Category: Website Design

Information about how to create and design your 123ezy website

Posted on by — 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 by — Leave a comment

Getting social with your website

Social media seems to be on everyone’s lips today, especially if you work in the area of websites and internet marketing. The biggest names on the Internet at the moment: Google, Twitter and Facebook area all into it, but what does it mean for your business and it’s website?

I’ve just had the pleasure of spending several hours on a Sunday learning about TwitterFeed, an application that allows you to connect your blog (that’s what you are currently reading) to Twitter and Facebook accounts (and Pages for Facebook). This article is a test to see if it works. If it does, then a new tweet will be created at any nominated Twitter accounts and also on any nominated Facebook Pages.

If it does work the greatest benefit is that you don’t need to create all the Wall comments (facebook) and Tweets manually because TwitterFeed will do it. All you need to do is write the article.

8 hours later… Yep, it worked. A tweet at www.twitter.com/ezylearn was created with a link to the article and a post in our Facebook Page was also created. What does it mean? Simply that when you write and publish your blog post, announcements are automatically made on any Twitter profiles and Facebook pages you manage.

Posted on by — Leave a comment

Writing a blog post from your phone

You can truly understand the power of communications today when you can create a blog article from a cafe using your iPhone, wordpress and website design and have that article and related links appear on numerous websites.

We’ve just setup a new phone system using linksys (Cisco) phones and voip business telephone system which means we now use our broadband connection to make calls and can transfer calls no matter where we are, but better than that we pay $14.95 per month for a line and no longer receive TELSTRA bills. That’s a good feeling.

There is a cost for new ip handsets and some configuration to do, but Simon from yourITSupport does all of that effortlessly.

Posted on by — 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 by — 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

Posted on by — Leave a comment

Advertise on EzyLearn Computer Training websites

Are your customer the kind of people who want to learn about computer software programs like Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint and MYOB Accounting software? EzyLearn owns a well planned and designed suite of websites which cater to this market. We call it our website real estate, and it gets some fantastic traffic.

EzyLearn is exploring the possibility of working with advertising partners in the recruitment, job seekers market place. PageRank is a Google metric that’s designed to show you the perceived value of a website, it accumulates a range of visitor statistics into one single ranking number. Google PageRank statistics include: number of first time visitors, returning visitors, time spent on the site, number of pages visited and much more, and if you download the Google Toolbar you can see the Google PageRank for every page you visit.

A number of our computer software training websites and website pages have grown to a Google PageRank of 4 and for selected keywords and phrases they appear in the first page of results. Some good examples are www.myobcourse.com.au and www.freecomputertraining.com.au. The FreeComputerTraining website is our most successful website in terms of traffic with over 55,000 unique visitors in the past 12 months. This website is used by many job network agencies across Australia as a free learning resource for those looking for employment across Australia.

If your business offers a service aimed at the needs of those who are seeking employment and are taking the making an effort to learn and improve themselves, this website may be an ideal place to put your display advertisement.

Any interested parties should send an email to online manager Richard Dabba at info@freecomputertraining.com.au.

Posted on by — Leave a comment

Website and marketing campaign up and running in one day

With all the right information (content) and systems in place, you can setup a website, optimise it for search engines and create a Google Adwords campaign in one day. Doesn’t that sound nice?

An experienced 123ezy website designer can setup a website for you using the sitebuilder (so you can log in at any time to make changes), create a Google account, create a Google Adwords campaign and get your business online quickly. Your consultant can also code up your 123ezy website with Google Analytics code so that you can measure your statistics from your Google Account interface.

To learn more about what is included in a 123ezy website hosting solution, visit this link: http://www.123ezy.com/website_designer/page_whats_included_whats_included.html

If you’d like to book a consultation remember that it comes with a one month followup on the phone to go through and see how successful the campaign has been. For more information, follow this link: http://www.123ezy.com/website_designer/page_education_consulting.html

Posted on by — Leave a comment

A/B testing for 123ezy websites

How do you know what to put on your websites home page? Do people respond better to an image of an elderly couple or a sweet young lady, do they want to see a lot of text and options or a simple interface? You can now answer these questions with A/B testing on your website.

We decided to a simple experiment using Google Website Optimiser and 123ezy website. We created three different variations of the home page including the original page and our objective was to compared the results of each variation. The goal of course was to get new website visitors to the registration page of our online learning section of the website and Google Website Optimiser was able to keep track of the entry pages that people viewed and if they ended up going to the registration page.

Google Website Optimiser for 123ezy website
Google Website Optimiser for 123ezy website

This diagram shows that both new variations of the home (seniors and community) provided a 37% higher chance of success than the original home page.

This is a great way to see what your potential clients like the most on your website and it’s a great way to prove to yourself how your clients like your website to look.

Posted on by — Leave a comment

Touch a spiders legs with Flash

Sounds scary doesn’t it? If you are terrified of hairy spiders this is not a website for you, but if you want to see some of the fantastic things that can be created using Adobe Flash this website is definitely a good example. There are games and other fun stuff to do that is sure to help you kill an hour or so.http://www.onemotion.com/flash/spider/Be sure you click along the menu at the top of the website to see the other great things that Tomas from OneMotion.com has created. Have fun!  

Posted on by — Leave a comment

Use social bookmarking and email referrals to make yourself popular

Do you have a website? Want visitors to tell their friends about it? Social Bookmarking is the new way of spreading the word about your website (ie. business). I wrote an article in July 2008 (click here to see) about how quickly word can spread, especially when website visitors can let all their friends know about your website using websites like Facebook, MySpace and other not so well known but still important websites like dig.com, reddit.com etc.  Continue reading Use social bookmarking and email referrals to make yourself popular

Posted on by — Leave a comment

How word spreads like wildfire on the net

These days if there is a good product on the internet the news spreads like wildfire, but why? How is it that word spreads to millions of people in such a short time? With Social media, social bookmarking (we have that on our sites using the AddThis service… so make sure you use it and tell your friends about us), blogs, Vlogs, Wikis and RSS you can tell someone and they can tell someone else and before you know it, your word of mouth recommendations get to thousands of people.

