Advice my clients won't read (& that's okay)

Why Clients Leave

2009-07-08T09:45:00.006-05:00

In the 11 years since I started Truly Texan, I've had 4 "good" clients leave me to go with someone else. To me a "good" client is one I like, first of all, and also one I do a fair amount of work for - maybe averaging at least $100/month over and above any hosting fees. (You can spend $300/month with me, but if you're a jerk, it doesn't bother me in the least if you decide to leave. I've had that happen once and wouldn't take them back if they begged.)

Of course, I have lots of other clients I adore who I rarely do any work for because they manage their sites themselves or simply don't need a lot of updates, but I like them and they seem to appreciate me. They're good clients too, but not in the same way.

But it's those aforementioned "good" clients I want to talk about now.

It just kills me when one of them leaves because I really do provide good value for the dollar spent. I know this because I know my own work ethic, and how I have to force myself not to do too many extra things for a client simply because I know they would benefit from it. Sometimes clients just can't afford all the things they need.

I also know I do good work because I know the going rate for people who can achieve SEO results like I can, and because one of those who left came back a few months later, having learned that the grass wasn't greener.

So... how come they leave? My theory is that a couple of things have probably happened. One, I might not have been at the top of my game for a few days or even weeks. Yes, I'm human and life gets in the way of business sometimes. I make mistakes. And sometimes the mistakes seem to come in clusters. But just as I try to understand my clients' mistakes (where you think you told me something, but I have every email you've ever sent and can prove you didn't, or at least that I didn't receive it), my clients are usually understanding when I'm having a bad day or days.

But let's say one of my family members is suffering from some trauma that is affecting my concentration and, at the same time, some slick local (to my client) web designer makes a sales pitch and presents some mock-ups that catch my client's eye. Well, if my client doesn't tell me that they've been approached and give me the opportunity to compete or go visit them in person and charm them myself, before you know it, I'm getting 30 days notice.

And bam! I didn't even know they were unhappy. And the sad part is that they probably weren't. They just believed the person in front of them rather than the results they've actually experienced over the years.

Most of my clients are retailers or wholesalers or service providers who have hundreds, if not thousands of clients and whose repeat customers are negligible.

I have, what with Truly Texan advertising and hosting and web design and website management, between 60 and 80 clients at any one time. I know my clients. Heck, I know most of their spouses' names and what they like to do in their spare time. I feel like my clients' success is my success. I'm invested in their success, not only financially but also emotionally.

I quit a great paying job with fabulous benefits to do something that I knew would not make me rich but that I thought would be gratifying enough to make up for the lack of money. For the most part it is.

So when a client leaves me unexpectedly, I spend the next month simply trying to comprehend what I could have done differently to prevent it. And this time, I've concluded there was absolutely nothing I could have done. Not one email had been exchanged that wasn't like every email for the past 8 or 9 years.

But even now, I'm sitting here thinking, "Maybe you should survey your clients annually to see what you can improve, or maybe you should do more chatting up with each of them" but you know folks, as it is I spend 10-12 hours a day working for you and I'm lucky to take an entire weekend off, so I have to draw the line somewhere.

If you're not happy with me, please let me know.

If some salesperson dangles something shiny in front of you, please let me know.

I'll try to be professional if you decide to leave, but I do hope you'll be professional and let me know you're considering leaving so I can try to keep you.

A final note: I believe in Karma. I would never do anything intentional to hurt your business simply because you've decided to leave me. I prefer the high ground. It's a better moral position, and it allows me to easily take you back when you realize I was pretty darn good.

snopes.com: Urban Legends Reference Pages

2009-06-29T10:44:00.000-05:00

snopes.com: Urban Legends Reference Pages

Always check Snopes before you fall for any of the warnings, scares, etc. that people send you. You're an intelligent person. Aren't you tired of being scared?

