I’ve written a lengthy post about this on my Tattered Sisters blog. So rather than rehash it all in a duplicate post, I’m going to provide you with a link to that post instead. Just click the link below to get all the information about Google Friend Connect.

GOODBYE GOOGLE FRIEND CONNECT

I’ll be replacing my GFC widget when it ends with the new LinkyFollowers tool (which you can also read about on Tattered Sisters), so feel free to Follow Me with that, if you like. I’ll be adding that to the blog immediately after I post this.

I really liked GFC, because it made it so easy to follow blogs, even though there are other ways to subscribe to my favorites. GFC just made it quick and simple. But alas, sometimes good things must come to an end.

As an online business owner, a very good resource for your customers is the FAQ page on your website. But FAQs pages can be bothersome and time-consuming to maintain.  The folks at FAQME aim to make your FAQ page easy to use and maintain, and at a price you can afford: FREE. And the page doesn’t even appear on your own website, so there’s nothing to add to your website, other than a link to your own unique FAQME page on their website.

Just visit FAQME by clicking on the image (above) and sign up. Once you do, you’ll get your FAQME page that includes the following features:

• FAQ’s page that is easy to design, setup, and maintain.
• Drag and Drop reordering.
• Stats. Yes, stats! This will show you which questions your customers are reading, how long they’re on your page, and more.
• A Contact Us form–this is a great bonus! Customers can contact you directly from your FAQ page.
• An Inbox, which allows you to respond to your customers who have contacted you via the Contact Us form.
• Multiple FAQs–if you have more than one website, you can manage all of your FAQs in one place.

Your FAQME page is free to use, and will NOT contain ads. And if you have a blog, this would be a great way to add a Contact Form for your blog with ease, which is another plus.

I think this is a great Web Tool, especially since it’s free and so easy to use. Definitely worth a look if it’s peaked your interest!

]]> http://www.onlinebusinessjunction.com/2012/02/faqme/feed/ 0 http://www.onlinebusinessjunction.com/2012/02/copyblogger/ http://www.onlinebusinessjunction.com/2012/02/copyblogger/#comments Sat, 04 Feb 2012 18:13:00 +0000 admin http://www.onlinebusinessjunction.com/?p=1026 I just found another great Free eCourse to help anyone who needs marketing assistance. It’s an ongoing eCourse over at the Copyblogger blog.

They provide you with a simple way to implement effective online marketing using a tutorial approach that is easy to understand. And speaking of tutorials, they have lots of those too! Everything from Copywriting to Email Marketing to SEO and more. There is a whole lot of useful information on their blog! A lot of it is geared toward bloggers, but their information is applicable to online business owners, even if you don’t have a blog (but if you don’t, why not?!).

So hop on over to their blog and check out all of their information. I recommend you subscribe today! Just click on the image (above) and that will take you directly to the Copyblogger blog.

From her ABOUT page:

At crafting an MBA, the goal is to help you polish those basic skills (like business planning and bookkeeping), develop a marketing plan (online and off), and help keep you up to date with trends in the business world – while also helping develop skills specific to a craft based business (selling online, craft shows, trade shows, and promoting your portfolio).

She also has a free eBook, The Best of Crafting an MBA, available via email, along with many wonderful tips and information on her blog for the creative-minded business owner. Just click on the image above to be taken to the CMBA blog. I guarantee you it will be difficult to not find helpful information there for your business.

I’m not sure how many of you need or use stock photography in your online business, but if you’re interested in a great resource, I often use iStockphoto. Photos are always a great way to enhance your business (or personal) blog or website and can be used in so many ways. So if you’re looking for stock photography, be sure to check out iStockphoto. Just click on the image above to go to their website. Check out what they have to offer.

Their free service is for only 100 contacts, which isn’t very much. That being said, sometimes you get what you pay for, and considering all the features Mad Mimi offers, it’s worth considering if you’re looking for a high quality mailing list service.

Also keep in mind that if you can’t pay for a mailing list service there are plenty of free alternatives. Poke around on our Mailing Lists & Newsletters page for some of those. And remember that if you have a blog, that can also be used as your newsletter, and that costs absolutely nothing.  Click the link below to read a previous post on this topic.

Use Your Blog as Your Newsletter

Happy marketing!

There’s a great article over at Spice Up Your Blog on this topic, and it provides a video for how to do it. Just click on the link below to view that very informative post.

How to Buy a Custom Domain Directly from Blogger
and Connect It to Your Blog

Custom domains are a great way to help maintain your business brand, and a way to just streamline the route to your blog, whether it’s for business or personal use.

Favicons are the small “favorite icons” (= favicons) icons that appear in the browser’s address bar. If you look up at the URL for my blog, you’ll see my favicon that looks like a little OBJ.

It’s a great little way to help with branding your blog, and your business. So if you’d like an easy way to now add one to your Blogger blog, please visit the Blogger in Draft blog link below for a tutorial on how to do just that.

Customize Your Favicon Tutorial

Wish they’d done this years ago…but better late than never!

Print Friendly offers three ways to optimize web pages before printing them, and/or can convert them to PDF format files as well. This helps to eliminate a lot of the printing of unwanted images and information that appear on web pages, such as ads, graphics, and unwanted text. You can edit the pages to print only what you want, and eliminate what you don’t.

Option 1 allows you to visit their website, enter a URL, and  then edit and print from there.

Option 2 allows you to add the Print Friendly browser tool to your browser and use it that way.

And Option 3 allows you to embed the Print Friendly feature to your website or blog by adding a snippet of javascript to your template.

I just tested out Option 3 on one of my blogs. You can see it in action here:

http://www.tatteredsisters.com/2011/03/primitive-robin-eggs-jar.html

Scroll to the bottom of that post and click on the green Print/PDF button. The PrintFriendly window will open. It will allow you to Print the page, with the option to remove images, if you like. It will allow you to save the page as a PDF. It will also allow you to email the page.  You can even adjust the text size to your liking.

The free service does display ads at the bottom of the Print Friendly window when it opens. But to me, this is not a problem. I think the service is wonderful. It will allow people to print and save pages from your site or blog very quickly and easily. Perfect for anyone wanting to save product information, or save and print patterns/tutorials, etc, if you offer them. There are lots of possibilities for its use.

So if you’re interested be sure to check it out!

When you arrive at her blog you can see the gallery in use, right under her header image and menu. It allows you to scroll through a bunch of thumbnail images, each of which is linked to the posts in her blog where the images reside. And the gallery is very customizable to be whatever size you need.

For any of you who like to feature new products on your blog, this would be an ideal way of allowing customers to see all of your products at a glance. And even if you are just a creative blogger who wants to add quick image links to all of your projects, this would work for you too. Definitely worth looking into, as it’s a great web tool for your blog.