Your Invitation to ‘Connect’ with Matt

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I do not run a ‘product’ based company. Doing so would cloud the line between consultant and competitor. As such I am able to uniquely leverage 10 years of experience over two software providers. that of many past & present clients, to adapt, mould processes and drive results to suit your unique business requirements.

There are a number of online channels out there that are all aimed at keeping people in touch, I’d like to virtually ‘connect’ with you and there are a couple of ways you can do so.

Note: I would have included a video with this to make it more personal, however its out on loan currently.

LinkedIn

I’m a big LinkedIn fan, its like the adults version of Facebook.

You can connect me here http://uk.linkedin.com/in/matthewogborne

Twitter

I have a few Twitter accounts, the main one I use is @MatthewOgborne and the original one is @LastDropofInk and I monitor them both most days. Also you’ll see specific messages on each account too.

YouTube

As you may have noticed, there is a distinct move on my part towards using video content more and mopre here. Its a very personal medium and you’ll literally be seeing a lot more of me!

You can subscribe to my YouTube channel here http://www.youtube.com/user/matthewogborne

Google+

I must admit, I’ve not paid Google+ much attention yet, mainly because I am focused on other sites. However the messages you’ll find here from me are both personal & business related.

Facebook

I’m also on Facebook or rather this site is.

You can find the LastDropofInk Facebook page here, I need to update it after the design change here and will be doing so later this week.

RSS & Email

Did you know that you can have the latest posts delivered straight to your inbox using Feedburner, a free Google App? No, well you do now!

Go to http://feeds.feedburner.com/TheLastDropOfInk and hit “Subscribe with Google”.

Also I have an ongoing mailing list, you can subscribe at the top of this page on the right. I keep communications to a minimum and tend to use it to grab feedback before a large article or event, like the Webinar I held last week.

You can of course just interact by leaving a comment on an article here that you’ve liked, if only yo say “hi”.

That’s it, I look forward to ‘connecting’ with you!

Matt

The Only 3 Podcasts I listen to & Why

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In the next few minutes, I’ll be taking you through a little bit about podcasts, what you need to listen to them and the 3 I listen to and why.

More podcasts than video channels

Podcasting has really taken off in the past few years and is more prolific than video, although I suspect as more and more devices integrate to the likes of YouTube, that video will become the more popular format.

There are millions and millions of podcasts and wading through them all can be difficult, that’s where iTunes comes in handy as the podcasts are well organised and you can easily find a topic that interests you.

iTunes is required

ITunesWhile not absolutely required as I’m sure there are lots of “other” podcast sites, I’ve only really focused on iTunes. You can navigate a selection on the Apple website, however you really need the iTunes application to dig deeper and its free and can be found here.

The iTunes application lets you navigate the the podcast sections (and lots of other stuff too) and will manage the subscriptions you chose to subscribe to.

I personally find the app “clunky” (sorry but it is, must be Windoze eh?), but its worth figuring out as it makes subscribing and managing the subscriptions much, much easier.

The Business section

Now I’m only really interested in the Business section of the podcasts on iTunes and a direct link to these is here. The vast majority are free and there are also some paid-for versions, however I’ve never looked at those.

The variety is huge and you’ll find the obvious publishers, like the BBC and Bloomberg, I’ll leave you to dig around and see what you can find.

My top 3 podcasts that I actually listen to

Its quite tempting to just subscribe to everything, but frankly you’ll never listen to half of it, so instead I found a more focused approach worked and I never miss an episode of the three chosen podcasts and I strongly suggest you limit yourself to just a few and commit to them as well.

Six pixels of separation

While my first, this is always the last one I listen to in preference of the other two. Really informative and I find the presenters easy to listen to and equally I enjoy their content. You can find their podcast here.

Smart passive income

Pat Fylnn is author comes across as an extremely authentic person and holds little back. He’s a role-model that I’m using for some of the new projects you are experiencing. Frequent guest speakers and some really interesting insights. You can find Pat’s podcast here.

Virtual business lifestyle

Chris Ducker is well connected and I actually have three podcasts waiting to be listened to. One is with the legend “Chris Brogan” and another person of personal interest is “Gideon Shalwick” due to his activities with on-line video.

I like his[Chris’s] voice and the topics he covers. You can listen to his podcast here.

Summary

My biggest tip is to try and limit the number of podcasts you subscribe to, otherwise you’ll do what I did and get overwhelmed. I’ve found my three and they’re great when out on the bike, hiding from the kids or like right now, I have the speakers on and listening to one while I type.

You don’t need iTunes, but it makes life a lot easier and there is only one place you need to check for latest versions. In my example, that would be three websites, that ain’t going to happpen.

Stop - Take Action!What you waiting for?
iTunes is free and there is an obscene number of podcasts out there and I’m sure with a little narrowing down, you’ll find your 3 podcasts too.

Free Site Monitoring – Pingdom

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In the past few weeks I’ve had a couple of questions regarding website monitoring, my first choice used to be “AlertFox” as you could go much deeper than just pinging the web server and script actions for the site to follow.

However they’ve[AlertFox] gone to a completely chargeable structure , even though they offer 30 days free, $49 a month is too much for most and I’ve found and cruically used a free alternative.

