Internet Mastery Marketing Blog » Web Development

Free Resource – Picnik Online Image Editing

Denise Griffitts — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 00:00:37 +0000

Weekly Recommended Resources

Do you need to clean up or manipulate images quickly and easily? Unless you are a whiz in Photoshop or Picasa, reworking images may be something that you don’t even try to tackle on your own.

Picnik is an online image editing tool that provides a variety of textual and visual embellishments such as themed graphics to personalize photographs and even provide scrapbook-like polishes.

You can crop and resize images, sharpen or soften lines, adjust layers for optimal contrast and saturation and implement other everyday polishes.

Users can also learn tips, tricks and discuss finished photos in the forums, find information about tools and features in the topically-organized in-depth FAQ section and even give feedback to the site developers using the contact sub-portal in the Help menu.

While this is a free resource, I do recommend that you go with Picnik Premium. For as little as $2 a month you get more features and content:

More effects
Beauty tools
More collages
More fonts and stickers
Advanced editing tools
Unlimited history
Unlimited connections
Priority feedback
Ad-free and full screen
Layering and more…

Be sure to come back here and share some of your new images!

We Are Hiring!

Denise Griffitts — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 20:04:38 +0000

We are looking for Virtual Assistants or other virtual service providers who are proficient in ClickBank and PayDotCom.com.

If you have worked in one or both of these systems and are confident that your skill sets are proficient to expert, please email me at info @ virtualassistantindustry.com, subject line “Click Bank”.

Please feel free to send this information to someone you know who is expert in these systems.

Thank you!

Denise Griffitts

Quick and Simple HTML Tips

Denise Griffitts — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 16:04:21 +0000

Making text bold
To make text appear bold, use and around the text.

For example:

Make this boldwill look like:

Make this bold

Making text italic
To make text appear italic, use and around the text.

For example:

Make this italicwill look like:

Make this italic

Making text underlined
To make text appear underlined (without being an actual link), use and around the text.

For example:

Make this underlinedwill look like:

Make this underlined

Creating line breaks
There are two basic line breaks in HTML. Use

to break to the next line or

to skip a line.

For example:

1 2
3will look like:

1
2

3

Changing the size of text
To change the size of text, use to look bigger, or to look smaller. End with . You can also change the number value if you want to.

For example:

Make text bigger or smallerwill look like:

Make text bigger or smaller

Changing the type of font
There are a few different fonts you can use, and the most common are:

Times New Roman: (this is the default for all browsers)Arial or Helvetica: use and

Verdana: use and

Garamond: use and

For example:

Make this font garamond

will look like:

Make this font garamond

Changing the font color
There are many different Web-safe colors that you can use in your HTML. View the HTML Color Codes Chart.

To make text appear in a certain color, use the color codes like this: .

For example:

Make this font redwill look like:

Make this font red

To set default font colors for the entire page, use color codes in the command. For example, if you want:

use:

Including a graphic
To include a graphic in your HTML page, use . Be sure to include the entire URL of the graphic, starting with http://.

Including a numbered or bulleted list
To include a list in your HTML page, use

at the beginning and end of the list, and use

to create the individual lines.

For example:

This is line one This is line two
will look like:

This is line one

This is line two

If you want to use a bulleted list instead of a numbered list, use
and
instead of
and
.

How to Work With Fonts In WordPress

Denise Griffitts — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 19:58:05 +0000

Do you have a WordPress website or blog that requires something other than the standard fonts that most computers see?

AnyFont is a marvelous plugin that allows you to automatically set any TrueType or OpenType font for your post titles, menu items, widget titles or anywhere else you want to use a custom font on your WordPress site. Ryan Peel, who is the developer of this plugin is amazinging responsive to email and fixed an issue for me immediately.

The issue that I encountered was that AnyFont was terribly allergic to the Featured Gallery Content plugin and immediately shut it down because of conflicting javascript libraries. Ryan tells me that he re-wrote the javascript to remove any conflict with the Featured Content Gallery plugin and will be including those changes in all future versions of AnyFont.

