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How valuable are words?

It seems that Google has brought back the magic of words. Why? Because they can be indexed and used in search results.

Can you index an image or a video? You can, but you need to index them using words.

You can find almost anything on Google but you need to use words to do it. When you click on a paid Google Adwords advertisement its usually due to the words the advertiser used to catch your attention. If you want to improve your Google organic search ranking you need to use the right “key”words on your website, they call that Search Engine Optimisation (or SEO).

Keywords, SEO, marketing, Google Adwords, resumes

Can someone in the Phillipines, India or Eastern Europe Write Like You?

You might be aware of the value of words these days because you need this skill to be effective in marketing your business online. The role of the copywriter is often undervalued because you can now hire someone in the Phillipines, India or Eastern Europe to write the content of your website or blog for a couple dollars per hour, but would you? After testing out individuals, copy-writing services and other international contracting companies we realise that the quality of the words we use and the ability to relate to other Australians is something only another Australian can truly do effectively. With all the talk about workers in developing countries taking jobs away from Australian workers, we realise that it’s their knowledge of Australian lingo, Australian tastes and Australian attitudes that makes their writing style truly Australian – and that makes it valuable to other Australians.

Work at Home

There is a way of getting good quality words for your website or blog for a reasonable price and that is by using a Virtual Assistant (sometimes called a remote worker, home worker or a remote contractor). There are some great writers out there who choose to work from home and if you use the services of an organisation like Virtually Yours you’ll find top quality writers and remote contractors with many other skills that are part of an organisation designed to find good virtual assistants and promote them as well as provide them with tools to be effective small business owners.

While we are on the topic I want to share the success of Terry from Ramancorp. He operates a small wholesale business supplying a range of framing, hanging, display and packaging materials and he lists them all on his website. Because he has gone to the trouble of providing as much information as possible he uses some very niche words that attract customer looking for the exact product they need. As a result Terry is getting a good amount of NEW customers EVERY month without having to pay a cent in Google Adwords advertising.

Words are Valuable in Resumes, Website and LinkedIn

Words are just as valuable in your resume so the next time you think about what kind of job you are looking for, think about the words that the advertiser might use to attract the right candidate and make sure your resume has these words in it.

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EzyLearn Provides Online Microsoft Excel Course for Bookkeepers Institute

Institute of Certified Bookkeepers - online Microsoft Excel Training CourseAs an Accredited Training Provider for the Institute of Certified Bookeepers, we are proud to provide our online Microsoft Excel course to the institute as part of their Professional Development Program.

Along with all levels (beginners to advanced), members of the Institute of Certified Bookkeepers also receive the LIFETIME Membership and other benefits that come with being an EzyLearn student. Microsoft Excel is a perfect companion for accounting programs like MYOB Accounting.

For more information about EzyLearn Online Microsoft Excel course, please visit our Excel course website.

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Microsoft Excel Online Training Course: LIFETIME Student Access & Start Tomorrow

Common Questions for Computer Courses

Can I repeat the course if I don’t remember everything that is taught?

This was a common question that came up when we had our three Sydney based training centres. To make it easier for students we offered Free Repeats so that students could come back and learn the skills again. We then created training videos to complement our workbooks and in 2006 we closed our last training centre to focus on Online Computer Training Courses.

Can I start the Microsoft Excel course this week? I have Mondays and Wednesdays available.

This is a question about timing scheduling your calendar for an available course and we overcame this by recording the content of our classroom Microsoft Excel and Office training sessions as screen based videos so that students could come and visit whenever THEY had the time, not when WE scheduled the courses.

Online Microsoft Excel and MYOB training courses

With Broadband Internet and fantastic new learning technology we are able to delivery Microsoft Excel Training to you via our online course. This means you can enrol today and start by 5pm tomorrow. It also means that you can progress through the training course at your own pace using a combination of training video tutorials, training workbooks with exercise files and knowledge reviews to test your skills.

Who uses EzyLearn for Microsoft Excel Online Training courses?

