Nevertheless, I’d like to at least mention the tool and give you some of the highlights. First off, you can use parts of the tool for free, so I recommend at least giving it a test drive yourself. You may find that it will give you some optimization tips that you wouldn’t have thought of before, and that alone will be worth the zero dollars you paid for using the free bits of the tool.

Now, if you happen to have people working for you, then you’ll probably love Linkdex. The ability to assign tasks to people via the tool is pretty awesome, and you can correlate those completed tasks to ranking changes as well. Another thing I noticed during my tour (and remembered) was the ability to place a value on various tasks and rankings, so you can see monetarily how things are going. You can read more about the features on the site, but I’ll summarize them a little below.

• Assign tasks for link building, content, and technical issues to team members, and then track how ranking changes correlate to those completed tasks.
• Track rankings, of course, and see how those rankings affect monetary value changes.
• Get lots of backlink analysis and tracking
• Good competitive analysis and tracking
• Page analysis and suggested tips for optimization

There’s lots of summary dashboards that can be set up, with a different set of information available on each dashboard, so different groups of people can quickly see a summary of what they are most interested in. I think what impressed me the most with this feature-rich tool was the ability to assign tasks to people and then match up those tasks with changes in rankings for the pages affected by those completed tasks. It’s hard to describe really, but not hard to understand once you see it in action.

So you know me…if it’s free, I try it. Since Linkdex has the ability to show you some things for free, I recommend you give it a go. See what you think of it. See if it can help you with your own site, or client sites if you have clients. If you try it, let me know what you think of it.

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Still, Larry Kim, the WordStream founder and CTO says,

“We built this free tool to provide advertisers with an easy to digest snapshot of how their ad campaigns are performing and to tutor them on how to make changes that will boost their performance and save money.”

“Easy to digest” sounds like it might be perfect for people like me whose eyes tend to glaze over when looking at all those numbers, but I haven’t had the chance to try the tool yet, so I’m not sure if it’s easy enough for me or not. (It would need to be Kindergarten level, for me, LOL).

I was given the opportunity to try the tool, but my week ended up being far too hectic for me to squeeze in the time. I would have loved to be able to give you my first-hand review of it, but instead, I’ll just have to let you try it for yourself. It’s free, so why not…

Here are some of WordStream’s AdWords Performance Grader features:

• Effective use of negative keywords to control spend
• Quality Score for text ads and the keywords targeted
• Click-through rates on ads
• Impression share for ads
• Long-tail keyword optimization
• Text ad optimization
• Landing page optimization
• PPC best practices

Here are a few demo screenshots of a sample account.

Since I dropped the ball on reviewing the tool, if you try it out, let us all know what you think of it, here in the comments. In fact, I’d be happy to let someone do a guest post review on the tool here, if you’re willing. Just let me know, if so.

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Post tags: AdWords, PPC, Wordstream
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Here’s a screenshot of just one small part of the report. You can see that each item is linked, which leads to all the item’s details. Honestly, a picture is worth a thousand words, so I don’t think I need to make this a long blog post. If the information you see below looks like the kind of information you’d want to monitor on your site, go sign up. It’s free for 1 site, limited to checking 500 pages on the site. That’s the option I am using for this site’s report. Looks like I have a lot of broken links to clean up, doesn’t it?

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Post tags: broken links, SEO, site monitoring
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Add This lets me share and bookmark blog posts, web pages, news, photos, videos, etc. quickly and easily to the social services I use the most. There are tons of similar extensions and bookmarklets you could use, but Add This also lets me print and email as well. The interface is clean and easy to use, and for those reasons, it’s my favorite all-in-one social extension.

Clicky Monitor is the accompanying Chrome extension for Clicky Analytics, and the exension is extremely useful. Instead of wasting time and constantly going to a web page to check my stats, I can just quickly glance at the toolbar icon to see how many visitors are currently on my site. If I’m curious to know more, I can just click on the icon to see a stats summary in a nice compact dropdown box. Here are a few screenshots to show you what I mean.

Create Link quickly gives me the HTML code for a link to the page I’m viewing, using the current page title as the anchor text, and placing the link code into my clipboard so I can just paste it wherever I need it. Saves tons of time and tedium if I don’t have to constantly type <a href=”http://…..”>blah blah</a> every time I need to place a link to a page I’m viewing.

