON of short codes. It appears that if you use this to create your website and later decide to switch themes, you may end up with a page of just short code (I need to contact their support to see if this is true). On the other side of the fence, the theme is so powerful, why would you leave? 

See a video at  www.weeklywebtools.com/272 (http://www.weeklywebtools.com/272)

Cool Plugin Driectory that Uses Rankings

Managewp.org has a cool tool that allows you to see Wordpress Plugins are popular. It does this by downloads, rankings, etc. It's pretty cool and you can look at different categories. 

Check it out at  https://managewp.org/plugins/best (https://managewp.org/plugins/best)

Zoom.us Goto Webinar replacement

If you have small meetings, and don't need people to register this is a great service for $9.99 a month. It allows people to join on PC, Mac, or tablet. it even lets tablet/phone user share their screen. It's pretty cool. Check it out at  zoom.us (http://www.zoom.us)

For more information and videos see  weeklywebtools.com/271 (http://www.weeklywebtools.com/271)

Update from last week. We got a notice that wplistbooster is offering no support and apparently has conflicts with lots of plugins. Thanks to Orlando from  hablandodetecnologia.com (http://www.hablandodetecnologia.com/)  (a podcast about tech done in spanish).

Explaindo Has Video, Cartoons, and Sketching All in One program.

I've purchased numerous programs that produce videos. One was a white board, the other had cool buttons and characters. Explaindio has all of these plus you can use video as a background and then draw over it, or use animations. Check out this video. (http://weeklywebtools.com/explaindio)

Landing Page Monkey

Landing Page Monkey is another tool that allows you to create cool looking landing pages with video in the background. This seems to be the latest trend and you can get it through the end of the year for $32. This video shows you how versatile it is to use (almost too many options). They do have a beginner and advanced options so those who don't need all these options don't have to step over them. Check out landingpagemonkey.com (http://weeklywebtools.com/landingpagemonkey)