You can read the post at – Build Restaurant Website for FREE! Now I am taking that to the next level by adding photo gallery, direction and review page. So I was doing a favor to a local business friend to build a quick website at very low cost to drive instant traffic to the site.

Redbrick Pizza Gilbert is a well established pizza restaurant in the USA. The store in Gilbert and Chandler wants a website in just matter of few days. So I helped them put together a single page restaurant web site at first. Now the site has grown to multiple pages.

As you can see the first page contains a huge 20% OFF coupon, which has been printed many times since the first day launched the site. There are also photo gallery page, direction and reviews page. The idea is not building the world most beautiful restaurant website, but a high conversion website. With the huge discount at front page, the printing rate dramatically increase.

One thing I did differently this time is to use Facebook comment box for reviews. The beauty is that other Fanpages can also post the comments on the page and instantly share the reviews with their fans.

The comment box also allows you to moderate the review before it goes public. However, it requires a little technical background to enable the comment moderation. Basically, you will need to add Facebook Open Graph Protocol on your blogger site and include two important piece of properties: admin_id and app_id.

Without these two properties, you won’t be able to moderate the comments. Believe me, there will people posting garbage or spam comment on our comment box.

You can find out more about adding Facebook open graph and enable social search on your website from the two Facebook Fanpage Secrets blog posts on the right sidebar.

Of course, you can also add real Google Map reviews, Yelp Reviews or any reviews from other third part business directory websites. The idea is to share the reviews as quick as it’s published. With Facebook comment box, your page will be seen by many location relevant Facebook users.

The advantage of using blogger is that it gets indexed by Google almost instantly. If you build your site in the proper procedure, your site can be indexed in matter of 30 minutes. However, blogger is still not as flexible as WordPress. One other advantage of using blogger is that it allows you to post Javascript in the page content. Unlike WordPress, you will have to tweak the template to allow Javascript.

This isn’t what I am trying to do every day. It’s definitely a slowlane project. I can’t refuse to help desperate local business owners.

Image Source: the law Courtesy of losiek

This afternoon, I spent 6 hours in the book store and tried to pickup a marketing book that will help me boost my online business. I pick one from the 16 marketing books. The book is written by Beth Goldstein, founder of Marketing Edge Consulting Group, LLC. The book name is The Ultimate Small Business Marketing Toolkit: All the Tips, Forms, and Strategies You’ll Ever Need!

I have a lot of reading home work to do. I may come back to pick few of the rest 15 marketing books.

If you read my blog post in the past few days, you probably feel my anger about the marketing company. I have decided to fire my marketing companies and do Internet Marketing on my own. The goal is to lower the marketing cost and boost the sales.

Why is this book my pick for the day? First of all, I am looking for a marketing book that actually tells me the truth. I want a book that tells me from the scratch. I know there are many ways to do marketing for small business, but I need a book tell me why I need those methods and how to execute them. While glance through all 16 books, my common sense told me that they are all talking about the same things. You have to do this and do that. Some books tell you how important it is to use direct mail, e-mail marketing, PPC and even cover the SEO.

The Ultimate Small Business Marketing Toolkit: is the only three books that cover the why. It also give me a worksheet of questions that I should ask myself before beginning my marketing works. The CD come with the book give you all those form. The books also give you examples from the real companies and show you the ways they do their marketing.

I have read more in order to tell my real comments about the book. So far, the book have my attention and have me bought the book. There are many reviews on Amazon about the book. Here is one of the quick reviews about the book.

1. Practical, and one can apply/use the information immediately

2. Has real-life stories of entrepreneurs

3. Great interviews with experts in the field

4. A strong focus on sales and marketing and how they need to work together

5. An important focus on developing customer surveys…everything you need to know in order to develop your own and make sure the information is valuable and can help you make decisions

6. A CD-Rom is so well designed it makes it really easy to use the information in the book and apply it to your own business…whether it’s still a concept or a business you’ve been running for years

7. A down to earth, easy to read format

There are few things that I have to say about the book. This book won’t solve my challenge on increasing my online store conversion rate. This is not a technical book, web site design guide and not even a SEO book. This is a book that tell a marketing novice like me to start my planning my own marketing strategies for my own small business.

