So you say to yourself why would you need the services of a trained web designer, if you can get it done on your own.

Sooner or later, it gets to the point where you need your business website to reflect your commitment to your business.

Do not think that the well informed potential client would have a positive impression when they view your website as “homemade”.

Here are some of the assumptions that they will form:

• You are new in business: Being new in business should not be perceived as negative but truth be told, people would be reluctant to want to buy from a person that is just starting out. You should not blatantly promote that a potential client would be your first client. You should promote your expertise and previous experience.
• Your business isn’t making any money: If people see a “Free website by Blah Blah” on the footer of your website, they would think “Can’t afford a paid-for website”.
• You don’t have clients and/or customers: People want to deal with businesses that have a proven track record.
• You are not committed to the business: This means that you can pack up shop tomorrow and not finish their project or provide after sale care.

Did you know that these conclusions would be drawn in less than a minute? All of these assumptions would take them to your competitors, period.

These are some of the reasons to hire a professional web designer:

• Many are business owners themselves
• They understand what gives a positive or negative impression
• They provide more than just web design
• Many are trained not only in web design but web development, search engine optimization, internet marketing and more; and have in depth knowledge and experience in these areas
• Many don’t charge an arm and a leg, they have affordable services packages to meet the needs and budget of a potential client

A very important thing that I continue to see in successful business owners and I’m privileged to continue to connect with many; is that they delegate to experts in fields that they don’t have the a background or in depth experience in.

Remember, First Impress Counts! and Anything Worth Doing is Worth Doing Well!

Here are some important elements to having a website:

• Your website is your storefront and should be attractive and easy to use
• Your website is your presence online 24/7
• Your website provides a convenient way to keep in touch with existing customers and keep them informed of developments in your business
• A website maximizes your marketing investment
• The exposure of your company with a website is far greater than traditional forms of advertising
• A website can give a small business, a well deserved presence in the marketplace

Creativity and Connectivity comes into play:

• Your website allows you to be creative with how you present your information/products/services
• When a potential customer hears about you, they turn to the web to locate your contact information & to learn more about what you do and a direct point of contact to you.
• If your site is e-commerce enabled, your products are ready & waiting to be sold

Allowing Expansion/Growth:

• Your website opens the door to a wider market of potential customers
• Even if your product or services are generally sold or performed locally, there is still potential for expansion

You become a Competitor:

• Your website is your shop window & you are on equal footing to compete with much larger companies
• Your site is a means of providing information to those who do online research before buying
• Your website is a powerful tool for sustainable development of sales opportunities
• Your website will offer your company the opportunity for thousands of potential customers
• Simply put, to be competitive in your market you have to have a website

We are interested in knowing how having a website has made a difference in your business or how investing more in your website has made a difference. I can confidently say that having a website has made a significant difference in my business.

1. SEO Pack

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/all-in-one-seo-pack/

“ONLY plugin to provide SEO Integration for WP e-Commerce sites”

“Automatically optimizes your titles for search engines”

“Generates META tags automatically”

“For beginners, you don’t even have to look at the options, it works out-of-the-box. Just install.”

2. Twitter-tools

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/twitter-tools/

“Twitter Tools is a plugin that creates a complete integration between your WordPress blog and your Twitter account.”

3. WP-db-backup

http://austinmatzko.com/wordpress-plugins/wp-db-backup/

“When having the database backup emailed or sent to your browser for immediate download, the backup file will be deleted from the server when the transfer is finished. Only if you select delivery method “Save to server” will the backup file remain on your server.”

4. Featured Content Gallery

http://www.featuredcontentgallery.com/

“Featured Content Gallery is a WordPress plugin by iePlexus that creates an automated rotating image gallery of your posts or pages for use anywhere within your theme.”

“Choose to automate the plugin and simply add a custom field to each post or page you want to display and the gallery will show the image, an auto-generated thumbnail in the upper carousel, and the title and first few lines of page/post text. Advanced options allow inclusion of custom thumbnail images, text, gallery styles and transitions.”

