The Right Way to Update Your Old Website

I updated a website several years ago for a church in Milwaukee. Basically, it had a website that was broken (and potentially hacker-dangerous) because it was built on Joomla 1.0 technology. The church assumed I would be building a whole new website, but when I saw that several articles were approaching 10,000 hits, I figured it was better to migrate the website. 

Check Your Google Adsense, Fellow Jacksonville Bloggers

I'm not going to keep this one to myself, since someone not on my site isn't clicking my ads, anyway. If you have a blog or even a big ol' company website that has some Adsense ads on it (the Google ads), then you need to add a custom ads.txt file to your website. I did not receive an email about it. I just showed up to check earnings, which I don't really bother to do very often, and there it was: a dozen websites without the right code. 

Northeast Florida Churches, Schools, Non-Profits and Businesses - FREE Tech Tools

Local Jacksonville churches, schools, and businesses, you are in luck. If you're looking for some FREE advice on how to use FREE marketing tools, then I've got the presentation for you. I'm linking out to my Passive Ninja website where you can see the presentation embedded better. I used the presentation while speaking to a group of church leaders in Orlando, and I can speak to your church, too. However, the tools mentioned can be used with other types of organizations, and I have a lot of advice on HOW to implement the tools.

Blogger Template Success

As a web designer, I'd rather use the tools I build with for others, like Wordpress or Joomla, but I set this website up with Blogger so that I could write several articles per week without much trouble. But there are limitations with Blogger, and no real support. When I was encouraged by a local SEO guru to make sure this website checks all the boxes, I realized that, even with limited tech, Blogger can accomplish more than expected sometimes. This first article with the new template is an example.

Dude, Where's My Church?

As a web designer, I know that it's a problem when you lose your website. I'm not talking about getting hacked. What I mean is when search engines can't find your site. It's kind of weird when it happens, since you'd think Google and other searches would be able to adjust to all kinds of changes online, but there are times when your site just isn't found. I'm going to discuss two scenarios like this that I've been part of in the past year, and maybe it will help you not lose your church or small business website.

Request a Quote Option for Jacksonville Businesses

Here's an interesting one, especially since I'm a web designer. Google My Business now allows businesses to turn on messaging, which allows customers to click on a "Request a Quote" button without ever going to the website. It's "Get a Quote" in mobile. For some local Jacksonville businesses (I've seen your websites), this might be an awesome alternative to hiring a professional like me. But it's kind of odd for me to use it, right?

29% of Americans Will Be Millionaires?

I thought it was a bit of a reach for 29% of Americans surveyed to say they were going to become millionaires, but I saw some stats that seem to almost back it up. I am a firm believer that some people can attain the American Dream, even if I don't have a huge amount of faith it will happen to me. Here are some numbers that might keep your own hope alive:

Jeff Glauser's New Website

Jeff Glauser is a local consultant, writer, trainer, branding expert, and virtual COO. I met him at a local business group, and we hit it off because we have some similar interests and abilities. At first, you might think that another freelancer with similar abilities would be intimidating, but we both saw it as an opportunity to employ each other's talents in a meaningful way. He'd never totally built his own website, and I'd never been paid much for all my consulting, writing, and training that I'd done as part of my website building. Plus, I wanted to learn more about what it takes to be a branding expert and virtual COO.

Maybe I Need To Give More

A couple of months ago, it was decided I should get a new job outside of the house. I have done some pretty good work at home, but the money has not exactly followed the hours of investment. Basically, I've been trying to do a lot of good by building inexpensive websites for churches and non-profits. But those folks don't find me, and I can't afford the time and advertising to find them, so I'll probably have to leave it to swanky salesmen and overpriced web builders.

Freelancer Nightmare: Unpaid Work

I'm busy getting some websites off the host so I can make room for more. A couple of the websites were done as actual jobs that never received pay. I figure a website takes me at least 10 hours to complete, even in the pre-production form. The two websites here would represent 20 hours of actual, sitting in front of the computer work, along with another few hours of research and contact with the clients. Let's say 25 hours, at least. I'm cheap, as far as high-end web design goes, but these two sites were set at about $1,000 each, so it's a couple of decent checks not coming my way.

