Allthingsdev.com » Entrepreneurship

Great Website for Freelancers

Jeff Purcell — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 00:10:10 +0000

I stumbled across this site for freelance designers and have been enjoying it ever since. I really love the layout as well. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

New Look Same Crappy Content

Jeff Purcell — Sun, 03 Jun 2007 17:55:26 +0000

I got a bug up my ass to change the layout. Nothing fancy, just a wordpress theme I found. I’m far too lazy / untalented to come up with something on my own.

Hopefully this will encourage me to actually write something of substance.

WordPress as A CMS

Jeff Purcell — Tue, 14 Nov 2006 23:05:42 +0000

Yes, I know this isn’t anything new, but I’m quickly becoming a big advocate of using wordpress as a CMS for client websites. Here’s a few reason’s why I do this:

Rapid Development

Layout design time has been dramatically reduced by utilizing WordPress’s theme abilities. I now only have to create one html page which I then modularize to fit with wordpress’s theming system. This single html layout is then applied to all of the site’s pages.

Added Functionality

With WordPress’s simple yet robust administration area, I can give my clients control of certain areas of their website. They can now manage their own content and not be so dependent on me to make changes. This added functionality is a feature that is nonexistent among the other local web designers in my area.

Less Time Equals More Money

With the added functionality that wordpress’s admin area offers, I can charge more while lowering my overall time involved in the project.

Easily Add Additional Features

With the large community following that WordPress has, chances are someone has developed a plugin for that added feature or functionality that your client needs. For example, WP-ContactForm takes the headache out of programming a contact form. Once again adding that needed functionality while lowering development time.

Tags: wordpress, cms

Building a Strong Web Based Community

Jeff Purcell — Mon, 21 Aug 2006 16:29:05 +0000

What does it take to build an online community these days? Not much. With packages like Drupal and phpBB, the means to run a community oriented website are literallly just a few clicks away. But what are the factors involved in making a community site successful?

O’reilly Network has a phenomenal article covering this very topic. The article is from 2002, but has some great insight as to why random surfers become repeat users on these types of sites.

Building Online Communities from O’Reilly Network

Tags: community, communities, oreilly

Yaro is Smart

Jeff Purcell — Sat, 15 Jul 2006 03:12:27 +0000

Just a quicky today. Don’t worry, we can cuddle afterward and I’ll even call you tomorrow. There I go digressing again.

Over at Entrepreneur’s Journey, Yaro has a quote up that kinda hit home today. That quote is:

“When you own your own business you may not make any real money until you sell it.”

As both of you know, I recently started a small IT Consulting Company here in Idaho. Although I have begun to make ends meet (meat?), I have yet to see any real advantage over the normal nine to five, except the hours, of course.

So maybe I’ll hang on to this little company of mine and sell it to Bill Gates for a small profit!

If you don’t already read Entrepreneur’s Journey, well….then start.

Affiliate Programs are Cool

Jeff Purcell — Wed, 28 Jun 2006 21:26:07 +0000

Being a ~~wannabe~~ web entrepreneur, I’m always on the look out for new ways to monetize my websites. One of the most popular ways to monetize websites these days is by using Google Adsense, Google’s PPC text ad program (see far right column). To be honest though, I’m not a big fan of the program. It seems to me that it is far too easy to fraudulently click on ads to make money. Plus it doesn’t seem like a great deal for advertisers as they are paying just for traffic to their site and not for legitimate sales opportunities. So I’ve been testing other affiliate programs lately.

The first affiliate program I tried, after Adsense was Text-Link-Ads.com. Text-Link-Ads.com is just that, text-based link advertisements. I think Text-Link-Ads.com has a much more developed idea then Google Adsense for three main reasons. The first is that advertisers hand select which website they want their ads displayed on. This gives advertisers more control over their target demographic, which is what advertising is all about. Secondly, the ad software you install on your website generates legitimate HTML links. This is probably my favorite feature of Text-Link-Ads. Not only are you advertising on your demographic’s key websites, but you are also boosting your website’s page ranking by purchasing a link to your website from a website with related information. The third and final reason why Text-Link-Ads.com is superior to Google Adsense is advertiser’s don’t pay per click. As I stated above, a major downside to Google Adsense is the opportunity for fraudulent clicks. Text-link-ads has found an excellent alternative to this. When you set out to purchase ad space, you pay for an entire month. So regardless of how many clicks you receive, you pay one flat rate. I believe the monthly rate is determined by the Text-Link-Ads system and not by the publishers, but I can’t confirm that due to laziness.

All in all, I feel Text-Link-Ads.com has an exceptional product and offers a much more lucrative alternative to PPC advertising.

There is another form of advertising gaining popularity as of late. It’s called CPL or CPA. This, to me, seems to be the most effecient way to advertise at least from an advertiser’s stand point. The way Cost Per Lead advertising works is, ad publishers receive a percentage of every sale made that originates from their website. Advertisers dish out a portion of their sale to the referring publisher. Obviously CPL is going to yield much lower in conversion than PPC, but the payout is going to be larger than any PPC campaign.

