Posted on May 8, 2013August 4, 2014 by Angela — 2 Comments

LinkedIn Profiles: What Not To Do

If you are like me, or pretty much any other living, breathing person on the planet with access to the Internet, then you’ve probably Googled someone in the last 24 hours.

Actually, I Googled someone while writing this post; had a gander at their LinkedIn profile and then went about the rest of my business.

I’ve mentioned previously how a LinkedIn profile works in shaping a person’s opinion of you, but how do you ensure it’s shaping a person’s opinion of you in the right way?

Getting Mileage Out of Your LinkedIn Profile

If you’re a jobseeker and you need to overhaul your LinkedIn profile, then some things to avoid:

Lying: Lie on your resume à la ex-Yahoo CEO, Scott Thomson, and you’re running the gamut of being found out at some point; lie on your LinkedIn profile and you will definitely get found out (either by a colleague or former employer), but lie on your CV and not your LinkedIn profile: now you’re not only a liar, you’re also a stupid one!

It’s simple: don’t lie. Ever.

Too many recommendations: if a prospective employer is scoping you out — perhaps to verify some of the claims in your CV or interview — and you don’t have any recommendations it’s likely they’ll consider you a dud networker, or worse: a dud employee.

To remedy this, send out a few recommendation requests. But don’t overdo it (when you’re job hunting, for example) — a slew of recommendations all at once makes it obvious you’re job hunting, which your current employer may not think too highly of.

Your job description is vague: maybe you think it’s mysterious, but vague or ambiguous statements in your job description is just plain elusive, and it makes you seem as though you’ve something to hide. Like maybe you’re not as fabulous as you let on you are.

The statement “assisted with the grand opening of a new store” could mean anything. For all we know, you could have put out the plastic cups people were drinking their complementary bubbles from. Instead, write what you actually did. No matter how small the task was.

No photo: this isn’t a beauty contest, nor is it the correct medium to post a picture of yourself drinking from a seven-foot beer bong. But the option to upload a picture is there for a reason.

A picture tells a thousand words and like it or not, visuals are important. If they weren’t, we’d never have to go for an actual job interview.

Ambiguous keywords: choose your keywords wisely; avoid overused buzzwords like “proven track record” or “team-player”. They may sound impressive (to you) but they really aren’t.

Instead of saying you have a proven track record in sales, show people what that proven track record was — if you pitched and won a multi-million dollar account for your company, say that. This turns an empty statement into a quantifiable accomplishment.

We work with professional partners that help combine our online training courses with services that help you to improve your chances of employability, or hone their talents and skills for running a small business. If you’re new to LinkedIn, we’ve discussed in a previous post how you can use your LinkedIn profile as your resume to find work. If you are looking for opportunities to become an independent contractor and operate your own business from home see the business opportunities at Workface.

Posted on March 27, 2013December 5, 2017 by Angela — 2 Comments

LinkedIn Profiles: How Useful Are They, Really?

What is the power of a LinkedIn profile?

We scrutinise the power of a LinkedIn online social media profile.

THERE MAY BE SOME debate over whether having a LinkedIn profile actually helps professionals make valuable connections with other professionals, but the same could also be said of traditional networking.

As a writer, I probably should network more, but personally, I don’t find much value in it. In the past I have either fallen prey to someone wanting publicity for their pyramid-scheme-type business or I’ve turned into a borderline stalker myself; harassing someone who perhaps only gave me their business card out of a feeling of social obligation.

Besides, a business card tells you nothing about how competent or capable that person is at their job. For writers and journalists, I’ve always found it pretty easy to validate their claims on Google; for other professionals: not so much. Until LinkedIn, that is.

The Professionalism of LinkedIn

LinkedIn may not connect you with the recruiter of your dream job, but Twitter doesn’t guarantee you’ll become BFFs with Mariah Carey, either. What LinkedIn does, however, is give you an online professional profile.

And it’s the rather perverse nature of today’s digital society that makes an online professional presence invaluable; LinkedIn itself can act as your calling card, demonstrating how others endorse you and your work; it can act as your resume; and it can help you to actively find the right job.

The Power of a LinkedIn Profile

Any time you meet someone, you can pretty much guarantee they’ll Google you. Whether they’re prospective employers you’ve interviewed with, people you’ve met in a professional setting (clients, industry alums) or even colleagues, you can bet at some point or another they have Googled you.

What that Google search turns up can totally change the way they interact with you.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve LinkedIn-stalked a fellow writer only to discover their LinkedIn profile is not so impressive, after all. From this point on the entire dynamic of our relationship has changed immediately; suddenly I feel I’ve got the power.

