Invoicing to some is like filing taxes, it seems like a chore. Usually it´s because there is no system in place or tools are lacking to gather required information and generate an invoice. Procrastination is the case for many.
It seems like very simple and obvious advice, but I think many small business owners need to hear it time and time again.
What our customers tell us time and time again is that FreshBooks makes invoicing so easy that they can do it right away without procrastinating. With invoicing out of the way, the procrastinating can shift to other things such as cleaning your office, getting a haircut, and finishing that novel you have been working on for the last ten years.
In the cyber underworld’s never-ending quest for weak spots, home computers are coming under increased attack as businesses tighten their defences, according to the latest Symantec Internet security threat report.
Now, I have a question, is this a valid story, or is it a PR story for Symantec aimed at selling more virus software? The answer is that it’s probably a little of both, but since we have a number of readers of this blog who are IT and networking professionals, perhaps we can hear from you on this one.
If you are like me, you probably do not want to take the risk either way. Even if they are only partially true, I think it is always worthwhile to take reasonable steps to protect your PC and your information. For me that means investing and updating my virus software and treading carefully on the web, for others it may mean buying a Mac
We run an office and a technology company and I find faxes a pain. They come in and they need to be sorted and stored, so they take up space and paper. I also find maintaining our fax machine a pain. Our fax machine is a nice little Panasonic – but it is old school and requires a roll of carbon film instead of ink for printing. It runs out every few weeks and swapping it as well as shopping for supplies is a pain. Worse yet, when I looked at the used carbon films last week I realized how inefficient they are. The carbon pages are wasteful, as is using paper to receive faxes. Besides, filing electronic documents is much easier that filing paper documents (clutter, physical office space, searchability later on).So…we’ll be making the move to eFaxing solutions soon. Here are a couple we are looking at:
I just updated my preferences in Rackspace’s Noteworthy hosted email service. They confirmed my changes when they reloaded the page with RED TEXT like this:
Red increases the pulse and heart rate, and raises your blood pressure. It increases the appetite by increasing your metabolism, which is why red is such a popular color in restaurants. It is active, aggressive and outspoken. One bank found that their lines moved faster when they increased the use of red in the bank lobby, and in a study of several hundred college students, a researcher found that they responded more quickly to cues under red light than under green light.
Powerful stuff eh? Red text (like a red marker from your school days) also has negative connotaions…it is inherently “alarming” to see something in red text – I know I feel alarmed when I see red text and that is who I felt using Noteworthy.
To confirm a message when you are building web apps, use a happy colour like green and reinforce good behaviour and build trust. Doing this also lets you save red for when you need it…to alert and alarm your users when they have done something, or are about to do something, they need to be aware of.
In just three months, our forum has grown to almost 200 members with over 1000 posts. This accomplishment has been the direct result of our FreshBooks community members. We at FreshBooks would like to thank all of you for being part of the FreshBooks community. I would also like to take this opportunity to officially announce the winners of our custom login page contest.
All three of them were the first to reach our 100 post goal and each of them will be receiving a custom login page ($279 USD value). Congratulations to all of them. Surprisingly, all three have opted to have their custom login pages created at a later date while they finalize their webpage designs. You can expect a post in the future, when their custom login pages have been completed.
In addition, all three of them have volunteered to help us moderate our forum as well as post useful resources on our forums. You can expect some new forums with great content popping up soon. We’ll post them here when we release them soon.
Special mention to our runner ups.
4. Danimal 5. PrudensConsulting
6. NorthIowaWebsites 7. JVS 8. Mthorn 9. Trafficlight 10. Cutterjdf
You can expect more contests in the future, so stay tuned.
In the second of our Fall teleseminar series, Andrew Goodman, author of “Winning Results with Google AdWords”, shares his knowledge and answers your questions about how to get started with creating and managing a pay-per-click advertising campaign.
(PLEASE NOTE: The media player I used to listen to and record times for these notes is terrible. I apologize if the times are wrong and promise you this: I will never use Musicmatch Jukebox again.)
Here are some notes and timelines from our call with Andrew:
(0.20) – Andrew Goodman introduced.
(1.42) – Why would someone want to consider pay-per-click advertising, and how important is it in the landscape of marketing & advertising?