Hover Zoom is a very simple extension that I absolutely love. It allows you to hover your mouse over a thumbnail, and the full-sized image will zoom in and immediately show, without loading a new page. Essentially it works sort of like a lightbox, but it works on nearly all sites, whether they use a lightbox or not. This saves me lots of time as I can quickly preview things, and avoid having to load pages unnecessarily. Try it to see what I mean. I bet you’ll love it as much as I do.

LastPass is a password manager and form filler. I’ve used Roboform and KeePass in the past, as well as the built-in managers that come with browsers, but LastPass is my favorite by far. No matter what browser or computer I’m using, LastPass is there to help me quickly log in to whatever site I need access to. It’s my own personal memory bank, and that saves me tons of time! There are lots of features, so I’ll let you check those out, but the security and time-saving access across all my browsers and computers is all that really matters to me.

Now that I’ve saved myself some precious time each day, what extension lets me use some of that time in a relaxed, fun way? That would have to be StumbleUpon. I honestly can’t say that the StumbleUpon toolbar saves anyone any time. Far from it – it’s a great time-waster, but that’s ok. We can’t work, work, work, 24/7 after all. The point of freeing up some time is to allow you to kick back and waste a little of it too, right? Well, that’s the way I look at it anyway, so make sure you have the toolbar handy for those times when you just feel like mindlessly stumbling through the web.

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Post tags: extensions, Google Chrome
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Donna, what would I need if I wanted to create a [fill in the blank] type of site, using WordPress to manage it? What tools would you recommend I use to make it quick, easy, and profitable, and how much will it cost me to get those tools?

To be honest, it usually takes a lot of time to boil down the numerous questions into those two concise questions, because more often than not, the person asking isn’t sure what they are trying to ask. By now, though, I’ve answered it enough times that I can do it fairly easily, so I thought it would be useful to share it with everyone here.

My answer:

Of course, it depends upon what you choose to put into that [fill in the blank] spot in that question, but I can still make general recommendations, regardless. Naturally, you *could* do everything for almost no money at all, but you’d need to be pretty tech savvy with some programming skills, so I’d rather just recommend a few reasonably-priced products that will get anyone ready to roll quickly.

Generally speaking, I’d recommend getting both products from the first group below (Group A), and then pick just one product from the second group (Group B). That combination of 3 products will cost a little less than $200, in one time fees, with monthly fees ranging from $19-$46/month. In most cases, just one conversion per month will more than cover the costs.

Group A: Products I Recommend No Matter What You Put In The [fill in the blank] Spot

Market Samurai $149, or $97 if you grab their special offer more info…

OR

Raven Internet Marketing Tools from $19/mo more info…

Ninja Affiliate – affiliate link manager – $97 more info… (You can skip this if you won’t be promoting affiliate products on your site).

Group B: Choose One Product Below Based On The Type of Site You’re Creating

For A Generic Shopping Cart For Any Type of Site, Templatic eShop – $99 more info…

For either a Directory, or a Classifieds Site, or a Coupon Codes Site, or a Real Estate Site, PremiumPress – $79 more info…

For A Membership Site, Wishlist Member – $97 more info…

For A Review Site, WP Review Site – $97 more info…

For General Affiliate Products, Rich Affiliate Theme – $70 more info…

For Affiliate Datafeeds, Datafeedr – $27/mo more info…

Group C: Optional / Additional

For Anything That Can Benefit From A Killer Landing Page, Landing Page Plugin – $97 more info…

Note: I wish all of these products had been around years ago when I first began. Don’t get me wrong. I’m glad I was forced to learn how to do so many things all on my own. It’s been a great education. But wow, the time I would have saved (and the extra money I would have earned) if I’d had these years ago, just boggles my mind.

Additional Related Reading

List Building Glossary – Terms and Definitions

Intro To Membership Sites

Affiliate Datafeeds: An Introduction

Affiliate Review Sites: An Introduction

11 Ways to Make Money Online

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Post tags: affiliate, plugins, themes, tools, WordPress
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Safety, First and Foremost

Accounts can be a real problem for businesses but there is a solution on the market – online accounting software. There is a question however of how safe it is to do accounts on line? Well, the evidence suggests very safe indeed. By doing accounts online, there is less risk of things going wrong like computers crashing and losing information, laptops being stolen or destroyed and most importantly there is no more need to make manual back-ups of accounts, as on-line accounting software automatically regularly backs-up data and stores the information on extremely secure servers.

