Posted on Leave a comment

Creating images with transparent backgrounds using freely downloadable software

FREEBIE: We thought we’d share this demonstration video with you because it is very handy when working with images for your website.

GIMP is an open source image editing program that gives you very powerful functionality for editing images. Get to know a little about this program and you won’t need to struggle with Paint or pay for Adobe professional image editing software. This video is one of the free videos in our online WordPress training course.

You’ll want to use this when you want your logo to appear in a WordPress website. There’s nothing quite so unprofessional as a logo with a white rectangle background behind it.

Enjoy. If you receive this information via email and cannot see the video, click on the title to read this at our blog site.

 

Posted on Leave a comment

Navigating the EzyLearn Online Training Site

Come on a short journey to learn how to navigate the EzyLearn Online Training website. We’ll take you on a quick tour so you know what to expect as a student when you start your training with us. You’ll see one of the great benefits of joining and having at your disposal a learning resource for the rest of your working life.

Your student administration area enables you to quickly jump from course to course if you wish and the bread-crumb menu at the top gives you complete knowledge of which course you are in and gives you the ability to get back to your home page and course outline.

Take a look at our popular online Courses in MYOB Accounting, Microsoft Excel spreadsheets and WordPress website design and blogging: http://ezylearnonline.com.au/courses/

Here’s the video on how to navigate our training website.

 

Posted on 1 Comment

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.

Posted on Leave a comment

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.

Posted on Leave a comment

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

Posted on 1 Comment

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

Posted on Leave a comment

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.

Posted on Leave a comment

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

 

Posted on Leave a comment

Microsoft Excel 2007 & 2010 Training – menus and ribbons

If you are receiving this as an email, click on the heading to see the free training video at the EzyLearn blog.

Microsoft Excel is still the worlds most popular spreadsheet program by a long shot. I’ve used Google’s spreadsheet and it is a fantastic tool if you want to access or share a spreadsheet online but it’s still not the same as using Microsoft Excel and with the prices becoming quite competitive and Microsoft offering new ways of sharing Microsoft Office documents in “the Cloud” it is still easier to use what you know, ie. Microsoft Excel.

We are in production of our 2010 Microsoft Office training videos as part of the beefing up of our online training courses and this videos is one of the new batch covering fundamental tools in Microsoft Excel 2007/2010.

If you wish to learn how to use Microsoft Excel at a beginner or intermediate level, Steve who created the training material will be teaching at Maxis Solutions training centre in Chatswood in February.

Are you new to online training courses? Check out our brief tour on how online learning works.

Posted on Leave a comment

Navigate your way around MYOBCourse.com.au

I recently started a topic in a finance course I am doing with Kaplan Professional to discover that this tertiary qualification I am studying is done completely online. That means watching powerpoint slides with audio, reading a workbook and having access to an online forum if I have questions. Even the assignment task is submitted online and results received via the online learning portal.

My first thought was how interesting that a well reputed education institution stops having lectures altogether and I was a little disappointed that I wouldn’t have an opportunity to meet my fellow students and share stories and ask questions. After using the learning tools however I have come to the conclusion that the tools themselves are very useful and it re-affirmed our online training goals here at EzyLearn to become the number one source of online training in Australia for employment and productivity for small to medium businesses.

We have received help requests of how to get around our online learning websites so the video in this post is designed to give you a quick demonstration.

The production of the next MYOB course (MYOB Payroll) is underway and you’ll get a change to see these videos for free if you are a subscriber to this blog. This video is a small taste of the many more to come. Please feel free to comment or share this blog post with your friends. To visit the online MYOB course website, click here.

Posted on Leave a comment

New (updated) MYOB training course workbook

It’s ready! The workbook for the MYOB 502 (day to day transactions) training course is now ready. This workbook now has a better flow from navigating around the MYOB screen, creating inventory items, purchasing products from suppliers, setting inventory item properties, paying bills, creating quotes, orders and invoices to receiving payments and making bank deposits.

This workbook has larger screen shots, better practice tasks and references to our online training videos. You can even use the workbook by itself to learn how to use MYOB accounting software.

The workbook is now available in the contents section of the MYOB 502 course. If you are enrolled into the course, you can simply click this link to see the workbook: http://myobcourse.com/elearning/mod/resource/view.php?id=303

Posted on 1 Comment

Using Google Adwords – Step 1 – choose a budget

The Google Adwords market is constantly changing depending on who is bidding for the keywords you want, how they are bidding and how much they have to spend. Keeping this in mind you will have to make some simple decisions before you can get started.

I sat down with a business owner today and she wanted to bid for every keyword she could think of, everything relating to her field of business, but the problem with that is that you are then competing with everyone else for a whole lot of words. We ended up choosing fewer words and decided to spend more to get people to our website using those keywords. If website visitors who come to your website from a Google Adwords advertisement and stay and explore your site Google will recognise your site as a good result for its searches and this will end up elevating your position in the “relevancy based” search results. That should be a significant goal, but I am now just digressing.

