Bad habits on the internet

Today I was wondering about my very annoying habit of forgetting attachments when sending out emails. I also have a habit of temporarily putting these attachments on the desktop and then deleting them as soon as I send the email. So when the recipient informs me that there was no attachment I have to go back to the recycle bin to restore that file and attach it. I wonder what are other bad habits people have, leave your bad habits in the comments section

Taking advantage of Article Marketing

A great way of promoting your knowledge, services or products is by Article Marketing.

You can take advantage of the high pagerank that article websites like squidoo.com and ezinearticles.com possess in order to get high rankings for your chosen keywords. This is much easier than trying to optimise your own website to show up in search results for your chosen keywords.

Some things to keep in mind when attempting to market your services or products with this method:

• Aim for keywords where the results on Google are less than 5000. This will make it much easier for you to have your keywords listed as you will have less competition to deal with
• Use the Google Page Rank tool to check whether the top ranked sites for your search terms have a lower pagerank than your chosen article sites. If this is so your article has a better chance of getting a great ranking.
• Search for new services and products to promote, or write about new events, as competition for these will naturally be lower.

When actually writing the article make sure to

• Use the keywords you want to be listed under in the title of your article
• Write in an engaging way as if you are telling a story to a friend
• Use the keywords in a heading tag at the top of your page <h1>Keywords</h1>
• Use the keywords in your opening paragraph
• Use the keywords in your closing paragraph
• Have between 300 and 500 words in your article
• Try to use your main keyword phrases 3-7 times per article.

Hope that was useful for your onilne marketing efforts.

Want to learn more about article marketing? Join the Wealthy Affiliate University, it’s where I got all my internet marketing knowledge!

Make money online through affiliate marketing

Want to make serious money online? Search for that phrase online and you will find a mind-boggling amount of programs and promises to make you rich in no time.

The bad news: Most of these programmes won’t make you money.

The GOOD news: If you are ready to invest time and energy, you can make big money online.

I have completed hours of research and sorted out the wheat from the chaff for you, thus I am very confident in telling you about the Wealthy Affiliate university, which is a website chock full of information and help to help you succeed online. The focus of this website is on helping you take advantage of affiliate marketing in order to earn commissions from the companies whose products you are promoting.

For those who are new to affiliate marketing, this is a basic process of how it all works:

Your job as an affiliate marketer is to select products you want to promote and get those products to the customers. For a start it is best to select a topic you are familiar with, so for example if you are into reading books, you can promote certain books that and get a commission on sales from those books. The actual HOW of doing all this is all explained very clearly and with a step-by-step plan within Wealthy Affiliate. Basically it is just a case of following the plan step by step and working at it, the profits will flow naturally.

I have tried it out and succeeded, and I wish that others do the same, so think about it, if you really want to earn money online, here is your chance, remember the only perfect time to start something is NOW!  

How to calculate Project rates

If you are working in a partnership, wherever you are in the world, it is very important to think about how you are going to price projects. Here is a straightforward way to make sure that you get a fair price for your work. In this example I will consider a one week project that two people will be working on.

1. Calculate total expenses per week

This would involved the wages paid to the partners and employees, rent, utilities, travel expenses and any other recurring expenses.

€1,250

2. Determine the number of working people on the project.

Let’s say the partnership involves a business development person, an accounts/customer relationship person, a programmer and a designer. The two persons who will be directly working on the project will be the programmer and the designer, so we have to divide the expenses per week between those two.

€1,250 / 2 = €625

4. Multipy that by the required profit and allowance for unforeseen delays and expenses.

For a company to grow it must make profit, so we have to multiply the expenses by a percentage profit we want the company to make. We must also consider unforeseen delays and expenses. We will therefore multiply the expenses by 40%

€625 * 140% = €875

There we have the final price for the project, which includes a profit for the company and an allowance for things like delays or difficulties which many IT projects have to face.