Pingdom

While they offer the ability to have both Basic accounts at $10 a month and Business accounts at $40, there is a free option (that i use) that allows you to monitor just one site and you can register here https://www.pingdom.com/signup/ (its below the two paid options)

Setting it up is exceptionally easy and I was 50/50 – delighted/concerned when I started getting notifications the other morning to let me know that this site was down.

Here is a screen shot of some of the emails I received:

Pingdom Email AlertObviously I could now go and find out what was up with the host and it turned out one of the switches in the BlueSquare data-centre had died, fair enough, it happens and a data-centre across the road from them had the same issue last year, give them an hour or so and they’d have it sorted and they did.

Top marks to Evo-Hosting by the way, they were already on the ball and as soon as I started looking, they had already communicated the issue and were harassing the data-centre.

Reports

I also just received the monthly report for this site a screen shot is below. They also have reporting on their website, but to be frankly honest I don’t care, up or down, thats all I care about.

pingdom-report-1

Summary

I like free, I know you do too. While not as powerful as the paid options and that found with AlterFox, this works, as I’ve shown above and its free!

While the free account is “basic” it works and for less than 5 minutes work, it was a set-and-forget action.

Stop - Take Action!Have you set yours up yet?
Go here its free! https://www.pingdom.com/signup/

One Hour Per Week is Working!

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I’m looking forward to sharing this with you as its changed my views on how I can help more people in less time and its all thanks to the six business I’m working with as part of ProjectE.

On face value this post is pretty much just about me, its the kind of post that I write in the background and rarely share with the outside world. However I have one critical question I need your help with at the bottom.

I’m still hammering down the details of where I am going, both personally, professionally and with ProjectE and I’m taking the opportunity to share it with you as in the past few weeks, I’ve found this sharing process very beneficial and its helping me move forwards and narrowing down how I can help you more effectively.

Here is a quick update of where I’m at and why

If you missed the invitation, this was a pretty big investment from myself and it was all on the fork of ‘commitment’. I had been procrastinating for ages around the entire project and I could feel this project slipping away from me. Then decided that I needed to get public and make a commitment that I could not back out of.

So I did and it went spectacularly as well.

I covered he results in a couple of earlier posts, you can view the original invitation on YouTube here that I set live on that Friday and the full invitation also on YouTube here that I posted the following Monday, along with the supporting article here.

There is nothing like jumping in with both feet I can tell ya!

With procrastinating over, I ended up with 56 applications and spent an entire weekend sifting through them. It was my intention to work with just five, but a sixth sneaked in. Hey I was already in the deep end, what would one more do to me?

Shortly afterwards I made arguably the worst video to date (see here) which promoted me to get more professional, especially after that damming, but valid email I got, which I covered in the article “Are your video’s so bad, they need this feedback also?”

Into the 3rd week

And up to today, we’re now into our third week of working together.

I’ve not mentioned who they are yet, I’m saving this for later this week (hint hint), however its becoming glaring apparent that with the right content and structure (which I’m still hammering out) that one hour per week consulting is actually working and having a positive effect on all of the six businesses.

Frankly I was a little concerned on what could be covered in what is just 8 hours of my time spread over a period of eight weeks, plus some extra time as a group and the real impact of it.

What I’ve found so far is that the tool-set of experience I have at my disposal is actually very “wide” and I had completely over looked that if I focus the six businesses on actionable points at the end of each of the meetings, that in the time we’re apart, they can move at a rate that suits them and still be ready for the following week.

Its a case now of working out how I can detail this process for not only personal one-on-one projects with new clients, but to also make it scalable (and affordable for the masses) for ProjectE.

Revised & new site pages

Its also proving exceptionally useful as for a long time I’ve not focused on exactly “how I can help” & “where I can help” and are refocusing on some critical pages to this site.

The first is the pending redesign of the ‘Contact Matthew’ page, this page does not have a clear goal and the new version has a defined set of goals and will be a marked improvement.

The second is a new page that I should have added months ago called “Work With Matthew” and its proving fun exactly what to include on this page and its on my weekend to-do list, by the time this post goes live, it may already be live on the site.

Summary

I’m so lucky to be able to work with the chosen six businesses

The commitment to them takes up my entire Friday and part of Thursday evening too, but that doesn’t matter, its great fun & I can see tangible benefits to them already.

The biggest take-away for me so far is that one hour per week is working and as I mentioned, its a case now of scaling this, removing the mist and defining exactly how I can help you grow your businesses.

Stop - Take Action!

I need YOUR help!
In the past I have frequently come across the statement “Matt I know you can help me, but I’m not sure how”, I’m actively addressing this.

However flipping the question back at you “Where do you feel that I can help you?” Answers either in the comments below or privately via the “Contact Matthew” page.

Part 2: My Top 20 Free WordPress Plugins (And Why)

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One of the huge reasons for WordPress being the number one CMS, besides it being free & there being countless development resources available for it, is because there are thousands of plugins & extensions for WordPress. Some are free, some are paid for.

I’ve been through hundreds of plugins, I’ve found really useless ones and I’ve found fabtastic ones. Its some of these “fabtastic” ones I’m going to share with you in the rest of the this article and I think they might be useful for you too.

Oh and all the plugins I mention here, they’re ALL free.

#1 AVH Extended Categories Widgets

This plugin isn’t for everyone, 99% you need not even look at this one (great start eh?). It enables you to control the WP categories and group them together and show them as groups for specific pages.