Why People Don't Listen

2009-06-23T18:20:00.004-05:00

I had yet another client lose their data because they didn't have an external backup as I constantly suggest you all do. In their case, even an external backup might not have helped, but another thing I've suggested in the past would probably have saved the day.

Their computer, modem and router were all wiped out by lightning. A good quality universal power supply (aka battery backup) like the one I have from APC would have saved the day. I've previously mentioned the value of these, but new clients might not know about them.

So, how come my clients don't heed my advice? I presume it's because we're all the same. As long as something is going okay, we're too busy to take time out to do something that would simply be "insurance." And we all tend to think, "It hasn't happened so far, so why should it happen to me?"

Well, let me assure you: it can happen to you. It can happen to anyone. Lightning does not strike transformers near bad people only. Surges don't happen in "bad" neighborhoods. On the contrary, bad things happen to very good people sometimes. But the bad things are less likely to have a catastrophic impact on you if you're prepared.

Oh, and another tip: Even if you have an APC unit and external backup and even emergency backups on a DVD like I do, remember to unplug the following in a storm:

The connection to your internet provider whether cable or DSL

Now, spend 45 minutes of your life buying whatever equipment will save untold hours of grief later on.

And read my tips - whether in my invoices or on this blog. We'll both be glad you did.

About You

2009-05-24T16:42:00.003-05:00

Do you have an About Us page?

I won't buy online from a company, especially a small business, that doesn't have an informative About Us page, and I consider myself a pretty typical buyer.

I want to know who owns the business and where they're located - even if they don't have a physical store. I want a phone number. It's nice to know how long they've been in the business. And while it isn't necessary, it's good PR to have a little about their business philosophy and/or anything that gives me a clue about integrity and motivation.

If your About Us page doesn't do all the above, why not update it to see if sales improve. And, heaven forbid, if you don't even have an About Us page, get one! Today!

46217527.swf (application/x-shockwave-flash Object)

2009-05-22T15:00:00.000-05:00

46217527.swf (application/x-shockwave-flash Object)

Depressingly true and clever cartoon

Vicarious Success - Thank You Clients!

2009-04-10T09:59:00.005-05:00

It probably goes back to my being a middle child (of 3 girls), but one of my favorite things about my job is enjoying my clients' successes as though they were my own.

I just swell with pride whether it's a website ranking well for a search term (for which I will gladly take most of the credit) or because they've written a New York Times Bestseller, like Lisa Kleypas' new book (at Borders) and other bookstores
Yea, Lisa! #9 on the top 10 in its first week out.

What a thrill to be associated with and trusted by successful, hard-working artists and entrepreneurs. Thanks to all of you for making me feel like I've contributed in some small way to your achievements. Of course, without your talent, it wouldn't matter how well your site ranked - at least not for long. I guess as long as I keep getting clients who produce a great product or service, I'll keep feeling good about what I do!

Search Engine Optimization - the truth

2009-03-24T09:51:00.003-05:00

Everyone gets sales pitches from companies offering to improve your ranking in search engines. Before you get hooked by one of them, talk to me.

I've been specializing in search engine optimization (SEO) for 12 years now and I think my results speak for themselves. If you'd like examples, just let me know.

I don't waste your money submitting your site every month to hundreds of search engines. Once your site is in a search engine, it will stay there unless your site happens to be unavailable when the search engine sends its spider out to check on your site. Nor do I deluge you with stock reports that are easy to generate and do absolutely nothing for you.

I spend time working with you on the content of your site as well as building a meaningful link exchange program. Those are the primary ingredients for ranking well.

Let's talk.

E-Mail Text Messages to a Phone - PC World

2009-02-20T11:25:00.000-06:00

Very cool: This explains how to send an email to someone's phone so they get it as a text message.
E-Mail Text Messages to a Phone - PC World

But be considerate. Many people have to pay for each text message they receive so don't go crazy unless you know someone has a plan with unlimited texting. Or they have unlimited money.
We wish.