5. Members Only

http://www.memberwing.com/software/wordpress-membership-site-plugin-memberwing/

“SEO (Search Engine) Optimized from the ground up. Allows you to use teasers (short snippets of text) visible to anyone, including search engines, while keeping your main contents protected and accessible only to members. This feature helps your membership site to be found by prospects on all search engines.”

“Digital Content Download Protection. Protects your files against unauthorized downloads due to link sharing and link “guessing”. No more problems with link sharing!”

“No site redesign or any changes are necessary – you may add it to already existing blog or brand new site.”

6. WordPress File Monitor

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wordpress-file-monitor/

“Monitors your WordPress installation for added/deleted/changed files. When a change is detected an email alert can be sent to a specified address.”

7. PageMash

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/pagemash/

“Customise the order your pages are listed in and manage the parent structure with this simple ajax drag-and-drop administrative interface with an option to toggle the page to be hidden from output. Great tool to quickly re-arrange your page menus.”

8. Simple Press Forum

http://simple-press.com/

“Simple:Press is a feature rich forum plugin for WordPress. It fully integrates into your WP based site utilising the same user records and database and displaying on a single WP page.” “Through it’s powerful and flexible permissions system it is suitable for those who wish to run private, specialist forums with invited members but is equally able to accommodate open, public forums that allow guest posting.”

9. BuddyPress

http://buddypress.org/

“BuddyPress was conceived in 2008 while working to add social networking features to a WordPress MU powered site. The first official stable release was in May 2009. The platform has grown and morphed considerably since then, into the dynamic, easily extensible package you see today.”

“Just like its parent project WordPress, BuddyPress is a completely open source endeavor. Everything from the core code, to the documentation, themes and plugin extensions are all built by the BuddyPress community. This means anyone can help the project by contributing their time and knowledge.”  Source: http://buddypress.org/about/story/

10. Contact Form 7

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/contact-form-7/

“Contact Form 7 can manage multiple contact forms, plus you can customize the form and the mail contents flexibly with simple markup. The form supports Ajax-powered submitting, CAPTCHA, Akismet spam filtering and so on.”

In web design, getting the right combination of colors is important and many factors come into play, for example: the business focus, target market, and your personality as the brand and business owner.

I just had to re-post this cool article about colors that I’d read at websitemagazine.com, especially as I eagerly approve of the characteristics of my favorite colors and how it ties with web design.

I would like to hear what your favorite colors are and if they are part of your website colors combination.

I’ve just started working on a new WordPress custom design project and these are the colors combo that I would be using. Can’t wait to see the finished product.

Enjoy the article!

Trust and the Theory Behind Color

by Peter A. Prestipino

Trust is defined* as, “the reliance on the integrity, strength, ability, surety, etc. of a person or thing.” In relation to Web design, it involves honesty and competence, and a subtle, yet powerful way to achieve that elusive trust factor is through the use of color.

Color theory is a set of principles used to create harmonious color combinations, or color schemes. When determining which color is right for a website, you are not just choosing one color (e.g. make it blue). Your designer will actually be choosing and applying an entire color scheme to a website. Knowing the types of classic color schemes is essential when influencing an end-product.

Monochromatic color schemes use variations in lightness and saturation of a single color, whereas analogous color schemes use colors that are adjacent to each other on the “color wheel.” There are many types of classic color schemes (complimentary and split-complimentary, triadic and tetradic) so let’s instead look at the basics of the colors themselves and how they are perceived by end-users.

Red is considered to be an emotionally intense color. While red is commonly associated with danger, it is also used to stimulate people to make quick decisions. Red is highly visible, so using it to bring text and images to the forefront makes it a perfect color for “buy now” or “add-to-cart” buttons.

While not as aggressive as red, orange is also a highly visible color, ideal for calling attention to or highlighting the most important elements of a design, without causing stress.

Yellow produces a warming effect, arouses cheerfulness, stimulates mental activity, and generates muscle energy. Use yellow to evoke pleasant, uplifting feelings. You can choose yellow to promote children’s products and items related to leisure. Use yellow carefully however, as a dul yellow represents caution.