Its not used on this site, however I’ve used it on much larger scale sites where content needs to be broken down by category and sub categories. This plugin allows you to group them up and show a side widget that is dedicated to that “group” of categories.

If you have a deep category structure that goes past 2 levels, then this plugin may help you show categories that are specific to the category root.

To make this a little more visual, imagine you have this category structure:

  • Top Category 1
    • Sub Category 1-1
      • Sub-Sub Category 1-1-1
      • Sub-Sub Category 1-1-2
      • Sub-Sub Category 1-1-3
    • Sub Category 1-2
      • Sub-Sub Category 1-2-1
      • Sub-Sub Category 1-2-2
      • Sub-Sub Category 1-2-2
    • Sub Category 1-3
      • Sub-Sub Category 1-3-1
      • Sub-Sub Category 1-3-2
      • Sub-Sub Category 1-3-3
  • Top Category 2
    • Sub Category 2-1
    • Sub Category 2-2
    • Sub Category 2-3

Its quite likely that the content that is in “Sub Category 1-1” is very different to the content found in “Sub Category 1-2“, think “WordPress” and “Book Reviews” for these and the sub categories for each are apt sub versions of “WordPress” like “plugins“, “tips & tricks” & “How to Guides“, where as the “Book Reviews” category is broken up into sub categories based upon genre.

This plugin allows you to show just the categories that are below the main category, so the users that are viewing the “WordPress” content, get a sidebar navigation for the “WordPress” related categories and the users viewing the “Book Reviews” content, are shown the categories that are related to that. Oh and categories can in live in multiple category groups to give maximum flexibility.

Like I said, unless you have massive amounts of content in a complex category structure, 99% of you can ignore this plugin. However when you do have deep categories, this plugin can help users unravel the mess. I hope the colours helped!

#2 Broken Link Checker

broken-link-checker-1I only found this one a few weeks back, amazingly it only found 15 broken links, of which 8 were on purpose (two old articles that used ‘keywords’ in the links). However the remaining links were all dead.

A nice touch to this plugin is that it’ll show them on your dashboard, although there is no cron option and I disabled the update every hour option as that’s a bit excessive

#3 Contact Form 7

I tried about 5 different contact form plugins, this was by far the best of them all.

Exceptionally flexible, I’ve used this plugin on every WP site since.

This plugin is also directly linked to #4 Really Simple CAPTCHA which allows you to put a spam captcha option to the forms and if you look in the footer then you’ll see this in action.

#5 Custom Post Template

This plugin is brilliant, but was a complete ‘mare’ to get right as there were no examples with the plugin.

In short it allows you to make extra post and page templates. I use it for the super wide page layouts on this site and on other sites, I’ve got a couple of versions for different media types. You can see an example of the wide format in action here.

#6 Google Analyticator

Quickly and easily add your Google Analytic’s code to your WP site.

#7 Maintenance Mode

I just found this one on Saturday afternoon, I wish I had know about this months ago. Allows to lock your site down to specific users and display a maintenance page along with a counter. Simple, but very, very useful.

#8 Newsletter Sign-Up

You’ll find this on the right of most of the pages & “thanks” to Rob Cubbon for forking me on this from one of his articles I read.

This plugin makes the integration of newsletter subscriptions childs-play and works with custom providers and the major ones like MailChimp, iContact, AWeber, PHPList and so on.

#9 Sharebar

See the funny bar on the left, where you are about to press the Google +1 button to? That’s sharebar. Its actually missing the +1 button for Google by default, but its pretty easy to add it in.

BTW Did you press the +1 button?
Thank you!

#10 Shortcode Generator

Really handy for pre-making content. The short codes it makes are a bit long, but none-the-less exceptionally useful. Saves me/you hijacking the functions.php file and borking the sites like I have been known to do on occasion.

#11 Subscribe to Comments

Look at the comments form at bottom, notice the check box?
Enter a comment saying how fab this article is and check the tick box.
Beautiful!

#12 W3 Total Cache

The traffic I get here warrants the use of such a plugin. In short this makes the site load faster. Users typically see a 50% increase in page load times from just activating this plugin, let-alone tweaking it.

I prefer this one as I can set up custom CDN’s and have spent a large amount of time focused on ensuring that this site loads fast. There are a lot of options, the defaults will be fine for most blogs.

#13 WordPress SEO by Yoast

I used to use “All in One SEO”, until I read Yoast’s damming (yet fair) report on it and moved to this version. Very comprehensive and more features than what used before, really one of those set-and-forget plugins

#14 WP-Syntax

This is really handy for “code”. If you’re posting blocks of code in your articles, then this plugin is pretty neat.

It uses the PRE tag and adds styling options, a big tip for this option is to always edit your posts/pages that have “code” examples or snippets in them, as HTML only, the WP editor will each these for breakfast.

#15 Capability Manager

One of my pet-hates with WP is its user control, this plugin helps manage the poor user access control and adds the level needed when working with staff, editors and content writers.

A big tip for using this is to create your own and test it with a sample account to ensure it behaves as you expect!

#16 JavaScript to Footer

This is simplest of them all, install and activate. Thats it. No config options, it just pushes all the JS files to the footer and makes the site load faster, as the JavaScript is the last to load, allowing the rest of the site to render first.