I Totally Forgot About My DIY Greeting Card Series

Back when I was first setting up Real Wisconsin News, I had this idea to use a photo of my friend in various settings to help promote the site. That turned into the idea that I could make an entire line of greeting cards with him as the messenger. The main problem was that I didn't have the digital photos to edit (this is back in 2005 or so), and I really didn't have a way to market the idea. So I just stuck "Homeless John" in several photos that I did have in digital format. One day, I'll add him to more of the 30,000 photos I have. For now, I'll just go through the process I used, if I can remember it.

Kindle Blogging With NewJaxWitty

Like any author, I want my words to get out there. Kindle allows me to sell my books online. The Amazon Author page allows me to post my blog content to my profile. This can be useful in order to show that I know how to write, but it's also a nice cross-promotional tool. People might show up on my website and read more there, whether or not they ever buy a book. The problem is that my blogs have mostly disappeared from my author profile. Luckily, this blog seems to work.

Most of my other websites are Joomla and https. There seems to be a problem with getting the feed in that configuration, at least for Kindle and Feedburner. I get an error when trying to validate my feed:  

Server returned [Errno 1] _ssl.c:510: error:14077410:SSL routines:SSL23_GET_SERVER_HELLO:sslv3 alert handshake failure

Alien Movies Keep One Website Afloat

I've gotten some attention with this blog, but I need to take it all with a grain of salt. The articles on this website are generally very specific. Besides, it's only been around a year or so. Other articles I've written have more than 10,000 views. Several articles, actually. That's a lot for websites not associated with news outlets or huge marketing campaigns. But one of my best articles, and one that's saving a website from extinction, isn't even mine.

How Does Brucelli Sell Online?

As a web designer and small business owner, I'm always interested in ways to promote my brand. As a concerned consumer, I'm worried about my credit cards or bank accounts being assaulted by digital thieves. I was able to consider both when I stopped by the Brucelli marketing website today.

Alignable For Local Businesses: Three Cities In

I got an initial invitation to Alignable from a former student when I was still living in Wisconsin. The idea seemed like a good one and came at the right time, since I'd recently been laid off. I was also trying to take my career in a new direction. But Alignable has been a bit of a disappointment in a long line of time-consuming disappointments when it comes to running my own business.

The Catastrophe of Success

I was watching a Kirk Douglas interview by Dick Cavett from a few decades ago on the Decades Channel, and Douglas was discussing a Tennessee Williams quote about the catastrophe of success. Kirk's own story was that he had been saddened when he returned to New York and got a suite on the 25th floor of a hotel overlooking Central Park. He had reached the success he'd hoped to achieve, yet it wasn't enough. Douglas's advice was to always have the next goal ready. Of course, catastrophe of success is a fancy way of saying resting on your laurels, but the truth for those of us who have never fully realized our potential is that life becomes more of a catastrophe of near success, and that's probably even worse than getting there and feeling empty.

Guest Blogging: Should I?

I got an intriguing offer today in my email. It was for guest blogging. I think I've gotten similar emails before, but I always assumed someone was trying to scam me. When I looked into it further, however, I understand the concept of guest blogging. What I'm not sure about is whether or not to participate in some way.

Bigdealsbox.com - The Scam I Almost Bought (Also Bigdealsmall)

I was looking for a place to buy a specific item, so I searched for that item online. This method has worked in the past in order to get the best price. However, as I was about to order from bigdealsbox.com, I got suspicious, so I looked up the site. A search of "Is bigdealsbox.com safe" just got me safes offered by the site. Luckily, I refined my search to "Is bigdealsbox a safe website," and here's the Reddit I found.

I Want to Build My Own Website But Don't Know Where to Start

I get people who ask me all the time about websites for business or churches. That's probably because I work as a church and small business website builder, but also because people love free advice. Once you determine the purpose of your website, then it's not all that hard to build it. Here are some quick tips.

Understanding AT&T Wifi Hotspots (That Don't Really Exist)

Some of you are in the same boat as me. You want the fastest internet because you work from home or have gotten rid of cable. So you might get AT&T's Fiber offering in Jacksonville. It's $80/mo the first year and then $90 a month after that. As a bonus, AT&T claims there will be wifi available to me at all kinds of locations nationwide. That's either not true or mostly in one city. My recent desire to go hang out at the beach and get some work done is a good example of the wifi not existing.