How fast is your website — free and easy speed checker

By GC | Published: November 16, 2011

This is just a quickie.

Here is an excellent tool for checking the speed of your website.
Not only this, but it also stages a loading time race with another site of your choice.

You can run the tests again and again, and keep comparing the results, it’s quite addictive!

Which loads faster?

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Wheel of Life — with a difference

By GC | Published: November 1, 2011

You may have come across the Wheel of Life.

It is a very useful tool used in Life Coaching. The idea is that it gives a graphical representation of life, or more specifically our view of our own life.
The wheel is made up of spokes and each spoke represents a particular attribute of our life that we feel is important enough to be included in the picture.

A typical Wheel of Life will have spokes made of such things as: money, job, relationships, family, health, home, spirituality, education, etc.
The spokes are drawn, and then concentric rings — numbered 1 to 10 — are added. Each spoke is scored, subjectively, according to how satisfied we are with that aspect of our lives; a point is marked on the wheel. By joining the dots we get to see how round our wheel is — how rounded we feel too. If our wheel ends up looking a bit square, or maybe flat on one side, then we are in for a bumpy ride.
If we were completely satisfied with every aspect in our life then we’d have a nice big, completely round wheel (and I’d probably suggest that another spoke was added, that of growth). Probably though, we will see certain spokes less well developed than others. For instance, we might see a bit of a wonky wheel because the spoke relating to family is a bit short. We might have a really well established business and a secure income, but our family life has suffered at its expense. We can quickly see that we should devote some attention to the family spoke, to get it more closely matching the others — if we don’t look after this spoke it might snap off altogether.

We are not limited to just one wheel though, we can have two, three, four or as many as you like. You might think that your health needs a wheel of its own, and its spokes might be called such things as fitness, diet, insurance, weight, booze, etc. There are no rules, you have as many wheels, with as many spokes as you want, and you can call them what you want; whatever is important to you.

So what about your job? If you work for someone else, very often some of the spokes are outside of your control; no matter what you do, you can’t make a round wheel. Your bumble along, frustrated and literally careering out of control. If you work for yourself, then hopefully you are in more control. You really can craft the spokes as you like. An example work wheel is shown below.

wheel of life

Of course, your wheel might look a bit different. For instance, there is no spoke on this wheel that represents work environment. I say that because I’ve just looked around and noticed how untidy my office is. A minor point perhaps, but sometimes it is not until you carry out an exercise like this that you become aware of the need to address something.
Returning to our work environment for a moment. If we did put that spoke in our wheel, then, for a moment, we’ve got to ask ourselves a question: how content are we with our work environment? Perhaps, we are not really that happy about working in the chicken shed anymore and that maybe we’d be more effective working from a comfortable, warm office (the chickens might prefer it too). So the wheel of life is like having someone looking over our shoulder and just asking occasionally, for instance: is this really the best place for you to be working? And if not, how about making a little effort to improve things.
This really is very powerful, our motivation (like most of our mental attributes), is determined by our subconscious. For instance, we might be struggling to get enthusiastic about our work, and blaming that on the work we do. Now, after digging around, we’ve found out that the real problem is the thought of spending another few hours in that smelly shed (apologies to all the clean chickens out there).
This is what makes working for yourself so good. Ultimately, you are in control, and usually, whatever you want (or even need) to change, you can. It’s not just about money, we all know people who have loads of it and are still unhappy. It’s about us, retaining control is one of the most important factors that determines our happiness and in turn, our success.

The Wheel of Life, or in this case, the Wheel of Work, is a very useful tool to use not just once but as a constant reference to keep us on the right track.

If you want help with its application, just get in touch.

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Why do you need a mobile website?

By GC | Published: October 20, 2011

What do the following figures represent?
1.12 – 3.21 – 7.12

Answer: they are percentages from Statcounter and show the usage share for mobile web browsers for August 2009, 2010 and 2011.