#17 Ozh’ Admin Drop Down Menu

This is another personal dislike of WP solved in one plugin.

The left hand menu takes up too much room. This plugin solves this by putting the entire menu system along the top, allowing for more writing space. Which considering the point of most WP sites is to create content, has to be a good thing.

#18 TinyMCE Advanced

I tried a few that were supposed to change the editor, this one actually works and allows you to alter the layout of the HTML editor option in the page/post creation pages.

You can get rid of the options you never use and organise the ones that you do need and use in a layout that makes sense to you. Dab-handy!

#19 Yoast Breadcrumbs

The breadcrumbs at the top of this article are powered by this, so easy to add and on some themes will auto-insert.

Worth noting that this is actually included in the earlier plugin from Yoast.

#20 WP Security Scan

General paranoia is advised when working with any open code platform, this plugin helps cover the obvious. It has a few neat features like a backup option and the provides the ability to change the table prefixes on the database used for the WP site.

Summary

WordPress is free and the vast majority of plugins that you’ll ever need are also free.

These are my top 20 free WordPress plugins, I do use a few paid-for plugins, I have had plugins coded for me and I have also created my own for highly specific uses.

Stop - Take Action!I’m wondering if you have a favourite WP plugin I’ve not mentioned here?
If so let me know in the comments below.

Part 1: WordPress WWW (The What, The Who, The Where To Start)

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Wordpress LogoIn the next 3 or so articles, I’m going to be covering the aspects of WordPress that I wish I had known about a long time ago!

Many of these I wish I had known about before experiencing the ‘ah-ha’ moments when it finally clicked and realised that it was either exceptionally neat or was the answer to me bashing my head on a brick wall when trying to do something “odd”.

WordPress & blogging is not something I have really talked about much here before and its one of skills & experiences I take for granted, but rarely share with the outside world. It wasn’t until October 2010 that I bit-the-bullet and started writing about myself, however I’ve been using WordPress for years.

In these next few articles, I’m looking forward to sharing with you my experiences with you and also homing in on the aspects that will help me, help business owners take the plunge or refine their work using WordPress. However we need to start at the beginning.

The beginning – What is WordPress?

WordPress in it’s simplest form is a “Content Management System”, a common name for this type of tool is “CMS”, however Alice the rabbit hole goes deeper, much much deeper.

With some 25 million, yes million downloads, the free hosted version that when checking today at WordPress.com they’ve almost 100 million words in a single day, WordPress has become the #1 free CMS.

There are many reasons why this is happened, these include:

  1. Its free
  2. Its extensible
  3. There is a obscene amount of extensions, themes & plugins for it
  4. Its open-source
  5. Its very, very good
  6. Its very easy to use
  7. Its well documented
  8. If you need something “custom” made, there are millions of developers/coders/programmers that can help you.

In short, there are other blogging & CMS tools that are available, however my personal opinion (& some obscene amount of other people on this planet) believe that WordPress is the best there is.

So who’s using WordPress?

Number 10 Blog

I avoid politics, however I, as you, cannot ignore that the PM uses WordPress!

You want names? Lets try some of these:

  1. http://ebayinkblog.com/ <== eBay
  2. http://ycorpblog.com/ <== Yahoo
  3. http://blog.ted.com/ <== Ted.com
  4. You got the point yet?
  5. http://sundayafternoonclub.blogs.topgear.com/ <== TopGear/BBC
  6. http://blog.flickr.net/en <== Flickr
  7. http://about.digg.com/blog <== Digg.com
  8. Oh you want more?
  9. http://www.thefordstory.com/ <== Ford
  10. http://blogs.wsj.com/law/ <== Wall Street Journal
  11. http://blog.us.playstation.com/ <== PlayStation
  12. http://electronicsblog.sel.sony.com/ <== Sony
  13. http://blog.mozilla.com/ <== FireFox
  14. http://business.blogs.cnn.com/ <== CNN
  15. http://download.cnet.com/download-blog/ <== Download.com
  16. Oh cannot forget these either…
  17. http://www.stephenfry.com/ <== Stephen Fry
  18. www.­theroyalweddingw­illiamkate.­com <== Some random bloke & woman that got married recently
  19. http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/ <== Harvard
  20. Oh and the prime minster as well http://www.number10.gov.uk/

So do not even try to tell me that an “Open Source” CMS is not viable to be used for business use, I’m using it right now & I’ll laugh at you.

Where to start

I’m not going to mince my words here & I make no apologies, if you want to procastinate on this, that’s your choice, however:

“Getting started with WordPress is piss-easy”

Three steps that will take you less than 2 minutes:

  1. Go to https://en.wordpress.com/signup/ and fill in the 5 boxes
  2. On the dash board there is a section called “Quick Press” enter this information:
    Title = I have started something
    Content = I am not a blogger, I am a winner
  3. Press ‘Publish’

Congratulations.

To clear a little mist, there are two versions of WordPress, there is either the free hosted option which you just made or the self hosted option. These are found at http://wordpress.com/ (free hosted) and http://wordpress.org/ (downloadable)

There are positives and negatives to each. As you’re probably a business owner that is reading this, then I would ask you the simple question below:

Do you want absolute control over everything about the CMS?