If you ever bought this book or already have bought this book, please leave your comments about the book.

Image Source: Playing with some coloured pencils – This image has been enhanced.

[UPDATE] To focus more on the topic about entrepreneur, I have moved the Blog Post Header Image – Collection 3 to My Photo Blog.

Here you can see all the collection of my Blog Header Images:

• Blog Post Header Images – Collection 7
• Blog Post Header Images – Collection 6
• Blog Post Header Images – Collection 5
• Blog Post Header Images – Collection 4
• Blog Post Header Images – Collection 3
• Blog Post Header Images – collection 2
• Blog Post Header Images – collection 1

Image Source: Harvest Time – This image has been chopped and blurred from the distance

Continuing my monthly effort to list the photos that I used in my blog posts, here are more photos. Enjoy and remember to read my blog post. You can see my first blog post header image collection from the following link.
Blog Post Header Images – collection 1

Or visit my Photography page for the collections.

If you like what you see, please help me to spread the world to your friends.

Increase Google Page Ranking with RSS FEED – No buying, selling and bribing

Image Source: Roots – This image has been chopped and enhanced.

Blog Post Header Images – collection 1

Image Source: Noche de luna llena…Full moon night – This image has been chopped and retouched.

Work hard and play hard – A life long entrepreneur journey for two

Image Source: Kiss Me by Terence Chang – This image has been chopped and enhanced.

Back in the page ranking game. Let’s get the ball rolling!

Image Source: And the games have begun The image has been cropped.

Can you take the risk to re-brand yourself as a true Internet entrepreneur?

Image Source: Gambling man

Work, Travel, Have Fun, Live and Survive in China

Image Source: Soldiers

Add trusted image to your online business with toll free phone number

Image Source: Telephone Line

Are you ready for Valentine’s Day? What’s your gift idea?

Image Source: Pam & Mark

Clock is ticking – Are you working hard or working smart

Image Source: Petoskey Clock Tower

Do you work like an entrepreneur or a dreamer?

Image Source: Uluwatu Temple, Bali

Do you have a winning team? Is your team smarter?

Image Source: Terence Chang (ME)

Fireworks that rocks Taipei 101 – Great photos to share with the world.

Image Source: 2008 New Year – Taipei 101

Does your blog make lemonade? Make your blog interesting with header images

Image Source: when life gives you lemons, make the best lemonade ever

It’s a small world! Your bitchy web site visitors are your best friends.

Image Source: principle of design

How to succeed in the e-commerce world? Follow the 30/70 golden rule.

Image Source: Against Corporate Policy

Get your online business started with computer rental

Images Source: Discovery Launched

Image Source: Noche de luna llena…Full moon night – This image has been chopped and retouched.

After I post “Does your blog make lemonade? Make your blog interesting with header images“, I have been using post header images on almost every posts on this blog. I believe that an interesting blog header image will give the post some nice vivid touch. It also gives the reader a better idea about the post. All of the images I used in my posts are either licensed by flickr.com or taken by me. I include all those third party photos under my favorites page.

So here are the collections of my blog header images:

• Blog Post Header Images – Collection 7
• Blog Post Header Images – Collection 6
• Blog Post Header Images – Collection 5
• Blog Post Header Images – Collection 4
• Blog Post Header Images – Collection 3
• Blog Post Header Images – collection 2
• Blog Post Header Images – collection 1

In many cases, I modify the images and make them look even more interesting. I love photoshop, the best photo editing tool available in the digital world. I used a lot of tricks to enhance the photos, including retouching, burning, erasing unwanted spot, rearranging the objects in the photo, adjusting the contrast, adjusting brightness, setting auto color, setting auto level and many other modifications.

I will start a series of photo collections every month to list the images that I used in my blog post. This will give my reader a greater idea what my photography taste is. So enjoy the photos and remember to read my posts!

Who is reading your blog? Why do you care?

Image Source: moberg trusts nobody

Free CASH for your free lunch!

