A poorly designed Web page is the kiss of death for many Internet entrepreneurs. First impressions matter big time online and if your site is weak odds are your visitors won’t even take the time to look at your offer.

In fact testing has proven that sharp graphics and properly designed pages can increase conversions (sales) by up to 300%!

When you give your Website address to your prospects and customers are you ever slightly embarrassed by the way your template looks? Do you truly have maximum confidence that your site is representing you in a professional and powerful manner?

Be honest – does your site need some serious help?

You are not alone, and the good news is you don’t need to be a technical wizard to have a fabulous Web presence. You don’t even need to shell out
big bucks for an expensive design service.

The truth is you can build your own amazing sites quickly and inexpensively using proven, professional techniques that can be absorbed
in just a few minutes. And since test after test has proven that an attractive site will create many times better results than a poorly designed site, you’ll definitely want to learn more about this great resource:

http://www.websitecreationcourse.com/?rid=1041

If you take action right now, you could have a better-looking Website in a matter of hours! My friend and profressional Web developer Tim Whiston has put this amazing course together for people who don’t know all the techno babble and don’t care to spend months learning it!

This program gives you instant access to the best Web design course I’ve found, and everything is laid out in plain english and detailed visual
screen captures. You really will get the total Webmaster walkthrough without any clutter and confusion.

Tim makes it easy for you to…

- build a killer site with HTML and CSS
- make your pages TOTALLY search engine friendly
- easily manage your domain and hosting
- add audio, java script, and other special effects
- install and optimize a powerful blog
- become a full-blown Webmaster!

These crucial skills and more will be at your fingertips, and you’ll get F.R.E.E. lifetime upgrades so every time Tim releases a new course you get access to the updated material at no cost!

Check this out right now:

http://www.websitecreationcourse.com/?rid=1041

I came across this the other day and it loooks very interesting. Take a look and see for your selfs. Let me know what you think.

EBay Feed Back, up!

I came up with the size guide idea as there is not any other out there quite the same as mine.
I also wanted to get my feed back up as I had not used my EBay account for some time.
Guess what. It worked to a treat. I have sold 23 of them and not had feedback from 8 of these sales. But still my feedback is now looking a lot healthier than it did. I am selling on average 1-2 a day and after costs etc I am not making a lot but that is not the point.
So I reckon mission accomplished. I will no doubt carry on selling them and when the time comes to selling my other products I shall have a good feedback score giving future buyer’s confidence to purchase.

Postage Stamps are going up.

As from April6th 1st class will be 39p and 2nd class will be 30p. An increase of 3p per stamp. Therefore if you buy before you save £3 per book of 100.

Any more details on postage get the clear facts at http://www.stampsbypost.com

Where have you been?

Well where have I been? Spyware! That where I have been.
Just over a week ago certain programmes etc have been acting strange or not working at all. To confirm something was wrong I went to open my Malware programme to run and check to see if something had got through security and by the fact I could not open it suggested to me that there was something was wrong.
Call Computer Fix it Man.  His name is Rob and he is very good at fixing any problems I have with my computer. The problem was he was on holiday. As he does this for a living and as he and I have an arrangement regarding payment (I get him business who are looking for a company who does not rip them off and provides a good service in fixing their computers) it took a few more days after his return to get round to seeing me and fixing my problem.
Quite often he will do it from home and uses https://secure.logmein.com Logmein but this programme didn’t work either
He arrived at my home and did what he had to do. But unfortunately it was more serious than first thought and consequently had to return the next day to finish off.
.
So that’s my excuse. I am glad to say that everything seems to be running again as normal.
It is so frustrating when this happens because you then have to try and catch up. There are a million E mails to go through, sites to update, Blogs to update, (that should read blog not blogs) and many other items to look at etc.
What lessons are learnt from this?  Umm well I could get a back up computer, (which I will do when the money starts rolling in)be very careful what you open and download especially do not open spam even though its very tempting sometimes. Regularly run and check your spyware program and of course regularly run your antivirus program
Good luck!

Do you send products through the post?

