Sounds familiar? Chances are, you’re someone who started everything with no money too, so you’re pretty skeptical when it comes to giving away your money in exchange for something that you could have done yourself. However, there is a lot more to hiring a designer than just finishing up a job that you don’t want to do.

When you hire a web designer or a programmer to do your job for you, you are doing more than just handing over the “dirty job” to someone else. In fact, by paying a little money, you can let the designer/programmer worry about the little annoyances that always evade the main picture and only come haunting when you’re halfway through the job. That way, you will be more focused and have more time to spend on your actual business strategy.

I remember a client who was almost about to give up after learning the kind of work that is required with having an online business. After having some challenges with his website, server, and other technical aspects, this internet newbie was about to throw in the towel! Good thing he found me later because this allowed him to concentrate on what he knew best (he owned a local business) and leave the headaches of the technical aspects of an online business for me to handle.

Remember that the designers/programmers you hire are professionals, so they are good at what they do. By outsourcing your web design/programming jobs to them, you won’t have to worry when problems surface because you can always get them to fix it for you. Again, they will be able to pin point the problem and fix it faster than you probably will be able to. Also, the work you pay for will turn out more professional than what you can achieve because the designers/programmers have been doing it longer than you have. After all, they do it for a living so they have to be good, right?

A past client spent an entire week trying to fix a problem with her WordPress blog. After contacting me, the problem was resolved within a few hours. Imagine what she could have done instead with the time she had lost! If only she outsourced the work earlier!

I know that it is good to work on a project yourself. However, you have to consider the instances when outsourcing the work to someone else is beneficial in your situation.

So, if you are looking for a web designer or a programmer for your online projects, contact me. I am here to help!

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Microsoft

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CompTIA

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Cisco

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Good luck preparing for your IT certification! Wish you well..

Before you finally launch that product of yours, make sure you remember to consider a few things.

First, double-check your sales page. Check for spelling and grammar errors of your sales material. If you want to build the credibility of your business and product, then make sure your grammar and spelling are correct! You don’t want to make it look like a 5-year old put your site together. If you don’t have time or need the assistance of someone to proofread your material, you can outsource the work to proofreaders like me. Double-check your payment buttons to make sure they are functioning as they should. If possible, make a test purchase prior to launching your product. Check all your links to make sure they are properly connected. Double-check everything!!!

Next, think about your price. Is your product pricing too high or too low? Many make the mistake of overcharging or undercharging. How does your product compare to that of your competitors? Take a look around and see what the average price is. Take that into account when you’re trying to figure out your final price. Do you provide something better or some other option that your competitor might not offer? These are just some of the things you can consider when pricing your product.

If you have to make a choice, my opinion is that it is much better to undercharge because of the potential of drawing many customers in. That was the idea behind Walmart, and other similar stores. Because you are cheaper than your competitors, you get more customers — but it takes a longer time for you to make a profit in the beginning as compared to charging high in the first place. However, you can profit more in the long run. You have to make the decision yourself about what is more important to you. The problem with undercharging is that you will lose the profit you desire, especially if you want the money right away.

Overcharging is just really bad altogether, I think. It drives away potential customers. Everyone wants to save. Many people will do anything just to save a few bucks. I once read about this guy who drove to the next town to buy a product that was cheaper than the one offered in his local area. Of course, by the time you add up the gas expense of driving there, he would have been better off staying local. The point is, people want to save — and most likely won’t think twice about it!

Finally, is your server capable of your traffic? This is something very important that you don’t want to miss. So you’ve prepared a massive advertising campaign. You expect to receive a lot of traffic because you’ve hired the best marketers. Can your web server handle the load it will generate? Some forget to check the resources allotted to them by their web hosting provider. Forgetting this can be your biggest mistake! I’ve come across several online marketers already who have forgotten this very important aspect. In fact, just the other day, I was prepared to buy a new product a few hours after I received the notice. When I visited the site, it was suspended by the host because the traffic bandwidth it received was more than it was allowed to have. Imagine how many sales this guy had lost before noticing the problem! He also wasted money on marketing, because he still had to pay for the clicks to his site, even though his server was down. Don’t make the same mistake with your product launch.

Of course, there are more things to consider before launching your product. I just wanted to focus on the items above to save you the trouble. Before you get too excited about launching your product on the world wide web, make sure to remember a few things that will save you a lot of headache and loss of money!

Here are the elements you need to consider adding on your sales page:

(1) HEADLINE – This is a very important aspect because this will be the first thing that your site visitors will see when they load your page in their browser. This is the big bold letter at the top of your sales letter — often with a font color of red, black, or blue to make the headline stand out from the rest of the text. This could be a promise of some sort, or something important about your product that grabs the visitor’s attention and compels him or her to read the rest.