What's a Podcast

2009-02-18T14:01:00.002-06:00

HowStuffWorks "How to Create Your Own Podcast"
The link above is a great article about creating your own podcast.

Summary: A podcast is simply an audio (usually) recording that people can download and play. What makes a podcast different from simply having a link on your website that plays an audio file is that people can subscribe to a podcast simply by clicking a button on a website.

So, if I wanted to record myself speaking all this invaluable advice I lavish on you, I could do that and make it available as a podcast. Ideally, I would do it with a decent microphone and recorder which plugs into my pc and then have an audio editing program so I could edit out any long pauses or telling my dog to "drop it" or whatever else wasn't pertinent to the subject.

You could subscribe on my website, and then anytime I uploaded something new, you would automatically get it delivered to your computer. You could play it on your computer or download it to your iPod or mp3 player and listen to it while you run your 3 miles a day (or sit on the back porch watching the hummingbirds).

Our cheapo web hosting (for do-it-yourselfers) service offers a Quick Blogcast/Podcast website that starts as low as $3/month and makes it easy to upload your mp3 file and create the podcast feed without even understanding what a feed is! Pretty cool.

Webmail and Email Accounts

2009-01-21T11:39:00.003-06:00

Lots of folks have their website email address set up so it automatically forwards to their "real" email address, such as their Roadrunner or Verizon account. If yours is set up like that, be sure you are not leaving copies of all emails on the mailserver as well.

If you are, that mailbox may fill up and any mail sent to it will bounce.

Example:
Let's say you have an email account through Truly Texan do it yourself hosting. And let's say the email account is cindy@mycompany.com and it's set up so copies of all emails sent to that address are forwarded to my home email address (which shall remain private).

Periodically I should log on to the Webmail account for cindy@mycompany.com and clean out the mailbox. Now, some mail programs will simply forward or give you the option of forwarding a copy and saving a copy on the server. You need to check your particular mailserver's options.

Mail on sites I host:
If you use my supported hosting and I've set up your mail account on our mailserver so that it forwards to your ISP, you don't have to worry about this sort of thing. I will have set it up so that once it forwards, the copy on the server is deleted (unless you have specifically asked me to do otherwise).

BUT, if you use Outlook or some other mail program to retrieve mail from the server, be sure to check your settings in Outlook to see that emails are deleted from the server after being retrieved.

Now, some people who are out of town frequently like to leave a copy of their emails on the mailserver when they are traveling so they can check mail from any computer. If you do this, it's wise to retrieve all emails when you get back to the office/home and then delete them from the mailserver and change your setting in Outlook so that it deletes mail from the server either immediately or, at most, 2 or 3 days.

REMINDER:
I've said it before and I'll say it again:
Most companies do not back up their mailservers because the data is changing so rapidly.
So, if you use any web-based mail, other than an Exchange server, as your primary mailbox, you are foolish.

If you must use an online mailbox, then you will want to spend the money to get an Exchange hosted mail account because those actually are backed up. Of the four email plans shown on that link, the two Outlook plans (columns 3 & 4) are on Exchange servers and are designed to be your "permanent" mailbox. I put "permanent" in quotes, because nothing related to computers is permanent. Everything crashes sooner or later, so the best you can do is keep hardcopies of all critical emails and backup copies on disk or external hardrives as well.

Aren't computers fun?

List of social networking websites - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

2009-01-07T14:32:00.002-06:00

List of social networking websites - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

If you want to get overwhelmed by the subject, visit Wikipedia's list above. Yikes!

But suffice it to say, there is, no doubt, a social network for whatever industry you're in or hobby you have.

Some of you may have heard of include Plaxo, Facebook, MySpace, and LinkedIn. I've joined a couple because clients have asked me to, but I wouldn't otherwise.
Why?
1. I don't actively seek work (as a rule),
2. I have all the real friends I need, as opposed to virtual or online friends,
3. I don't like to share any more personal info than necessary (unless you're sitting in front of me, in which case, I'll happily tell you my entire life story, including the 4 elopements and holding JFK's death certificate.)