The introduction from the Royal Mail which is known as Size Guide or Priceing in proportion is still causing confusion and mistakes are being made with putting the wrong postage stamps on.
Pricing in Proportion  is where the item you are sending has to have the correct postage according to its size, weight, and thickness.
I guess if you are not used to this way of sending post then it may appear complicated.
It’s not really.The trouble is if you donot have the right postage on you item then the recipient will have to pay the differnce in postage plus £1. Which of course does not go down very well with your customer.
There are many guide tools out on the market  which range in price up to £15.00 (see ebay)
Well I have some good news for you. I have the copyright on a specialy designed tool that hopfully will cure all your posting problems.

Letter Size Guide

This encapulated price list  is right up to date. It has all the new prices from April6 2009. It also has the list of stamps available plus all the Europe and International rates. It also show you the easiest way of making up postal rates where a stamp is not provided.
The 2 slots are there for you to check the size of your envelop/package so you can make sure you put the correct stamps on it.
I am selling these on Ebay for £2.50 with free postage but as you are reading this blog the price is £1.90 each with free posting. If you require more then one copy then extras are £1 up to 3.

Please email me on this special order email postguide@mtpleasantview.co.uk  stating how many you require and your address for it to be sent too.
I shall email you back with payment details (pay-pal) and as soon as P.P. has confirm you payment I shall put it in the post 1st class.
Any questions just email me at postguide@mtpleasantview.co.uk
This price will be held until April 6th which is when the Postage stamp price goes up.

A FREE WEEK..well almost.

The advantage to signing up for those “marketing” Email letters is that some times you get useful info. Sometimes of course you get a load of rubbish.  But hey who’s perfect. I guess the prize is sorting out the good and the bad. You could of course buy everything that comes along which is what I used to do. Why? Because the sales pitch was good and the product seemed cheap. Then of course just as you begin to understand the product it dawns on you that perhaps its not as good as it seemed. No worries here is another  and so and so on. The other disadvantage is that it takes all your time to read all the Emails with the offers and that leaves you no time to do anything else.

The advantage is as I said earlier you do get some interesting products and information. One of the clues that the product is good is that a lot of the Emails you are getting all relate to the same product.
How do you know if its good or bad.  Try and read an independent review.This is a bit difficult as most people who are reviewing it are trying to sell it.But it might give you an insight to how good it is.
Quite often in the Email there are recommendations from other marketeers who include there web site address. Go to that web site and see what they are doing  also to see if they are professional. I must admit I am put off anyone who uses G mail or worse Hotmail. The reason being if they cant even set up an Email address which relates to their name or web page then how do they justify being an “expert” or “Guru”.

Good luck in sorting the rubbish from the good.

In my opinion here are a few people who are worth listening to:

Jim Cockrun  http://www.jimcockrum.com/blog/

Then there’s

http://www.elpassoblog.com/

and of course

John Thornhill   http://planetsmsblog.com/

I am sure there are more and if you know any please let me know.

If you want a mentor so that every month you get advice and help from an expert. Take a look at this.

This is good as well.

AutoMotivator is for making printable motivational posters or parody demotivational posters. You choose the picture, colors, and text, and we make your poster. You can even get the poster you create printed at poster size directly from Zazzle.com with a

http://wigflip.com/automotivator/

Cheers until the next time.

And the Winner was………

And the winner was Slum Dog Millionair. To say the least. Ok so I got it wrong, It won best picture as well. One could say I got it half right as I did say it would win for Best Director. Congrats to all.
Getting things  wrong  sometimes is particularly annoying when you read instructions to something you may have purchased or you are installing a new web page or programe. You follow the instuctions but you have misssed somthing because what ever you are trying to do is not working as it should.

After a million attempts and its still not working what do you do now.
Go to the forum and spend days sifting through the intresting and the not interesting untill you may find a solution to you problem.
Do you turn to drink,kick the cat maybe or go for a world class run.
Dont throw the comuptor out as it does have many uses
The best solution is to go for a short walk/cup of tea/coffee. What ever but take a break for 15 mins or so. If you are working past 11 30pm then go to bed. Your tired and cant concentrate  and you will feel better after you have slept onit.
If after all of the above does not work try Google it to see what happens.
Or you could leave it for a couple of days then say to your self” right lets start from the begining and work slowly.” This quite often helps I have found. Good luck!
I have had my second lesson yeasterday and I must go and start that other wise the week will have gone.
Cheers.