Image Source: Mixed Cash

Got traffic? Try this greyhat SEO email program

Image Source: Experiment II

Build close relationship without love

Image Source: Relationship

A life long journey to be a success Internet Entrepreneur

Image Source: Nothing

Happy New Year – A kiss from the distance

Images Source: sommerliebe

Think the bright side and make 2008 a better year

Image Source: smoky forest

7 ways to boost your business revenue

Image Source: Busy Vendor by Terence Chang

Does your future look blurry – Put yourself together piece by piece

Image source: A Course for Nowhere

2007 Yearly Review – Is my success predictable?

Image Source: schattenreich

One step at a time – Don’t look back

Image Source: Up or Down

Get closer to the windows and see the big picture

Image Source: Me

Back to where I started

Image Source: Taipei

One tree at a time – Move on to the next journey

Image Source: kogdato wild pears raztsvetal

Are you acting fast enough to be ahead of your dream?

Image Source: aspiration!

Fatal accident that should not happen at first place

Image source: speed lights 2

Brand the great to the greatest

Image source: The Great Wall of China

A small change makes you one step closer to your dream?

Image Source: Chess in the Park

Are you driving your blog to the wrong direction? A self-interview!

Image Source: The Loneliest Highway in the World

Mountain, Lake, Trees and a wife – A nice sunny afternoon

Do you use header image in your post? Leave your post URL and I will visit your post.

Image Source: Telephone Line

A while back I post “10 Google programs to operate your small business for FREE.” Running a business requires a lot of attention to the business operation. Saving your business operation cost is equally important to make profit. Make your customer’s life easier and save their money will bring you more business. It’s also important to make your customer trusting your business. Providing great products is not enough. Give your customer a great customer services is also important.

I have tried many ways to lower the cost of my business operation. I found reliable web hosting from ANHosting.com. I use Google’s free calendar, gmail, and alert for my day to day business operation. I use free AOL pictures to store my huge photo collections.

What’s next money saving add-on for my business operation?

Recently, I added a toll free phone number to my online business. I was using AIM Phoneline for a while. It’s a great service, but it’s not free to my customers. You can read more about it at “Best communication tool for your home based business – AIM Phone Line.” I decided to get a toll free number from Kall8.com. Kall8.com offers great 1-800, 1-888, 1-877 and 1-866 toll free services. It’s a pay-as-you-go type of services. It costs just US$2.00 to setup and US$2.00 monthly fee to get start. It charges US 6.9 cents per minutes. With this toll free phone number, you can receive voice mail, fax and redirect / forward the toll free call to any phone you like in the United States. You can also forward the calls to different phone numbers based on the schedule. For example, you can forward the calls to your cell phone between 8 AM to 5 PM, and forward the calls to your home office phone number. If you signup with multiple toll free numbers and forward to the same phone number, you can also enable the call announcement. This will tell which toll free phone number your customers are calling. You can manage all those under one account.

I can receive the voice mail through email. I can also listen to the voice mail on the web. I am very happy so far with their toll free services. There are also other add-on services you can get with very low monthly fee.

If you would like to add the toll free phone number to your business, you can check it out at Kall8.com.

Many bloggers already know that a blog widget can help you drive traffic or making money online or get better SERP ranking. Not long ago, I signed up the BlogRush just like every bloggers did. My blog don’t have a lot of traffic like many other high profile bloggers. Few months past, I only get less than 20 hits from the BlogRush. So it’s time to take it off my blog and save some space.

Instead, entrecard has earned my trust and took a little space on my blog.

Just few days ago, I signed up EntreCard, a better ways to drive traffic. In just three days, I got over 60 unique clicks through the services. I also have more than 10 blog want to advertise on my blog. It’s interesting to see how much traffic I will be getting in the next three months. So if you want to drive some real traffic, please signup EntreCard and drop your card on my widget.

The only thing that I hope EntreCard to offer is to allow multiple blog under one account. It will make more sense to manage all blogs at one place.

Do you use EntreCard on your blogs? Drop your card on mine, I will drop your in return! Leave comment, I will visit your blog too!