However, if you have a business, especially a new one, I suggest LinkedIn and probably Facebook. LinkedIn is for business and is kind of like networking. It's good for finding resources that your colleagues or friends may have worked with in the past and for getting your business in front of more people. I think it's more for professionals than retail companies, but that's just me.

Facebook I'm not as familiar with (even though I have a page there), but I've noticed a lot of companies have their own Facebook pages so it's worth looking into.

Of course, the point of any of these, for my clients at least, would be to have yet another place on the web where people can learn about them/their business/their product. I think Blogs serve the same purpose which is why I do this one.

Top Ten Ecommerce Tips

2008-12-16T13:55:00.003-06:00

I've been in this business for almost 12 years now and I've learned a lot, both about things to do and things not to do. In this economy, I thought it might be useful to share some of what I've learned, especially for those of you who are new to ecommerce.
Note: these are in no particular order of importance.

1. Test your cart! It seems obvious, but until you have placed an order or four in your cart, you have no idea what your customers are experiencing.

2. If you show products on the home page, change them at least monthly and preferably weekly. That way, if someone visits more than once, they don't see the same old page and think, "Oh, I've seen all this and there's nothing I want."
If you sell only one product, then change something else on the home page frequently. For instance, if you offer specials, have an area of the page where visitors can see the current special. Or add a quote in a little box - something uplifting or about quality - and change it every few weeks.

3. Spend the time or money to have good pictures. The Internet is all about visuals. And if your cart shows a small picture and a large picture, create separate sizes of each picture rather than using an automatic sizer for the small picture (many carts are set up to limit the size of the category page images). When you visit a site and the small pictures look kind of strange, it's often because it's really a large picture that someone (maybe the cart itself) is forcing a 300 pixel wide picture to be 100 pixels wide, for example.

4. Describe your products extensively, giving all dimensions, options, shipping information, color options, etc. Don't make your potential customer have to call or email you to find out something. Most people won't. They will just find a website that tells them what they need to know. Most of us are lazy when it comes to buying online. Make it fast and easy to buy.

5. Give your phone number on your website! Even if it's a cell phone that you don't use except to listen to messages (and then respond via your regular phone), it adds to your credibility if a potential customer knows they can call you.

6. Give your city on the website. If you're a home-based business, you may not want to give your street address and that's fine. But at least give me enough information so I feel like you're a real company with some sort of physical location.

7. Create a FAQs or Order Info page where you answer every conceivable question you would ask if you were buying from an unknown entity.
What's your return policy?
Can I cancel my order?
What if it doesn't fit or is the wrong color or arrives damaged?
How will it be shipped?
When will it be shippped?
Can I get an order expedited?
Does it cost extra to ship to Canada?
Can you include a gift card?
What if I want to order 2 things and have them shipped different places?
(You get the idea)

8. Invest in getting your site found. This is best done during the design phase of your website, but almost any site can be optimized for searches even if it's been around for years. You can educate yourself about SEO (Search Engine Optimization) or you can hire someone like me. The cost to optimize a site varies, depending on how big a site is, how many search terms you want to rank well for, and whether you want a one-time optimization or something ongoing.

9. Accept credit cards or Paypal. Long gone are the days when customers were willing to send you a check, especially for lower-end items. However, if you're selling $9,000 hand-built tables, a check in the mail would be okay, as long as you don't build the table and then try to cash the check!

10. Design your site so that it takes no more than 3 clicks from your home page to put an item in the cart. Don't make me wade through categories and sub-categories or anything else that slows down my ability to click that important "add to cart" button.

Oh my gosh, I could go on, but I need to get some work done.

