Enjoy!

If you’re reading this via e-mail or an RSS reader that does not display YouTube videos, click this link to watch the video.

So without further ado…

SiteMeter

I’m sure this surprises a lot of you.  Why in the world would I use the archaic SiteMeter when Google Analytics is arguably the best, comprehensive website stat packages around?

I use Google Analytics too, but I like SiteMeter for two reasons:

1) I’ve been using it since 2 Create a Website launched in 2002 (before Analytics existed), so it’s nice to have a complete history of my site’s traffic.

2) SiteMeter’s daily reports can be accessed much quicker than G.A.  Sometimes I just want to get a quick glance at today’s traffic without having to change the reporting dates on the calendar, etc.

Even though the SiteMeter reports are very basic, they report on many of the popular stats webmasters like to keep track of.  Plus, you can access them all with one click from the dashboard.

SiteMeter is best for quick, daily reports.

Search It!

This is one of SiteSell’s many freebies they provide to help PREsell their popular website builder, Site Build It! (SBI!).  Nevertheless, you don’t have to buy SBI! to take advantage of this all-in-one information tool.

If you haven’t tried Search It! yet, I’ll warn you… it’s kind of addictive.  (The link to the actual tool is at the very bottom of the page.)

This one tool helps you brainstorm keywords, find your competition, shows your site’s popularity, helps you find forums in your niche, reports your backlinks, and even shows you where to find affiliate programs and other monetization options for your niche.

ColorZilla

Ever noticed a color on the Web and wanted to know the hex color so you could use it on your site?

With this handy Firefox add-on, you can use the eyedropper tool to hover over any color in your browser and it will display the hex color code.

I must say, this tool has given my very own Flash hex color tools a run for their money.

IETab & BrowserShots.org

Personally, I wish there was a mandate that required everyone to switch to Firefox.  However, since we all know that will never happen, Webmasters have to continue to design for the dreaded Internet Explorer too.

So that’s why I love Firefox’s add-on called IETab.  It lets you right-click your mouse to quickly view your site in IE.

Or if you don’t want to install the add-on, you can use Browsershots.org and view your site in almost every browser (and version) available. (Thanks, Paul of TechnicallyEasy.net.)

Tutorials Garden

Any time I want to learn how to do something in PhotoShop, I head over to Tutorials Garden.  There are hundreds of pages of tutorials here and you can learn how to do almost anything.  It’s very similar to Tutorialized.com.

Tutorials Garden doesn’t just cater to PhotoShop users.  There are tutorials for Fireworks, CSS, Gimp, PHP and more.

I used their tutorial to create the graphic below for one of my blog posts a few months back…

SEOmoz

This is a very good, comprehensive site on SEO (search engine optimization).

Not only is there great advice on SEO in general, but SEOmoz provides a plethora of tools available to check your keyword rankings, site crawlability and there are a ton of different link reports.

If you are a stat junky, you may want to bookmark this site.

What are Some of Your Favorites?

I’d love to hear about some of the web tools or plug-ins that have made your life easier.  Please feel free to share!

Others seek out sites that offer online e-book cover generators. (Although, most of them come out looking like crap because the online design options are severely limited and the image quality is often very low.)

Finally, there are people like me who buy e-book graphic templates and go from there. I can make my way around PhotoShop pretty well, but not enough to create a presentable, 3D e-book cover.

So about two years ago I bought some PhotoShop Actions from VirtualCoverGenerator.com.

Well, I just happened to pop over to this site the other day and discovered the author is now offering these PhotoShop Actions for free!

Darn, if I had only waited a couple of years.

What are Actions?

PhotoShop Actions are similar to macros for Excel.   They are pre-recorded actions that you can load into the program to complete multi-step tasks. And trust me.  If you are not PhotoShop savvy, creating an e-book cover would definitely land in the “multi-step task” category.

In other words, VirtualCoverGenerator.com has done all the work.  All you do is load the Action file in PhotoShop (sort of like a template), add a title, image, etc. to your book, click “Step 2″ and your e-book cover will be generated in seconds.

Pretty cool, eh?

You’ll be able to customize your e-book cover any way you want by adding your own custom colors, fonts, text, images, etc.

There are also Actions for a CD cover, newsletter, and a software box. So if you offer any of these items from your site or blog, you can use these Actions to create a digital cover or box.

It took me all of 60 seconds to whip out that software box you see on the left. All I did was open the appropriate Action, add my text, customize the colors and let the Action go to work for me.

I cropped the image down a bit, saved it as a JPG and published it to the Internet.

“So What’s the Catch?”

You know the drill.  There’s always a catch with free, right?  Well this is certainly no exception.

Of course you need PhotoShop (version 6 or higher). Second, you have to provide Fairuz (the owner) your name, email (so he can send you additional offers, no doubt) and agree to his terms and conditions. Then you’ll be presented with an offer or two (which you can graciously decline if you wish).

Finally, you’ll need to create a password to the site’s members area.  Once you’ve done that you’ll be taken to a page to download the Actions (zip file).

Whew!  Yes, it’s a bit of work, but a small price to pay if you need a high-quality e-book cover.

“This is Useless Info to Me”

You may be reading this now thinking, That’s great, Lisa but I don’t have any e-Books that I offer from my site or blog.

Well, my response to that would be…

Why not?

e-books can be amazing, viral marketing machines for you.  You can create a useful, free guide that is relevant to your niche, provide links back to your site/blog in the book, embed affiliate links and offer it as a free download.

Before you know it, friends will email your book to their friends.  Webmasters and Bloggers will recommend it from their sites.  The possibilities are endless.  And the more useful your product is, the larger the circulation potential.

Pretty soon you’ll be able to sit back and watch the viral magic happen!

I’ve been offering e-books (the PDF variety) from my sites for nearly 5 years and when I check my stats, at least one of my books has generated a commission for some product almost everyday. There’s nothing like doing the work once and getting paid for it over and over and over again.

Of course, you can also sell your digital product.  You don’t necessarily have to give it away for free.  Thanks to PayPal and other online payment sites, collecting funds from digital good sales is more convenient than ever.

So what are you waiting for?  Get those juices flowing and get started on your e-book?  Then dart on over to VirtualCoverGenerator.com and scoop up those Actions before Fairuz decides to sell them again.

It’s called TutorialsGarden.com and they provide tutorials on PhotoShop, Flash, CSS, HTML and more.

I’ve dabbled in PhotoShop over the years, but never mastered it by any means.

I’ve always wanted to learn to do more with text for logos, headers, etc. but never found a site that was easy to follow.

What I like about TutorialsGarden.com, is they break down the steps for you and provide screenshots. All of their tutorials are organized nicely into sub categories so it’s easy to find the kind of information you’re looking for.

They have a very comprehensive section on PhotoShop Text Effects that I found quite useful. In fact, I created the graphic above using their easy-to-follow tutorial on creating “Animated Glitter Text.”

It took all of 5 minutes… literally.

I also used their tutorials to create reflective text for the header on my site flat-stomach-exercises.com. (Something I’ve always wanted to learn.)

So if you’re looking to improve your proficiency in PhotoShop, Flash, HTML, CSS, Adobe Illustrator and more, TutorialsGarden.com is a great place to spend some time.

And as you can see, StumbleUpon is not only useful for promoting your website. You may stumble upon sites that can help you out as well.