  • Yes, then use self hosted
  • No, then use the free hosted version

Summary

WordPress is the #1 content management system on the planet and there are many reasons for this, the two primary ones are that its free and its so easy to use.  Its used by massive corporations, the Prime Minister, individuals like myself and people just like you.

There are two versions, ones free hosted and also for those who want more control, a download version is available and this the downloadable WordPress code which you’re reading right now.

I’ve not covered why you want to start using a CMS and I’m not going to either. I’ve also not covered how you can install WordPress on your site as frankly there is no need, most hosting providers provide a one-click solution to install it and if you get stuck, they’ll be able to help you or just check YouTube.

If you’re looking for a reliable host for the self hosted option & have one-click installs of WordPress, then I personally recommend Evo-Hosting (which this site is hosted by) and also Heart Internet, which I have used for years.

Stop - Take Action!Create a free WordPress site
It takes only a few moments, even if you have no intention of using it, take action now and break your WordPress virginity https://en.wordpress.com/signup/

Wednesday Workshop – Questions Answered

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I wanted to start by saying “thank you“. The workshop was fully subscribed at in total there were 81 participants on the Webinar! I was quite taken back by the number of people that attended and thank you for attending.

Also as part of the Webinar you also gained a taste for what this whole “ProjectE thing” was about and where its heading. For those who didn’t attend, sorry I’m not publishing the details here and are saving it for another day.

I’m learning too!

The biggest take-away from the Webinar for me was that you can actually expand the questions box outside of the tiny side bar of the Webinar tool.

I was using the three screens, one to run the live view from which you saw, the main screen for notes & the webinar tool and the other to make any edits on-the-fly to the power-point presentation.

I did think I had everything “licked”, however the questions box was really small and after a few questions, it scrolled in itself and it wasn’t until afterwards I found that one could expand it out into a single window.

Your questions answered

My apologies for not answering these live, I don’t think I’ll be making that mistake again and here are the questions and the crucially answers:

Thanks Matt. Very useful information. Would like to see something on sourcing products once you have done the research on what sells. Also some more detailed info on keywords particularly with the increase coming up on eBay shortly.
– Lynn 

I’m going to avoid the first part of that question as that is something I am working on for the UnderstandingE project, its at 7,000 words at the last count and is aimed at taking you through the right way of doing this with not a single mention of “Secrets” which drives me bonkers.

The second part regarding keywords, this is something I’m aware I did not drill down upon at all in the webinar, its something you can easily gleam basic ones from eBay Pulse or by researching categories / products in Terapeak and is really specific to your products.

A lot of the information seems to be for an average sale. Is there any way of drilling down further? eg gold rings data average sale price is fairly meaningless
– Rik 

Yes, the keyword research which we covered had two issues:

  1. It was generic
  2. It wasn’t drilled down far enough

We also did not carry the research as far as it could or rather should be taken, using the drill options on the left (as I pointed out) and also investigating the top sellers for the keywords in a specific category.

Is there a way of checking competition webstats?
– Jagg

Yes, there are ways of finding out ‘rough’ information, however they tend to be wholly inaccurate on smaller sites and tend not to provide anything substantial. This tends to be quite in-precise and its not something I intend to cover.

Hey its cheaper on Terapeak.com!

I checked that this morning, the UK site is £9 and the US site is $9.75 which is about 30% cheaper!

Video Recording & Slide Decks?

As I type the recording from last nights Webinar is being converted to a more usable format and in both HD, SD & transportable (for iPods etc) formats, however I am posed with two issues:

  1. Hosting this is proving an issue as the it far exceeds the 15 minute limit on YouTube
  2. I have been asked not to publish this by a member of the UE team

I do apologise, I said I’d do so, until the above two are hammered out, I am unable to post them on-line. Starting the entire project wasn’t going to be easy and I knew I was going to put myself in some awkward situations, this is one of them and I currently do not know the correct path to follow.

Your Feedback

I’ve received some fantastic feedback on the Webinar and are looking forward to putting these into practice. If you do have any comments, I’d love to hear from you and you can either contact me on the Contact Matthew page or use the comments box below.

Thank You for the Mug Gill & Terry!

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Just a quick post to say thank you to Gill & Terry from Printaway for the fantastic mug, that actually arrived yesterday.

Also it was a chance to try out the new opening section of the video content and try out the lighting arrangement, however I definitely need to do some more work on the lighting!

Anyway, thank you again and here is the video!

Oh and here it is with my favourite contents:

Do You Work from Home? If so I’d like to hear from you!

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I’ve got the idea & basis for a workshop, in which I’d like to cover working from home and both the benefits and challenges it faces.

I’ve worked from home for the best part of 10 years now, however sometimes suffer from planning my days effectively and dealing with procrastination, which I’m looking forward to sharing with you. Oh and you’re going to fall off your chair when I introduce you to “the crown”.

Here is a picture of my office, believe it or not this is “tidy” for me!

My Office

This is is a snapshot of my office

Getting Involved

However I’d really like to get more people involved in the “Wednesday Workshop” as I know a lot of you work from home and probably suffer the same issues that I do.

This would help many others in the same situation and would like to extend an invitation to you to join me in the next two weeks or so to cover this topic.