Green is the color of nature — symbolizing growth, harmony, and fertility. Green has a strong emotional link with safety and is considered to be the most restful color for the human eye. Green suggests stability and endurance, making it a perfect fit for finance-related design, but is also used to indicate safety, making it a viable choice for medical-related design.

Blue, often associated with stability, symbolizes trust, wisdom and confidence. Blue has been shown to produce a calming effect and is often used to promote products and services related to cleanliness. More accepted by males than females, it is a preferred color for corporate America.

Black typically carries a negative connotation but carries with it a feeling of perspective and depth. Strength and authority are also attributed to black. Although black backgrounds diminish readability, combined with other intense colors such as red, they remain aggressive and unique, good for attracting a risk-taking mindset.

1. Always have the email come from the same person at your end. It helps to create a sense of rapport and stability.
2. Never use a subject or title line that is misleading; always make it descriptive of what is in the body of the email.
3. On the other hand, keep it snappy. Instead of “Your November Newsletter”, use the title of one of the more important articles in your newsletter.
4. Make it clear that it is okay to forward the email to others, if the subscriber likes. This form of viral marketing can grow your subscriber list over time.
5. Always include links to your product pages in the body of the email.
6. Also include an easy opt-out link at the bottom of the communication.
7. Be sure to solicit responses and comments. People love to share their thoughts.
8. Formatting is especially important in plain text messages. Keep the attention going by using bulleted lists instead of lengthy paragraphs.
9. Stay away from using all capital letters or italicizing words, as they can be harder to view on a computer screen.
10. Watch the use of color in your emails, especially with text; lighter colors tend to be hard to read, especially on a white background.
11. Use fonts that are similar to those used in most email clients; it will make it easier to arrange the text to best advantage, especially for plain text emails.
12. Include some incentive to visit your website, such as promoting a new product or noting a new blog entry.
13. Don’t forget to include a special offer or a discount from time to time.
14. Always thank the subscribers for their time and support.
15. Before you send the emails to clients, send them to an email address of your own, with one in HTML and another in plain text. That way, you know exactly what the subscriber will see.
16. Don’t be afraid to try something different now and then. Vary texts, layouts, and other elements to see what subscribers respond to best.
17. Keep the text of the email focused; rambling will lose your audience, just as wandering text on your website will drive visitors away.
18. Use a reliable program to blast mail to your subscriber list; most allow you to review a report of successful deliveries once the job is complete.
19. Review the reports regularly, and compare them to spikes in your web site traffic, and the responses you get about specifics of the emails.
20. Used software to tabulate and categorize the responses. It will make it much easier to process them and turn them into usable data.
21. Assess the percentage of response you get. The industry standard is between five and fifteen percent. If you are getting less than that, it is time to rethink your approach.
22. If a response serves as the inspiration for an article in the next newsletter, ask the subscriber if it is okay to mention them by first name and initial. This is enough to maintain anonymity, while still recognizing their contribution.
23. Ask subscribers to submit some of their own copy once or twice a year. You may be surprised with the quality of what you receive. Reward the best one with a free ebook or other product.
24. Send out special holiday emails along with your regular weekly communications.
25. Listen to the feedback from your subscribers. It will help you refine the mailings as you go along.

The spotlight was on moi! I was interviewed at the Virtual Assistant Forums, a great place where VAs meet, connect and share information.

Agnes Ikotun, owner of AI Virtual Solutions, combines her 13 years experience in administration, customer service, and information technology as a VA. With a degree in Management of Information Systems from Greenwich University in London, England, she is a Cisco Certified Network Associate, Network+ Certified Professional, Microsoft Certified Professional, an Expert Rating Certified Professional, and a National Association of Realtors certified Real Estate Professional Assistant. Agnes uses her many skills to support entrepreneurs and small business owners from her office in Connecticut.

Thank you, Agnes, for sharing with us your experiences as a VA!

You started up as a VA in July of ‘07. How did you come to the decision to do this?