(3.25) – When it’s realistic to pay for some of your traffic.
(3.57) – Paid campaigns are measurable and accountable. Keyword success and volume of traffic can be tracked with precision.
(4.17) – What does a PPC advertisement look like?
(6.09) – What is content targeting?
(6.34) – Things to consider when you first set up your PPC campaign settings.
(7.30) – What to consider when measuring the return on cost.
(8.10) – Client example: results of measuring online & traditional advertising.
(8.54) – Can you choose the web site you want to run PPC advertising on?
(9.05) – Control over where your ads are shown.
(11.10) – What are the big search networks, and how would you prioritize them with regards to where you should advertise?
(13.18) – What are the differences in working with these top three search engines (Google, Yahoo, MSN)?
(15.54) – Optimized ads get higher response.
(16.27) – The trade off between more targeted ads and lower click through rates.
(16.33) – The best ad combines a relatively high click through rate with clear language that filters out bad prospects.
(16.45) – Can you use your ad to further qualify people who are running a search?
(17.00) – Client example of unclear ad wording and what kind of prospects came through as a result.
(17.40) – How Google calculates an ad rank (CTR x CTC plus quality score).
(18.05) – How Google determines and penalizes “abusive” ads and landing pages.
(19.15) – Is Google looking for a strong connection between the ad you place in front of people, and the page those people land on once they click on the ad?
(20.14) – Google places value on disclosure and credibility factors (contact page and business information. FreshBooks has a blog post about how to design a good contact page form).
(21.20) – Many of Google’s rules have come from search engine users’ complaints about deceptive ads.
(21.50) – Does Google looks at page elements to make sure they’re consistent with the ads?
(22.28) – How Yahoo differs from Google.
(23.11) – Google offers A/B ad testing.
(24.04) – Which search network to start your PPC campaign with and why.
(27.34) – Do low performing click through rates of some keywords in an ad group bring down the value of all keywords in the same group?
(29.27) – Is it better to start out with fewer ad groups, and then refine from there?
(30.00) – Planning a category structure using a high level of granularity.
(30.31) – What kind of work should be done before you start bidding on keywords?
(31.25) – Account, campaign, and AdGroup settings and structure in Google.
(32.35) – Using a category structure of theme or meaning helps you analyse later.
(29.35) – Can you recommend any keyword research resources, tips to help with keyword research?
(31.02) – Client example: using specific product names.
(32.40) – Using the long tail terms (less frequently searched terms) and dynamic keyword insertion.
(33.36) – How your customers can help you perform keyword research.
(35.09) – Use benefit related features and plain language when writing your copy.
(36.41) – Some of my keywords have a click through rate above 5% but many don’t pass 1%. Should I concentrate only on higher click through keywords?
(39.30) – How do I target my ads to a specific geographic region?
(40.57) – Is an ad judged for overall CTR or does individual keyword rank the word higher?
(42.11) – Users gravitate to ad that matches more closely into search box. Does that mean create one ad per keyword?
(45.57) – The more advanced questions will be answered in next week’s podcast.
(47.25) – Final words of encouragement for starting a pay-per-click advertising campaign.
Next podcast:
Don’t miss part two with world-renowned expert Andrew Goodman, which will deal with more advanced techniques of running pay-per-click campaigns. Sign up.
I’ve been trading emails with Nick from Pipeline Deals today, when I mentioned that I work on a PC platform he said:
“WHAT!! Are you a designer?”
He did add a smilie to those words I have since removed…for effect. Anyway, this was my response:
“Yes, I’m one of those rare designers that are loyal to PC’s. So far, I haven’t had a reason to jump ship yet.”
It seems like nowadays every designer is opting for the Mac route – they don’t even consider the PC platform. Could it be because:
ease of use
stability
performance
appearance
that Macs are just the norm for people in the design field.
Everyone has their own reasons I guess. Macs are easy to use but not any more easier than Windows XP . Are Macs really more stable? I’ve heard horror stories from both sides. Are Macs that much faster? There is the RISC vs. CISC comparison. (Why are the new Macs sporting the new Intel Core Duo chipset?). I think that with a little knowledge on the tasks you perform and some TLC every now and then (something every computer user should show) you’ll be fine. No clear cut winner in performance or stability. As for appearance, those Macs do look damn sexy. But hey, nothing white spray paint and some “Powered by Intel” stickers can’t fix . One thing Mac definately excels in is in movie editing capability. Mac and Final Cut is the way to go for sure.