Just one day after post my weird credit card issues with VistaPrint on Warning – VistaPrint Free Business Card will rip you off, I saw two strangers in my web log. One is from Vertrue, the marketing company who has charges me twice for not signing up their crappy deals. And one from VistaPrint, who released my credit card information to Vertrue and trick me to be charged for nothing.

Obviously, they do care about what people say about them. They search Google and found my post about their problems. I am still dealing with my credit card company and trying to dispute the charges. If you are interested in using VistaPrint as your online printing source. Please do yourself a favor! Read their privacy and security policy.

In addition, we may share the information we collect with other companies with whom we have joint marketing arrangements.

…..

It is also possible that VistaPrint may partner with or purchase another company to continue to do business as a combined entity. In the event that this occurs, it is possible that our customer information may be transferred to the new business entity as one of VistaPrint’s assets. In such an event, we will update this policy to reflect any change in ownership or control of your personal information.

I want to clarify that I was a VERY VERY HAPPY customers of VistaPrint. It’s over!

VistaPrint will sell your credit card information regardless you like it or not.

Being a business owner, I have been using VistaPrint’s wonderful business card services for years. Recently, I print another sets of business cards with their discount deals. It prompts me to join a third party program. It was described as a totally free and no obligation program, which sounds too much like the scam deal. I opt it and say NO to the program. A week later now, I saw my VISA card transaction, I saw two $14.95 charges from AP9*PASSPORTVISTA and SHOPPING ESSENTIALS.

I did a research and found others with the same issues. You can read the Ripoff Report at Report: VistaPrint – AP9*PASSPORTVISTA – AP9*PASSPORT TO FUN – SHOPPING ESSENTIALS – Vertrue and find the suggested answer to this issues.

Turns out – VistaPrint is very flexible with their customers credit card information and sold it to Vertrue, Inc. Who in turn uses it in all of their departments – each with a different name ie – PASSPORT TO FUN, PASSPORTVISTA, SHOPPING ESSENTIALS and BUSINESS MAX.

As a victim of this scam, I have learned one thing.

DO NOT TAKE NO FOR AN ANSWER! NO DO NOT REALLY MEAN NO!

Please spread the words to all your friends and let them no about this issues. I hate to say that I was happy with VistaPrint, but they pissed me off!

NO MORE VistaPrint CRAP!

Technorati Tags: VistaPrint, rip off, ripped off, scam, privacy, selling your information, credit card theif, identiry thief, bad business, consumer alert

Although it’s a great new features for Gmail user to talk to their buddy on AIM. It does require you to login to AIM. I have some concern about the privacy issues. It basically open the door for spammer to get your AIM buddy’s email account.

I am never a fan Google Talk. I have been an AIM user since 1998. I currently use AIM for my day to day business operation. I use AIM chat, AIM PhoneLline and AIM WIMZI. I can’t just get rid of the AIM desktop client. So Google Talk is useless to me.

If you are as paranoid as I am, I have Yahoo Messenger, AIM and MSN Live messenger on my desktop. Do I want another Google Talk client occupy my desktop? No way!

Although it’s simply a screen capture of my blog title, it’s a warm welcome from one of my readers. Glen Graham from The GNR Group Web Design has shown me the very welcome link love on his blog link page. He took the screenshot and list my site. It’s thanksgiving day! I am so glad to receive the warm welcome in the morning. Glen’s blog is also listed on my links page as one of my daily reading blog.

So who is Glen Graham?

I finally see his pictures on his blog. He is a very good looking guy! Check him out on his about page!

Glen quote: “I knew right then that web-design was the right job for me. Any job that your missed when you don’t show up is a job worth having!”

Why Glen is one of my favorite designer? I am not a big MySpace fan. I hate to deal with the template on MySpace.com. It’s so massy! Glen turns his myspace template into a show case! A very clean showcase. Check out his MySpace profile! It’s a great way to show his graphic design talent!

So I am officially introducing him to all my viewers. If you ever think about hiring some talented web designer, contact Glen! Give him a chance to get the best you can get!

Glen. Can you make my blog look more like a billionaire blog?

By the way, who else want to give me your warm thanksgiving welcome and show my new banner on your blog? You are more than welcome to do so and leave me a comment.