You might think that 7.12% is not a great amount, but when you consider that most websites render poorly in mobile browsers and offer a similarly poor user experience, it is a very significant figure. But look at that increase; what will it be next year? And, what would it be if more businesses actually designed their sites for the web?

According to a BBC Technology report on mobile use, half of UK internet users are accessing the web via their mobile phones.

The message, very clearly, is this: if you have a website (and few businesses don’t need one), how are you going to connect with this rapidly increasing market?

Mobile websites mean business: want to know more?

Get in touch and we’ll help you get connected to the mobile market.

*(denotes required field)
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Improve your organisation

By GC | Published: October 18, 2011

Organisation? We are talking verb here, not the noun and organising our business is one of the great challenges for the solo worker. You are busy working the business, who is busy working you? Nobody, because there is nobody else.

As solo workers we’ve got to make sure we are as slick as can be and anything that can help us keep on track, or even find the tracks we already made, will make us more productive and profitable.

I’ve just come across a useful little tool, that could really help you stay on your tracks. Take a look at Personal Brain, there’s a free version and premium, but free will do for most of us.

And even if you don’t use it, give it a try it, it will help you think about alternative ways to organise your business, your life — it’s vital.

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Are you baffled by the complexity of internet marketing?

By GC | Published: December 18, 2010

It’s easy isn’t it? Just buy one of the over-hyped, over-priced reports or programs from those well-trusted internet marketing ‘gurus’ and watch the money pile into your account.

Easy.

Except it’s not. It takes an awful lot of knowledge, hard work, often money, and most of all luck. Luck because the chances of stumbling across a trustworthy seller and buying a ready-made workable system is pretty much zero. Think about it, if it really was as easy as the ‘experts’ lead us to believe then anybody and everybody would be doing it and making a mint — and that’s not how economics or business works or can ever possibly work.

What are the alternatives to the fool’s expected reality?

The first and probably best, is to do your own research and learn.

Like any business, if you learn more than other people, you can do a better job and become more successful than those who live in dreamland and try to run a ‘business’ in the same place.
And you can do this — for free; all the information is out there and more accessible than ever. But it will take time, and time is everything in the fast-moving world of business on the internet.

There is another method you can use, it’s not free, but it could save you an awful lot of time and you will get certain reassurances that your money is being well spent.
Outsource the work, be it SEO, Adwords campaigns, video presentations, effective web design; you can decide what aspects you need help with and get a trusted professional to work for you — it’s now easier than ever to find help.

But, most of all, take a reality check and don’t waste money on things that sound like a dream, because very often that’s all they are.

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How to tell a good business opportunity from bad

By GC | Published: November 25, 2009

Anyone who is interested in working from home has probably made some searches online. They will have found countless opportunities available including a huge amount of junk offers or scams.

In the past few years the internet has allowed the simple ‘get rich quick’ industry to mushroom and splinter beyond prediction. The internet allows for quick testing, quick production and quick deployment of all sorts of new ideas. Many of these ideas become shady opportunities or scams waiting to catch the unwary. Indeed, a whole new ‘doughnut’ industry has been born. Why doughnut? Because, despite the massive quantity of high tech, sophisticated marketing, there remains nothing in the middle of most of these businesses. It seems the whole concept of such business opportunities revolves around the art of finding, persuading, and selling these ideas to anyone who is remotely interested in starting their own business. And what of the purchaser of such business opportunities? Well, they pay for knowledge on how to sell the same doughnut to somebody else.

Of course this is just a variation on the old idea of selling someone the idea of making money by selling the idea of making money by selling the idea, etc.

It would seem easy to spot such scams. But they come in all shapes and sizes and some of them are very cleverly sold. If you have a few minutes, check out the amusing web page called click here you idiot. It’s funny, but it’s deadly serious, this type of web page can separate not just the fool from his money. Their proliferation on the web is testament to their powerful effect.