Benefits Of The Cloud

The main advantage of on-line accounting software is its flexibility – you can login to accounts from any computer, in any part of the world and at any time of the day or night. This contemporary type of accounting software is so very different from the more traditional Sage and Quickbooks software but there are real benefits for small to medium sized businesses. Some accounting software providers offer a subscription package so there is no need to spend large amounts of capital. This makes on-line accounting accessible to almost all businesses.

What is actually happening in the world of on-line accounting software is that with major development in web based technologies, software designers and programmers are utilising the power of the Internet to the benefit of businesses by providing accounting software that:

• has greater efficiency than more traditional accounts packages
• is cost effective
• and is totally flexible and accessible.

There are other benefits too – online accounting software can allow companies that trade in numerous countries to invoice and make transactions in different currencies, together with being able to share information with offices in other areas. Selecting accounting software of this type is increasing at a rapid rate and there is evidence it is proving good for modern businesses. Companies using on-line accounting software have commented that they decided to change from more traditional desktop packages because of the risk of fire or theft of confidential information and in particular because they were uncertain about in-house back-up methods. For small businesses, accounting software that automatically backs-up to servers in several secure locations reduces again the need to spend capital on in-house IT solutions.

Considerations When Choosing A Package

If you are considering on-line accounting software to streamline financial processes, there are a few things to help select a package that will work for you. Consider accounting software that:

• allows for monthly subscription
• offers secure storage of information that is encrypted and regularly backed-up
• automatically upgrades so you are not having to download programme upgrades
• allows for multiple access from multiple locations
• and more importantly, has the facility to set access levels for different employees

Furthermore look for accounting software that is flexible to your requirements, comes with jargon free procedures and has the backing of an excellent support team. On-line accounting software is a new phenomenon for small to medium sized businesses and one of the main considerations for selecting such accounting software now is to reduce the risk of being left behind.

James Hampton has worked as an accountant for a number of years using traditional accounting software packages but more recently moved to on-line accounting due to its flexibility and security for the modern business.

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I was recently told about Shoeboxed.com. Amazingly, I hadn’t seen all the articles already written about it in the NY Times, Wall Street Journal, Techcrunch, etc. I’m surprised it had to be specifically pointed out to me. I’m usually more aware of all the coolest services out there, but this one slipped past me somehow. I’m planning on signing up for the free trial, probably the Lite version, because I can’t imagine I would need any of the larger plans. I’m fairly certain this kind of thing will make the hard parts of owning my own business a lot easier, but since I’m still in the “put this stuff off as long as possible” mode, I’m not 100% sure.

Have any of you used it before? Thoughts? If you have, or if you end up using the free trial before I do, I’d love to hear what you think about it. Oh, and since I forgot to actually mention what the heck this service is, here’s an overview:

Shoeboxed will let me send in receipts and business cards using either pre-paid envelopes, email, or my cell phone. Then, Shoeboxed scans them in, enters the data, and then organizes them by category (15 common tax categories, and I can also define my own custom categories). The data they give me back can be integrated with all sorts of programs like Excel, Quicken, QuickBooks, Evernote, FreshBooks, Bill.com, etc. Shoeboxed also meets the IRS requirements for electronic storage of receipts. All of these things are exactly the things I hate doing, so it seems like it would be really useful.

So, let me know what you think. Tried it? Liked it? Plan on signing up for the Shoeboxed.com free trial? I’m looking for your feedback on this.

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Raven tools let you research, gather, organize, manage, track, report, and analyze most of the internet marketing tasks you probably already implement (or should implement). Some examples include:

• Research and manage keywords
• Gather, analyze, and manage competitive analysis
• Link building research and management
• Manage SEO and social media campaigns
• Content and blog management
• Monitor social media engagement
• Check organic search engine rankings
• Report on site analytics and performance

So, after running the tools through their paces for about a week, I’ve decided that it’s well worth the fee as long as you’re committed to actually using the information. See, that’s the thing about tools. No matter how great they may be, at some point, it’s up to you to take action on what you discover. If you’re just itching to have information at your fingertips that will help you determine what your next step should be to market your site, then Raven tools is a fantastic choice. It gives you tons of information and makes daily tasks easy to organize and manage.

There’s no doubt in my mind that any marketing agency should check these tools out. It’s ideal for agency work. It may be a bit of overkill for many bloggers or site owners who only manage a couple of their own sites, but even for that group of folks, it’s worth at least checking out the free trial. At only $19/month for the Basic plan (which lets you manage 3 sites), it’s affordable for many bloggers. (Yes, there was certainly a time when $19/month would have been too much for me to handle, so I know not EVERYONE can afford even that).