Another excellent guide for calculating day rates can be found here

Benefiting from the European Entrepreneur Exchange Programme

I have been recently selected as the first new entrepreneur to benefit from the European Entrepreneur Exchange Programme, which gives new entrepreneurs the chance to spend some time working with an established entrepreneur´s company.

I have been matched with a web development company based in Barcelona (Spain), where I have around a month to gain as much insight as possible. In my first week here I have already learnt alot, as Jordi Bufí, one of the company´s young directors, walks me through the start of Neurotic and the several challenges they have faced during the years. According to Jordi, one of the best ways to learn is to examine past mistakes that a business makes and analyse why they were made. This serves as an important lesson which helps you plan things in a better way to avoid such pitfalls. Of course mistakes are practically unavoidable in every business, and especially so when you are a new young entrepreneur with little experience. The advice and guidance of mentors at this stage of starting a new business is many times crucial for steering you in the right direction, and that is why I believe the Erasmus exchange program is very beneficial for new entrepreneurs.

Myself with the Neurotic team

Existing entrepreneurs who act as hosts for new entrepreneurs like myself, can also benefit through having someone on board who sees things from a different viewpoint. The fact that the new entrepreneur is coming from a different country with a different marketplace and way of doing things definitely acts as a spark for interesting topics and potential opportunities for collaboration and internationalisation of services. In my case I can also help the people in the company get more practice in the English language, which can serve them well when dealing with non-Spanish clients. Vice-versa I am also learning Spanish which gives me access to one of the world´s biggest markets.

I believe that the European Union is really giving an excellent opportunity to budding entrepreneurs to get up and running with the Erasmus for Young entrepreneurs programme, so I definitely encourage any young person who is thinking of opening up a business to take advantage of this programme!

Logo of Neurotic, the company where I am working

Accepting online payments using Paypal

Whether you’re selling a product or service online or running a content-based website and want to be able to accept donations, learning how to accept payments online with Paypal, a popular online payment processing provider, is a good idea.

There are several reasons to accept payments online with Paypal:

1. Startup and regular fees are low for the merchant (you). There are no monthly fees, setup fees, or cancellation fees to use Paypal’s basic options, and fees are taken directly out of incoming payments. The only monthly fee is for users of the Website Payments Pro package (when comparing the three most common Paypal payment solutions for merchants).

2. Accepting payments online with Paypal allows you to accept payments not only from a visitor’s Paypal account, but also through credit cards and e-checks, without needed to set up a separate merchant account to process credit cards.

3. Users don’t have to be a member of Paypal to be able to make a payment online with Paypal through their credit card.

4. Paypal can be very easy to set up on your website, and offers Paypal buttons for single items, or a Paypal shopping cart option.

5. Paypal offers secure online payment processing.

There are three common solutions that may fit the needs of your online business, to accept payments online with Paypal:

1. Email Payments – You can let your clients or customers pay you online via email using Paypal’s email payments option, which has no monthly or setup fees. Low fees are based on each transaction.

2. Website Payments Standard – This option to accept payments online with Paypal allows you to accept Paypal, credit card, and bank transfer payments directly from your website, and includes optional shopping cart integration. While there are no monthly or setup fees for the basic service, you can choose to add on the ability to accept payments over the phone, through fax, or through mail orders at an additional monthly fee.

3. Website Payments Pro – There are two main differences between Paypal’s Website Payments Standard and Website Payments Pro. Those differences are that Website Payments Pro includes a monthly fee automatically, which allows merchants to accept payments online, over the phone, or through fax and mail orders, and that Website Payments Pro allows your customers to pay directly on your site, with no redirection to pay through Paypal’s interface.

Paypal has different member account levels, including personal, premiere, and business accounts. If you want to accept payments online with Paypal, you should register for a premiere or business account. Here are the differences for merchants between those two options:

Premiere Paypal Accounts – Premiere Paypal accounts allow you to accept payments online under your own name. Premiere accounts are assessed a transaction fee for each incoming payment accepted, as opposed to a personal account.