See how the font you want to use will look before installing it:

If you are on the hunt for free truetype and opentype fonts for Windows and Mac, FontSpace offers more than 13,394 free downloads. What I really like though, is the ability to type in a word in your chosen font family and see instantly what it will look like. This is a time saver!

Just type the word you want into the “customize” box, choose your size and off you go!

What it looks like when I type my name in:

Enjoy!

Free Press Release Generator

Denise Griffitts — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 13:39:44 +0000

Table of contents for Weekly Recommended Resource

Weekly Recommended Resource

Lisa Manyon of Write On Creative created a free press release tool called Write On Creative Press Release Producer that I use and recommend. This wonderful tool requires just two easy steps:

Input your information in the required fields.
Hit “Display My Press Release” and your draft release can be viewed and copied on the following page.

And don’t forget to click on the “Grab Your Free Stuff “ icon at the top of the page to receive your free copywriting action plan from Lisa.

I recently had the great pleasure of interviewing Lisa on my BlogTalkRadio Show, “Your Partner In Success“. She gave our audience some really terrific tools, tips and advice about copywriting and how to get people to pay close attention to the message that you are delivering. If you didn’t have an opportunity to listen and download yet, you can listen here.

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Free Search Engine Simulator – Test Your Site!

Denise Griffitts — Fri, 02 Apr 2010 14:34:05 +0000

Weekly Recommended Resource

This free search engine simulator tool from To the Web.com shows you just how the search engines “see” your web page. I recommend you test your site(s) right away. I tested all of mine and found that one of them had the following meta tag incorrectly installed which means that Google DOES NOT FOLLOW that link.

I am a web developer and know better, but these things do happen and you need to be sure that you are building and testing your pages correctly. Find the best tools for the job at hand and use them!

Here are the basic No Follow question and answers from Google, Ask.com and Yahoo.

How does your search engine treat the No Follow attribute?

Google : The Googlebot does not follow that link.
Yahoo : If we find a link we make it available to our algorithms to find new content, whether it has a ‘no follow’ attribute or not. However, if the ‘no follow’ attribute is present, it means that no attribution is given to the target from the source of the link.
Ask.com : We have never officially supported No Follow, so your questions don’t apply to our crawler/ranking.

If a site has no web citations and only has one link pointing to it, and that link is from a Wikipedia entry, would your search engine find that site and index it even though the link uses a No Follow attribute?

Yahoo : Yes, the link is available to our crawlers for finding the target. Then the target will be crawled and indexed based on our algorithms.
Google : Assuming that link is still no-followed per Wikipedia’s current practice, we will not find much less index that page (remember, this is page, not site related; if links to other pages on that site are not no-followed, we will see and potentially index those pages).On a related note, though, and echoing Matt’s earlier sentiments… we hope and expect that more and more sites — including Wikipedia — will adopt a less-absolute approach to no-follow… expiring no-follows, not applying no-follows to trusted contributors, and so on.

Is there any quality given to sites which attract No Follow links from authority sites, besides the lack of the passing of PageRank, Link Authority or “Search Juice”?

Google : Since the Googlebot does not follow no-follow links, this isn’t really an issue.
Yahoo : As promised in the semantics for the ‘no follow’ tag, the anchor text and attribution will not be carried over to the target of a ‘no follow’ link.

WP WishList – Membership Site Plugin

Denise Griffitts — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 21:37:26 +0000

Buy 1 License, Get The Second for $25 Until March 17

If you, or a client want to create a quick and VERY powerful membership site using your current or planned WordPress installation, I highly recommend Wishlist Member.

As more and more web development clients discover the power of WordPress, we find ourselves working regularly with projects that integrate this membership plugin.

Right now Wishlist Member is offering a Two License Promo (this is not advertised on their site) meaning that anyone who purchases a Single Site License has the opportunity to get a second license at a whopping 74% discount. It’s the best deal they’ve ever offered and for an extra $25, you get a second license – which means you can use it on another site.