One last thing, though. Do not expect a new site to start generating income immediately. Unless you kick off your ecommerce site with heavy print and online advertising, it will be about 6 months before you get an idea of what your sales are going to be. I've had clients make a sale 3 days after their site went up, but that was only when they were in my Texas companies mall or had spent money on SEO so that their site would be found more quickly.

Remember: Nothing of value is free and that includes e-commerce websites. Invest in your business. Otherwise, you will get back exactly what you put into it.

PCI DSS and Security Audits

2008-11-21T16:24:00.004-06:00

Omigosh, what we've been going through this week with one dear client whose merchant bank is requiring her to have quarterly security audits. These security audits are part of the new rules adopted in 2006 by the credit card company to better ensure that online transactions are secure.

Suffice it to say that it's been a real drag trying to get the hosting company (not me) to explain why some settings on their server are like they are and changing what we can, etc.

I'm not sure why this client, whose website went live just last month, was chosen when I have other clients who've been online for 9 years that aren't required (yet) to do these audits.

But the point of this posting is not simply to whine; rather, it's to alert you that if you have an online store, your merchant bank/processor can require you to do the self-assessment report and get a quarterly audit of your site.

And if you're considering changing shopping carts, I recommend getting something like aspDotNetStorefront which is an approved shopping cart by Visa/MC/etc. It's not cheap, but at least you know your cart will pass an audit.

And, as I've said before, if you aren't deleting orders from your cart after you've printed them, you should. You can leave the customer's name and login information, but anything related to their credit card should be gone once you've processed the order.

That is so important and it is your sole responsibility. Not mine. Yours.
Happy Thanksgiving!

Email Spoofing

2008-09-10T16:31:00.003-05:00

Sometimes you get a bounced message that you didn't send in the first place and the reason for that is that someone has spoofed your email address. They are usually hoping that you'll click some link in the email to figure out what's going on and then, yippee, you're taken to some annoying, perverse or otherwise malicious website.
The article linked above describes spoofing in more detail if you're interested.

Importance of the Meta Title Tag

2008-07-24T14:53:00.000-05:00

Go to your website and look at the top* of the browser, to see what words are there for each page on your website. That's the "meta title" and, generally, you should have a different keyword phrase plus your company name (or location if relevant) for each page on your website. It's very important relative to search engines.
* In most cases (Internet Explorer or Firefox), it's the dark blue bar at the top of the window; the same bar that has the minimize and close icons on the right side.
I don't know how AOL or Safari screens display it, but I assume it's in a similar place.

Setting Up Outlook to Retrieve Mail

2008-06-10T13:51:00.004-05:00

To set up Outlook to retrieve mail from your website (mailserver), click the title of this posting to go to our help page. The instructions assume you already have an Outlook default email account set up that sends and retrieves mail from your ISP (Internet Service Provider).

The goal of these instructions is for you to be able to retrieve mail from our mailserver rather than having it forwarded to your ISP email address.

The benefit of doing this is that our spam filter has a chance to do its work if you leave mail on it until retrieved. This is not the case if your mail is automatically forwarded to your ISP email address.

Click the title above to see the instructions with screen shots.

SEO - and Vanity

2008-06-10T13:45:00.002-05:00

It's probably human nature to make your website the starting page for Internet Explorer or Firefox, etc. But that really skews your statistics.

If you go to your home page 5 times a day, that's 150 "visitors" that show up every month in your website's statistics that aren't the kind of visitors you're interested in.

So, as much as you may love looking at your creation, I recommend only visiting your own website when you must. And when you do need to or just want to look at it, try going to Google and searching for it with one of the terms which you think will put you high on the list. It's a great, fast way to see how well you're doing. Or not.

Keyword

2008-05-28T09:48:00.002-05:00

"Keywords"

There are a lot of misconceptions about keywords, but before I get into them, let's understand the history.

HTML has "meta" tags. These are not visible on the actual web page that shows on the screen. Their function is to give information about the web page to the browser (Internet Explorer, Firefox, etc.). Meta tags also provide information to search engines.