To make it easy as possible, I’ve come up with three questions and an invitation (if you wish to do so) to include a video or photo of your office to share with everyone. These are:

  1. How do you plan your day?
  2. How do you deal with procrastination?
  3. What  are you top tips for other people working from home or looking to do so?

I’m thinking no more than 5-10 minutes or so and also I’d be really interested in discussing where you may have actually come out of a home office and the move to offices or another place to run your business from.

Contacting me

I’ve popped the contact form below that I use for the “Wednesday Workshops”, if you could include your contact details as I’d obviously like to speak to you before hand.

[contact-form 6 “Workshop Wednesday Form”]

Register Now – The First “Wednesday Workshop” is Here!

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Register NowThis Wednesday at 17:00 I’ll be holding the first workshop of many, happening each week under the umbrella of “Workshop Wednesday”. They are free to join and should last no longer than 30-40 minutes, depending upon content & questions at the end.

I’ve created a personal invitation for you in the video below:

You can register for this “Wednesdays Workshop” here http://lastdropofink.co.uk/workshop

This weeks topic is…

This week I’ll be covering market research, how to conduct market research on eBay & Amazon with both free and paid for tools that you can use to conduct this valuable business process.

As I mention in the video, I received a comment back while researching the content for this Webinar which was from an established and successful business that uses several online channels:

We were discussing market research and marketing only the other day, we are aware it is something we:

1. do not do
2. do not have time to do

However, we concluded it is certainly something we need to make time to do!

So the aim for this workshop is to make researching the marketplaces, quick and easy.

Register Now

Register NowYou can register for this free workshop with myself by clicking the button to he right.

You can dial in using your phone using the number & pin provided after registration or use your headset/speakers to listen in. Registration is only required the once for all the workshops and the form asks for the least amount of details that are allowed, name & email address.

Your feedback & ideas

These workshops are aimed at helping you becoming more successful using the on-line marketplaces. I’ve already got some great ideas on what to be included, however if you have any suggestions, please drop me a quick mail on the contact form below:

[contact-form 6 “Workshop Wednesday Form”]

Time for a Site Redesign & to Refocus

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I watched an amazing video over on ProBlogger a few days ago (its 30mins long) and three simple questions were asked, these were:

  • Can you tell me what your blog stands for?
  • … and what problems it solves for people?
  • … and how do you solve them?

Frankly I was dumbstruck by the entire video. Up until now I have not even considered the majority of the parts of the mind map and have taken it as a kick up the ass to get things in order.

Again, as with a few of the recent posts published, this is about myself and me working out what is going on and where to focus. By publishing this, I am intending for a couple of things to happen:

  1. You gain a better understanding of where this blog is going and what to expect
  2. I understand the above more fully

Site logo & design

The site design has carried me along up until now, however “is a dead fly with blood drips really the right impression that I wish to give readers?” Probably not… is the honest answer. The design came from the urgency to just get on and get writing almost a year ago and whether right or wrong, its been the header & logo since then.

The logo nor header area really reflect the new image that I wish to portray and I’ve pulled in the assistance of a good friend and design expert Rob Cubbon.

Working from experience and also looking for some assistance for a discounted rate, saying “I need a logo designed” wasn’t going to be particularly helpful to Rob or myself for that matter and after a few doodles in the note pad, I came up with a rough outline, which I’ve included below:

Yes this is pretty basic, however incorporates the key elements that I am aiming for, which is more control over the font being used, an actual logo, ink splatters, although I’m aiming for these to be coloured ink splats like found in this image so that I can increase the colour palette used on the site and some form of digital aspect, either through the use of a barcode or pixelation.

I’ve been quiet taken with the use of the author faces in the header area after reading this article on the 13 best and most powerful blog header designs on the internet, although I’m not sure if you’ll be seeing my face in this sites header just yet, or at least past the stock image I use for most sites currently.

Also, we’re playing with a “ripped paper”cross section to the site to separate the header & navigation menu from the content area. Not entirely sure what the finished version is going to look like and probably by the time you read this article, it’ll be live & I’m sure you’ll agree, it’ll be a marked improvement on the old design.

Who is the audience?

A screen shot from the video is below showing the mind map which is discussed:

problogger-mindmapWhile several of the parts I’m not going to discuss publicly, one part in particular I’m going to share as it defines what you’re going to find on this site from now on and crucially when.

In a brainstorm, I came to the conclusion that the following are the audience types & persona’s that vist this site:

  1. eCommerce business owners
  2. People looking for help with eBay & Amazon
  3. Current clients
  4. Former clients
  5. Potential clients
  6. Colleagues from former roles I’ve held
  7. Friends
  8. Head hunters
  9. CEO’s & Directors of products & services in the eCommerce arena
  10. PR firms

There really is quite a mixture from what I can tell from the interactions through email, comments, calls and the web statistics. However I feel that I’m failing them all and I’ll cover that in more detail shortly.

What problems do these have?

A really interesting brainstorming exercise was work out and detail the different problems each of these persona’s have and where they fit with the content that I have been producing up until now.

Again, these are results from the brainstorming exercise:

  1. Problems using eSellerPro
  2. Understanding eSellerPro
  3. Making best use of eSellerPro
  4. Selecting the right backend tool to help their business
  5. Checking up to see if I have posted something defamatory
  6. Looking for help with eBay
  7. ” ” ” ” ”  with Amazon
  8. ” ” ” ” ” with eCommerce
  9. Making the best use of the online marketplaces
  10. Marketing their businesses
  11. Making their businesses more efficient

Whether it is users with general questions or stemming by their desire to use the application more effectively, after three years with the team at eSellerPro, I suppose such a weighting is to be expected. There were one or two others that I’ve not included, however this was the general jist of the problems that I could come up with the the visitors that arrive here.

