ListMessenger.net is an online service for e-mail marketing and sending e-mail newsletters

Next to my work as a consultant, I own a business offering an online service for e-mail marketing and sending e-mail newsletters. It’s called ListMessenger.net, and earlier this month we’ve launched a new website. At the same time, we introduced a new pricing model. An account now costs US$ 149 per year.
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Google Website Optimizer helps webmasters and site owners improve their website and increase conversions and sales

When people arrive on your website after clicking an ad or a link, the first page they see is what is known as the ‘landing page’. The purpose of this page is to enable the visitor to buy your product, request a quote, sign up to be a member or receive a newsletter, or whatever action you had in mind.

There are many things that can distract your potential customer from completing that action. Online expert and author Tim Ash presented a webinar on “7 Deadly Sins of Landing Page Design”, for the Google Website Optimizer YouTube channel.

It’s a pretty long video, where the 7 most common problems are presented, including recommendations to fix those problems. In the second part of the video, Tim answers questions from the audience.

If you don’t have the time to watch this video, I’ve made a list of the 7 common problems in landing page design and the fixes that Tim Ash suggest.

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After my previous post about working with clients in many time zones, I was wondering in just how many different parts of the worlds they are. So I put some markers on a map, and here is the result:

Time Zone Check shows the time zones on a pretty map

Since I started my company, I’ve worked with many people from all across the globe. Five or ten years ago, this would have been virtually impossible, or at least extremely expensive. My telephone bill would have gone through the roof. But today, with e-mail, instant messaging and Skype, it’s easy and affordable to communicate with people everywhere.

So now that distance and communication costs are no longer an issue, I’ve found that there is a new challenge: finding the right time to talk. With clients in many time zones, this sometimes takes a lot of calculating and planning. Fortunately, the web offers nice tools to manage this too. One of the prettiest I know is Time Zone Check. This site shows me a map of the world, with my own current local time. Then, when I point my mouse at the location of someone I would like to talk to, the map shows me what time it is in their part of the world. I can even search for cities by name if I don’t know the exact location.

The map also shows me where it is night and where it is day, the places in the world where they’re currently enjoying daylight savings, the abbreviations of the time zones and the time difference between those time zones and my own time zone.

The most common reason people give for not making backups of their computer is: “I forgot”. That’s understandable, but also very unfortunate. Especially when there are free solutions that allow anyone to make regular backups.

Mozy is a free backup tool for your computer

One of those products is called Mozy. It’s a piece of software that you install on your computer (did I mention it’s free!), and then you can literally forget about making backups. Mozy will remember for you, and automatically make those precious backups once or twice a day, or just as often as you want. The backups are stored on Mozy’s servers, on the internet. So if your computer or laptop is stolen or breaks, your data is still safe and sound, ready to be restored as soon as you have a working computer again.

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