Working at Home on the Internet

Does the Internet have Seasonal Trends?

Everyone who Works on the Internet follows statistics. There are lots of ways and many reasons for following certain trends for a Website or Blog. These trends can be broken down into days, and in some cases by the hour.

There seems to be certain days of the week that are better for a particular topic, niche or product. You may find that your product or subject gets more pageviews from Monday through Friday or over the weekend. Trends can also change from week to week, month to month or season to season.

Keeping up with trends on the Internet is, to say the least, difficult. At present I have 2 different statistics counters on my main sites. With them I have noticed that my readership is shifting.

During this past winter, the best days for visitors were from Wednesday through Saturday. I could attribute this at least in part to the weather (more people at home). People would come home from work, may be fed up with their job and look for something they could do from home and be self-employed.

Once the weather changed and people started doing more outside, viewership changed more towards mid-week. People more than likely started their gardens and tending to outside activities like mowing the lawn on weekends.

Now that we are in mid-summer (in the U.S.) family activities and vacations come into play. There is no time to waste looking for Work on the Internet, there is fun to be had. People don’t spend as much time on the computer, there are better things to do.

Since I have only been Working at Home on the Internet for 9 months, I have yet to see how the seasons play out. But, if the trend follows the logical path, visitors, readership and pageviews should start to pick up within a month or so. Once the weather breaks again, and we enter autum, people should start spending more time inside and getting on the computer more often.

I’m hoping that is the case. Only time will tell. I may be off a little with the reasoning, but the Trend seems Apparent.

Possibly I made the change-over to my Own Domain at the right time, without even knowing there was a season for change.

Do you think there is a seasonal difference on the Internet? Have you noticed a seasonal change with your site?

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July 28th, 2006 at 03:20pm | Posted by Joe | General, Stastics, Work at Home | 14 reader remarks | Print This Post

An Increase in Comments

 

A Major (for me) thing I have noticed since I made the changeover to WordPress and My Own Domain is the amount of comments I seem to be getting.

For whatever reason, when I was posting on Blogger I would get a comment or two every once in a while.  No matter what the post was about, it seemed that people just didn’t want to comment.

Statistically, the amount of visitors I am getting hasn’t changed much.  The numbers are still pretty low, but the commenting has increased dramatically.  I doubt that I am getting any better at writing, the frequency has always been consistant (ie daily) and I don’t think the subjects (or me) are getting more interesting.  No, it is not Comment Spam, I have Akismet running.

I have come to the conclusion that people seem more comfortable here than on the Old Site.  It could be the design is more pleasing or navigation is easier.  Maybe the Domain adds a little creditibility.  Possibly, people are getting used to me and my strange ways a little.  Whatever it is, I Love It…

I do appreciate the community we are building together, and hope to continue growing with any new visitors.  As Liz from Successful Blog says: “You’re only a stranger but once…”  (I hope I got the quote right).  So, ALWAYS feel free to comment on any post, I will always respond.

What do you think the reason for the increase could be?  Any ideas on improving even more?

 

Don’t forget the Contest I have for Guessing What Changes I’ve Recently Made to the Blog.  So far Chris Cree is the only one who responded (and he looked at the answers).  The contest is still wide open.

July 27th, 2006 at 03:51pm | Posted by Joe | Attitude, Blogger, Community, WordPress | 2 reader remarks | Print This Post

Reliability in Business

I am having a Bad personal customer experience at present. Without going into too many details, we had contracted a self-employed handyman with a good reputation to install a Front Door and a Storm Door at our house. Once you take down the old doors, you need to install the new ones That Day.

Last week we had him come in to replace the doors. He took the old ones out and partially installed the Front Door. The door is in and on hinges, it even has locks, but none of the seals are totally installed. We had a Big Thunderstorm the other day and rain came in through the unfinished portions. After calling him, he came in and installed the Storm Door (not fininshing the Front Door).

The Storm Door was finally hung the other day (after the rain) but it won’t close properly since installation. So, now I have two partially installed doors that don’t close or seal correctly. The contractor hasn’t shown up at all for the last two days. It’s not that he can’t do the job, but I can’t depend on him to show up to do it at all. Right now, I am looking for someone to replace one unreliable contractor.

When you work for yourself, whether it is online, off-line, from home, out of your home, or even if you work out of your garage, something a customer will judge you by is Reliability.

A customer will come to you for a reason. They may like your product, your knowledge or how well a job looks when it is done. But what a lot of self-employed people don’t consider is how much a customer may rely on them doing their job. The customer hired you to do a job because (s)he needs it done.

If you don’t consider working for yourself a job, a commitment to doing something you contracted to do, then you shouldn’t be self-employed.

Although you may not have all the time constraints of a deadline, you should always be consistant. Without saying, being consistant doesn’t mean always being late or not fininshing something on time. It means that if you commit to doing something within a certain timeframe, you should make every effort to keep it.

To me, Reliability and Dependibility are the most important things a Business can have. Sometimes Ability can come in third, because there are a lot of people who can do the job, but if they don’t show up, what’s the point in hiring them in the first place?

Have you had any experiences with an Unreliable Business?

July 26th, 2006 at 02:48pm | Posted by Joe | Attitude, Rants, Work at Home | reader remarks | Print This Post