I recently created an account with Commission Junction, a very robust CPL advertising company. The great thing about Commission Junction is that the publisher can search through their rather large list of advertisements to determine what would work best on your website. The amount of information about each ad listing is amazing. Commission Junction tells you upfront the average amount made per one hundred clicks and per one thousand ad impressions. It really is a great service.

With so many possibilities of fraud with PPC advertising, I feel it won’t be long before such services will be shut down. With such a large potential for income with CPL services, I expect to see a large movement to drop PPC and move to CPL.

Tags: CPL, CPA, PPC, Adsense, Text-Link-Ads, Commission Junction, affiliate programs, advertising

PHP and Paypal

Jeff Purcell — Wed, 14 Jun 2006 18:00:26 +0000

I consider myself fairly versed in the programming language PHP. I prefer it over M$ languages because its free and open source, also because the majority of shared web hosting servers available are linux based. PHP and Linux play very nice together. Although you can run PHP on Windows-based servers.

When developing a new site, if I need a php script that I don’t already have in my library, I try to find a free one online that requires minimal alteration to suit my needs. I find this cuts my development time considerably. As it stands, there is an abundance of free php scripts available for just about anything one could possibly need. Most of them are fairly easy to understand and alter to your liking. This is not the case with paypal IPN scripts.

I’ve been looking for a PHP Paypal IPN script for a very long time. There are many of them out there, but until yesterday I couldn’t find one that worked first time AND didn’t require server alteration to run. Then I found Paypal Web Services over at Sourceforge. Paypal Web Services is a collection of paypal scripts that cover all your paypal payment needs. After configuring the config.inc.php file, I was accepting Paypal payments in less than 20 minutes. This beats trying to read Paypal’s 122 page PDF explaining how Paypal payments work. Yes, I’m not linking to the PDF for spite!

Tags: php, paypal, programming, IPN, free scripts

Get It In Writing

Jeff Purcell — Fri, 26 May 2006 00:03:14 +0000

If I had a million dollars for everytime I’ve been burned on a design deal, I’d have…well at least a million dollars. I won’t name names or point fingers, but deals always seem to go sour when not in writing, especially when dealing with web design.

When dealing with clients who know little about web design or the internet in general, many things need to be addressed before any work begins. Just to name a few: cost, intellectual property rights, updates, hosting, domain renewal costs, you get the idea. The list gets long pretty quick and considering many of my clients know little or nothing about these aspects of the web design process, the need to discuss them becomes much greater.

The only advice I can give with a clear conscience is Get a Lawyer! Sure, there are generic web design contracts out there, but it is still well advised to have a lawyer look over the contract at the very least. You may end up investing a lot more time and money if these topics are not discussed and agreed upon from the beginning.

Tags: web design, contract

Domain Names

Jeff Purcell — Thu, 02 Feb 2006 05:51:41 +0000

As many of you know, I’m trying my hand at starting a design/hosting company with my good friend Jim. Pretty much everything is inline to get things moving except for one minute detail. We don’t have a domain name!!!!!!

We’ve been racking our collective brain to come up with something catchy for the last couple of weeks now. I have to be honest, if I have to check Register.com one more time to see if a domain name I like is available, I’m going to change my major to Social Work! Domain squatting is so annoying!

To remedy my recent frustration, I decided to dump my problem on friends, family and generally anyone who would listen long enough. Also, I decided to create a SitePoint contest to get some input from other web designers.

If you have any suggestions for a domain name, please DO NOT POST IT IN YOUR COMMENT. It will more than likely be snatched up before I have a chance to even look at it!!!!

Tags: domain name, Domain squatting, SitePoint

Open Source Business Model

Jeff Purcell — Wed, 28 Dec 2005 01:00:11 +0000

Lately I’ve been playing with the idea of developing some sort of open source software. As I near graduation, I’m trying to find ways to add to my awkwardly thin resumé. I feel a well planned open source project might be just the addition to my resumé that could land me a job in the already flooded php developer market.

After turning the open source idea over in my head for a few days, I began to wonder if done properly, could said project turn into something mildly lucrative? Obviously whole companies base their entire business model around the development of open source and free software. But how do these companies stay in the black? Surely they don’t base their business models around their Paypal donate buttons, do they? What are some other ways that open source developers and entrepeneurs can monetize an already free product?

Just for sh*ts and giggles, let’s say I’ve created a “canned” shopping cart website much like osCommerce. I’ve compiled a list of ways that such a product could actually turn a profit.

Hosting Services
Hosting services plus installation of your product would be an excellent means for income. Especially for those less than web-savvy.
Offering a Pro Version
Offering more advanced features for a nominal fee seems to be a growing trend among smaller open source projects lately.
Paid Layout Customization
By providing custom color schemes or custom layouts for individual customers willing to pay, you can turn a profit from just altering a stylesheet.
Prepackaged Themes
Prepacked themes can be a great addon for your open source software and allows for easier customization for your customers.
Paypal Donations
You’d be surprised what people will give if they enjoy your software!

I believe these are all very realistic options for monetizing your open source software while still providing your main software for free.

Some related articles I came across during my research:
WordPress.com business model
An open source business model
Examining some pseudo-economic arguments about Open Source

Tags: Open Source, shopping cart, entrepeneur, money