So, the bottom line is, if you can pay an affordable fee, or you’re an agency that handles clients, you should at least give the freet trial a run, to see if it will help you or not.

Instead of listing all the benefits of the tools, I think it’s best to just have you check out a couple of videos that explain it really well, in a short time frame. Then, I’ll tell you about the one thing that really bugged me about the tools.

The Benefits

The Issues

The biggest issue I had with the tools was trying to figure out how to create reports. Yes, the tools comes with a Report Wizard, so how hard could it be? Well, it’s not hard, but it’s not all that obvious either. See, if you don’t know what kind of reports you CAN create, you don’t know where to start. For instance, pretty much the first thing you see when you go to create a new report is a form field wanting you to name this report. Um…ok…um… I got stuck right there. I was wishing for a dropdown or multiple choice selection of some recommended basic reports. Since I had no idea what types of reports I *could* create, I had no idea what to name the report.

The solution of course is to RTFM. Once I read the manual (which is 101 pages long), and watched a video on creating reports, I had a better idea where to start. I’m *still* not 100% sure that I know everything that might be possible with reports though, so I think this is an area that could use some improvement. I should note that I did attempt to use the contextual help for this, but it didn’t do me any good – for this particular issue. The contextual help is great to have though for most of the other tasks.

As you can see from the screenshots below, there’s a little HELP icon next to the menus, and depending upon which section of the tools you’re currently using, clicking that icon will reveal help notes for the very task you’re working on. Unfortunately, that contextual help didn’t solve my “What Reports Should I Make?” dilemma, so perhaps that’s a good place to throw in some extra help for reports. Sure, the contextual help for reports “existed”, but it didn’t give me any additional clues as to the types of reports I might be able to create.

Other than that one issue I had with sitting there with a dazed look on my face and saying, “ummmm…” to the Report Name question, I can certainly see huge amounts of value in using these tools. But again, I have to reiterate…you need to be willing to take action on the things you discover. Merely running reports and gathering information won’t do a darned thing for your site. Acting upon the information is vital. Seems obvious, I know, but it’s an important point that I think a lot of people tend to ignore when using tools. Anyway, there’s nothing lost by giving the free trial a run, and since you’ve made it all the way through this review, I have a surprise for you.

The Surprise

I’m giving I’ve given away a 6 months free trial for Raven tools. The normal free trial is only for 30 days, but if you tweet about this post, I’ll enter you in a drawing. One winner, on October 15, 2010, will receive received a 6 month free trial. Here are the rules:

UPDATE: Lea de Groot won this giveaway. It’s over now, so please don’t enter.

1. Tweet a link to this post and use the hashtag #DDraven. So a tweet like “@DonnaFontenot is giving away one (1) 6-month free trial for Raven Tools. Get in on it! http://bit.ly/ddraven #DDraven”

2. Come back here to this post, and comment. Put a link to your tweet in the comment, making sure that you supply a real email address in the comment form where it asks for that. (Don’t put your email address in the comment itself). On Friday, I’ll draw a name from those who tweeted, and that person will win. I’ll email you with instructions to get your special 6 month trial.

For those of you that are wondering, that link at the beginning of the post is NOT an affiliate link. I do, however, have an affiliate link, if you prefer to let me get some credit for referring you over. [big grin] So, the link in the first sentence of this post is NOT an affiliate link. The link in the second-to-last sentence of this post IS an affiliate link this is my aff link. Use whichever one you prefer.

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Post tags: Raven Tools
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So you’ve hired a Virtual Assistant to make your work life more efficient by freeing you from mundane but important day-to-day tasks and leaving you with the big, important work to focus on. However, the perfect candidate for your Virtual Assistant happens to be on the other side of the world. When it is 9 AM your time, it is 12 AM in their part of the world. Therefore, how can you both work effectively together?

Here some tips especially prepared for first-timers to effectively use their new Virtual Assistants.

Keep the Communication Simple and Crisp

First, we suggest keeping all communications as simple as possible, meaning keeping instructions and information succinct and logically delivered. Point A to Point B reaches Point C instead of many more side trips in an effort to explain thing in detail. If the further detail is not necessary to completing the task, do not include further explanation. In addition to being effective it also saves time, if your Virtual Assistant reads a 1,000-page book instead of a one page summary, it will also eat up time, making him less efficient.

Although it might seem overly redundant, you must also always confirm that a task you’ve assigned is understood from instructions. Also, always take or provide a tentative timeline as to when you expect delivery.