Business Paypal Accounts – The biggest difference between a Premiere Paypal account and a Business Paypal account is that a business account allows you to accept payments under your business name (ideal if you don’t want to do business under your own name). Another benefit is that access can be set up for multiple users, which can be an advantage if more than one person must be able to access account information.

Source: www.hooverwebdesign.com

How to save your Yahoo Geocities website to your hard drive

Following the recent announcement that Yahoo will be closing down the Geocities free hosting service, many people are asking how they can easily transfer their Geocities website files to their hard drive so that they can keep a copy and then transfer it to a new web host.

There is a manual way which involves logging into your Geocities account and viewing the source of each file, copying and pasting into a notepad file and saving that file. This is of course very labour intensive, especially when your website has tens and hundreds of files.

In order to easily take a backup of my site, I needed something easier and faster, so I used a program called WinHttrack. Just download the sofware, which is free, and install on your PC. Then open it up, give a name to your project and choose a place on your computer where the files will be saved. Then copy and paste the address of your Geocities website from your browser into HTTrack and hit Start. Watch happily as all your website files get copied and test it out when the process is finished. It worked beautifully for me

If you have any questions just leave a comment and I’ll do my best to help out.

Misleading advertising? Pizza or no free pizza?!

Here is a REALLY misleading advert by a Pizza outlet in Sliema. These things really shouldn’t be happening nowadays…

An introduction to email marketing in Malta

An article of mine regarding email marketing, which appeared in the Technology Sunday supplement of the Sunday Times of Malta:

What is email marketing?

You might have come across the term ‘email marketing’ lately and wondered what that is supposed to mean and whether it is something you should seriously look into. So let’s go ahead and start demystifying this term and see what the whole concept of email marketing entails.
Email marketing is simply a form of direct marketing that takes advantage of the Internet and email services to allow businesses and other entities to send information directly to potential customers and clients.

It differs from other marketing mediums due to its high degree of measurability, indeed today’s leading email marketing software enables you to see exactly who opened your emails and moreover whether your recipients were interested enough and took the extra step of clicking the links in your newsletter.
This degree of measurability usually either frightens marketers or else gets them very excited about the potential of such a system. In essence, with email marketing, you get the naked truth about whether your marketing campaigns are working or not, down to each individual to whom your marketing message is being directed to.

SMEs: Is it worth the effort?

Many small businesses are still wary of investing time and money into online marketing, an unfortunate situation that has been improving in recent years thanks to greater awareness and initiatives aimed at helping businesses set up their online presence. A website is a step in the right direction as it enables people to find you online, however with email marketing you are going a step further and actually reaching out to your clients and prospects yourself.

Let’s take your typical hairdresser as an example here. Clients tend to be particularly interested in taking good care of their hair, thus a bi-monthly newsletter can include an article about hair care, for example in the run-up to the summer months an article on protecting your hair from the blistering heat would likely be well received. Focusing on particular hair products available from the hairdresser can also help to raise awareness of their benefits and increase sales.

Such a newsletter, which provides value to customers, will help in fostering the business-client relationship by reminding customers that that hairdresser cares for them and should be the first choice when it is time for another appointment. Other attractive features could be images of clients before and after a makeover or hair done for special occasions such as weddings. Of course emails which provide value tend to be forwarded to friends and thus are an excellent way of getting new clients.

Big Companies: How does it fit within our marketing strategy?

Given that Malta has a thriving tourism sector which invests a lot of money in marketing, we can take a typical hotel operator as an example of how email marketing can benefit bigger companies. In our scenario, the hotel has already invested in a good website which is getting a fair share of traffic from search engines and online advertisements. The first step would be to include a ‘newsletter sign up’ section on the website, in which people can enter their name and email address. These details would go directly into the hotel’s mailing list. Email addresses can be also collected when tourists check in or out of the hotel. At this point it is also easier to gather other useful details such as the date of birth or anniversary date.
Once the system is in place the hotel’s marketing department can actually start formulating their email newsletters. An ideal start would be sending out monthly emails promoting that month’s best deals and providing information about important events taking place in Malta, thus enticing people to visit. Hotel upgrades such as a recent refurbishment or visits by famous personalities can also be included in this newsletter.