On the other end of the scale, discovering the meek-mannered, unassuming but otherwise seemingly-unimpressive editor I chatted to with extreme ease is actually a former Vanity Fair staffer or contributor to The New Yorker adds another dimension to our relationship — usually, I’m putty in their hands.

***

And it’s in this context that, yes, a LinkedIn profile does work. Whether you’re using LinkedIn as a job-hunter or a networker, your LinkedIn profile tells people everything they think they need to know about you.

The old phrase — first impressions are lasting impressions — is out. It’s online impressions that are the lasting impressions.

If you haven’t already, we welcome you to connect with EzyLearn at LinkedIn.

Our Xero online training courses include EVERYTHING for ONE LOW PRICE. Furthermore, if you select our Lifetime Membership option, you’ll have LIFETIME access to our ongoing course updates. All EzyLearn courses are accredited by the Institute of Certified Bookkeepers (ICB) and can be counted towards Continuing Professional Development (CPD) points. Find out more about our Xero online training courses.

Posted on February 20, 2013September 27, 2013 by Steve Slisar — 1 Comment

The Marketing Lessons All Small Businesses Can Learn From Big Businesses

We regularly receive tips from the academic board of our small business management course and they’ve recently shared something about marketing.

[quote]One of the biggest mistakes a small-business owner can make is to think that advertising budgets and marketing strategies are the playthings of big business.[/quote]

By borrowing some of the strategies some of the biggest businesses do well, there are many marketing opportunities small business owners can utilise to generate some organic business leads—and many of them are low-cost!

Web Presence – Face it, whenever you speak to a potential new client, the first thing they do is Google you. If you don’t turn up in Google, or worse, what does is out-of-date or uninformative, you’ve already lost some of your credibility and you haven’t even done business with them yet!
Your website should clearly outline what services you offer, but that doesn’t mean you can’t have fun with it! Design a website that shows off your personality and sets you apart from your competitors. Our WordPress course can give you the skills you need.
Email Marketing – Is a great low-cost marketing option providing you do it right! Many companies—big and small—make the mistake of bombarding their mailing lists with too many advertising emails, most of which are irrelevant and often result in the click of an “unsubscribe” button.
The trick, here, is to divide your mailing list into categories based on your client’s interest and business needs, and then tailor EDMs or newsletters to each category. The messages with the best cut-through are quirky and informative and act simply as a touch point with your customer that isn’t blatantly spruiking your business or rehashing your sales pitch.
Social Media – If you’re going to use social media for your business, great! But if you think that by just starting a facebook page and then arbitrarily updating it with photos or your latest special offers when you feel like it will work, well you’re wrong!
If you’re going to use social media for your business, make sure you deliver value to your social media friends and followers. Special offers are great, but after a while people tire of them. Keep your content fresh and interesting, and above all, regular!
Online Advertising – The thing about the internet, particularly search engines like Google, is that they’re terrific if you know what you’re looking for. If you don’t, however, it’s like running into a crowded Allianz Stadium on grand final night and calling out, “where can I find my car keys?”
This is where online advertising comes in. Search engine advertising (also called Search Engine Marketing or SEM), like Google Adwords, is a cheap way to get started so that anytime someone searches on google using your keywords, your ad will appear with a link straight to your website.

Don’t forget—Apple Inc, once a little start-up in Steve Jobs’ garage—never launches a new product quietly, so why should you launch your business quietly?

If you create a good marketing plan and stick to it, you’re guaranteed to see results. If you’re unsure what goes into creating a marketing plan, we cover marketing strategies in our Small Business Management course.

Posted on November 26, 2012April 18, 2017 by Steve Slisar — 2 Comments

CIA Provides Secrets about Linkedin

LinkedIn: The Living CV

I’VE WRITTEN A NUMBER of posts about the power of LinkedIn to replace the traditional resume, but after speaking with an expert from CIA (Sydney-based company, Computer Information Agency or CIAOPs) I learnt some new secrets about Linkedin. Robert Crane, CIA’s Director, shared some tips as to how and why LinkedIn is a fantastic tool to help you get a job AND find more customers.

Robert-Crane-Digitar-web-linkedin-secrets — **Robert Crane is the Director of Computer Information Agency**

Here’s what Robert had to say…

One of the greatest advantages that Internet based technologies can provide is leverage. Nothing could be more the case than with social media. Unfortunately, too many businesses and professionals fail to see the potential that it can provide themselves and their businesses. Probably the most effective social network for business is LinkedIn.