So, the business owner agreed that she was going to spend $1200 per month. The next step is to figure out which services she is going to promote and she gave me a list of 15 different services,which we then categorised into 4 main categories… Phew. We then looked at the relative weighting for each category of her business to decide how much they will receive of the $1200 per month and it came to a relatively simple 25% split each or $300 each category (division) per month. These were good figures because that comes down to $10 per day and that is how you can limit the amount of money you spend on Google Adwords…. by setting a daily limit.

The next step is a little more time consuming and involves choosing the right keywords and keyphrases to use for each category of the business. Once you’ve discovered this you choose how much you are willing to pay per click… hence the term Pay-Per-Click (or PPC) advertising (adwords.google.com). You may not get this part right the first time, but you will soon realise that you can pay for anything from 9c to over $20 per click to be on the first page. The more generic and popular the keyword the higher the price, the more words you combine together (keyphrase) the fewer people will be promoting it so the price will be lower. I’ll cover this in another blog post.

UPDATE:

Learn about alternatives like using relevant keywords in a blog for your business to make your website more valuable and ensure it becomes a trusted resource for customers.

Posted on 1 Comment

Fantastic WordPress website template themes

You can download free WordPress templates, you can design them yourself using Artisteer or you can download them for $50-$150 each. I found someone who creates them, offers support and allows you to use any of the theme templates he has created for $19.95 per year. Even if you just use it to purchase one template you like, the offer made by this company is the way that dedicated and committed businesses should be working.

I started out just using free templates because I didn’t know what I was looking for and I didn’t know how to use WordPress properly, plus, I was using a different sitebuilder for most of my websites anyway. Then I looked at some of the professional WordPress templates available and didn’t like the idea of paying $75 for an excellent theme from Press75 because I figured I may not like it in 6 months, OR I wouldn’t be able to get all the features working properly. Instead I purchased Artisteer because I realised I could take any template and customise it completely! I was in complete control. In reality, I then spent a lot of time using Artisteer and realised that I didn’t want to design many of my own prefessional templates, I simply wanted to find one that was created by a professional and customise it for my own websites.

I had to find a business that creates professional looking WordPress template themes, would allow me to use a variety of themes they had created and all at a price that was impossible to refuse. I found Elegant Themes by Nick Roach and I’m amazed at how easy he has made it to use any of his themes and how little he charges. Visit his website to see the WordPress themes available: http://bit.ly/aCLCsg

Follow this blog to find out how I went to install and start using the features of the eVid theme…

Posted on Leave a comment

EzyLearn can help online with employment

Proof of training and evidence of completion of a course are two significant ways to prove that a person has the skills to perform selected tasks when they are in the workplace. How is this achieved with online training?

A certificate in the hand of a potential employee might seem like the answer to everyone’s hopes. Companies are looking for staff with the skills and prospective employees want to be employed. So, what does a certificate mean? The most structured form of vocational training is a Certificate or Diploma course, these courses are operated by RTO’s (Registered Training Organisations) who adhere to strict guidelines in assessing students skills level, running the courses and assessing the students skills at the end of the course. Under these strict guidelines you can be confident that if someone has a certificate that they have reached a certain level of competency.

EzyLearn is a computer training content provider, in other words, we create training videos, workbooks and exercise files that are used by private individuals, companies and training companies (including RTO’s). Some of these companies have qualified assessors who are able to provide a Nationally recognised Certificate, regardless of the training materials used.

At our www.myobcourse.com.au website we provide a Certificate of Completion. Our assessment of a students skills are based on their ability to take an MYOB data file, make changes to it like enter inventory items, create customer cards, create invoices, apply payments to those invoices and perform a bank reconciliation. If they can send the data file to us, there is good evidence that they have the skills required for most every bookkeeping tasks.

Posted on Leave a comment

Affiliate marketing – how easy!

I think about the times when I have been to countries like Egypt and Vietnam where there seem to be so many people willing to help travellers who’ve just arrived in the new town. I quickly got to learn that they are doing it for the money. This is why tourism is so important in these countries… It’s how locals can get paid by tourists who need help. Continue reading Affiliate marketing – how easy!

Posted on Leave a comment

MYOB training course – *free trial*, start now, money back guarantee

EzyLearn’s MYOB Training Courses are now being used by JOB Network centres, CRS Australia and other employment agencies because:

  • There is a wide range of content (MYOB Setup, Day to Day transactions and bank reconciliations),
  • Students can start straight away,
  • Students can access the training materials any time, day or night,
  • Students can access the training material from their home or office or anywhere with an internet connection, and
  • The training that everyone receives is consistent.

We have begun production of our MYOB Payroll training videos and when the training materials are completed, they will be made available to all students at no extra charge. EzyLearn’s MYOB course: all myob courses rolled into one.

But best of all, we are so confident that students will like our training course that we are now offering a money back guarantee. If, within 7 days, you are not satisfied, we’ll give you all your money back.

Check out our website and tell your friends about us: EzyLearn’s MYOB Training Courses