Working at Home on the Internet

When the Reality of Linking Too Much Hits Home

New Here? You may want to Subscribe to my RSS feed for daily updates. Or if you prefer, Subscribe by Email Thanks for visiting!

I was going over my statistics over the weekend and noticed I started losing RSS and e-mail Subscribers recently. I have Text Link Ads in my sidebar, they allow eight (8) ad links and I had maxed out until recently. Now I’m down to Five. I had Hundreds of visits and pageviews per day, now they’re in the 2 digit realm. Everything was going really well on the Blogging Front for over two years, increasing all along the way, then…

 PLOP!

I couldn’t figure it out. I was getting busier in my consulting business as a result of what I was doing here. Writing, saying and sharing my experiences while Working at Home on the Internet. Anything that could be useful to others trying to run a Home Business was on the agenda. So, why were things starting to take a such a drastic down turn?

I was going through some of the links that I was getting and checked out all the Blogs that were linking here and came across something by J.T.Dabbagian with a list of 5 Websites for Being Productive and I quote:

Working at Home on the Internet - Another Web-Worker based website that seems to act more like a hub for productivity on the net. Its main feature is its Blog Carnivals, which are links to even more cool stuff. It seems, however, to be more of a linking blog then an site with real original content, but you should check out The Blog vs Website writing project to get something if you win. (Emphasis mine)

Now, I Really do appreciate the link and the Plug for the Blog vs Website contest, but it still hit me like a ton of bricks. Did you notice the “however” part?

With almost 1100 posts, 95% of which are original content and the remaining 5% being Carnivals and Weekly Helpful Reads, I could almost feel forgotten or worse, unread. Providing Work at Homers with helpful information has always been my objective, but it seems I haven’t been doing my job of late. At least not giving my readers enough original content of my own and giving them different and new ideas to try to enhance their Work at Home Business through experiences I have faced.

So, what does this tell us (me)?

1. The old adage of “Content is King” is just as valid, if not more, than ever.
2. Link Blogs don’t get (nor do they deserve) the respect that they crave.
3. Blogs that don’t provide Real Value to their readers with originality and good content won’t last.

Being busy with the Consulting part of the business is no excuse. There are plenty of other people out there who are far busier than I and still find time to write for their readers, because it’s important to them and their community.

I am going to strive to be more on the ball and provide all of you with interesting and informative information. I will still use links, but I hope to provide you with more of my own successful and even failing endeavours so that we can learn together what it takes be a Successful Work at Homer.

Joe

Your thoughts?

July 7th, 2008 at 06:28am | Posted by Joe | Basics, Community, Linking | 3 reader remarks | Print This Post

When a Backup is Not Enough

 This past week, I decided to try upgrading a couple of my WordPress Blogs from version 2.3.3 to WP  2.5.1. Sounds easy enough, huh?

I upgraded two of the least visited and updated  (dare I say less important?) Blogs that I have, one to 2.5 and the other to 2.5.1 which should be a gimmie. Just do the upgrade and done. Right?

Wrong!

It’s not that the updates themselves were a bad thing or too difficult to do. It’s not even about the poll in the Sidebar about the Love/Hate for the newer versions of WordPress. It is more about the Incompatability of some of the Scripts to Do the Update.

I use BlueHost as my Hosting Service and am quite happy with them. They are always there if I have a situation, the Techs know their stuff, and everyone is easy to work with. They even wrote their own Script for installing and/or upgrading WordPress. It seems they thought the Fantistico Script was slow in presenting the newest WP upgrades and wanted to improve their own service to their customers. Enter SimpleScript.

SimpleScript is actually quite easy to use if you want to do a New Installation of WordPress, I even used it to set up my personal Family Blog. Everything went perfectly on the New Installation. So, I decide to do a test changeover from Fantistico to SimpleScripts on the Joe’s Freeware Finds Blog. I figured, if anything went wrong, that would be a better place for it to happen rather than here or MCBS (the business blog).

Good Thing…

The changeover Did Not go smoothly. Far from it! I Lost EVERYTHING! Posts, Themes, Plugins, Comments… The only thing I had was the “Welcome to WordPress” thingys. Square One!

So, I decided to try the most recent Backup that I had. It wasn’t new, I hadn’t updated for a month, but it had everything since the last post I had written, all the plugins etcetera. Things should just fall into place and work, or so I thought…

NOT…

It seems that Fastico and SimpleScript hate each other almost as much as PC and MAC. They just can’t work together no matter how hard we try.

Uninstalling SimpleScript and reinstalling using Fantistico… NO GO

Reinstalling Fantistico and using the original Backup From Their Script… NO GO

Uninstalling BOTH and starting fresh with WP 2.5.1 using the Backup… NO GO

Using any combination of Scripts with the Backup… NO GO

Fresh installation of WordPress Not Using Any Scripts and then using the B/U… You guesses it…  NO GO

Finally, Brice, the Tech from Bluehost, suggested deleting everything WordPress, Fantitico, SimpleScripts from that particular sub-domain and just copy everything from the Backup to the sub-domain. And guess what?

It Worked!

Reason being, there were two completley different Scripts trying to compete against the other. They ended up cancelling each other out, so Nothing Worked.

Moral of the Story

Even though you take precautions and do your Backups faithfully, you may still run into problems with compatibility if you decide to change from one type of system, program or software provider.

Just Be Aware and make sure the Backup you have will work with the New Setup you are installing.

Have you ever run into a similar situation? Please share your experience with us.

June 2nd, 2008 at 04:52pm | Posted by Joe | Basics, Tips | 2 reader remarks | Print This Post

Consultants on Retainer?

 Do you ever wonder what to charge a customer for a bunch of small jobs that don’t really fit into a billing category? Answer questions small and large that help them through rough situations continually but you would feel guilty if you sent them a bill for each and every time you solve a problem.

I have thought about it long and hard.

I think I may have just come up with an answer that could work to the advantage of both the customer and your business in just such a senerio.

Go on Retainer

Why not, Lawyers do it with Big Corporations and Small Businesses all over the world. If there is a legal question that doesn’t involve any investigation and can be answered in a single sitting and is answered to the clients satisfaction, it’s covered by the retainer. If it is a lot more involved and involves casework or some court appearances then the client is charged depending on the type of case and how much work has to be done.

Reasons

I get calls from clients and customers every day with some small problem, but I still have to take the time to answer. Sometimes it takes a little investigation to find the answer to their questions, but it always takes time. And, as they say, Time is Money.

I’m not talking about the occasional question, but clients that need and want answers right away on a moments notice. Or the one’s who think that it is only one question, although it might take an hour or more to get the answer and they want it NOW.

Solution

Going on retainer for some clients seems like a viable alternative to either billing them for each small job or not billing them at all. If the customer/client wants you to be there front and center to help them with their problems right then and there and have priority statis, they should be willing to pay for it.

What do you think?

Sorry, there are no polls available at the moment.

You can always answer in comments if you want to expand on your answer.

For those using RSS just click the Post Title to take the Poll.

April 22nd, 2008 at 04:29pm | Posted by Joe | Attitude, Basics, Management | 2 reader remarks | Print This Post