You may be surprised to know that LinkedIn in has been around for over a decade. It was around long before Facebook and Twitter as a source of connecting business people together. LinkedIn allows you to create a personal or business profile to which you can add all kinds of information.

[quote]Many professionals use LinkedIn as a “living CV” where they can post their career and achievement records for others to view.[/quote]

Sharing that information with others help them grow their potential network and makes it easier for others to locate people with the right skills.

The True Power of LinkedIn

This is where the key technology of search begins to reveal the true power of LinkedIn, for not only can you share your information with others, independent parties can search LinkedIn and locate individuals with the skills they need. This is reason why so many HR people use LinkedIn to locate and target individuals with the skills they require.

[quote]Posting resumes and trawling employment website is now ‘old school’. Indeed, the highest quality applicants are signed up via Linkedin even before a job is offered.[/quote]

Is It Too Late for You?

This means that if you are not using Linkedin your competition probably already is. So what can you do to catch up?

Firstly, you’ll need to create a LinkedIn account and then fill in the information about yourself. The more professional information you provide the better. It is also important to include a professional headshot as part of the profile so if you don’t have one of these go out and get one.
Once you have all your information entered start looking for people and associates you know who are already on LinkedIn. When you find them send them an invite to ‘connect’ with you on LinkedIn.
Once you network starts to grow make sure that Linkedin becomes an ongoing part of your business strategy. Don’t let the information you have entered get stale. Revisit your account regularly and ensure it is always as current as possible. As you meet new contacts look them up on LinkedIn and ask them to ‘connect’ with you. Always be looking to grow your network and don’t be afraid to ask people in your network for introductions to others on Linkedin.
When you start to feel comfortable with Linkedin use the testimonial feature to ask business contacts and clients for referrals. These referrals can be directly posted on your profile for all to see.
Nothing lends credibility like endorsement so always continue to seek them out and grow the number that you have. Once the endorsements start to flow make sure you direct other information about your business to your LinkedIn information. Use it on your website, business cards, etc.

Jump On the Social Media Bandwagon

I went to a seminar recently and heard Nick Bowditch from Facebook speak. He said that the businesses engaging with, and using, social media will be the ones still around in 5 years. Perhaps it’s arrogant to think that social media is so mighty, but given the speed with which technology is moving these days, and the ferocity of competition, it’s better to build a profile, reputation and brand that people know, like and trust — and social media is the opportune way to do this.

Like us on Facebook
Connect with us at LinkedIn
Subscribe to our blog.

Are you in business as a bookkeeper, tradesperson, retailer, trainer or real estate agent and want to stand out from the crowd? We can teach you the online marketing techniques to help you do just this! Check out what’s included in our comprehensive Social Media and Digital Marketing online training courses.

Posted on August 28, 2012August 25, 2012 by Steve Slisar — 2 Comments

Finding a job using Linkedin as your resume

How to use linkedin to find a job or new customers

LinkedIn + your resume

I recently wrote about the death of the resume and how Linkedin is replacing the written resume, now I have located a great ebook to help you master the art of using Linked in as a tool to help you find a job or get new customers.

The most interesting change in the employment market that I have noticed is the slow evolution from job seekers looking at job ads to employers searching for the best employees. Social media tools like Linkedin make this all possible.

Attracting the right people

If you are a business owner you have a website to attract customers. You combine great writing and interesting pictures to attract potential customers to your website and then contact details and an offer to ensure they make contact with you. LinkedIn is the same concept for individuals, you combine the right keywords and headings to attract people to your LinkedIn profile. Once people are attracted to your profile you can let them know that you are interested in a job, contracting work or other opportunities.

Find Bookkeeping work or customers

If you are completing our MYOB Training Courses you might want to consider joining LinkedIn if you are not already a member. If you are a member and want to get better results this concise ebook about LinkedIn has some excellent information that will help you get more results from your current LinkedIn profile.

Posted on June 13, 2012June 13, 2012 by Steve Slisar — 1 Comment

Should we offer MYOB Training Courses to group buying companies?

group-buying-sites-choice-review-discounted-MYOB-training-course — Image from Choice website

We’ve been approached by many different Groupon type companies. There seems to be hundreds of these sites popping up every day and they are famous for offering you almost unbelievable discount coupons for almost anything but most commonly services like pedicures, restaurant and cafe meals etc. We’ve always ensured our prices are competitive and bookkeeping students receive good value for money, but our Training Partners have tried them and we’ll share their opinions with you.