And the winner is

Well the wife and I went to see Slum Dog Millionair
What a movie. In brief its about a Indian man who because of his experience of life is able to answer all the questions as a contestant in Who wants to be a Millionair.
The quiz show, for those who dont know, is when a contestant answers questions and if he or she gets the correct answer they double the money untill they reach a million Dollars or pounds  or whatever currency of that country is.
Any way the film is well worth watching for its realism of the way this man is brought up in the slums of India.
It will win at least one Oscar tonight, not for best film but for best director.It should win for best film but I think that will go to Brad.
Have you ever read
Who Moved My Cheese?: An Amazing Way to Deal with Change in Your Work and in Your Life
It’s a great little book describing in fable terms on how people cope with change.
My wife who works for a large solicitors firm gave me a copy. All of the trainees and new solicitors were given this book to read and digest.
Its very appropriate in these times of credit crunch etc as the cheese  has moved and is still moving.
It’s a cheap book $12.90 or in the UK  £3.59.

Give it a read and realize the future is never guaranteed.

Below is a quote from on of the many reviews on Amazon

“Another book I VERY STRONGLY recommend because it has been huge for me in dealing comfortably and proactively with change (in my personal and professional lives) is The Emotional Intelligence Quick Book.”

Today is free.
Well perhaps to explain a little more.
If you have a web page and Keywords are important to the success of your web page (it should be) then you may like this utterly and completely FREE tool.
Here’s how it works.
After you have downloaded free of charge and installed it. You open up your browser (this only works on Firefox download a free version here. It’s safer and better then Internet Explorer)
Ok let’s suppose you went to Google and looked up Sports cars. You are faced with 106 million pages. On the right hand side you will see ad sense Ads. At the bottom of each ad is
VIEW KEYWORDS
Click onto this and a popup will display the keywords that, that advertiser is using. Clever stuff eh. I have the paid version after I was so impressed with the FREE version. You don’t have to purchase it at all to use this tool as it works just as well.
Give it a try by going direct to the site.
Well it’s the weekend and we are not doing anything special. We might go and see Slum Dog before the rush after it will no doubt win at least one Oscar.
I’ll be back!

Hi All
As you can see if you have been following this blog that its visual appearance has changed.
This is part of the course I am on.

Week 3 has shown me how to put Adsense on it and how to change the template. Fairly straight forward stuff but I am sure things will get more difficult as time goes on.
I can’t wait for the next lesson.
Looking at my previous posts I said that I would show you sites I have set up in the Niche market place.
Well 2 of these sites I am proud of are:
www.echoesofpink.com
www.buythislawnmower.com
These site have been earning commission but as yet no where near a full time income. They possibly won’t but thats not really the idea. The idea is to have several of these site and together they may well come up with a full time income. Only time will tell.
For more info on having Niches site then please click here for more detail.
Untill next time.

Blogs on Sundays

Well we went to our friend’s house for a BBQ. Yes I know it’s not the weather for a BBQ but he just thought it would be different. There were 10 of us  all together and the food was brilliant, the company was brilliant and  we had a brilliant time, arriving at home 8 hours after we started feeling very  happy!
Today after downing cups of coffee etc we walked back to our friend’s house (1 1/2 miles) to pick up our car which we very wisely left there.
On the way home we did some shopping which included The Sunday times which we do not usually buy but it had an interesting article in it.

The article was called 100 best Blogs. I was surprised not to find mine there but hey Ho. Maybe next time:)
More importantly I did find some of the blogs interesting. For example moby.com/journal. The most talented one gives a blog of what is going on in his life at the moment. As the Blog is an extension of his own web page it gives you the chance to see whatever else takes your fancy relating to Moby.
I know it’s not designed for the likes of me but what does anyone see in Paris Hilton? Her Blog is as interesting as watching paint dry; actually the paint is more interesting as it has depth color and sincerity. myspace.com/parishilton
jeffreyarchers.blogspot.com sounds equally uninteresting. Quotes from the Times “Hypnotically awful” etc
I found a more interesting Blog is http://thesartorialist.blogspot.com/ I am not in to fashion at all but to see these photos of people in New York I find fascinating.
Richard Madeley is one half of Chat Show hosts Richard and Judy. She is great but he can be well let’s just say I am sure most people watch it just so they can see Richard make a fool of himself. Any way his blog is great but is it him or someone else taking the Mickey out of him? Your guess is as good as mine. But if it his Richard writing then I take everything back. It’s not him is it?
According to the Times the 100 blogs they have listed are the best ones but as everybody is different then the argument could go on forever.
Until next time.