Resources

Black Friday Savings!

This Thanksgiving week we’ll be bombarded with email offers and sales from just about everyone that sells something online. I saved a few of those links, and thought I’d pass along some of these deals for your Black Friday weekend shopping. Holiday sales aren’t just about your usual gift list – you can save on services you use for your business – even web hosting and marketing tools. Save big with these holiday offers…

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Resource Spotlight: Evernote Templates

Like many things in life and technology, a winning characteristic can sometimes work against you. A resource that can do anything can be so flexible that it isn’t used for anything. The missing ingredient is structure. Evernote is an example of this. It can be used for nearly any purpose with a bit of forethought and setup, which is, eh… work. Evernote’s pre-formatted notes solve this problem!

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To-Do List + Calendar = Less Stress

I think I’ve tried about every task management approach out there… from the incredibly simple (pen and paper) to the complicated (GTD®). I’ve used most of the web-based project/task systems, too: Asana, Basecamp, Wunderlist, Toodledo, Google Tasks. I think they are all really great… no complaints, but they really didn’t smoothly tackle what I needed… the ability to seamlessly schedule tasks and projects on my calendar.

Many of us today (me, especially) experience “incoming” in electronic form – mostly email, website form messages, texts or voice mail messages. My challenge was to make it as easy, fast and effortless as possible to schedule “incoming” along with my other priorities in a visual form that I can manage. Ideally, it can be automated. Automation prevents mistakes and things falling through the cracks.

Here’s how I solved it.

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Does your website need a privacy policy?

While your business may not need to have an elaborate, printed and mailed policy, it’s a good idea to clarify what data is being collected about your website visitors, and what your practice is with any data you collect. Having a posted policy helps build trust with visitors and demonstrates your concern with visitor and customer data security.  Think of a website privacy policy is a much broader version of your email marketing signup “no spam” disclaimer. 

Does your website need a privacy policy? Read More »

The pros & cons of DIY website builders

I’m often asked about the new DIY (do-it-yourself) website platforms currently available, among them Squarespace, Wix, Weebly, and some other web builder tools that may be offered by registrar companies like GoDaddy. The question is, what’s the difference between these services and WordPress? There are actually a lot of differences, not only in how they work, but what you can do with them.

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Super-Easy Email Encryption by Virtru

How many times have you needed to send some sensitive info to a contact, but either had to send in several messages, fax it – or worse, just take your chances with sending it via email? With all the security compromises in the news, there is new interest in how individuals can secure their online messages and have more control over who can read it. Many email providers have been making their own internal security improvements, especially Gmail and Google Apps, but this does not replace individual message encryption, where only the intended recipient has the key to open and read the message. That’s where Virtru saves the day!

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Announcing My New Domain Name Services Site: Specialty.Domains

I know there has been radio silence here for a few weeks, but I’ve been hard at work putting the finishing touches on my new venture, Specialty.Domains. This new domain sales site is focused on the new gTLDs (domain extensions) being added to the market every week. As I posted here back in May, between early 2014 and late 2015, it’s estimated that as many as 1500 new domain extensions will become available. This is a huge boon to marketers and brands because these new domains allow you to communicate exactly what you do – just by sharing your web address.

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Find Unbiased Business Software Reviews and Comparisons at G2 Crowd

There’s so many new and wonderful tools available every day that make having your own business incredibly automated—in ways unimaginable even just a few years ago. There’s so many, in fact, it can be downright overwhelming. I love finding a new resource, but you can spend a LOT of time testing and wading through details trying to determine if a new service is right for you. One site that can lighten the load and save you a boatload of time is G2 Crowd (g2crowd.com).

Find Unbiased Business Software Reviews and Comparisons at G2 Crowd Read More »

Pushbullet: The Swiss Army Knife of Mobile Notifications

Many of the services we use today offer mobile text updates to keep us up to speed: calendar reminders, bank balance updates, marketing messages, emergency alerts—you name it. It can all end up in your text message inbox—and combined with messages from family and friends—your text inbox quickly becomes a cluttered mess. Pushbullet keeps your text inbox clutter-free, plus a whole lot more.

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Rethinking Your Online Security? Keep These 5 Tips in Mind

On a daily basis there are new and scary news reports about huge breaches of data security that happen with large and very well-run companies. Target, Adobe, LinkedIn – those are big examples you no doubt heard of. Of course, this doesn’t include the countless smaller stories you never hear about unless you’re like me and read tech blogs a lot. Add to that the frequent occurrence of run-of-the-mill website hacks – and the impression is inescapable that your information is either vulnerable to theft, hacking – or just being monitored or sold without your consent.

So how do you keep this onslaught in perspective? Develop a personal online security game plan. A few simple updates to your habits, methods and tools can greatly reduce your risk and minimize damage should a compromise occur. One thing is for sure: you have to be willing to do a bit of work and up your game. Here’s a few tips and ideas to consider:

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Zapier.com Makes Web Integrations Easy

Almost all online businesses are actively using at least a few web management tools to help keep things running smoothly. There aren’t too many “all-in-one” services that do anything that a micro-biz would need. Most of us use email of course, maybe Evernote, perhaps Basecamp, FreshBooks and Mailchimp too—but they are all separate services. But, what if there was a way to automatically move information from one to another? Think of the time it would save…

Enter Zapier. Zapier is similar to IFTTT in concept in that the user and create their own “recipes” (read my previous post about IFTTT here) – but Zapier focuses on user-created connections between web services (“Zaps”) rather than linking actions based on specific types of information. Zapier will create connections between AWeber and Highrise, Twitter and Infusionsoft, or GoToWebinar and Google Contacts… it’s up to you.

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