Government departments, insurance companies, private companies and home users all use EzyLearn Online Computer Training courses. We recently interviewed a corporate training customer to find out why and this Case Study reveals how a leading energy reverse auction company, Energy Action, used EzyLearn’s Microsoft Excel training to manage the large amounts of data they receive to save their customers tens of thousands of dollars in energy costs: Energy Action Case Study

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Work at home managing customer’s WordPress websites? Introducing the WordPress Online Training Course!

WordPress is used as a Content Management System (CMS) for millions of small business websites around the world. WordPress is like the Microsoft Word for Websites and we have a course that will teach you how to use it as a blogger, article and news writer all the way up to a WordPress administrator. In fact at the end of this course you will learn enough to get your own website up and running as well as help others create and maintain their own website.

The best part of this course is that it entitles you to the EzyLearn LIFETIME membership feature, so when we update it with new content about marketing your website you can access the new information for no extra cost. For more information and to enrol, visit our WordPress course website.

What’s included in our WordPress Online Course (you can click these links if you are an existing student):

WordPress Pages and Posts

Administration Privileges and Settings

With Administrator priveleges you are now able to affect global aspects of your websites appearance. You can also arrange the website layout and user access permission.

Design options and Themes

Background colours, and header images are just the beginning. Learn to install free and premium themes and then customise them using widgets, plugins, custom menus and RSS newsfeeds

Website Hosting Control Panel – email

Your website hosting control panel provides you with stats about your website usage, but most importantly your email and other applications. Learn how to manage your email accounts and email access.

Blogs, Posts and RSS Feeds

We have all the training videos and they will be uploaded shortly (no extra cost for you to access). Syndication gives you the power to be many places at once. When you write a blog that article can be made to appear in your readers inbox, on other websites and of course at your blog.

Google have a range of tools to help you gain exposure on the world wide web and one of these tools is called Feedburner. This tool will enable you to have your own email list subscribers attached to your blog.

Can I make my own site?

Yes. We’ve thought of that too. When you enrol for the Online WordPress course, choose the option that provides you with a student website hosting account.

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EzyLearn’s Excel Course: Helping Energy Action Show Savings in Energy Cost and Consumption

IN THESE TIMES OF GLOBAL WARMING the need for businesses to reduce energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions has never been more important.

Australian company, Energy Action, prides itself on helping businesses reduce energy usage and save money. Energy Action provides an innovative flagship service it terms the ‘Australian Energy Exchange’ through which energy suppliers can competitively bid against one another for the supply of an organisation’s energy. With a best-fit contract usually secured in only 15 minutes, more than 5000 businesses have now partnered with Energy Action to maximise their energy savings, culminating in more than $5 billion worth of energy contracts.

Energy Action provides their clients with quality monthly reports showing clients’ energy demand, power factor, load factor, energy consumption, emissions and more. Their daily monitoring flags when clients’ demand targets are approached or exceeded.

Microsoft Excel Online Course 308 - pivot table value field settings
Microsoft Excel Online Course 308 - pivot table value field settings

Read how Energy Action staff learnt about Pivot Tables and Charts, Conditional Formatting, VLOOKUP and much, much more to provide a higher level of knowledge to their customers: Energy Action Case Study

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MYOB Training Course: Dedicated video tutorial server

Are you happy with your current skills?

Do you like to learn new things?

We’re the same. We love to come into contact with new software and internet technology and anything that will help us to remain a market leader in online MYOB training. We also like to receive feedback (positive and negative) from our students so we know what we are doing well and what we can improve on.

Recent feedback has been about the navigation around our online training video tutorials. These videos are full audio visual demonstrations using the software, just like you would expect in a training classroom using a data projector.

With online training video tutorials you can go over our material again and again until you understand it. You can also go over it in the future when you come across a problem you need some help with. Combine it with our step-by-step training exercises and knowledge reviews and you have a complete learning solution.

So, what’s the news?

[box] We’re putting all new content and upgraded training course materials onto a new dedicated video hosting server![/box]

What does this mean?