If you’ve been thinking about starting a membership site, private community or you need a way to deliver a digital course, then you’ll want to take a look at this.

Why do I recommend this plugin so highly?

Because I work in it almost daily for myself and for our Web Development and Virtual Assistance clients. It’s by far the best solution for creating a membership site and there are even 30+ videos available for free showing you how it’s being used. Besides the huge savings, you’ll find that once you start using WishList Member, you’ll quickly see that there are many ways to use it.

For example, a little while back they released a free training video demonstrating 10 of the most popular kinds of membership sites (and some of them don’t even have content inside!). You can view that here.

My Web Development team is expert at working with this plugin so please feel free to ask any questions you like!

Does Your Small or Online Business Have a Toll Free Number?

Denise Griffitts — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 19:14:50 +0000

One thing we always recommend during a web development project is that the client consider obtaining a toll free number. Having a toll free number on your website while offering credibility, also offers the opportunity to not publish to the world your home or cell phone number. In this day of work-from-home entrepreneurs, this is an important consideration.

My office uses Grasshopper which used to be called GotVMail. Grasshopper is very easy to set up. Just pick a toll free number for your business, or transfer your current number. Then record your main greeting. You will also have the opportunity to have it professionally recorded if that is your preference. Add departments and employees, choose what phone number you want your calls to terminate to and you are done. I actually don’t have my toll free number ring to my office as it can be terribly disruptive. What we have done is to create mailboxes and departments and have the voice messages emailed to the proper department as an .MP3.

There is also a “Read Your Voicemail” function available for an additional $10 a month. If you are on the run a good bit, the voicemail transcription will be emailed to you as readable text. You’ll be able to stay connected when you can’t listen to the .MP3 file of your voicemail. You can also listen to your messages on your Blackberry or iPhone. Just click the “Play It On Mobile link in the notification email and you’ll be listening to your voice mails without dialing or logging in to your account. For those of us on the run, this is a great tool.

Another really great feature is that you have unlimited extensions for your small business. Each extension has its own call forwarding, voicemail and message delivery settings. Even if you’re the only employee, by utilizing unlimited extensions you are giving your small business the big business sound that it needs.

Truthfully, there are too many features for me to list here. What I can tell you is that we use it, and love it. It is also very affordable to have a toll free number these days. Plans start at $9.95 a month and there is a $25 activation fee. My monthly bill seems to hover around $25 a month which given all that the system offers is remarkably affordable. Be warned though, if you make a habit of answering the calls that come through on your toll free number you will run your bill right up through the roof. I strongly recommend that you treat this strictly as a voice mail system and return the calls at your first opportunity.

To train with Denise Griffitts to become a highly technically savvy, highly paid, highly sought-after Virtual Assistant please visit Virtual Assistance University.

**You have permission to reprint in your publication or to your website/blog any articles by Denise Griffitts found on this Website as long as Denise Griffitt’s name and contact information is included. Denise Griffitts, Virtual Assistance Industry Expert, http://internetmasteryblog.com, info @ virtualassistantindustry.com, 888-719-6711.

New WordPress Theme – Stardust by Ben Cope

Denise Griffitts — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 17:55:23 +0000

I recently began working with a brand new WordPress template created by “The Internet Genius”, Ben Cope called Stardust Theme and love it! In fact, we are currently using it for 3 different clients. Since each client has a very different business sensibility it is imperative that we work with templates that are very easy to customize to the clients needs without looking like we are just using the same template over and over again.

Take a look at MelanieJWilliams.com. This site is not completely done, but will give you an idea of just how lovely this template is.

