Website Effectiveness

>> Written on January 4th, 2010 by Leon

Well done on having a website for your business but is it doing what it should, ie generating hits and sales leads? Here’s a few things you should really be doing to measure and improve your website’s effectiveness if you feel its not doing anything for you: Read the full article »

>> Posted in How to Guides, Internet Tips, Website Optimization Tips | 2 Comments »

The Beatles – Blackbird

>> Written on January 2nd, 2010 by Leon

Had a bit of time over Christmas as you do and learned this excellent Beatles song after hearing Paul McCartney play it live in the O2 just before Christmas. It’s just me singing and playing acoustic guitar.

Podcast: Download

>> Posted in General, Podcasts, Recent Projects | 0 »

Wordpress and Realex Integration

>> Written on December 23rd, 2009 by Leon

I am very pleased to announce that proper Credit Card and Laser transactions using Realex processing can now be taken on Wordpress powered sites via the Shopping Cart plugin from Tribulant. I think this is a significant development considering both the recent popularity of Wordpress as a full website content management and E-commerce system and the position Realex occupies as one of the world’s most popular credit card processors. I am also glad to have personally initiated, advised and funded the integration.

>> Posted in Latest News, Wordpress Tips | 0 »

Paul McCartney O2 Dublin Review

>> Written on December 21st, 2009 by Leon

Looked forward to this gig greatly. It’s not often you get to see a Beatle live and my favorite one at that!

The luas extension to the O2 from our Tallaght base was dead handy and we arrived in good time on a freezing night to grab a warming coffee and find our seats, or so we thought! It turned out that between the time I chose my seats while booking priority tickets online to the time I paid, I managed to go from securing great seats to standing only. Pretty disappointing as I vowed never to stand at a gig again after U2 in Slane. Bad back you see. I was pretty pissed of for a while as I thought I booked seats and I don’t know why there was a block and seat number on the printed tickets? Sure enough by the end of the night I was in agony both from standing and from the bitch beside me who seemed to think she was the only one at the gig and flailed around whacking everyone close to her.. Read the full article »

>> Posted in Reviews | 17 Comments »

Name and Fame!?

>> Written on December 17th, 2009 by Leon

My Name and Shame category, where I name companies who havn’t paid me or who offer a lousy service has generated a lot of talk lately. It seems to have had the desired effect from my point of view in that several companies have been alerted to the articles I wrote about them and have reacted angrily!

Hopefully they now know they can’t completely get away with some of the things they try to and presuming they are not totally stupid they should take a look at their operation and make sure they don’t piss people off in the future. So I’m really helping them!

However, I have also been advised not to moan too much about companies in case it ends up reflecting badly on me in some way. To that end I am now going to write some articles about the good service I have received from certain companies.

It wont be as much fun, but it’s only fair!

Stay tuned…

Leon.

>> Posted in Named & Famed, Named & Shamed | 0 »

Ticket Scams and Google Accountability

>> Written on December 16th, 2009 by Leon

Lots of talk today about fans of Miley Cyrus (or their parents!) getting ripped off by fake ticket sites as they desperately try to secure seats for their kids. The usual rules apply when buying anything online:

• Only buy from secure “https” URL’s.
• Only buy from well known sites.
• Don’t buy tickets from an untrusted or unknown source no matter how pro it looks.
• Ticketmaster.ie is the only place you should really be buying tickets from for major gigs in Ireland.
• Visit the Ticketmaster.ie site only by typing it in your browser as opposed to clicking a link in an email or search result.

However, there is another issue here and one that I was reading about only yesterday – SEO is dead, long live SEO in which the author talks about Google turning a blind eye to cynical and possibly illegal practices whereby companies buy links and use dirty tricks to get themselves up the search engine results at the expense of more honest companies who use traditional SEO methods.

What happens in our problem above is that people Google “Miley Cyrus Tickets” or whatever and as well as the legitimate sites coming up in results, you also see a number of fake or “phishing” sites that may only just have been put up a few weeks ago or may even be using Google AdWords to get to the top of the pile.

The question is, should the search engines be doing more to vet or block out these kinds of sites and by doing so wrestle control of the web and safe browsing back from these criminals?

I think so..

Leon.

>> Posted in Internet Tips | 0 »

Advertising in Leitrim

>> Written on December 15th, 2009 by Leon

I’m running a new site www.AboutLeitrim.ie which aims to collect and display all kinds of Leitrim News from Property and Jobs to Entertainment and Local Services information. I hope that this site will become a great resource for anyone interested in Leitrim, living and doing business in it, or maybe considering a move here. It’s well on the way to achieving this. Read the full article »

>> Posted in General, Latest News | 0 »

Add a Gallery to Wordpress using NextGen

>> Written on December 14th, 2009 by Leon

In this tutorial, I’ve tried to explain the relatively simple process of adding a nice, pro looking photo gallery to a Wordpress Post or Page using the well known and excellent NextGen Gallery Plugin.

Podcast: Download

>> Posted in How to Guides, Video Tutorials, Wordpress Tips | 0 »

Average Web Design Costs UK and Ireland

>> Written on December 14th, 2009 by Leon

Here’s an interesting statistical analysis of the average cost of having website work done in this part of the world, whether it be e-commerce, basic brochure with CMS or just a one pager:

www.thewebdesignblog.co.uk/web-resources/share-your-web-design-prices-anonymously

I’m glad to say I’m way below the average cost of a finished site and about the average for hourly rates!!

>> Posted in General | 0 »

Showing Links and Widgets on your Wordpress Site

>> Written on December 14th, 2009 by Leon

This tutorial covers adding the Links widget and others to the sidebar of your Wordpress site/blog:

>> Posted in How to Guides, Video Tutorials, Wordpress Tips | 0 »