The Meta tag for keywords lets you list words that are relevant to the particular web page. Originally, this helped in searches for sites/files, but very bad people started using the keyword tag for evil purposes. They might, for example, include their competitor's name in their keywords tag in hopes of getting visitors looking for the competing product. Or porn sites would stuff their keyword tag with innocent, but popular terms, in hopes of getting visitors who would then stay on their sites.

Due to this misuse - which became rampant (there are a lot of unethical people out there), most search engines now ignore the Meta Keyword tag or give it very little weight in deciding what a web page is about.

So... feel free to use the tag - appropriately, but don't make the mistake of thinking it's important. If I use it at all, these days, I rarely bother to put more than 10 words in it.

The Meta Description tag, however, is extremely important. I'll talk about that next.

Gotta get to work now, though.

SEO - The First Step

2008-05-24T13:25:00.011-05:00

SEO or Search Engine Optimization means working on a website to improve its ranking in searches. There are numerous components of SEO, from using the right text for a particular web page to laying out the website so that the search engine bots (programs that "read" web pages) identify your business, product or service correctly.

The first step in SEO, though, is always deciding what term or terms you think customers will use when searching. I strongly suggest that you not rely on your thoughts (or mine) alone. None of us uses the same words for every situation or thing.

Think about how people across the country refer to soft drinks: soda, pop, soda pop, soft drink, or if you're like me, it's Coke® (no matter what you're drinking).

So even though you may think you sell widgets, the rest of the world may call your product thingamajigs or whatchamacallits How do you handle that so you rank well for all 3 variations? Ideally, you have enough pages on your website that you can have one emphasize "widgets" while another emphasizes "whatchamacallits" and so forth. If not - and you don't want to add new pages to your site, you should emphasize the most commonly used word (there are ways to determine that) and simply mention the other words where you can.

I'll continue this mini-education on SEO next week, but here are three things to remember.

Don't try to make your home page rank well for every product/service you offer or every term you can think of.
Probably half your visitors don't enter your site via the home page.
Google and other search engines do not share how they rank websites. They give guidelines but they don't share their trade secrets. Successful SEO is equal parts intuition, experience and following the guidelines.

My experience (a few examples)*:

Search for "Dallas wedding venue" #5 is my client:
(The Lawton Estate)
Search for "wedding coordinators Austin" #2 is my client:
(Belynda Barkley Montgomery Weddings)
Search for "wedding keepsake" #1 is my client:
(The Keepsake Gifts)
Search for "children's name plaques" #2 is my client
(for Mercy's sake, inc. Children's Furniture)
Search for "gourmet cooking class texas" #1 is my client
(The Pan Handle Gourmet Cooking Tools)

*These were the results today. That's another thing to remember about search engine results. Results change. New sites come online, old sites go away, sites get redesigned, etc.
That's why, if you're serious about staying in the top 10, you should either be spending a few hours every month working on it or pay someone to do it for you.

Happy Memorial Day.

Can your customers reach you?

2008-02-24T16:47:00.003-06:00

Today I had a call from someone who wanted to get in touch with a Truly Texan mall member. The company in question doesn't have a phone number on their website. That happens fairly often. And since I don't give out client information that isn't on their website, the best I could do was suggest this person use the email link on that website to contact the owner.

Not having a phone number on your website may protect your privacy, but it doesn't do much for:
1. your sales, or
2. your credibility.

I have a couple of rules I follow when making an online purchase. I never buy from a website that doesn't have a phone number. Nor would I buy from a website that doesn't have some sort of physical address - at least a city and state.

And these days you can buy prepaid cell phones that are cheap and use them to be your answering machine for your business. I'd bet that increased sales would more than pay for the phone over time.

