SUMMARY BY CHATGPT

Tom discusses the importance of tool tips — small information popups (usually triggered by hovering over a question mark or icon) — that help make websites easier to use and navigate.
Key Points:
• What Are Tool Tips?
Tool tips are small pop-up boxes that provide extra information when users hover over or tap elements on a website. They guide users and improve usability, especially when something isn't immediately clear.
• Why They Matter:
If users don’t understand your website or can’t figure out what to do, they’ll leave. Tool tips improve the user experience and help prevent confusion.
• Tool Tips on Mobile vs Desktop:
o Desktop: Typically activated by hovering over an icon or text.
o Mobile: Usually triggered by tapping or holding down on an element.
• Testing Your Website for Clarity:
Tom recommends having someone unfamiliar with your site try to use it while taking notes on any confusion they encounter. Don’t help them — if they get lost, that’s a sign your site needs improvement (like adding tool tips).
• Technical Implementation:
Although there are plugins and tools available (some even for Chrome), Tom advises most people to hire a tech expert to add tool tips properly, since it often involves programming (JavaScript or similar).
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Additional Mentions:
• Episode 991: Covered “If-Then Marketing,” a technique for highly targeted marketing.
• Free Automation Book: Download version 2 at screwthecommute.com/automatefree and request version 3 when it’s released.
• Mentor Program: greatinternetmarketingtraining.com
• Digital Marketing School: IMCTVA.org – Offers distance learning and is certified by the State of Virginia.
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Takeaway:
Tool tips are a small but powerful way to enhance website usability. If users know what to do and where to click, they’re more likely to stay on your site and convert. If you're not tech-savvy, hire someone to implement them correctly.

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Episode 992 – Tool Tips
[00:00:08] Welcome to Screw the Commute. The entrepreneurial podcast dedicated to getting you out of the car and into the money, with your host, lifelong entrepreneur and multimillionaire, Tom Antion.

[00:00:24] Hey everybody, it's Tom here with episode 992 of Screw the Commute podcast. Today I'm going to talk about tool tips. Tool tips? what is that? Is this like that show on TV with that funny guy across the fence? You know, those of you young people who have no idea what I'm talking about. No, this is about tool tips on your website to make your website more usable. All right, I hope you didn't miss episode 991. That was if then marketing. It's like the most targeted you could be on marketing and hope you didn't forget to download a copy of my automation book. It's free, but I'm right in the middle of editing version three. But you can download version two, and then version three will be out without in about a week, and you can just ask for the new version when it comes out. So screwthecommute.com/automatefree. Uh, just one of the tips in this book has saved me 9 million keystrokes. We estimated it. And amazing. And check out my mentor program at greatinternetmarketingtraining.com. All right. So tool tips. I've been dealing with a company lately. I'm not going to name them name and name their name and embarrass them.

[00:01:44] But you know I get paid a lot of money to to keep an eye on these kinds of things when people's websites are just stupid or or or Ridiculously hard to navigate and ask you to do something, but you don't know why or where or how. So this is what tool tips are for. You've probably frequently seen them where there's a little tiny black circle with a question mark in it. When you hover your mouse over it, it opens up and tells you, oh, this is what this is. Well, that's great, because if somebody on your site and they can't figure out what the heck is going on or what they're supposed to do, then they leave and they don't come back because you just gave them a bad taste in their mouth about your site. It's too hard to use. Can't figure it out. Not worth the trouble. So tool tips are designed to tell people what to do, give them extra information about the the part of your site that they're looking at, and usually on a desktop It's when you hover your mouse over something, the tool tip appears. It's just a little box that has extra information in it. Now, it could be hovering your mouse over some text or an icon. Or maybe what would they call a hotspot on your website? Or just just anything that needs some extra explanation. On mobile, it's you know, you're not using a mouse, right? So it could be a tap or holding on something when the tool tip appears, and then it vanishes when you let it go.

[00:03:31] And that's the same with desktop. Once you quit hovering then the tool tip disappears. All right. So it's great, but this is one of the few times I will suggest that you use a geek to do this for you. All right. But you probably should have people that don't know anything about your site. This is my method for, you know, I've been telling big companies about this for years. You get people that don't know anything about you, sit them down in front of your website and give them a tablet, a pencil or a pen and put a video camera on them and have a ball bat handy, he said. Okay, so they're supposed to to look at your site and try to navigate it and then write down any questions that they have. And then if you get the urge to help them and jump in and help them, you take the ball bat and you hit yourself in the head with, all right, because you're not going to be there when that person is trying to navigate your site, say so. Tool tips can help them along. And if you find if you've already built up a whole bunch of sites and and you're not having much luck if you do what I just said, have somebody look at it.

[00:04:52] Then you either fix the problem and make it more understandable what to do. Or one simple fix is to add a tool tip function. But it does take even the companies that claim that it's easy to do. They all have some kind of programming involved, so I'm not even going to give you any names of them. Just look up tool tip programs. And there's some of them are JavaScript, some of them are this that some other programming language. I don't get it. Now there is a some things for Chrome, like one of those things you can stick into Chrome to make it happen. But again it was advertised as being oh, this is super easy. No it wasn't. I sat there and looked at it and I was like, oh my God, what? What the heck is that? You know, so this is a time where it's worth it to get a geek that knows how to do this stuff, because it'll drive you crazy and you'll probably mess it up and. You know, if you're not, if you're not really tech savvy. So tool tips are a handy thing to make your site more usable. I actually have entire episodes on usability of a website, and just go to YouTube and type the word usability and or usable into the search box.

[00:06:18] You know, anytime you want to search on a page, you can either go control F or command F on a mac, and then a box will pop up and put on for a word on that page that you're searching for. And look at usability and understandability. So so tool tips will help you do this. So this is a short episode on this but it can be really helpful thing. Instead of people getting frustrated on your site and leaving they say oh now I see what they were talking about, and they stay there and keep looking at your site and doing what you want them to do. All right. So check out my mentor program, greatinternetmarketingTraining.com. And you can Google tool tip programs and read all about it. But you'll get bleary eyed if you're not techie, into which one is best for you. Uh, let's see also my school IMCTVA.org. It's the only licensed, dedicated internet digital marketing school in the country, probably the world. And you can get a highly in-demand skill in as little as six months. And we've had people making thousands of dollars a month even before they graduated. And it's certified to operate by SCHEV, the State Council on Higher Education in Virginia. But you don't have to be in Virginia because it's distance learning. All right. We'll catch you on the next episode. See you later.