It is also important to take into consideration that, with the right email marketing software, a portion many tasks can be automated, thus for example the hotel can prepare a special weekend break deal for people having their birthday or who will be celebrating an anniversary. These emails can be automatically personalized and sent by using special triggers that are activated, for example, two weeks before a person’s birthday.

I’m Convinced, how do I get going?

There are several options for getting started with email marketing. A quick Google search will give you a list of established players in this field. Email marketing software suppliers tend to offer online systems which enable you to upload your contacts, then edit and send your newsletter through the online system. Most services also give you detailed statistics about email campaigns. Pricing plans tend to consist of either a fixed fee per month or a fee per number of emails sent, although other variations also exist. If you are new to email marketing it is also a good idea to hire a local consultant or company who can help you get started and point you in the right direction. Although foreign service providers offer technical support it is always better to have someone you can talk to locally who will offer you advice on email content and help to design and deploy your newsletters.
Before rushing to send out your emails it is very important to know that there is Maltese and European legislation which strives to protect internet users from unsolicited emails and misuse of their data. In Malta we have the Data Protection Act while the European Union has also issued a Privacy and Electronic Communications directive in this regard. To be safe one should follow the general rule of only sending emails to people who have indicated their willingness to receive such information, and always include a link within the email that permits the recipient to unsubscribe/opt-out from receiving any more updates in the future and thus be removed from your mailing list.
Conclusion

Email marketing is definitely one of the best marketing methods as regards to Return on Investment. Compare the low cost per email to the huge budgets needed to run TV or print advertising campaigns, plus the fact that you get full statistics on whether your efforts were effective or not, and you can quickly start seeing the advantages of having an email marketing system in place.
Whatever the size of your business, email marketing should definitely occupy an important place in your marketing toolbox. When used properly email marketing will improve the relationship between a business and its customers, bringing old customers back and keeping new customers coming in.

Mission of Mercy website launched

What is the Mission of Mercy?

Mission of Mercy are a Maltese mission based in Brasil. Their aim is that of improving the lives of poor Brasilian children. They currently look after 200 children in the ‘shanty town’ of Nossa Senhora de Fatima. Sabara. Minas Gerais. Brazil. There they have a nursery, kindergarten, a half-way house, pre-school, home-work assistance, dancing, acting, singing and 2 bible studies every week. They are are shortly starting music and computer studies.

Why is a website needed?

Through the new website the leaders of the mission hope to generate more awareness of their work and attract much needed donations. While during the past years donations were collected from Maltese benefactors through car boot sales and shop collection boxes, the leaders feel that they could also attract a substantial amount of extra donations from foreign benefactors, especially from the UK. Thus the website will be a showcase for the mission’s work and a much needed all year round collection point for donations. Through the website benefactors can also subscribe to the mission’s newsletter, thereby keeping informed on the mission’s activities and projects in Brazil.

www.missionmaltabrazil.org

How was the website built?

As a firm believer in open source technology, I have built this website using Wordpress, an extremely popular blogging and CMS platform which is used by thousands of businesses and individuals worldwide. In the hands of an internet expert Wordpress can cater for practically any type of online presence needed, and the huge community of users and developers ensures that there will never be a case of vender lockdown where you always need to depend on the original creator of the website for updates or improvements to the site.

The site features a fully XHTML and CSS powered design for fast loading times and clean standards-compliant code, and has been tested on all major internet browsers. The Mission of Mercy website is also linked to an email marketing system which has excellent features for contact list management and newsletter design, plus the advantage of knowing who of your recipients opened the email newsletter and what links they clicked on. A photo gallery is also included within the website, together with a news module which lists the latest news according to date added, and a contact us form which helps prospective benefactors contact the mission’s leadership team.

Like this website? Contact me now for a free discussion on how I can help you create your online presence or revamp your existing website.