Use a Forum or a Project Management System

Most virtual assistant companies have project management system for all your communication with your virtual assistant. We suggest using ClockingIt. However, if you are working with an individual freelancer then we suggest setting up a private area like a forum on your website as a means of communications. Google’s threaded email format seems to work as well but in our experience forums are way better. Try to use forum software that has email integration. This will help keep communications clear, including what’s to be done, materials needed to accomplish a task, and when a task is to be completed. Importantly with your own private web space you can keep all your related files at one place. In addition, a private bulletin board will also let you/them ask questions and provide timely progress reports.

Use Instant Messengers and VoIP

We suggest using chat programs like Yahoo Messenger, MSN Messenger, and Skype to keep in the loop on an hourly basis if required. One big advantage is that IM is usually a lot quicker then email based communication.

You also need to provide alternative ways to keep in touch in case the Internet is down from either end and email, posting, and chat is not possible much less VoIP. We suggest providing your voicemail number and letting them know that it is to be used in case you are unreachable.

Dealing With New Tasks and New Skills

When dealing with new tasks, you should also be really clear on their ability to handle it while doing a million other things as well. Virtual Assistants are usually experts at multi-tasking, including adding new skills to their repertoire just as long as it is within their field of expertise. For example, a Virtual Assistant who is an expert at Word probably knows enough about PowerPoint to put together a presentation but don’t expect them to program in JavaScript overnight.

Providing Feedback & Training Your Virtual Assistant

Finally, like in the real world, Virtual Assistants will make mistakes. Issues will occur between you and your new Virtual Assistant. Be honest but also be understanding when handing out negative feedback. Constructive criticism instead of losing your temper and going overboard will go a long way in not only fixing problems but in smoothing out your future work rapport. Identify any communication issues that could have resulted in the problem then be absolutely clear on what you expect in the future.

Have realistic expectations about your Virtual Assistant, have a trial and error period set in the beginning to break them in, and communicate regularly and clearly. Follow these tips and before you know it, you will wonder how you ever survived without help while finding more time to forge ahead in your business.

Nitin is founder of Offshore Ally – a virtual assistant and call center company. In his free time he is blogging on his outsourcing tips blog – where he provides the viewpoint from the other end of outsourcing.

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Post tags: Communication, Nitin Aggarwal, virtual assistant
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Are you using Google Analytics to monitor your website performance? It’s a goldmine of free market research data, but most businesses fall into one of two categories:

• They mistakenly decided they didn’t need analytics. How can you improve your website if you aren’t measuring it?
• They installed analytics and then never used it.

If you rely on your website for any part of your sales or business lifestyle, then please let this be a call to action: start using analytics to measure your online performance. What can Google Analytics (or any other analytics package, for that matter) tell you?

Pencil by The Shane H

Where are your customers coming from?

In an analytics package, you can learn where your customers are coming from. There’s no comment box or clerk having to ask everyone where they heard about you – the tool does it without them even knowing. Wouldn’t it be nice to know:

• Which one of your advertisements and banner ads were working well? Which ones send people but those people don’t stick around?
• Did that blog feature actually send any web traffic?
• Does that paid directory listing not actually send you any web traffic?

This isn’t just data: this is market research information you can use to measure and evaluate your online performance. And it’s free!

What parts of your website are popular? Which parts stink?

Unfortunately, many businesses put a website up quickly and without much thought. They wouldn’t do the same for a real world storefront or send out a salesperson without a clear message and call to action.

Analytics can help you understand how popular and effective the pages are in your site, such as:

• How many customers arrive and leave immediately?
• Where do customers linger? Is there a particular popular section?
• Do you have a page nobody reads? Is that because it’s not important or because nobody can find it?

It’s easy to over-analyze this stuff here, but it’s important to do some digging and see what’s happening behind closed doors – what exactly are people doing on your website?

How’s your search engine optimization?

Last but not least: SEO. Regardless if you are a newbie to this area or your website is a well-oiled machine, analytics can teach you a few things, such as what are people actually typing in the search engines to find you. It’s not what’s here that will surprise you (often weird phrases will show up), but moreso the stuff that isn’t here. It goes back to what I said earlier: you can’t improve performance if you aren’t measuring it.

Andy Hayes is the managing director for Travel Online Partners, a travel online marketing firm.  Don’t miss their popular Google analytics ebook to make this most of this free market research!

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Post tags: Andy Hayes, Google Analytics, Travel Online Partners, Web analytics
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