I had been a stay-at-home mom to my 6 and 2 year old daughters and they were becoming more independent. I began to have more free time on my hands and I just felt the time was right to venture out into the working world again.

Thinking back to the first three months in business, what was it like? What were the hard parts, the easy parts, how far did you progress in that time?

The first three months, actually the first six months were spent working on the business, since I didn’t have any clients during this period. The easy part was putting the business together, creating my online presence and networking. The difficult part was waiting for the clients to come knocking on my doors.

What was the most difficult thing about launching your business, and how would you characterize your progress during the first year of operation?

It was pretty easy launching my business, the startup cost was extremely low and I found many great free resources to get me going…thanks to the people on Virtual Assistant Forums. I would say that my progress so far is interesting as no one week is the same as the last. I’m still learning how to meet my clients’ needs, build my business and balance work and life and not get overwhelmed.

You concentrate in “Administrative Support, Internet Marketing, Web Design, and Real Estate Support,” according to your website. That’s quite a large range of skills. Please comment on balancing that variety in your work.

I mostly do Internet Marketing, Web Design and Website Maintenance. But I also love when I get to do some administrative, research and other work in between for variety.

What was your previous experience in the traditional job world?

14 years ago, I started off working as a beauty consultant in an exclusive London departmental store. And in between, when I got bored, I temped as an Administrative Assistant. Then I moved into retail banking, providing front end customer services to account holders. My love for computers helped me change my major from Law to Information Systems, and then I shifted gears to the IT industry, where I worked as an IT Administrator supporting business users.

How does being a virtual assistant compare to life as an employee, in your experience?

As an employee, I always chose to do what I enjoyed and it’s the same working as a virtual assistant. I became a stay-at-home mom when we had our first child and I know the challenges many working moms face, even though I was lucky to escape all of that. The biggest bonus of being a VA is that I can manage my family and work on my terms. I don’t have to feel guilty taking time off work because my little one is ill or attend my 7 year old’s class party. Also I can work anywhere and at anytime.

You have many certifications. Please comment on the experience of obtaining these, and their usefulness in your business.

I felt that the quickest way to get into the IT industry without working experience was to get certified and what a great way to learn as well. I self-studied for my exams, using great books and simulations.

I didn’t have plans to go back into the IT industry when kids came into the picture and I was a little disappointed by that. I realized pretty early in my business that I would be using a lot of my IT skills and my clients see the added value that this brings.

What tasks in your business do you enjoy working on the most?

I enjoy doing web design/website maintenance and internet marketing the most.

Which tasks do you dislike the most?

I not too long ago realized that I don’t enjoy doing bookkeeping (for my business), so I’ve taken it off my list of services.

Please describe your office (equipment, furniture, shrines!) and the working atmosphere you prefer.

I have a comfortable home office, a Lenovo ThinkPad laptop, a faithful 7 year old Dell PC and 4-in-1 HP printer combo. I recently got a VOIP phone; it got ridiculous to continue doing business on my cell phone and having dropped calls.

I prefer when it’s quiet, when my kids are at school. I can get a lot more work done.

Your website says you work with “coaches, speakers, authors, and realtors.” Does that accurately describe your current clientele?

Yes, it does. I support this clientele because I admire what they do. But I also have clients from other industries.

What is your advice to other VAs regarding client relations?

Make each client feel that they are your only client. Communication is so important; always keep clients in the loop.

What marketing tools or tactics have worked best for you?

All of my marketing activities have gotten me results. Some of my tactics include posting ads on bulletin boards, mailing out postcards, email marketing, and joining on and offline groups. Even if some haven’t yet produced clients, I’ve definitely gotten exposure.

Having thrived during your first year in business, what goals are you contemplating for the future? What changes do you plan to make during your second year; and what do you want life to be like for you ten years from now?

I’m working on building a business that can accommodate many more clients. In my second year, I want to refine my business model for substantial growth. Ten years is long time away. The most important thing for me is I want my family and loved ones to be healthy and safe. And I also want to be pleasantly surprised by how far I’ve come.