It means that the videos are hosted on a separate service to the learning course so that both will operate much faster. All new training videos will also have a navigation panel and the ability to scroll through the video to the place you want to be and finally you’ll be able to expand the video so that it takes up your entire screen.

What the video below to see what we mean.

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MYOB Training: Exporting MYOB Data for an Excel Mail Merge

MYOB Training Course Exported Accounts list

We recently created 9 new training videos for our online MYOB training course and one of them demonstrated how to export and import data from an MYOB training company datafile. Exporting and importing is used to extract transaction and sales information and also customer or supplier card files from MYOB to use with Microsoft Excel in performing mail merges.

We have included the simple accounts list that we use in our online MYOB bank reconciliation course as a file you can download and open up in Notepad or Microsoft Excel. The image above shows what the file looks like when opened up in Notepad. It’s called a TAB-DELIMITED text file and this example includes a header record that gives you the name of each field (column)

ACCOUNTS

If you want to learn more about TEXT format (including CSV – comma separated values) files and how to manipulate this type of data using Microsoft Excel, take a look at our Microsoft Excel course 307 (visit this link and scroll down until you see the course contents of course 307: http://ezylearnonline.com.au/courses/microsoft-excel/excel-course-outline-2/).

If you need training on Microsoft Excel and data storage types you’ll be thrilled to hear that this course is one of 9 courses that are all included for one low price and LIFETIME student membership at the EzyLearn online Microsoft Excel course. Click here to enrol.

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New MYOB Training Content available for all students

MYOB Training Course Bank Reconciliation Tutorial Screen

If you are enrolled into our online MYOB training course you’re probably aware of our LIFETIME access feature. You might also recall that this feature enables you to log in at any time and have access to any new or updated content that we create.

We’ve just created training video tutorials for our MYOB bank reconciliation course!

The training workbook for the bank reconciliation course contains a project where you can create a new company file from scratch, import an accounts list (Chart of Accounts), import transaction journals and then enter your own transactions to complete a bank reconciliation. It’s a very satisfying feeling!

Here is a list of the 9 new training videos we created. If you are a student you can simply click on each video, sign-in and start watching.

  • Section 1 Video 1 – Export and Import using MYOB
  • Section 1 Video 2 – Working with Read Only MYOB data files
  • Section 1 Video 3 – Exporting Accounts List and Transaction Journals
  • Section 1 Video 4 – Exploring Exported MYOB Accounts list Data
  • Section 1 Video 5 – Create a new training company datafile
  • Section 1 Video 6 – Importing an accounts list into a new MYOB data file
  • Section 1 Video 7 – Importing the Transaction Journals into a new MYOB data file
  • Section 1 Video 8 – Deleting duplicate accounts and changing linked accounts
  • Section 1 Video 9 – Setting Linked Accounts for GST
  •  

    As part of our continuous improvement process we are now hosting our videos on a dedicated video hosting platform and the videos can now be paused and played and you can enable them to take up the full screen for easier viewing.

    Happy Learning!

    To learn more about our online MYOB training course and the fantastic new features like LIFETIME membership, EzyLearn Q&A and more visit: http://ezylearnonline.com.au/courses/myob-training/

    [button link=”http://ezylearnonline.com.au/courses/myob-training/”] MYOB online training course[/button]

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    How-To Guides: Writing a killer resume?

    Example of a Resume CVIf you are like a lot of students who enrol into our online MYOB and Excel training courses you probably haven’t used your CV in quite a while. I had a situation in 2008 when I needed a CV for a project I was presented with and it was a time consuming task which took a lot longer than I expected.

    We’ve been talking to a man who operated his own head-hunting business and he has plenty of experience in not only presenting himself to potential employers, but also as a person who reads resumes, and conducts interviews on a day to day basis.

    We also spoke to a professional writer and a rehabilitation consultant and they will share their insights as well as provide tips on how to write the perfect resume, prepare for job interviews, write cover letters and much more. Their team even includes a professional bookkeeper who will share insights about how to find work as a bookkeeper.

    These career professionals are team members of our training partners, Workface, and you can read their job seekers blog as well as subscribe so you receive the tips via email.