Note: If you can suggest any other types or reasons, I’d value you help, either in the comments at the bottom or directly via the Contact Matthew page

Frequency

Predictably IrrationalI just finished reading an excellent book called “Predictably Irrational“, it was recommended by Rick, the head of a US based PPC company called “CPC Strategy“. Actually I’ve not spoken to Rick in a while now and as its not a bank holiday for him, I’ll drop him a line when he gets in. I’m not sure how we met, but we spoke and hit it off, really nice chap.

Back on topic, one of the differences to this book was Dan’s actual inclusion of the data from the experiments that she performed, this was sometimes lacking in other books on a similar topic, like “Why we Buy” and “Inside the mind of the shopper”. I used to think that psychology was a load of bollocks, how wrong was I and eagerly learned about the “Skinner Box” created by a graduate student at Havard, called “B. F. Skinner“.

This box, used to condition animals (oh don’t feel bad about this, the next bit is or rather was a revelation to me) through reward/punishment mechanisms. What was found that rats that performed the “correct” action and were rewarded would carry out the action required when they felt like it (as it was generally food, although I suspect punishment was used here as well), however the most interesting part was when the subject was not rewarded for the action and the reward happened randomly. Oh how this hit home.

Dan used a couple of brilliant examples in her book, the first was a fruit machine, if you knew that you’d win 9 out of 10 times, would you continue to play? When was the last time you played bingo? Did you win? When was the last time you checked your iPhone or Android for email, knowing full well there is no email because it makes a sound to notify you of a new message?

SKINNER BOX!

Which leads me to my original point, frequency. Frequency of posting here has been hap-hazard, sometimes I’d skip whole weeks and not post anything. With the full dive-into #ProjectE and the desire to improve my own brand and that of the new project I’ve committed to, the sources of content are abound, however I was considering setting up a routine for posting here, to let you know exactly when I would be posting and dividing it into two or three post types, however you (as I) can be the subject to the same process.

Now will this be the only post you’ll find here this week?

Back to the original questions

I identified several key audiences and also some of the problems that the audience have or experience, which allowed me to answer the original three questions. One of them was quite concerning and I’m looking forward to working on this one specifically in the next few weeks to try and amend some scorched bridges.

I do have an overlap between the content that I create here and that I have been creating for #ProjectE, as this becomes more public you’ll see why, however it’ll be fun crossing the two over.

New site layout

I started writing this article yesterday, since then you’ll have noticed that the site has now been altered. For one a new logo has been added and I have redesigned the header area completely. The homepage article layouts were tweaked and the footer is more substantial.

I’ve also realised that I am failing badly on numerous of the key pages on the site, I’m working on these today, so expect a couple of new video’s to be added.

Summary

I’ve just been back through and re-read this article, while I do ramble, it was what helped me refocus on what this blog means and where its going. I’ve got a lot of work to complete on the site if I want it to take me where I want it to go.

Overall, I’m quite pleased with the new look, however what do you think?

 

 

Are your video’s so bad, they need this feedback also?

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I’m looking forward to sharing an email response I received with you. I received them from someone I’ve known for a long time now (outside of the eCommerce arena) and have the up-most respect for. The ironic summary of all his comments, is that shamefully I know them to be all correct & they are all in relation to the article posted a few days ago here.

Why share?

I’m publishing this because I feel exceptionally important to learn from ones mistakes, failure and failing is OK, but what is not OK is not learning from the experience and helping others along the way. As such I’m publishing the contents of the two emails (with their consent I hasten to add) and using this article to help myself document the feedback fully and maybe helping you too in the process.

While the chap who sent me this email is an EMEA sales director for a Billion pound semi-conductors business, long time friend & an avid gamer, I’d like to note that I do take feedback seriously of any kind from anyone, as you’ve seen numerous times here before.

Email number one

Here is the first email I received:

Hi Matt,

I’ve been watching the developments on this with interest as e-selling and developing business in that area is something that is totally alien to me and its not something that I envisage myself becoming involved in……….however, you never know what the future holds and I know I’ll learn something.
I have been watching your videos and if I might offer some feedback on them I hope that you won’t be offended but these are my personal comments:
In general I really like the actual location. The white walls and door and your daughters paintings seem to give the ‘right’ atmosphere for what (I believe) that you are trying to do. The combination of your ‘professional’ outlook in a ‘home’ office seems to link the aspirations of your audience quite well……….again this is only my view of things.
I can see that you blur out the logo on your coffee cup on your desk but for me this is something that you might be able to exploit. Given that you are a well known lover of coffee and Fridays have you thought about either having your own coffee cup with a ‘Last Drop of Ink’ logo on it and in shot (good advertising for you and people might even want to buy one!) although I find it interesting that whilst you pixelate the cup we can see a (half) picture of your daughter on the screen. Even stopping to have a quick drink out of the cup might help to bolster your image!
The other point is that you seem to lean back quite a lot when you are talking and I think that this might be due to getting yourself in the camera correctly but you do also bounce on the chair. Its a small thing but maybe sitting more upright might give a better presentation. As you’re leaning back your eyes do tend to half close at times as you are ‘looking down’ in effect and this does tend to detract from your more enthusiastic ‘wide eyes’ when you get to a key point in your talk. Your personal enthusiasm for this project shines through in your writing and your videos so it would be a shame (again in my opinion) to detract from this in any way.
Finally, the audio is a little bit ‘echo-y’ which is OK but again if this can be improved it would make the whole thing look a bit more professional. The audio is fine for ‘Youtube’ standards but I think that you are looking higher than this and your voice should reflect this again.
I hope that you don’t mind this input and I wouldn’t make it if I didn’t think that what you are doing is worthwhile. In a funny way I’m quite an excited ‘voyeur’ on this expedition into the unknown so I wish you every success in the future. Please don’t kick my ass into the stratosphere the next time we meet on the servers in retaliation!

