Lloyd Hester

Month: September 2009

  • Never Ever Give Up

    Never Ever Give Up

    There are so many times when you work on the internet especially in the early days, that make you feel like it is never going to happen and that it is time to give up.

    The reason is that you hear of so many gurus making millions while your site pulls in little or nothing and you end up working so much on your own and not only that, you do nearly all of the work yourself. All of this makes is hard to stay motivated, enthusiastic and positive.

    Whilst it is easier said than done I do know that persistence overcomes resistance and if you persist you will win.

    When times are tough the best thing to do is to stop, take a break have a day off or just sit down with a glass of wine and relax. Come at the problem again the next day with fresh eyes and usually a different solution.

    The one thing to remember is never ever give up 🙂

    Never Ever Give Up
  • Procrastination and the Art of Getting Things Done

    Procrastination and the Art of Getting Things Done

    Now, this is not going to be a blog post on how I achieve so much in a day or how to get things done. This is because procrastination and getting though my own to do list is probably my biggest problem.

    I start off with all the right intentions and sometimes even fool myself that what I am doing is getting me closer to my goals but this is not the case.

    It frustrates me no end. In fact it gets me that annoyed at myself that I get even less done.

    I discovered that I have ADD some time ago and this is a problem that a lot of people have and I have tried all sorts of methods to overcome it with varying degrees of success.

    One of the big problems is that it is very difficult for me to get into a rhythm and I start a system up or buy a diary and commit to writing everything down or adding everything to the latest project manager or auto reminder software only to forget after the first day and end up doing none of it.

    They say it takes 30 days to make or break a habit but I am not so sure.

    I suppose there is no such thing as the perfect system.

    The one thing that I have found to work the best is to stick to doing one thing at a time. Now this might sound easy to a normal person but to me I find it incredibly hard not to get sidetracked or start up 5 things at once.

    IF you have one thing to do and do NO do anything else until that one project or job is finished then I do tend to get so much more done.

    Now the question is, if I know this and if I have experience of this, why do I still end up getting sidetracked and doing other things half way through?

    Like writing this blog entry for example when I should be editing the pictures and adding them to our new site www.portraitpaintinggallery.com ?

    Who knows, but unless I stop now and get back to it, I will still be trying to get it done in 3 days time.

    Wish me luck and let me know of any sure fire methods that are guaranteed to help me and I will give them a try.  🙂

  • Earthquake In Bali – Rocks the House

    Earthquake In Bali – Rocks the House

    There was an Earthquake in Bali yesterday morning. Not long after we got up at around 6.30 in the morning. There was a loud rumbling and the house shook. The water in the swimming pool sloshed about so much it came over the edge. There were waves! That was a sight to see.

    It had the whole household up very quickly, shame it was not a school day as Katie has not been up this early since… well actually never this early I don’t think!

    It only went on for about 30 to 40 seconds but it is a very scary thing to happen I can tell you. Now I think I may be jinxed.

    I lived in the Canary Islands for 17 years and there were one or two small tremors in that time, then we moved to England for a couple of years and we were there when the biggest earthquake for years again rocked our house and cracked the garden wall.

    Now we live in Bali and I find out that we are living on the ring of fire, as it is known. I thought that was something you got after a hot curry. This is the second quake to hit Bali since we have been here and I am hoping that it was the last.

    I am all for a bit of excitement but this is a bit over the top if you ask me.

    Anyway back to business..

    One thing about the Internet business is that you can run it from anywhere in the world. Another thing, is that if you outsource the majority of your work then you have to spend very little time on it. Having others make money for you is the way to go.

    And after this ground shaking event, and no I don’t mean when I fell up the stairs, it may be time to move on.

    As long as we have an internet connection we can work from anywhere. Communicating with staff who live in Brasil, India and the Philippines via skype and email allows us to run our little empire.

    We have just setup a couple of new websites that we think will generate a little extra income almost on autopilot. Check them out and let me know what you think? www.PortratiPaintingGallery.com is live but needs a bit of work. It is a website to promote oil painting portraits from photos. We have an amazing team of artists that really know there stuff and produce some great works of art.

    www.izabellamorgan.com is another one ready to go. Sharon and Astrid designed a range of beachwear that we will promote through the luxury hotels here in Bali and once established, across the World through a network of agents. So all good stuff.

    I got portrait painting gallery ranked on Page one of google, msn and yahoo. Yahoo has dropped down to 35 now but still on first page of google. Not bad in a week eh? That is pretty impressive by anyone’s standards you must admit (He says in a smug voice 😉 )

    I will keep you updated with how we get on with the ranking of this site over time and let you know how much traffic we generate and, how much we make from it.

    Until then from .. 🙂

  • Testing Is The Key Testingalotlloyd

    Testing Is The Key Testingalotlloyd

    Testingalotlloyd What is that all about eh?

    This word only exists in my brain and it is used as a test word to check where my article is found.

    It is important to test everything that you do. For example, if you are writing articles or doing blog posts then you need to know where best to post them.

    Also if you are going to create a number of web 2.0 pages then you also need to know which ones you should spend time on as they should all have unique content on them

    It is not worth spending time to create a web 2.0 page if it is not going to get seen by the search engines.

    IT is not difficult to check this and you do not need fancy or expensive software to do it either.

    All you have to do is to create an article and embed a unique word or phrase into it.

    After a few days then search for the keyword on google, yahoo and msn as well as any others that you want to check.

    This can also be used to check how fast your website is indexed by google or the other search engines. if you make a post on your blog then check the publish time and check every few hours to see if it appears. Easy eh?

    I use special words in my posts and articles and when it is eventually indexed we will see where my post is syndicated. Over time if the word is found in other sites then we know that the article is being used. You can then check it out to see if your content is being plagiarized or the proper links are being displayed.

    Also check out this oil painting of Sharon and Morgan (my wife and one of my daughters)

    http://picasaweb.google.com/lloydhester/BaliFamilyPhotos#

  • Portrait Painting

    Portrait Painting

    Portrait Painting

    Our new website the portrait painting gallery is up at last.

    The quality of the work is incredible, they hand paint in oils from a photograph. They can take several diffrent photos and convert them into one oil painting  even.

    One request we had was for a picture of Michael Jackson next to the client so that it looks like they were together.

    It was not until we started looking into it that we realised just how many styles of painting there are. Some people want a photo realistic painting. Although this seems to defeat the object of having a painting done. You might as well just have a photograph made into a poster size. My favourite is the impressionist where the painter puts his or her own style into the painting. Then there are the characutures where the painter takes prts that really stand out and accentuate them.

    Anyway, the site should be ready to take orders later this week so if you are looking for an unusual gift, if you cannot think of what to get him or her for Christmas then take a look at having a portrait painting done.

    take a look and let me know what you think. All comments and criticism of the site will be greatfully received.