Anyways that’s my post. I’ve been a PC user all my life and I don’t seem myself switching over anytime soon. Let me know what you all are running on and why… I’m curious.
P.S. I’m probably going to take a lot of heat for this post, so please try to be nice.
With the release of our ground mail invoicing service, we wanted to let people know that they can send one piece of ground mail for free from their FreshBooks account. So we added a little notice to our Subscribe page. Here is our orginal subscribe page:
Here is our new subscribe page with the ground mail notice/offer:
Looks lovely doesn’t it? Well guess what? Fewer people are subscribing from this new page. Despite the offer. No kidding.
We track how many people look at our subscribe page, and how many people then go on to sign-up. (If you want to know more about my thoughts on tracking metrics for web applications, read this article). In this case, over 2% FEWER people are signing up now…that two percent matters, and we have enough data confirm it’s true. I’m going to run it for a little longer – just to be 100% certain – but I’d say you can expect us to take that down in another week or two…and if not, I’ll update this thread with an explanation.
Important Point: The reason I know when we put this graphic up on our subscribe page, is we maintain a very important file we call “THE CHANGE LOG”. In it we detail any changes we make to our site, and the date we make them. Thanks to this file I can select date intervals in my web analytics for before and after the change, and draw meaningful conclusions.
If you maintain a website and making periodic changes, keep a change log. It’s worth the effort.
Okay, no hate mail please, I know it’s not even October yet. But listen, how many of you leave your Christmas shopping until the last week, or even day? Exactly. So in the run up to the jolly holiday season I’ll be occasionally posting links to cool/geeky (same thing) gifts in the hope of averting the Christmas Eve rush to The Gap (or if you’re my brother, The Dollar Store) and all the associated stress that brings you. And your significant other…
Go on, FreshBooks helps you get your business organized, let us help you organize your shopping too! And why not get yourself a little something while you’re at it.
Fun for the shower (no, not that kind of fun, mind in the gutter). It says out of stock, but yesterday Matt W. of customer service assured me that a new shipment is expected within 1-2 weeks.
Don’t get me started on frames that prevent linking to specific pages, but this site has some cool stuff. Go to “Kids, Dogs, Fun” for viewmasters with sharks & dinosaurs, “Sensuous Home” for a retro poker set under, and “Office, Tech” for fat buddhas that hold your letters.
All items will be added to my Paruba list for easy reference. Happy shopping!
Since almost the beginning of releasing FreshBooks (formerly 2ndSite), we have been sending out emails to our userbase to keep them informed of new releases and other interesting news. We have always tried to keep these emails to a minimum even though the temptation to send more is huge. Everytime we send an email, our website traffic spikes, we end up getting more people logging into their FreshBooks accounts and quite often our sales go up. I’m not sure why we have always tried to limit the number of emails going out, I think it was a gut feel that we don’t want to inundate our precious readers with too much information, or they will eventually tune out, and the email will no longer be effective.
The reason I killed my email list years ago was that it was too good at provoking a reaction. People are listening (which is good) so you better be very careful what you say and how you say it.
Even better, save your email for things you really and truly want to say.
Mike and I have sometimes disagreed about this in the past, but yesterday when we talked about sending out reminders for the teleseminars we agreed wholeheartedly that the email should only go to a select group that signed up for the teleseminars. Our first email about the teleseminars went out to our entire email list and it spawned a fair bit of interest. However, to do this every week we both thought would end up doing more harm than good.
FreshBooks is an online invoicing and time tracking service that helps professionals in over 100 countries save time, get paid faster, look professional and focus on what they love to do — their work. Read our customer survey results — 99% recommend FreshBooks. FreshBooks users are served by a tight-knit team of 31 dedicated individuals based in Toronto, Canada who've been at this since 2003.
. Are Macs really more stable? I’ve heard horror stories from both sides. Are Macs that much faster? There is the 
Copyright © 2000-2009