If you're a WordPress user, you know how crucial it is to find a reliable and powerful page builder that doesn't require a long-term commitment. Well, look no further! Spectra Page Builder is here to revolutionize your website-building experience.

In this episode, we'll dive deep into the features and benefits of Spectra, a lightweight and lightning-fast alternative to other popular page builders like Divi, Elementor, and Beaver Builder. I am going to be checking out this tool as well as a theme they have called Astra

But before we get into the nitty-gritty of Spectra, we'll touch on the renowned Astra theme, known for its speed, versatility, and customization options. I plan on switching to Astra myself and experimenting with its powerful tools in the future, although it may come with a slight learning curve.

Speaking of other page builders, I'll also share my experience with Divi, a fantastic tool that offers a plethora of templates for quick website creation. Whether you prefer customizing existing templates or building from scratch, Divi has got you covered.

However, website building with page builders can sometimes introduce a new language to navigate. I'll share my recent frustrations and the journey to find a tool that simplifies things without sacrificing functionality. Enter Spectra, a game-changer in the WordPress ecosystem.

But what sets Spectra apart? It integrates seamlessly with the default WordPress editor and enhances the functionality of Gutenberg blocks.

There is a monthly price as well as a lifetime pricing.

Are you tempted to give Spectra a try?

Before we wrap up, I want to express my gratitude to our amazing listeners. Your support keeps us going, and we can't wait to bring you more exciting web tool recommendations in future episodes. Stay tuned and remember to follow us on Apple, Google, Spotify, Amazon, and our website to never miss an episode.

Value For Value

If you found this episode valuable, please share it with a friend and if you feel so moved, consider buying me a coffee.

Disclosure: Some of these links may result in me earning a commission.I never recommend anything without checking it out.

Enter Voomly

Voomly is perfect for content creators, digital marketers, video marketing agencies, and Ecommerce and online store builders.

You can turn your video into a funnel and grab email addresses from viewers, and segment them by creating what I call a "pick your own ending" feature. It really had me going, "WHAT???" when I went to their site. The best part is you can use their 30-day trial to see if it's for you. If you like it plans start at free, or $9 and go on up.

Check it out (aff)

But Why Not Just Use YouTube? It's Free!

While YouTube can be a powerful platform for marketing videos, it also comes with some disadvantages. Here are some of the drawbacks to consider:

1. Ad saturation: YouTube is filled with advertisements, and viewers have become accustomed to skipping or ignoring them. Your marketing videos might get lost among numerous ads, making it challenging to stand out and capture the audience's attention.
2. Competition: The platform is incredibly competitive, with millions of creators and businesses vying for viewers' attention. Getting your videos noticed and recommended by YouTube's algorithm can be difficult, especially for new or smaller channels.
3. Content restrictions: YouTube has community guidelines and content policies that can limit what you can show or say in your marketing videos. If your content goes against these guidelines, it may be demonetized, removed, or even result in channel strikes or suspensions.
4. Limited control over the viewing experience: Once viewers are on YouTube, they can easily be distracted by other content or recommended videos. This can reduce the chances of converting them into customers or driving them to your website.
5. Audience targeting limitations: While YouTube offers some targeting options for ads, it may not be as precise as other advertising platforms. This could result in your marketing videos being shown to viewers who are not your target audience, leading to lower conversion rates.
6. Brand association: Your marketing videos might appear alongside user-generated content, including videos that may not align with your brand values. This association might impact your brand perception negatively.
7. Lack of ownership: Your content is hosted on YouTube's platform, and you have limited control over potential changes to the platform's algorithms or policies. A sudden algorithm change could significantly impact your video's visibility and reach.
8. Data privacy concerns: As a marketer, you might not have access to as much user data as you would on your website or other owned platforms. This can limit your ability to understand your audience fully and retarget them effectively.
9. Limited customization: While YouTube allows some customization for your channel, it may not provide the full branding experience that you could achieve on your website or dedicated landing pages.

Using Voomly you end up with insights about your potential client that you can't with other video tools. Take it for a ride and let me know what you find out. I'm definitely checking it out.

