We had a great time Thursday night learning about Joomla, the open-source content management system that I’ve been testing on your behalf. The recording for the ”Next-Level Websites” webinar is now available at www.WebSavvySupport.com.

To view the recording, log in and click on the red Webinar Recording button. Not registered yet? It’s free, and you only have to register once. Here’s how:

1. Go to www.websavvysupport.com (my new Joomla site!) and click on Register Free.
2. Complete the form for the Web-Savvy Support Registered Membership.
3. On the next screen, enter your name and email address to immediately to receive the instructions for future webinars. That’s all there is to it!

NOTE: If you have had an ICFMW membership with this site in the past (paid or trial membership), use that prior username and password to log onto the site. If you don’t remember them, just go to the home page and click Forgot Username or Forgot Password under the Login box to have them sent to you.

Once you have registered, you’ll be able to log in to find the registration link, webinar recordings, and resource pages for future webinars.

Remember, my Back-To-School 30% Off Sale is still running, so if you’re thinking about a new website/blog/Joomla site, now’s the time to get started. Or if you want help or coaching on an existing site, we can do that too! Visit http://www.toolie.com/whatsnew/ to get all the details and the 30% Off Coupon Code!

See you soon,

Toolie®

In the last 3 days I’ve given you some pretty good reasons to attend tonight’s webinar on “Next-Level Websites for Entrepreneurs and Small Businesses.” Have you been thinking about joining me?

http://www.toolie.com/links/wsswebinar

Let me give you one more reason to attend: your mindset. When times are tough, it’s tempting to pull back, clamp down, hold the fort, and fall back to limited thinking about the future of your business. One of the best ways to overcome that negative impulse is to start making plans for better times, even if you don’t know how  or when they’ll arrive. There’s something about opening up your mind to new possibilities that gives them permission to show up.

So in preparation for the growth of your business, you owe it to yourself to find out why you should consider Joomla for your next-level website. I’ve been working with Joomla for almost a year now, and I absolutely love it. For me, learning and testing Joomla on your behalf is an extension of the commitment I have always had to you: to find the best, most cost-effective solutions to support your online business presence.

http://www.toolie.com/links/wsswebinar

Join me TONIGHT to get this valuable information NOW so you can start making plans for your next website. Thanks to my 30% Off Sale, now is a great time to make plans and take advantage of the savings!

Here’s how to register:

1. Go to www.websavvysupport.com (my new Joomla site!) and click on Register/Join.
2. Choose Web-Savvy Support Registered Membership, and complete the form.
3. On the next screen, enter your name and email address to immediately receive the webinar link
   and instructions for future webinars. That’s all there is to it!

NOTE: If you have had an ICFMW membership with the site in the past (paid or trial membership), use the same username and password to log onto the site. If you don’t remember them, just go to the home page and click Forgot
Username or Forgot Password under the Login box to have them sent to you.

Talk to you TONIGHT at 6 pm Pacific/9 pm Eastern!!

Toolie®

P.S.
forward this email to a friend who might benefit!

Ever start down a path in your business and realize you’ve made a wrong decision? (I hate when that happens!) Well that’s what happened with my membership site, and it’s what caused me to go looking for the solution I found in Joomla, the subject of tomorrow night’s webinar on “Next-Level Websites for Entrepreneurs and Small Businesses.”

http://www.toolie.com/links/wsswebinar

Membership sites, when well done, can be a great source of residual income. The difficulty is that it’s hard to find a software solution that is robust (able to take on all the content you could throw at it), and affordable for solo-preneurs and small businesses. When I first started working on membership sites 6 years ago, one either spent $69/month forever for membership site software, or $4,995 in one payment. Corporate-sized membership site solutions started at $5,000 and went up from there (I worked on one of those also!).

Nowadays it’s possible to set up a membership site for $97, but not one you would want count on to handle hundreds or thousands of members over multiple years. That’s where Joomla comes in: as open-source software, it’s free, but that doesn’t mean it’s not well-engineered or insecure. In fact, I have found it to be both a robust and affordable solution for a membership site. For me and my clients, it offers the best possible combination of features, functionality, multi-user access, and cost-controls.

Best of all, Ididn’t have to give my existing investment in my shopping cart or pay for a shopping cart I didn’t need. I can completely customize the combination of membership features, content, layout, and membership access levels when I use Joomla.

http://www.toolie.com/links/wsswebinar

But that’s not all Joomla has to offer. In fact on Thursday night, I’ll have 5 different Joomla sites to show you that were created for different purposes. We’ll talk about when a Joomla site might be appropriate for your business, and I’ll reserve time to take your questions at the end of the webinar.

Here’s how to register:

1. Go to www.websavvysupport.com (my new Joomla site!) and click on Register/Join.
2. Choose Web-Savvy Support Registered Membership, and complete the form.
3. On the next screen, enter your name and email address to immediately receive the webinar link and instructions for future webinars. That’s all there is to it!