The familiar adage ‘if it sounds too good to be true, then it probably is’, is always worth remembering.
Aside from this there are some very useful things to look for when thinking about buying an idea or a course, or any sort of education or knowledge about starting your own home business.

Look for the contact
If a seller is genuinely offering you something of value, they will be proud to be associated with it. They will not hide behind shielded contact details. Look for a postal address and a phone number. If you cannot find one — move on.

Look for more information
If the seller is selling on the web, look at their site, not just the sales page. What other information can you obtain from it? What kind of image does it portray, hopefully one of professionalism. If they are supposed to be an expert in their field, is their evidence of this? Of course, if all you can find is a sales page then, again — move on.

Beware the ‘testimonial’
Sellers think that if they write a few words of praise about their product and stick someone else’s name under it, people will be reassured and will buy. The sad fact is that they are often right. The problem is that the would-be buyer has got so excited by the sales copy, they really want to believe that the testimonial or recommendation is real. Just keep in mind how easy it is to write, ‘I made $10,000 in 3 hours with this system’ Joe Bloggs.

Records of accounts or sales
Again, our poor buyer really wants to believe that the table of figures and dates they see is a copy of a real bank statement. They’ll often ignore the fact that the seller has probably knocked it up on their pc in 20 minutes.

There are even scams that will deprive you of money so that they can tell you how to avoid internet scams; I think that’s called feeding a hungry market.

In summary, just take a step back and use some of common sense. Many of these scams promise huge amounts of money in return for very little work. In fact, that is usually their biggest and strongest selling point; dangling temptation in front of people who want something for nothing. Of course, that includes most of us. However, most of us also believe, deep down, that what we get out of life is largely dependent on what we put in. Running a small or home business is usually hard work.

Nevertheless, there are some very good, sound and honourable ideas for starting and running your own business. And with a bit of dedication and work, working for ourselves can set us on a road that we’ll never want to leave.

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Right Job — Wrong Job
Do you hate your work?

By GC | Published: November 20, 2009

Following on from the previous post starting a new business prompts some obvious questions: what business should I be in? or Why don’t I like my job?

Work is much easier if we like what we do, or if we are very good at it, or better still, both. If we enjoy our work some would say it ceases to be work at all.
It’s not just the work we do though that determines our interest, satisfaction or (dare I say it) pleasure. No, sometimes, it’s simply the way we do it.

We are all different, we have different ideas, different strengths, different weaknesses, and different beliefs. But, interwoven between all of those, are our values.
Our values dictate our conscious and unconscious thought, and consequently our decisions and actions. If we work in a way that fits well with our values, then we work effectively. Getting up on a Monday morning ceases to be a chore.

Being aware of our own values gives us a head start when it comes to choosing the work we do and the way that we do it. Do you know yours? If not, you can unearth them by doing this simple exercise on defining career values.

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What is the hardest thing about starting your own business?

By GC | Published: November 17, 2009

How many people work in a job they don’t like?

How many people are not working at all?

How many of these people would like to start their own business?

How many people have a home business idea or an idea they’d like to turn into a small business?

How many will actually start their own business today?

The UK (at the time of writing) has unemployment of around 2.46 million and the US about 15.7m.
I’ve no idea how many people don’t like their jobs, probably most of them.

Out of all these people, a great proportion would, I’m sure, like to have their own business and a great many of them will have ideas of what they’d like to do.

So, how many will actually start their own business today?
Or tomorrow?
Comparatively, very, very few.

What stops them?
Some will say that the time isn’t right, some will say they can’t afford it, some will say that they must keep working at their current job to keep the money rolling in, and of course some will say they just don’t know how.
These aren’t reasons, these are excuses.
Why?
Because starting your own business need not cost a penny, does not require you to stop your current employment, and virtually anyone has the knowledge or ability (or can easily get it) to start.

So, what really is the hardest thing about starting your own business?
The answer lies in the question.

Starting.