For business owners (or merchants as we are called) group buying sites promote the possibility of receiving hundreds of sales of your product (so you better make sure you can service the demand) but what do they want in return. Here’s a classic scenario:

Normal Price: $200

Group Buying Price: $100

Saving to you: $100

Margin that goes to the Group Buying Site is typically 50% of the discounted price, ie. $50

This means that a merchant that would normally receive $200 for something, will now receive $50! Is it worth it? Then why not just sell it on special for $100 and spend some money advertising it? As you can see, we are pessimistic about the future of group buying sites. Our training partners workface.com.au offered a discount on their Microsoft Excel training courses only to receive a handful of sales.

And there are hundreds of these group buying sites. See if you can recognise some of these names: Cudo, Groupon, AlltheDeals, Spreets, Living Social, Grabone, BizzBuzz etc. At the beginning of 2011 a local Australian startup in the space was sold for $40M! If you have time read a review by Choice Magazine.

The main reason we don’t like the big group buying sites is because of some of the conditions imposed.

When you buy the discount voucher the group buying site earns the money. Some of the more selfish sites will then only pass this money to the merchant when the customer uses the voucher. In other words, if the customer doesn’t use the voucher within the “valid period” the merchant earns nothing and the customer loses the benefit!

By the way, I was at a software training function last week and a birdy told me that consumer protection laws might come into affect that provides protection for buyers of these discount vouchers – if you buy a $50 product then you can receive $50 off after the offer period has expired. Watch this space…

As far as discount coupons, we make them available to you. Just tell us what you are looking for in a training course and you’ll automatically receive a discount coupon code for our MYOB, WordPress and Excel training courses.

Posted on December 28, 2011January 16, 2012 by Steve Slisar

We are OPEN now – enrol before school starts

WE are planning some exciting new content for our online MYOB training course, including new support features for students who want extra support. Remember, once you enrol into the EzyLearn online MYOB training course (with LIFETIME membership) you receive access to all new and updated content for no extra cost. Now is an excellent time to enrol.

Now is the perfect time to start a course because most people are on holidays and you have time to think, study, learn and refocus your life strategies for 2012. If you do want to improve your bookkeeping skills and learn how to use MYOB accounting software you’ll be happy to know that we are open over the holiday period (except public holidays).

We hope you enjoyed your Christmas day (if you celebrated it) and wish you all the best for 2012. We sent a thank you out to you and our EzyLearn team, but we forgot to include Monique from Monstar Documents and Rosie Shilo from Virtually Yours. You have both been excellent to work with and we are thrilled at the benefits we have provide some of your members with our Online WordPress training course. Now, more and more virtual assistants and home workers are able to earn an income while working from home.

Here’s to a successful 2012 to you!

Posted on December 23, 2011December 23, 2011 by Steve Slisar — 3 Comments

It’s time to thank YOU

It’s only days before Christmas 2011 and from all of us at EzyLearn HQ we want to thank you for watching our training videos, using our training worbooks and completing our knowledge reviews, reading our blog posts and telling your friends about us. I personally also want to thank the core EzyLearn team for enabling us to grow and provide a great online training solution for thousands of Australian’s and international students.

Thank you Frankie, Yvette, Richard, Jacci, Ross, Amy, Luke, Iroshini, Warren and Allison. Also a big thanks to Simon, Scott, Amy J, Faisal, Jennifer, Nicholas and Mathew. You have made a real difference to EzyLearn this year and to our students and the hard work you’ve done will reward students for years to come.

This year has been one of our best years because we made a commitment to be the best online training company for

MYOB accounting software and bookkeeping
Microsoft Excel & Microsoft Word, and
WordPress website Content management system and blogging platform.

Other training companies spend their time and energy trying to provide hundreds of courses with the aim of trying to get anyone they can. We decided to focus on our core skills and give everything we could. We also tried to make our online training courses affordable and inclusive so you don’t have to worry about your availability or skill level.

Here are some highlights during the year:

Creating a WordPress blog post

Social media has gripped us all this year and if you are a business that didn’t know about websites, blogging, Facebook pages and Twitter you were considered lost. We’ve used WordPress to create our own websites for years and this year we introduced the WordPress Training Course.

You might find it interesting that we were writing blog posts about WordPress back in 2007 and even earlier, but this year we expanded our content significantly and included Google Analytics, Feedburner and other skills in it.