(2) SUB-HEADLINE – This can be optional, depending on how your headline is already written. Usually, this is smaller in font to the headline, but it’s still bigger than the remaining sales text. Again, this should be good enough so that the reader wants to keep going instead of leaving your site.

(3) BENEFITS – How can your product benefit the potential customer? What makes it stand out from the rest and make it better than your competitors? A good practice is to put yourself in your costumer’s shoes and think of what would make you buy the product. Use those ideas for your content.

(4) PICTURES – You know the old saying, “Pictures are worth a thousand words.” That holds true, even in sales marketing. Add graphic pictures of your product, or of people using them. This makes your product more believable. Photos are proven to increase response.

(5) TESTIMONIALS – Convince your potential customers with testimonials from others who have already purchased your product or services. Show photos, if possible, to make them more convincing. Target skeptics.

(6) GUARANTEE – It is best to provide a money-back guarantee. Mention it a couple of times in your content to reassure the customer. The customer is more likely to complete the transaction knowing that her purchase is risk-free. You’ll end up selling more in return, compared to making every sale final with not returns — which drives customers away. For the most part, customers don’t ask for refunds so you’re safe offering a money-back guarantee.

(7) TIME LIMIT – Creating a limited time offer creates that sense of urgency. You want your customers to buy your product before you increase your price, before your product runs out, etc. Make them buy now and not later on or they’ll miss out on something.

(8) BONUSES – Everyone likes a freebie. Offer a few bonuses to your customers, just for purchasing your product. Bonus offers are good incentives to convince your customer to buy your product. They will more likely buy from you if you offer free bonuses that your competitor doesn’t offer.

Now that you’ve learned about these important elements, it’s time to put them in practice. Go ahead and start writing your content for your sales page and use this article as a guide.

Need help? You’d rather have someone else do the work? No problem. I can certainly help you in your online projects. Just contact me with details and I’ll respond with a quote.

First, is it really necessary for you to hire a web design company (with more than 1 employee) to build your website? Have you ever seen those advertisements in newspaper classified ad sections that offer a 5-page website at $1999? These companies are established companies with physical locations, therefore they have to increase the amount they charge to pay off some overheads: office rent, designer’s and employee wages, advertising costs and so on.

Therefore, it would be wise to find freelance designers — instead of design companies — to develop your website. These people are often working from their home office so they do not have a high operation cost like that of a company. Are freelance designers a bad choice to go with? No, that’s not really the case. On the other hand, they will be able to design images with quality similar to those of designers from big companies, so it’s a “no-brainer” choice.

However, choose freelancers with care. Make sure they are reliable freelance web developers. I am a freelance web designer and I stand behind my work. If you have doubts about my services, please feel free to read the testimonials from some of my clients.

Another route you can take is to design your website yourself. You’ll just have to spend a lot of time working on your website. You have to think of a design concept and draw it out on the computer, then use your programming skills to make that into a complete, working website. It’s a lot of work and takes a lot of time.

However, if you don’t have the time nor the patience to do this that’s what I’m here for. Are you looking for a freelance web designer? Contact me with your project details and I’ll respond with a quote accordingly.

Here, the pros and cons of flash-based websites will be discussed. Hopefully, reading this article will help guide you as you select the route to take.

Flash-based sites have been a craze since the past few years, and as Macromedia compiles more and more great features into Flash, we can only predict there will be more and more flash sites around the Internet. However, Flash based sites have been disputed to be bloated and unnecessary. Where exactly do we draw the line? Here’s a simple breakdown.

THE GOOD:

Interactivity
Flash’s Actionscript opens up a vast field of possibilities. Programmers and designers have used Flash to create interactve features ranging from very lively feedback forms to attractive Flash-based games. This whole new level of interactivity will always leave visitors coming back for more.

A standardized site
With Flash, you do not have to worry about cross-browser compatibility. No more woes over how a certain css code displays differently in Internet Explorer, Firefox and Opera. When you position your site elements in Flash, they will always appear as they are as long as the user has Flash Player installed.

Better expression through animation
In Flash, one can make use of its animating features to convey a message in a much more efficient and effective way. Flash is a lightweight option for animation because it is vector based (and hence smaller file sizes) as opposed to real “movie files” that are raster based and hence much larger in size.

THE BAD & THE UGLY:

The Flash player
People have to download the Flash player in advance before they can view Flash movies, so by using Flash your visitor range will decrease considerably because not everyone will be willing to download the Flash player just to view your site. Your visitor might not be patient enough to download and install the necessary software on their PC just to view your site. You’ll also have to put in additional work in redirecting the user to the Flash download page if he or she doesn’t have the player installed. You may end up losing the visitor.