NOTE: If you have had an ICFMW membership with the site in the past (paid or trial   membership), use the same username and password to log onto the site. If you don’t remember them, just go to the home page and click Forgot Username or Forgot Password under the Login box to have them sent to you.

Join me on Thursday to get this valuable information NOW so you can start making plans for a membership site of your own. Thanks to my 30% Off Sale, now is a great time to make plans and take advantage of the savings!

Talk to you Thursday at 6 pm Pacific/9 pm Eastern!!

Toolie®

P.S.
forward this email to a friend who might benefit!

One of the things we’re going to talk about in Thursday night’s webinar on “Next-Level Websites for Entrepreneurs and Small Businesses.” is Content. So yes, we’re supposed to write articles, create videos, and grab the attention of those search engines. But after the content is written, what are you doing with it? Are you writing throw-away words or is this content that can become reference material for your clients?

http://www.toolie.com/links/wsswebinar

The answer to that question determines to a great extent what vehicle you might use to house and manage that content. Most of us solo-preneurs are familiar with WordPress and all its wonders, but what else could we be using? This is where a discussion of Joomla is appropriate, and that’s what Thursday night’s webinar is about. Joomla is designed as a content management system, and we’ll go over what that means to you and your business.

Here’s how to register:

1. Go to www.websavvysupport.com (my new Joomla site!) and click on Register/Join.
2. Choose Web-Savvy Support Registered Membership, and complete the
   form.
3. On the next screen, enter your name and email address to immediately receive the webinar link and instructions for future webinars. That’s all there is to it!

NOTE: If you have had an ICFMW membership with the site in the past (paid or trial membership), use the same username and password to log onto the site. If you don’t remember them, just go to the home page and click Forgot
Username or Forgot Password under the Login box to have them sent to you.

Join me on Thursday to get this valuable information NOW so you can make plans to make
the most of the content you already have. Thanks to my 30% Off Sale, now might be the right time to make those plans and take advantage of the savings!

Talk to you Thursday at 6 pm Pacific/9 pm Eastern!!

Toolie®

You’re invited to this Thursday night’s webinar at 6 pm Pacific/9 pm Eastern, on “Next-Level Websites for Entrepreneurs and Small Businesses.” What do I mean by “next-level”?

As Internet Marketers we’re taught to go for content: write articles, write blog posts, bring those search engines in! High-content websites are an excellent goal to have, but you need some way to manage all that content and still make it available, organized, and searchable. About a year ago, I was facing this problem with my membership site: the content was on the site, but it was presented in the wrong format. I needed some way to organize multiple types of content, have it protected, and still make it a multi-user website.

So last December I began working with Joomla, an open-source, content management system designed to handle large volumes of content. Over the last 9 months, I’ve learned about Joomla, tested for use by entrepreneurs and small businesses, and built almost a dozen websites with it.

Now I’m ready to tell you what I’ve discovered about Joomla and why I think you should consider it for some of YOUR websites! In fact, I am using my Joomla site to handle webinar registrations: now you’ll just need to register and opt-in once, and you’ll have access to all future webinar registration links. Current members can just log in to get the link.

Here’s how to register:

1. Go to www.websavvysupport.com (my new Joomla site!) and click on Register/Join.
2. Choose Web-Savvy Support Registered Membership, and complete the form.
3. On the next screen, enter your name and email address to immediately receive the webinar link and instructions for future webinars. That’s all there is to it!

NOTE: If you have had an ICFMW membership with the site in the past (paid or trial membership), use the same username and password to log onto the site. If you don’t remember them, just go to the home page and click Forgot Username or Forgot Password under the Login box to have them sent to you.

It has taken time for your business to grow; it will take time to get your site ready for the next level. Join me on Thursday to get this valuable information NOW so you can make plans. Thanks to my 30% Off Sale, now might be the right time to make those plans and take advantage of the savings!

Talk to you Thursday at 6 pm Pacific/9 pm Eastern!!

For someone who has been in the computing business for over 25 years, I’m pretty suspicious about storing data anywhere I can’t see it or physically touch it (or at least touch the hard drive case). But for almost 3 years now, I’ve been trusting my precious content to Amazon’s Simple Storage Service, and I have to say that I am utterly delighted. They have been incredibly reliable and very, very inexpensive to use.

I’ve done a fair amount of experimenting with Amazon S3 because I run a membership program. My members pay a monthly fee to get access to content that needs to be protected from prying eyes, and Amazon S3 satisfies that requirement quite nicely. How so? Well, Amazon S3 is not a web server. It’s “storage in the cloud.”

You’ve probably heard the term “cloud computing” and have a vision of  big computers floating on wisps of air. Well, not exactly, but not that far off. Yes, the computers are sitting in big, secured rooms with raised floors in rows and rows of racks of servers. Our only view of the data is through some kind of access tool that lists the contents of the server we’re “renting.” What makes Amazon S3 special is that it is NOT indexed by the search engines.