You are on a tight budget, so you use YouTube for your video. However, now your viewers are subjected to ads, recommendations, the title at the top, and the YouTube logo.

Just when you want them to take action, they get distracted and go someplace else. This is where Killer Player comes into play.

It lets you remove all of those items and put your video into one of their five premade themes, AND with unlimited colors, you can have it fit your brand.

Best of all, it's budget-friendly where you can purchase Killer Player ONE TIME and have LIFETIME access to future updates.

The software has been around since 2015, so you know you're not going to get hosed when YouTube changes something.

Check it out at https://supportthisshow.com/videokiller (aff)

I discovered Product Lift on App Sumo and thought, "Yes, FINALLY an affordable roadmap."

This is a great tool for harvesting feedback. You can get it from customers, teams, stakeholders, or in my case, a podcast audience.

It makes it so easy to get feedback but also build roadmaps, publish changelogs, vote and discuss, and more.

There is a free version on their site, but I recommend (while it is available) purchasing it on App Sumo. Their regular price is $48/month, and you can buy it for $49 FOR LIFE.

Here is my affiliate link

Check out this video from the founder

If you're using bit.ly and sharing those publicly, you're not doing your brand any favors. Today I introduce you to Switchy. It makes it super easy to track your links (in and out) as well as makes QR codes, and Smart Pages (think Linktree) while enabling you to place pixels, and more.

As I record this, you can get Switchy on App Sumo for a one-time purchase of $39. The starting price on their website is $47/month so it's a steal.

I love that you can tie a domain to it, and even the core domain can be redirected. See, www.supportthisshow.com will go to my buy me a coffee page whereas www.supportthisshow.com/switchy goes to either the App Summo deal (if it's still there - an affiliate link) or their website.

I recently discovered you can use it as a Linktree alternative and make what they call "Smart Pages" Check out a casual video I did on this for the member of the School of Podcasting.

WATCH VIDEO

It also allows you to:

• Place a pixel
• Do A/B Split testing
• Geographic splits
• Expiring links
• Use a chrome extension to make links

I'm thinking it will soon do your laundry.

Check it out at www.supportthisshow.com/switchy

TOPICS

01:42 What’s so great about this tool?

04:13 You can also add a redirection based on location.

06:02 How to make a direct link to your website.

07:18 You can get it for $39 a month or a lifetime deal.

08:56 You don’t really need support because they have a great knowledge base.

Mentioned In This Episode

Switchy

Tidy Cal

Acuity Scheduling

Power of Podcasting Smart Page

School of Podcasting

There's no doubt about it, email marketing is still one of the most effective ways to reach your target audience. But if you're a solopreneur, you might be wondering how you can get started with email marketing without spending a lot of time or money.

Enter MailerLite. This powerful email marketing tool is designed specifically for small businesses and solopreneurs. It's easy to use and very affordable, making it the perfect solution for anyone just getting started with email marketing.

With MailerLite, you can create beautiful newsletters, automated emails, and targeted campaigns that will engage your subscribers and help you achieve your business goals.

My favorite option is I'm sending out a survey where my audience can click on what they want to see in their email and when I create the email, I can say, "Only show this section to people who like this."

You can see the form here

Pricing Email Marketing Tools

I had tried Sendfox, and it worked, but I had to have support help me if I wanted to clean up my list (they have to do it)

I tried to get them all on the same playing field (3000 subscriber list)

Convertkit is $42/month for 3000 subscribers .014/per subscriber

Aweber was $30 for 2500 subscribers .012/subscriber

Mailchimp is $34/month for 3000 subscribers or .011/subscriber

Mailerlite is $25/month for 2500 subscribers or .006/per subscriber

Mailerlite is serious about delivery as well. You have to apply and be used to use it.

Here is a demo of my using the dynamic tool.

So if you're ready to take your email marketing to the next level, start using MailerLite today!

In full disclosure, I am an affiliate, but you can see where I am putting my money where my mouth is. :)

Making your company stand out does not mean you need to write your customer's name in the sky. Sometimes it's just doing the little things that nobody else is doing.