Setting up Complex Inventory in PDShop Pro

2008-02-15T14:18:00.004-06:00

If you use PageDownTech's shopping cart (the ASP.net version in this case), you might find this useful when setting up your product database. While I think they have a great little cart for the price, their instructions are sometimes less than useful.

This explains how to set up products in your database that have inventory-affecting options. This would include any clothing that comes in sizes, colors, designs, or perhaps items like art prints that are available in different color frames that you need to track in inventory.

Overview:
Only "items" can be tracked by the inventory part of the software. So to sell a product like a t-shirt that comes in different sizes and colors, you have to treat the t-shirt's options (colors, sizes, whatever) as "items."

Important: When you create these "items" that are going to be used as options for a product, they can only be used for that particular product. So don't think you can create a product called Medium and then use it for all your t-shirts. Keeping this in mind, you can see why we suggest using a naming convention as shown in our example.

EXAMPLE
Our example will be a t-shirt that comes in different sizes and colors.

1. Set up the parent item with an ID of Tshirt1. Don't worry now about the options (sizes & colors), but enter the descriptions, pictures, category, etc. In "inventory" enter the total of all sizes and colors you have.

2. Set up another item. This is going to be your first size and color option and let's say it's pink and size small. So give it a product ID of: Tshirt1-sp.
Enter Pink-Small for the Product name
Enter the appropriate number in the Inventory box.
That's all you do. No price, no description. . . just what I said above.

3. Repeat step 2 for each size and color, using product id's like Tshirt1-sb (for a small, black t-shirt), etc.

4. Go back to the parent item. Add an Option Group: Color and Size

5. Add an Item to the Option Group. In the popup window, enter the option you created earlier, such as Tshirt1-sp (or some part of the name if you don't remember what you called the options).
One or more items will be listed. Choose the appropriate one.
If necessary, enter a price adjustment, such as $2 increase for XXL sizes.
Save.

6. Repeat step 5 for all options (colors/sizes). Be sure to set one of the options as the default. You can also assign numbers to each option if you want them to show up in a certain order..

You're done!

And while I'm talking about this company, I sure wish they would add a customer forum. I would recommend the software to more clients (depending on their needs) if ongoing help were more available. And a customer forum is the best way to do that. But it seems they prefer customers pay extra for support after the initial 30 days or whatever it is (which is too short - whatever it is).

Prioritizing

2008-02-14T11:12:00.002-06:00

Prioritizing is hard. Well, actually, it's not hard; I just forget to do it. And then I sit here doing stuff that could wait when I should be doing other stuff. But now that I think about it, I don't think I "forget" to prioritize. There are just some jobs I'm not excited to do, so I do piddly things, telling myself I've been needing to do them for a long time so I'll get them out of the way real quick. (and yes, I know it should be "really quickly" but this is my blog, not a term paper)

Piddly things like updating my blog.

Which I've now done.

So I'll get back to real work.

bummer

Westfall Horsemanship | Bridle-less riding

2008-02-14T11:11:00.001-06:00

Westfall Horsemanship | Media Gallery

This is the most amazing horsemanship I've ever seen and the dedication and music make it truly memorable and very touching.

Edit your own website

2008-01-24T09:39:00.006-06:00

While I make my money helping folks keep their websites updated, there are many of you/them who would be so much better offer financially if you made these minor changes yourself.

I really like Contribute and a couple of my clients have already implemented it and are doing just fine. And these aren't folks who anyone would call techno-savvy.

Click the image to learn more about it.
It's easy to set up. I'll provide you with the login information for your site and it's easy to make changes.

But, again, I do enjoy helping you. I just feel bad when those of you who only need occasional edits have to wait 2 weeks for me to get to you because my monthly management clients (who keep me available on retainer) have me busy.

The difficulty of protecting online images

2007-11-14T10:45:00.000-06:00

Why Other Methods Don't Work

This is a great article about protecting your images online. In short, you need to learn how to protect images in image editing software. Or pay me to do it.