    One of the tid-bits that I can reveal is the importance of personalising every resume so that the recipient feels like you are talking only to them. Subscribe to their blog and get some great job seeking skills.

    Want to read other blog posts about resume writing and tips and tricks to find employment?

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    Selling horse feed in the internet age

    We’re in the internet age whether we like it or not. Our internet connection is as valuable to us now as our power supply and our telecommunications and it’s important to have a website if you are in business. In this post I want to introduce you to a small operation in King Island in Tasmania. A company that sells Kelp is learning how to play the internet game and best of all you can learn with them.

    Kelli has a WordPress website hosted with 123ezy and we are building our WordPress and Webmaster Course around her growing internet presence. To start with we have created some elementary training videos about the navigation around the WordPress themes and what different parts of the website are called. We’re learning about themes, header images, menus and widget just to get started. As we progress we’ll be talking about Pages vs Posts, tags and categories, working with images, Search Engine Optimisation and much more.

    We’ve included our Introduction to WordPress video below so if you are reading this on your phone, click on the heading to get to our Blog page where you can watch the full video.

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    MYOB Training Q&A: Printing Cheques using MYOB

    MYOB Training Online - Printing cheques
    Image of a cheque from http://www.afl.com.au/tabid/208/default.aspx?newsid=55721

    We recently introduced the EzyLearn Q&A service for our MYOB online training course students to give you more specific answers to your MYOB questions. The service is available for existing EzyLearn students only and there is no extra cost for this service. If you are an existing student and you need an answer to an MYOB question please feel free to use the service!

    One of our students in Perth is having some issues printing cheques and the bookkeeper for their organisation is being a little cagey with the information so we jumped in to help.

    In a nutshell you need to make sure that whether you create a cheque from the banking module or the Purchases module, you need to ensure that when your payment is entered that it is NOT marked as printed. So that when you do search for Cheques to be printed the one you want will show up.

    Keep the questions coming and stay tuned to the EzyLearn blog (register to receive them automatically) to see what MYOB Online Training students are looking for.

    If you are an existing student simply follow this link to see the Printing Cheques using MYOB training guide we created to answer the question. Just log in with your student login details.

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    You should now have your certificate

    Iroshini - Online Training CoursesYou may recall that we identified a GAP in our internal resources last week (ie. we needed an extra team member) to help us with the backlog of assessing and issuing of certificates for our online Microsoft Excel and MYOB training courses.

    Well, here she is Iroshini has performed small tasks for us over the last month or so, but she’s now on board to ensure that the results of knowledge reviews are assessed quickly so that you can receive your  certificates faster. The result is you should have your certificate now 🙂

    Our Online MYOB Training Course has proven to be extremely popular and along with the announcement of Iroshini’s arrival we want you to know that we are currently building our MYOB Payroll course to include more detailed information about the Payroll liability accounts and how to create and setup a new employee, and create the pay slips.

    All of this new content will be available for existing students at no extra charge as part of our LIFETIME Membership offer. Stay tuned also for announcements about our new Microsoft Excel Online training materials… We have some new content in our advanced Microsoft Excel courses, some new knowledge reviews and updated training workbooks.

     

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    MYOB Training Course: We’ve identified problems

    MYOB online training course knowledge reviewsDon’t be alarmed, but we have identified problems. We’ve conducted some GAP analysis on our processes and realise that it is taking too long for us to assess the results of knowledge reviews.

    There are always ways that we can improve our business and the best way of finding out is by feedback from students who’ve actually completed the course. Like all good businesses we try hard to get better at what we offer and how we offer it and I’ve taken measures to ensure that our assessment issue is rectified immediately!

    Stay tuned for news about an addition to our team to handle student knowledge review assessments for the EzyLearn MYOB Course Certificate. We pride ourselves on having a very popular online MYOB training course that you can enrol into today and start by 5pm the next business day and now we are aiming to bring down the time for completion of assessment so that you can have your course completed, assessed and a certificate issued within 2 weeks. That’s our next goal.