I found a great site that teaches you in plain english how these website work. Please send me an email or reply to this post with your comments. Here’s the link:

http://www.youtube.com/user/leelefever 

Enjoy,
Steve Slisar

Posted on by — Leave a comment

Sketch your own website banner

Want to have better looking graphics on your website? Now you can do it yourself with a great website that helps you create banners for your website.

This website is just like an image editing program, but it’s on the Internet rather that installed on your own computer. This means that you can access and use it for free from anywhere. This website is indicative of the growing trend of software applications that you can use on the Internet. They call this type of application “Software As a Service” and it seems to be the way that all programs are going because the owner of the program has complete control of usage.

I hope I didn’t go off track then, but I find “Software As a Service” a very interesting business model… It’s like hotmail, gmail and most online applications, in that you are offered something for free for a while and then when you realise just how valuable it is in your daily life. It starts to become important and (most interestingly) valuable to you and it’s probably at that point when the industry will reach the stage (that they are touting will come), the stage where these “valuable” service become “paid for” services.

Anyway, back on track, the good news it that these services are currently free so get to know them, learn how to use this type of program and get some better results on your website.

The website that I’m talking about it www.bannersketch.com

Please feel free to subscribe to my blog and leave a comment 🙂 Steve

Posted on by — Leave a comment

Create your own flash intros for free online

Here is another example of everything becoming free online. I’ve just discovered a website where you can create your own flash animated intros without having any experience using Flash.

You can create either html or swf files from the site and if you decide you want to use more of the features that they have to offer, you can join the site for less than $5 per month. Have fun with it.

http://www.flashberry.com/builder.html

Posted on by — Leave a comment

Specific is terrific for your website and online marketing

Many website owners believe that they can create content and plonk it anywhere on their website and they’ll be inundated with emails and calls. They are missing the fundamental fact that people who are browsing the internet have potential 10-30 other website to visit until they find the one that they think is the best.

Here’s a couple examples of the goals I have for some of my websites.

  1. Get website visitors off your home page (otherwise they’ll bounce)
  2. Get people to take a short tour of what you can do for them (using images and maybe audio)
  3. Give people a reason to interact with your website (like a free sample or information report)
  4. Know the website goal and how to measure it (eg. the number of people visiting the website compared to the number of people who actually get to your Contact/subscription/ordering page etc).

Some fantastic news for you is that Google has all the tools to help you attract website visitors, funnel them to goal pages and measure your success. Advertising with Google costs you money, but most of the other tools are completely free (like Google website optimiser and analytics).

A great aspect about Google Adwords is that although it costs you money, you actually attract very specific potential customers to your website, customers who have typed in very specific search words and/or phrases. Better still you only pay for actual clicks to your website and not the people who just see your add.

So remember that when you promote yourself online you are looking for people who want something very specific so you need to find them and then funnel them to your own specific goals for them.

If you need some help please call me on 0413 007 481 or email steve@slisar.com.au

Posted on by — Leave a comment

Landing Pages to focus your website

A landing page is a web page that contains specific information on it that will appeal to website visitors who are looking for something specific.

For example, if I send an email newsletter which promotes Microsoft Excel Training and I insert a link to my home page (eg: www.slisar.com.au) then people who click on and follow the link from the newsletter may be a little disappointed. Why? Because they were expecting to find information about Microsoft Excel Training but now need to navigate around my website to find the information.

So, I create special “landing pages” that cover a specific topic and when a website visitor gets to the page they are pleasantly surprised because they see all the information they were searching for. This is an example of a landing page: http://slisar.com/main/page_landing_learn_microsoft_excel_online.html .

You could put special links on your landing page that “funnel” website visitors to exactly where you want them to go and thus acheiving your website goals. Notice that the URL of the above “landing page” contains keywords that are used to search for the service offered? This is one aspect of Search Engine Optimisation and makes your website attractive and “Relevant” to Search Engines.

After creating some specific landing pages I can create ads on Google Adwords, Microsofts adCentre or promote these ‘landing pages’ in email marketing campaigns so that when people click on them, they get a very specific response and are funnelled to the webpage that you want them to get to.

Creating these pages is possible using the 123ezy website builder and I have used this technique to successfully attract thousands of people to my websites and online services. If you need some help with your website design or Internet marketing, please contact me in Australia on 0413 007 481 or email me at steve@slisar.com.au

Posted on by — Leave a comment

Who wants to create their own movies?

Movies are something that you may not have thought about creating for yourself. I mean, why would you? Who’s going to see them anyway?

I helped a client create a movie from their last ski trip only last week and it tooks us less than 4 hours from the client not knowing anything about Microsoft Movie Maker. Not only did we create the movie, but we shortened selected video clips, created transitions between clips, muted the audio from the video clips and even put two sound tracks going in the background to add a real ‘feel’ to the movie.

When I say video clips, these are snippets of video that we get from a video camera (and let’s face it, a normal digital camera is also a video camera these days) and combine in an order that we choose and re-arrange if needed.

Finally we converted the video into a movie file format (just a  couple clicks) and before you know it, the movie is ready not only to burn to a CD, but also to easily publish to YouTube for the whole world to see your creation (if you want them to). Thought I’d just throw in a small comment here … more and more businesses are creating their own video/movie style ads and placing them on YouTube to build awareness and it’s easier to do than you think..

Let me know if creating a movie is something that you’d like to learn more about?