Features

Why you’ll love the Stardust WordPress Theme …

Complete Content Management
SEO Friendly
Feature Page Template
9 Different Color Styles
Custom Theme Options Page
Optional Home Page “Stickies”
Optional Video or Opt-in Form on Home Page
Widget-Ready
Flexible Layout
Social Media Integration
Professional Design
Multiple Layout Options
Tons of theme options for images, social media icons, twitter and more
Enhanced Professional Graphics and Support
Custom Image Support
Full browser compatibility (IE 6/7/8, Firefox, Chrome, Safari)

Membership Websites

When laying out the plan for your WordPress platform website you may want to consider creating a membership site meaning that you are providing valuable and needed content to paying customers each month. Quite literally a membership site means that you sign up readers to pay a monthly subscription fee. Your members will receive coaching, teaching, business tips, audios, videos, downloads or anything else that your particular niche can provide. We strongly recommend using WP Wishlist which is a very affordable and incredibly powerful WordPress plugin. Popular features include Total Content Protection, Sequential Content Delivery, Easy Member Management and much more.

WishList Products Interview Series

Special guest Philip Mutrie talks about how WP WishList helped him grow his optin list to 12,000 people. That all by itself makes it worth listening to but of course they covered other very important topics such as some powerful ways to increase interaction with your members, why creating “sub-groups” can increase member loyalty, why not accepting everyone can improve your membership and lastly, they discuss the 2 step registration process. Click here to listen to interview and then decide if a membership site is the perfect solution for your online business.

Other Recommendations

We recommend GoDaddy for domain name purchases but don’t really like hosting WordPress sites with them. We find that they put way too many sites on one server which means bottlenecks and slow loading pages. We now host all WordPress sites on HostGator and have been very happy with the results.

If you have any questions about WordPress and membership sites please email them to me at info @ virtualassistantindustry.com.

The Secret for Business – With Details!

Denise Griffitts — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 14:13:19 +0000

I think by now that most people who pay close attention to social media marketing are probably familiar with Gary Vaynerchuk. He is the “social media” expert behind the now famous Wine Library TV. Frankly, I don’t much care for wine and rarely drink alcohol of any description but keep up with this website just to see what new ideas Gary comes up with that can be utlitzed for myself or my clients.

I just found out that one of my favorite WordPress Plugins, WP Wishlist is now offering a free copy of Gary’s new book “Crush It” and an interview with Gary during the month of October with any purchase. The book is a perfect match for all WishList customers as it outlines how to turn your passion into a profitable business by using the internet. As Gary himself says about this book, it is “the secret for business – with details!” If you are in the process of building a membership site WP Wishlist is a “MUST HAVE” plugin. Combining it with this book is pure genius in my opinion.

Review (Courtesy of Amazon.com)

“Gary is a force of nature. His authentic, raw passion and caring touches everyone. His insights into social media & his message of opportunity could not be more timely.” (Tony Robbins )

“Gary was the first person to push me on the importance of personal brand and transparency – this was months before anyone was talking about it, he’s always two steps ahead of anyone else.” (Kevin Rose, Founder of Digg.com )

“Anyone looking to supercharge their career should beg, borrow, and steal to learn Gary Vee’s techniques. He reinvented the rules to build a $60-million business from scratch-on his own terms.” (Tim Ferriss, #1 NY Times bestselling author of The 4-Hour Workweek )

“Gary Vaynerchuk is one of those entrepreneurs who has discovered the secret to combining passion with business. He is always an inspiration and always entertaining. You owe it to yourself to read this book!” (Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos.com )

“Gary Vaynerchuk has become a walking, talking (and oh, such talking!), webbing and Tweeting example of how believing in what you do and keeping it fun can step up your life in all ways. There is nobody I would rather talk sports with-or wine or life.” (Scott Simon, host of Weekend Edition Saturday on NPR )

Product Description

Do you have a hobby you wish you could indulge in all day? An obsession that keeps you up at night? Now is the perfect time to take that passion and make a living doing what you love. In Crush It! Why NOW Is the Time to Cash In on Your Passion, Gary Vaynerchuk shows you how to use the power of the Internet to turn your real interests into real businesses. Gary spent years building his family business from a local wine shop into a national industry leader. Then one day he turned on a video camera, and by using the secrets revealed here, transformed his entire life and earning potential by building his personal brand. By the end of this book, readers will have learned how to harness the power of the Internet to make their entrepreneurial dreams come true. Step by step, Crush It! is the ultimate driver’s manual for modern business.