Wait a minute, isn’t that what we want? Don’t we want our content found? Well yes and no. If you’re providing content to a group of clients that are paying for it, you don’t want the search engines to stumble upon it and put it into search results for everyone to see. And believe me, the search engines do find everything. I was stunned to find a reference in Google Scholar to the masters thesis I wrote back in 1986, and it’s not even in digital format!

Amazon S3 (along with other Amazon services) was originally intended to provide storage to web developers who wanted to provide services over the Internet without hosting the content themselves. Internet marketers subsequently found Amazon S3 and began using it for their own purposes. If you’re not already using it for content storage and delivery, it’s time to get the facts and make a plan.

On Thursday, November 18th at 5 pm Pacific/8 pm Eastern, I’m having a webinar on “Using Amazon S3 for Your Business.” This no-cost webinar will explain Amazon S3 in greater detail, and take you through setup, access tool selection, and some of the ways you can leverage the power of Amazon S3 for your content.

Click the blue “Webinar Signup” button at right to sign up for the webinar today.

Toolie

Last month I refreshed the appearance of my www.Toolie.com website and added a few key pages. My www.Toolie.com website is my “dashboard” site; if you visit that site you can see pretty much everything I’m doing from one page. I removed some icons for sites I’ve consolidated under a new site; removed my Twitter feed (I needed the space), and moved my social media icons up to the top of the page.

Working on Toolie.com is the culmination of about 5 months of expanding and “making over” my major websites with a new appearance and more content. One of the longest-running sites I have, www.ToolieNetBiz.com/ expanded from the original 7 pages to 35 pages simply because I finally took time to sit down and write down everything I have done and can do as an Internet Business Consultant.

I aslo created a whole new site, www.ToolieWebDesign.com, where I documented the over 50 custom websites I’ve created for my clients as well as for my own business. I’d been doing the work all along; I simply hadn’t created pages to describe my skills! A web design colleague (whom I met and became friends with recently) took a look at it the other day, and complimented me on both the appearance and the clarity of the content. That made my whole week!

As fellow entrepreneurs, I’m sure you have activities that you’ve added to your “portfolio” of skills in the last year. Are they reflected in your current site(s)? If you had pages that outlined what you can do for your prospects, would that help turn them into customers? You bet it would!

Last week I participated in a focus group for a company with whom I do business, and they asked us how we shopped for their particular service. Nearly 90% of the participants said they went to the company website as part of their decision to engage those services. The same is true for your business, or could be, if your website information is current. Your site could be selling your products and services FOR you 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year, but it needs to be up-to-date.

It also matters whether the menus are easy to use, whether the page names describe the page contents, whether the font is easy to read, and whether your content is clear and concise. By clearing up these minor “road blocks,” your website “path” to a sale is easier for your prospects to “travel.”

This coming Thursday night October 21st, at 6 pm Pacific/9 pm Eastern, you have a unique opportunity to get expert advice from me about your sites during my “Website and Blog Makeover Night” webinar. When you register, you can submit the URL of the website or blog you’d like me to review, and I’ll give you suggestions on how to increase the effectiveness of your site. I’ll identify things that could be improved or enhanced, and give you suggestions on how to make that happen.

I’ve also found some new scripts that I’ve used with my clients which add functionality to websites for a very low cost. I will show you demonstrations of those scripts so you can decide if they’d be helpful to your business as well.

Best of all, if you decide to make changes to your site, my Autumn Savings 30% Off Sale can make the process quite affordable.

Click the blue registration button above to sign up for the webinar. I’ll see you on Thursday night, October 21st at 6 pm Pacific/9 pm Eastern!

Toolie

WordPress is WordPress is blogging software that is also being used to create websites. But is it the right choice for your business? In answer to my clients’ requests, I’m conducting a no-cost webinar on Wednesday,  September 29 at 6 pm Pacific/9 pm Eastern called “WordPress Inside Out.” We will pull back the curtain on WordPress and show you how it works so that you can decide if it’s suitable for your business.

We’ll examine important issues about WordPress such as:

• Installation, ease of use, features
• Ability to customize, flexibility, scalability
• The importance of branding, layout, and other issues to consider
• Free themes, premium themes, custom themes
• Plugins, feeds, widgets
• And much more..!

I will also answer questions you submit by Wednesday noon (Pacific time) at www.AskToolie.com, along with questions from participants that evening. This webinar will be recorded and made available to everyone who registers. Simply click on the blue Webinar Signup button at right and you’ll be taken to the sign-up page.

I’ll see you Wednesday, September 29th at 6 pm Pacific time, 9 pm Eastern
time!

Thanks!

Toolie®

Today’s webinar is entitled “Selling Products and Services over the Internet”, which starts at 6 pm Pacific/9 pm Eastern. We’re going to go through the nuts and bolts of making your services available, including using an online appointment system, voice-over-Internet, and having some method for recording your phone sessions.

Investing in a high-quality microphone and audio/video editing software means you can turn your intellectual property into digital and physical products for sale. In this webinar I will have lists of software, hardware, and services that can support your business.

You can sign up for the webinar at www.WorkOnYourWebsite.com.