Mentioned in this episode: Loom

School of Podcasting

The Low Bar of Customer Service

For my first job out of college, I was a copier repairman. And then later, I got into customer service, I would actually go out, set up the copy machine, and teach them how to run it. And I was amazed at how low the bar was for amazing customer service, I would ask somebody, Hey, would you like me to kind of check back with you in six weeks? And they'd be like, "Yeah, that'd be great."

I would ask, "What's a good time?" We would end up agreeing on Wednesday morning at 10 AM on a Wednesday six weeks from now.

When I would call back when I said I would the customer would LOSE THEIR MIND.

Really, that's where the bar is?

I want to talk about a video tool I found. But the first thing I want to talk about is, when you are looking at any tool, sometimes we kind of get a little crazy by looking at all the features, and all the things that can do.

And one example that for me didn't work was vid yard. And it was this kind of YouTube-looking thing. But you could see how far people had watched. And at the end, you could have it redirect to a website where you wanted them to go in to make a long story short, I found their interface beyond confusing, I actually ended up doing the coding. And if you are new to the show, I kind of know-how to code but I try to avoid it at all, like my audience doesn't like to code. So I don't want to to I have to type in a bunch of JavaScript. And it was crazy. It was nuts. But I bought a year's worth of this expensive tool. And for me, it just didn't work. And it dawned on me that all these features that that particular service had, I was never going to use. So I found a really cool tool if you want to stand out with your clients. And I'm here to tell you, you're going to hear people say things like, I can't believe you made me a video. And it's so inexpensive, and it's so easy to use.

LOOM

The tool I want to tell you about to get to the point is loom. It's $8 a month. And I went over and looked at their feature set, the thing I love about it is this, you can do a call to action. So when somebody clicks play, you can have a little button at the top that says Click here for more information, or click here to try it for free or whatever. And if you go to web tools, radio.com. And look at episode six, you will see or you'll see in your show notes, all the link to a video that I made in loom. And it's amazing. And at the end, people can click on that, which of course, you could put in some sort of trackable clicking device, you can actually edit the video a little bit.

I had one where I kind of started off and then botched it and then just restarted without hitting stop. And I was able to go in and trim the video I'm seeing on their website, they say you can actually have filler word removal. I did not know that. And custom branding. And if you're using this with a team, they have a huge amount of tools that you can use with this. And it's absolutely amazing.

HOW I USE IT

So what I love about this is somebody will sign up at the School of podcasting. And I will get the notification that hey, you have a new student, I will go over I will get their name, I will get their email and I will make them a loom. This also works on your phone, by the way. So if you're out and about, like I can't get back to my computer, you can just do it right on your phone. And I'm here to tell you, even if it's just to say, Hey, it's Dave, I see you signed up at the School of podcasting. I just want to say thanks so much for signing up. Please let me know where you are in the podcasting process. Whether you're starting if you have an idea or whatever, blah, blah, blah, thanks so much. So that took what 20 seconds, and you hit it and you hit send. And it's there and you can go in and see how it's not quite as cool as some of the other ones like I can't see how far they watch but I can be notified when they watch my video.

So think about this. I send a video. "Hey, Diane, thanks so much for this and that yeah yada, yada, here's some information. If you need more information, let me know. I know you're close to ordering something."

And then you see that Diane has watched your video, you can actually call Diane on this thing called the phone (remember that?) And say,

"Hey, Diane is just Dave checking in. Just wanted to see if you had any questions or if you got my video yet. And she will say of course Oh, actually, I just watched it and you're like, Oh, cool. Any questions. It's $8.

And so it's the little things that we can do that make people just lose their minds. Because nobody else is doing this yet.

I want to be transparent here. loom just added an affiliate program. So you will see that if you go to your description if you're in an app, click on that video you will see my call to action. It'll say something like check out loom and when you do, you'll be using my affiliate link to go order loom. It's a really great tool.

There are all sorts of different uses that you could use for this. But for me, it's the best eight bucks I spend every single month.

Check out the Loom Video.

The title of your podcast episode or the title of your blog is "Grandma's China" important and should be seen as a HUGE opportunity to grow - and yet I see people write titles like this:

Web Tools Radio - Episode FIVE.

ARRRGGGHHH!!!! You are BLOWING it.