LIFETIME student membership

In January 2011 we introduced lifetime access to our online MYOB Training Course. This gave students access to all courses (Setup, Day-to-Day, Bank Reconciliation, Payroll Introduction) and it also provided them with a safety net and a resource when they are in the workplace. Rather than say thank you and goodbye once our students have completed their online course we welcome students to come back as often as they need.

A significant benefit to this offer is that students get access to all new content that has been created for the course or updated content for the existing material. An excellent example of this is our online Microsoft Excel course. We have training material since 1999 on Excel version 2000, 2003, 2007 and 2010 and as we create new content for Office 365, existing students will have access to the new material for no extra charge.

Welcoming Entrepreneurs as Business Partners

Our Business Partner program has enabled other dedicated professionals to use and promote our training material as part of their own business activities. This has enabled us to focus on the delivery of training materials and management of a learning platform while other business owners earn money by their promotional and sales activities.

We are 100% dedicated to this program going into 2012 so if you are interested please ensure you make contact with us.

Testing your MYOB knowledge and skills

Online training is still relatively new for many prospective students so we introduce the concept of knowledge reviews and skills tests to demonstrate how they are a learning tool as well as a testing tool.

We created a significant volume of new tests and quizzes as part of our online training courses this year and as a demonstration of their efficacy we introduced a free public MYOB skills test to see how much you knew about MYOB. It was also a great way for students to discover a new way of learning something online.

Partnering with Bookkeeping Industry groups

A significant number of our online training students complete their training to perform bookkeeping tasks as an employee or as an independent contractor. To demonstrate our commitment to “would-be” MYOB Bookkeepers and provide you with reputable accredited MYOB courses we became an accredited training provider of the Institute of Certified Bookkeepers. EzyLearn is also a member of the Australian Institute of Training and Development, the Australian Web Industry Association and the International Coaching Federation.

We join these associations to support the online training and coaching industries, demonstrate our commitment to professional industry ready courses and keep abreast of all new training techniques and technology.

More than just an online training course

Support is an important aspect of online learning and it is also a source of significant costs for organisations like EzyLearn. In balancing the costs of maintaining our current team members will the benefits of some rudimentary customisation of our courses we introduced EzyLearn Q&A. With a separate Q&A service for Microsoft Excel, WordPress and MYOB.

We’ve subsequently called this service EzyLearn ANSWERS. It’s a way of providing new training materials based on questions from our students. Students ask questions relating to their needs and our software specialists create a short answer to lead students to a solution. We use this service to increase the breadth of topics covered in our courses.

More team members to serve your needs

This year we added 8 new team members to help create new training content, manage our online learning site, answer questions and provide support. Most importantly it has helped us significantly reduce the time it takes between when you complete your course and when you receive your certificate.

You’ll meet more of these team members during 2012 and we hope to bring more people into EzyLearn to support your learning needs.

Faster loading videos and better online learning tools

We listened to the feedback from our students to improve as much as possible and to complement the addition of new team members we significant upgraded our video hosting capacity to ensure faster and easier viewing and navigation of our online training video tutorials.

This technology update enabled students with new devices like iPads and other Apple products to view our training videos and participate in mobile elearning regardless of their chosen devices.

Training for office administration for small businesses

This year we formed a partnership with virion business grade VoIP to provide online training tools for their installation partners. As part of this project we included some new training materials to help office admin staff not only configure their new VoIP telephone systems, but we also provided spreadsheets for them to use as part of their phone bill analysis reports for customers to demonstrate how much money they could saving using Voice over IP.

We started looking at VoIP solutions for our own business in 2008 when we tried out the features of MyNetFone. In our constant search for better technology and support people we discovered the VoIP solution dedicated to small businesses, virion.

In 2012 we will strengthen this relationship by providing more in-depth training videos and tutorials. Our commitment to online training is focused on providing students with the tools they need to be efficient and productive in small business across Australia as well as provide these small businesses with the tools they need to operate great businesses.

Conclusion

If you think we have made a lot of improvements in 2011, just wait until you see what we have planned for 2012. We will:

create more training content for our MYOB course and WordPress / Webmasters course
implement more services to help support your online learning
help you find more customers (for small business owners using your website and Google adwords, Analytics and SEO)
provide more tools to help you find a job (for job seekers by helping you write better resumes, perform better at interviews and be more confident in your work)

Thanks again for reading and following our progress we want to demonstrate your successes in our 2012 blogs posts.

All the best from the EzyLearn Team.