    We’ve had some great feedback from students AND we are also listening to what they think we can improve. Here are some of the comments we’ve received from our MYOB online training students when asked about the best parts of our MYOB course:

    “…goes into fine detail of all aspect of MYOB”

    Sammar Kamar from Victoria

    “Liked the fact that I could know if I got the question right or wrong immediately.”

    Phillip Sayce from Queensland

    “..the convenience of being able to do it in your own time”

    Keira Page from New South Wales

    “It is all really good I couldn’t pick (the best parts) if I tried. I have tried to use MYOB in the past but it never made sense to me. But after doing your course it makes more sense. Thanks”

    Linda Matanovic from Queensland.

    Read what other students have to say about our online MYOB training course.

    The next improvement on our list is adding more detailed content to our Payroll Course. Oh, and you probably might already be aware, but existing students will have access to this new content for no extra charge because of our new LIFETIME student memberships that come with each course.

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    Are you safe in your office?

    I always thought the office was the safest place to be. No heavy machinery, no flashing lights and no hard hats gives you the sign that an office is a pretty safe to be. The pressure of deadlines however and increasing piles of work, working close to the same people all day, every day and the anxiety of dealing with people both personally and professionally could make you feel unsafe.

    I was having a chat with Brendan from our new EzyLearn Business Partner – AlertForce Pty Ltd – and he pointed out some of the issues that arise in the workplace, he also proudly commented about the success they are having with their online safety courses. Brendan pointed out

    “Every year thousands of office workers are involved in incidents and accidents that result in long-term injuries”

    and when he explained some of the common causes they seemed pretty logical to me. The key with safety training though is even though it seems logical some of the basic safety principles must be explained and followed by everyone in the office. The one that stands out most to me is the proper method for lifting boxes (they call it manual handling), it’s simple, everyone knows it, but it takes a little extra effort. I think it’s worth it.

    Another EzyLearn Business Partner, Registered Training Organisation Maxis Solutions at Chatswood offers a range of courses in many different occupations. Maxis Solutions owner, Pam Gum, pointed out to me that Occupational Health and Safety is included in Certificate II level courses in Business and Information Technology (IT) and it can include simple things like stretching and giving your eyes a break.

    So, take a look around and see if you can spot the safety issues as they occur.

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    MYOB Online Course Videos — Creating Customer Cards

    Click on the heading to view the image or video if you are receiving this via email.

    Creating customer cards in MYOB is easy! To enter a new customer, simply click on ‘New’; this will bring up a new window.

    It’s also simple to edit customers here. Say you want to change postal or contact details, simply click on ‘Customer’ and hit ‘Edit’.

    You will note that MYOB gives you a choice in the designation section to enter a company or an individual. All customer entries are stored alphabetically so make sure if you are entering an individual you use their last name first.

    You use the tab key as a shortcut to go through all the fields.

    A handy hint: When a customer has a longer address, such as a unit number or a Suite number, hold the Control Key and press ‘Enter’ for a second line.

    Also, if you have tabbed past a field you need, simply hold the Shift Key and hit the ‘Tab’ key to go up to the field above.

    Video Reference: 501204

    Link for existing students: http://myobcourse.com/elearning/mod/resource/view.php?id=359

    For information about our Online MYOB Training Course and new Lifetime Membership for all students, please visit: www.studymyob.com.au

    Please feel free to send your comments about this video to: sales@ezylearn.com.au

     

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    MYOB online course videos – Company information & 13th period

    Make sure all accounting details are correct in the company details. You will not be able to change any details once entered and saved. So the rule here is check and double check all details are correct.

    Did you know that in MYOB there is a 13th Accounting Period? This is not another month but is an accounting period where you can make any accounting changes if needed.

     

    Video Reference: 501102

    Link for existing students: http://myobcourse.com/elearning/mod/resource/view.php?id=349

    For information about our Online MYOB Training Course and new lifetime membership for all students please visit: www.studymyob.com.au

    Please feel free to send your comments to us about this video to sales@ezylearn.com.au
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