Best wishes

<Nameless>

Email number two

Quickly I realised that he’s made some brilliantly obvious points and acknowledge them with a quick email back, saying words to that effect. Which leads me onto the second email:

Hi Matt,
Making a presentation look easy actually takes a lot of hard work and practice but you also need the right ‘raw material’ to be able to have half a chance – which in my opinion you have. I certainly think that these things can be fixed and you’ll tweak things as you go along to make it better. If you think about what you know now and how you actually do your work compared to 5 years ago you know that you are much better these days and probably shudder at some of the things that happened in the past – I know that I do! Basically you’re just at that start point again and you will make the incremental improvements that can improve the overall message.
Best regards
<Nameless>

Summarising the feedback

“Video” usage is still very new to myself and its going to become more of an active role in the next few months. I don’t even pretend to be good at it and have relied on blind enthusiasm to get myself this far, hence why I’ve been so taken back by the comments as I feel there is a lot to be learnt and also to be shared with you.

Here are the main points from the feedback:

  1. Location & atmosphere of a home office
  2. Use of subliminal marketing
  3. Focus the camera more on myself
  4. Stop bouncing around & sit up
  5. Focus on the camera more
  6. Audio is poor
  7. He’s enjoying the experience as much as I am
  8. Its not easy to make a presentation look great, but blind enthusiasm is 50% of it
  9. Its all about learning from the experiences to making them better

As I mentioned at beginning, this article is really about myself and in documenting it learning from what points were made, however I sincerely hope you may be able to gleam something from this as well, hence why I’m publishing this publicly.

Location & atmosphere of a home office

I work from home and have done for pretty much the past 10 years. Its not easy and with the advent of two sets of feet joining myself & my partner, it can be difficult at times. I’m sure most of you can relate to this.

If you had not noticed (come on could you miss them?), my office walls are splattered with paintings that the girls bring home from playgroup. I use these to keep myself sane and are my inspiration for keeping my head down and always trying to be the best that I can ever be.

Use of subliminal marketing

I thought this was a brilliant idea and I look forward to not only sharing with you my favourite home coffee, inviting you to buy me a cup at my favourite cafe (Gusto’s) but also getting one of the businesses I am having the upmost delight working with to produce me a coffee mug for the office.

Although the latter cannot happen before the massive resdesign of the site (yes, I’m redesigning the site and upping the game considerably, but more about this in another article).

Focus the camera more on myself

Darren Rowse. ProBlogger.net

Darren Rowse. ProBlogger.net

I’ve wondered about moving locations for the video creation, but instead, I’m going to take some inspiration from Darren Rowse from Problogger.net and while I do not personally fancy subjecting you to my entire head that close. I do feel a change of camera location is an excellent idea and here is a screen shot from the new location.

My new Camera Angle

The New Camera Angle

I’m looking forward to getting the girls to create me some more artwork to share with you. Although the last time, one of them painted themselves green!

Stop bouncing around & sit up

It was pretty bad in the earlier video I made (see here), I’ve solve this by just screwing up the tighten’er on the chair and have taken note not to bounce around so much. This will be difficult though, as you can tell, I’m a very animated person.

Focus on the camera more

I know when my eyes go down, its because I’m reading the screen for notes. So instead of using the screen, I’m goignnto use printed copies and use them, thus when I do look down, you’ll see me looking down at the notes and thus (hopefully) lessening the eye movement, which does look odd.

Audio is poor

Thank you YouTube! I found a guide that shows how apply noise reduction outside of in Sony Vegas HD using a free tool called Audacity that has an excellent noise reduction feature in it.

While this will add a few minutes to each video creation, I feel it will add immense value to the overall professionalism of the video and I’m looking forward to sharing the results with you.

He’s enjoying the experience as much as I am

I really do love what I do and I’m glad he is, as you are enjoying the experience.

Its not easy to make a presentation look great, but blind enthusiasm is 50% of it

Blind enthusiasm will only get me so far. This is really where I am going to up-my-game and in the next few weeks, I’d like you to be the jury on this.

Its all about learning from the experiences to making them better

And hence this article, I do not pretend to know everything and just as in “life” its one long learning experience. As I mentioned at the beginning, I hope you’re able to draw something from this article as I have drawn loads.

What do you think?

So two questions for you:

  1. Were the points valid?
  2. Has me sharing the above helped you?