Sincerely,

Steve Slisar

Posted on October 24, 2011October 24, 2011 by Steve Slisar — Leave a comment

Another 11 training videos about image editing, featured images and WordPress premium themes

NEWS FLASH: Yet another 11 training videos have been added to our WordPress Training Course!

Only recently we announced the addition of 23 new training videos for our online WordPress training course and that is only shortly after the launch of our exciting new website design and blogging course. Why are we populating this course so vigorously? Because we are working with 3-4 students who are building their live sites right now using the content of our course, everytime they come across a stumbling block, we solve it and create more content for our online course. LIFETIME student membership means that you get access to all these new training videos at no extra charge EVER.

This time we’ve focused on teach you how to work with images to get a really professional looking website using a featured slider. We’ve provided great sources online for royalty free images, show you how to get images in just the right size for your website AND get the featured slider working with our recommended premium themes.

Here the video list and if you are an existing student you can simply click on the link, login and get straight to the new learning resources:

If you are not a student yet, but you want to learn more visit our website dedicated to our WordPress online training course.

Remember that you can subscribe to these blog/news posts by visiting our blogsite at www.ezylearn.com.au/wordpress.

Posted on October 18, 2011 by Steve Slisar — Leave a comment

We’ve just added 23 training videos to our online WordPress Training course

NEWS FLASH: If you are an existing WordPressCourse.com.au student you’ll be thrilled to hear that we have created and made available 23 new videos about becoming an expert in WordPress. These new videos are available to you at no extra charge and they are part of our growing range of WordPress, Google and Social Media topics that are coming shortly.

The topics we have covered in this videos includes:

Blogs, Posts and RSS Feeds
File Management and File Transfer Protocol (FTP)
Website Statistics and Google Analytics
Backing up your website
Features of Elegant Themes Premium Themes
Social media and commenting

Nareev Bhatt was one of Australia’s top bloggers back in 2009 and he and other top bloggers like Karen Cheng use a simple website with Google Feedburner to deliver their news to anyone who wants to read it. This course will show you how to have your own newsletter using your WordPress Blog and FeedBurner.

This video from Channel 10 in 2009 explains how three popular bloggers make a lot of money by working from home.

Read more about our WordPress Training Course and join in to take advantage of our current prices and LIFETIME student access

Posted on September 26, 2011August 4, 2014 by Steve Slisar — 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).

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 August 5, 2011August 5, 2011 by Steve Slisar — Leave a comment

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.

Posted on February 6, 2011March 29, 2012 by Steve Slisar — 2 Comments

What does a webmaster look like? Could you be one?

Learn how to use Wordpress and social media training course

If you mentioned the word Webmaster 5 years ago you would imagine someone slightly geeky, who drinks cola, has thick rimmed glasses and talks incessantly about the latest technology and gadgets. Things have changed. The technology used to create websites was the domain of nerds who enjoyed writing code and getting dirty with technology using programs like FrontPage, DreamWeaver, Flash etc, but now it’s the domain of staff members, marketing people and remote contractors (Virtual Assistants who work from home). Why has it changed?

The most significant aspects of website design are:

The template (or theme) that’s used including colour scheme, branding and navigation
The images and copy (text) used to fill the site
Promoting and marketing the website

Modern day Content Management Systems like WordPress, Joomla and even older ones like Drupal make everything much easier and here’s why:

Thousands of designers create templates that you can purchase for $20 to $300
Once a template or theme is designed and setup the content management is the same (just like using Microsoft Word)
Writing articles, creating extra pages and adding to your navigation becomes as easy as selecting a check box and picking a category.

So is it really something that you could do?

wordpress themes included in Webmaster course

Have you heard about WordPress, Google, Facebook and Twitter? Can you use your computer to access your email, do internet banking and accessing other online services? Have you heard about or used PayPal? If you have, then you are at least familiar with some of the tools used by a modern webmaster. Combining these new online marketing tools and WordPress CMS driven websites you can get busy and start creating.

The Internet, smart phones, cloud computing and VoIP are making the world a smaller place and allows people to work from home but still remain digitally connected. There has been a significant shift towards remote contracting (virtual assistants) and the concept of mums working from home is now commonplace.

If you want to come on the Webmaster journey with EzyLearn we have the WordPress course. It’s a step-by-step system of setting up, creating content and images, building the contents and then promoting your own business using all the tools we’ve mentioned in this blog post. Best of all you’ll have an internet guru educating and coaching you each step of the way until your website is complete so not only will you have your own website and tools to promote it, but you’ll have the skills to promote yourself to other businesses and help them with their website management.