Headline Studio Pro Makes It Easy

Headline Studio pro makes it so easy to create headlines for your blog and podcast that are data-driven and help you make headlines you KNOW will bring more traffic.

It can help you find great keywords that are popular but yet have lower competition.

As I write this I got a Black Friday deal at $99/yr for 10 headlines a month.

I love that it not only helps you write better headlines, but it TEACHES YOU WHY. This way you can write better headlines in the future.

Here is a video I did (a quick 2-minute overview).

Check it out at https://supportthisshow.com/headlinestudio

Today Dave shares a great alternative to Freshbooks, and Marcus has some great plugins to help you pimp out Elementor

Sponsor: School of Podcasting

Mentioned In This Show

And.co - Manage Your Business Better

And.co

Animentor – Lottie & Bodymovin for Elementor

https://wordpress.org/plugins/animentor-lottie-bodymovin-elementor/

Charts and Graphs for Elementor

https://wordpress.org/plugins/charts-and-graphs-for-elementor/

Flexible Elementor Panel

https://wordpress.org/plugins/flexible-elementor-panel/

Don't have Elementor? Check out HERE

Your Hosts

Find Marcus Couch at www.marcuscouch.com

Find Dave Jackson at www.schoolofpodcasting.com

Many of us know typeform for their cool interactive forms. They are they team behind Video Ask.

This tool makes it easy to get written, audio, or video testimonials.

Check out this testimonial from Shane Whaley from tourpreneur.com

The Free "Start" Plan Provides:

20 mins of video or audio processing per month

VideoAsk branded

All core features

Voice-text transcription & captions

Zapier integration

The $30/month "Grow" plan provides:

100 mins of video or audio processing per month

Partially Videoask branded

Conditional Logic

Data export

Redirect to URL

Net Promoter Score

Custom variables (hidden fields)

Respondent tracking

Video length control

APIs & Webhooks

The $50/month "Brand" Plan Provides:

Everything in GROW, plus:

200 mins of video or audio processing per month

Add your own brand/s

Domain white labeling

Priority support

There are yearly prices for yearly payments.

For more information see supportthisshow.com/videoask

Marcus Couch's Plugin Picks

Customer Reviews for WooCommerce -helps you get more sales with social proof. Free and Pro plans.

Disable Lazy Load - Simple plugin to disable lazy-loading images feature in WordPress 5.5.

WP Visualize - lets customers visualize your themselves with your products!

Check our Marcus at www.marcuscouch.com

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The website is webtoolsradio.com

Weekly Web Tools ran from 2007 to 2017, and after letting the show take a nap for three years, I'm itching to occasionally talk about some cool stuff on the internet.

Well after letting the show take a nap for three years, I'm going to being it back on a more regular basis (still won't be weekly).

So if you see the artwork change in your favorite podcasting app, it's not a mistake. We got a new coat of paint, some new music, and after we wrap up some things on the website, we'll be back.

Currently we are using PodcastPage to manage the podcast website.

I've been using App Sumo (https:/supportthisshow.com/sendfox)

This is a new system but is part of App Sumo (not just something they are promoting). The price as I record this is $49 for lifetime access up to 5000 subscribers. You can upgrade for $50 to get another 5000 subscribers. At the $150 you are up to 15,000 subscribers and the branding for send fox is diminished. 

So I purchased the package. First Impressions It is super easy to use, and you can make your own great-looking landing pages. You can make some pretty boring looking forms. The automation makes it easy to deliver lead magnets. They do integrate with Zapier, but I found it frustrating that as of now (10/2019) when using Zapier I can specify which email list to add the person to in Send Fox. Going In You Know...

I knew this was a newish company. I knew they didn't integrate with any plugins, etc at this point (they are working on that). They do (naturally) integrate with Sumo king (the pop-up tool, etc). Going Forward

Because I have had some nice forms on my website I'm not canceling my Convertkit (https://podclick.me/convertkit) yet. The minute they integrate with my tools I will ditch convertkit. Until then I just manually export and import into Send Fox and send all my emails from there. If you are brand new to email lists, this might be a perfect fit that will have you set for a very long time. 

Mentioned in This Episode

Sendfox

App Sumo

Convertkit