Starting can be as simple as deciding to do something, it could be as simple as telling someone what you are going to do. In short, starting means taking action. Because once you take action, you begin to move. It’s like freeing a sledge that is stuck in the ice: once you are moving, keeping going is easy.

So to start your own business, follow these simple steps.

  1. Decide
  2. Plan
  3. Act
  4. Review
  5. Repeat 2-5.


When do you start?

If you want to, and really want to, then start right now — do what you have to do.

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How can Google’s Adwords improve your offline advertising?

By GC | Published: November 13, 2009

Anyone who markets their business online will have heard of Google’s Adwords; or they should have done. Adwords is Google’s name for their pay-per-click (PPC) service; it’s the very core of their business. Essentially PPC offers highly targeted advertising, it provides the facility to place your advert right in front of the very people that are looking for your product or service.
For example, your business specializes in repairing old Nikon cameras. You could use PPC to show an advert for your company when someone looks online for information about how to repair a shutter in a Nikon F1.
For the advertiser, this is great because you only pay to advertise to people who are looking for your service. You are not advertising to people who have a problem with their Pentax, or to people who want to take better pictures, or to people who want to photograph dolphins in the sea. PPC has been an advertising revolution for another very important reason too. If you advertise in a newspaper or a magazine your advert has to jolt the reader away from what they are doing (reading). With PPC, people are already looking for information and you (or your advertisement) can feed straight into that; no distraction necessary.

But, what has all this got to do with PPC improving offline advertising? Well, one of the great things about PPC is the rapid, measurable results an advertiser can get. Within a day of posting their advert they can see how many times it’s been displayed, how many times it’s been clicked on, and how many of those clicks resulted in an enquiry or sale (conversion rate). How long does that take to do with traditional offline advertising? Ages. With this fast feedback advertisers are able to test their adverts very quickly and cheaply. In particular, the all-important headline. It’s stated by various advertising experts that anywhere between 80% and 90% of an advert’s viewers will not read past the headline. The headline is absolutely vital in the battle to encourage a reader to find out more by reading on. Some headlines work and some don’t; there are certain rules to follow, but it’s almost impossible to predict what headline will perform the best. With PPC, headlines can be tested with high precision. It’s called split testing; all elements in the advert are kept the same, only the headline differs. After a few days, the results can be analysed and the better performing headline will be apparent.

What if you are advertising in magazines? Of course, with magazine advertising, this degree of testing is not possible, once the advert is printed, there it is — good or bad. However, if an inexpensive PPC campaign is run prior to placing a printed advert, then the best performing headline can be used in the magazine, thus ensuring maximum response.

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not happy community times

By GC | Published: October 29, 2009

Some time ago I requested information about a Community Times franchise.
I was interested because I’d published information booklets for my local community. The information pack promised a lot, but the franchise was expensive — more than £5000.

Now, however, it seems all is not well. There appears to be some franchisees who are less than happy with the situation they find themselves in and are concerned that they might have lost a lot of money (and wasted a lot of time).

According to the London Gazette, a petition to wind up Community Times Ltd was presented by ESP Colour Ltd (a printing company in Swindon). The Gazzette also reported a meeting of directors which stated that ‘… the company cannot, by reason of its liabilities, continue its business… ‘. All very worrying for the franchisees, and quite what a failure of the franchise operator will mean to them is unclear. If I was one, I’d be very concerned to be trading under the name of a company that was illiquid.

What does all this have to do with us? Well, Community Times is offering people who work at home help to start and run a profitable publishing enterprise. The type of business they offer can be very sound, indeed we have much experience with this business model. So if you are interested in starting a publishing business and don’t want to jump in with thousands of pounds, you can still do it. Find out more on how we can help you to work at home publishing. We don’t charge upwards of £5000, we produce a manual called Publishing for Profit in 30 Days, and it can help you get started producing community magazines, or magazines and booklets on just about any subject for any market. And, best of all, you remain independent; we teach you how to do it so you don’t need to rely on a parent company and you are not constrained to do things their way.

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