How I Use Crossloop For My Consulting Business (And How You Can, Too!)

Free Tools October 20th, 2009

Honestly, last year I’ve spent hundreds of hours in front of my computer trying to figure out this or that…

  • how to place a hyperlink or affiliate code in a text module
  • how to center or resize an image
  • how to add the ‘alt’ tag
  • how to find the best primary tag for my lens
  • how to add color to my fonts
  • and on and on…

I bet you know exactly what I mean. Boy, did I wish sometimes someone was sitting next to me and simply walking me through the freaking process! I was losing too much sleep already!

To make a long story a bit longer – here’s the perfect tool for such situations: Crossloop.com (Our own wizard Squidster introduced me to this!)

At Crossloop.com you can download a free application that facilitates the sharing of your screen with someone else. That person can also control your cursor and thus show you whatever you want to learn directly on your screen. Nifty. And totally safe and secure – you can theoretically click out of that connection, anytime you wish.

I’ve started a little consulting biz with this tool and so can you. There’s a lot you can cover in an hour and the time and head aches saved are worth much more than, let’s say, a $20 fee.

I made a tutorial video about the easy Crossloop sign-up and set-up procedure. Looky…

Please leave your questions and comments in the box below.

How To Keep Your Visitors Glued To Your Site For Hours With Apture.com!

Free Tools October 20th, 2009

Wouldn’t that be nice? Your blog readers from all over the world land on your post and find everything they were looking for. And then some. They’re so completely engaged in your content that after 30 minutes – they’re still reading! An hour later, they’re still there! How can we achieve that? (Did you click on the “world” link above?)

1. Entertain them…

2. Educate them…

3. Engage them with a controversial topic…

You get my drift…

What you see above are embeds using a nifty little tool called Apture, a plug-in or app you can install for free on your blogs and websites. Not on Squidoo, though – it’s an iframe thingy.

Just yesterday, Problogger wrote a great introduction to Apture on his blog.

I’ve used Apture a lot on my DramaMusicals blog and it’s a Godsend. You can really offer in-depth information on anything imaginable and you can even upload your own resource links. Use it for the hyper-links in words or phrases, or embed a multimedia window with up to 7 feature links.

I suggest you go to Apture.com and read their tutorials and demos of all the great possibilities with this fab tool. See if you like it and if you understand the installation instructions.

Make sure you visit my SquidLog post with a video tutorial on “How To Activate Apture On Your Blog And Start Using It”!

Please come back here anytime with your questions. I’ll be glad to help. :)

Welcome To Blogging Biz Tips For Squids

Miscellaneous October 16th, 2009

I will share my small online business experience on this group blog – great tools and apps, case studies about my consulting work, insights and tips as I encounter them.

Naturally, we’ll get much more out of this thing if we ALL participate and contribute. Group membership and blog posting are open to everyone!

I’ve added 2 RSS feeds to the sidebar on the right – examples of my online work for clients. As we get further along with our group, I will explain the goals and strategies for these sites.

My indispensable partner for most of my online biz endeavors is the passionate lensmaster, Wordpress expert and blog tech genius, Squidster.

I am deeply indebted to her and I would not be here without her help. So, let’s make her proud, friends. How? By learning, sharing, and making money, of course!

Let the Games begin…