When it comes to getting up in the morning, what really motivates you?

My family motivates me, knowing that they are really proud of me.

What are some of your extracurricular interests?

For now, I have very little time for extracurricular interests. I have one or two movie nights a week with my husband and I enjoy school runs plus taking my oldest to her after school activities and chatting with the other moms.

I do plan on joining my local swimming club in the next few weeks.

You keep a blog on your website. Please discuss the benefits and drawbacks you find in maintaining that page.

I wish I could write more frequently on my blog and I will, soon…lol. It’s a great sample of my “limited” writing skills. A number of potential clients have asked for writing samples and I’ve directed them to my blog. The only drawback is having a blog and not keeping it up to date, not good!

Having been associated with VirtualAssistantForums.com for a long time, what is its benefit to you at this stage of your business/life?

I get to meet other VAs with varying levels of experience and the forum helps me stay informed about what is happening in the VA industry. There’s the tendency to focus less on ones business as it grows. The discussions here help me to pay attention to my business.

I have also connected with some fabulous subcontractors here as well.

Here’s a sample testimonial from one of Agnes’ very happy clients:

“It has been a pleasure to utilize Agnes’s services over the past several years. Her work has always been carried out with excellence, in both attitude and performance detail. She possesses an incredibly high work ethic- a rare commodity in today’s marketplace, and she has been a highly valued resource to us in the accomplishment of our business goals.”

Lisa Mims, Author/Speaker
A Fulfilled Life

Wethersfield CT — September 19, 2008 – Agnes Ikotun, owner of AI Virtual Solutions LLC, has been awarded IVAA Ethics Check award status by the International Virtual Assistant Association (IVAA).

IVAA, the educational and credentialing association for the virtual assisting industry, awards the Ethics Check designation to virtual assistants passing an examination that assesses the virtual assistant’s business ethics competencies in key areas including billing issues, conflict of interest, privacy and confidentiality and the ability to perform the work.

The IVAA Ethics Check examination and Code of Ethics were designed to mitigate mistrust and serve to enable e-services internationally. They do so by bringing a single ethical benchmark to the diverse e-marketplace, setting a standard for cross-border business practices, helping ethical VAs set themselves apart from others, and helping prospective contractors to find e-service providers with a confirmed ethical foundation.

In accordance with IVAA Code of Ethics, Ms. Ikotun agrees to always exercise integrity, honesty and diligence in carrying out her professional duties and responsibilities. Safeguarding the interest of colleagues and clients and will not knowingly be a party to any illegal or unethical activity.

Ms. Ikotun believes that good business ethics should be a part of every business. Her key values are centered on excellence, integrity, and the desire to be an instrument in the success of her clients. Her motto is to treat everyone the way she also wants to be treated.

Agnes Ikotun specializes in providing virtual assistant services for coaches, speakers and authors around the globe.

For more information, contact:
Agnes Ikotun, Chief Virtual Assistant
AI Virtual Solutions, LLC
Phone: (860) 869-3525
E-Mail: info@aivirtualsolutions.com
Website: www.aivirtualsolutions.com

Happy 1st Birthday to
AI Virtual Solutions

But do you take work home on a regular basis? Or are deadlines an issue? Jane Schulte, author of Work Smart, Not Hard!, says these are sure signs it’s time to delegate, whether you like it or not.

Here are some of her pointers for successful delegation:

* Start small, then increase delegation as skills develop.
* Define clear goals, deadlines and criteria for success.
* Provide all the needed resources and information.
* Give your subordinate full authority over the project.
* Offer guidance and advice without interfering.
* Focus on results, not the process.

If the project is successful, credit the person who got the job done; if there are problems, Schulte advises shielding the responsible subordinate from blame. “Learn from the experience so you can delegate more effectively, provide more training or delegate the next project to a different person,” she says.

The Po!nt: “Work should always be done by the lowest competent level,” says Schulte. Go down the chain of command, find the right person for the job, give them the tools they need to succeed and refocus on the high-level issues that demand your expertise.

Source: An unpublished article by Jane Schulte