Site optimization
If your content was presented in Flash, most search engines wouldn’t be able to index your content. Hence, you will not be able to rank well in search engines and there will be less traffic heading to your site.

Loading time
Users have to wait longer than usual to load Flash content compared to regular text and images, and some visitors might just lose their patience and click the Back button. The longer your Flash takes to load, the more you risk losing visitors.

The best way to go is to use Flash only when you absolutely need the interactivity and motion that comes with it. Otherwise, use a mixture of Flash and HTML or use pure text if your site is purely to present simple textual and graphical information.

If you ask me for my final vote, I’d highly recommend using full html. If you need a full html site designed and developed for you, feel free to contact me at any time. Just provide more information regarding the website you are looking to have and I’ll give you a quote.

Thanks for considering my services!

1) Start a forum, chatroom or shoutbox

When you start a forum, chatroom or shoutbox, you are providing your visitors a place to voice their opinions and interact with their peers — all of them are visitors of your site. As conversations build up, a sense of community will also follow and your visitors will come back to your site almost religiously every day.

2) Start a web log (blog)

Keep an online journal, or more commonly known as a blog, on your site and keep it updated with latest news about yourself. Human beings are curious creatures and they will keep their eyes glued to the monitor if you post fresh news frequently. You will also build up your credibility as you are proving to them that there is also a real life person behind the website.

3) Carry out polls or surveys

Polls and surveys are other forms of interaction that you should definitely consider adding to your site. They provide a quick way for visitors to voice their opinions and to get involved in your website. Be sure to publish polls or surveys that are strongly relevant to the target market of your website to keep them interested to find out about the results. If you already have a mailing list, you can also conduct surveys via email. It’s a great way to keep your visitors involved!

4) Hold puzzles, quizzes and games

Just imagine how many office workers procrastinate at work every day, and you will be able to gauge how many people will keep visiting your site if you provide a very interesting or addicting way of entertainment. You can also hold competitions to award the high score winner to keep people trying continuously to earn the prize.

5) Update frequently with fresh content

Update your site frequently with fresh content so that every time your visitors come back, they will have something to read on your site. This is the most widely known and most effective method of attracting returning visitors, but this is also the least carried out one because of the laziness of webmasters. No one will want to browse a site that looks the same over ten years, so keep your site updated with fresh bites!

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Do you need any help with your website or online project? If so, contact me with your requests and I’ll respond with a quote. Thanks for choosing my services!

To get some ideas and inspiration, take a look at the various keywords that you have singled out for your niche to see if any of those have a catchy ring.  Pretend that you are a used car salesman. What would you say? Is the name boring or does not have an original sound to it? For example, if your niche is “blah”, you could try “MegaBlah”, “Blah4u”, “HouseofBlah”, or “BlahKingdom”. These will all be original, explain what you niche is, and, most importantly, will be easy to remember. One current site that took this approach is ISpyCoupons.com ( “I Spy Coupons” ). You may have other sites in mind.

How easy your URL is to remember is the most important so that your visitors will not have any trouble returning and clicking on your links!

Does your niche site need a facelift? If you’re looking for a header/footer graphic design for your niche site, I hope you’ll consider my services. Just contact me for a quote! I am looking forward to working with you!

This magazine offers practical advice and helpful tools from experts in the industry to help any website achieve success with their internet endeavors. Website owners will definitely find this magazine useful. I am currently subscribed to it, and I must say, the tips in the magazine are certainly worth reading. If you’re in the business of running a website, this one’s for you!

CLICK HERE to claim this offer. Just complete the form with your details. Enjoy!

*This offer is valid for NEW subscribers only.

One of the benefits is the opportunity of ridding yourself from redundant tasks by hiring a virtual assistant to do them for you. Do you have a lot of things to type over and over and over again? Do you have tasks that are repetitive, and you find yourself falling asleep with those mundane activities? Outsource those redundant tasks to a capable, reliable, trustworthy virtual assistant!

Virtual assistants work in the comfort of their own office. That means you don’t have to find some space for them or rent an extra room as their office. You don’t have to buy them office supplies or pay for their phone bills or other expenses. This saves you money! Virtual assistants work for you as an Independent Contractor, working on tasks that you both agree upon — whether that’s data entry, research, transcribing, designing, writing, or other administrative or business responsibilities. You just have to agree on compensation — and that can be charged as an hourly rate, or on a per project basis.

The best thing about outsourcing your work to a Virtual Assistant is that it gives you time for other things that you wouldn’t have time to do otherwise. Now, you have free time to devote on activities that can actually grow your business and make you more money. Isn’t that great?

Do you need a virtual assistant? If so, considering hiring me! Just contact me with what you need and I’ll respond with a quote accordingly. Let me do your redundant task while you concentrate on making your business more successful. It’s a win-win solution!